<TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Corpus Interrogation and Grammatical Patterns</TitleText>

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599012412 03 01 01 JB John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 JB code SCL 63 Eb 15 9789027269744 06 10.1075/scl.63 13 2014021646 DG 002 02 01 SCL 02 1388-0373 Studies in Corpus Linguistics 63 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Corpus Interrogation and Grammatical Patterns</TitleText> 01 scl.63 01 https://benjamins.com 02 https://benjamins.com/catalog/scl.63 1 B01 Kristin Davidse Davidse, Kristin Kristin Davidse University of Leuven 2 B01 Caroline Gentens Gentens, Caroline Caroline Gentens University of Leuven 3 B01 Lobke Ghesquière Ghesquière, Lobke Lobke Ghesquière University of Leuven 4 B01 Lieven Vandelanotte Vandelanotte, Lieven Lieven Vandelanotte University of Namur/University of Leuven 5 Z01 Tinne Van Rompaey Rompaey, Tinne Van Tinne Van Rompaey University of Leuven 01 eng 366 viii 358 LAN009000 v.2006 CFK 2 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.CORP Corpus linguistics 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.SYNTAX Syntax 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.THEOR Theoretical linguistics 06 01 The studies in this volume approach English grammatical patterns in novel ways by interrogating corpora, focusing on patterns in the verb phrase (tense, aspect and modality), the noun phrase (intensification and focus marking), complementation structures and clause combining. Some studies interrogate historical corpora to reconstruct the diachronic development of patterns such as light verb constructions, verb-particle combinations, the be a-verbing progressive and absolute constructions. Other studies analyse synchronic datasets to typify the functions in discourse of, amongst others, tag questions and it-clefts, or to elucidate some long-standing problems in the syntactic analysis of verbal or adjectival complementation patterns, thanks to the empirical detail only corpora can provide. The volume documents the practices that have been developed to guarantee optimal representativeness of corpus data, to formulate definitions of patterns that can be operationalized in extractions, and to build dimensions of variation such as text type and register into rich grammatical descriptions. 04 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475/scl.63.png 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_jpg/9789027203717.jpg 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_tif/9789027203717.tif 06 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_front/scl.63.hb.png 07 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/125/scl.63.png 25 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_back/scl.63.hb.png 27 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/3d_web/scl.63.hb.png 10 01 JB code scl.63.prelim i iv 4 Prelim pages -1 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Prelim pages</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.toc v vi 2 Table of contents 0 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Table of contents</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.01ack vii viii 2 Acknowledgments 1 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Acknowledgements</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.02con ix x 2 Miscellaneous 2 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">List of contributors</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.03dav 1 11 11 Article 3 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Interrogating corpora to describe grammatical patterns</TitleText> 1 A01 Kristin Davidse Davidse, Kristin Kristin Davidse KU Leuven (University of Leuven) 2 A01 Lieven Vandelanotte Vandelanotte, Lieven Lieven Vandelanotte University of Namur 3 A01 Caroline Gentens Gentens, Caroline Caroline Gentens KU Leuven (University of Leuven) 4 A01 Lobke Ghesquière Ghesquière, Lobke Lobke Ghesquière KU Leuven (University of Leuven) 10 01 JB code scl.63.04pa1 Section header 4 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 1. Patterns in the verb phrase</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.05ron 15 34 20 Article 5 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Light verb constructions in the history  of English</TitleText> 1 A01 Patricia Ronan Ronan, Patricia Patricia Ronan Université de Lausanne 01 This study investigates light verb constructions in sample corpora from Old- Middle- and Early Modern English. The use of one coherent definition of light verb constructions throughout these periods allows direct comparison of the overall structures and of the light verbs used. The comparison shows that frequencies are highest in the Middle English texts and decrease in the Early Modern data. While the Old English counts are significantly lower than Middle English ones, their frequencies are far from negligible. It is argued that where previous assessments consider Old English light verb constructions to be rare or non-existent, this is partly due to having used the perspective of the most frequent Modern English light verbs rather than working from the perspective of which light verbs were frequent at the period in question. 10 01 JB code scl.63.06die 35 55 21 Article 6 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">What happened to the English prefix, and could it stage a comeback?