78
Middle English Whilom
The development of while is atypical of grammaticalization, however, in that
while remains an autonomous word, becoming neither a clitic nor an affi x, it
expands its syntactic scope to the entire clause, and it does not become part of
a recognized grammatical paradigm. As discussed in Section 1.5.1, however,
these apparent limitations are characteristic of the grammaticalization of prag-
matic markers in general.
3.3 The Evolution of Whilom
Other forms of while undergo similar types of grammaticalization:
(a) The adverbial accusative ā ne hw ī le ‘for a while’ > awhile (OED, s.v.
awhile , adv.) develops into an adverb, with univerbation of the numeral
and noun.^4
(b) The adverbial genitive hw ī les > whiles (OED, s.v. whiles , n., conj. (and
prep.), and adv., defs. 5 and 6) develops into an adverb meaning ‘formerly’
or ‘sometimes’ as well as a conjunction. The conjunctive use of whiles has
now been replaced by whilst (OED, s.v. whilst , adv. and conj. (and prep.)).^5
The variant form whilom (the OE dat. pl. of hw ī l ) (BT: s.v. hw ī lum ; MED: s.v.
wh ī lom , adv.; OED: s.v. whilom , adv. (and adj.), and conj.) displays a more
complex development, which will be examined in detail below.
In order to study whilom , I collected data from a variety of sources. The
DOEC provides 480 examples of hwilum. In the HC, there are 163 OE examples
and 14 ME examples. The form is actually much more common in Middle
English than the HC would suggest. Jucker and Taavitsainen (2013: 156) note
its occurrence 461 times in 31 different texts in the Corpus of Middle English
prose and verse (CMEP&V). The MED quotations database yields 642
examples (in at least 14 different spellings). Considering its use in Middle
English more carefully, I examined all instances of whilom in Chaucer’s The
Canterbury tales (30 examples), Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (8 examples),
and Gower’s Confessio amantis (95 examples).^6 Early English books online
(EEBO) provides 698 hits from 261 texts in the EModE period.^7 Spenser’s
4 Confusion between a while and awhile is of long standing (see Webster’s : s.v. awhile, a while ;
OED: s.v. awhile , def. b).
5 The OED suggests that the t is added by analogy with amongst and amidst. It has also been
assumed that the t is by form association (“corruption”) with the superlative (see, for exam-
ple, OED, s.v.v. alongst , prep. and adv. , amidst, adv. and prep., amongst , prep.). However,
Jespersen argues that “there is no semantic connexion to justify this assumption” (1946: 310).
He thinks that in some cases the t might be a reduced form of þe , citing hwiles þe > whilst (see
Brinton 2012 ).
6 Malory’s Le morte dArthur provides no examples.
7 No examples are found in the King James Bible. Shakespeare’s First Quarto has one exam-
ple: “Of musicke, which whilome pleased mine eare” ( Hamlet III.ii.159).