Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change

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1 Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change Series Editor: Charles Jones, Emeritus Forbes Professor of English, University of Edinburgh This monograph series presents scholarly work in an increasingly active area of linguistic research. It deals with a worldwide range of language types and presents both descriptive and theoretically-orientated accounts of language change through time. Aimed at the general theoretician as well as the historical specialist, the series seeks to be a meeting ground for a wide range of different styles and methods in historical linguistics. Titles include: Anita Auer THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN THE AGE OF PRESCRIPTIVISM English and German Developments during the Eighteenth Century Donka Minkova PHONOLOGICAL WEAKNESS IN ENGLISH From Old to Present-Day English Panayiotis A. Pappas VARIATION AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC CHANGE IN GREEK From Clitics to Affixes Betty S. Phillips WORD FREQUENCY AND LEXICAL DIFFUSION Juhani Rudanko CHANGES IN COMPLEMENTATION IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH Corpus-Based Studies on Non-Finite Complements in Recent English Daniel Schreier CONSONANT CHANGE IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDE Synchrony Meets Diachrony Junichi Toyota DIACHRONIC CHANGE IN THE ENGLISH PASSIVE Ghil ad Zuckermann LANGUAGE CONTACT AND LEXICAL ENRICHMENT IN ISRAELI HEBREW Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change Series Standing Order ISBN (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

2 Also by Juhani Rudanko COMPLEMENTATION AND CASE GRAMMAR (1989) PRAGMATIC APPROACHES TO SHAKESPEARE (1993) PREPOSITIONS AND COMPLEMENT CLAUSES (1996) DIACHRONIC STUDIES OF ENGLISH COMPLEMENTATION PATTERNS (1999) CORPORA AND COMPLEMENTATION (2000) COMPLEMENTS AND CONSTRUCTIONS (2002) THE FORGING OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH (2003)

3 Changes in Complementation in British and American English Corpus-Based Studies on Non-Finite Complements in Recent English Juhani Rudanko Professor of English, University of Tampere, Finland

4 Martti Juhani Rudanko 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

5 Contents List of Tables Acknowledgments vi ix 1 Introduction 1 2 On a Class of Resultatives in Recent English 10 3 Innovative Resultatives in British and American English 41 4 Emergent Alternation in Complement Selection: The Spread of the Transitive into - ing Construction to Verbs of Unflavored Causation 67 5 Tracking and Explaining the Transitive out of - ing Pattern in Recent and Current English 85 6 Watching English Grammar Change: Variation and Change in the Grammar of Accustomed On Sentential Complements of Object, with Evidence from the Old Bailey Corpus Complements of Commit: Variation in the Grammar of an Innovative Verb Concluding Observations 190 Notes 198 References 203 Index 207 v

6 Tables 2.1 Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive into - ing pattern in the British English part of the CEN Semantic classes of matrix verbs selecting the transitive into -ing pattern in the British English part of the CEN Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive into - ing pattern in the American English part of the CEN Semantic classes of matrix verbs in the American English part of the CEN Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive into - ing pattern in the British Books Corpus Semantic classes of matrix verbs in the British Books Corpus Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive into - ing pattern in the United States Books Corpus Semantic classes of matrix verbs in the United States Books Corpus The transitive into - ing pattern in the LOB, Brown, FLOB, and Frown Corpora The sizes of the corpora examined Frequencies of innovative matrix verbs selecting the transitive into -ing pattern in the SUNNOW Corpus Frequencies of innovative matrix verbs selecting the transitive into -ing pattern in the British Books Corpus Frequencies of innovative matrix verbs selecting the transitive into -ing pattern in the United States News Corpus Frequencies of innovative matrix verbs selecting the transitive into -ing pattern in the United States Books Corpus Frequencies of innovative matrix verbs selecting the transitive into -ing pattern in the British Magazines Corpus Frequencies of innovative tokens in the five corpora Semantic classes of innovative matrix verbs The list of corpora used and their sizes To infinitive complements of the seven verbs 70 vi

