“Surely you knew!”

2001 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Downing
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Broad View ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Epistemic Stances ◽  
National Corpus

A broad view of evidentiality is adopted, based on Chafe (1986) and Haviland (1987) which goes beyond the grammatical marking of the speaker’s or writer’s perceived sources of knowledge and reliability of these sources to encode, not only what the speaker knows and how s/he knows it, but also what can be taken to be an addressee’s state of knowledge. According to this view, evidentials are contemplated as interactive devices or resources for redefining common ground between interlocutors. They go beyond referential content to signal such meanings as confrontation and contradictory assumptions. They are necessarily situated in social contexts and have an indexical function. They may also overlap with epistemic stances and with affect, ranging in the case of surely from surprise, disbelief, doubt and disapproval to persuasion and an invitation to share beliefs or to agree on future courses of action. Using data from the British National Corpus, I analyse a sample of concordances of surely with subject personal pronouns, with the aim of providing a preliminary characterisation of the range of interpersonal attitudes expressed by surely and the determining factors which trigger these apparently contradictory stances.

scholarly journals Constructional schemas in variation

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli O. Silvennoinen
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract This paper discusses constructional variation in the domain of contrastive negation in English, using data from the British National Corpus. Contrastive negation refers to constructs with two parts, one negative and the other affirmative, such that the affirmative offers an alternative to the negative in the frame in question (e.g. shaken, not stirred; not once but twice; I don’t like it – I love it). The paper utilises multiple correspondence analysis to explore the degree of synonymy among the various constructional schemas of contrastive negation, finding that different schemas are associated with different semantic, pragmatic and extralinguistic contexts but also that certain schemas do not differ from each other in a significant way.

scholarly journals Aspectual and quantificational properties of deverbal conversion and -ing nominalizations: the power of context

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIOS ANDREOU ◽  
ROCHELLE LIEBER
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
State Activity ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Corpus

In this article we explore the range of aspectual and quantificational readings that are available to two kinds of deverbal nominalizations in English, conversion nouns and -ing nominals. Using data gathered from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the British National Corpus (BNC), we examine the range of readings available for the conversion and -ing forms of 106 English verbs in context. We distinguish eventive versus referential readings, looking at instances of both count and mass quantification for the two kinds of nominalizations. Within the eventive readings we also distinguish bounded versus unbounded aspectual readings, and within bounded readings two types that we call ‘completive’ and ‘package’. We argue that the quantificational properties and aspectual intepretation of both conversion and -ing nominalizations are not rigidly or even loosely determined by the form of the nominalization, but that the lexical aspect of the base verb (state, activity, accomplishment, achievement, semelfactive) plays some role in circumscribing aspectual readings. We argue that the strongest role in determining quantificational and aspectual readings is played by factors arising from the context in which conversion forms and -ing nominalizations are deployed. The aspectual interpretation of conversion and -ing nominalizations can be influenced by the presence of temporal and quantificational modifiers, by surrounding tenses, as well as by encyclopedic knowledge. We conclude with a consideration of the theoretical implications of our findings.

Genitive coordinations with personal pronouns

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN PAYNE
Keyword(s):  
Single Unit ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Web Based ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Genitive Case ◽  
National Corpus

English genitive noun-phrase coordinations follow two patterns. The first is the single genitive, in which exponence of the genitive case occurs solely on the final coordinate, e.g. Mary and Jane's; and the second is the multiple genitive, in which exponence of the genitive case occurs on all coordinates, e.g. Mary's and Jane's. When either of the coordinates is a personal pronoun, difficult choices have to be made about the form of the pronoun. These difficulties arise especially with the single genitive, which is judged to be totally ungrammatical in coordinations like *my wife and I's or *my wife and my. On the other hand, the alternative use of the multiple genitive, my wife's and my, conflicts with a preference for the single genitive when the coordinates are felt to constitute a single unit. In this article, we first conduct a corpus-based analysis for genitive coordinations with personal pronouns, based on the British National Corpus. This, supplemented by some non-standard examples from web-based sources, gives some insight into the choices actually made by native speakers. We then provide a theoretical account of the syntactic problems that genitive coordinations with pronouns create. This account is shown to be compatible solely with an analysis of the English ’s genitive as an inflectional affix.

scholarly journals Exploring the complexity of 'can', 'could' and 'be able to' through corpus analysis and classroom- and coursebook-based investigation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lauren Whitty
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Classroom Data

