Recent advances in the corpus-based study of ongoing grammatical change in English
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Christian Mair
Christian Mair was Assistant and, subsequently, Associate Professor in the English Department of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, before being appointed to a Chair in English Linguistics at the University of Freiburg in Germany in 1990. He has been involved in the compilation of several linguistic corpora (among them F-LOB and Frown, updates of the classic LOB and Brown corpora designed to make possible real-time studies of change in progress, and the Jamaican component of the International Corpus of English). His research over the past two decades has focussed on the corpus-based description of modern English grammar and regional variation and ongoing change in standard Englishes world-wide and has resulted in the publication of several monographs (among them
Infinitival clauses in English: a study of syntax in discourse , 1990, andTwentieth-century English: history, variation, and standardization , 2006, both with CUP) and more than 60 contributions to scholarly journals and edited works.
Abstract
Comparing early and current corpus-based work on ongoing grammatical change in English, the present study argues that progress tends to manifest itself in the more comprehensive and systematic coverage of changes known to be under way rather than in the discovery of genuinely new diachronic processes. As will be shown in two case studies on modal/semi-modal verbs and the progressive, there are three reasons for this. First, corpus research on ongoing change has been helped by increases in the size of available corpora and even more so by better coverage of spoken English. Secondly, researchers have a much wider range of statistical methods to choose from. Thirdly, conceptual advances have been made in theoretical models of change, particularly with regard to the impact of language ideologies and prescriptivism. In the study of ongoing changes, the corpus-based approach remains indispensable because it remedies the errors of impressionistic observation and helps shift attention from a small number of shibboleths important to prescriptivists to the groundswell of grammatical change that generally proceeds below the level of speakers’ conscious awareness.
About the author
Christian Mair was Assistant and, subsequently, Associate Professor in the English Department of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, before being appointed to a Chair in English Linguistics at the University of Freiburg in Germany in 1990. He has been involved in the compilation of several linguistic corpora (among them F-LOB and Frown, updates of the classic LOB and Brown corpora designed to make possible real-time studies of change in progress, and the Jamaican component of the International Corpus of English). His research over the past two decades has focussed on the corpus-based description of modern English grammar and regional variation and ongoing change in standard Englishes world-wide and has resulted in the publication of several monographs (among them Infinitival clauses in English: a study of syntax in discourse, 1990, and Twentieth-century English: history, variation, and standardization, 2006, both with CUP) and more than 60 contributions to scholarly journals and edited works.
Note: In all tables in this section significance levels are indicated by *, **, *** and ****, respectively, and calculated using Log Likelihood [LL] G2 (as explained in http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwizard.html): LL G2 > 3.84 equals p < 0.05 and is indicated by *; LL G2 > 6.63 = p < 0.01 = **; LL G2 > 10.83 = p < 0.001 = ***; LL G2 > 15.13 = p < 0.0001 = ****.
In Tables A and B, items are arranged in descending order of frequency, as recorded in LOB.
Frequency development of modal verbs in B-LOB, LOB and F-LOB.
| B-LOB (1930s) | LOB (1961) | Change % B-LOB → LOB | F-LOB (1991) | Change % LOB → F-LOB | Change % overall | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Would | 2,673 | 3,032 | ****+13.4% | 2,682 | ****-11.5% | +0.3% |
| Will | 3,055 | 2,822 | *-7.6% | 2,708 | −4.0% | ***-11.4% |
| Can | 2,039 | 2,147 | *+5.3% | 2,213 | +3.1% | **+8.5% |
| Could | 1,433 | 1,741 | ****+21.5% | 1,767 | +1.5% | ****+23.3% |
| May | 1,702 | 1,333 | ****-21.7% | 1,100 | ****-17.5% | ****-35.4% |
| Should | 1,486 | 1,301 | **-12.4% | 1,148 | **-11.8% | ****-22.7% |
| Must | 1,265 | 1,147 | −9.3% | 814 | ****-29.0% | ****-35.7% |
| Might | 713 | 779 | *+9.3% | 640 | ***-17.8% | −10.2% |
| Shall | 475 | 355 | ***-25.3% | 200 | ****-43.7% | ****-57.9% |
| Ought (to) | 135 | 103 | −23.7% | 58 | ***-43.7% | ****-57.0% |
| Need(n’t) | 94 | 76 | −19.1% | 44 | **-42.1% | ****-53.2% |
| Total | 15,070 | 14,836 | −1.6% | 13,374 | ****-9.9% | ****-11.2% |
Frequency development of modal verbs in B-Brown, Brown and Frown.
