Author: Svenja Kranich Publisher: Editions Rodopi ISBN: 9789042031432 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
This book constitutes the first full-length diachronic treatment of the English progressive from Old English to Present-day English, focusing on the crucial phase of its grammaticalization between the 17th and 20th centuries. It uses data from the British component of ARCHER-2 (A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers, version 2) to uncover the details of this long-term grammaticalization process, tracing the development of the construction from a stylistic device to a fully-fledged aspect marker. Illustrated by a wealth of examples, the work offers new results concerning the preferred linguistic environments and the development of the functions of the progressive. In contrast to previous studies, the author shows that there are certain restrictions to context expansion in grammaticalization. She argues convincingly that the persistent reluctance of the progressive to occur in certain contexts does not point to incomplete grammaticalization, but can instead be explained as a product of its particular functions. The author also challenges the tenet that grammaticalization is generally accompanied by subjectification. This insightful study will be of interest to researchers and students of the English language and historical linguistics, and to anyone interested in aspect, grammaticalization, and corpus-based approaches to language variation and change.
Author: Geoffrey Leech Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 113948317X Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 371
Book Description
Based on the systematic analysis of large amounts of computer-readable text, this book shows how the English language has been changing in the recent past, often in unexpected and previously undocumented ways. The study is based on a group of matching corpora, known as the 'Brown family' of corpora, supplemented by a range of other corpus materials, both written and spoken, drawn mainly from the later twentieth century. Among the matters receiving particular attention are the influence of American English on British English, the role of the press, the 'colloquialization' of written English, and a wide range of grammatical topics, including the modal auxiliaries, progressive, subjunctive, passive, genitive and relative clauses. These subjects build an overall picture of how English grammar is changing, and the linguistic and social factors that are contributing to this process.
Author: Erik Smitterberg Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004333088 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 300
Book Description
The present volume is an empirical, corpus-based study of the progressive in 19th-century English. As the 1800s have been relatively neglected in previous research, and as the study is based on a new cross-genre corpus focusing on this period (CONCE = A Corpus of Nineteenth-Century English), the volume adds significantly to our knowledge of the historical development of the progressive. The use of two separate measures enables an accurate account of the frequency development of the progressive, which is also related to multi-feature/multi-dimensional analyses. Other topics covered include the complexity of progressive verb phrases and the distribution of the construction across linguistic parameters such as clause type. Special attention is paid to progressives that express something beyond purely aspectual meaning. The results show that the progressive became more fully integrated into English grammar over the 19th century, but also that linguistic and extralinguistic parameters affected this integration process; for instance, the construction was more common in women’s than in men’s private letters. Owing to the wide methodological scope of the study, it is of interest to linguists specializing in corpus linguistics, language variation and change, verbal syntax, the progressive, or the linguistic expression of aspect, either in synchrony or diachrony.
Author: Alexander Bergs Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG ISBN: 3110525062 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 346
Book Description
This volume provides a comprehensive account of Early Modern English, organized by linguistic level. The volume not only presents detailed outlines of the traditional language levels, it also explores key questions and debates, such as do-periphrasis, the Great Vowel Shift, pronouns and relativization, literary language (including the language of Shakespeare), and sociolinguistics, including contact and standardization.
Author: Marianne Hundt Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139992406 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 409
Book Description
The Late Modern period is the first in the history of English for which an unprecedented wealth of textual material exists. Using increasingly sophisticated databases, the contributions in this volume explore grammatical usage from the period, specifically morphological and syntactic change, in a broad context. Some chapters explore the socio-historical background of the period while others provide information on prescriptivism, newspaper language, language contact, and regional variation in British and American English. Internal processes of change are discussed against grammaticalisation theory and construction grammar and the rich body of textual evidence is used to draw inferences on the precise nature of historical change. Exposing readers to a wealth of data that informs the description of a broad range of syntactic phenomena, this book is ideal for graduate students and researchers interested in historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and language development.
Author: Bas Aarts Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199533199 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 431
Book Description
New Oxford English Grammar is Oxford's brand new and definitive guide to grammar usage. This book has been written by a leading expert in the field, covers both British and American English, and makes use of the unrivalled language monitoring of Oxford's English Dictionaries programme. Arranged in three clear parts for ease of use, its comprehensive coverage ranges from the very basic to the most complex aspects of grammar, all of which are explained clearly and engagingly. This descriptive source of reference is invaluable for those with an interest in the English language, undergraduate students of all disciplines, and for anyone who would like a clear guide to English grammar and how to use it.
Author: Dieter Kastovsky Publisher: Walter de Gruyter ISBN: 311087959X Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 517
Book Description
The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
Author: Laurel J. Brinton Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9781556196621 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 366
Book Description
This text is designed for undergraduate and graduate students interested in contemporary English, especially those whose primary area of interest is English as a second language. Focus is placed exclusively on English data, providing an empirical explication of the structure of the language.
Author: George Orwell Publisher: Renard Press Ltd ISBN: 1913724271 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times
Author: Svenja Kranich
Author: Geoffrey Leech
Author: Erik Smitterberg
Author: Alexander Bergs
Author: Marianne Hundt
Author: Bas Aarts
Author: Dieter Kastovsky
Author: Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
Author: Laurel J. Brinton
Author: George Orwell