Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle
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Olaf Mikkelsen
Abstract
This paper presents a contrastive study on the role of syntactic complexity in the choice between different future constructions in English and Norwegian. Previous work on the English future alternation (BE going to vs. will) has shown that going to is preferred in syntactically complex contexts. We replicate this result for English on the basis of data from the Spoken BNC 2014. In addition, we address the question of whether this account can be generalized to another language that shows a very similar alternation, namely Norwegian (skal/vil vs. kommer til å). We use data from the Norwegian Speech Corpus (NoTa) and the BigBrother corpus, showing that syntactic complexity correlates with the shorter form skal here. We take this as an indication that the observed syntactic distribution is actually a side-effect of semantic differences and suggest possible explanations for this.
Abstract
This paper presents a contrastive study on the role of syntactic complexity in the choice between different future constructions in English and Norwegian. Previous work on the English future alternation (BE going to vs. will) has shown that going to is preferred in syntactically complex contexts. We replicate this result for English on the basis of data from the Spoken BNC 2014. In addition, we address the question of whether this account can be generalized to another language that shows a very similar alternation, namely Norwegian (skal/vil vs. kommer til å). We use data from the Norwegian Speech Corpus (NoTa) and the BigBrother corpus, showing that syntactic complexity correlates with the shorter form skal here. We take this as an indication that the observed syntactic distribution is actually a side-effect of semantic differences and suggest possible explanations for this.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
New perspectives
- Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle 9
- Diachronic learner corpus research 41
- Rhoticity in Southern New Zealand English 69
-
Revisiting old debates
- “I’m putting some salt in my sandwich”. 93
- Determinants of exaptation in Verb-Object predicates in the transition from Late Middle English to Early Modern English 133
- Recent changes in spoken British English in verbal and nominal constructions 173
- “Oh yeah, one more thing: It’s gonna be huge.” 197
-
Refinements & innovations
- Retrieving Twitter argumentation with corpus queries and discourse analysis 229
- MuPDAR for corpus-based learner and variety studies 257
- A data-driven approach to finding significant changes in language use through time series analysis 285
- Index 319
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
New perspectives
- Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle 9
- Diachronic learner corpus research 41
- Rhoticity in Southern New Zealand English 69
-
Revisiting old debates
- “I’m putting some salt in my sandwich”. 93
- Determinants of exaptation in Verb-Object predicates in the transition from Late Middle English to Early Modern English 133
- Recent changes in spoken British English in verbal and nominal constructions 173
- “Oh yeah, one more thing: It’s gonna be huge.” 197
-
Refinements & innovations
- Retrieving Twitter argumentation with corpus queries and discourse analysis 229
- MuPDAR for corpus-based learner and variety studies 257
- A data-driven approach to finding significant changes in language use through time series analysis 285
- Index 319
