Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions A Corpus-Based Study (Routledge Advances in Corpus Linguistics)

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GRAMMATICALIZATION AND ENGLISH COMPLEX PREPOSITIONS Sebastian Hoffmann

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Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions A corpus-based study

Sebastian Hoffmann

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Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions

What is a grammatical unit? How does grammatical structure evolve? How can we best investigate the mental representation of grammar? What is the connection between language use and language structure? This book aims to help answer such questions by presenting a detailed analysis of English complex prepositions (e.g. in spite of or with respect to) on the basis of large amounts of authentic language data from the Middle Ages up to the present day. This work addresses the debate on the grammatical status of complex prepositions by investigating both diachronic and Present-day English corpus data within the framework of grammaticalization theory. Taking such a usage-based approach, the study offers ample empirical support for the claim that complex prepositions form meaningful elements of grammar, refuting those who maintain that complex prepositions as a grammatical class do not exist. Few studies carried out within the grammaticalization framework have drawn so extensively on language corpora as suitable sources of authentic data, and the investigation here reveals that such an application can lead to new insights about the mechanisms of grammaticalization. This is a mustread for linguists interested in grammaticalization and corpus linguistics. Sebastian Hoffmann is Lecturer in Linguistics at Zurich University, Switzerland.

Routledge advances in corpus linguistics Edited by Anthony McEnery Lancaster University, UK

Michael Hoey Liverpool University, UK

Corpus-based linguistics is a dynamic area of linguistic research. The series aims to reflect the diversity of approaches to the subject, and thus to provide a forum for debate and detailed discussion of the various ways of building, exploiting and theorizing about the use of corpora in language studies. 1 Swearing in English Anthony McEnery 2 Antonymy A corpus-based perspective Steven Jones 3 Modelling Variation in Spoken and Written English David Y. W. Lee 4 The Linguistics of Political Argument The spin-doctor and the wolf-pack at the White House Alan Partington 5 Corpus Stylistics Speech, writing and thought presentation in a corpus of English writing Elena Semino and Mick Short 6 Discourse Markers Across Languages A contrastive study of second-level discourse markers in native and non-native text with implications for general and pedagogic lexicography Dirk Siepmann 7 Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions A corpus-based study Sebastian Hoffmann

Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions A corpus-based study

Sebastian Hoffmann

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Sebastian Hoffmann Typeset in Sabon by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-415-36049-8

For Jonas

Contents

List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements List of abbreviations

ix x xii xiv

1

Introduction Chapter overview 3

1

2

Data collection and research methodology Introduction 6 Diachronic sources 7 Present-day English: the British National Corpus 17 Searching the data 20 A frequency list of complex prepositions 23

6

3

Complex prepositions: indivisible units or free constructions? Introduction 25 An overview of grammars 26 Syntactic evidence against complex prepositions: Seppänen et al. (1994) 31 Seppänen et al. (1994): some methodological considerations 33 The status of complex prepositions: corpus evidence 35 In favour of unity: complex prepositions exist! 49

25

4

Grammaticalization and complex prepositions Introduction: language change 51 A case study: the grammaticalization of in view of 53 The status of complex prepositions as elements of grammar 59

51

5

Complex prepositions: a diachronic overview Introduction 60 Early complex prepositions 63

60

viii

Contents Complex prepositions established between 1500 and 1700 77 Complex prepositions established after 1700 86 Grammaticalization and corpus data 93

6

Complex prepositions in Present-day English Introduction 95 General distribution 97 The distributional characteristics of some individual complex prepositions 103 Interpreting distributional data: conceptual frequency and style 107 The case of concession: in spite of and its variants 110 Conclusion 118

95

7

In terms of: a new discourse marker Introduction 120 Historical development 120 Present-day use 124 In terms of in spoken language 125 Summary and conclusion 138

120

8

Are low-frequency complex prepositions grammaticalized? Introduction 140 The data 141 The importance of frequency in grammaticalization 144 Frequency and saliency 148 Grammaticalization by analogy 152 Low-frequency grammaticalization phenomena and corpus data 154 Summary and conclusion 164

140

9

Conclusion The status of complex prepositions as syntactic units 166 Complex prepositions and grammaticalization theory 169 The use of complex prepositions 173 Outlook: suggestions for further research 173

166

Appendix I: the texts of the Gutenberg Corpus

175

Appendix II: David Lee’s genre categorization scheme

185

Notes Bibliography Author index Subject index

188 199 209 212

Figures

2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1 6.2

6.3

7.1 7.2

The number of quotations in the OED per year (averages over periods of 25–50 years) and their average word length Retrieval algorithm for the compilation of a list of potential complex prepositions Two possible syntactic representations of the complex preposition in spite of Two possible phrase markers for a PNP-construction followed by coordination Complex prepositions and the coordination of noun phrases in the BNC Complex prepositions in the spoken part of the BNC: distribution of filled pauses The distribution of literal versus complex prepositional (CP) use of in view of in the Gutenberg Corpus and the BNC The syntactic structures of the literal and complex prepositional uses of in view of The distribution of in front of and in the front of over the Gutenberg Corpus and the written component of the BNC The distribution of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions over the text domains of the BNC The distribution of the four complex prepositions in relation to, in search of, in spite of and on top of over the text domains of the BNC The distribution of the three concessive prepositions despite, in spite of and notwithstanding over the text domains of the BNC The number of occurrences of in terms of in the OED quotations (instances per 10,000 quotations) The distribution of in terms of over the text domains of the BNC

15 23 31 36 37 45 55 57 92 97

104

114 123 125

Tables

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 5.1 5.2 5.3

5.4

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4

The data used for the study of complex prepositions The proportion of shortened OED quotations in selected years The texts in the written component of the BNC The 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC The proportion of simple versus correlative coordination in the three types of coordination The use of interpolation in combination with the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC Filled pauses before and after simple prepositions in the spoken part of the BNC Stranded and fronted complex prepositions in the British National Corpus Individual complex prepositions in stranded and fronted constructions The 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the written component of the BNC Stages of development of in place of The ten strongest noun collocates of the complex preposition by virtue of in the written component of the BNC The ten strongest verb collocates of the complex preposition in need of in the written component of the BNC The 20 genre categories in which the set of 30 complex prepositions occurs the most and the least frequently The use of in spite of in the written and spoken components of the BNC The three concessive prepositions despite, in spite of and notwithstanding in the BNC The ten strongest noun collocates of in spite of and despite in the BNC

7 13 18 23 39 42 46 47 47 62 65

73

79 99 106 112 115

Tables xi 6.5 6.6 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 8.3

8.4

The ten most frequent items in the position immediately before in spite of and despite in the BNC In spite of versus despite in 30 different files of the written component of the BNC In terms of in spoken language In terms of in spoken interaction The ten speakers in the spoken component of the BNC with the highest frequency of use of in terms of Low-frequency preposition–noun–preposition sequences in the BNC The distribution of in front of and before in early Gutenberg texts and the BNC Low-frequency PNP-constructions which do not occur with a determiner or a premodifying adjective before the nominal element Low-frequency PNP-constructions

116 117 126 132 133 142 150

158 160

Acknowledgements

This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis completed at the University of Zurich in April 2003. This study could not have been written without the help of several people, and I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to them here. First of all, I am most grateful to my supervisor, Gunnel Tottie, for the continuing advice, constructive criticism and encouragement she has given me throughout the period in which this study was conceived, written and revised for publication. I greatly valued her close reading of my text, and her detailed suggestions for changes were always instructive and helpful. I would also like to thank my co-examiner Christian Mair, whose generous support and astute criticism I greatly appreciated. I am also grateful to a number of people who have sent me useful comments and copies of their own work. In particular, I would like to thank Joe Trotta for alerting me at an early stage to a paper he co-authored with Aimo Seppänen and Rhonwen Bowen (‘On the so-called complex prepositions’). This paper greatly influenced the direction taken by my study. I also wish to thank Adrienne Bruyn, Crawford Feagin, Andreas Jucker, Inge de Mönninck, Ronald Langacker, Pam Peters, John Sinclair and Elizabeth Traugott for their kindness in providing me with unpublished (or unavailable) papers as well as useful comments and suggestions. I would also like to express my gratitude to Andreas Fischer for his helpful comments when I was struggling with Middle English. A number of people offered valuable support in reading earlier versions of my study. I profited greatly from comments made by Anita Kaufmann and Joybrato Mukherjee, who both read individual chapters of this book. I am also extremely thankful to Iman Makeba Laversuch for doing a truly wonderful job in eradicating the deficiencies of my non-native-speaker English. Her suggestions for corrections went far beyond mere questions of grammar and style. My greatest thanks, however, goes to Miriam Locher, who provided essential and invaluable support in the frantic final three months of writing. Without her constant encouragement and perceptive criticism this study would not have been completed in time. I would like to thank the editors of the ICAME Journal for permission

Acknowledgements xiii to re-use my article entitled ‘Using the OED quotations database as a corpus – a linguistic appraisal’ (ICAME Journal 28, April 2004, pp. 17–30), which forms part of Chapter 2. I also wish to thank John Benjamins Publishing Company for their kind permission to re-use material from my article entitled ‘Are low-frequency complex prepositions grammaticalized? On the limits of corpus data – and the importance of intuition’ (In: Hans Lindquist and Christian Mair (eds) (2004) Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., pp. 171–210) as parts of Chapters 4 and 7. Finally, I wish to thank my family for the unfailing support and love they have given me through all the stages of this study: my parents and my sister Henrike for helping out when any kind of assistance was needed, my wife Lilian for her understanding and for her willingness to take on the life of a single mother for an extended period of time, and finally my sons Jonas and Niklas, simply for being there. This work is dedicated to Jonas, who could never really understand why ‘the book’ had to be so long. Zurich, August 2004

Abbreviations

BNC CDE GUT MED OED pmw

British National Corpus Chambers Dictionary of English Etymology Gutenberg Corpus Middle English Dictionary Oxford English Dictionary (Frequency) per million words

1

Introduction

The aim of this study is to investigate the grammaticalization and use of English complex prepositions on the basis of large amounts of authentic language. I will explore corpus data spanning the time from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century and discuss the theoretical justification for classifying these constructions as a grammatical category. Three typical examples are shown in (1) to (3): (1) In view of what occurred later, one may believe that the young man was intoxicated. (BNC: CE9: 880) (2) In spite of the inevitable tension, it will be a relief to jump out of the aircraft. (BNC: A77: 24) (3) These hazards may lead to complications with regard to insurance. (BNC: APV: 386) In all three cases, the italicized elements (in view of, in spite of and with regard to) are generally considered to function as heads of prepositional phrases. In other words, although they consist of three lexical items, they are still treated as single units of grammar. It will be one of the primary purposes of my study to test the validity of this claim. English complex prepositions have received relatively little scholarly attention. There is no book-length investigation of these constructions available to date and even the number of short studies on this topic is relatively limited (cf. Quirk and Mulholland 1964; Seppänen et al. 1994; Schwenter and Traugott 1995; Akimoto 1996, 1999).1 This lack of scholarly interest may seem all the more surprising when it is considered that Klégr’s recently published dictionary of English complex prepositions lists a total of 1,084 different preposition–noun–preposition constructions and their equivalents in Czech (Klégr 2002).2 The present investigation is intended to help fill this gap by providing a detailed description of the historical development and present-day use of English complex prepositions. As I will demonstrate, such an undertaking can contribute to a better understanding of the establishment of grammatical structures in general.

2 Introduction In this study, I will make extensive use of data from both diachronic and synchronic corpora. The overall approach of my investigation is thus resolutely descriptive and empirical. An empirically descriptive analysis of historical data will make it possible to trace the development of complex prepositions over the last 750 years. With reference to Present-day English, the use of the 100-million word British National Corpus will allow me to investigate different aspects of current usage as well as the distributional characteristics of complex prepositions in greater detail. In contrast to a purely introspection-based approach, which relies on the intuitions of a single scholar, a corpus linguistic methodology offers access to the language output of a cross-section of speakers and can therefore reveal meaningful patterns of usage which would otherwise elude the attention of one conscious mind. I intend to show that such a corpus-linguistic description of language use can also therefore offer important insights into the structure of language as a communicative system. The fundamental underlying assumption in such an approach is that language structure is influenced by language use. Rather than seeing language as a closed, self-contained system, language is interpreted as a dynamic entity which is constantly shaped by its users. This study will draw heavily on the concepts formulated in grammaticalization theory, which offers a useful framework for an understanding of the development of grammatical structures. In contrast to the approach taken by generative linguists, grammaticalization theory postulates a direct connection between context of use and the gradual establishment of grammatical structure. In doing so, grammaticalization theory goes beyond a mere description of language change in that it offers a (usage-based) explanation for the structures observed and their changes over time. Given this emphasis on language use, it may seem surprising that few studies of grammaticalization have so far drawn extensively on large amounts of corpus data.3 The present study of the grammaticalization of complex prepositions, however, will be based on an expansive database of authentic language use. As I will show, such an approach offers valuable insights not only into the structure under investigation but also into the nature of grammaticalization. A further important premise underlying this study is that language use can be interpreted as a reflection of the cognitive processes at work during the production of language. Thus, if complex prepositions do indeed have the status of units of grammar, they will be stored in and retrieved from memory as whole entities rather than being assembled on the basis of the compositional rules of syntax. As I will demonstrate, the analysis of corpus data offers important insights for an investigation of the cognitive representation of grammatical structure. In spoken language, production problems such as pauses and other types of hesitation markers can be seen as manifestations of the cognitive limitations encountered during the online production of speech. On a more general level, frequency of use will

Introduction 3 be interpreted as an important indication of the mental representation of grammatical structures. If language users have at their disposal several grammatically distinct options for expressing the same concept, the frequent selection of one particular variant will be interpreted as an unconscious expression of a cognitively motivated preference. Thus, while generative grammarians are concerned with what is or is not possible within the system of grammar, I will take a predominantly usage-based approach and assign a greater level of explanatory power to the description of more or less likely choices. At the same time, however, my study will also caution against a too uncritical approach towards frequency of use. In this context, I will focus on aspects of corpus-linguistic methodology and reflect on its strengths as well as its limitations. The current work does not propose to be comprehensive in its diachronic and synchronic study of complex prepositions, but rather to examine a particular set of prepositions in detail. This study will analyse preposition–noun–preposition constructions (PNP-constructions) such as those shown in (1) to (3).4 Two-word sequences such as instead of and according to, which also function as complex prepositions, will not be discussed here because there is a considerable degree of variety in two-word complex prepositions. The first item is typically an adverb (e.g. upwards of ), an adjective (e.g. exclusive of ), or a conjunction (e.g. as for) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 669). The restriction to three-word sequences was adopted to minimize the impact of such formal differences on the observed findings. This will consequently allow me to take a unified approach to the constructions under consideration. For the same reason, I also excluded threeword complex prepositions which do not contain a nominal middle element (e.g. as far as, as opposed to) as well as complex prepositions in which the nominal element is preceded by a determiner (e.g. in the light of, in the face of ). The bulk of this study will be concerned with an analysis of the 30 most frequent PNP-constructions in Present-day English as represented by the British National Corpus.

Chapter overview In Chapter 2, I present a detailed description of the database that provides the empirical foundation upon which this investigation is based. A critical evaluation of the corpora used is of utmost importance since the value of corpus-linguistic research greatly depends on the degree to which the retrieved findings can be considered representative of general language use. This is particularly relevant in connection with the quotations database of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which constitutes a major source of data for my diachronic analysis of complex prepositions. Although the OED quotations do not fully meet certain standard requirements of language corpora (e.g. with respect to the selection criteria and its data format), my linguistic appraisal of this database will reveal that it is clearly

4 Introduction a very valuable source of data for the study of language change. The Gutenberg Corpus, which is a collection of fiction and non-fiction texts dating from approximately 1650 to 1900 and the British National Corpus (BNC) are also described in some detail. The chapter concludes with a brief section outlining a number of methodological considerations which are relevant in the context of automated data retrieval. Chapter 3 is concerned with the status of complex prepositions as single units of grammar. I first give an overview of what nineteenth- and twentieth-century grammars have had to say on these constructions. This is followed by a presentation of the critical view taken by Seppänen et al. (1994), who claim that the unit-like status of complex prepositions cannot be upheld when the constructions under consideration are submitted to standard constituency tests. The authors argue that complex prepositions constitute a semantically motivated category which is not helpful as part of a structural description of English grammar. In the remaining part of Chapter 3, this strong assertion is tested against actual language use found in the BNC. I will show that a usage-based and quantitative perspective on the system of language offers important insights into the nature of PNPconstructions which clearly suggest that the class of complex prepositions constitutes a meaningful element of the grammatical system. In Chapter 4, the focus turns to grammaticalization theory as a useful framework for the description of grammatical structures. Given its ability to accommodate the gradient nature of linguistic categories, grammaticalization theory offers a more suitable basis for an evaluation of the grammatical status of complex prepositions than the categorical views held by Seppänen et al. (1994). I introduce the major concepts of this functionalist approach to the grammatical system of language by way of tracing the development of the complex preposition in view of over the last 300 years. In Chapter 5, I offer a comprehensive overview of the diachronic development of the whole set of 30 PNP-constructions. In the course of this undertaking, I investigate whether or not the concepts introduced in the previous chapter can be meaningfully applied to the class of complex prepositions in general. I furthermore attempt to determine whether complex prepositions exhibit common features in their development towards unit-like constructions, despite the fact that they become part of the grammatical system of English at very different periods of time. I also explore whether my data supports the claim that grammaticalization is by definition a gradual process. As I will show, a considerable number of PNP-constructions in fact emerge with hardly any trace of a gradual development. As a consequence, I suggest that the grammaticalization of constructions may occur by analogy; i.e. their establishment may be greatly facilitated by their formal parallelism to previously grammaticalized items. Chapter 6 is devoted to a description of complex prepositions in Present-day English. In a first step, I investigate the distributional characteristics of the whole set of 30 PNP-constructions over the meta-

Introduction 5 textual categories annotated in the British National Corpus. This is followed by a more detailed description of the use of four individual complex prepositions. As part of the discussion of these findings, I also evaluate some of the methodological issues involved in interpreting descriptive statistics. In a final step, I focus on the concept of concession and its various formal manifestations. The use of the complex preposition in spite of is compared to its simple counterparts despite and notwithstanding. Chapter 7 focuses on in terms of, the most frequent complex preposition in the British National Corpus. After a brief overview of its distributional characteristics in Present-day English, the bulk of the chapter is concerned with the use of this particular PNP-construction in spoken interaction. I present data which strongly suggests that in terms of has reached an advanced level of grammaticalization: it has acquired the pragmatic features of a discourse marker. In Chapter 8, I turn to the other end of the frequency scale. While the bulk of the present investigation is concerned with a description of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in Present-day English, this chapter concentrates on PNP-constructions with an overall frequency of between five and 100 occurrences in the 100 million words of the BNC. The main question in this context is whether or not such rare constructions can in fact be considered grammaticalized units of language. Low-frequency phenomena are normally granted only a minor role in an approach which sees language use as the instrumental factor in the shaping of language structure. After offering an overview of previous accounts of the connection between grammaticalization and frequency, I go on to suggest that the cognitive representation of grammatical structures may be influenced by factors other than frequency of occurrence alone. The final section of the chapter is devoted to the question whether or not quantitative data can be employed at all to evaluate the grammatical status of such low-frequency complex prepositions. Chapter 9 provides a summary of the investigation and highlights my most important findings and theoretical conclusions. It also provides suggestions for future research.

