Watching English grammar change: a case study on complement selection in British and American English

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUHANI RUDANKO
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American English ◽  
Major Change ◽  
British English ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Complement Selection

This article traces the complement selection properties of the adjective accustomed from the eighteenth century to the present. The adjective has frequently selected sentential complements, but the study illustrates a major change affecting the form of such complements. In the eighteenth century they were regularly of the to infinitive type, but today they are almost as regularly of the to -ing type. Both syntactic and semantic factors are identified in the article as having an impact on the change. The study also compares the pace of the change in British and American English, arguing that incipient change was discernible in both varieties as early as the nineteenth century. It is argued further that, at the present time, the change has been completed more fully in American English than in British English. This conclusion is reached by considering sentences with extraction or filler–gap dependencies. The data in the article come from large electronic corpora.

On the Origin of the Grammarians' Rules for the Use of Shall and Will

PMLA ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 1178-1182
Author(s):  
J. R. Hulbert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American English ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Important Study ◽  
English Usage ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The most important study of the future with shall and will in Modern English is the article by Professor Fries published twenty years ago. In Part One, “The origin and development of the conventional rules,” Professor Fries presents a remarkably concise and thorough survey of the treatment of shall and will by English grammarians from 1530 to the early nineteenth century. In Part Two he summarizes the results of an analysis of the use of shall and will in English plays from 1557 to 1915, compares American with English usage, considers the theory of ‘glimmering through’ of ‘primitive meanings,‘ and states his conclusions. Professor Fries reverts to the subject in his recent book, American English Grammar. Here he says:The conventional rules for shall and will did not arise from any attempt to describe the practice of the language as it actually was either before the eighteenth century or at the time the grammar was written in which these rules first appeared. The authors of these grammars (Lowth and Ward) definitely repudiated usage…. That the general usage of shall and will did not at any time during the history of Modern English agree with the conventional rules is a conclusion that can be reasonably drawn from the facts revealed in the following charts.

Daily jottings: Preposition placement in English diaries and travel journals from 1500 to 1900

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria Yáñez-Bouza
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Similar Frequency ◽  
Register Variation ◽  
Preposition Stranding ◽  
Late Modern

Abstract This paper explores register variation in diaries and travel journals during the early and late Modern English periods (1500–1900), based on the case study of preposition placement, specifically preposition stranding (which I refer to) and preposition pied piping (to which I refer). Findings show that diaries and travel journals in general have a similar frequency of stranded and pied-piped prepositions, but that sharp differences emerge in their diachronic evolution. The trends suggest that the two registers generally follow the same historical drift towards oral styles previously observed in non-specialised registers, albeit at different rates and with only a moderately oral-like pattern in the nineteenth century. Also of note is that the frequency of stranded prepositions in diaries is lower than expected. I will argue that, although norms on ‘proper’ style and eighteenth-century prescriptive norms of ‘correct’ English play an important role, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, one should also take into account register-specific characteristics such as the topic and purpose of the text, the setting in which it is produced (private/public), the participants involved and the production circumstances of the text. Likewise, idiolectal differences should not be underestimated, since they can on occasions skew results.

The Initial British Impact on India: A Case Study of the Benares Region

1960 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Impact

The British administrative frontier in India had widely differing effects on the political and social structures of the regions into which it moved from the middle of the eighteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century. It is impossible to generalize on the impact of the administration, because the regions into which it moved differed in their political and social structures, and because British administration and ideas about administration, both in India and in Great Britain, changed markedly throughout this hundred year period.

scholarly journals Translating Foreign Languages and Non-Native Varieties of English in Animated Films

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenza Minutella
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Personal Communication ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
British English ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Language Variety ◽  
Animated Films ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Accented English

The aim of this paper is to explore how foreign languages (i.e., languages other than English) and non-native varieties of English are used in Anglo-American animated films and to investigate the strategies adopted in Italian dubbing to deal with such multilingual features. The paper combines insights into professional practice with a close examination of a specific case study. The film Despicable Me 2 (dir. Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, Illumination Entertainment, 2013) has been chosen for analysis since it displays more than one language and several language varieties (British English, American English and foreign-accented English). The film also exploits visual and verbal stereotypes which enhance the comedic elements of the film. This multiplicity of voices and identities through language variety represents a challenge for audiovisual translators. By analysing the representation of characters and drawing on personal communication with Italian dubbing practitioners, the article aims to unveil how linguistic variation, multilingualism and diversity are dealt with in dubbing. The article will show that, although general trends may be identified as far as foreign languages and non-native varieties are concerned, the solutions offered by dubbing professionals often depend on a variety of factors and agents.

