John Benjamins Publishing Company
The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English?
Abstract
The present study, which is based on the CONCE corpus, considers two linguistic features that are characteristic of spoken rather than written production: the progressive and phrasal verbs. The frequency development of these features in nineteenth-century English is examined in relation to contemporaneous changes in British society.
The results show that the most informal genres in the corpus, comedies and private letters, exhibit increasing frequencies, while the formal genre of scientific writing displays stability. These results are shown to be partly similar to those reached in studies of late twentieth-century English, where the progressive and phrasal verbs increase in frequency in some written genres but not others. In previous research, this development has been taken to be part of an ongoing colloquialization of genre norms, which has in turn been linked to the democratization of discourse in post-1945 Western society. The present study demonstrates that related developments can be identified in nineteenth-century Britain, which implies that the concept of colloquialization may explain some of the stability and change attested in the data.
Abstract
The present study, which is based on the CONCE corpus, considers two linguistic features that are characteristic of spoken rather than written production: the progressive and phrasal verbs. The frequency development of these features in nineteenth-century English is examined in relation to contemporaneous changes in British society.
The results show that the most informal genres in the corpus, comedies and private letters, exhibit increasing frequencies, while the formal genre of scientific writing displays stability. These results are shown to be partly similar to those reached in studies of late twentieth-century English, where the progressive and phrasal verbs increase in frequency in some written genres but not others. In previous research, this development has been taken to be part of an ongoing colloquialization of genre norms, which has in turn been linked to the democratization of discourse in post-1945 Western society. The present study demonstrates that related developments can be identified in nineteenth-century Britain, which implies that the concept of colloquialization may explain some of the stability and change attested in the data.
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