<p>The purpose of this study is to investigate the central modal auxiliaries CAN and COULD, and the quasi-modal BE ABLE TO, together with their negative forms, and from this investigation, make a contribution to English language learning pedagogy. This study uses analysis of the spoken and written components of the British National Corpus (≈ 100 million words) to gain a better understanding how these modal auxiliaries are used by native and native-like speakers of English. It also draws on a classroom data set (68,265 words), containing a spoken and written component, to investigate how they are being used by students and an instructor. Furthermore, these modal auxiliaries are examined in an English language learner coursebook, New Headway series (441,760 words).  This study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods for analysis. In the first phase of this investigation, previous literature along with an examination of each modal auxiliary form in a sample BNC data set were used iteratively to establish meaning categories for CAN, COULD and BE ABLE TO. In the second phase, overall frequencies were obtained from each data source. And finally, based on the categories of meanings found, in the third phase, meaning frequencies for all three data sources were determined. Taking these overall frequencies and meaning frequencies into consideration, comparisons were made between the classroom and the BNC, and New Headway and the BNC.  As a result of the investigations above, this study found ‘possibility’ to be the predominant meaning for CAN, COULD and BE ABLE TO with a subset of meaning categories. The subset of categories identified is larger than previously identified in literature. Context played a central role in interpreting these meanings of modal auxiliaries and this study suggests that it would be beneficial for anyone writing about modal auxiliaries to fully account for context when modal meanings are being examined, especially in pedagogical materials. As a result, included in this study are instances with expanded criteria.  Focusing on the classroom, this study shows not all meaning categories are present in the classroom data set and also suggests that students may benefit from explicit instruction around the role and communicative effects of these modal auxiliaries in various social contexts. Moving to the New Headway series, this study demonstrates that the meaning frequencies for some categories (e.g. ability) were higher in frequency than the British National Corpus due to the inclusion of contrived example conversations. Taking these and other findings in the study into consideration, this thesis raises awareness of the complexities of understanding and conveying these modal auxiliaries and concludes with recommendations for instructors in English language classrooms.</p>

scholarly journals Effects of L2 usage and L1 transfer on Turkish learners’ production of English verb-argument constructions

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Römer ◽  
Selahattin Yilmaz
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
English Usage ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
English Verb ◽  
National Corpus

Using data from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) and the British National Corpus (BNC), this article examines what Turkish learners of English know about a set of frequent verb-argument constructions (VACs, such as ‘V with n’ as illustrated by ‘I like to go with the flow’) and in what ways their VAC knowledge is influenced by native English usage and by transfer from their first language (L1), Turkish. An ICLE Turkish analysis gave us access to dominant verb-VAC associations in Turkish learners ́ English, and provided insights into the productivity and predictability of selected constructions. Comparisons with the BNC and other ICLE subsets (ICLE German and ICLE Spanish) allowed us to determine how strong the usage effect is on Turkish learners’ verb-VAC associations and whether Turkish learners differ in this respect from learners of other typologically different L1s. Potential effects of L1 transfer were explored with the help of a large reference corpus of Turkish, the Turkish National Corpus (TNC).

scholarly journals Tell and Let Know: A Corpus-Based Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 264
Author(s):  
Christian Misuro
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Instructional Explanations ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Corpus

This paper is based on research into the usage of the terms tell and let know, using data from the British National Corpus of English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The differences between them, as well as the extent and character of their synonymy, are analyzed through corpus distribution and semantic preferences. The results indicate subtle differences between the terms. Though they are partially synonymous, tell is more often selected in reference to anecdotal and incidental transmission of information, such as when discussing past events, and thus has a wider idiomatic usage. Let know replaces tell in cases of direct requests, offers or demands. It is hypothesized that this may result from the inherent indirectness of the term when compared to tell, and thus its perceived politeness. The study also demonstrates the use of corpora to increase effectiveness of instructional explanations of differences in usage between similar terms. 本論文は、 British National Corpus of English及びCorpus of Contemporary American Englishのデータから、現代英語にて「tell」及び「let know」の用語使用を調べた研究に基づいたものである。それぞれのコーパス内の分布や意味表現の考察を通し、相互の違いや類似の範囲や特性を分析する。研究の結果から用語の微妙な違いが示される。用語は部分的には同義であるが、「tell」は、比較的に、過去または偶発的事柄の伝達に使われることが多く、幅広く慣用句として使用されている。「let know」は、直接的依頼や、提案、要求の場合、「tell」の代わりに使用される。 「tell」と比較して、この用語が元々持つ間接的もしくは受動性が礼儀正しいものと認識されていることに起因するものと仮定される。また、本研究では、類似する言い回しの違いの説明を授業で効果的にするコーパスの使用例を示す。

Measuring grammatical status in Chinese through quantitative corpus analysis

Corpora ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-342
Author(s):  
Linlin Sun ◽  
David Correia Saavedra
Keyword(s):  
Binary Logistic Regression ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Models ◽  
Diversity Measure ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Corpus

