Prevent and the battle of the - ing clauses
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Elina Sellgren
Abstract
The article discusses the variation between the two most common sentential complements of the verb prevent, as in preventmefromgoing and prevent me going, from a semantic point of view. The variant me going became significantly more common in British English in the twentieth century, competing with the variant with from. Mair (2002) has suggested that a similar phenomenon may be incipient with semantically similar verbs like hinder and stop, signalling a more general grammatical change that is restricted to British English. With data from the British National Corpus, the article proposes a semantic distinction, a consequence of the recent competition, in order to partially explain the variation. The distinction links the notion of hypotheticality to the -ing clause in the prepositional variant, whereas the -ing clause without from expresses a realized event, or an existing property of the object NP of prevent.
Abstract
The article discusses the variation between the two most common sentential complements of the verb prevent, as in preventmefromgoing and prevent me going, from a semantic point of view. The variant me going became significantly more common in British English in the twentieth century, competing with the variant with from. Mair (2002) has suggested that a similar phenomenon may be incipient with semantically similar verbs like hinder and stop, signalling a more general grammatical change that is restricted to British English. With data from the British National Corpus, the article proposes a semantic distinction, a consequence of the recent competition, in order to partially explain the variation. The distinction links the notion of hypotheticality to the -ing clause in the prepositional variant, whereas the -ing clause without from expresses a realized event, or an existing property of the object NP of prevent.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
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part iVerbal constructions
- “Þonne hate we hine morgensteorra” 11
- Tracking and explaining variation and change in the grammar of American English 29
- Prevent and the battle of the - ing clauses 45
- Prescription or practice? 63
- On the idiomatization of “ give + O + to ” constructions 79
- The clausal complementation of good in extraposition constructions 95
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part iiModality and (marginal) modals
- The ‘ fail to ’ construction in Late Modern and Present-Day English 123
- The interplay of modal verbs and adverbs 143
- Current change in the modal system of English 165
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part iiiDevelopments in the English noun phrase
- Discontinuous quantificational structures in Old English 185
- Genitive variation in letters, history writing and sermons in Late Middle and Early Modern English 197
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part ivSyntactic variation and change through contact
- On the use of beon and wesan in Old English 217
- The reflexes of OE beon as a marker of futurity in early Middle English 237
- Stylistic fronting in the history of English 255
- Subject and Word index 279
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
part iVerbal constructions
- “Þonne hate we hine morgensteorra” 11
- Tracking and explaining variation and change in the grammar of American English 29
- Prevent and the battle of the - ing clauses 45
- Prescription or practice? 63
- On the idiomatization of “ give + O + to ” constructions 79
- The clausal complementation of good in extraposition constructions 95
-
part iiModality and (marginal) modals
- The ‘ fail to ’ construction in Late Modern and Present-Day English 123
- The interplay of modal verbs and adverbs 143
- Current change in the modal system of English 165
-
part iiiDevelopments in the English noun phrase
- Discontinuous quantificational structures in Old English 185
- Genitive variation in letters, history writing and sermons in Late Middle and Early Modern English 197
-
part ivSyntactic variation and change through contact
- On the use of beon and wesan in Old English 217
- The reflexes of OE beon as a marker of futurity in early Middle English 237
- Stylistic fronting in the history of English 255
- Subject and Word index 279
