A Corpus-Based Diachronic Study of a Change in the Use of Non-Finite Clauses in Written English

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F46747885%3A24510%2F18%3A00005449" target="_blank" >RIV/46747885:24510/18:00005449 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/pjes/6/1/article-p151.xml" target="_blank" >https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/pjes/6/1/article-p151.xml</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/pjes-2017-0009" target="_blank" >10.1515/pjes-2017-0009</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

A Corpus-Based Diachronic Study of a Change in the Use of Non-Finite Clauses in Written English

Original language description

Occasional notes in secondary literature suggest that there is a growing tendency to use non-finite clauses in written English. It is partly attributed to the fact that during the process of historical development the English finite verb has lost much of its dynamism and the nominal elements of predication, namely infinitives, participles and gerunds have gradually become semantically more important. This paper deals with the occurrences of non-finite clauses in the tagged Brown/Frown and LOB/F-LOB corpora, which are matching corpora of American English and British English respectively. The article looks at 1) the use of noun phrases followed by -ing participles, -ed participles and to-infinitives, 2) the use of -ing/-ed clauses with/without overt subordinators and 3) the occurrences of to-infinitive clauses. When the structural patterns 1), 2) and 3) were taken as wholes there was always an increase in the frequency of occurrence of non-finite clauses demonstrated by hundreds of examples in the Frown and F-LOB corpora. This may be considered significant since there is only a 30-year difference between the Brown/Frown and LOB/F-LOB corpora. The findings thus completely support the premise that when the perspective of the research is diachronic, in written English non-finite clauses are becoming increasingly prominent.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60203 - Linguistics

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Prague Journal of English Studies

ISSN

1804-8722

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

6

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

DE - GERMANY

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

151-166

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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