scholarly journals Five Types Involving the Subjunctive: A Corpora-based Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. p48
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Genre Fiction ◽  
Strong Statement ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Academic Genre ◽  
British People ◽  
National Corpus

The main goal of this paper is to provide a detailed frequency analysis of the five types it is imperative that, it is vital that, it is essential that, it is important that, and it is necessary that within the British National Corpus (100 million, British, 1980s-1993), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (1.0 billion, US, 1990-2019), the Corpus of Historical American English (400 million, US, 1810s-2000s), and the Hansard Corpus (1.6 billion, British Parliament). In this paper, we have examined the frequency of the five types and collected the data. A major point to note is that it is important that was the most preferred by British people, followed by it is essential that, it is vital that, it is imperative that, and it is necessary that, in that order. The BNC clearly shows, on the other hand, that it is important that was the most commonly used one in the spoken genre, magazine genre, newspaper genre, and academic genre. A further point to note is that it is important that was the most preferred by Americans, followed by it is imperative that, it is essential that, it is vital that, and it is necessary that, in that order. The COCA clearly indicates that it is important that was the most widely used one in the blog genre, web genre, spoken genre, fiction genre, magazine genre, newspaper genre, and academic genre. The reason why it is important that was the most preferred by Americans and British people in the academic genre may be that a moderate obligation is suitable for conveying factual information. With respect to the COHA, it is worth noting that it is necessary that was the most preferred by Americans from 1810 to 2000, followed by it is important that, it is essential that, it is imperative that, and it is vital that. As for the HC, it is important that was the most preferred by British politicians, followed by it is essential that, it is vital that, it is necessary that, and it is imperative that. It is worth noting that Americans and British politicians show the similar pattern in the ranking of the five types in that Americans did not prefer a strong statement or the strongest statement, whereas British politicians did not prefer the strongest statement.

scholarly journals A Corpora-based Analysis of You must and You have to

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. p39
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
British People ◽  
National Corpus

The ultimate goal of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis of the frequency of you must and you have to in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the British National Corpus (BNC), and the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). The COCA clearly shows that you have to may be the preferable one for Americans. When it comes to the genre frequency of you must and you have to, you must is the most frequently used one in the TV/movie genre and you have to is the most commonly used one in the blog genre. The BNC indicates, on the other hand, that you have to may be preferred over you must by British people. The BNC clearly shows that in the fiction genre, you must is the most widely used one, whereas in the spoken genre, you have to is the most frequently used one. This paper argues that the expression you must know is the most preferred by Americans, followed by you must go, you must understand, you must think, and you must take, in that order. This paper further argues that the expression you have to go is the most preferred one in America, followed by you have to get, you have to say, you have to make, and you have to take, in that order. Additionally, the BNC shows that the expression you must know is the most preferred by British people, followed by you must provide, you must go, you must get, and you must take, in that order. The BNC indicates, on the other hand, that the expression you have to go is the most preferred by British people, followed by you have to pay, you have to get, you have to take, and you have to make, in that order. Finally, the COHA clearly shows that you have to may have been the most preferable one for Americans in 1930, whereas you have to may have been the most preferable one for Americans in 2000.

scholarly journals A Corpora-based Analysis of I was used to, I got used to, and I became used to

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. p21
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
British People ◽  
National Corpus

The goal of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis of the frequency of I was used to, I got used to, and I became used to in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. The COCA clearly shows that I was used to may be the most preferable one for Americans, followed by I got used to, and I became used to, in that order. When it comes to the genre frequency of the COCA, it is interesting to note that in the fiction genre, I was used to may be the most commonly used one. The BNC clearly indicates, on the other hand, that I was used to may be the most preferred by British people, followed by I got used to, and I became used to. With respect to the genre frequency of the BNC, it is interesting to note that in the fiction genre, I was used to may be the most widely used. When it comes to the frequency of was used to and nouns, the expression was used to measure is the most preferable one for Americans, followed by was used to people, was used to rate, was used to power, was used to fuel, was used to group, and was used to film. With respect to the frequency of was used to and gerunds, the expression was used to being is the most preferable one for Americans, followed by was used to seeing, was used to having, was used to getting, was used to doing, was used to doing, was used to working, was used to hearing, and was used to going, in that order. Additionally, the COCA shows that got used to life and got used to things are the most preferred ones in America, followed by got used to people, and got used to weapons (got used to walking, got used to violence, got used to name calling), in that order. The COCA also indicates that got used to being is the most preferable one for Americans, followed by got used to seeing, got used to having, got used to hearing, got used to wearing, got used to living, and got used to using (got used to doing). The COCA further shows that became used to seeing is the most preferred by Americans and followed by became used to writing (became used to tying, became used to talking).