2

Data collection and research methodology

Introduction The aim of this study is to study the grammaticalization of English complex prepositions against the backdrop of a detailed diachronic and synchronic analysis of authentic language data. The methodology employed for this investigation is essentially quantitative and is based on several large collections of linguistic data. Over recent decades, the dramatic increase in the amount of electronically stored corpora, coupled with the equally impressive increase in the processing power of modern computers, has greatly expanded the possibilities for linguistic research. This is particularly (but of course by no means exclusively) true for the study of diachronic variation, a field of scientific endeavour which requires far more than simple introspection to accurately reconstruct and evaluate temporal developments in use and structure. In an ideal world, corpus linguists would have access to the (electronically stored) totality of language use for their analysis. In reality, the picture is of course very different. Although some of today’s language corpora contain several hundred million words, this informational store comprises only a fraction of the language that is actually produced.1 The reliability of the linguistic results yielded from such electronic text collections thus greatly depends on the degree to which they are representative of actual language use. It is beyond the scope of the current investigation to provide a detailed discussion of the design and compilation of a representative corpus. For a comprehensive overview of these issues, the reader is referred to Biber (1993). It is, however, necessary to describe the database that provided the empirical foundation upon which this investigation is based. In addition, I will also offer an evaluation of the data in terms of its possible advantages and disadvantages for a quantitative study of language. Although the main focus of my study is Present-day English use, I will also present findings about the English language employed in earlier centuries. In Chapter 5, for example, where I give a diachronic overview of the development of common Present-day English complex prepositions,

Data collection and research methodology 7 Table 2.1 The data used for the study of complex prepositions Diachronic sources Data The Gutenberg Corpus The OED quotations

Period covered 1650–c.1900 600–1988

Size 23.5 million words 2.4 million citations*

Present-day English sources Data The British National Corpus (BNC)

Period covered 1960–1993**

Size 97.6 million words

Notes * The reason for quoting the number of citations rather than words is explained below. ** The large majority of texts in the BNC date from 1985–93. For the period between 1960 and 1974, only 47 texts with a total of 1.7 million words are available.

some PNP-constructions will be traced back to their roots in the early thirteenth century. At the time of writing, there is unfortunately no single corpus which spans the period from the Middle Ages to the present. As a consequence, several different text collections were required to cover the whole period under investigation. Table 2.1 lists the three sources employed in the present study. In the following sections, each of these three sources will be discussed in more detail.

Diachronic sources The range of historical corpora available in a computerized format has steadily grown over the past decades. Perhaps the best-known and most widely used is the Helsinki Corpus. (See Kytö 1996 for a description of the corpus and Rissanen et al. 1993 for a range of possible applications.) Other historical corpora include ARCHER (A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers), the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC), the Innsbruck Computer Archive of Machine-Readable English Texts (ICAMET), the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts and the Zurich English Newspaper Corpus (ZEN), to name just a few (cf. Biber et al. 1994; Fries 1994; Schmied 1994; Keränen, 1998; Markus 1999). However, these sources of diachronic data are unfortunately only of limited value for the present study. While some of the above-mentioned corpora are restricted to special genres (e.g. the CEEC) and would therefore make a meaningful comparison with my present-day data highly problematic, the principal reason for their limited value is their small size. For example, the Helsinki Corpus spans almost a thousand years (c.750 to 1700) and contains only 1.57 million words. Far more data would be required to trace the development of all but the most frequent complex prepositions. Even for the period of Late Modern English, suitable corpus data is not in great abundance. For example, although ARCHER covers a smaller time-span from 1650 to 1990 and offers detailed categorization by

8 Data collection and research methodology register, its overall size of less than two million words still has many of the same limitations as the Helsinki Corpus. I therefore decided to compile my own set of data for the period of Late Modern English and to augment this corpus with the quotation database provided with the CD-ROM version of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The amount of data combined in these two sources far exceeds the size of other collections of historical data and therefore lends itself well to tracing the development of a larger number of complex prepositions. However, both data-sets require further discussion with regard to their application for linguistic analysis. The Gutenberg Corpus The aim of the Project Gutenberg is ‘to make information, books and other materials available to the general public [for free] in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search’ (Di Micello 1992).2 This electronic archive contains a large collection of non-copyright texts, including many works written by British authors in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of these, I downloaded 242 texts containing approximately 23.5 million words.3 The texts were classified both on the basis of the authors’ birthdates as well as the publication dates. However, the latter information could not be established for all texts. As a second method of classification, I differentiated between the general categories of fiction and non-fiction.4 Although a more detailed method of categorization would have been preferable to these very general labels, a more sophisticated system of classification was impracticable at this stage. Since the Gutenberg texts were not intended for use in corpus linguistics, a number of points require particular attention: •

•

The texts are not necessarily based on the original version published by the authors and may contain editorial changes or corrections.5 Often, very little information about the texts is available and the texts’ authenticity cannot always be ascertained. This fact could be potentially problematic when the Gutenberg texts are used to locate constructions which are ungrammatical today but were once fully accepted a few centuries ago.6 Spelling may have been corrected to reflect the standards in place at the time when the edition was published. For the corpus linguist interested in grammatical constructions, this is of course an advantage because most of the irregular spellings will have been changed. Given the lack of documentation about the consistency of these changes across different authors and publishers, the possibility of overlooking relevant examples in a search based on modern English spelling must however be taken into consideration.7

Data collection and research methodology 9 •

The collection of texts is unbalanced both as regards the number of words per time-span and the authors featured. While some authors are clearly over-represented in my set of texts (e.g. Dickens), other authors’ texts appear only once. Furthermore, with respect to the range of text domains and the genres covered, no claim of completeness or representativeness can be made.

While the impact of these considerations should certainly not be underestimated, the Gutenberg texts nevertheless form a valuable source for the analysis of linguistic change. They constitute the only large corpus available which spans almost three centuries and a careful evaluation of this collection of texts can indeed yield meaningful results. Throughout this investigation, I will be referring to my selection of the Gutenberg texts as the Gutenberg Corpus. Reference to the corpus will be made using the abbreviation GUT, followed by the author’s surname and date of birth as well as the title of the work. The OED quotations database The Oxford English Dictionary is generally considered to be the world’s most comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Its compilation was started in the second half of the nineteenth century but it was not until the year 1928 that the first edition finally reached completion.8 In 1989, the second edition, which incorporated the four-volume supplement issued between 1972 and 1986, appeared in 20 volumes. In 1987, a CD-ROM version of the first edition was released, giving the user unprecedented access to a wealth of information about the English language. The second edition of the OED became available on CD-ROM in 1992, thereby extending the electronically accessible data to cover the complete history of the English language from its earliest extant texts until well into the second half of the twentieth century. (See Jucker 1994 for a review of the CD-ROM from a linguist’s point of view and Johansson 1996 for an overview of possible applications.) The makers of the OED pursued an ambitious aim: not only was their dictionary intended to contain every word ever used in the English language, but also to document the ‘development of form and meaning’ of each word illustrated with ‘a series of quotations ranging from the first known occurrence of [a] word to the latest, or down to the present day; the word being thus made to exhibit its own history and meaning’ (Murray 1888: vi). In total, more than five million quotations were collected for this purpose by countless volunteers and over 1.8 million of these quotations were used in the first edition of the OED. An additional 600,000 quotations were then added in time for the release of the second edition. Using the program provided with the CD-ROM, this large database of over 2.4 million quotations can be searched for individual lexical

10 Data collection and research methodology items or phrases and thereby provides computerized access to samples of the English language spanning a period of more than 1,000 years. The main question in the context of the present study is whether the OED quotations can be employed for a meaningful linguistic analysis of diachronic change which goes beyond purely qualitative description. Asked even more succinctly: can the OED quotations be used as a corpus? To answer this question, a number of aspects require attention for a linguistic appraisal of this database. In what follows, the following four points will be treated in more detail: • • • •

selection criteria for the quotations; representativeness and balance of the quotations; reliability of the data format; quantification of results.

First of all, consider the following standard definition of a corpus: A corpus is a collection of pieces of language that are selected and ordered according to explicit linguistic criteria in order to be used as a sample of the language. [. . .] A computer corpus is a corpus which is encoded in a standardised and homogenous way for open-ended retrieval tasks. Its constituent pieces of language are documented as to their origins and provenance. (Sinclair 1996; emphasis in the original) The principal stumbling block for counting the OED quotations as a corpus is posed by the selection criteria. Although the individual quotations were indeed selected according to explicit linguistic criteria, their main purpose is to exemplify the meaning and use of a particular word with a minimal amount of context. Thus, the material was obviously not collected with a view to creating a representative sample of the language for a particular period of time. As Sinclair (1996) writes, it is important to keep clear the distinction between true corpora and mere collections of citations: Citations are individual instances of words in use and collections of these also have no claims to be corpora. The precise conditions for a valid sample size for a corpus are indeed under discussion [. . .] but noone concerned seriously with corpora has attempted to gather a collection of citations and announce it as a corpus. What has happened is that owners of previously-gathered citation collections have tried to use them as a bridge between traditional practice – particularly in lexicography – and corpus-based work. It is unhelpful to confuse categories in this way, and important to assert minimal criteria for use of the word ‘corpus’. (Sinclair 1996; emphasis in the original)

Data collection and research methodology 11 I fully agree with Sinclair on the importance and usefulness of this distinction. I nevertheless believe that the OED quotations database should not be dismissed as a source of quantitative data. The crucial question is whether it can be assumed that the repeated citation of a particular word correlates with a corresponding level of currency. To answer this question, a distinction must be made between all of the quotations for a given headword and the quotations database in its entirety. In the first case, the quotations were specifically selected to display the whole range of possible uses for a single word. These uses may include idiosyncrasies and relatively obscure variants. A correlation with actual currency in such circumstances is highly unlikely. However, apart from the headword, the quotations also contain other linguistic material which helps to place the headword in the proper context. These additional words, which typically constitute a large part of the quotation, occur in a much more unsystematic way. It is fair to assume that they simply reflect language use at the time of its writing. The sum of all of the OED quotations is therefore largely made up of naturally occurring language. As a consequence, the researcher who uses the OED CD-ROM to search through the complete quotations database rather than only the set of quotations belonging to a particular headword should indeed be able to use this data for both qualitative and quantitative research. However, a prerequisite for such an application is complete awareness of the merits and limitations of the OED quotations. The first important issue in this context concerns the representativeness and balance of the quotations. It is a fundamental property of language corpora that they represent collections of actual language use as produced by a cross-section of the speakers (and/or writers) using a particular language or variety. This is clearly also the case for the OED quotations. First, virtually all of the citations are true quotations; i.e. they are not constructed examples. The main exceptions are explained in Berg (1991): [I]n the first edition, when no examples were found of contemporary usage, illustrations were occasionally ‘made up’. These are introduced by the word ‘Mod.’ for ‘modern’ and normally appear as the last quotation in a paragraph without a date. In a few instances, portions of nursery rhymes or proverbs are quoted as examples of usage with no actual source, other than prefatory wording such as ‘Nursery Rime’, ‘Mod. Prov.’ (Modern Proverb). (Berg 1991: 36) Such constructed quotations were excluded from the data used for my analysis. Second, the range of sources for the quotations is extremely varied. It goes far beyond the nineteenth-century practice of including only the works of ‘the best writers’ (cf. Willinsky 1994, Chapter 2). The editors emphasized description and historical completeness rather than being

12 Data collection and research methodology arbiters of style. As a consequence, even the first edition of the OED contained a considerable number of quotations from periodicals (e.g. London Gazette and Sporting Magazine), and such non-literary works as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Practical Dictionary of Mechanics feature among the top-20 books cited.9 In the second edition, the proportion of non-literary texts is even higher. It is also worth noting that the bibliographical information for the quotations listed in the second edition of the OED covers 143 finely printed pages. In terms of content, the OED quotations database is thus infinitely more varied than the Gutenberg Corpus or any of the other historical corpora mentioned above. Despite the great variety in the contents of the OED quotations, it would be a mistake to regard them as a reasonably balanced representation of the English language. The proportions of the different types of quotations (e.g. fiction versus non-fiction) clearly do not constitute a true mirror of actual language use – or type of language exposure – of a particular period or area. It certainly was not one of the declared aims of the compilers to establish a comprehensive cross-section of all of the typical text domains. As a consequence, certain authors are over-represented (e.g. Shakespeare’s works contribute almost 33,000 quotations for the first edition of the OED), while other sources, such as working-class newspapers of the nineteenth century, are hardly featured at all.10 Moreover, the number and range of texts included from English-speaking nations other than England are relatively limited, even today.11 Such considerations of content and composition should be kept in mind when reviewing the range of possible applications of using the OED quotations as a database. A further point in the linguistic evaluation of the OED quotations concerns the reliability of the data format. It must be remembered that the principal purpose of a quotation is the illustration of the meaning and use of a particular word. In many cases, this purpose is fulfilled even if parts of the quotation, such as subordinate clauses, are deleted. In the OED, such deleted elements in the quotation are represented by two dots (. .). A typical example of this marked deletion can be seen when the sentences in (1) and (2) are compared: (1) Now by my honor, my life, my troth, I will appeach the Villaine. (2) Now by mine honor . . I will appeach the Villaine. (OED, 1593 Shakespeare Richard II, v. ii. 79; appeach v.) Example (1) is a sentence taken from Shakespeare’s Richard II and (2) shows the corresponding illustrative quotation cited in the entry for the verb appeach. The deleted elements are marked by italics in sentence (1). From the point of view of the researcher, such deletions will – at least for most types of linguistic investigation – only have a marginal effect on the results. For example, although lexical material was indeed deleted from the original, the overall sentence structure has clearly not been affected.

Data collection and research methodology 13 However, other types of deletion can be found in the quotations database which may have a more troublesome impact on the outcome of the linguistic results. As a point in case, consider a sentence taken from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and its corresponding OED quotation, found in the entry for the noun bird’s-nest: (3) The flatte transgression of a Schoole-boy, who being ouer-ioyed with finding a birds nest, shewes it his companion, and he steales it. (Much Ado About Nothing, 1623 folio) (4) A Schoole-boy . . ouerioyed with finding a birds nest. (OED, 1599 Shakes. Much Ado ii. i. 229; bird’s-nest n.) Despite the punctuation, it is immediately apparent that the quotation in example (4) does not form a complete sentence. Furthermore, for a linguist interested in the historical development of certain grammatical structures, the difference between (3) and (4) may indeed have serious implications. Thus, the postmodification by the non-finite -ing clause is completely changed in the OED quotation. Although the User’s Guide to the Oxford English Dictionary gives the impression that deletions are relatively rare (it uses the word ‘occasionally’), a large number of quotations do in fact contain marked deletions (cf. Berg 1991: 40). Table 2.2 presents information about the proportion of quotations which have undergone shortening in a number of selected years.12 When dealing with sources dating from before the fifteenth century, the editors were presumably reluctant to shorten quotations, lest the modern reader’s comprehension of them be jeopardized; between one-fifth and one-quarter of all quotations dating from later sources, however, were shortened.13 The actual number of deletions is even higher since approximately 15–20 per cent of the shortened quotations contain more than one Table 2.2 The proportion of shortened OED quotations in selected years Year(s)

n quotations

n shortened quotations

Percentage

999 1001–99 1151–99 1251–80 1351–65 1451–8 1551 1651 1751 1851 1951

9,462 1,503 4,131 1,872 2,203 2,029 1,986 4,764 2,966 8,100 5,596

1,763 232 762 250 347 498 532 982 716 1,626 1,044

18.6 15.4 18.4 13.4 15.8 24.5 26.8 20.6 24.0 20.0 18.7

14 Data collection and research methodology marker of deletion. Although, admittedly, sentences where the shortening of quotations resulted in such radical changes as documented in examples (3) and (4) are unusual, the implications for a linguistic analysis should still not be disregarded. A second point in connection with the reliability of the data format concerns the fact that deletion was apparently not always consistently marked. This becomes obvious when sentences (5) and (6) are compared: (5) That ye neuer by way of curiosite be besy to attempte ony persone therin. (OED, 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 2; curiosity) (6) I requyre you . . that . . ye neuer by way of curiosite be besy to attempte ony persone therin. (OED, 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 2; way n.) The first of these quotations is found in the entry for the noun curiosity whereas sentence (6), using the same source, illustrates the noun way. Such examples are quite rare in my data. However, having said this, such instances are only detectable when the same quotation is used in (at least) two different formats. The actual number of unmarked deletions therefore remains unknown. It is difficult to assess the full implications of edited OED quotations for my diachronic study of complex prepositions. However, since I am not investigating larger constructions with features which span across clause boundaries, it seems reasonable to assume that the number of potential distortions is fairly limited. The final point I would like to raise concerns the use of OED quotations for the quantification of linguistic trends. On the basis of a computerized diachronic source such as the Helsinki Corpus, normalized frequency counts for individual features are easily obtained. Such frequency information then makes it possible to compare the use of a particular feature or construction across different periods of time or text domains. In the case of the OED quotations database, such information is somewhat more difficult to retrieve. Absolute frequency counts for lexical items or phrases can be easily obtained by exporting the result of a search over the quotations text to a file and sorting this output by the year of quotation. In order to normalize this data, information about the number of quotations and the length of quotations is required. Figure 2.1 gives an overview of these two variables for the period between 1000 and 1980. Not surprisingly, the number of quotations is very low for the first few centuries, and it is not until the fourteenth century that the threshold of 1,000 quotations per year is broken. The first peak is found at the beginning of the seventeenth century and is followed by a considerable drop in the eighteenth century. From about 1800 onwards, the number of quotations increases dramatically and reaches a peak with over 10,000 quota-

Data collection and research methodology 15

Figure 2.1 The number of quotations in the OED per year (averages over periods of 25–50 years) and their average word length.

tions per year when the first edition was being compiled. The beginning of the twentieth century, however, is again somewhat under-represented. The second important variable is the average length of the quotations. This variable proves to be fairly constant, particularly for the time between 1450 and the end of the nineteenth century (approximately 13 words per quotation). Interestingly, the quotations added in the second edition of the OED are significantly longer (more than 16 words per quotation). It thus appears that the twentieth-century editors felt that more context was needed in order to demonstrate the meaning and use of a word.14 Until now, I have referred to the size of the quotations database by number of quotations. As the total number of words is unknown, this method of reference was deemed the most expedient. The data shown in Figure 2.1 provides a reasonable estimate of this total number. I estimate that the quotations database comprises a total of 33–5 million words for the period between 1000 and the publication of the second edition of the OED.15 The data presented in Figure 2.1 clearly shows that absolute frequency counts retrieved from the quotations database of the OED require careful evaluation before they can be interpreted as indicative of a linguistic change in progress. Given the rise in the number of quotations during the nineteenth century, for example, a corresponding rise in the absolute frequency of a particular phenomenon in these quotations is of course to be

16 Data collection and research methodology expected. On the basis of the information contained in Figure 2.1, normalized frequency counts can indeed easily be calculated. However, given the nature and purpose of the illustrative quotations, it was considered more valid and reliable in the context of the present study to limit the discussion to general tendencies when analysing diachronic patterns identified in the OED quotations database. In doing so, I took into account that the average number of quotations per year or decade differs considerably. In sum, although the OED quotations database is not a completely balanced and representative corpus, it can nevertheless provide the linguist with a wealth of useful information. The data it contains chiefly represents naturally occurring language, and the time-span covered is unmatched by any other source of computerized data. Even though over 20 per cent of all its quotations have been shortened, the large majority of these deletions is unlikely to distort the results of a study of complex prepositions over time. Given the nature of the data, normalized frequency counts might suggest an inappropriate level of precision, but tendencies in the development over time can nevertheless be expressed in quantitative terms. Reference to quotations from the second edition of the OED on CDROM will be made using the abbreviation ‘OED’, followed by the year of publication, the full bibliographical reference provided in the OED, and the headword under which the quotation is found. A brief note on comparing data from the diachronic sources The comparison of data retrieved from two or more different corpora always carries potential dangers. For example, differences in tokenization and part-of-speech tagging can lead to significant discrepancies in the retrieval of linguistic results. (For a more extensive evaluation of the difficulties involved, see Lindquist and Levin 2000.) Considering the differences in structure and content, a direct comparison between data retrieved from the Gutenberg Corpus and the OED quotations database must be carried out with considerable caution. With regard to these two sets of data, one further variable requires particular attention. As I mentioned above, all of the Gutenberg texts were classified according to the birth-year of the authors. I am thus taking an apparent-time approach, assuming that the linguistic competence of authors does not change greatly once it has been acquired. In the case of the OED quotations, however, the dating information refers to the year of publication. As a consequence, even though both sources can certainly be employed to investigate the onset and development of individual linguistic changes, the precise placement of these changes on a time-scale would be a problematic undertaking using such data.

