The Periphrastic Do

I've recently been reading about the periphrastic 'do'. It's a bizarre construction found in English for at least four hundred years.

I have to admit that, from this point on, this post has been re-written. You see, I thought that I knew something about the usage of the periphrastic do. However, the better to serve you, my loyal readers, I decided to do some e-research about it before continuing.

(I use the term e-research for the extremely non-scholarly, lazy, and generally inaccurate combination of google searches and superficial skim-reading that most people use as a substitute for real research when they are straying out of their real area. But I digress ...)

It seems, from my brief reading of this subject, that there is not even agreement on the precise definition of the periphrastic do. Everyone knows the emphatic use (I do want some chocolate.), the interrogative use (Do you want some chocolate?) and the function of do as an auxiliary verb in the formation of the the past perfect (I did want some chocolate). It is even essential in forming a negative declarative, and although here it conveys no meaning, it cannot be removed. ("I want some chocolate" becomes "I do not want some chocolate".)

As true periphrasis ought not to change the meaning of a sentence, I had been under the impression that the periphrastic do was a usage which was, well, periphrastic. And yet I couldn't think of an example of a sentence where the word 'do' does not change the overall meaning.

Now the weird thing is that there are plenty of interesting-sounding articles about periphrasis, and especially about the periphrastic do. Here's one, chosen at random.

Some articles say that the periphrastic do does exist in the way that I thought it did, but don't give examples. Others say that any of the structural sentence alterations listed above do count as uses of the periphrastic do, although these seem to be the less respectable articles. And anyway, periphrasis, by definition, cannot change a sentence's meaning.

Anyway, the really amazing thing is that most of these authors spend considerable time debating the origins of the periphrastic do. How can they do this, without even agreeing on its definition? Is this how other subjects operate?

Anyway, now you see that what was originally conceived as an informative post has degenerated into a mass of questions without answers.

So, while you and I may not have gained any knowledge about linguistics or periphrasis, we have at least gained some Socratic knowledge. We know a little more about the geography of an unexplored area.

Ho hum. Lets' call it a day.