</TitleText> 1 A01 Stefan Diemer Diemer, Stefan Stefan Diemer Saarland University, Germany 01 This paper revisits the historical shift in English verb-particle combinations from prefixed to prepositional and adverbial forms based on qualitative and quantitative examples from the Helsinki and Wycliffe corpora collected during a study on the history of verb-particle combinations (Diemer 2008). It is argued that the reasons for the disappearance of the English prefix are more complex than previously thought. The paper proposes a combination of competition-based and systemic reasons while allowing for additional influence by other developments, such as verb frequency and spelling habits. Excerpts from corpus-based studies (Diemer 2009, 2013) show that the development is not irreversible, since due to the influence of computer-mediated communication there may be a revival of prefix verbs modelled after Old English templates. 10 01 JB code scl.63.07mar 57 80 24 Article 7 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The pattern to be a-hunting from Middle  to Late Modern English</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">pattern to be a-hunting from Middle  to Late Modern English</TitleWithoutPrefix> <Subtitle textformat="02">Towards extrapolating from Wright’s English  Dialect Dictionary</Subtitle> 1 A01 Manfred Markus Markus, Manfred Manfred Markus University of Innsbruck, Austria 01 The English Dialect Dictionary (1898–1905), in its digitised beta-version EDD Online, allows for the retrieval of the gerund construction to be on verbing, generally in the reduced form to be a-verbing. The pattern was so much alive in the period covered by the EDD, 1700 to 1900, that its frequency can be hypothetically seen as an indicator of its role in the preceding centuries back to Late Middle English, even though evidence of its occurrence then has always been scarce. This paper’s extrapolation from Late Modern English back to Middle English is triggered by a striking similarity of distribution: to be a-verbing is documented by the EDD for all British regions except the English North, which is the very part where the participles of the progressive form to be verbing in Middle English had, according to Mossé (1925: 78), the deviant suffix –ande. My paper tries to explain this strange correlation, also throwing light on the competition from the progressive, which was the accepted form of the written standard, whereas to be a-verbing was the colloquial and dialectal variant. 10 01 JB code scl.63.08els 81 103 23 Article 8 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The present perfect and the preterite in Late Modern and Contemporary English</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">present perfect and the preterite in Late Modern and Contemporary English</TitleWithoutPrefix> <Subtitle textformat="02">A longitudinal look</Subtitle> 1 A01 Johan Elsness Elsness, Johan Johan Elsness University of Oslo 01 In this article I examine a wide selection of language corpora, most of which have only recently become available, to shed light on the development of the two main verb forms used to refer to past time in English: the present perfect and the preterite. It has been claimed that the development of the present perfect in English runs counter to that observable in many other languages, including German and French, where this verb form continues to expand, at the expense of the preterite. The main conclusion is that the new corpus evidence confirms the assumption of a special development in English, the present perfect having been in decline since around 1800, in both AmE and BrE, although a somewhat varied picture emerges in the present-day language. 10 01 JB code scl.63.09hat 105 128 24 Article 9 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">can and be able to in nineteenth-century Irish English</TitleText> <Subtitle textformat="02">A case of ‘imperfect learning’?</Subtitle> 1 A01 Marije van Hattum Hattum, Marije van Marije van Hattum Liverpool Hope University 01 This paper discusses the status of can and be able to in nineteenth-century Irish English in comparison to English English through means of a corpus study of personal letters. Analysis of the data reveals that the use of be able TO is conditioned by the combination of time reference and polarity in the English English data but not in the Irish English data. Thus, the data suggest that some writers of nineteenth-century Irish English failed to acquire the subtle differences between can and be able to present in English English. I propose that the increased use of be able to in nineteenth-century Irish English is the result of imperfect learning through perceived similarity (cf. Thomason 2001 and De Smet 2012). 10 01 JB code scl.63.10pa2 Section header 10 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 2. Patterns in the noun phrase</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.11roh 131 149 19 Article 11 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Syntactic constraints on the use of dual form intensifiers in Modern English</TitleText> 1 A01 Günter Rohdenburg Rohdenburg, Günter Günter Rohdenburg University of Paderborn 01 Recent work on comparative variation has highlighted two major syntactic environments encouraging the choice of the more explicit more-variant, a) the use of non-attributive rather than attributive adjectives and b) the use of complemented rather than uncomplemented (non-attributive) adjectives (cf., e.g., Mondorf 2009). The present article shows that throughout the Modern English period these environments have also favoured the choice of the more explicit suffixed variant in dual form intensifiers. In addition, the paper briefly assesses some important theories that have been or could be invoked to account for these findings. Specifically, it is shown that the prosodic (sub)type of the intensifier itself does not play a decisive role in selecting the suffixed or suffixless variant. 