Data collection and research methodology 17

Present-day English: the British National Corpus The range of computer corpora available for Present-day English is much more extensive than for earlier periods of the English language. In addition to large text collections such as the Bank of English, which at the time of writing contained over 450 million words (see http://titania.cobuild. collins.co.uk/), several smaller and more specialized corpora of spoken and written language offer ample opportunities for linguistic research.16 The Present-day English data for the current study is exclusively drawn from the British National Corpus (BNC). The BNC is a large corpus of modern English (almost 100 million words) which was designed to be a representative sampling of the language as it was used on the British Isles towards the end of the twentieth century. As Burnard (2000) states, the British National corpus is: • • • • •

a sample corpus: composed of text samples generally no longer than 45,000 words. a synchronic corpus: the corpus includes imaginative texts from 1960, informative texts from 1975. a general corpus: not specifically restricted to any particular subject field, register or genre. a monolingual British English corpus: it comprises text samples which are substantially the product of speakers of British English. a mixed corpus: it contains examples of both spoken and written language. (Burnard 2000: 3; emphasis in the original)

The BNC contains about 90 per cent written and 10 per cent spoken data and all texts are richly annotated with a wide range of metatextual information which makes it possible to restrict corpus searches to individual text types and consequently to compare and contrast language use across these different categories. In addition, each word is annotated by word-class using a part-of-speech tag (POS-tag). This information permits the retrieval of syntactic patterns based on grammatical information rather than via much more restricted lexical searches. (See Leech and Smith 2000a for further information on the word-class tagging of the BNC.) For the written component of the BNC, a major distinction is made between imaginative and informative texts. The former category comprises texts ‘which are fictional or which are generally perceived to be literary or creative’ (Burnard 2000: 7). The much larger set of informative texts is divided into eight domains (e.g. ‘Applied science’ or ‘Belief and thought’). Some further categories of annotation are the medium of publication (e.g. ‘Book’ or ‘Periodical’), information about the author (e.g. ‘Author sex’ or ‘Author domicile’) and a description of the target audience (e.g. ‘Target age group’). Table 2.3 lists the number of words contained in the nine text

18 Data collection and research methodology Table 2.3 The texts in the written component of the BNC: classification into text domains Domain

No. of words

Percentage

Imaginative prose Informative Applied science Arts Belief and thought Commerce and finance Leisure Natural and pure sciences Social science World affairs

16,386,486

18.8

7,104,636 6,520,625 3,007,244 7,257,529 12,185,390 3,784,273 13,906,177 17,132,004

8.1 7.5 3.5 8.3 14.0 4.3 15.9 19.6

Total

87,284,364

100

domains and the corresponding percentages with respect to the complete written component of the BNC. The ten-million words of the spoken component consist of two distinct sections: a demographically sampled part (approximately 4.3 million words) and a context-governed part (6.3 million words). The spoken demographic part is based on recordings made by 153 ‘respondents’ selected to form a representative selection of the socio-demographic structure of Britain towards the end of the twentieth century. The variables taken into consideration are age, sex, socio-economic status and the area of residence (region). Respondents were asked to record all of their conversations over a period of two to seven days. In order to capture the full range of linguistic variation found in spoken interaction, the demographic section was complemented by the context-governed part. This somewhat larger set of material consists of recordings which were chosen for their topic content. Typical speech situations included are business meetings, lectures and legal proceedings. On the whole, the context-governed component tends to contain far more formal language situations than the spoken demographic part, but this distinction is not categorical. The data presented in this book is entirely based on the second release of the BNC, also known as the World Edition. This release contains slightly less text than the original (about 97.6 million w-units as opposed to 100.1 million w-units in the first release). The available bibliographical and classificatory information was thoroughly re-checked for this second release. For further information about the BNC, see Aston and Burnard (1998) or the official web page at www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/BNC/.17 Reference to the corpus will be made using the abbreviation BNC, followed by the name of the text (e.g. G42) and the number of the s-unit.18

Data collection and research methodology 19 Text domains and genres The relatively broad categorization into nine large domains as shown in Table 2.3 above certainly allows a description to be made of major differences in usage but often proves to be rather general in nature. For example, although the domain ‘Imaginative prose’ (16.4 million words) is not sub-divided any further, it nevertheless comprises a relatively heterogeneous set of samples from novels, drama scripts, short stories and poetry collections. A simple search restriction to ‘Imaginative prose’ will therefore necessarily not reflect the potentially subtle differences in language use found in these sub-categories. A similar situation is found in the spoken component, where the six million words of the context-governed texts are sub-divided into four equal-sized parts reflecting major contextual categories: ‘Educational’, ‘Business’, ‘Public/institutional’ and ‘Leisure’. In the spoken demographic part, however, which largely consists of spontaneous conversational English, no further division as to subject matter or context is given. Probably the most outspoken critique of the BNC classification scheme is formulated in Lee (2001: 53), who notes that, although ‘a wide variety of imaginative texts’ are found in the corpus, ‘such inclusions are practically wasted if researchers are not actually able to easily retrieve the subgenres on which they want to work (e.g. poetry) because this information is not recorded in the file headers or in any documentation associated with the BNC’.19 In order to improve this situation, Lee created his own classification of the BNC texts into 70 different genres. This classification scheme was included as part of the revised annotation of the BNC World Edition. The concepts ‘genre’ and ‘register’ have been variously defined and used by different scholars (e.g. Biber 1988, 1994; Ferguson 1994; Eggins and Martin 1997). Lee (2001) surveys some of the literature and summarizes as follows: Genre is used when we view the text as a member of a category: a culturally recognised artefact, a grouping of texts according to some conventionally recognised criteria, a grouping according to purposive goals, culturally defined. Here, the point of view is more dynamic and . . . incorporates a critical linguistic (ideological) perspective: Genres are categories established by consensus within a culture and hence subject to change as generic conventions are contested/challenged and revised, perceptibly or imperceptibly, over time. (Lee 2001: 46) In contrast, register refers to the internal, purely linguistic criteria of the texts themselves.20 The classification scheme is hierarchically organized and therefore also permits less specific searches.21 For example, the three fiction genres,

20 Data collection and research methodology ‘W_fict_drama’, ‘W_fict_poetry’, ‘W_fict_prose’, can either be searched individually or as a group by restricting retrieval to all those texts whose genre tag starts with ‘W_fict’. Without this type of hierarchical organization, the value of the genre classification scheme would be greatly reduced for the purpose of a general distribution overview. Given the detailed nature of the classification, a number of genres are made up of only a very small set of different texts. For example, ‘S_lect_commerce’ (lectures on economics, commerce and finance) only contains a total of 15,105 words in three texts. Unless the feature under investigation is very common, normalized frequency counts retrieved using a search restricted to this single category would be very unreliable indeed. If, however, all five lecture genres were grouped together, the resulting set comprises 31 texts with a total of almost 300,000 words. There is considerable disagreement in the literature about the use of the terms genre, domain, text type and register. For a detailed overview of the issues involved, see Lee (2001). For the present study, I will adapt the terminology used in Burnard (2000) and refer to the nine major written text categories shown in Table 2.3 as text domains. When presenting results based on Lee’s categorization scheme, the term genre will be employed.

Searching the data With the exception of the OED quotations database, the data sources used in this study were available in a format which allows full-text searches using Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) and its powerful regular expression engine. Regular expressions are an extremely versatile tool for the extraction of lexical items and syntactic patterns from electronically stored text. An illustrative example is shown in (7): (7) \bin\s(\S\s){0,2}need\sof\s\Sing\b The string displayed in (7) would retrieve instances of the PNPconstruction in need of which have a minimum of zero and a maximum of two words in the position before the nominal element need and which are followed by a lexical item ending in -ing.22 This regular expression would therefore retrieve sentences as shown in (8) and (9): (8) Repavement: All pavements/sidewalks in Los Angeles are in dire need of resurfacing. (BNC: CAL: 970) (9) The world’s first indoor ice-climbing wall resembles a refrigerator, badly in need of defrosting, turned into side. (BNC: CG2: 189) Regular expression searches are thus superior to purely lexically based searches in that they enable a much more abstract and therefore flexible definition of the formal properties of linguistically relevant data.

Data collection and research methodology 21 However, it is also necessary to point out the potential dangers involved in using regular expression searches. In this context, the concepts of precision and recall are of the utmost importance. Recall refers to the percentage of all relevant hits in a corpus which are retrieved by an automated search. An ideal search procedure would retrieve all relevant hits, and thus have a recall of 100 per cent. Precision, on the other hand, is a measure for the proportion of relevant data in a search result: 80 per cent precision, for example, refers to a situation where 20 per cent of the retrieved results are irrelevant must therefore be manually deleted. In an ideal retrieval situation, precision and recall are both at 100 per cent, i.e. all and only relevant instances are retrieved. In the reality of linguistic research, this situation is rarely encountered. The use of a simple, typically lexically based search strategy can often lead to a very high recall, albeit at the expense of precision. Consider a search for in need of and its variant forms (e.g. with a premodifying adjective as shown in sentence (8)). By simply searching for the lexical item need, recall is likely to be ideal since this is the smallest common denominator of all relevant constructions.23 The precision of such a search, however, is very low since it includes all uses of the word which are not related to the PNP-construction in need of. In corpus linguistics, the researcher’s goal is optimizing precision without reducing recall. The use of regular expression searches can drastically increase precision. It is, however, not a trivial task to design a search in such a way as to minimize significant reduction in recall. As a case in point, consider again the regular expression shown above in (7). It allows premodification of the nominal item need by a maximum of two elements. What proportion of all relevant constructions will this regular expression retrieve? Although it is indeed likely to be very high, it may not reach 100 per cent. This is clearly shown for a variant of the PNP-construction in accordance with in sentence (10), where the noun accordance is preceded by three premodifying elements. A regular expression similar to that shown in (7) such as \bin\s(\S\s){0,2}accordance\swith\b would not have retrieved the following sentence: (10) His scheme of action was in most felicitously just accordance with the national sense of France, but by no means so with the Laws of Nature and of Fact; his aim, grandiose, patriotic, what you will, was unluckily false and not true. (GUT: Carlisle (1795), History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Vol. 12: 929) Conversely, by allowing up to three elements to occur before the nominal element, the precision of the search result will be lowered. This is due to the fact that instances will be retrieved where a syntactic boundary is located between the first prepositional element and the noun. One example of this, which again features the PNP-construction in need of, is shown in (11):

22 Data collection and research methodology (11) The beginning of this trend, in which the fundamental need of parents is to be happy in parenthood, can be seen in two ways. (BNC: EEK: 527) Using a Perl script, several regular expressions can be combined and run sequentially over the retrieved sentences. This strategy can be used to refine the conditions for retrieval by deleting irrelevant instances that were returned by an initial, relatively broad search. The amount of work needed for discarding unwanted hits manually can thus be considerably reduced without risking an undue reduction of recall. A further point worth mentioning is that Perl scripts also make it possible to compile frequency lists in a straightforward and flexible manner. A frequency list could, for example, contain all of the lexical items ending in -ing which were retrieved using the regular expression shown in (7). Such information leads to the detection of common patterns of co-occurrence much more quickly and reliably than the study of individual concordance lines. In order to ensure the consistent retrieval of linguistic results from the different corpora used, their data format should ideally be identical. Since the study of complex prepositions does not involve features which span across sentence boundaries, a format of one sentence per line was determined to be the most suitable choice.24 In the case of the BNC, which is formatted and annotated using SGML (Standardized Generalized MarkUp Language), this meant that a clean text version had to be created by removing the text headers as well as all items of annotation. In this process, all metatextual information (such as the age or sex of the speaker) is of course lost.25 However, this information was not discarded but rather stored in a separate database. Each line of the converted text was given a unique reference code consisting of the text ID (e.g. G42) and the s-unit number. In the case of a spoken text, the identity code for the speaker was also included (e.g. PS25Y). Using this reference code, all relevant information about the sentence in question can be retrieved from the database containing the metatextual information. A similar method of separating metatextual information from the actual text was employed for the Gutenberg Corpus. In the case of the OED quotations, it was not possible to run Perl scripts over the whole database since there is no clean text version available. The CD-ROM version enables the user to perform a lexical (or phrase) search over the complete set of quotations and then export the results to a text file.26 In order to achieve a high level of recall, initial searches were consequently kept as general as possible. For example, a search for need retrieves 3,460 quotations. After exporting these quotations to a text file, the same Perl scripts can be applied which were used for the other sources of data, e.g. for finding variant forms of in need of. In the case of older PNP-constructions, the initial searches also had to take the

Data collection and research methodology 23 different spelling variants into account. In many cases, therefore, the result files of several OED searches had to be merged before executing the Perl scripts.

A frequency list of complex prepositions With the help of a simple Perl script, I compiled a frequency list of PNPconstructions in Present-day English by searching the converted version of the BNC for the pattern simple preposition–any noun–simple preposition. Since simple prepositions form a closed class, this pattern will retrieve virtually all relevant PNP-constructions. The search algorithm is illustrated in Figure 2.2. The bulk of the current study will be devoted to a detailed diachronic and synchronic analysis of the top 30 items of this frequency list. As Table 2.4 shows, these 30 PNP-constructions account for just under 65,000

Figure 2.2 Retrieval algorithm for the compilation of a list of potential complex prepositions.

Table 2.4 The 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC Complex preposition

n in BNC

Complex preposition

in terms of in front of in relation to in favour of in addition to in respect of on behalf of in spite of on top of in accordance with in response to with regard to in charge of by means of in connection with

10,060 6,118 4,668 3,528 3,426 2,932 2,713 2,703 2,516 2,032 2,004 1,656 1,630 1,617 1,577

in view of by way of with respect to in conjunction with in line with in support of in search of by virtue of in return for in contrast to in excess of in place of in need of in common with by reference to

n in BNC 1,507 1,419 1,330 1,267 1,241 1,083 980 953 937 877 835 775 774 773 660

Total 64,591

24 Data collection and research methodology tokens. In terms of is the most frequent item with slightly over 10,000 occurrences in the whole corpus. The pattern shown in Figure 2.2 of course also retrieves many lowfrequency combinations whose status as complex prepositions might be considered controversial by most grammarians. These items will receive special attention in Chapter 8.

3

Complex prepositions Indivisible units or free constructions?

Introduction Compare the following examples: (1) The man claimed he spoke for a large group of serving and former policemen who styled themselves ‘the Inner Circle’. (BNC: A23: 56) (2) A few months earlier Lord Wheatley spoke on behalf of all the High Court judges in Scotland. (BNC: FRT: 346) (3) There are at least three strong arguments against relativism as a stance which it is important that we help pupils to understand. (BNC: HYB: 462) (4) There were certainly strong arguments in favour of the course which the king adopted. (BNC: A6G: 317) In (1) and (2), the word sequence on behalf of and the simple preposition for express the same concept, and exchanging the two italicized elements would not noticeably alter the meaning of these sentences. A similar situation can be found in (3) and (4), where against and in favour of represent two opposing semantic concepts yet still exhibit an obvious parallel in usage. Such multi-word items like on behalf of and in favour of are standardly referred to as complex prepositions. Most importantly, although they consist of separate orthographic words, they are generally conceptualized as constituting single syntactic units. In the present chapter, I will investigate the grammatical status of complex prepositions in more detail. For this purpose, I will first offer an overview of what nineteenth- and twentieth-century grammars have had to say on these constructions. As will become apparent, the class of complex prepositions is usually accepted as a part of the grammatical system. However, their status as syntactic units that function as heads of prepositional phrases is not entirely uncontested. As a case in point, consider example (5), where a premodifying adjective is placed before the nominal element of the complex preposition in pursuit of.

26 Indivisible units or free constructions? (5) At one stage they were seen in hot pursuit of a fully loaded M&B beer lorry!! (BNC: HP8: 358) If in pursuit of is indeed a structural equivalent of a simple preposition, how does the premodifying adjective fit into this picture? Examples such as (5) have been used by some scholars to underscore their claim that the establishment of a class of complex prepositions cannot be justified on syntactic grounds. This is argued by Seppänen et al. (1994), whose line of argumentation will be presented in detail in the second part of this chapter. The bulk of the present chapter will then be devoted to an evaluation of such critical views from a corpus linguist’s perspective. Using data from the 100-million-word British National Corpus, I will demonstrate that PNPconstructions are overwhelmingly employed in a way which is compatible with the concept of a syntactic unit and that the examples used by Seppänen et al. (1994) are best considered marginal. My frequency-based analysis will be further supported by findings from spoken language which strongly suggest that the PNP-constructions under consideration are retrieved from memory as complete chunks. On the basis of this data, I will argue that the establishment of a class of complex prepositions is indeed justified. The approach taken in the present chapter is thus entirely based on the description and analysis of synchronic corpus data. In the following chapter, the usefulness of the class of complex prepositions will be further appraised through an analysis of diachronic data and an interpretation of this data against the background of grammaticalization theory.

