Stylistic fronting in corpora
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Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson
Abstract
Stylistic Fronting (SF) fronts various types of non-subjects to preverbal position in subjectless clauses. With the exception of Icelandic and Faroese, SF has disappeared from Scandinavian. It is commonly assumed that even in Icelandic it is formal and old fashioned, indicating that it might be on its way out. However, this assumption has not been supported by frequency surveys. This paper studies the distribution and frequency of Stylistic Fronting in two large language corpora, Timarit.is and the Internet. The results support the common assumption that SF is on the retreat. Nevertheless, the survey also highlights that this change is proceeding slowly. The study also shows that Google Search can be used as a research tool in linguistics – no small advantage.
Abstract
Stylistic Fronting (SF) fronts various types of non-subjects to preverbal position in subjectless clauses. With the exception of Icelandic and Faroese, SF has disappeared from Scandinavian. It is commonly assumed that even in Icelandic it is formal and old fashioned, indicating that it might be on its way out. However, this assumption has not been supported by frequency surveys. This paper studies the distribution and frequency of Stylistic Fronting in two large language corpora, Timarit.is and the Internet. The results support the common assumption that SF is on the retreat. Nevertheless, the survey also highlights that this change is proceeding slowly. The study also shows that Google Search can be used as a research tool in linguistics – no small advantage.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- On quantity and quality in syntactic variation studies 19
- Variation in oblique subject constructions in Insular Scandinavian 53
- Determining the nature of intra-speaker subject case variation 91
- Variation in dative in Faroese 113
- Avoiding Genitive in Icelandic 141
- Dimensions of Variation 165
- Inverse attraction in Icelandic relative clauses 199
- Variation in copular agreement in Insular Scandinavian 233
- Stylistic fronting and related constructions in the Insular Scandinavian Languages 277
- Stylistic fronting in corpora 307
- Index 339
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- On quantity and quality in syntactic variation studies 19
- Variation in oblique subject constructions in Insular Scandinavian 53
- Determining the nature of intra-speaker subject case variation 91
- Variation in dative in Faroese 113
- Avoiding Genitive in Icelandic 141
- Dimensions of Variation 165
- Inverse attraction in Icelandic relative clauses 199
- Variation in copular agreement in Insular Scandinavian 233
- Stylistic fronting and related constructions in the Insular Scandinavian Languages 277
- Stylistic fronting in corpora 307
- Index 339
