The United States is, not are. The Civil War was fought over a verb. (Carl Sandburg cited in Walker-Read, 1974: 12)

The article aims to find out whether verbal concord with collective nouns (e.g. committee) in British English is indeed governed by the commonly accepted principle that a focus on the individuals that belong to the group results in the use of a plural verb, whereas a focus on the group as a unit leads to the use of a singular verb. This is a quantitative study: data extracted from the British English sections of the Collins Cobuild corpus have been subjected to statistical tests. The investigation reveals that, with a few exceptions, the preference for a singular verb of the so-called ‘verb-number-variable’ collectives (i.e. collective nouns that occur with both singular and plural verbs) is significant, which suggests that semantic and pragmatic factors do not play the crucial role they are commonly thought to play in the verb number assignment process. The article also includes taxonomic observations: in the first part, in which collectives are defined, a survey is given of their semantic and morphosyntactic characteristics.

According to Wright (1994a), subjectivity in the English progressive is typically associated with specific linguistic features. In particular, subjective progressives are said normally to occur in main clauses and to involve an adverb(ial) of the type always, a first- or second-person pronominal subject and a private or cognitive verb in the present tense. This study tests Wright's claim against a corpus of Early Modern English prose. The focus is on the kind of subjective progressives that are claimed by Wright to be most subjective of all, namely collocations of the progressive with adverbs such as always. It is shown that the ‘always progressives’ in the corpus are typically found in a subclause, in collocation with an activity verb, and that they commonly occur with different types of subjects and tense/mood combinations. The conclusion is therefore that Wright's predictions concerning typical linguistic contexts for subjective progressives are not borne out.

The present article offers a corpus-based analysis of the diachronic development of the usage profiles of three adverbial non-finite clauses in Modern English: the free adjunct, the verbal gerund and the absolute construction. By treating present-participial adverbial clauses and adverbial gerunds as part of a single adverbial ing-clause network, this article sheds new light on the different semantic and functional-pragmatic factors motivating the formal variation within the ing-clause network. By means of two mixed-model logistic regression analyses, we determine the relative impact of the independent variables of adverbial semantics, position, degree of coreference and length on the language user's choice in (i) whether or not to include augmentation (syndesis) and (ii) whether or not to include an overt subject in the adverbial ing-clause. The resulting picture is one of an emerging adverbial ing-clause network in which the internal variation is determined by principles of processing complexity.

Two much-cited explanations for linguistic innovations in varieties of New Englishes are cross-linguistic influence (see Gut 2011) and simplification (see Schneider 2007: 82). Using these two notions as starting points, the present study seeks to detect effects of structural nativization in noun phrase (NP) modification in two varieties of English whose substrate languages differ strongly from a typological point of view: Singaporean and Kenyan English. The results yielded by the comparison of random samples extracted from the relevant components of the International Corpus of English in the first part of the study show striking correspondences between the preferred NP structures in the varieties at hand and NP structures in the local languages concerned, which, in the light of Mufwene's (2001, 2008) ecological theory of language change, can be interpreted as effects of language contact. The second part of the study shows that the NPs from the three varieties also differ in terms of variables which can be viewed as measures of NP complexity. What is more, the different degrees of complexity found in the samples correspond closely to predictions about the evolutionary status of the varieties at hand made by Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model.

Discourse particles are among the most commented-upon features of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE). Their use has been shown to vary depending on formality, context, gender and ethnicity, although results differ from one study to another. This study uses the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a large-scale corpus of texts composed by Singaporeans and sent using electronic messaging services, to investigate gender and ethnic factors as predictors of particle use. The results suggest a strong gender effect as well as several particle-specific ethnic effects. More generally, our study underlines the special nature of the grammatical class of discourse particles in CSE, which is open to new additions as the sociolinguistic and pragmatic need for them develops.