An overview of grammars None of the eighteenth-century grammars consulted (Gildon and Brightland 1711; Priestley 1761; Lowth 1762; Murray 1795) contains information about multi-word prepositions. The overwhelming majority of grammars published over the last 150 years, however, do mention the category of complex prepositions in one form or another.1 The term ‘complex preposition’ itself is of rather recent origin; older publications typically refer to the structures in question as group prepositions, phrasal prepositions or compound prepositions. While it is difficult to date the first reference to complex prepositions in the literature, the preposition-like nature of PNP-constructions had certainly been recognized by a number of writers by the second half of the nineteenth century. Mätzner (1873: 456), for example, discusses ‘präpositionale Formeln’ (‘prepositional formulae’) but restricts his description to those constructions in which the second prepositional element is of. Mätzner’s list thus covers only a subset of the sequences commonly known today as complex prepositions. He also shies away from giving them full prepositional status and only states that they ‘resemble prepositions’.

Indivisible units or free constructions? 27 Sweet (1892: 134–5) takes a more sophisticated approach in that he clearly highlights the distinction between form and function. He describes complex prepositions as ‘consisting of a noun governed by a preceding preposition and followed by another preposition, which grammatically governs the following noun, although logically the noun is governed by the whole group’. Structure and function thus do not coincide: while PNP-constructions are described structurally as consisting of individual parts, the entire combination is described as functioning as a single preposition. Just over a century later, Givón (1993) makes this distinction even clearer. In his discussion of pseudo-possessives, he notes the ‘discrepancy between surface form and semantic–grammatical reality’ in complex locatives and offers the following examples and explanation: [6a] True possessive: He measured the front of the house. It was 30 feet wide. (it  the front) [6b] Pseudo-possessive: He stood in front of the house. It was 30 feet wide. (it  the house) What the contrast in [6] reveals is that a semantic and grammatical historical reanalysis has taken place in expressions such as [6b]. The reanalysis pertained to which noun is the head of the NP and which one is the modifier. In [6a], the original possessive modifier construction indeed retains its original semantic status. In [6b], historical reanalysis has conspired to enrich the inventory of locative prepositions in English, giving rise to new complex prepositions. (Givón 1993: 265–6; emphasis in the original; numbers of running examples have been adjusted to fit the present chapter) Givón’s analysis makes it clear that complex prepositions must be examined within a historical context. A number of earlier grammars also take a historical perspective and try to trace the development that led to the establishment of complex prepositions. Among them is Earle (1892), who writes that [t]hrough the phrasal prepositions we are able to see how the older prepositions came into their place, and (to speak generally) how the symbolic element sustains itself and preserves itself from decay by inanition. A presentive word gets enclosed between two prepositions, as if it had been swallowed by them, and were gradually undergoing the process of assimilation. By and by the substantive becomes obsolete

28 Indivisible units or free constructions? elsewhere, and lives on here as a preposition, with a purely symbolic power. (Earle 1892: 515) As an illustrative example of this process, he offers the development from in despite of to despite. Thus for Earle complex prepositions are only an intermediate stage on the way towards (new) single-word prepositions. In his chapter on prepositions, Kruisinga (1932: 382–3) only briefly mentions the distinction between simple prepositions and group-prepositions. The reader is referred to the section entitled ‘nouns without articles’ (343ff.) where the relevant PNP-constructions are discussed in more detail: It has been shown [. . .] that the article is used with proper names as well as class-nouns when they are accompanied by a defining adjunct. In apparent contradiction to this we find the noun used without an article in a number of cases although there is an of-adjunct that might seem to define it. (Kruisinga 1932: 345) The examples given include a whole range of PNP-constructions, many of which would certainly not be considered prototypical complex prepositions by today’s grammarians: in presence of, for purpose of, beyond reach of, beyond hope of and under cover of. Kruisinga goes on to note that: [i]n all these cases, the construction with the article (in the presence of, etc.) is also possible and perhaps equally current. The reason is that each element of the group has retained its independent meaning in the minds of many speakers. But there are outwardly identical cases when the group has so much unity that no article is ever used. This applies to by reason of, by way of, in virtue of, in imitation of, in case of, in hopes of, by dint of, etc. (Kruisinga 1932: 346) In this way, a gradient scale of fixedness is suggested, with items such as by reason of clearly functioning as a unit equivalent to a single-word preposition. Although Kruisinga does not state this explicitly, he appears to regard the absence of possible internal variation (i.e. with or without the defining article) as a defining feature of complex prepositions.2 The concept of a continuum or gradient also forms the basis for Quirk et al.’s (1985: 669–73) account of complex prepositions. They state that ‘[i]n the strictest definition, a complex preposition is a sequence that is indivisible both in terms of syntax and in terms of meaning’ (p. 671). However, this definition would suggest a simple binary classification into combinations consisting of a set of grammatically separate units on the one hand (e.g. on the shelf by), and highly interdependent items (e.g. in

Indivisible units or free constructions? 29 spite of) on the other hand. This categorical distinction does not, however, reflect the reality of language. Quirk et al. therefore introduce the concept of a ‘scale of “cohesiveness” ’ for which they list nine indicators of syntactic separateness, reproduced here in their entirety including the illustrative examples.3 In each of the nine examples, a free PNP-construction is juxtaposed with the complex preposition in spite of. In contrast to the free PNP-construction, in spite of does not allow any of the nine types of modification. (a) Prep2 can be varied on the shelf at (the door) [but not: *in spite for] (b) noun can be varied as between singular and plural on the shelves by the door [but not: *in spites of ] (c) noun can be varied in respect of determiners on a/the shelf by; on shelves by (the door) [but not: *in a/the spite of ] (d) Prep1 can be varied under the shelf by (the door) [but not: *for spite of ] (e) Prep  complement can be replaced by a possessive pronoun on the surface of the table ~ on its surface [but: in spite of the result ~ *in its spite] (f) Prep2  complement can be omitted on the shelf [but not: *in spite] (g) Prep2  complement can be replaced by a demonstrative on that shelf [but not: *in that spite] (h) The noun can be replaced by nouns of related meaning on the ledge by (the door) [but not: *in malice of ] (i) The noun can be freely modified by adjectives on the low shelf by (the door) [but not: *in evident spite of ] (Quirk et al. 1985: 671–2) Quirk et al.’s discussion of complex prepositions is largely based on a paper by Quirk and Mulholland (1964), who investigated 130 different PNP-constructions taken from the Survey of English Usage with regard to their ‘degree of interdependence’. The authors stress that no single property on the scale of cohesiveness is in itself diagnostic. Yet, the more properties a particular construction has, the further away it is situated from the grammatical pole of the scale. Thus, for example, in quest of is more cohesive than, say, in comparison with, because it only has property (h) while the latter has the properties (d), (f), and (h) (*by quest of versus by comparison with; *in quest versus in comparison). Quirk et al.’s scale of cohesiveness thus offers a descriptive catalogue for capturing the gradient nature of the grammatical category of complex prepositions. Quirk et al.’s treatment of complex prepositions is purely synchronic. Thus, no attempt is made to trace the connection between the gradual movement over time of individual PNP-constructions towards the grammatical pole of the scale

30 Indivisible units or free constructions? of cohesiveness and the establishment of new complex prepositions in the English language. So far, all of the works mentioned in this overview have treated the class of complex prepositions as a fairly uncontroversial entity. Although the problem – or rather, impossibility – of defining the exact boundary between complex prepositions and other PNP-constructions is mentioned in many modern grammars, the grammatical class of complex prepositions as such is not usually questioned.4 Notable exceptions are found in Huddleston (1988) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002). Huddleston (1988: 126–7) discusses preposition– noun–preposition sequences such as by dint of, by means of, for the sake of, etc. from within the context of lexicalization, which he defines as ‘the process of forming lexical items (single units of vocabulary)’. He states that [m]ost lexical items are words or lexemes but they can also be larger: these are idioms, and with idioms there may be conflict instead of the usual congruence between what counts as a unit from a lexical point of view and what counts as a unit from a grammatical point of view. . . . Such a mismatch is found in the above Prep ([Determiner]) N Prep sequences. In for the sake of the premier, for example, for the sake of belongs together lexically, but grammatically the immediate constituents are not for the sake of  the premier but for  the sake of the premier (compare for the premier’s sake). (Huddleston 1988: 126–7) To this last sentence, he adds the following interesting footnote: ‘Many grammars, however, make the grammar match the lexicon, treating for the sake of and the like as grammatical units – so-called “complex prepositions” ’ (Huddleston 1988: 127). This view is further elaborated in Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 617–23). In their reference grammar, PNP-constructions are described as idiomatic expressions with varying degrees of fossilization. Like Quirk et al. (1985), the authors note that such constructions ‘do not permit the full range of syntactic manipulation that applies with free expressions’ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 617). This is demonstrated with the help of a catalogue of tests similar to those presented in Quirk et al. (e.g. occurrence without Prep1, number change in the nominal element, determiner change, etc.). However, unlike Quirk et al., Huddleston and Pullum do not aim to establish a scale of cohesiveness but instead use this list of tests to dismiss the category of complex prepositions completely. Thus, if a given PNPconstruction can be shown to allow one or more of the syntactic manipulations, this is taken as conclusive evidence against an interpretation as a syntactic unit. Interestingly, the fact that by dint of does not allow any of the tests under consideration is interpreted as a reflection of its higher

Indivisible units or free constructions? 31 degree of fossilization rather than as an indication of its syntactic status. Fossilization and syntactic structure are thus treated as completely unrelated aspects of language.5 In sum, while Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 621) acknowledge that ‘the complex preposition concept [has] some initial intuitive appeal’, they argue that it is entirely based on semantic considerations and not on a coherent description of the structural properties of PNP-constructions. This view is expressed even more forcefully by Seppänen et al. (1994), who present the most extensive and categorical refutation of complex prepositions as a syntactic category yet published. In the following section, I will therefore present their line of argumentation in more detail. In the remaining part of the chapter, their views will then be evaluated in the light of corpus linguistic methodology and theory.

Syntactic evidence against complex prepositions: Seppänen et al. (1994) Like Huddleston and Pullum (2002), Seppänen et al. (1994) criticize the traditional view presented in most grammars for its inconsistency in interpreting syntactic structures on the basis of semantic considerations. They speak of a ‘cavalier treatment of the structural analysis of the complex strings in question’ and set out to ‘redress the balance by concentrating on the constituent structure’ of the so-called complex prepositions (1994: 4). The main question asked is reflected in the two phrase markers shown in Figure 3.1. What is the correct syntactic representation of the prototypical complex preposition in spite of, which according to Quirk et al. (1985: 671) ‘behaves in every way like a simple preposition’? Is there good reason to assume that (b) is indeed preferable to (a) or are there convincing arguments against such a view?

Figure 3.1 Two possible syntactic representations of the complex preposition in spite of.

32 Indivisible units or free constructions? In a first step, Seppänen et al. critically evaluate the concept of cohesiveness underlying Quirk et al.’s definition of complex prepositions. Since all constructions under consideration end in a simple preposition, they claim that ‘the treatment of this final word is crucial for the establishment of complex prepositions as a grammatical class’ (1994: 10). Only two of the nine properties on Quirk et al.’s scale of cohesiveness pertain to the second prepositional element: first, it can be varied (property (a)) and second, it is optional (i.e. it can be omitted together with the following NP – property (f)). The prototypical complex preposition in spite of does not exhibit any of the two properties (*in spite for and *he did it in spite) and this is also the case with many other PNP-constructions. Seppänen et al. conclude that ‘[t]hese two facts are then taken as an indication that the preposition is bound to the preceding noun rather than to the NP following it’ (ibid.). The authors claim, however, that such a view is problematic because it disregards the fact that ‘a certain degree of “fixity” is a normal feature of complementation, of nouns as well as of verbs and adjectives, and that this “fixity” is not normally seen as affecting the ordinary constituent structure of head  complement’ (1994: 11). This point is illustrated by combinations such as [conform] [with X], [conformity] [with X], [conformant] [with X], where the choice of preposition is clearly determined by the preceding word. Seppänen et al. conclude that it is an ‘oversimplification of the facts’ if fixedness is taken as an indication of constituency: ‘if applied to the analysis of complementation, it leads to results which are clearly faulty, and if it is applied to the analysis of “complex prepositions”, we have therefore no reason to believe that the results are any more acceptable’ (ibid.). Seppänen et al. claim that a more reliable approach to determining the syntactic properties of PNP-constructions can be found by applying standard constituency tests. In their paper, they choose to discuss in some detail four of these tests: fronting, coordination, ellipsis and interpolation.6 Fronting: If a string can be moved into a different position within the sentence by fronting or postponement, it must normally be a constituent. Coordination: If two strings can be coordinated, they must be constituents, and must normally be identical functionally and usually even categorically. Ellipsis: When elements are contextually deleted, the part that remains – the string that can serve as a sentence fragment – must normally be a constituent of the complete string. Interpolation: When elements are added to a structure, the new elements may be inserted at some of the constituent boundaries of the clause, with heavy restrictions depending on the particular case in question, but such interruption is totally impossible with items which, in spite of

Indivisible units or free constructions? 33 rich internal structure, function as single units with no syntactic constituent boundaries between them. (Seppänen et al. 1994: 12) Consider examples (7)–(10), taken from Seppänen et al. (1994: 20–2): Fronting: (7) Of which proposal do they seem to be in favour? Coordination: (8) Your answer has nothing in common with the questions or with the issue at hand. Ellipsis: (9) Speaker A: In the light of what you’ve said, I agree to the changes. Speaker B: Of what I’ve said! Don’t put the onus on me! Interpolation: (10) In view, we feel, of what has come to light, a decision on this matter should be postponed Seppänen et al. argue in the following manner. The interrogative sentence (7) is the result of wh-movement: the preposition of is moved together with the complement NP to the front; this process is commonly known as pied-piping (cf. Haegeman 1991: 341–2; Radford 1997: 276–82). Consequently, of which must form a constituent and in favour of cannot represent a syntactic unit. In (8), the two PPs with the issue at hand and with the questions are coordinated. The fact that only the second prepositional element (with) rather than the whole complex preposition in common with is repeated suggests that there is a constituent boundary following the noun common. Again, an interpretation of in common with as a syntactic unit which functions as the head of a prepositional phrase is ruled out. The same situation can be found in (9) and (10). The application of the ellipsis test shows that the sentence fragment of what I’ve said in (9) must be a constituent and the insertion of we feel after view in (10) makes interpreting in view of as a single constituent impossible. On the basis of these observations, Seppänen et al. come to the conclusion that complex prepositions do not exist: ‘Introduced into the grammar on the basis of an untenable analysis, the class of complex prepositions as defined by Quirk et al. is empty, and the term itself is thus not helpful in the description of English’ (Seppänen et al. 1994: 25).

Seppänen et al. (1994): some methodological considerations The radical conclusion drawn by Seppänen et al. (1994) clearly merits further critical attention. Although their argumentation as such is valid, at

34 Indivisible units or free constructions? least two methodological points need to be addressed. The first concerns the application of the constituency tests, which in my opinion is presented by Seppänen et al. rather too uncritically. Although the words usually and normally occur in the explanations of the individual tests, no further evaluation of the validity of their diagnostic force with respect to the syntactic status of PNP-constructions is given in the discussion of the individual examples. In fact, however, constituency tests are much less diagnostic than is suggested by the authors: it is often only the combination of several tests that leads to an uncontroversial interpretation. This seems to me particularly true in the case of interpolation. This test does not appear to belong to the core of constituency tests; it is certainly not often encountered in the literature.7 One exception is Chomsky, who says: [It] is a less sensitive criterion than conjunction, since though it selects a set of major constituent breaks where intrusion can occur, it does not differentiate among these as to relative order. But the distinction between those places where parenthetical intrusion can occur and where it cannot can be used as support for an analysis, regarding the points of intrusion as more ‘major’ than the points of no intrusion. (Chomsky 1975: 228) Thus, although interpolation is said to be indicative of major constituent breaks, the status Seppänen et al. (1994) give to the interpolation test is questionable. I will return to the applicability of this test below. The second, more important methodological point concerns Seppänen et al.’s (1994) choice of data: their argumentation is entirely based on constructed sentences that were presented to native speakers for evaluation. Furthermore, only structures supporting the authors’ focus of interest were included. Thus, the native-speaker informants were only asked to judge the acceptability of the sentences in question; no choice between different variants (e.g. with the interpolation appearing at a different point in the sequence) was offered.8 While Seppänen et al.’s argumentation in itself is sound within their theoretical framework, their purely theoretical approach tells us little about current usage. In order to establish the validity of the authors’ claims, the structures presented therefore need to be evaluated against the backdrop of PNP-constructions as they appear in real-world data. As I will show in the remaining part of this chapter, the findings obtained from such an evaluation invite conclusions that are in opposition to those presented in Seppänen et al. The line of argumentation I will pursue for this purpose is radically different from Seppänen et al.’s approach. They hold that the presentation of valid counter-examples is sufficient for a refutation of the hypothesis that complex prepositions are syntactic units. Taking a completely different theoretical position, I contend that the frequency of occurrence must be

Indivisible units or free constructions? 35 given an important status as a variable which is indicative of language structure and its cognitive underpinnings. As I will show, corpus evidence indicates that the class of complex prepositions should indeed be granted a place in the grammar of English.

The status of complex prepositions: corpus evidence The data On average, approximately every eighth word in an English text is a preposition (cf. Mindt and Weber 1989). However, only a relatively small proportion of these are complex prepositions. In addition, the application of the constituency tests mentioned in Seppänen et al. involves rather rare structural variants of the items in question. A fairly large corpus is therefore required to retrieve a sufficient number of relevant instances. With its 100 million words, the BNC is a suitably large database for such an undertaking. In the following sections, I will discuss each of the four constituency tests presented in Seppänen et al. in more detail. For this purpose, I will focus on the use of the 30 most frequent PNP-constructions in Present-day English (cf. Chapter 2, Table 2.3). On the basis of this data, I will then return to the question of the syntactic status of complex prepositions. Coordination Sentences (11) to (13) exemplify the three possible variants of the coordination of PNP  Complement constructions: Type A: no repetition (11) In spite of the millions of words they contain, and some noticeable shifts of emphasis over the years, the volumes of the Church Dogmatics are marked by an immense overall coherence and harmony. (BNC: CL6: 1188) Type B: full repetition (12) Upon maturity the TESSA proceeds will be paid in accordance with your instructions or in accordance with the applicable laws of succession. (BNC: B27: 435) Type C: partial repetition (13) It undertook out-of-area activities in respect of minesweeping in the Iran–Iraq war, and of the sanction stopping of ships during the Gulf war. (BNC: HHW: 12819)

36 Indivisible units or free constructions? In example (11) – Type A – two NP-complements governed by a single preposition are the conjoins. In sentence (12) – Type B – the coordinated elements constitute two prepositional phrases and the word-sequence in accordance with is repeated as a whole. Type C is the variant used in Seppänen et al. (1994) for their argumentation. It is the only variant in which the individual parts of the complex preposition are separated: the conjoins are again prepositional phrases; but, in contrast to (12), only the second prepositional element of the PNP-construction is repeated. Given the fact that only constituents can be coordinated, example (13) would strongly support the existence of a constituent boundary between in respect and of. Before presenting the actual distribution of the three types of variants in my data, it is important to point out that both Type A (no repetition) and Type B (full repetition) constructions leave open the question of a possible internal structure of complex prepositions. Consider Figure 3.2 which shows the two possible phrase markers for sentence (11). Here, the syntactic status of the conjoins is exactly the same regardless of whether or not the PNP-construction is considered a syntactic unit. In both cases, the conjoins are NP-complements governed by a preposition. The difference is that in (a) this preposition is the single item of whereas in (b) it is the entire PNP-construction in spite of. In other words, it is impossible to use sentences such as (11) and (12) as conclusive evidence for a particular type of structure. This being the case, a critical appraisal of Seppänen et al.’s claims requires more than a purely syntactic analysis. As I will show, a quantitative data analysis can offer many

Figure 3.2 Two possible phrase markers for a PNP-construction followed by coordination.

