Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English
-
Joybrato Mukherjee
Abstract
It has been frequently noted that many characteristic features of New Englishes tend to cluster around the interface between lexis and grammar. Focusing on present-day standard Indian English, the largest second-language variety of English, Olavarría de Ersson and Shaw (2003) and Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2006) have shown in recent corpus-based pilot studies that there are also significant differences between Indian and British English in the complementation of ditransitive verbs. In the present paper, we will make use of a large web-derived corpus of Indian English newspapers and extend the analysis of verb complementation in Indian and British English from ditransitive verbs to a semantically and syntactically related class of verbs. Specifically, we will analyse some verbs that are typically associated with the ‘transfer-caused-motion construction’ (cf. Goldberg 1995), which we refer to as ‘TCM-related verbs’. Our findings show that Indian English also displays some interesting deviations from the verb-complementational profile of British English with regard to TCM-related verbs, which raises some more general questions about divergent transitivity trends in the two varieties.
Abstract
It has been frequently noted that many characteristic features of New Englishes tend to cluster around the interface between lexis and grammar. Focusing on present-day standard Indian English, the largest second-language variety of English, Olavarría de Ersson and Shaw (2003) and Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2006) have shown in recent corpus-based pilot studies that there are also significant differences between Indian and British English in the complementation of ditransitive verbs. In the present paper, we will make use of a large web-derived corpus of Indian English newspapers and extend the analysis of verb complementation in Indian and British English from ditransitive verbs to a semantically and syntactically related class of verbs. Specifically, we will analyse some verbs that are typically associated with the ‘transfer-caused-motion construction’ (cf. Goldberg 1995), which we refer to as ‘TCM-related verbs’. Our findings show that Indian English also displays some interesting deviations from the verb-complementational profile of British English with regard to TCM-related verbs, which raises some more general questions about divergent transitivity trends in the two varieties.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora 1
-
Part I. Creating discourse
- Introduction 13
- ' And so now …': The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now 17
- Self-repetition in spoken English discourse 37
- Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech 61
- Pressing -ing into service: I don't want you coming around here any more 85
-
Part II. Moving across varieties
- Introduction 101
- Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora 107
- The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation 129
- Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English 147
- Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English 163
- Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English 183
- South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect 203
-
Part III. Levelling out variability
- Introduction 223
- Feature loss in 19th century Irish English 229
- The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia 245
- The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? 269
- Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres 291
- Her daughter's being taken into care or her daughter being taken …? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English 311
- Subject index 335
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora 1
-
Part I. Creating discourse
- Introduction 13
- ' And so now …': The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now 17
- Self-repetition in spoken English discourse 37
- Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech 61
- Pressing -ing into service: I don't want you coming around here any more 85
-
Part II. Moving across varieties
- Introduction 101
- Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora 107
- The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation 129
- Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English 147
- Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English 163
- Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English 183
- South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect 203
-
Part III. Levelling out variability
- Introduction 223
- Feature loss in 19th century Irish English 229
- The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia 245
- The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? 269
- Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres 291
- Her daughter's being taken into care or her daughter being taken …? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English 311
- Subject index 335
