Variation of sentence length across time and genre
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Karolina Rudnicka
Abstract
The goal of this paper is threefold: (i) to present some practical aspects of using the full-text version of the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), the largest diachronic multi-genre corpus of the English language, in the investigation of a linguistic trend of change; (ii) to test a widely held assumption that sentence length in written English has been steadily decreasing over the past few centuries; (iii) to point to a possible link between changes in sentence length and changes in English syntactic usage. The empirical proof of concept for (iii) is provided by the decline in the frequency of the non-finite purpose subordinator in order to. Sentence length, genre and the likelihood of occurrence of in order to are shown to be interrelated.
Abstract
The goal of this paper is threefold: (i) to present some practical aspects of using the full-text version of the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), the largest diachronic multi-genre corpus of the English language, in the investigation of a linguistic trend of change; (ii) to test a widely held assumption that sentence length in written English has been steadily decreasing over the past few centuries; (iii) to point to a possible link between changes in sentence length and changes in English syntactic usage. The empirical proof of concept for (iii) is provided by the decline in the frequency of the non-finite purpose subordinator in order to. Sentence length, genre and the likelihood of occurrence of in order to are shown to be interrelated.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgments vii
- Using diachronic corpora to understand the connection between genre and language change 1
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Part I. Methods in diachronic corpus linguistics
- ‘From above’, ‘from below’, and regionally balanced 19
- Diachronic collocations, genre, and DiaCollo 41
- Classical and modern Arabic corpora 65
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Part II. Genre and diachronic corpora
- Scholastic genre scripts in English medical writing 1375–1800 95
- Academic writing as a locus of grammatical change 117
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Part III. Genre-based analyses of linguistic phenomena
- The importance of genre in the Greek diglossia of the 20th century 149
- “You can’t control a thing like that” 171
- Concessive conjunctions in written American English 195
- Variation of sentence length across time and genre 219
- A comparison of multi-genre and single-genre corpora in the context of contact-induced change 241
- Some methodological issues in the corpus-based study of morphosyntactic variation 261
- The interplay between genre variation and syntax in a historical Low German corpus 281
- Genre influence on word formation (change) 301
- Index 333
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgments vii
- Using diachronic corpora to understand the connection between genre and language change 1
-
Part I. Methods in diachronic corpus linguistics
- ‘From above’, ‘from below’, and regionally balanced 19
- Diachronic collocations, genre, and DiaCollo 41
- Classical and modern Arabic corpora 65
-
Part II. Genre and diachronic corpora
- Scholastic genre scripts in English medical writing 1375–1800 95
- Academic writing as a locus of grammatical change 117
-
Part III. Genre-based analyses of linguistic phenomena
- The importance of genre in the Greek diglossia of the 20th century 149
- “You can’t control a thing like that” 171
- Concessive conjunctions in written American English 195
- Variation of sentence length across time and genre 219
- A comparison of multi-genre and single-genre corpora in the context of contact-induced change 241
- Some methodological issues in the corpus-based study of morphosyntactic variation 261
- The interplay between genre variation and syntax in a historical Low German corpus 281
- Genre influence on word formation (change) 301
- Index 333