10 01 JB code scl.63.12bla 151 171 21 Article 12 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Ma daddy wis dead chuffed</TitleText> <Subtitle textformat="02">On the dialectal distribution of the intensifier dead in Contemporary English</Subtitle> 1 A01 Zeltia Blanco-Suárez Blanco-Suárez, Zeltia Zeltia Blanco-Suárez University of Santiago de Compostela 01 The present paper aims to shed light on the dialectal distribution of the intensifier dead in four varieties of Present-Day English: American, British, Irish and Scottish English. For this purpose, data are drawn from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the Brigham Young University-British National Corpus, the Irish component of the International Corpus of English and the Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech. A collocational analysis of the adverbial and adjectival form dead makes it possible to see whether dead takes a literal reading or is rather used as a grammaticalised intensifier. The paper argues that intensifying dead is most productive in the Irish and Scottish varieties, followed by the British and American dialects. 10 01 JB code scl.63.13mai 173 205 33 Article 13 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The case of focus</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">case of focus</TitleWithoutPrefix> 1 A01 Georg Maier Maier, Georg Georg Maier University of Hamburg 01 This article investigates the distribution of pronoun case forms (PCFs) in it-clefts and it BE-sentences in British and American English. Its particular interest is the occurrence of subject PCFs in these two constructions. Functional and pragmatic factors exerting an influence on the distribution are identified, such as first vs. third person, singular vs plural. All these factors are operationalized and quantified in the datasets. The findings confirm the hypothesis that subject PCFs have been re-functionalised as Focus markers in the two varieties examined. As the explanation of this refunctionalization, markedness reversal is put forward. 10 01 JB code scl.63.14pa3 Section header 14 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 3. Patterns in complementation structures</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.15rud 209 221 13 Article 15 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Null objects and sentential complements, with evidence from the Corpus of Historical American English</TitleText> 1 A01 Juhani Rudanko Rudanko, Juhani Juhani Rudanko University of Tampere 2 A01 Paul Rickman Rickman, Paul Paul Rickman University of Tampere 01 The present article discusses the occurrence of covert NP objects in object control structures with the matrix verb warn. The existence of such structures is at odds with Bach’s Generalization, which effectively states that the NP object in an object control structure may not be omitted. Evidence from COHA is introduced and discussed, to shed new light on the apparent exceptions to the Generalization. The frequency of the construction is tracked over the course of the past two centuries, and the nature of the covert NP object is also examined. The question is raised as to whether this NP can be assigned a general interpretation, as has been claimed in the literature, or whether a more specific interpretation is appropriate. 10 01 JB code scl.63.16rud 223 238 16 Article 16 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">A new angle on infinitival and of -ing complements of afraid, with evidence  from the TIME Corpus</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>A </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">new angle on infinitival and of -ing complements of afraid, with evidence  from the TIME Corpus</TitleWithoutPrefix> 1 A01 Juhani Rudanko Rudanko, Juhani Juhani Rudanko University of Tampere 01 This article argues that an approach based on semantic roles offers a new approach to the variation between to infinitival and of -ing complements of the adjective afraid. While the semantic role of the higher subject does not appear to vary, control theory makes it possible to investigate the semantic role of the lower subject. No absolute rules can be given, but regularities that are of statistical significance can be observed. The study draws on the first three decades of the TIME Corpus for authentic data. The results shed light on the semantic interpretation of to infinitival and -ing complements in subject control constructions and open a new perspective on the relevance of semantic roles to argument selection. 