Eighteenth Century English in Nova Scotia

1956 ◽  
Vol 2 (R1) ◽  
pp. 3-3
Author(s):  
M. H. Scargill
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
New England ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

The Original Minutes of His Majesty’s Council at Annapolis Royal, 1720–1739 show some interesting examples of English. As is to be expected, the English used corresponds closely with late seventeenth and early eighteenth century British English and with American English of New England records or the same periods. The British English documents ‘with which these Minutes have most in common are the Wentworth Papers, 1705-1739 and the Verney Letters, 1696-1717.

The Complex History of Have Gotten in American English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Lieselotte Anderwald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
Text Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data

This article challenges the accepted opinion that the American English perfect form HAVE gotten is a straightforward historical retention of an earlier British English form. Although HAVE gotten was presumably part of the settler input in North America, it (almost) died out in American English as well, but was then revived in the nineteenth century, as historical corpus data show. Contrary to expectations, this revival was not an innovation from below. Instead, the rise of HAVE gotten was promoted by careful writers who deliberately avoided the highly stigmatized stative HAVE got. This explains why perfect HAVE gotten appears in more formal text types first, and how it became specialized to dynamic contexts only. The morphological Americanism HAVE gotten is thus a curious case of an (unintended) side-effect of marginally successful prescriptivism.1

Semiosis of intercultural cooking: The nineteenth century travel literature as a case study

Semiotica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (211) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Mohamed Bernoussi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Culture Shock ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Topography

AbstractMy interest in culinary dates back to approximately fifteen years ago when I collaborated with [Béatrice Fink 1999. The cultural topography of food. Special issue, Eighteenth century life 23(2)] on a special issue of Eighteenth Century Life on food topography. I proposed then a study on the reactions of an English physician to Moroccan food, mainly couscous and tea. I continued working on other studies, and I realized how much a semiotics of food could serve the history of mentalities and private lives. While doing my research, I discovered the works of Jean Louis Flandrin 1986. La distinction par le goût. In Roger Chartier (ed.), Histoire de la vie privée de la Renaissance aux Lumières, vol. 3, 267–309. Paris: Seuil and Flandrin 1992. Chronique de Platine: Pour une gastronomie historique. Paris: Odile Jacob), who had contributed to the same volume directed by Fink and also represented a great inspiration for me. I felt that I was concerned with the study of the relation with the Other, with culture shock or encounter through travelers’ reactions to the food or the culinary, the prepared dish, and the consumed product in ceremonies or in private occasions. While thinking about these points, I asked myself the following questions: in which way does the reaction to food reveal the attitude of the traveler, his prejudices on the culture, the society, the food or the dish in question? In which way would reaction to food reveal his culture? This article explores these and other related issues.

Have went– an American usage problem

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-312
Author(s):  
INGRID TIEKEN-BOON VAN OSTADE ◽  
VIKTORIJA KOSTADINOVA
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Standard Form ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Status ◽  
British English ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Text Corpora ◽  
Close Analysis

Have wentmay seem a straightforward non-standard grammatical form today, but it evidently has a different status in British and American English. While in British English it developed into a non-standard form after the codification of the strong verb system by the eighteenth-century normative grammarians, in American English it became a usage problem. This we concluded from its appearance primarily in usage guides published in the United States over the years. The current status of the variant in the region was confirmed by evidence we encountered both in anonymous surveys and in face-to-face interviews with native speakers of American English. Our findings for the differences in status ofhave wentin the course of its history were supported by corpus-based analyses of historical and modern text corpora for British and American English, while a close analysis of selected modern instances ofhave wentandhave goneshowed a different distribution between the two that appears to warrant a perceived difference in meaning noted by some of the American informants.

scholarly journals Forms and Meanings of Stative Verbs in Progressive Tense: a Corpus Linguistics Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-190
Author(s):  
Upi Laila Hanum
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Mixed Categories ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

 AbstractSemantics is the field of linguistic concerned with the study of meaning in language. The aims of the research are to analyze the forms and meanings of the stative verbs in progressive tense in corpora. The data of this research were obtained from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC). The data of the corpora used descriptive qualitative. The result of the research shows that the stative verbs are found and used in progressive tense. The stative verbs appeared in all types of progressive tense except future perfect progressive. The use of the stative verbs in progressive tense took place due to overgeneralization in the use of the native speakers’ form of American and British English. The stative verbs in progressive tense used to express temporariness, emotiveness, comprehension and mixed categories of meaning; temporariness and emotiveness, temporariness and tentativeness. Temporariness meaning almost appeared in all types of progressive. Stative verbs in progressive tense indirectly stated temporariness in stative sense of meaning, is contrary to the rules of English grammar.

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