The present article discusses the development of adverbial -ing clauses, so-called ‘converb clauses’, in English. We argue that Middle English does not have a category of truly subordinate adverbial clauses in -ing, but that such clauses have developed on the basis of semi-coordinate -ing clauses denoting an accompanying circumstance or exemplification/specification. In the course of the Middle English period, such clauses began to be reinterpreted as clauses expressing adverbial relations such as time, condition, cause, purpose, etc. Another likely source of converb clauses is participial relative clauses. We see the development of converb clauses as an instance of grammaticalization, as it involves the development of a grammatical means of expressing a rhetorical function, viz. the ‘Nucleus-Satellite’ relation (Mathiessen & Thompson 1988). This grammaticalization process also involves subjectification, given that the source constructions are propositional, while time and cause clauses have textual and expressive functions/meanings. The grammaticalization process was probably also fed by other participial structures – notably the progressive and the gerund, which were being grammaticalized at the same time – and also nonclausal adverbial structures.

The apparent rapidity of the loss of case-marking distinctions in English has been used as evidence that Middle English was a Creole. However, an examination of the available facts indicates that the reduction of case marking was more gradual and orderly than has often been assumed. The impression of ‘confused’ usage in many texts disappears once a proper distinction between form and category is made. The reduction of case marking seems to have begun with syncretism of forms but retention of categories, with one form spreading into the territory of another. The facts do not support the idea that case marking was drastically reduced as part of the formation of a Creole. However, it is likely that language contact played a significant role in the quick acceptance of internally motivated changes.

The article discusses the distribution and meaning of ‘locally free reflexives’ (‘untriggered reflexives’, ‘viewpoint reflexives’, ‘perspective logophors’) in English. After a thorough assessment of the contextual constraints on the use of such locally free self-forms, three analyses are discussed and compared: (a) the view that such self-forms are bound by a minimal subject of consciousness within their discourse (Zribi-Hertz, 1989); (b) the view that the relevant forms exhibit essentially the same distribution as pronouns and that the choice between the two is motivated by discourse considerations (Reinhart & Reuland, 1993); and (c) the view that locally free self-forms are intensifiers without pronominal heads (Baker, 1995). It is shown that the third analysis is by far the most adequate one, and that both the distribution and the meaning of such expressions can be explained on the basis of this analysis if it is combined with a suitable semantic analysis of intensifiers.

In this article, it is proposed that processes of grammaticalization are determined and constrained not only by the source semantics of the grammaticalizing item, i.e. lexical persistence in the sense of Hopper (1991), but also by the original structure the item occurs in. This previously unrecognized feature of grammaticalization is referred to as structural persistence. The need to distinguish a structural equivalent to lexical persistence is argued on the basis of a particularly exemplary case, viz. the grammaticalization processes found with one lexically specific set of grammaticalizing elements in English, adjectives of difference such as other, different, various, etc. Before their grammaticalization, these adjectives occur in two different structural configurations, viz. (1) external comparison, in which the adjective describes a relation of difference between the referent of the noun phrase and a second, separately coded, entity, and (2) internal comparison, in which the entities that are said to be different are all denoted by the noun phrase containing the adjective. Even though they undergo the same general semantic process of grammaticalization and delexicalization in both structures, the adjectives acquire a different grammatical function in each of them. The different outcomes of the grammaticalization process can only be explained by relating them to the specific properties of the two source structures.

In both standard and nonstandard varieties of English there are several contexts in which the word never functions as a sentential negator rather than as a negative temporal adverb. This article investigates the pragmatic and distributional differences between the various non-temporal uses of never and examines their synchronic and historical relationship to the ordinary temporal quantifier use, drawing on corpora of Early Modern and present-day British English. Primary focus is on (i) a straightforward negator use that in prescriptively approved varieties of English has an aspectual restriction to non-chance, completive achievement predicates in the preterite, but no such restriction in nonstandard English; and (ii) a distinct categorical-denial use that quantifies over possible perspectives on a situation. Against Cheshire (1998), it is argued that neither of these uses represents continuity with non-temporal uses of never in Middle English, but both are instead relatively recent innovations resulting from semantic reanalysis and the semanticization of implicatures.

The prosodic realization of English question tags (QTs) has received some interest in the literature; yet corpus studies on the factors affecting their phrasing and intonational realization are very rare or limited to a certain aspect. This article presents a quantitative corpus study of 370 QTs from the International Corpus of English that were annotated for prosodic phrasing and intonational realization of the QT and the host. Factors tested were polarity, position in the sentence and the turn as well as verb type. Generally, prosodic phrasing and intonational realization were highly correlated: separate QTs were mostly realized with a falling contour, while integrated QTs were mostly rising. Results from regression models showed a strong effect of polarity: QTs with an opposite polarity were more often phrased separately compared to QTs with constant polarity, but the phrasing of opposite polarity QTs was further dependent on whether the QT was negative or positive (more separate phrasing in negative QTs). Furthermore, prosodic separation was more frequent at the end of syntactic phrases and clauses compared to phrase-medial QTs. At the end of a turn, speakers realized more rising contours compared to QTs within a speaker's turn. Verb type also had an effect on the phrasing of the tag. Taken together, our results confirm some of the claims previously held for QTs, while others are modified and new findings are added.