Indivisible units or free constructions? 37 important additional insights; far more in fact than can be gained through the evaluation of purely constructed data. Figure 3.3 shows the distribution of the three types of coordination following the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the whole BNC. As can easily be seen, the vast majority (92 per cent) of these instances is taken up by Type A, i.e. the construction where the conjoins constitute noun phrases and no part of the complex preposition is repeated. Type B, exemplified in (12) above, accounts for only 4 per cent of all coordinated constructions (247 instances). An equally low figure is realized as Type C constructions (263 instances, 4 per cent). Figure 3.3 thus clearly shows that, in the overwhelming majority of cases (96 per cent), users of English opt for a variant of coordination which keeps the complex preposition intact as a unit. When interpreting the data presented in Figure 3.3 as a survey of the choices made by English speakers, it is of course important to address the question of whether the three variants of coordination can in fact be used interchangeably without distinctively affecting the meaning of the whole sentence. For a number of instances, this is obviously not the case. Consider sentence (14), which is an example of a Type A construction without repetition of the complex preposition: (14) Save for the different relationship, parents and son in place of husband and wife, the approach of all three members of the court was, in my opinion, entirely consistent with the approach demonstrated in the earlier authorities. (BNC: FD3: 451)

Figure 3.3 Complex prepositions and the coordination of noun phrases in the BNC.

38 Indivisible units or free constructions? Here, the Type A structure is the only one possible. It is clearly not semantically equivalent to a variant of the construction in which the whole complex preposition is repeated (Type B: in place of husband and in place of wife). Husband and wife is a fixed expression that cannot be broken up, and a type B rephrasing would destroy the converse relationship expressed by the pair of nouns husband and wife. The same holds true for a Type C variant with a repetition of the second prepositional element (in place of husband and of wife). Again, such a rephrasing would result in the expression of a completely different meaning. Instances such as those exemplified by (14), where rephrasing would result in clearly unacceptable sentences, were manually excluded from the calculations and are thus not represented in Figure 3.3. After having established that the construction discussed in Seppänen et al. (1994) accounts for only a small minority of the coordinated constructions in authentic language use, I will now in a second step concentrate on a more detailed analysis of the various kinds of coordination employed. In this context, it is helpful to focus on the distinction between simple and correlative coordination. Correlative coordination is a complex form of coordination realized by an anticipatory endorsing item (both, either and neither) which forms a correlative pair with a simple coordinator (and, or and nor respectively). In addition, the pairs not . . . but and not only . . . but also also belong with the correlatives (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 920, 935ff.) An example of correlative coordination is given in (15): (15) A child’s response to death will vary not only in accordance with parental attitudes, but also in accordance with age. (BNC: ACA: 922) Correlative coordination represents a stylistically marked form of coordination; it stresses the ‘meaning of addition, alternative, or contrast. At the same time, [it] also single[s] out each of the coordinated elements’ (Biber et al. 1999: 80). Table 3.1 shows the proportion of simple versus correlative coordination in the three types introduced above. The data is the same as in Figure 3.3, i.e. coordinated constructions involving the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC. As Table 3.1 shows, only a small percentage of coordination without any repetition of the complex preposition (Type A) involves correlative coordination (6 per cent). In other words, with the most frequent type of coordination, correlative coordination is rare. By comparison, the two other types show a very different picture. Almost every second instance of Type B and 36 per cent of all instances of Type C constructions have correlative coordination. Thus, it appears that the examples relevant to the argumentation of Seppänen et al. are not only relatively rare (263 versus almost 5,800 of the other types), but that a disproportionally large number

Indivisible units or free constructions? 39 Table 3.1 The proportion of simple versus correlative coordination in the three types of coordination involving the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC Type A

Type B

No repetition Simple coordination Correlative coordination

5,180 359 5,539

94% 6%

■

Type C

Full repetition 128 119 247

52% 48%

Total

■

Partial repetition

168 95 263

64% 36%

5,476 573 6,049

Note Chi-square (2 d.f.)  707.113, p  0.001.

of these examples also involve a stylistically marked variant of coordination. Going one step further, I would finally like to address the fact that one individual type of complex preposition occurs very frequently among the coordinated constructions. In the corpus data, an astonishingly large proportion of sentences (2233/6049; 37 per cent) contain the complex preposition in terms of. As I mentioned above, in terms of is the most frequent complex preposition with just over 10,000 occurrences in the BNC, but that figure accounts for just 15 per cent of all instances of the 30 most frequent types. In other words, the proportion of sentences where a coordinated NP follows in terms of is about 2.5 times higher than would be expected. In the present context, it is interesting to note that in terms of is even more frequent when correlative coordination is involved: 64 per cent of all such sentences contain the PNP-construction in terms of (369 out of 573 instances). Given the disproportionally large incidence of correlative coordination in sentences relevant to the argumentation of Seppänen et al., this predominance of one single type of complex preposition further reduces the general impact of Seppänen et al.’s claims. In sum, the structures on which Seppänen et al. base their claim that the class of complex prepositions does not exist can certainly be found in the BNC. However, they are infrequent, largely limited to a stylistically restricted variant of coordination, and are heavily represented by a single type of complex preposition. This clearly shows that, in the vast majority of unmarked cases, language users prefer to employ complex prepositions in a way that is compatible with the concept of an indivisible unit. Interpolation The second constituency test discussed in Seppänen et al. (1994) is interpolation. Sentences (16) and (17) exemplify the two major types of interpolation found in the corpus data:

40 Indivisible units or free constructions? After PNP-construction (16) If the members of the channel are strong (by virtue of, say, a powerful trade association), then it will be difficult for the manufacturer to go outside the established channel. (BNC: K94: 965) Within PNP-construction (17) Luce Irigaray, for instance, has argued that it is totally reductive to define the feminine as the not-masculine in relation, say, to sexuality. (BNC: CGF: 848) In (16), the inserted element say is found after the PNP-construction by virtue of. Conversely, in (17), the same item is inserted before the second prepositional element of the complex preposition in relation to. In Seppänen et al.’s argumentation, sentences such as (17) are taken as strong evidence for the existence of a constituent boundary within the construction in question. Identifying interpolation in corpus data: some methodological considerations Before presenting the data retrieved from the BNC, a few more comments on the different possible kinds of interpolation are necessary. Seppänen et al. do not discuss the syntactic and semantic properties of the interpolated items involved in their examples in any detail. The only information offered by the authors is that the inserted sequences are parenthetical expressions. However, these kind of expressions can be realized by a whole range of constructions. They may consist of only one word, as in (16) and (17) above, but some insertions take the form of full clauses, as shown in (18) and (19): (18) Tax-dodging is in line, it seems, with the spirit of the times. (BNC: CT5: 50) (19) They were devised in conjunction (the exact degree of which remains unknown) with Christian Huygens of Zulichem, who is credited with making the very first pendulum clock in 1656. (BNC: GT3: 828) In sentence (18), it seems is a comment clause which functions as a parenthetical disjunct. Here, the inserted sequence is used as a hedge; it ‘express[es] the speaker’s tentativeness over the truth value of the matrix clause’ (Quirk et al. 1985: 1114). Other comment clauses of this type are I believe, I assume, they say, and it is said. While many of these clauses are fully fixed collocations (Quirk et al. use the term ‘stereotyped’), comment clauses with corresponding syntactic and semantic functions can be quite

Indivisible units or free constructions? 41 freely constructed. A more radical example is found in sentence (19) where the inserted sequence also expresses a parenthetical comment. However, it does not consist of a fixed collocation and it is also more integrated into the text since it provides further information about the (uncertain) nature of cooperation with the watchmaker. In the context of automated data retrieval from a computerized corpus such as the BNC, this freedom of the formal characteristics of interpolation must be taken into account. Compiling a complete list of insertion sequences is an impossible undertaking and retrieval on the basis of a limited list certainly has serious implications for recall: only a part of the relevant sentences would be available for analysis. Therefore, in order to guarantee the validity of the data presented in this section, a different approach had to be found. In the case of sentences like (17) above (in relation, say, to), a fairly simple retrieval algorithm can be devised. Given that the insertion takes place within the PNP-construction, virtually all relevant instances will be matched by a search string which allows for a suitably long sequence of unknown word items after the nominal element in the complex preposition in question. The resulting set of sentences must then be manually analysed to discard all instances which do not contain parenthetical expressions. For the present purpose, insertion sequences with a length of up to ten words were taken into account. Sentences such as (16), however, pose greater difficulty (by virtue of, say, . . .). Here, the parenthetical expression follows the PNP-construction and no clearly defined delimiting token is available.9 In order to achieve optimal recall, all 65,000 instances of PNP-constructions would therefore have to be manually checked for the existence of a following insertion sequence. To maximize the temporal efficiency of this operation, certain restrictions were applied. In the standard situation – i.e. where no interpolation is found – the PNP-construction is followed by an NP-complement (e.g. in front of the house). If the word-sequence following the complex preposition fully conformed to a simple noun-phrase definition (e.g. ‘optional determiner–optional adjective–noun’), the sentence could therefore be quite safely discarded. A range of other syntactic and lexical restrictions were defined and the remaining sentences were then manually scanned for the existence of interpolation. This procedure, although clearly not fully ideal with respect to recall, certainly retrieves the great majority of relevant sentences. Interpolation: the corpus data Table 3.2 gives an overview of the use of interpolation in combination with the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC. The absolute numbers are low: only 92 relevant instances were found within a corpus containing 100 million words.

42 Indivisible units or free constructions? Table 3.2 The use of interpolation in combination with the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC

Interpolation

After PNP-construction

Within PNP-construction

Total

33

59

92

A second important observation is that the variant in which the parenthetical expression is inserted within the complex preposition is almost twice as frequent as its counterpart. The structures corresponding to the constructed sentences used by Seppänen et al. are thus in the majority. However, the difference between the figures shown in Table 3.2 is not as marked as the one shown for coordination. Moreover, considering the low number of instances, the data presented cannot be employed as a statistically significant indication of usage preferences. As I already mentioned above, Seppänen et al. (1994: 12) attach high diagnostic value to the application of the interpolation test: ‘such interruption is totally impossible with items which, in spite of rich internal structure, function as single units with no syntactic constituent boundaries between them.’ In the context of such absolute claims, sentences (20) and (21) may be rather unexpected: (20) A month ago, when Jim Bob and Fruitbat jokingly suggested that it might be vaguely amusing to tie in the, if you will, ‘concept’ of the album with a foreign press conference to promote it, they didn’t think that the marketing johnnies at Chrysalis and EMI would take them at their word. (BNC: CHA: 1410) (21) It is water, as lakes, tarns or rivers, which is used to give a bright setting for the mountains, often distracting the attention from the, perhaps, less satisfactory classical neargrounds. (BNC: B3H: 599) Here, a parenthetical expression is inserted in a position which could hardly be interpreted as a constituent boundary in the sense suggested by Seppänen et al.: it occurs just after the specifier slot of a noun phrase. A comprehensive quantitative analysis of interpolation is beyond the scope of the present study, but some simple search patterns revealed that sentences like (20) and (21) are by no means rare. It thus appears that users of English feel quite free to employ interpolation at just about any conceivable position in a sentence. In the light of these findings, it is truly questionable whether meaningful conclusions can be drawn from the sparse data presented in Table 3.2 above. In the following section, I will present an analysis of a related phenomenon: hesitation. I will argue that hesitation offers a much more reliable means for assessing the level of unity of PNP-constructions.

Indivisible units or free constructions? 43 A related phenomenon: hesitation We know that spoken and written language differ in many respects (see, for example, Biber 1988, especially Chapter 7). In spoken language, for example, utterances tend to be syntactically less complex, are often made up of more generalized vocabulary, and contain many pauses and incomplete units. The reasons for these differences are manifold. Of major importance is certainly the fact that the production of written text normally allows language users much more time to plan and complete their sentences. Individual parts of constructions, whole sentences or even stretches of text can be reconsidered and changed at a later stage. By comparison, spoken language is to a large extent produced on-line. Even in planned discourse – e.g. a speech or a similar situation – the individual lexical items and syntactic units to be used in the upcoming utterance will have to be retrieved from the speakers’ active linguistic repertoire available at the time of talking. Moreover, in most contexts, the rules of turn-taking put considerable pressure on conversational partners. Even a relatively short pause can be taken as an indication that the speaker is willing to yield the floor. As a result, stringent time-restrictions for the planning of text are clearly in place. While many of the mental activities involved in the production of speech remain unknown, it is agreed that certain cognitive limitations must exist. These limitations will be reflected in the utterances produced. An analysis of individual features such as the structuring of utterances into individual intonation units or the complexity of anaphoric reference may thus offer important clues as to how linguistic information is stored in our memory (see, for example, Chafe 1979; Ochs 1979; Givón 1992). Hesitation markers such as silent or filled pauses (represented in writing for example by er and erm, or uh and uhm) and repetitions have attracted scholarly attention in the context of the cognitive processes underlying the production of language: they are taken to reflect the planning of the syntactic structure and exact lexical make-up of the upcoming sequence of words in the current utterance (cf. Goldman-Eisler 1972; Butterworth 1975). Clark and Clark (1977) identify the following three possible points of hesitation: 1

2

3

Grammatical junctures. This is the logical place to stop to plan the skeleton and first constituent of the upcoming sentence. Pauses at these junctures tend to be long and frequent. Other constituent boundaries. Within sentences these boundaries are the appropriate place to stop to plan details of the next major constituent – precisely what noun phrase, prepositional phrase, verb phrase, or adverbial phrase is to fit next into the sentence skeleton. This stopping place is typically marked by a filled pause. Before the first content word within a constituent. This is the point

44 Indivisible units or free constructions? after speakers have committed themselves to the syntactic form of the constituent being executed, but before they have planned the precise words to fill it out. This stopping place, like the previous kind, gives speakers time to plan the very next major constituent. It is typically marked by a silent pause . . . or by a repeat of the beginning of the constituent. (Clark and Clark 1977: 267–8) The system proposed by Clark and Clark thus contains two levels of planning: a syntactic level, with hesitation markers typically occurring at constituent boundaries; and a semantic level, which results in hesitation just before the first content word of a constituent. Filled pauses belong to the former category.10 An analysis of these items used in the environment of complex prepositions produced in the spoken component of the BNC may thus yield interesting information about the way PNP-constructions are stored in a speaker’s memory. If complex prepositions were indeed indivisible units, it would then be reasonable to conjecture that they are retrieved from stored memory as single chunks. In this case, it could be further predicted that very few filled pauses would occur before the second prepositional element of complex prepositions. If, however, the first two items form a constituent on their own and the noun after the first prepositional element is consequently considered just as much a content word as the noun following the complex preposition, hesitation markers would show a very different pattern. The two alternatives are exemplified in (22) and (23): (22) Erm peacocks’ tails may make them beautiful and more reproductively successful with peahens, but they don’t make them fitter in terms of erm life expectancy. (BNC: HUK: 308) (23) The county council thinks that its proposed provision is the right approach and it’s a balanced approach in line erm with Secretary of State’s previously e– stated wishes. (BNC: HVF: 140) In order to increase the validity of the search procedure, two further positions for filled pauses were also taken into consideration: just before the complex preposition, as in (24), and after the first item within the complex preposition, as in (25). (24) But also we need to make sure that members of the public know exactly what to do, er in relation to their own water supplies. (BNC: KRT: 4541) (25) Yes, I readily accept that, er my general proposition is in er connection with the settlement pattern of York, and . . . (BNC: HVK: 145)

Indivisible units or free constructions? 45 Thus, every single orthographic word-boundary in the environment of PNP-constructions was searched for filled pauses. Figure 3.4 gives an overview of the use of filled pauses in the four positions mentioned for the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC.11 Again, the total numbers involved are fairly low: only 323 instances of filled pauses uttered in conjunction with complex prepositions could be retrieved from the ten million words contained in the spoken component of the corpus. However, in contrast to the data presented for interpolation in Table 3.2 above, the results are very clear. Filled pauses overwhelmingly occur just before and just after a complex preposition. The second important finding is that the number of filled pauses found in the position just after the nominal element – which Seppänen et al. (1994) claim to be a constituent boundary – is just as low as the number of instances before the nominal element. In fact, only five instances each were found in the two positions within PNP-constructions. As a consequence, the constituent boundary posited by Seppänen et al. within PNP-constructions appears to be completely irrelevant for the average language user. On the basis of the data presented in Figure 3.4, a much more likely scenario is that PNP-constructions are stored in the memory as single chunks that do not need to be assembled in the process of constructing the upcoming sequence of speech. Figure 3.4 also shows that the number of filled pauses before and after the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the BNC is rather even (156 before versus 144 after, or 52 per cent versus 48 per cent). In order to evaluate this finding, I retrieved all instances of er and erm before and after simple prepositions. The result is shown in Table 3.3. Clearly, both positions are frequently taken by filled pauses; a total of over 18,000 instances were found in the ten million words of the spoken

n323

Figure 3.4 Complex prepositions in the spoken part of the BNC: distribution of filled pauses.

