The role of context in the entrenchment of new grammatical markers in World Englishes
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Elena Seoane
Abstract
This study explores the role of context in the alleged entrenchment of the adverbs yet, just and (n)ever, among other adverbial elements, as markers of the perfect in World Englishes (Miller 2000; Brown and Miller 2017), from the perspective of Usage Based Theory (Bybee 2006, 2013) and taking data from seven components of the International Corpus of English (ICE, Greenbaum 1996). The probabilistic analysis of the results show that all the micro-level contextual factors analyzed (verbal form, verb type and polarity) determine variation and change in this domain of grammar, in combination with two of the three macrolevel contextual features analyzed, namely type of perfect meaning and register (see Seoane 2017). Mode, however, turns out not to be a valid predictor in the entrenchment of adverbials, which questions previous work using differences between speech and writing as a proxy for ongoing change in ICE. The results of this contextualized approach to grammatical change leads me to advocate for usagebased, onomasiological and statistically-modelled approaches to grammatical variation, in which register variability must necessarily be taken into consideration (Biber and Gray 2016), independent of mode.
Abstract
This study explores the role of context in the alleged entrenchment of the adverbs yet, just and (n)ever, among other adverbial elements, as markers of the perfect in World Englishes (Miller 2000; Brown and Miller 2017), from the perspective of Usage Based Theory (Bybee 2006, 2013) and taking data from seven components of the International Corpus of English (ICE, Greenbaum 1996). The probabilistic analysis of the results show that all the micro-level contextual factors analyzed (verbal form, verb type and polarity) determine variation and change in this domain of grammar, in combination with two of the three macrolevel contextual features analyzed, namely type of perfect meaning and register (see Seoane 2017). Mode, however, turns out not to be a valid predictor in the entrenchment of adverbials, which questions previous work using differences between speech and writing as a proxy for ongoing change in ICE. The results of this contextualized approach to grammatical change leads me to advocate for usagebased, onomasiological and statistically-modelled approaches to grammatical variation, in which register variability must necessarily be taken into consideration (Biber and Gray 2016), independent of mode.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of tables and figures VII
- Grammar – discourse – context: Grammatical variation and change and the usage-based perspective 1
- Contextualizing Old English noun phrases 15
- Syntax, text type, genre and authorial voice in Old English: A data-driven approach 49
- The intensifier system of the Ormulum and the interplay of micro-level and macro-level contexts in linguistic change 93
- Constructional change across the lifespan: The nominative and infinitive in early modern writers 125
- Contextualizing dual-form adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus: An assessment of semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic factors 157
- Bridging contexts in the reanalysis of naturally as a sentence adverb: A corpus study 191
- From parataxis to amalgamation: The emergence of the sentence-final is all construction in the history of American English 221
- The role of context in the entrenchment of new grammatical markers in World Englishes 249
- Paradigms, host classes, and ancillariness: A comparison of three approaches to grammatical status 277
- The motivated unmotivated: Variation, function and context 305
- Grammar in context: On the role of hypercharacterization in language variation and change 333
- List of contributors 365
- Index 367
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of tables and figures VII
- Grammar – discourse – context: Grammatical variation and change and the usage-based perspective 1
- Contextualizing Old English noun phrases 15
- Syntax, text type, genre and authorial voice in Old English: A data-driven approach 49
- The intensifier system of the Ormulum and the interplay of micro-level and macro-level contexts in linguistic change 93
- Constructional change across the lifespan: The nominative and infinitive in early modern writers 125
- Contextualizing dual-form adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus: An assessment of semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic factors 157
- Bridging contexts in the reanalysis of naturally as a sentence adverb: A corpus study 191
- From parataxis to amalgamation: The emergence of the sentence-final is all construction in the history of American English 221
- The role of context in the entrenchment of new grammatical markers in World Englishes 249
- Paradigms, host classes, and ancillariness: A comparison of three approaches to grammatical status 277
- The motivated unmotivated: Variation, function and context 305
- Grammar in context: On the role of hypercharacterization in language variation and change 333
- List of contributors 365
- Index 367
