Composite Predicates in English: Processes of Specialization - Couverture rigide

Berlage, Eva

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1107155649 ISBN 13 : 9781107155640

Editeur : Cambridge University Press, 2025

Synopsis

Composite Predicates (CPs) are of particular interest to linguists in that only some of them are semantically restricted in present-day English, while others are not. This book explores the semantic-syntactic evolution of twenty-four different CPs in English from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, showing why some specialize over time while others do not. It highlights that the semantic scope and evolution of the morphologically and semantically related simple verb acts as a powerful predictor of whether or not a CP becomes semantically restricted in the course of time. In all those cases where CPs undergo specialization, semantic changes take place earlier than syntactic ones. Finally, large-scale corpus-analyses reveal that the CPs, which, in comparison to their morphologically simple verbs, can be considered analytic constructions, decrease from the nineteenth to twentieth century or show consistently low frequencies. This finding runs counter to the trend of English to become increasingly analytic.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Eva Berlage is Junior Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her notable publications include Noun Phrase Complexity in English (2014).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Cambridge University Press
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1107155649
• ISBN 13: 9781107155640
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 235
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Cambridge University Press; https://www.cambridge.org/; ; Via Honduras,15; Pomezia; Italia; 71; Italie