46 Indivisible units or free constructions? Table 3.3 Filled pauses (er and erm) before and after simple prepositions in the spoken part of the BNC Before simple preposition

After simple preposition

6,671

11,764

36%

64%

component of the BNC. But in the case of simple prepositions, the position before the preposition is less likely to have a filled pause (36%) than when the preposition is a PNP-construction (52%). This may suggest that more cognitive effort is needed to retrieve complex prepositions from stored memory. Given the longer sequence of items involved and possibly the need for assessing and evaluating any remaining internal structure, the distribution presented in Figure 3.4 is not surprising. Figure 3.4 contains a fifth bar which has so far not been discussed. This bar represents the 13 sentences in which the filled pause occurs after the whole complex preposition but where the second prepositional element of the PNP-construction is repeated. An example of this is shown in (26): (26) Research there being either on behalf of animals themselves, or on behalf of er, of humans. (BNC: FLH: 156) These sentences clearly fit into the general picture in that the complex preposition is at least initially left intact as a unit. However, these sentences also show that speakers of English occasionally make use of the internal structure of PNP-constructions. It is possible that this internal structure may have become apparent to the speakers only after the individual instances were retrieved from memory, but on the basis of such limited data, these considerations must remain mere conjecture. However sentences like (26) may be interpreted, the fact remains that, in the overwhelming number of cases, complex prepositions are not interrupted by filled pauses. This observation lends much stronger support for an evaluation of the syntactic status of complex prepositions than the application of the interpolation test as suggested by Seppänen et al. Fronting The third constituent test to be discussed here is based on the assumption that only whole constituents can be moved to a different position within the sentence. As an illustration of this restriction, compare sentences (27) and (28). Stranded complex preposition (27) None of this does any good; it just makes Washington wonder what exactly Mr Clinton is in charge of. (BNC: CRC: 1001)

Indivisible units or free constructions? 47 Fronted prepositional element (28) This included the computerisation of the organisation’s archive, of which I was in charge. (BNC: HD7: 285) In (27), the complex preposition as a whole is stranded, whereas in (28), the second prepositional element of the same PNP-construction is piedpiped to the front of the clause. Sentences such as (28) are used in Seppänen et al. (1994) to support the claim that a constituent boundary exists within PNP-constructions. As Table 3.4 shows, corpus data can offer very little additional information to the discussion at hand because both stranding of the whole complex preposition and pied-piping as in (28) are extremely rare phenomena. Only 57 relevant sentences containing one of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions could be retrieved from the whole corpus of 100 million words. Sentences which exhibit the PNP-construction intact as a whole sequence are almost as frequent as the sentences of the type on which Seppänen et al.’s argumentation is based (27 versus 30 instances). Nevertheless, as in the case of interpolation, the figures are simply too low to be indicative of a general trend. It is, however, interesting to investigate which complex prepositions are stranded or fronted. Table 3.5 lists the individual frequencies for all 57 Table 3.4 Stranded and fronted complex prepositions in the British National Corpus Stranded complex preposition

Fronted prepositional element

27

30

Table 3.5 Individual complex prepositions in stranded and fronted constructions Stranded complex preposition in front of in favour of in charge of in connection with in accordance with in need of in respect of in search of in terms of with regard to

Fronted prepositional element 10 5 4 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 27

in common with in charge of in favour of in need of in contrast to in return for

16 7 3 2 1 1

30

48 Indivisible units or free constructions? instances according to the type of construction. With 16 occurrences, in common with is the PNP-construction with a second prepositional element most frequently found in a fronted position. The most common complex preposition in stranded position is in front of with a total of ten instances. It is interesting to note that all of the constructions with a second prepositional element employed in a fronted position are also commonly used without this prepositional element. For example, only about 40 per cent of all of the occurrences of in common in the BNC are followed by with. The highest proportion is found for in favour which is followed by of in just over 85 per cent of the instances. Sentence (29) is a case in point: (29) Those in favour included both the ruling New Democracy and the opposition socialist Pasok. (BNC: HLM: 1845) Most of the remaining types shown in Table 3.5 in the column with stranding constructions do not exhibit this kind of flexibility: in connection, in accordance, in respect, in search, in terms, and with regard occur in 96 to 99.5 per cent of the instances as part of a complex preposition. The fact that all of these PNP-constructions only occur in a stranded position might be taken as a further indication that – at least under most circumstances – the average language user considers them to be indivisible units. Ellipsis The fourth constituency test presented by Seppänen et al. (1994) concerns elliptical structures such as featured in (30): (30) Speaker A: This is in line with company policy. Speaker B: With company policy yes, but what about the union? Seppänen et al. (1994: 21) Here, with company policy in Speaker B’s response is a sentence fragment and this is in line is deleted. The remaining part must therefore be a constituent. This would then mean that the PNP-construction in line with is not a unit without internal constituent boundaries. On the other hand, if the sentence fragment in Speaker B’s response contained the whole complex preposition (In line with company policy yes . . .), no statement about the internal structure of the construction in question could have been made. I therefore again searched the spoken component of the BNC for both types of constructions in order to determine whether any differences with respect to their overall frequency could be found. Interestingly, exchanges like the one shown in (30) are virtually nonexistent in the ten million words of the spoken component of the BNC. Only one single instance of the type used in Seppänen et al. was retrieved:

Indivisible units or free constructions? 49 (31) PS1SD

PS1SE PS1SD

Okay er acceleration equals K X what’s the rate of change of acceleration? If we differentiate acceleration with respect to time. to time yeah. What do we get when you differentiate that? <pause> (BNC: KLG: 1321–4)

The corresponding type, i.e. where the whole complex preposition is repeated in the second turn, is similarly rare: only four instances could be retrieved. One of these four sequences is shown in (32): (32) PS3MH No, it’s in my name. PS3ML It’s in your name but it’s on behalf of the club. PS3MH It’s on behalf of the club, yeah. (BNC: J3N: 189–91) On the basis of such limited data, it is of course impossible to evaluate the application of the ellipsis test as presented in Seppänen et al. (1994). A far larger corpus of spoken data would be necessary for such an undertaking.

In favour of unity: complex prepositions exist! The past two decades have seen an increased interest in recurrent wordcombinations. In their highly influential paper, Pawley and Syder (1983) pointed out that standard approaches to grammar and syntax are difficult to reconcile with the native-like selection and fluency observable in everyday conversation. The application of syntactic rules in conjunction with our internalized lexicon of the language clearly allows an infinite number of possible word-combinations. However, according to Pawley and Syder, ‘native speakers do not exercise the creative potential of syntactic rules to anything like their full extent’ (1983: 193; emphasis in the original). Rather, large proportions of spontaneous connected discourse consist of what the authors call institutionalized or lexicalized sentence stems. The availability of these units dramatically reduces the cognitive load on the production of speech: In the store of familiar collocations there are expressions for a wide range of familiar concepts and speech acts, and the speaker is able to retrieve these as wholes or as automatic chains from the long term memory; by doing this he minimizes the amount of clause-internal encoding work to be done and frees himself to attend to other tasks in talk-exchange, including the planning of larger units of discourse. An utterance will be nativelike to the extent that it consists of a lexicalized sentence stem plus permissible expansions or substitutions. (Pawley and Syder 1983: 192)

50 Indivisible units or free constructions? A very similar approach is found in Sinclair’s (1991) work on collocations. He distinguishes between two major principles that are at work in the production of language: the open-choice principle and the idiom principle. The open-choice principle sees ‘language text as the result of a very large number of complex choices. At each point where a unit is completed (a word, phrase, or clause), a large range of choice opens up and the only restraint is grammaticalness’ (Sinclair 1991: 109). This is the traditional view taken by virtually all grammatical descriptions of language. The idiom principle, conversely, assumes that ‘a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might be analyzable into segments’ (ibid.) Sinclair stresses that the idiom principle allows a considerable degree of internal lexical or syntactic variation. Like Pawley and Syder (1983), he claims that this inventory of semi-preconstructed combinations accounts for a much larger part of language production than previously assumed.12 The discussion presented in Seppänen et al. (1994) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002) is based on the open-choice principle. Within this approach, its argumentation is sound and the conclusion that the grammatical class of complex prepositions is empty must be accepted as an obvious consequence of the analysed examples. However, if PNP-constructions are seen from within the framework of a theory that recognizes the idiom principle, the situation is quite different. I have given ample evidence for the existence of complex prepositions as recurrent lexical sequences which are available to language users as whole units. Irrespective of their internal syntactic structure, these units in the vast majority of cases serve the same function as single-word prepositions. The examples provided by Seppänen et al. do not counter such a view as they simply demonstrate the flexibility allowed by the combined application of the idiom principle and the open choice principle. In other words, grammatical categories do not have clear boundaries but are gradient phenomena. In my opinion, such a view of the organization of language offers a much more cognitively plausible description of grammatical categories. In Chapter 4, I will shift the focus from a purely synchronic to a diachronic approach. In using the expression ‘institutionalized sentence stems’, Pawley and Syder (1983) tacitly imply that new sequences can become conventionalized over time in the same way that a community of language users can agree on the use of a new lexical item. I will ask the question of how complex prepositions historically developed and whether common features in this development can be isolated. As I will show, complex prepositions can be seen as typical instances of a change whereby individual lexical items gradually become part of the grammatical system of the language. In other words, what is at issue is the grammaticalization of complex prepositions.

4

Grammaticalization and complex prepositions

Introduction: language change It is an obvious fact that language changes over time. To most speakers of Present-day English, texts written by Chaucer present serious comprehension problems while the Old English of Aelfric is only decipherable for a trained scholar. A second obvious fact is that not all types of language change occur at the same speed. New words are constantly added to the vocabulary and account for many of the changes experienced in everyday life. For example, the enormous rise in the use and popularity of the Internet has brought about a whole range of new words with the by-now quite productive prefix cyber(e.g. cybercrime, cybersex, cybernaut etc.).1 Changes in the pronunciation of words, by comparison, usually come about at a much slower speed; their detection usually requires data spanning at least one full generation. Structural changes, finally, generally take the longest to complete. A good example is the case of the English progressive aspect, the early origins of which can be traced back to a small number of contested examples from the Old English period. Even by the seventeenth century, English verbs still differed quite considerably in their use and distribution of the progressive from what can be observed today.2 Furthermore, comparative corpus-based studies using data from the 1960s and the 1990s suggest that their development is by no means completed (cf. Mair and Hundt 1995). The exact mechanisms of language change have been a matter of considerable debate. An explanation for why language changes strongly depends on the linguist’s concept of what language is. Some scholars appear to view language as a self-contained system which is subject to inherent changes. Consider for example the forces said to be at work in Sapir’s (1921) concept of drift: it is the language as an independent system which is subjected to these forces. This view has been criticized for having neglected the fact that a language is only the cumulative sum of utterances produced by its speakers: ‘Languages don’t change; people change language through their actions’ (Croft 1990: 257). Such a view places much more emphasis on the utterances of single speakers whose individual innovations may be taken up by others and thus contribute to change.

52 Grammaticalization and complex prepositions A highly influential conceptualization of language was introduced by Chomsky and involves his famous differentiation between competence and performance (Chomsky 1965). Competence is held to be a mentally represented grammar consisting of a set of cognitively plausible rules, while performance is only a secondary – and possibly distorted – realization of this internalized model. The aim of linguistics, according to Chomsky’s generative theory, is to describe these rules and to formalize them in such a way that they generate all and only grammatical sentences. Within this generative approach to language, the concept of language change refers to the alteration of the internalized model, i.e. the restructuring of the set of given rules. It does not refer to observable differences over time in terms of performance. This alteration, however, can only happen during language acquisition when children use their innate, universal capacities for language in combination with universal reasoning processes to construct their own grammar based on the input they receive from their linguistic environment. Once this process is complete, language competence is described as being a fixed system. With the exception of the actual transmission process from generation to generation, performance has little, if any, effect on language competence as such. A different conceptualization of language is taken by those linguists who prefer a functionalist approach. Language change, they claim, is not limited to the outcome of the transmission from generation A to generation B; rather, they conceive it to be the result of language use in general. Language is constantly adapted to meet the requirements of new discourse situations. Repeated use opens the way for structural changes in the grammar of a language: innovations to the given system introduced by individual speakers become conventionalized and propagated across a speech community. According to this perspective, the propagation of a new form or structure may take centuries, which, on the one hand explains the gradual development of linguistic phenomena like the previously mentioned progressive aspect in English. On the other hand, a usage-based view of grammar is also compatible with much more rapid changes which can occur within the space of one or two generations. Within a functionalist approach, although it is rarely explicitly stated, there is thus no clear division between competence and performance. Over the past few decades, grammaticalization theory has taken a prominent place among functionalist approaches to language change, and the current study is heavily influenced by its major concepts. A widely accepted definition of grammaticalization is found in Kurylowicz (1975 [1965]: 52): ‘Grammaticalization consists in the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from a less grammatical to a more grammatical status, e.g. from a derivative formant to an inflectional one.’3 The first use of the term grammaticalization is usually ascribed to the French scholar Meillet (1958 [1912]) but, as Heine et al. (1991: 5ff.) note, it was a commonly held view already by eighteenth- and

Grammaticalization and complex prepositions 53 nineteenth-century grammarians and philosophers that grammatical words and morphemes were derived from lexical items denoting concrete entities.4 By acknowledging that this change is gradual, grammaticalization stands in opposition to other theories of language which rely on discrete categories for their descriptions. As mentioned above, grammaticalization theory also questions the independence of structure and use which is postulated by generative grammarians. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to present a comprehensive account of grammaticalization theory and its various modes of application. For this purpose, the reader is referred to one of the standard textbooks such as Heine et al. (1991) or Hopper and Traugott (2003).5 Instead, I will introduce the most important concepts employed in grammaticalization theory by way of a practical example and trace the development of the complex preposition in view of over the last 300 years. On the basis of this data, I will then return to the question of the formal (i.e. grammatical) status of complex prepositions. As I will argue, a functionalist view of language change can effectively counter most of the arguments voiced by structuralists such as Seppänen et al. (1994).

A case study: the grammaticalization of in view of With its 1,439 occurrences, in view of is among the 20 most frequent PNPconstructions in the British National Corpus. Sentences (1) and (2) exemplify the typical use of the construction in view of in the Gutenberg Corpus: (1) In this manner, we came in view of the entrance of a wood, through which we were to pass, at the farther side of the plain . . . (GUT: Defoe [1661], Robinson Crusoe) (2) They were yet barely in view of their mistress’s house, when Oak fancied he saw the opening of a casement in one of the upper windows. (GUT: Hardy [1840], Far from the Madding Crowd) In both examples, view is employed with a literal meaning, describing a situation where a feature of the landscape or a building comes within range of sight. In Present-day English, however, a different use is current. Two typical instances are shown in (3) and (4): (3) In view of the large number of requests made we are unable to advise you pre-departure if they cannot be met. (BNC: AM0: 1720) (4) In view of your comments, I think we can safely tell the hotel what to do with their bed. (BNC: AJA: 583) Both examples make it clear that the meaning of the complex preposition in view of has very little to do with an exercise of the power of vision.

54 Grammaticalization and complex prepositions Rather, it can be paraphrased using other complex prepositions such as in consideration of or on account of and there is a causal relationship between the complement of the preposition – the requests in (3) and the comments in (4) – and the action outlined in the following clause. This causal connection is even more apparent in (5), where because of or due to could be used instead with little or no change in meaning: (5) In view of the great speed at which the bistable can operate, it would toggle on each bounce and the results would be unpredictable. (BNC: C91: 707) This semantic change from concrete to more abstract meanings is a typical feature of grammaticalization. It is, however, important to stress that the observed change does not affect the noun view alone. Rather, the whole construction in view of has lost its compositional meaning and therefore requires interpretation as a single unit. As will be shown below, this development is mirrored in the structural properties of complex prepositions. Typically, older and newer meanings may coexist for a long period of time, resulting – from a synchronic point of view – in a layering of meanings (Hopper 1991: 22).6 Using diachronic data, this development can usually be traced quantitatively. Figure 4.1 shows the frequency per million words of in view of in its older, more concrete meaning and its newer, more abstract, complex prepositional use as identified in the Gutenberg Corpus and the BNC. The complex prepositional use of in view of occurs first in texts by authors whose year of birth is later than 1800, and there is a marked rise in its frequency between the late Gutenberg texts and the BNC (2.6 versus 15.3 instances pmw). This rise is typical of grammaticalizing constructions since the observed semantic changes enable them to be used in environments which would be incompatible with their original meaning. In other words, the construction has undergone the process of generalization. Figure 4.1 further shows that the literal meaning of in view of steadily decreases over the time covered by my two corpora. In Present-day English, as represented by the BNC, this use is exceedingly rare (only nine instances in the whole corpus, or 0.1 pmw). However, the dichotomy ‘concrete versus abstract’ is not sufficient enough to account for the semantic development undergone by in view of over the last three centuries. Sentences (6) and (7) illustrate an important process observable in the grammaticalization of in view of as a complex preposition: (6) From hence we went still south about seven miles (all in view of this river) to Dartmouth, a town of note, seated at the mouth of the River Dart, and where it enters into the sea at a very narrow but safe entrance. (GUT: Defoe [1661], From London to Land’s End)

Grammaticalization and complex prepositions 55

Figure 4.1 The distribution of literal versus complex prepositional (CP) use of in view of in the Gutenberg Corpus and the BNC.

