Patterns and Development in the English Clause System

Patterns and Development in the English Clause System PDF Author: Clarence Green
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811028818
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Book Description
This book examines in detail the forms and functions of clause combination in English. Using a corpus linguistics methodology, it describes how the English clause system currently behaves, how it has developed over the history of the language, and how the features and properties of English clause combination have important theoretical and empirical significance. Adopting the cognitive-functional Adaptive Approach to grammar, it offers a series of interconnected studies that investigate how English clause combination interacts with the properties of coherence and cohesion in discourse across historical time, as well in contemporary language use. This work contributes to the ever-increasing common ground between corpus linguistics and cognitive-functional linguistics, producing new paths for interdisciplinary research.

A Brief History of English Syntax

A Brief History of English Syntax PDF Author: Olga Fischer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521768586
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
An accessible, up-to-date account of the major changes in English syntax since its beginnings up to the present day.

The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities

The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities PDF Author: Svenja Adolphs
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000049787
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 726

Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities serves as a reference point for key developments related to the ways in which the digital turn has shaped the study of the English language and of how the resulting methodological approaches have permeated other disciplines. It draws on modern linguistics and discourse analysis for its analytical methods and applies these approaches to the exploration and theorisation of issues within the humanities. Divided into three sections, this handbook covers: sources and corpora; analytical approaches; English language at the interface with other areas of research in the digital humanities. In covering these areas, more traditional approaches and methodologies in the humanities are recast and research challenges are re-framed through the lens of the digital. The essays in this volume highlight the opportunities for new questions to be asked and long-standing questions to be reconsidered when drawing on the digital in humanities research. This is a ground-breaking collection of essays offering incisive and essential reading for anyone with an interest in the English language and digital humanities.

English Historical Linguistics 2006: Syntax and morphology

English Historical Linguistics 2006: Syntax and morphology PDF Author: Maurizio Gotti
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027248109
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
The papers selected for this volume were first presented at the 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Bergamo, 2006). At that important event, alongside studies of phonology, lexis, semantics and dialectology (presented in two companion volumes in this series), many innovative contributions focused on syntax and morphology. A carefully peer-reviewed selection, including one of the plenary lectures, appears here in print for the first time, bearing witness to the quality of the scholarly interest in this field of research. In all the contributions, well-established methods combine with new theoretical approaches in an attempt to shed more light on phenomena that have hitherto remained unexplored, or have only just begun to be investigated. State-of-the-art tools, such as electronic corpora and concordancing software, are employed consistently, ensuring a methodological homogeneity of the contributions.

Diachronic Studies of English Complementation Patterns

Diachronic Studies of English Complementation Patterns PDF Author: Martti Juhani Rudanko
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761814078
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Book Description
Diachronic Studies of English Complementation Patterns offers original analysis of change and continuity of predicates selecting central prepositions and complement clauses over the last three centuries using authentic data drawn from a unique combination of authoritative resources. Juhani Rudanko examines some of the most central prepositions in English; to, in, at, on/upon, and with, in constructions using an -ing clause. He depicts the common constructions used with the prepositions, focusing on matrix adjectives, matrix verbs, and in the case of to, the issue of alternation related to the infinitival pattern. He also provides a systematization of matrix verbs governing the pattern of eighteenth century English in each case. Then Rudanko focuses on the later development of the verbs identified by comparing the eighteenth century usage with present-day English. He draws on many sources for guidance on usage in each period along with the Oxford English Dictionary and H. Poutsma's unpublished dictionary which were sources throughout. For present-day English, he uses the intuitions of native speakers, along with the British National Corpus, and the COBUILD Direct Corpus. His source for nineteenth century examples is the Corpus of Nineteenth Century English. For the eighteenth century, he used the Chadwyck-Healy Corpus and the Century of Prose Corpus.

The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature

The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature PDF Author: George Watson
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1296

Book Description


Competition in Language Change

Competition in Language Change PDF Author: Eva Zehentner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311063385X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Book Description
This book addresses one of the most pervasive questions in historical linguistics – why variation becomes stable rather than being eliminated – by revisiting the so far neglected history of the English dative alternation. The alternation between a nominal and a prepositional ditransitive pattern (John gave Mary a book vs. John gave a book to Mary) emerged in Middle English and is closely connected to broader changes at that time. Accordingly, the main quantitative investigation focuses on ditransitive patterns in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English; in addition, the book employs an Evolutionary Game Theory model. The results are approached from an ‘evolutionary construction grammar’ perspective, combining evolutionary thinking with diachronic constructionist notions, and the alternation’s emergence is interpreted as a story of constructional innovation, competition, cooperation and co-evolution. The book not only provides a thorough and detailed analysis of the history of one of the most-discussed syntactic phenomena in English, but by fusing two frameworks and employing two different methodologies also presents a highly innovative approach to a problem of relevance to historical linguistics in general.

The Present-day English Gerund System

The Present-day English Gerund System PDF Author: Charlotte Maekelberghe
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311068666X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
This study offers a first comprehensive synchronic account of the Present-day English gerundial system. Most synchronic studies of gerunds have hitherto focused on the verbal gerund, scrutinizing its categorial status or comparing it with other non-finite clausal structures. A systematic comparison with its nominal counterpart, however, is lacking. Based on a detailed empirical analysis of lexico-grammar and semantics, this study develops an innovative cognitive-constructionist model of the English gerund system which depicts the usage profiles of nominal and verbal gerunds in terms of probabilistic trends rather than by means of categorical labels. It is shown that a better understanding of the functioning of the English gerund system requires a description that operates on multiple levels, accounting for both the abstract construal gerunds can impose on an event as well as the token-level constraints on variation between the two gerund types. This multifaceted approach, it is argued, not only offers a new perspective on the configuration of ing-forms in Present-day English, it can also be of relevance to the description of other complex grammatical structures.

Analyzing English in a Global Context

Analyzing English in a Global Context PDF Author: Anne Burns
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113637020X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
Devised in collaboration with the Open University and Macquarie University, Australia, Analysing English in a Global Context is specifically designed for the postgraduate student market, as well as for teachers of English as a second or foreign language throughout the world. This is a groundbreaking Reader which includes specially commissioned pieces as well as classic texts and provides a global perspective on the changing uses and forms of English and its impact on language teaching contexts. Students' skills in analysing these forms will be developed through an examination of the major functional models and their strengths and weaknesses.

The Diachrony of Written Language Contact

The Diachrony of Written Language Contact PDF Author: Nikolaos Lavidas
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004503560
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Book Description
Nobody can deny that an account of grammatical change that takes written contact into consideration is a significant challenge for any theoretical perspective. Written contact of earlier periods or from a diachronic perspective mainly refers to contact through translation. The present book includes a diachronic dimension in the study of written language contact by examining aspects of the history of translation as related to grammatical changes in English and Greek in a contrastive way. In this respect, emphasis is placed on the analysis of diachronic retranslations: the book examines translations from earlier periods of English and Greek in relation to various grammatical characteristics of these languages in different periods and in comparison to non-translated texts.