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Passives of so-called ‘ditransitives’ in nineteenth century and present-day Canadian English

  • Matthias Meyer
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Grammatical Change in English World-Wide
This chapter is in the book Grammatical Change in English World-Wide

Abstract

This study focuses on the double-participant verbs assign, bring, deny, give, grant, offer, send, serve, sell, show and teach, and the competition between first passives (He was offered the job), second passives (The job was offered him) and passives with a prepositional complement (The job was offered to him)in matching corpora of 19th century and Present-day Canadian English. The verbs display individual preferences for the first passive and the prepositional construction and the acceptability of their second passives also varies. All in all, the 19th century corpus reveals a clear dominance of passives with a prepositional complement over first passives, whereas the reverse is the case in the contemporary corpus. The second passive is shown to have been a minority form already in the 19th century and to be even rarer today. Keywords: Canadian English; passivisation; ditransitives; 19th century

Abstract

This study focuses on the double-participant verbs assign, bring, deny, give, grant, offer, send, serve, sell, show and teach, and the competition between first passives (He was offered the job), second passives (The job was offered him) and passives with a prepositional complement (The job was offered to him)in matching corpora of 19th century and Present-day Canadian English. The verbs display individual preferences for the first passive and the prepositional construction and the acceptability of their second passives also varies. All in all, the 19th century corpus reveals a clear dominance of passives with a prepositional complement over first passives, whereas the reverse is the case in the contemporary corpus. The second passive is shown to have been a minority form already in the 19th century and to be even rarer today. Keywords: Canadian English; passivisation; ditransitives; 19th century

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. PART 1. Inner Circle Englishes
  5. Diachronic variation in the grammar of Australian English 15
  6. At the crossroads of change 43
  7. Do -support in early New Zealand and Australian English 65
  8. The progressive in Irish English 87
  9. Cross-variety diachronic drifts and ephemeral regional contrasts 119
  10. Passives of so-called ‘ditransitives’ in nineteenth century and present-day Canadian English 147
  11. Dual adverbs in Australian English 179
  12. The evolution of epistemic marking in West Australian English 205
  13. May and might in nineteenth century Irish English and English English 221
  14. The present perfect and the preterite in Australian English 247
  15. PART 2. Outer Circle Englishes
  16. Recent diachronic change in the progressive in Philippine English 271
  17. Linguistic change in a multilingual setting 297
  18. Patterns of regularisation in British, American and Indian English 335
  19. An apparent time study of the progressive in Nigerian English 373
  20. American influence on written Caribbean English 389
  21. Cultural keywords in context 411
  22. Recent quantitative changes in the use of modals and quasi-modals in the Hong Kong, British and American printed press 437
  23. The development of an extended time period meaning of the progressive in Black South African English 465
  24. Index 485
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.67.07mey

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. PART 1. Inner Circle Englishes
  5. Diachronic variation in the grammar of Australian English 15
  6. At the crossroads of change 43
  7. Do -support in early New Zealand and Australian English 65
  8. The progressive in Irish English 87
  9. Cross-variety diachronic drifts and ephemeral regional contrasts 119
  10. Passives of so-called ‘ditransitives’ in nineteenth century and present-day Canadian English 147
  11. Dual adverbs in Australian English 179
  12. The evolution of epistemic marking in West Australian English 205
  13. May and might in nineteenth century Irish English and English English 221
  14. The present perfect and the preterite in Australian English 247
  15. PART 2. Outer Circle Englishes
  16. Recent diachronic change in the progressive in Philippine English 271
  17. Linguistic change in a multilingual setting 297
  18. Patterns of regularisation in British, American and Indian English 335
  19. An apparent time study of the progressive in Nigerian English 373
  20. American influence on written Caribbean English 389
  21. Cultural keywords in context 411
  22. Recent quantitative changes in the use of modals and quasi-modals in the Hong Kong, British and American printed press 437
  23. The development of an extended time period meaning of the progressive in Black South African English 465
  24. Index 485
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