10 01 JB code scl.63.17hog 239 262 24 Article 17 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Active and passive infinitive, ambiguity and non-canonical subject with ready</TitleText> 1 A01 Mikko Höglund Höglund, Mikko Mikko Höglund University of Tampere 01 This paper presents a case study of the adjective ready and discusses its properties when it occurs in the tough construction (TC). The paper discusses the active and passive infinitive variation in the TC with evidence from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts and the British National Corpus. The ambiguity created by the active infinitive and the effect of the semantics of the subject on the choice of the infinitive form are also discussed. The results show that the TC has become more frequent in BrE, and unlike with typical tough predicates, with ready the passive infinitive has persisted, most likely because of the risk of ambiguity with the active. The data also show that when the subject is [+HUMAN], the passive infinitive is used exclusively. 10 01 JB code scl.63.18pa4 263 264 2 Section header 18 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 4. Patterns of clause combining</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.19pol 265 294 30 Article 19 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The diffusion of English absolutes</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">diffusion of English absolutes</TitleWithoutPrefix> <Subtitle textformat="02">A diachronic register study</Subtitle> 1 A01 Nikki van de Pol Pol, Nikki van de Nikki van de Pol Research Foundation Flanders 2 A01 Hubert Cuyckens Cuyckens, Hubert Hubert Cuyckens University of Leuven 01 The present paper addresses the register diffusion of the English absolute, a non-finite construction functioning as an adverbial (an example from Present-day-English is: One of the cheap cigars to which she was addicted burns ignored between her fingers, the skin of her face dragging down with indifference. (BNC, Van Gogh: a life, 1990)). On the basis of diachronic corpus research including corpora such as the BNC, the Old Bailey corpus and the Penn parsed corpora of English it is argued that the distribution of absolutes in various historical registers of written English, as well as in spoken English, appears to have shifted from a system operating along the ‘formal vs. informal’ cline and, to a lesser extent, the ‘narrative vs. non-narrative’ cline in Early Modern English to registers operating along the ‘literary vs. non-literary’ cline in Present-day English. Special attention is given to the role of with-augmentation which may have been an important facilitator for the absolute construction to fully establish itself in the spoken register, as the addition of an augmentor enhances ease of processing (Berent 1975, Kortmann 1995). 10 01 JB code scl.63.20has 295 319 25 Article 20 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">It-clefts in English L1 and L2 academic writing</TitleText> <Subtitle textformat="02">The case of Norwegian learners</Subtitle> 1 A01 Hilde Hasselgård Hasselgård, Hilde Hilde Hasselgård University of Oslo 01 This paper examines it-clefts in five corpora representing Norwegian learners of English, novice L1 writers of English and specialist L1 academic writing. The comparison also concerns general argumentative writing vs. discipline-specific writing. The frequency of it-clefts varies across the corpora. The learners underuse clefts, but the results of the register comparison are inconclusive. The types of clefted constituent and the choice of subordinator in the cleft clause vary more in L1 than in L2 writing. There are also differences as to the syntactic environments of clefts and their discourse functions. For example, the learners overuse clefts in interrogatives in argumentative writing. In discipline-specific writing, the learners underuse clefts in that-clauses, particularly with the function of reporting previous research. 10 01 JB code scl.63.21kim 321 350 30 Article 21 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The speech functions of tag questions  and their properties. A comparison of their distribution in COLT and LLC</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">speech functions of tag questions  and their properties. A comparison of their distribution in COLT and LLC</TitleWithoutPrefix> 1 A01 Ditte Kimps Kimps, Ditte Ditte Kimps KU Leuven 2 A01 Kristin Davidse Davidse, Kristin Kristin Davidse KU Leuven 3 A01 Bert Cornillie Cornillie, Bert Bert Cornillie KU Leuven 01 This article proposes a classification of speech functions of variable tag questions in British English conversations. Based on intonational, conversational and formal criteria the analysis shows that tag questions can not only function as questions and statements, but also as responses, commands and offers. A large group of tag questions cannot be captured by any of the traditional speech functions and are classified instead as Statement-Question blends. The article investigates the impact of the LLC and COLT corpora, and features such as gender, age and social roles, on the distribution of the different speech functions and their properties. The main finding is that all speech functions are present in the two different corpora, albeit with differing relative frequencies. 