The objective of this article is to account for the late Modern English changes of BE to V from a more extensive diachronic perspective. This study examines frequency changes of various constructions involving BE to in COHA, a corpus of American English covering 1800 to 2009. It has been found that BE to V constructions are on the constant decline while the retroactive infinitive BE to blame is not. In order to know a fundamental motivation behind this decline, this study explores historical changes of BE to V from Old English to early Modern English and explains the whole span of changes as the results of reanalysis and grammaticalization.

• 김혜리(대구가톨릭대학교)