A Corpora-Based Analysis of Rely on and Depend on

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Information State ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

The ultimate goal of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of rely on and depend on in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. The COCA clearly shows that the expression rely on government is the most preferred by Americans, followed by rely on people, and rely on data. The COCA further indicates that the expression depend on slate is the most preferred by Americans, followed by depend on government, and depend on people. The BNC shows, on the other hand, that the expression rely on others is the most preferred by the British, followed by rely on people, and rely on friends. The BNC further indicates that depend on factors and depend on others are the most preferred by the British, followed by depend on age, and depend on food. Finally, in the COCA, the nouns government, luck, welfare, people, information, state, fossil, water, family, oil, food, and things are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both of them. On the other hand, in the BNC, only the nouns state, chance, government, and others are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both rely on and depend on. It can thus be inferred from this that rely on is slightly different from depend on in its use.

scholarly journals The degree of grammaticalization of gotta, gonna, wanna and better: A corpus study

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Machová
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Web Forums ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Clausal Negation ◽  
High Degree ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract The paper studies the degree of grammaticalization of the structures gotta, gonna, wanna and better. The study presumes that the semantics of these structures – more precisely their modal polyfunctionality (i.e. the ability to express deontic and epistemic meaning at the same time) – has an impact on their morphosyntactic properties. Using corpora (predominantly the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English) and web forums, the paper studies in detail the level of independence of gotta, gonna, wanna and better from their respective auxiliaries (have and be) and the development of the operator properties of these structures typical for central modals (i.e. inversion in questions, compatibility with clausal negation and occurrence in elliptical contexts). It demonstrates that gonna and gotta are partially grammaticalized, especially with respect to the independence of their auxiliaries, but they do not syntactically behave as modals. The verb wanna behaves as a modal morphologically but not syntactically. On the other hand, better is grammaticalized to a high degree, and it does demonstrate both the morphology and syntax of central modal verbs.

scholarly journals ‘Far Away Days’ or ‘Far Distant Days’? Assessing Translation Acceptability in Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC)

Humaniora ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Clara Herlina Karjo
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Morphological Form ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
The Difference ◽  
National Corpus

Translating Indonesian reduplications into English is not an easy matter due to the difference in morphological form, syntactic function and semantic meaning of reduplications in both languages. For example, the phrase ‘jauh-jauh hari’ cannot be translated into ‘far-far day’. This translation is not acceptable since it follows exactly the form of the original text, or only focusing on the morphological form, while the other two factors are disregarded. Thus, in assessing the acceptability of the translation, those three factors should be considered. However, the acceptability of the translation can also be checked by comparing the translations with the corpus. This article analyzes the translations of 3 Indonesian reduplications by 50 university students and compares their translations with similar expressions found in COCA and BNC to find out the degree of acceptability of the translations. The results show which translations are acceptable and which are not based on the frequency of usage. 

scholarly journals Semantic Modulation of the English Verbs of Leaving in Terms of the Space of Sets (On the Example of the Verbs Leave, Depart)

2020 ◽  
pp. 323-330
Author(s):  
A.S. Dautova
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Semantic Group ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Research Hypothesis ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Linguistic Reality

The article presents the experience of studying the semantic structure of the English verbs with the meaning of leaving. The author focuses on the problem of modulating the meaning of the English verbs “leave”, “depart” and their transition into another lexical and semantic group. The urgency of the study lies in addressing the category of space as one of the basic linguistic forms of conceptualization and interpretation of extra-linguistic reality, which man operates in the process of cognition, interpretation of the surrounding world. The problem of research is solved by describing the modulation of meaning in terms of the concept of space of sets, as one of the factors contributing to the change of meaning. The verification of the research hypothesis is based on the analysis of lexicographical data sources of the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Modern American English.

