The Rise and Fall of Constructions and the History of English<i>Do</i>-Support

Do -support is a unique characteristic of English. Many languages other than English have do -periphrasis but not English-type do -support. This raises the obvious question: What is special about English? The goal of this paper is to provide an account of English do -support that explains why do -support, with its attendant properties, is found uniquely in English. I review the classical derivational approaches to do -support and argue that they do not satisfactorily capture the generalizations. I suggest an alternative, non-derivational account of contemporary do -support that makes crucial use of constructions. Finally, I propose an account of the history of do -support in English that characterizes the changes in terms of the content and scope of constructions. The rise of do -support can be understood as a consequence of the contraction and re-specialization of particular constructions in the wake of well-documented changes in the overt morphological system of the language.*