Changes in Complementation in British and American English: Corpus-Based Studies on Non-Finite Complements in Recent English (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change)

The book shows how the system of English predicate complementation has been undergoing an amazing amount of variation and change in recent centuries, and identifies explanatory principles to account for this change and variation, with evidence from large electronic corpora of both British and American English. This book is for teachers and students of English, native and non-native, and all those who take an interest in change and variation in the language. The core grammar of the language has been undergoing major changes in recent times, sometimes summed up under the label of the Great Complement Shift, and this book provides fresh perspectives on major aspects of the Shift. The author documents changes and innovative trends in recent English grammar, taking both British and American English into account, drawing on a unique combination of large electronic corpora, including the Bank of English Corpus, the TIME Corpus, and the BNC. He adopts the method of in-depth case studies of core patterns in the language, with a focus on infinitive and --ing clauses, and the analysis of the patterns as constructions, combining a form with a meaning, provides fresh insights into the explanatory principles to account for change and variation in recent British and American English This book is for teachers and students of English, native and non-native, and all those who take an interest in change and variation in the language. The core grammar of the language has been undergoing major changes in recent times, sometimes summed up under the label of the Great Complement Shift, and this book provides fresh perspectives on major aspects of the Shift. € The author documents changes and innovative trends in recent English grammar, taking both British and American English into account, drawing on a unique combination of large electronic corpora, including the Bank of English Corpus, the TIME Corpus, and the BNC. He adopts the method of in-depth case studies of core patterns in the language, with a focus on infinitive and 6ing clauses, and the analysis of the patterns as constructions, combining a form with a meaning, provides fresh insights into the explanatory principles to account for change and variation in recent British and American English Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-9 On a Class of Resultatives in Recent English....Pages 10-40 Innovative Resultatives in British and American English....Pages 41-66 Emergent Alternation in Complement Selection: The Spread of the Transitive into -ing Construction to Verbs of Unflavored Causation....Pages 67-84 Tracking and Explaining the Transitive out of -ing Pattern in Recent and Current English....Pages 85-99 Watching English Grammar Change: Variation and Change in the Grammar of Accustomed....Pages 100-154 On Sentential Complements of Object, with Evidence from the Old Bailey Corpus....Pages 155-171 Complements of Commit: Variation in the Grammar of an Innovative Verb....Pages 172-189 Concluding Observations....Pages 190-197 Back Matter....Pages 198-208 Machine generated contents note: Introduction * Innovative Resultatives and the Perspective of Construction Grammar * Emergent Alternation in Complement Selection: The Spread of the Transitive into -ing Pattern to Unflavored * Verbs of Causation * Innovative Uses of the Transitive out of -ing Pattern in Different Text Types * Watching English Grammar Change: Sentential Complements of the Adjective Accustomed * Complements of Consent * Change Completed: Sentential Complements of the Verb Object * Sentential Complements of the Intrasitive Verb Commit * Conclusion * References * Index. "Arguing that a corpus-based approach is indispensable for the study of changes of complementation in British and American English, the author examines several central patterns of sentential complementation in a number of electronic corpora to shed light on the emergence and spread of innovative constructions in relatively recent English"-- Provided by publisher