Meek as milk and large as logic: A corpus study of the non-standard poetic simile

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roi Tartakovsky ◽  
Yeshayahu Shen
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Poetic Discourse ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Operational Criteria ◽  
Unexpected Difficulty ◽  
National Corpus

A novel distinction is proposed between two types of closed similes: the standard and the non-standard. While the standard simile presents a ground that is a salient feature of the source term (e.g. meek as a lamb), the non-standard simile somewhat enigmatically supplies a non-salient ground (e.g. meek as milk). The latter thus violates a deep-seated norm of similes and presents interpreters with unexpected difficulty, whereby the concept set up to be an exemplar of a quality is actually less than ideal to fulfil this role. The main question addressed here is how these two simile types are relatively distributed across poetic and non-poetic corpora. We elaborate the criteria for what constitutes the non-standard simile, including separating it out from adjacent phenomena like the ironic simile (e.g. brave as a mouse), and go on to explain our operational criteria for salience. Then, we report culling 329 closed similes from an anthology of poetry and 350 closed similes from two corpora of non-poetic discourse, the Corpus of Historical American English and the British National Corpus. An independent judge rated the salience of each ground-and-source pair of each of the similes, presented in randomized order. Results show that while the standard simile is found in both types of discourse, the non-standard kind is only marginally present in the non-poetic corpora but makes up over 40% of the similes in the poetic corpus. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for theories of poetic language and literariness.

scholarly journals Adjective complementation patterns and judgement: Aligning lexical-grammatical and discourse-semantic approaches in appraisal research

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang Su ◽  
Susan Hunston
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
The Other ◽  
Appraisal System ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
The One ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract This study takes a lexical-grammatical approach to exploring the evaluation of human behaviour and/or character. It uses adjective complementation patterns as the starting point to examine the lexical-grammatical resources at risk in the appraisal system of judgement, aiming to explore the extent to which we can arrive at the same categorization of the resources realizing judgement if a formal or lexical-grammatical approach, rather than a discourse-semantic one, is taken. Using a corpus compiled of texts categorized as ‘Biography’ in the British National Corpus, the study, on the one hand, shows that most of the items identified can be very satisfactorily classified in terms posited in the judgement system, suggesting that the nomenclature from that model is useful. On the other hand, a considerable number of items have also been identified which construe attitudes towards emotional types of personality traits, leading to the proposal of a potentially useful new judgement category and further an adjusted system of judgement. The heuristic potential of aligning the lexical-grammatical and discourse-semantic approaches to appraisal is further discussed.

scholarly journals Constructional schemas in variation

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli O. Silvennoinen
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract This paper discusses constructional variation in the domain of contrastive negation in English, using data from the British National Corpus. Contrastive negation refers to constructs with two parts, one negative and the other affirmative, such that the affirmative offers an alternative to the negative in the frame in question (e.g. shaken, not stirred; not once but twice; I don’t like it – I love it). The paper utilises multiple correspondence analysis to explore the degree of synonymy among the various constructional schemas of contrastive negation, finding that different schemas are associated with different semantic, pragmatic and extralinguistic contexts but also that certain schemas do not differ from each other in a significant way.

scholarly journals Lose one's life and lose one's job with singular they: two constructions, two regional varieties, many practical aspects of working with mega-corpora

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-162
Author(s):  
Karolina Rudnicka
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
American Variety ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
British Variety ◽  
National Corpus

The paper compares the usage of singular they with two morphologically similar constructions in British and American English. The constructions in question are lose one’s life and lose one’s job. The results obtained suggest that singular they, at least used with the two constructions in focus of this work, seems to be more widely used in the American variety of English than in the British variety. An additional aim of this work is to present and discuss some practical aspects of working with mega-corpora. The work shows how and where quantitative language studies need to be accompanied by manual and qualitative investigations. The corpora used in this work are the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).

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