10 01 JB code scl.63.22aut 351 354 4 Index 22 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Author index</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.23sub 355 358 4 Index 23 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Subject index</TitleText> 02 JBENJAMINS John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia NL 04 20141114 2014 John Benjamins B.V. 02 WORLD 13 15 9789027203717 01 JB 3 John Benjamins e-Platform 03 jbe-platform.com 09 WORLD 20 01 00 99.00 EUR R 01 00 83.00 GBP Z 01 gen 00 149.00 USD S 363012411 03 01 01 JB John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 JB code SCL 63 Hb 15 9789027203717 13 2014021646 BB 01 SCL 02 1388-0373 Studies in Corpus Linguistics 63 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Corpus Interrogation and Grammatical Patterns</TitleText> 01 scl.63 01 https://benjamins.com 02 https://benjamins.com/catalog/scl.63 1 B01 Kristin Davidse Davidse, Kristin Kristin Davidse University of Leuven 2 B01 Caroline Gentens Gentens, Caroline Caroline Gentens University of Leuven 3 B01 Lobke Ghesquière Ghesquière, Lobke Lobke Ghesquière University of Leuven 4 B01 Lieven Vandelanotte Vandelanotte, Lieven Lieven Vandelanotte University of Namur/University of Leuven 5 Z01 Tinne Van Rompaey Rompaey, Tinne Van Tinne Van Rompaey University of Leuven 01 eng 366 viii 358 LAN009000 v.2006 CFK 2 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.CORP Corpus linguistics 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.SYNTAX Syntax 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.THEOR Theoretical linguistics 06 01 The studies in this volume approach English grammatical patterns in novel ways by interrogating corpora, focusing on patterns in the verb phrase (tense, aspect and modality), the noun phrase (intensification and focus marking), complementation structures and clause combining. Some studies interrogate historical corpora to reconstruct the diachronic development of patterns such as light verb constructions, verb-particle combinations, the be a-verbing progressive and absolute constructions. Other studies analyse synchronic datasets to typify the functions in discourse of, amongst others, tag questions and it-clefts, or to elucidate some long-standing problems in the syntactic analysis of verbal or adjectival complementation patterns, thanks to the empirical detail only corpora can provide. The volume documents the practices that have been developed to guarantee optimal representativeness of corpus data, to formulate definitions of patterns that can be operationalized in extractions, and to build dimensions of variation such as text type and register into rich grammatical descriptions. 04 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475/scl.63.png 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_jpg/9789027203717.jpg 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_tif/9789027203717.tif 06 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_front/scl.63.hb.png 07 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/125/scl.63.png 25 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_back/scl.63.hb.png 27 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/3d_web/scl.63.hb.png 10 01 JB code scl.63.prelim i iv 4 Prelim pages -1 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Prelim pages</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.toc v vi 2 Table of contents 0 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Table of contents</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.01ack vii viii 2 Acknowledgments 1 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Acknowledgements</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.02con ix x 2 Miscellaneous 2 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">List of contributors</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.03dav 1 11 11 Article 3 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Interrogating corpora to describe grammatical patterns</TitleText> 1 A01 Kristin Davidse Davidse, Kristin Kristin Davidse KU Leuven (University of Leuven) 2 A01 Lieven Vandelanotte Vandelanotte, Lieven Lieven Vandelanotte University of Namur 3 A01 Caroline Gentens Gentens, Caroline Caroline Gentens KU Leuven (University of Leuven) 4 A01 Lobke Ghesquière Ghesquière, Lobke Lobke Ghesquière KU Leuven (University of Leuven) 10 01 JB code scl.63.04pa1 Section header 4 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 1. Patterns in the verb phrase</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.05ron 15 34 20 Article 5 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Light verb constructions in the history  of English</TitleText> 1 A01 Patricia Ronan Ronan, Patricia Patricia Ronan Université de Lausanne 01 This study investigates light verb constructions in sample corpora from Old- Middle- and Early Modern English. The use of one coherent definition of light verb constructions throughout these periods allows direct comparison of the overall structures and of the light verbs used. The comparison shows that frequencies are highest in the Middle English texts and decrease in the Early Modern data. While the Old English counts are significantly lower than Middle English ones, their frequencies are far from negligible. It is argued that where previous assessments consider Old English light verb constructions to be rare or non-existent, this is partly due to having used the perspective of the most frequent Modern English light verbs rather than working from the perspective of which light verbs were frequent at the period in question. 10 01 JB code scl.63.06die 35 55 21 Article 6 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">What happened to the English prefix, and could it stage a comeback?