(7) It is hard to see what else they could have done in view of the Secretary of State’s decision. (BNC: CAR: 813) In the literal meaning of in view of as exemplified in (6), its communicative impact is purely descriptive: it adds information about the exact topographic environment of the described scene. In the complex prepositional use of in view of as shown in (7), however, in view of has not only acquired a causal reading, but it also expresses a subjective evaluation on the part of the author/speaker. This is a typical example of subjectification, which is ‘the development of a grammatically identifiable expression of speaker belief or speaker attitude to what is said’ (Traugott 1995a: 32). In Traugott’s view, the concept of subjectification offers a better framework for a description of the observed semantic changes in incipient grammaticalization than earlier approaches which centred around the process of semantic bleaching or semantic attrition, i.e. the loss of semantic content. While the original, concrete meaning of view certainly fades away in the grammaticalization of the complex preposition in view of, it is replaced by a pragmatic strengthening and an increased expressivity of the subjective stance of the speaker/author (cf. Hopper and Traugott 2003: 94–5; Traugott 1995a: 49). Subsequent loss of semantic content – usually going hand-inhand with phonological attrition or erosion – is a typical feature of more advanced levels of grammaticalization (cf. going to → gonna). The motivation for the observed semantic change is somewhat more difficult to trace on the basis of my diachronic data, and the following

56 Grammaticalization and complex prepositions attempt at an explanation may leave many questions open. In terms of mental processes, there is an obvious connection between visual input on the one hand and cognitive evaluation of this input on the other hand. If a new (and situationally salient) object enters the visual range of a person, this may trigger a reaction. There is thus often a causal connection between vision and action. It may be the case that repeated exposure to uses of in view of, where the situational set-up invited context-induced reinterpretation towards a more subjective and causal meaning rather than a purely literal (i.e. visual) meaning, resulted in the establishment (or entrenchment) of a new, conventionalized reading of the construction under consideration. As a case in point, consider sentence (8): (8) Our conduct is in view of an all-seeing eye. (OED, 1710 Palmer Proverbs; all a., n. and adv.) Here, the primary meaning of in view of (‘within visible range’) could conceivably be subject to reinterpretation because the presence of an all-seeing eye will no doubt have an influence on the conduct of the person who feels observed. A suitable paraphrase for this potentially inferred meaning would thus be ‘our conduct is conditioned by the fact that there is an all-seeing eye’. At the same time, human cognition also allows mental contemplation without ocular inspection. The potential ambiguity of sentence (8) is at least partly derived from the fact that the location of the vantage point is left open to interpretation. Is the perspective that of the all-seeing eye or is it the author who is imagining the presence of this all-seeing eye? The faculty for introspective contemplation greatly enlarges the possible range of objects and situations available to an observer’s (internal) view. Such mental contemplation is also free from the normal temporal constraints of concrete vision in that both past and future events can be envisaged. What remains, however, is the fact that this type of vision may also cause a reaction on the part of its experiencer. Given that the object of the (mental) vision is not a concrete entity, the reinterpretation of the situation as subjective evaluation appears all the more likely. Unfortunately, the data for in view of available to me from the period of 1700–1850 is relatively sparse. In any case, a gradual transition from the visual meaning towards the modern complex prepositional use cannot be observed. A detailed study of the discoursepragmatic strategies at work and the connection between concrete and internal, mental vision must therefore be set aside for the time being. From a formal point of view, the grammaticalization of complex prepositions manifests itself in a number of ways. In parallel to the semantic changes described above, the nominal element of the construction over time loses the features that define its categorial status as a noun. For example, in the complex prepositional use of in view of, view cannot occur in the plural or with a determiner, nor can it be premodified by an adjective.7 The noun view has thus undergone the process of decategorializa-

Grammaticalization and complex prepositions 57 tion. As a result, the complex preposition in view of can no longer be meaningfully analysed as a fully compositional construction. Rather, the whole sequence must now be viewed holistically and treated as a single unit. It has thus undergone syntactic reanalysis and, in terms of syntactic features, now functions as the head of a prepositional phrase. The two different syntactic realizations of in view of are shown in Figure 4.2 with the help of phrase markers (cf. Figure 3.1 in Chapter 3). The literal (and thus fully compositional) variant is shown under (a), while the complex prepositional interpretation is illustrated in (b). It is important to note that reanalysis is a covert process. In Langacker’s (1977: 58) classical definition, it is a ‘change in the structure of an expression or class of expressions that does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation’. The implication is that in principle no formal differentiation can be made for the distinction between a (fully compositional) preposition–noun–preposition combination and a grammaticalized complex preposition. Reanalysis only becomes apparent when the use of the new structure is extended (by analogy) to contexts which would be incompatible with the original structure. This is, for example, the case when be going to is used with verbs that do not denote purposive meaning (e.g. I’m going to hate this). In the case of in view of, a similar situation exists when the complement of the prepositional phrase is incompatible with the concept of (ocular) vision. This is well demonstrated in (9), where the abstract noun speculation leaves little doubt as to the complex prepositional status of the construction under consideration: (9) The image Mr Lawson presented holed up in his home behind a securely locked gate was unfortunate, in view of the speculation over his political future. (BNC: A4R: 41) There is disagreement in the literature as to whether reanalysis is a prerequisite of grammaticalization. The opinion that reanalysis is necessarily required seems to be adopted, among others, by Hopper and Traugott

Figure 4.2 The syntactic structures of the literal and complex prepositional uses of in view of.

58 Grammaticalization and complex prepositions (2003: 39), who claim that ‘[r]eanalysis is the most important mechanism for grammaticalization’. However, the authors also stress that reanalysis cannot simply be equated with grammaticalization: ‘It is best . . . to regard grammaticalization as a subset of changes involved in reanalysis, rather than to identify the two’ (Hopper and Traugott 2003: 59). For a radically different opinion, see Haspelmath (1998), who claims that most grammaticalization processes can be explained without having to take recourse to the concept of reanalysis. In his view, explanations such as the one given for sentence (9) above are not valid since ‘the motivation for the various proposals of rebracketing is semantic’ (Haspelmath 1998: 332). In the previous chapter, I offered quantitative data that supports the interpretation that complex prepositions are indivisible units which are retrieved from memory as one single chunk. While I would be wary of making any sweeping claims concerning the processes of grammaticalization in general, my findings strongly suggest that reanalysis plays an important role at least in the grammaticalization of complex prepositions. However, a detailed analysis of the interplay between reanalysis and grammaticalization must remain a subject for future investigation. As this brief overview has demonstrated, in view of undergoes a whole range of changes in its development from a fully compositional sequence of words to an indivisible unit forming part of the grammatical system of English. The direction taken by these changes – i.e. from literal to more abstract, from variable to invariable, from discourse to syntax (and typically on to morphology), etc. – is commonly thought to be unidirectional, and grammaticalization is, as a consequence, said to be irreversible. In other words, elements of the grammar of a language do not in principle evolve into ordinary lexical expressions. Although the absolute universality of this claim has been successfully refuted on the basis of a small number of counterexamples, unidirectionality must nevertheless be seen as a strong constraint on morphosyntactic change (cf. Haspelmath 2004). A final important question is whether the changes described in the current section are the immediate consequence of a single process or whether grammaticalization must in fact be considered an epiphenomenon, i.e. an aggregate of mechanisms that may elsewhere occur independently. Campbell (2001), for example, claims: Grammaticalization has no independent status of its own; it merely involves other kinds of changes and mechanisms of change which are well understood and are not limited to cases involving grammaticalization: sound change, semantic change, and reanalysis. (Campbell 2001: 117)8 In Haspelmath’s (2004) view, however, such a dismissal is unjustified. While individual low-level changes (e.g. phonological erosion, desemanticization, reanalysis, decategorialization, etc.) can indeed be looked at in

Grammaticalization and complex prepositions 59 isolation, grammaticalization warrants further investigation because ‘we observe strong correlations between phonological, syntactic and semantic–pragmatic changes. It is a macro-level phenomenon which cannot be reduced to the properties of the corresponding micro-level phenomena’ (Haspelmath 2004: 26). The present study makes use of large amounts of quantitative data to investigate a whole range of grammaticalizing items, all of which are linked by their common function as heads of preposition phrases. Among other aspects, the findings I present will thus provide further insights into the nature of morphosyntactic change and thereby contribute towards an informed evaluation of claims about unidirectionality and other fundamental features of grammaticalization.

The status of complex prepositions as elements of grammar In Chapter 3, I gave evidence for the existence of the class of complex prepositions with the help of quantitative data. I showed that the overwhelming majority of PNP-constructions under consideration are used in a way which is compatible with the concept of a fixed and indivisible unit. This was particularly evident in spoken interaction, where filled pauses were interpreted as an indication of the cognitive processes at work during the on-line production of speech. Such pauses were almost exclusively found immediately before and after the complex prepositions, a fact which strongly supports the hypothesis that they are retrieved from memory as single chunks rather than being composed of individual parts. In the present chapter, I have given an outline of the major concepts of grammaticalization theory. In stark contrast to a compositional syntactic theory which relies on discrete categories, grammaticalization allows for – and in fact even requires – fuzzy boundaries and gradience between the different categories. Also, the concept of layering accounts for the coexistence of earlier and more recent stages in the development of a grammaticalizing word or construction. Together with Pawley and Syder’s (1983) concept of lexicalized sentence stems and Sinclair’s (1991) idiom principle, grammaticalization theory implicitly undermines the validity of Seppänen et al.’s (1994) apparent counter-examples. However, grammaticalization theory then goes even one step beyond Sinclair’s and Pawley and Syder’s approaches and considers PNP-constructions fully integrated elements of the grammatical system underlying language. In the next chapter, I will turn to a comprehensive description of the development of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the history of English. In doing so, I will make further reference to the concepts of grammaticalization theory which I presented in my discussion of in view of. In extending the range of investigated PNP-constructions, I will be able to assess whether the development shown for in view of can indeed be considered typical for the grammaticalization of the category of complex prepositions.

5

Complex prepositions A diachronic overview

Introduction In the previous chapter, I presented the case of in view of as a typical example of a grammaticalized complex preposition. I looked at the development of this phrase from a free PNP-construction towards its presentday status as a fixed and indivisible unit by discussing processes such as semantic change, generalization, decategorialization and reanalysis. However, while the diachronic development of in view of can indeed be employed to exemplify many of these prototypical processes of grammaticalization, I was only able to present an incomplete picture. In particular, the presumably gradual development from the concrete (i.e. visual) to the abstract (i.e. evaluative) meaning of in view of could not be traced via the presence of potentially ambiguous examples which would consequently invite context-induced reinterpretation. This situation calls for two possible paths of interpretation. On the one hand, it may be argued that the data available through the Gutenberg Corpus is simply not sufficiently large for a successful and complete description of the grammaticalization processes at work. Given its overall size of less than 25 million words covering more than 200 years of both fiction and non-fiction texts, individual time-spans of no more than 50 years will necessarily contain only a comparatively small number of examples. Since potentially ambiguous examples would certainly only represent a small proportion of all occurrences of in view of, it indeed seems plausible that such crucial instances are too rare to be represented in sufficient numbers. On the other hand, a clearly more radical interpretation of this data is that a gradual development towards greater fixedness and abstraction may not in fact be a necessary feature in the grammaticalization of a particular complex preposition. Rather, it could be argued that the lack of such ambiguous examples supports the view that grammaticalization can occur in a much more abrupt manner than is commonly assumed. If this were indeed the case, the motivation for such an abrupt change would certainly deserve further discussion.

A diachronic overview 61 Since more extensive text corpora from the Late Modern English period were unavailable, the question concerning in view of cannot be conclusively answered. However, additional insights into the nature of the grammaticalization of PNP-constructions might of course be gained by analysing the development of other frequent complex prepositions over time. In the present chapter, I will therefore present and evaluate diachronic data for some of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions of Present-day English as represented by the BNC. The aim of this undertaking is two-fold. First, I am interested in offering the reader a more comprehensive overview of the class of complex prepositions. Such an overview will make it possible to determine whether complex prepositions exhibit common features in their development towards unit-like constructions despite the fact that their grammaticalization occurs in very different periods of the English language. Second, I am particularly interested in testing whether or not grammaticalization processes are gradual. As I will show, my data suggests that a sizeable number of complex prepositions exhibit the same kind of apparently abrupt change which was described for in view of. While the lack of data cannot be completely ruled out as a possible explanation for this observation, I will offer an alternative, albeit tentative, reason for this finding. The diachronic data for this general overview will be drawn from two main sources: the illustrative quotations contained in the OED and the Gutenberg Corpus. The use of the former database will make it possible to cover the development of older complex prepositions, i.e. PNPconstructions that were already fully grammaticalized in the earliest timespan covered by the Gutenberg Corpus. Moreover, although a direct comparison between the two data-sets can only be carried out with the greatest of caution (see Chapter 2), the OED quotations can certainly be used to supplement the Gutenberg Corpus as an additional source of more recent diachronic data. Present-day English data drawn from the BNC will be used to complement the diachronic data. Table 5.1 gives an overview of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in Present-day English. In addition to the number of occurrences found in the written component of the BNC, Table 5.1 also indicates the approximate year in which each individual PNP-construction was first attested as a complex prepositional unit in the OED data.1 In order to facilitate the discussion, the data for the individual complex prepositions will be presented in three groups. The first group will comprise early complex prepositions, i.e. PNP-constructions which had already acquired complex prepositional status before the year 1500 (Group 1). The second group will consist of more recent complex prepositions, i.e. constructions with grammaticalization into fixed units which can be placed within the time-span from roughly 1500 to 1700 (Group 2). Finally, the third group will contain those PNP-constructions which were only added to the list of complex prepositions within the last three centuries (Group 3).

in front of in line with in response to in return for in support of in terms of in view of

Group 3: Complex prepositions established after 1700 by reference to 654 1790 in accordance with 1,978 1830 in addition to 3,326 1800 in charge of 1,493 1830 in connection with 1,533 1820 in contrast to 875 1870 in excess of 773 1760

5,481 1,178 1,947 920 1,038 8,608 1,439

972 2,443 2,161 1,510 1,299

758 2,656 2,843

N

1750 1800 1870 1730 1760 19th cent. 1825

1600 1650 1600 1600 1650

1400 15th cent.? 14th cent.

First occur.

Note a Table 5.1 lists the number of instances of the 30 PNP-constructions in the written component of the BNC. Since my diachronic data is restricted to written sources, the Present-day English data discussed in the current chapter will not include any spoken data.

in search of on behalf of on top of with regard to with respect to

PNP-construction

Group 2: Complex prepositions established between 1500 and 1700 in common with 756 1560 in conjunction with 1,230 1650 in favour of 3,252 1580 in need of 741 1530 in relation to 4,329 1600

First occur. in place of in spite of in respect of

N

Group 1: Early complex prepositions (before 1500) by means of 1,591 1400 by virtue of 947 1350 by way of 1,354 1340

PNP-construction

Table 5.1 The 30 most frequent complex prepositions in the written component of the BNC and the approximate date of their introduction as complex prepositional units into English (based on the illustrative quotations of the OED)a

A diachronic overview 63 It is of course impossible to describe the development of the full list of 30 complex prepositions in greater detail. As a consequence, some typical or particularly noteworthy items will receive close attention while others will only be briefly mentioned.

Early complex prepositions The list of complex prepositions with an origin (and unit-like status) which can be traced back to Middle English comprises the following six PNPconstructions: by means of, by virtue of, by way of, in place of, in spite of and in respect of. Among these, in place of has received special attention in Schwenter and Traugott (1995) as part of their discussion about the grammaticalization of substitutive complex prepositions (together with instead of and in lieu of ). On the basis of data from the Helsinki Corpus as well as the OED and the Middle English Dictionary (MED), the authors identify the original meaning of the construction X in place of Y as purely locative in nature. In my OED data, this situation is exemplified by sentence (1): (1) The Lord . . . foond hym in a deseert loond, in place of orrour . . . ethir hidousnesse, and of waast wildernes. (OED, 1382 Wyclif Deut. xxxii. 10; horror n.) The Lord found him in a desert land, in a place of horror and hideousness and vast wilderness. As Schwenter and Traugott (1995: 253) state, an early substitutive meaning is suggested by the fact that the meaning of place underwent a semantic change in Middle English which allowed it to be used more abstractly, i.e. denoting ‘social position, station, rank, role, status; spiritual status; also, office, post . . .’ (MED, place, sense 4.d). A typical example of this semantic extension which is taken from my own data can be seen in (2): (2) They put a stinkyng harlot in place of the holy spouse of Christe. (OED, 1561 T. Norton Calvin’s Inst. iv. 13; changeling n.) It must be noted, however, that no Middle English examples of this usage are attested in either the OED data or the Helsinki Corpus. Schwenter and Traugott’s argumentation thus relies entirely on a single quotation from the MED, given here in example (3): (3) Jonathas resceyuyde the princehood, and rose in the place of Judas his brother. (c.1384 WBible[1], 1 Mac.9.31, c.1384 [MED place 4d], quoted in Schwenter and Traugott 1995: 253)

64 A diachronic overview The next step in the development of X in place of Y towards its Presentday English usage is seen when the slots for X and Y can be filled with inanimate objects and X replaces Y in its previous location. According to Schwenter and Traugott, this development can first be observed in the Early Modern English period. A typical example can be seen in sentence (4): (4) You shall have a halter in place of your frizeled haire. (OED, 1598 R. Barckley Felic. Man iii. [1603]; frizzled ppl. a.) Over time, the entity denoted by slot Y does not require removal before X is put into place, which enables a more abstract type of substitution or replacement. As a case in point, consider example (5): (5) Some rats have spines mingled with their fur, as the Cairo Mouse . . ., which has spines on the back in place of hairs. (OED, 1840 Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd. 113; spine n.) Here, the hairs on the back of this particular species of mouse were of course not actually replaced. Rather, the spines are simply in the same location occupied by hair in other, more prototypical kinds of mice. Schwenter and Traugott summarize the situation as follows: Whereas in the periods up to and including EModE, the substitution of one entity into the pre-existing position of another, e.g. Jonathas taking over the ‘slot’ held previously in the real world by Judas [cf. example (3)], and thus conceptually involving both movement out and into some ‘space’, these later examples do not refer to such preexisting position, but rather to generic, non-unique ‘slots’ that are present or anticipated in the writer’s construal of the world. (Schwenter and Traugott 1995: 255) By allowing such abstract replacement, the construction X in place of Y could be used in a much larger range of discourse contexts, and in Presentday English, this range of possible contexts has been extended even further. In addition, items filling slots X and Y may in fact exhibit little or no functional similarity. As I already discussed in the previous chapter for the case of in view of, such extensions of use are a typical feature of more advanced stages of grammaticalization. In addition, this development in the use of in place of can again be seen to go hand-in-hand with an increased level of formal fixedness. Thus, whereas in earlier periods of use the PNP-construction could be found with similar frequencies both with and without the definite article before place, in its present-day usage it is largely realized by its article-less variant. In the OED, 165 quotations dating from 1900 onwards contain in place of while only eight instances of

A diachronic overview 65 in the place of are found within the same time-span.2 As in the case of view, the nominal element of the complex preposition is subjected to the process of decategorialization. Schwenter and Traugott (1995) finally note that in place of has not reached the level of grammaticalization of instead of. The latter complex preposition can, for example, be used metalinguistically with tensed verbs (e.g. It rained instead of snowed), but such usage is not attested for in place of. Furthermore, the authors briefly comment on the only marginally acceptable use of in place of with a following gerund. While this combination is highly frequent with instead of (e.g. instead of going home, he stayed with his friends), only a handful of such examples can be found in Present-day English (as represented by the BNC) for in place of. The complete development of the different stages of grammaticalization of the complex preposition in place of as outlined by Schwenter and Traugott is summarized in Table 5.2. While I do not want to question the general validity of the sequence of stages shown in Table 5.2, a few cautionary remarks are nevertheless necessary here. Most importantly, it must be reiterated that the amount of data available for the description of the early stages of the grammaticalization of the construction at hand is quite limited. In the OED, only a total of nine instances of in (the) place of can be found before the year 1500 (four occurrences of in place of and five occurrences of in the place of ) and although the Helsinki Corpus provides another six instances (including only one occurrence of in place of ), this data-set can hardly be considered sufficient for a comprehensive description of a diachronic process spanning at least 250 years (i.e. stages 0 and I in Schwenter and Traugott 1995). As a consequence, the interpretation of such data must proceed with extreme caution. This is even more true given the fact that some of the early examples clearly do not match the suggested course of events as summarized in Table 5.2. As a case in point, consider examples (6) and (7):

Table 5.2 Stages of development of in place of (Schwenter and Traugott 1995: 259–60) Stage

Description

0 (French, ME) I (ME) II (EModE)

locative slot Y  person/being in an abstract social or spiritual position slot Y may be an inanimate object in a functional slot; inference that X and Y also occupy the same physical location slot Y not necessarily emptied prior to substitution; X not necessarily prototypical X and Y have little or no functional similarity, but share the same physical location

III (EModE) IV (PDE)