In this article, I demonstrate that goose-fronting is taking place in Carlisle, a city in the north-west of England, and I provide detailed information about this change. The results show that similarly strong linguistic constraints are found in this variety and other varieties. A second point of discussion is the dynamics between goose and other back vowels, i.e. goat and foot, in this community. I argue that we also need to study the most adjacent back vowels in order to understand the complexity of this vowel change and the influence on nearby vowels. The data stem from interviews conducted in Carlisle between 2007 and 2010 and show that while goose is fronting across apparent time, for goat and foot no change in progress is observable. These dynamics seem to be geographically restricted to the north-west of England. While a parallel shift of goose and goat is very common in US and southern English varieties, the fronting of goat is not found in this northern variety. This lack of change is due to the monophthongal realisation of the goat vowel which prevents a parallel shift. Similarly, the fronting of foot seems to be blocked due to the lack of the foot–strut split.

My central concern is the special use of proper names in the English noun phrase first discussed by Rosenbach (2006, 2007, 2010; Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Rosenbach 2005): proper names which are used as modifiers with an identifying function, e.g. theBushadministration (‘Which administration does the noun phrase refer to? The one headed by Bush’). On the basis of a corpus study, I argue that existing analyses of Rosenbach (2007) and Schlücker (2013) fail to account for all cases; they also fail to capture the seemingly contradictory syntactic and functional properties of these proper names in a unified way. My alternative analysis is framed within Halliday's (1994) functional model of the English noun phrase, but radically thinks beyond the typical association of functions with word classes (see also Rijkhoff 2009). My proposal is that the majority of these proper names can be analysed as epithets, a function typically associated with adjectival modifiers such as theredcar. A smaller set, proper name modifiers such as aKerrysupporter, are analysed as complements (Payne & Huddleston 2002). I end by discussing the implications of this dual analysis for another open question, whether proper name modifiers are morphosyntactically phrasal modifiers or part of compounds.

In the literature it has been proposed that temporal adverbial clauses can be derived by wh-movement of an operator (e.g. when) to the left periphery (Geis 1970, 1975; Enç 1987: 655; Larson 1987, 1990; Dubinsky & Williams 1995; Declerck 1997; Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria 2004: 165–70). After reviewing the arguments that have been proposed in favour of such a movement analysis, the article provides additional empirical evidence in support of the analysis. The data concern so-called Main Clause Phenomena (MCP) or Root phenomena, that is, syntactic phenomena such as argument fronting, Locative Inversion, preposing around be, VP preposing and Negative Inversion, which in English are by and large restricted to main clauses. The unavailability of these MCP in temporal adverbial clauses follows directly from the movement account. The movement analysis will be extended to conditional clauses and factive clauses.

Among prescriptivists, the Irish have long had a reputation for not following the rule requiring a distinction between shall with first-person and will with other grammatical subjects. Recent shift towards will with all persons in North American English – now also affecting British English – has been attributed to the influence of Irish immigrants. The present study of data from the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence (CORIECOR) finds that Irish English has not always preferred will. Rather, the present-day situation emerged in Irish English between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries. This important period covers the main language shift from Irish to English, and simplification in the acquisition process may account for the Irish English use of will.

In eighteenth-century Irish English, shall predominated. Comparison with other colonial Englishes of the period – US English (Kytö 1991) and Canadian English (Dollinger 2008) – and with north-west British English (Dollinger 2008) shows broadly similar cross-varietal distributions of first-person shall and will. Irish English shifted rapidly towards will by the 1880s, but was not unusual in this respect; a similar development took place at the same time in Canadian English, which may indicate a more general trend, at least in colonial Englishes. It is thus doubtful that Irish English influence drove the change towards first-person will.