</TitleText> 1 A01 Stefan Diemer Diemer, Stefan Stefan Diemer Saarland University, Germany 01 This paper revisits the historical shift in English verb-particle combinations from prefixed to prepositional and adverbial forms based on qualitative and quantitative examples from the Helsinki and Wycliffe corpora collected during a study on the history of verb-particle combinations (Diemer 2008). It is argued that the reasons for the disappearance of the English prefix are more complex than previously thought. The paper proposes a combination of competition-based and systemic reasons while allowing for additional influence by other developments, such as verb frequency and spelling habits. Excerpts from corpus-based studies (Diemer 2009, 2013) show that the development is not irreversible, since due to the influence of computer-mediated communication there may be a revival of prefix verbs modelled after Old English templates. 10 01 JB code scl.63.07mar 57 80 24 Article 7 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The pattern to be a-hunting from Middle  to Late Modern English</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">pattern to be a-hunting from Middle  to Late Modern English</TitleWithoutPrefix> <Subtitle textformat="02">Towards extrapolating from Wright’s English  Dialect Dictionary</Subtitle> 1 A01 Manfred Markus Markus, Manfred Manfred Markus University of Innsbruck, Austria 01 The English Dialect Dictionary (1898–1905), in its digitised beta-version EDD Online, allows for the retrieval of the gerund construction to be on verbing, generally in the reduced form to be a-verbing. The pattern was so much alive in the period covered by the EDD, 1700 to 1900, that its frequency can be hypothetically seen as an indicator of its role in the preceding centuries back to Late Middle English, even though evidence of its occurrence then has always been scarce. This paper’s extrapolation from Late Modern English back to Middle English is triggered by a striking similarity of distribution: to be a-verbing is documented by the EDD for all British regions except the English North, which is the very part where the participles of the progressive form to be verbing in Middle English had, according to Mossé (1925: 78), the deviant suffix –ande. My paper tries to explain this strange correlation, also throwing light on the competition from the progressive, which was the accepted form of the written standard, whereas to be a-verbing was the colloquial and dialectal variant. 10 01 JB code scl.63.08els 81 103 23 Article 8 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The present perfect and the preterite in Late Modern and Contemporary English</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">present perfect and the preterite in Late Modern and Contemporary English</TitleWithoutPrefix> <Subtitle textformat="02">A longitudinal look</Subtitle> 1 A01 Johan Elsness Elsness, Johan Johan Elsness University of Oslo 01 In this article I examine a wide selection of language corpora, most of which have only recently become available, to shed light on the development of the two main verb forms used to refer to past time in English: the present perfect and the preterite. It has been claimed that the development of the present perfect in English runs counter to that observable in many other languages, including German and French, where this verb form continues to expand, at the expense of the preterite. The main conclusion is that the new corpus evidence confirms the assumption of a special development in English, the present perfect having been in decline since around 1800, in both AmE and BrE, although a somewhat varied picture emerges in the present-day language. 10 01 JB code scl.63.09hat 105 128 24 Article 9 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">can and be able to in nineteenth-century Irish English</TitleText> <Subtitle textformat="02">A case of ‘imperfect learning’?</Subtitle> 1 A01 Marije van Hattum Hattum, Marije van Marije van Hattum Liverpool Hope University 01 This paper discusses the status of can and be able to in nineteenth-century Irish English in comparison to English English through means of a corpus study of personal letters. Analysis of the data reveals that the use of be able TO is conditioned by the combination of time reference and polarity in the English English data but not in the Irish English data. Thus, the data suggest that some writers of nineteenth-century Irish English failed to acquire the subtle differences between can and be able to present in English English. I propose that the increased use of be able to in nineteenth-century Irish English is the result of imperfect learning through perceived similarity (cf. Thomason 2001 and De Smet 2012). 10 01 JB code scl.63.10pa2 Section header 10 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 2. Patterns in the noun phrase</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.11roh 131 149 19 Article 11 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Syntactic constraints on the use of dual form intensifiers in Modern English</TitleText> 1 A01 Günter Rohdenburg Rohdenburg, Günter Günter Rohdenburg University of Paderborn 01 Recent work on comparative variation has highlighted two major syntactic environments encouraging the choice of the more explicit more-variant, a) the use of non-attributive rather than attributive adjectives and b) the use of complemented rather than uncomplemented (non-attributive) adjectives (cf., e.g., Mondorf 2009). The present article shows that throughout the Modern English period these environments have also favoured the choice of the more explicit suffixed variant in dual form intensifiers. In addition, the paper briefly assesses some important theories that have been or could be invoked to account for these findings. Specifically, it is shown that the prosodic (sub)type of the intensifier itself does not play a decisive role in selecting the suffixed or suffixless variant. 