Describing verb-complementational profiles of New Englishes

Mukherjee, Joybrato; Hoffmann, Sebastian

doi:10.1075/eww.27.2.03muk

Cited by 112 publications

(75 citation statements)

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“…Some indicative evidence of variation in the overall probability of the use of the prepositional dative comes from Mukherjee and Hoffman (2006), who show that the overall rates of the prepositional dative with give are higher in Indian English than British English. They don't, however, carefully examine the potential conditioning factors in the data, to determine whether there may have been some difference in the two data-sets which would predict this pattern.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gradient grammar: An effect of animacy on the syntax of give in New Zealand and American English

Bresnan

Hay

2008

Lingua

219

124

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Bresnan et al. (2007) show that a statistical model can predict United States (US) English speakers' syntactic choices with 'give'-type verbs extremely accurately. They argue that these results are consistent with probabilistic models of grammar, which assume that grammar is quantitive, and learned from exposure to other speakers. Such a model would also predict syntactic differences across time and space which are reflected not only in the use of clear dialectal features or clear-cut changes in progress, but also in subtle factors such as the relative importance of conditioning factors, and changes over time in speakers' preferences between equally well-formed variants. This paper investigates these predictions by comparing the grammar of phrases involving 'give' in New Zealand (NZ) and US English. We find that the grammar developed by Bresnan et al. for US English generalizes remarkably well to NZ English. NZ English is, however, subtly different, in that NZ English speakers appear to be more sensitive to the role of animacy. Further, we investigate changes over time in NZ English and find that the overall behavior of 'give' phrases has subtly shifted. We argue that these subtle differences in space and time provide support for the gradient nature of grammar, and are consistent with usage-based, probabilistic syntactic models.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gradient grammar: An effect of animacy on the syntax of give in New Zealand and American English

Bresnan

Hay

2008

Lingua

219

124

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“…In a comparison of first language varieties of English and second and further language varieties of English, Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2009) have shown that verb complementation patterns do vary between these 6 different varieties of English, and that collocation patterns do indeed grammaticalize differently in varieties of English Gries 2009, Schneider andZipp 2013).…”

Section: Manual and Machine-based Research On Light Verb Constructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently the general interest in verb complementation patterns across varieties of English has increased (e.g. Hoffmann 2009, Mukherjee andGries 2009), as has research into methodologies in automatic extraction of verb-argument structures from corpora (e.g. O'Donnell and Ellis 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining light verb constructions in contemporary British and Irish English

Ronan

Schneider

2015

IJCL

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This study implements an automated parser-based approach to the investigation of light verb constructions. The database consisting of ICE-GB and ICE-IRE is used to obtain qualitative and quantitative results on the use of light verb structures. The study explains and evaluates the steps employed to optimize parser output in detecting open lists of light verb constructions. It discusses the qualitative usage differences of these structures in the data between the two varieties and finds that ICE-GB favours fewer high frequency light verbs while ICE-IRE contains more diverse lower frequency light verbs and more passives. Overall, counts of light verb constructions are considerably higher than previously assumed. The projected counts suggest that attestations of light verb constructions will increase considerably if the search is not restricted to certain high-frequency light verbs as is typically done in studies employing manual or semi-automatic approaches to data collection. Overall, counts of light verb constructions are considerably higher than assumed so far.The projected counts suggest that attestations of light verb constructions will increase considerably if the search is not restricted to certain high-frequent light verbs as is typically done in studies employing manual or semi-automatic approaches to data collection.

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“…However, further work on variation in clausal complementation is still needed, especially in Present-Day English "where comparatively little work has been done" (Fanego, 2007: 161), and also in World Englishes, since, as Schneider (2007: 86) argues, "a classic example [of innovations in varieties in phase 4, nativization] is the complementation patterns which verbs and also adjectives typically enter". Thus far, studies on verbal complementation in World Englishes (WEs) are scarce and have centered mainly on nominal complementation with focus on ditransitive verbs and Transfer-Caused-Motion (TCM) constructions (see Olavarria de Ersson and Shaw, 2003;Mukherjee and Hoffman, 2006;Schilk, 2008, 2012;Mukherjee and Gries, 2009;Bernaisch, 2013;Deshors, 2014); as for clausal complementation, only quantitative studies on the competition between gerunds and infinitives are currently available (Deshors, 2015;Deshors and Gries, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact-induced variation in clausal verb complementation: the case of REGRET in World Englishes

Romasanta

2017

RAEI

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It has been argued that in language contact situations both transfer processes from the substrate languages (Thomason, 2008) and cognitive effects derived from the language contact situation itself (Schneider, 2012(Schneider, , 2013 can constitute important catalysts for language variation and change. Regarding the verbal complementation system, Steger and Schneider (2012: 172), for example, notice a preference for finite patterns over non-finite structures in World Englishes (WEs), that is, a preference for more explicit forms (hyperclarity and isomorphism). On the contrary, Schneider's study (2012) does not confirm such a preference for more explicit forms in WEs in the competition between finite and non-finite patterns. This article intends to shed some light on the differences between the distribution of finite and nonfinite complementation patterns in WEs by exploring the complementation profile of the verb REGRET in two metropolitan varieties, British and American English, and comparing them to three geographically distant varieties with different substrate languages, historical contexts, and degrees of language contact: on the one hand, two ESL varieties, Hong Kong English and Nigerian English, and on the other, one ESD variety, Jamaican English, where contact is more pronounced. The main aim of this paper is, therefore, to investigate whether potential differences in the verbal complementation systems between varieties of English are product of cognitive processes derived from the language contact situation, a matter of transfer-induced change, or a combination of both.

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Describing verb-complementational profiles of New Englishes

Cited by 112 publications

References 0 publications

Gradient grammar: An effect of animacy on the syntax of give in New Zealand and American English

Gradient grammar: An effect of animacy on the syntax of give in New Zealand and American English

Determining light verb constructions in contemporary British and Irish English

Contact-induced variation in clausal verb complementation: the case of REGRET in World Englishes

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