English Language and Linguistics

Includes bibliographical references.

Never saw one - first-person null subjects in spoken English -- Sociophonetic variation of like in British dialects: effects of function, context and predictability -- Well-formed lists: specificational copular sentences as predicative inversion constructions -- Grammaticalisation and information structure: two perspectives on diachronic changes of notwithstanding in written American English -- Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan: sociolinguistic concepts in the study of Alfredian English -- Ditransitives in Middle English: on semantic specialisation and the rise of the dative alternation -- Nuria Yáñez-Bouza , Grammar, rhetoric and usage in English: Preposition placement 1500-1900. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xvii + 373. ISBN 9781107000797.

[Article Title : Never saw one - first-person null subjects in spoken English / Susanne Wagner, p. 1-34] Abstract : While null subjects are a well-researched phenomenon in pro-drop languages like Italian or Spanish, they have not received much attention in non-pro-drop languages such as English, where they are traditionally associated with particular (written) genres such as diaries or are discussed under a broader umbrella term such as situational ellipsis. However, examples such as the one in the title - while certainly not frequent - are commonly encountered in colloquial speech, with first-person singular tokens outnumbering any other person. This article investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic factors influencing the (non-) realisation of first-person singular subjects in a corpus of colloquial English. The variables found to contribute to the observed variation are drawn from a variety of linguistic domains and follow up on research conducted in such different fields as first language acquisition (FLA), cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and language variation and change. Of particular interest is the finding regarding the link between null subjects and complexity of the verb phrase, which patterns in a clearly linear fashion: the more complex the verb phrase, the more likely is a null realisation. Not discussed in this form before, this finding, given its high significance and its robustness in light of alternative coding, may prove to be an important candidate for inclusion in future studies on (English) null subjects.;[Article Title : Sociophonetic variation of like in British dialects: effects of function, context and predictability / Erik Schleef and Danielle Turton, p. 35-75] Abstract : This study examines sociophonetic variation in different functions of like among adolescents in London and Edinburgh. It attempts to determine the factors that may explain this variation. Our results suggest that the function of like correlates primarily with contextual factors, rather than the phonetic factors of vowel quality, /l/ to vowel duration and /k/ realisation. In particular, the preceding and following segments and their bigram predictability emerge as highly significant, in addition to the boundary strength following like. In both London and Edinburgh, the vowel appears to be the only non-contextual feature that is sensitive to the function of like: quotative be like is more likely to be monophthongised than other functions of like. We argue that the more monophthongal nature of quotative like is due to the syntactic and prosodic context in which it occurs.;[Article Title : Well-formed lists: specificational copular sentences as predicative inversion constructions / Amanda L. Patten, p. 77-99] Abstract : This article re-examines the case for analysing specificational NP BE NP sentences as predicative inversions. Taking a constructional and functional perspective, I show that only predicational sentences exhibiting a relation of class inclusion permit a specificational interpretation, and argue, following Higgins (1979), that the form of specificational inversion sentences is dependent upon the construction-specific concept of specificational meaning. In this way, the account provides an explanation for the restrictions on NP predicative inversion that have posed a problem for inverse analyses developed from within the formalist tradition. Since the distributional facts can be better captured than with the alternative equative approach (which treats specificational sentences as instances of semantic equation), the article concludes that specificational copular sentences are best analysed as instances of predicative inversion.;[Article Title : Grammaticalisation and information structure: two perspectives on diachronic changes of notwithstanding in written American English / Ole Schützler, p. 101-122] Abstract : This article traces processes of change affecting the concessive adposition notwithstanding in written American English from the early nineteenth century to the present. Data from the Corpus of Historical American English show that, first, there is a dramatic decline in the frequency of notwithstanding. Second, while notwithstanding as a conjunction or conjunct becomes nearly obsolete, its use as an adposition increases in relative frequency. These two developments are interpreted as specialisation in ongoing grammaticalisation, whereby the range of formal alternatives is reduced within the domain of concessive adpositions more generally and among uses of notwithstanding in particular. Third, the postposition becomes the most frequent syntactic variant in the twentieth century.;[Article Title : Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan: sociolinguistic concepts in the study of Alfredian English / Olga Timofeeva, p. 123-148] Abstract : This study reconstructs the Alfredian network as consisting of twelve actors. This network is termed a coalition, within which a cluster of Mercian actors is further hypothesised. Historical sources and charter evidence suggest that Mercian scribes worked for West Saxon kings and may even have taken part in the establishment of a proto-chancery at the royal court. This writing office can be conjectured to have ties with the Alfredian coalition and described as a community of practice. The whole sociolinguistic reconstruction is supported by three case studies: Angelcynn 'the English people' and here 'band, troop' in historical-political genres, and gretan freondlice in epistolary genres. The diffusion of these Alfredian norms across time, place and genres is linked to the royal chancery and its distribution channels, as well as to the diachronic sustainability of linguistic practices within professional discourse communities and their archives.;[Article Title : Ditransitives in Middle English: on semantic specialisation and the rise of the dative alternation / Eva Zehentner, p. 149-175] Abstract : This article discusses the plausibility of a correlation or even a causal relation between two phenomena that can be observed in the history of English ditransitives. The changes concerned are: first, the emergence of the 'dative alternation', i.e. the establishment of a link between the double object construction (DOC) and its prepositional paraphrase, and second, a reduction in the range of verb classes associated with the DOC, with the construction's semantics becoming specialised to basic transfer senses. Empirically, the article is based on a quantitative analysis of the occurrences of the DOC as well as its prepositional competitors in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edition (PPCME2). On the basis of these results, it will be argued that the semantic narrowing and the increasing ability of ditransitive verbs to be paraphrased by a to-prepositional construction (to-POC) interacted in a bi-directional causal manner.;[Article Title : Nuria Yáñez-Bouza , Grammar, rhetoric and usage in English: Preposition placement 1500-1900. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xvii + 373. ISBN 9781107000797 / Carol Percy, p. 177-195] Abstract : This thorough and satisfying study advances our understanding of Late Modern English and of normative linguistics, both relatively recent fields. The relationships between grammatical precept and practice in eighteenth-century English have engaged the pioneering Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade for several decades; one culmination of her studies was her monograph on the grammarian Robert Lowth (Reference Tieken-Boon van Ostade2011). Scholars including her and Susan Fitzmaurice (formerly Wright) used customized corpora and methods including social network theory to understand how linguistic norms spread in this century of correctness. As digitized historical texts and structured linguistic corpora representing Late Modern English have proliferated more recently, they and other scholars have aimed to trace the standardization process of specific variants in even larger-scale projects. Lieselotte Anderwald's Language between Description and Prescription: Verbs and Verb Categories in Nineteenth-Century Grammars of English (Reference Anderwald2016) is a recent study of the nineteenth century.

The present monograph is among a number that began at the University of Manchester as doctoral dissertations: others include Victorina González-Díaz's on English adjective comparison (Reference González-Díaz2008) and Anita Auer's cross-cultural study of the subjunctive (Reference Auer2009). All these and other scholars investigating 'precept effect on usage' are acknowledged in the introductory chapter of Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English: Preposition Placement 1500-1900, and their findings are outlined in the first of its many helpful appendices. The same appendix includes individual author studies as well as large-scale ones: indeed, the seventeenth-century author and critic John Dryden (1631-1700) is central to this work.