We suggest the change might be associated with increasing literacy and accompanying colloquialisation (Mair 1997; Biber 2003; Leech et al. 2009: 239ff.). As Rissanen (1999: 212) observes, and Dollinger corroborates for north-west British English, will persisted in regional Englishes after the rise of first-person shall in the standard language. Increased use of will might have been an outcome of wider literacy leading to more written texts, like letters, being produced by members of lower social strata, whose more nonstandard/vernacular usage was thus recorded in writing. There are currently few regional letter corpora for testing this hypothesis more widely. However, we suggest that, in nineteenth-century Ireland, increasing literacy may have helped spread first-person will as a change from below. The shift to first-person will that is apparent in CORIECOR would then result from greater lower-class literacy, and this might be a key to understanding this change in other Englishes too.

The position of adjectives, and especially that of postnominal adjectives, in Middle English is compared to the adjective situation for Old English. Recently, Fischer (2000, 2001), followed to some extent by Haumann (2003), has proposed that in Old English there is a difference in meaning between certain types of preposed and postposed adjectives, which is related to a number of parameters such as definiteness vs indefiniteness of the NP, weak vs strong forms of the adjective, and given vs new information. This article will investigate to what extent the same or similar parameters still hold in Middle English, a period in which postposed adjective position began to decline due to, among other things, the loss of the strong vs weak distinction in adjectives, the rise of a new determiner system and the gradual fixation of word order on both a phrasal and a clausal level. Special attention will be paid to the postnominal and + adjective construction, which is here argued, pace Haumann for Old English, to be similar to postnominal adjectives without and.

Numerous factors have been identified as being relevant to the spread of the progressive in Late Modern English. The potential role of the ‘future’ use of the construction (as in I'm flying home next week) has, however, been neglected so far. The present study aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive analysis of the development of the progressive with future time reference since 1750 in British English. The investigation focuses on the question of whether and to what degree the factors at work in the development of the construction coincide with factors relevant to the development of other types of progressives.

The analysis demonstrates that the ‘future’ use of the progressive does indeed play a part in the spread of the progressive. Several hitherto unknown factors special to the development of the ‘future’ use of the progressive are also uncovered, among them an increased (and possibly) new use of the construction to express spontaneous decisions.

Kiparsky (1979) proposes that the relative prominence contours of feet are preserved under morphological embedding, e.g. sènsátional → sĕnsàtionálity; àntícipate → ăntìcipátion. Kiparsky's opponents point out the existence of exceptions to such relative prominence preservation, e.g. ìnférior → ìnfĕriórity~ĭnfèriórity. In this article, it is shown that relative prominence preservation is a gradient phenomenon, which is probabilistically predicted by word frequency. This observation necessitates the rejection of the phonological cycle as the mechanism for handling relative prominence preservation – the phonological cycle predicts that relative prominence preservation should be consistently successful. In particular, it is proposed, following Bermúdez-Otero & McMahon (2006) and Bermúdez-Otero (in preparation), that the phonological cycle which applies internal to stratum one in models of Lexical Phonology should be rejected, and replaced by the mechanism of ‘fake cyclicity’. Through its resemblance to the dual-route model of lexical access, fake cyclicity can capture the probabilistic nature of relative prominence preservation.

There are two main strands to this paper. The first is that in Middle English – and early Middle English especially – there are many writing systems that are so complex as to seem disorderly. But a sympathetic and careful interpretation of these systems shows sophisticated underlying order. The second strand is related to the first: early Middle English writing systems are local and may be represented on maps. When complex systems are assigned geographical positions close to each other – and indeed close to where simpler, more economical systems are localized – a picture emerges that can appear haphazard and unlike the dialect continuum we would expect. We refer to this phenomenon as surface nubbliness. This masks the underlying regional dialect continuum we believe to have been present in the spoken language. But knowledge of how these written systems mapped symbol to sound may enable us to uncover a continuum at the level of sound substance.

This article presents an analysis of the alternation between the bare and the full infinitive with the verb help in English. In particular, the influence of three general principles proposed to underlie this case of variation is investigated and discussed, viz. the complexity principle, the distance principle and avoidance of identity effects. A multifactorial analysis of corpus data from the BNC, which allows for the determination of the different strengths of determinants, reveals that the present alternation is governed to a large degree by horror aequi, the avoidance of identity on the lexical level.