7 List of Tables vii 4.3 The seven verbs with the transitive into - ing pattern in the six corpora Chi square values for influence, lead, prompt, and stimulate The matrix verbs with the transitive into - ing pattern in three additional corpora The incidence of into - ing constructions following verbs in the six corpora, with frequencies normed to one million words Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive out of - ing pattern in the TIME Corpus in the 1920s and 1930s Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive out of - ing construction in the TIME Corpus in the 1950s and 1960s Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive out of - ing construction in the TIME Corpus in the 1980s and 1990s Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive out of - ing construction in COCA, spoken part Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive out of - ing construction in COCA Frequencies of matrix verbs selecting the transitive out of -ing construction in the BNC Sentential complements of accustomed involving subject control in the CEN Allerton s view of features pertinent to the infinitive- gerund distinction Sentential complements of accustomed in novels by Henry Seton Merriman Sentential complements of accustomed involving subject control in the American English part of the CEN The incidence of to infinitive and to - ing complements of accustomed in samples of Edith Wharton s works in the CEN Frequencies of to infinitive and to - ing complements of accustomed in the 1930s Frequencies of to infinitive and to -ing complements of accustomed in canonical and extraction contexts in the 1930s 132

8 viii List of Tables 6.8 Frequencies of to infinitive and to -ing complements of accustomed with [+Choice] and [ Choice] lower predicates in the 1930s, excluding extraction contexts Frequencies of to infinitive and to -ing complements of accustomed in the 1940s Frequencies of to infinitive and to -ing complements of accustomed with [+Choice] and [ Choice] lower predicates in the 1940s, excluding extraction contexts Frequencies of to infinitive and to -ing complements of accustomed in the 1950s The form of sentential complements of accustomed in the Times Corpus The form of sentential complements of accustomed, spoken British English The form of sentential complements of accustomed, United States News Corpus The form of sentential complements of accustomed, spoken American English To infinitive and to - ing complements of object involving subject control in the 1820s and 1830s To infinitive and to - ing complements of object involving subject control, To Acc - ing and to Poss - ing complements of object in the 1820s and 1880s To infinitive and to - ing complements of object with [+Choice] and [ Choice] lower subjects in the 1820s and 1830s To infinitive and to - ing complements of object with [+Choice] and [ Choice] lower subjects, 1880s 1910s The reflexive commit oneself in the CEN The search strings used The corpora examined, with their sizes Sentential complements involving subject control in the corpora Sentential complements of commit involving subject control in two British English corpora To infinitive and to - ing complements of commit in three American English corpora Sentential complements of commit in obligational and non- obligational contexts in current American English Horror Aequi effects in the American English corpora 186

9 Acknowledgments It is my pleasure to thank Palgrave Macmillan for including the present book in their series. This book includes some material, slightly adapted, that was originally published in article form. Chapter 4 originally appeared in the Journal of English Linguistics volume 34, number 4, pages , published by SAGE, and Section 4 of Chapter 6 originally appeared in the Journal of English Linguistics volume 38, number 1, pages Further, Section 5 and part of Section 6 of Chapter 6 originally appeared in English Language and Linguistics volume 10, number 1, pages 31 48, published by Cambridge University Press. I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to both journals and publishers for their policy of permitting the inclusion of these materials in a book consisting solely of the author s own work. I also want to express my thanks to Professor Magnus Huber of the University of Giessen for permitting me to include a chapter based on the Old Bailey Corpus in the present book. Finally, I am happy to acknowledge that material from the Bank of English/Collins WordbanksOnline Corpus has been reproduced with the kind permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. This book has been under way for some years, and I have been able to benefit from conversations on complementation with colleagues and friends at various conferences in recent years. I want to especially mention Günter Rohdenburg, Thomas Egan, Hubert Cuyckens, and Uwe Vosberg in this respect. At the University of Tampere I have been fortunate in being able to turn to Ian Gurney for his sagacious counsel in matters of English grammar and usage. In addition, Veera Peteri, my part-time assistant at the University of Tampere, saved me from many an inaccuracy while writing this book. To them all I want to express my thanks. At the same time, I want to note that none of the people mentioned above is in any way responsible for the shortcomings that remain in this book. Those are entirely my responsibility. Tampere, September 2010 ix