10 01 JB code scl.63.12bla 151 171 21 Article 12 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Ma daddy wis dead chuffed</TitleText> <Subtitle textformat="02">On the dialectal distribution of the intensifier dead in Contemporary English</Subtitle> 1 A01 Zeltia Blanco-Suárez Blanco-Suárez, Zeltia Zeltia Blanco-Suárez University of Santiago de Compostela 01 The present paper aims to shed light on the dialectal distribution of the intensifier dead in four varieties of Present-Day English: American, British, Irish and Scottish English. For this purpose, data are drawn from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the Brigham Young University-British National Corpus, the Irish component of the International Corpus of English and the Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech. A collocational analysis of the adverbial and adjectival form dead makes it possible to see whether dead takes a literal reading or is rather used as a grammaticalised intensifier. The paper argues that intensifying dead is most productive in the Irish and Scottish varieties, followed by the British and American dialects. 10 01 JB code scl.63.13mai 173 205 33 Article 13 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The case of focus</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">case of focus</TitleWithoutPrefix> 1 A01 Georg Maier Maier, Georg Georg Maier University of Hamburg 01 This article investigates the distribution of pronoun case forms (PCFs) in it-clefts and it BE-sentences in British and American English. Its particular interest is the occurrence of subject PCFs in these two constructions. Functional and pragmatic factors exerting an influence on the distribution are identified, such as first vs. third person, singular vs plural. All these factors are operationalized and quantified in the datasets. The findings confirm the hypothesis that subject PCFs have been re-functionalised as Focus markers in the two varieties examined. As the explanation of this refunctionalization, markedness reversal is put forward. 10 01 JB code scl.63.14pa3 Section header 14 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 3. Patterns in complementation structures</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.15rud 209 221 13 Article 15 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Null objects and sentential complements, with evidence from the Corpus of Historical American English</TitleText> 1 A01 Juhani Rudanko Rudanko, Juhani Juhani Rudanko University of Tampere 2 A01 Paul Rickman Rickman, Paul Paul Rickman University of Tampere 01 The present article discusses the occurrence of covert NP objects in object control structures with the matrix verb warn. The existence of such structures is at odds with Bach’s Generalization, which effectively states that the NP object in an object control structure may not be omitted. Evidence from COHA is introduced and discussed, to shed new light on the apparent exceptions to the Generalization. The frequency of the construction is tracked over the course of the past two centuries, and the nature of the covert NP object is also examined. The question is raised as to whether this NP can be assigned a general interpretation, as has been claimed in the literature, or whether a more specific interpretation is appropriate. 10 01 JB code scl.63.16rud 223 238 16 Article 16 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">A new angle on infinitival and of -ing complements of afraid, with evidence  from the TIME Corpus</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>A </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">new angle on infinitival and of -ing complements of afraid, with evidence  from the TIME Corpus</TitleWithoutPrefix> 1 A01 Juhani Rudanko Rudanko, Juhani Juhani Rudanko University of Tampere 01 This article argues that an approach based on semantic roles offers a new approach to the variation between to infinitival and of -ing complements of the adjective afraid. While the semantic role of the higher subject does not appear to vary, control theory makes it possible to investigate the semantic role of the lower subject. No absolute rules can be given, but regularities that are of statistical significance can be observed. The study draws on the first three decades of the TIME Corpus for authentic data. The results shed light on the semantic interpretation of to infinitival and -ing complements in subject control constructions and open a new perspective on the relevance of semantic roles to argument selection. 10 01 JB code scl.63.17hog 239 262 24 Article 17 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Active and passive infinitive, ambiguity and non-canonical subject with ready</TitleText> 1 A01 Mikko Höglund Höglund, Mikko Mikko Höglund University of Tampere 01 This paper presents a case study of the adjective ready and discusses its properties when it occurs in the tough construction (TC). The paper discusses the active and passive infinitive variation in the TC with evidence from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts and the British National Corpus. The ambiguity created by the active infinitive and the effect of the semantics of the subject on the choice of the infinitive form are also discussed. The results show that the TC has become more frequent in BrE, and unlike with typical tough predicates, with ready the passive infinitive has persisted, most likely because of the risk of ambiguity with the active. The data also show that when the subject is [+HUMAN], the passive infinitive is used exclusively. 