I am about to die vs. I am going to die
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Silke Höche
Abstract
This study portrays be about to as a construction which, although frequently described as nearly synonymous to be going to, falls somewhere in between the categories of futurate forms and ingressive aspectualizers. Constructional properties that distinguish be about to from be going to are worked out on the basis of several sources: The Oxford English Dictionary serves as testimony to the diachronic stages the two constructions passed through. For a detailed comparison of synchronic semantico-functional characteristics, large sets of data retrieved from the BNC are subjected to collostructional analysis. The results of these procedures converge in indicating that be about to has moved closer to ingressive aspectualizers, profiling the lead-up section to the onset of an event.
Abstract
This study portrays be about to as a construction which, although frequently described as nearly synonymous to be going to, falls somewhere in between the categories of futurate forms and ingressive aspectualizers. Constructional properties that distinguish be about to from be going to are worked out on the basis of several sources: The Oxford English Dictionary serves as testimony to the diachronic stages the two constructions passed through. For a detailed comparison of synchronic semantico-functional characteristics, large sets of data retrieved from the BNC are subjected to collostructional analysis. The results of these procedures converge in indicating that be about to has moved closer to ingressive aspectualizers, profiling the lead-up section to the onset of an event.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
- Issues in collecting converging evidence 33
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Part 1. Multi-methodological approaches to constructional and idiomatic meaning
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1.1. Cognition verb constructions
- Perception and conception 57
- Explaining diverging evidence 81
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1.2. Constructional alternatives
- I am about to die vs. I am going to die 115
- Studying syntactic priming in corpora 143
- Islands of (im)productivity in corpus data and acceptability judgments 165
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1.3. Idioms and creative language use
- Compositional and embodied meanings of somatisms 195
- Word-formation patterns in a cross-linguistic perspective 221
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Part 2. Multi-methodological approaches to language acquisition
- The interaction of function and input frequency in L1-acquisition 249
- Relative clause acquisition and representation 273
- Converging evidence in the typology of motion events 293
-
Part 3. Multi-methodological approaches to the study of discourse
- Differences in the use of emotion metaphors in expert-lay communication 319
- Index 349
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
- Issues in collecting converging evidence 33
-
Part 1. Multi-methodological approaches to constructional and idiomatic meaning
-
1.1. Cognition verb constructions
- Perception and conception 57
- Explaining diverging evidence 81
-
1.2. Constructional alternatives
- I am about to die vs. I am going to die 115
- Studying syntactic priming in corpora 143
- Islands of (im)productivity in corpus data and acceptability judgments 165
-
1.3. Idioms and creative language use
- Compositional and embodied meanings of somatisms 195
- Word-formation patterns in a cross-linguistic perspective 221
-
Part 2. Multi-methodological approaches to language acquisition
- The interaction of function and input frequency in L1-acquisition 249
- Relative clause acquisition and representation 273
- Converging evidence in the typology of motion events 293
-
Part 3. Multi-methodological approaches to the study of discourse
- Differences in the use of emotion metaphors in expert-lay communication 319
- Index 349