| B-Brown (1930s) | Brown (1961) | Change % B-Brown → Brown | Frown (1992) | Change % Brown → Frown | Change % overall | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Would | 2,412 | 3,053 | ****+26.6% | 2,868 | *−6.1% | ****+18.9% |
| Will | 2,606 | 2,702 | +3.7% | 2,402 | ****−11.1% | **−7.8% |
| Can | 1,718 | 2,193 | ****+27.7% | 2,160 | −1.5% | ****+25.7% |
| Could | 1,332 | 1,776 | ****+33.3% | 1,655 | *−6.8% | ****+24.3% |
| May | 1,357 | 1,298 | −4.3% | 878 | ****−32.4% | ****−35.3% |
| Should | 1,037 | 910 | **−12.3% | 787 | **−13.5% | ****−24.1% |
| Must | 955 | 1,018 | +6.6% | 668 | ****−30.4% | ****−29.9% |
| Might | 626 | 665 | +6.2% | 635 | −4.5% | +1.4% |
| Shall | 289 | 267 | −7.6% | 150 | ****−43.8% | ****−48.1% |
| Ought (to) | 111 | 69 | **−37.8% | 49 | −29.0% | ****−55.9% |
| Need(n’t) | 49 | 40 | −18.4% | 35 | −12.5% | −28.6% |
| Total | 12,492 | 13,991 | ****+12.0% | 12,287 | ****−12.2% | −1.6% |
Frequency of semi-modals in B-LOB, LOB and F-LOB.
| B-LOB (1930s) | LOB (1961) | Change % B-LOB → LOB | F-LOB (1991) | Change % LOB → F-LOB | Change % overall | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE able to | 247 | 246 | −0.4% | 248 | +0.8% | 0.4% |
| BE going to | 205 | 248 | +*21.0% | 245 | −1.2% | *+19.5% |
| BE supposed to | 33 | 22 | −33.3% | 47 | **+113.6% | +42.4% |
| BE to | 494 | 451 | −8.7% | 376 | *−16.6% | ***−23.9% |
| (HAD) better | 23 | 50 | **+117.3% | 37 | −26.0% | +60.9% |
| ( HAVE ) got to | 31 | 41 | +32.3% | 27 | −34.1% | −12.9% |
| HAVE to | 505 | 757 | ****+49.9% | 825 | +9.0% | ****+63.4% |
| NEED to | 20 | 53 | ****+165.0% | 194 | ****+266.0% | ****+870.0% |
| WANT to | 259 | 357 | ****+37.8% | 423 | **+18.5% | ****+63.3% |
Frequency of semi-modals in B-Brown, Brown and Frown.
| B-Brown (1930s) | Brown (1961) | Change % B-Brown → Brown | Frown (1991) | Change % Brown → Frown | Change % overall | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE able to | 189 | 191 | +1.1% | 202 | +5.8% | +6.9% |
| BE going to | 170 | 216 | *+27.1% | 332 | ****+53.7% | ****+95.3% |
| BE supposed to | 46 | 48 | +4.3% | 55 | +14.6% | +19.6% |
| BE to | 425 | 344 | **−19.1% | 217 | ****−36.9% | ****−48.9% |
| (HAD) better | 20 | 41 | **+105.0% | 34 | −17.1% | +70.0% |
| ( HAVE ) got to | 36 | 45 | +25.0% | 52 | +15.6% | +44.4% |
| HAVE to | 362 | 627 | ****+73.2% | 639 | ****+1.9% | ****+76.5% |
| NEED to | 35 | 69 | ***+97.1% | 154 | ****+123.2% | ****+340.0% |
| WANT to | 277 | 323 | +16.6% | 552 | ****+70.9% | ****+99.3% |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorials
- Geoff Leech and principled practices
- Remembering Geoffrey Leech
- Full Length Articles
- The Written British National Corpus 2014 – design and comparability
- Practices of discursive urban place-making in Brooklyn, New York: (hidden) digital and embodied discourse
- ‘You said, we did’: a corpus-based analysis of marketising discourse in healthcare websites
- Compliment responses in Hong Kong: an application of Leech’s pragmatics of politeness
- Stance in press releases versus business news: a lexical bundle approach
- Identifying and describing functional discourse units in the BNC Spoken 2014
- Swearing in informal spoken English: 1990s–2010s
- Recent advances in the corpus-based study of ongoing grammatical change in English
- The readability of online health information for L1 and L2 Australians: text-based and user-focused research
- Pragmatic patterns in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- Epilogue
- Afterword
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorials
- Geoff Leech and principled practices
- Remembering Geoffrey Leech
- Full Length Articles
- The Written British National Corpus 2014 – design and comparability
- Practices of discursive urban place-making in Brooklyn, New York: (hidden) digital and embodied discourse
- ‘You said, we did’: a corpus-based analysis of marketising discourse in healthcare websites
- Compliment responses in Hong Kong: an application of Leech’s pragmatics of politeness
- Stance in press releases versus business news: a lexical bundle approach
- Identifying and describing functional discourse units in the BNC Spoken 2014
- Swearing in informal spoken English: 1990s–2010s
- Recent advances in the corpus-based study of ongoing grammatical change in English
- The readability of online health information for L1 and L2 Australians: text-based and user-focused research
- Pragmatic patterns in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- Epilogue
- Afterword