This paper applies a quantitative model developed for measuring grammatical status, using data from the Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese (lcmc). The model takes into account four quantitative factors (token frequency, collocate diversity, colligate diversity and deviation of proportions) and uses them as predictors in a binary logistic regression in order to compute a score of grammatical status between ‘0’ (lexical/non-grammatical) and ‘1’ (highly grammatical) for each given element. The results of the lcmc model are then compared to those of a similar study of the British National Corpus (bnc). The comparison suggests that token frequency emerges as one of the most relevant parameters for quantifying degrees of grammatical status in both language models, together with the collocate diversity measure when using a broad window span. On the other hand, the colligational measures (left- or right-based) and the other collocate diversity measures using small spans (left- or right-based) contribute very differently to the two languages due to their typologically distinctive structures.

scholarly journals Exploring the complexity of 'can', 'could' and 'be able to' through corpus analysis and classroom- and coursebook-based investigation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lauren Whitty
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Classroom Data

<p>The purpose of this study is to investigate the central modal auxiliaries CAN and COULD, and the quasi-modal BE ABLE TO, together with their negative forms, and from this investigation, make a contribution to English language learning pedagogy. This study uses analysis of the spoken and written components of the British National Corpus (≈ 100 million words) to gain a better understanding how these modal auxiliaries are used by native and native-like speakers of English. It also draws on a classroom data set (68,265 words), containing a spoken and written component, to investigate how they are being used by students and an instructor. Furthermore, these modal auxiliaries are examined in an English language learner coursebook, New Headway series (441,760 words).  This study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods for analysis. In the first phase of this investigation, previous literature along with an examination of each modal auxiliary form in a sample BNC data set were used iteratively to establish meaning categories for CAN, COULD and BE ABLE TO. In the second phase, overall frequencies were obtained from each data source. And finally, based on the categories of meanings found, in the third phase, meaning frequencies for all three data sources were determined. Taking these overall frequencies and meaning frequencies into consideration, comparisons were made between the classroom and the BNC, and New Headway and the BNC.  As a result of the investigations above, this study found ‘possibility’ to be the predominant meaning for CAN, COULD and BE ABLE TO with a subset of meaning categories. The subset of categories identified is larger than previously identified in literature. Context played a central role in interpreting these meanings of modal auxiliaries and this study suggests that it would be beneficial for anyone writing about modal auxiliaries to fully account for context when modal meanings are being examined, especially in pedagogical materials. As a result, included in this study are instances with expanded criteria.  Focusing on the classroom, this study shows not all meaning categories are present in the classroom data set and also suggests that students may benefit from explicit instruction around the role and communicative effects of these modal auxiliaries in various social contexts. Moving to the New Headway series, this study demonstrates that the meaning frequencies for some categories (e.g. ability) were higher in frequency than the British National Corpus due to the inclusion of contrived example conversations. Taking these and other findings in the study into consideration, this thesis raises awareness of the complexities of understanding and conveying these modal auxiliaries and concludes with recommendations for instructors in English language classrooms.</p>

HE and THEY in indefinite anaphora in written present-day English

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikko Laitinen
Keyword(s):  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
The Third ◽  
Semantic Reference ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Indefinite Pronouns

This article explores the usage of singular HE and plural THEY with their possessive, objective and reflexive forms in anaphoric reference to compound indefinite pronouns in written present-day English. Previous studies have indicated that the most commonly used personal pronouns in anaphoric reference to non-referential indefinite pronouns are indeed HE and THEY. The data for the study are drawn from the written part of the British National Corpus. The structure of the study is such that following the introduction, I will survey the earlier literature on the topic to illustrate that there is a gap in the previous studies on epicene pronouns. The third section defines the indefinite pronouns used in this study. In addition, the section also discusses the differences between the meaning and form of the indefinites and the semantic reference sets of each pronoun paradigm. Following the explanation of the methods, the article sets out the findings.

The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Ongoing Functioning

The second edition of The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology captures the history, current status, and future prospects of personality and social psychology—presented not as a set of parallel accounts, but as an integrated perspective on the behavior of persons in social contexts. This handbook combines these two fields in a single integrated volume, offering a unique and generative agenda for psychology. It is dedicated to the proposition that personality and social psychology are best viewed in conjunction with one another and that the synergy to be gained from considering links between the two fields can do much to move both fields forward and to enrich our understanding of human nature. Such interdependence is particularly crucial if one wishes to address the ongoing functioning of persons in their natural environments, where splits between person and situation are not so easily fashioned. The chapters of the Handbook weave together work from personality and social psychology, not only in areas of long-standing concern, but also in newly emerging fields of inquiry, addressing both distinctive contributions and common ground. In so doing, they offer compelling evidence for the power and the potential of an integrated approach to personality and social psychology.

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