10 01 JB code scl.63.18pa4 263 264 2 Section header 18 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Part 4. Patterns of clause combining</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.19pol 265 294 30 Article 19 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The diffusion of English absolutes</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">diffusion of English absolutes</TitleWithoutPrefix> <Subtitle textformat="02">A diachronic register study</Subtitle> 1 A01 Nikki van de Pol Pol, Nikki van de Nikki van de Pol Research Foundation Flanders 2 A01 Hubert Cuyckens Cuyckens, Hubert Hubert Cuyckens University of Leuven 01 The present paper addresses the register diffusion of the English absolute, a non-finite construction functioning as an adverbial (an example from Present-day-English is: One of the cheap cigars to which she was addicted burns ignored between her fingers, the skin of her face dragging down with indifference. (BNC, Van Gogh: a life, 1990)). On the basis of diachronic corpus research including corpora such as the BNC, the Old Bailey corpus and the Penn parsed corpora of English it is argued that the distribution of absolutes in various historical registers of written English, as well as in spoken English, appears to have shifted from a system operating along the ‘formal vs. informal’ cline and, to a lesser extent, the ‘narrative vs. non-narrative’ cline in Early Modern English to registers operating along the ‘literary vs. non-literary’ cline in Present-day English. Special attention is given to the role of with-augmentation which may have been an important facilitator for the absolute construction to fully establish itself in the spoken register, as the addition of an augmentor enhances ease of processing (Berent 1975, Kortmann 1995). 10 01 JB code scl.63.20has 295 319 25 Article 20 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">It-clefts in English L1 and L2 academic writing</TitleText> <Subtitle textformat="02">The case of Norwegian learners</Subtitle> 1 A01 Hilde Hasselgård Hasselgård, Hilde Hilde Hasselgård University of Oslo 01 This paper examines it-clefts in five corpora representing Norwegian learners of English, novice L1 writers of English and specialist L1 academic writing. The comparison also concerns general argumentative writing vs. discipline-specific writing. The frequency of it-clefts varies across the corpora. The learners underuse clefts, but the results of the register comparison are inconclusive. The types of clefted constituent and the choice of subordinator in the cleft clause vary more in L1 than in L2 writing. There are also differences as to the syntactic environments of clefts and their discourse functions. For example, the learners overuse clefts in interrogatives in argumentative writing. In discipline-specific writing, the learners underuse clefts in that-clauses, particularly with the function of reporting previous research. 10 01 JB code scl.63.21kim 321 350 30 Article 21 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">The speech functions of tag questions  and their properties. A comparison of their distribution in COLT and LLC</TitleText> <TitlePrefix>The </TitlePrefix> <TitleWithoutPrefix textformat="02">speech functions of tag questions  and their properties. A comparison of their distribution in COLT and LLC</TitleWithoutPrefix> 1 A01 Ditte Kimps Kimps, Ditte Ditte Kimps KU Leuven 2 A01 Kristin Davidse Davidse, Kristin Kristin Davidse KU Leuven 3 A01 Bert Cornillie Cornillie, Bert Bert Cornillie KU Leuven 01 This article proposes a classification of speech functions of variable tag questions in British English conversations. Based on intonational, conversational and formal criteria the analysis shows that tag questions can not only function as questions and statements, but also as responses, commands and offers. A large group of tag questions cannot be captured by any of the traditional speech functions and are classified instead as Statement-Question blends. The article investigates the impact of the LLC and COLT corpora, and features such as gender, age and social roles, on the distribution of the different speech functions and their properties. The main finding is that all speech functions are present in the two different corpora, albeit with differing relative frequencies. 10 01 JB code scl.63.22aut 351 354 4 Index 22 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Author index</TitleText> 10 01 JB code scl.63.23sub 355 358 4 Index 23 <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textformat="02">Subject index</TitleText> 02 JBENJAMINS John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia NL 04 20141114 2014 John Benjamins B.V. 02 WORLD 08 810 gr 01 JB 1 John Benjamins Publishing Company +31 20 6304747 +31 20 6739773 bookorder@benjamins.nl 01 https://benjamins.com 01 WORLD US CA MX 20 16 14 01 02 JB 1 00 99.00 EUR R 02 02 JB 1 00 104.94 EUR R 01 JB 10 John Benjamins Publishing Company +31 20 6304747 bookorder@benjamins.nl 01 GB 20 14 02 02 JB 1 00 83.00 GBP Z 01 JB 2 Casemate Academic 610-853-9131 610-853-9143 Girard.Kratz@casematepublishers.com 01 https://benjamins.com 02 US CA MX 20 14 01 gen 02 JB 1 00 149.00 USD