66 A diachronic overview (6) Per schal be maad a maner of restorynge in place of the boon pat was broken. (OED, c.1400 Lanfrancís Cirurg. 48; restoring vbl. n.) There will be made a kind of restoration in (the) place of the bone which was broken. (7) That Information so gyven, stand and be in place of Bille or Writte oryginall. (OED, 1467 Rolls of Parlt. V. 633/1; original n. and a.) These sentences are two of the four instances of in place of which appear in the OED before the year 1500. However, both exhibit a feature that is ascribed by Schwenter and Traugott (1995) to a later stage of the development of this PNP-construction, namely the Early Modern English period. Note that the entities filling the X and Y slots are both inanimate.3 Thus, while Schwenter and Traugott’s account of the grammaticalization of in place of may certainly capture the general gist of the development, earlier examples pertaining to presumably more grammaticalized stages of the construction at hand cast some doubt on the idealized sequence of events given in Table 5.2. A similar picture emerges when the co-occurrence of in place of with a following gerund is analysed more closely. According to Schwenter and Traugott (1995: 268), the absence of such combinations can be taken as evidence that in place of is not yet grammaticalized to the same extent as, for example, instead of. However, contrary to their claim in note 8, where they state that ‘there is only one example of in place of with a gerund [in the OED]’, the gerund does in fact occur after in place of in 12 sentences. Interestingly, as shown in (8), one of these instances is a rather early example: (8) The renegades in place of defending the king joyned with them the Turks in the spoyle. (OED, 1598 R. Barckley Felic. Man [1631] 232; renegade n.) Again, such a finding probably does not invalidate the general turn of events in the grammaticalization of in place of as described by Schwenter and Traugott. However, it does certainly suggest that the limited data available to researchers necessitates extreme caution when giving an interpretation. Given the low overall frequency of relevant phenomena in earlier texts, the danger exists that some of the relatively sparse examples which fully fit the line of argumentation may in fact have been just as unusual or untypical of the actual development taking place five to eight centuries ago as the sentences shown in (6)–(8). In any case, for a fully convincing quantitative analysis of grammaticalization phenomena, a much larger set of data would be required. For the study of more recent periods of English we are fortunate to have access to many millions of words of text and additional (electronic) sources of data are comparatively easy to compile. However, as I will show in my discussion of recent addi-

A diachronic overview 67 tions to the list of complex prepositions, even larger sets of data (e.g. for Late Modern English) may in some cases not be enough to grasp the full picture of the processes involved. The second early complex preposition that will be discussed in more detail is by way of. In Present-day English, it is used in various senses, including ‘by means of’ or ‘through’, as shown in (9); ‘in the form of’, as shown in (10); and ‘in the capacity of’, ‘with the function of’ or ‘as something equivalent to’, as in (11): They will be self-financing, since we aim to raise 20 billion by way of pollution taxes over the first five year of Government. (BNC: AP6: 34) (10) He also goes in for creative self-plundering by way of rhetorical and dialectical self-parody. (BNC: A18: 1391) (11) Take, by way of example, a devoted nurse who is quite exceptionally sensitive to patients’ needs. (BNC: CS2: 56) (9)

In addition, by way of X is also quite frequently found with a concrete sense of spatial movement from A to B via a location X. This use is exemplified in (12): (12) Later I turned and walloped back towards Berlin, by way of Magdeburg, with just the one tweak of the Tardis en route as I saw the signs for Potsdam. (BNC: AHC: 1567) Given that a normal path of grammaticalization typically starts from a concrete meaning and gradually develops via frequent context-induced reinterpretation into more abstract domains (cf. in place of ), it could be assumed that example (12) represents the oldest and most basic meaning of by way of. It would furthermore also seem reasonable to assume that the type of use exemplified by (9) is quite directly derived from this original usage: the pollution taxes constitute a location on a (metaphorical) path which needs to be taken in order to arrive at the goal of selffinancing. Examples (10) and particularly (11) would presumably reflect the most recent senses of the construction under consideration. It may therefore come as a surprise that the actual development of by way of from Middle English to the present day in fact proceeded quite differently. Consider example (13), which is the earliest occurrence of this PNP-construction in the OED quotations:4 (13) Pan may pe saules in purgatory, By way of grace specialy, Be delivered of pyn. (OED, 1340 Hampole Pr. Consc. 3603; specially adv.) Then may the souls in purgatory through grace particularly be delivered from pain.

68 A diachronic overview Here, way does not refer to an actual road or path but rather to some metaphorical or figurative process through which the souls in purgatory are required to pass to be relieved of their pain. The use of by way of in (13) is thus parallel to the one found in (9) or (10). Only 26 years later, the following example occurs: (14) To gadre hem precyous Stones and Perles, be weye of Alemesse. (OED, 1366 Mandeville xviii. 199; alms) To collect for them precious stones and pearls by way of (‘as’) alms. In (14), the meaning expressed by the nominal element weye is again clearly not concrete. However, it is also not possible to envisage a figurative path along which something is progressing. Rather, the precious stones gathered are described as having the function or significance of alms. A suitable paraphrase for the whole construction would thus be the simple preposition as. It therefore appears that the meaning expressed by be weye of in (14) is quite similar to the Present-day English use shown in (11) above, where by way of was followed by the noun phrase example. In other words, if the prototypical development in the grammaticalization of a construction from initially denoting concrete items or situations towards expressing more abstract concepts indeed also applied to by way of, it must be presumed that this development was completed by the time of the earliest quotations contained in the OED (i.e. around the first half of the fourteenth century). The absence of earlier examples of this particular complex preposition would in this case again be explained by the lack of available data for the period of Old English and Early Middle English. One tentative argument in support of this hypothesis is the fact that the figurative or metaphorical use of the noun way was certainly already current during the Old English period (cf. OED, way n., sense I.1.b – with its earliest quotation dating from 825). A more detailed analysis of the development of by way of over the time covered by the OED quotations, however, suggests that this scenario is not probable. Given that the presumably original, concrete meaning of this particular complex preposition (i.e. ‘by the route which passes through or over X’) is not infrequent in Present-day English, it seems highly likely that this kind of usage would also have to be attested in OED quotations dating from earlier periods of time such as Early and Late Modern English. The co-existence of several stages of grammaticalization even over many centuries is not an uncommon feature of language (cf. Hopper’s concept of layering mentioned in the previous chapter), and with a total of over 900 relevant quotations in the OED, the amount of data available for by way of is a sufficiently large database for the study of its major shifts in meaning over time. As it turns out, by way of used with a concrete meaning is first found in the year 1787, and there is a further 30-year gap between this earliest example and the next one. Both sentences are given here as (15) and (16):

A diachronic overview 69 (15) I . . . left the city by way of the Bowery. (OED, 1787 M. Cutler in W. P. and J. P. Cutler Life & Corr. [1888] I. 305; bowery n.) (16) Observations on the Proposed Railway or Tram-road from Stockton to the Collieries, by way of Darlington. (OED, 1818 (Title) [no bibliographical information given]; tram-road) This finding is all the more surprising if one considers that by way of is rather frequently found in quotations from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (251 and 207 quotations respectively). After about 1850, the use of by way of in its concrete sense becomes much more common, and in the twentieth century about one-fifth of all quotations (22/101) exhibit this particular usage. The data retrieved from the OED therefore suggests that the grammaticalization of by way of proceeded rather untypically: rather than starting off as a PNP-construction denoting a concrete sequence of events (i.e. spatial movement via a particular location), concrete usage was only added to the existing range of meanings at a much later stage. This finding is of further interest since the complex preposition by way of exhibits all the features of a fully fixed unit from very early on. For example, there are hardly any rivalling forms to be found (e.g. a PNP-construction with a different first or second prepositional element but expressing the same or similar concept), and the variant form with a definite article (by the way of ) is quite rare as well: only a total of 25 instances are found in the complete OED quotations. What is even more noteworthy is the fact that only a minority of these variants with the definite article (6/25) express a concrete spatial movement and, again, this usage, as shown in sentence (17), is first found in the eighteenth century.5 (17) Returning home by the way of Italy they were unhappily drowned in a post calash. (OED, 1703 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) V. 358; post n.) Sentence (17) was written almost a century before the earliest spatial example without definite article. While this would nicely conform to the usual sequence of events in the grammaticalization of a construction (cf. the decategorialization of the noun view in in the view of versus in view of ), the data available is far too limited to substantiate the claim that a similar process was indeed underway during the eighteenth century with respect to by way of. One further aspect of the development of by way of over time deserves brief mention, namely its relatively early ability to be employed in conjunction with the gerund. As I mentioned above, the acceptability of using a gerund after a complex preposition can be interpreted as a sign of an advanced stage of grammaticalization of a particular PNP-construction since it has generalized into a larger range of discourse contexts (cf. instead of as described by Schwenter and Traugott 1995).

70 A diachronic overview Given its highly fixed status as a complex preposition already by the time of Middle English, it comes as no surprise that the gerund is found relatively soon after the construction by way of. There are a few unclear examples in the sixteenth century, and the first unambiguous occurrences are attested in the early seventeenth century. Two typical sentences are given in (18) and (19): (18) As the former ingrailed doth dilate itself by way of incroaching into the Field, contrariwise this doth contract itself by inversion of the points into itself; in regard whereof . . it . . is called Invecked. (OED, 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry i. v. (1660) 27; invecked ppl. a.) (19) Most of them were very industrious in selling one Thing or other by Way of turning the Peny to a good Use. (OED, 1744 M. Bishop Life 260; way n.) In the BNC, 70 such constructions can be found; they thus cover about 5 per cent of all occurrences of by way of in its written component. Although this is a relatively small minority, it clearly shows that, contrary to what is the case for in place of, the combination with the gerund represents accepted usage. In a small number of instances, by way of  gerund forms a predicative phrase in combination with the verb to be (OED, way n.1, sense 32.d: ‘In the habit of (doing something); also, more usually, making a profession of, or having a reputation for (being or doing so-and-so)’): (20) A wiseacre passenger, who is by way of knowing the river well, says they are called capinchos in these parts. (OED, 1852 C. B. Mansfield Paraguay, etc. (1856) 182; way n.) (21) ‘I fancy you are by way of being a professional photographer, Mr Kleiber?’ (BNC: FPM: 2488) The first occurrence of this construction is found in 1834 but the acceptability of this usage is debatable. Wilson (1993), for example, describes it as ‘an idiom and cliché meaning “almost”, “on the way to becoming”, or similar rather vague and padded ideas, as in She is by way of being a pretty good tennis player’. Wilson further claims that ‘[i]t is chatty language, better limited to Conversational and Informal use’. This assessment echoes the following evaluation found in one of the OED quotations, written nearly a century earlier: (22) Mr. Brander Matthews finds fault with the phrase ‘by way of being’, and says an American can hardly understand it . . . ‘By way of being’ is endeavouring or purporting to be, holding oneself out in a certain character, or being so reputed; and this with an implied disclaimer of

A diachronic overview 71 precise knowledge or warranty on the speaker’s part. (OED, 1891 Sat. Rev. 18 July 77/1; way n.) Unfortunately, the number of instances found in my data is too low for a more detailed analysis of this relatively new addition to the range of meanings of by way of. In sum, by way of must be regarded as an untypical example of grammaticalization. It exhibits many features of a fixed unit from an early stage onwards and can thus be shown to have already reached a grammaticalized, complex prepositional status by the period of Middle English. However, the reversal of the prototypical development from concrete to abstract reference is certainly highly unusual and would therefore deserve further investigation on the basis of additional data. Of the remaining four complex prepositions in the group of early PNPconstructions, by virtue of (and its rivalling form in virtue of ) is of special interest in terms of its likely date of introduction into the grammar of English. According to the OED, the noun virtue in the sense of ‘moral excellence’ (OED, sense I.3.a) was first attested in 1225 but the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology claims that it dates from ‘probably before 1200’ (CDE, s.v. virtue). Its origin is given as Old French vertu, originally derived from Latin virtus, virtutem (‘moral strength’, ‘manliness’, ‘valour’), from vir, ‘man’. Other senses of virtue in thirteenth-century texts include ‘the power or operative influence inherent in a supernatural or divine being’ (OED, sense I.1.a) and ‘conformity of life and conduct with the principles of morality’ (OED, sense I.2.a). With respect to the first occurrence of the PNP-construction by/in virtue of, the OED and the CDE also differ slightly. While the first occurrence in the OED dates from 1230 (in uertu of ), the CDE claims that ‘[t]he phrase by virtue of is first recorded probably before 1200, originally in the sense of “by the power or efficacy of (something aiding or justifying)” ’ (CDE, s.v. virtue). In contrast to by way of and in place of, both of which are first attested much later than the nouns way and place individually, the introduction of the PNPconstruction by virtue of thus appears to be contemporaneous with the earliest uses of its nominal element (in isolation) in the English language. Two representative early examples are shown in (23) and (24): (23) Pe Kyng with pe maistrie went in to pe toun, pe pris he had wonnen in vertew of Criste’s passioun. (OED, c.1330 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 18; virtue n.) The powerful/victorious king went into the town – the price which he had won by the power of Christ’s passion. (24) He was i-bore of pe mayde Marie by vertu of God wip oute mannys mone. (OED, 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VI. 29; mone n.) He was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of God without intercourse with a man.

72 A diachronic overview From a modern perspective, it is tempting to interpret the two PNPconstructions in (23) and (24) as complex prepositions. However, such a view raises the question of how a lexical item that had just been borrowed into the vocabulary of a language could at the same time be part of a fixed construction which, at least under normal circumstances, would have required frequent repetition and context-induced reinterpretation in order to become established as part of the grammatical system. One possible answer could be suggested by the fact that Old French had the structurally similar phrase par la vertu de, which according to the Dictionaire historique de la langue française is already attested in the thirteenth century. In other words, the complex prepositional use of by virtue of might in fact be a loan translation.6 In any case, the development of the PNP-construction by virtue of was far from complete by the end of the Middle English period. In the early OED quotations, for example, the notions of ‘moral excellence’ and ‘power and authority’ are prominent features of the meaning expressed, as is also exemplified in (23) and (24) above. As a consequence, the attested noun-phrase complements are drawn from a relatively limited range of semantic fields and they tend to refer to religious or legal entities. Thus, God, the kynges writ, and the holy wordys are typical collocates of by virtue of in Middle English.7 In more modern texts, however, this specificity is gradually lost (cf. the notion of semantic bleaching) and the meaning of the whole PNP-construction in many Late Modern English quotations could be paraphrased as ‘in consequence of’ or ‘because of’. A typical example is shown in sentence (25): (25) The piston continues to descend by virtue of the expansion of the steam. (OED, 1782 Specif. Watt’s Patent No. 1321. 5; expansion) Here, the noun phrase complement simply expresses the mechanism involved in the movement of the piston, and the expansion obviously does not carry any connotations of moral or legal authority. In comparison with (25), the use of by virtue of in example (26) goes one step further: (26) Schabzieger, a Swiss green cheese, may well be considered regional by virtue of its limited appeal. (OED, 1955 Times 10 May 12/4; Schabzieger) In this example, the author expresses a subjective evaluation. Thus, the connection between the regional nature and the limited appeal of this particular type of Swiss cheese is not as direct as in (26), where the pressure of the steam had an immediate, physical effect on the piston. However, the original notions of authority and power expressed by the noun virtue are not completely lost in Present-day English usage. This becomes apparent when the current common collocations of by virtue of

A diachronic overview 73 Table 5.3 The ten strongest noun collocates of the complex preposition by virtue of (within a window of one to three words to the right) in the written component of the BNC Noun

n in BNC (written)

n collocate

in n texts

log-likelihood value

section fact position enactment subsection act rules licence paragraph membership

17,801 31,476 21,153 272 680 21,790 10,147 3,890 2,027 4,886

45 33 29 8 9 16 11 9 8 9

29 28 23 6 4 15 4 2 8 6

415.00 246.15 231.60 112.89 112.49 107.76 82.51 81.06 80.58 76.97

are considered. Table 5.3 lists the ten strongest noun collocates of by virtue of in the written component of the BNC. It contains only nouns which are found at least five times within a window of one to three words to the right of the complex preposition under consideration. The method of calculating collocational strength is based on the log-likelihood formula. Of the ten nouns, seven clearly pertain to legal contexts and the overwhelming majority of these collocations are indeed found in legal documents or other texts classified as either ‘Academic prose: politics law education’ or ‘Non-academic: politics law education’ in Lee’s genre classification scheme (cf. Lee 2001). These seven items are marked in bold in the table. A typical example is shown in (27), which is concerned with regulating access to confidential journalistic material and confidential personal records held by such people as doctors, social workers, etc: (27) Applications must be made to a circuit judge, who can issue the warrant by virtue of section 9 and Schedule 1 if he is satisfied that it would have been appropriate to issue a warrant prior to the Act. (BNC: EVK: 1272) In sentence (27), section 9 refers to a specific part in a legal text which has an immediate relevance for the procedure at hand: the warrant issued by the judge will give the applicant the right to access information which would otherwise have been unavailable. The contents of section 9 thus overrule other concerns such as the privacy, anonymity or even personal safety of the owner of the information. The power and authority for making such an action not only possible but morally justifiable originates in the legally binding nature of the text under consideration. While by virtue of has clearly become more generalized over time and can consequently be used in a wide range of situations and contexts, its most

74 A diachronic overview common usage still reflects the early roots of the PNP-construction in Middle English. The next complex preposition to be discussed is in spite of. According to the OED, in spite of is first attested in 1400, which is almost a century after the first occurrence of the noun spite – the shortened form of despit n. – meaning ‘contempt, disdain; also insolence, disrespect’ (MED, sense 1.a) and ‘humiliation, insult’ (MED, sense 2.a). As with in place of and in virtue of, the nominal element of the PNP-construction was borrowed from French. Today, in spite of is a concessive preposition synonymous with the native English preposition notwithstanding.8 In spite of is closely related to in despite of, which is first attested in the OED in a quotation dating from 1290.9 However, in despite of never became a particularly frequent construction, and in Present-day English, in despite of is virtually non-existent (only two occurrences in the BNC). As was already the case with the other complex prepositions discussed in the present section, only a small number of early examples are available for an analysis of the development of in spite of towards its modern usage. The situation is further complicated by the fact that an unambiguous interpretation of these early examples proves to be very difficult. Consider example (28): (28) But for noy of my nobilte & my nome gret, I shuld . . . spede the to spille in spite of pi kynge. (OED, c.1400 Destr. Troy 1968; spite n.) If it were not for the risk to my nobility and my reputation, I would hasten to kill you in spite of your king. Even with the help of the larger context, the potential ambiguity in example (28) cannot be fully resolved: is the action performed as a display of disrespect towards the king (i.e. ‘to spite your king’) or is it rather performed ‘notwithstanding the existence (and possible retaliatory action) of your king’? While the latter would correspond to the modern concessive reading of the sentence, the former – and probably more likely – interpretation would emphasize the notion of ‘humiliation’ and ‘insult’ expressed by the nominal element of the PNP-construction. A later example of this type of ambiguity can be seen in (29): (29) In spite of these swine-eating Christians (Unchosen nation, never circumcised . . .) Am I become as wealthy as I was. (Marlowe, 1592 The Jew of Malta, Act II, Sc. III) Again, two possible readings can be found: ‘in order to spite/humiliate the Christians . . .’ (non-concessive) and ‘notwithstanding the Christians’ (concessive).10 From a discourse-pragmatic perspective, the establishment of the two different readings and the gradually rising preference for a concessive interpretation could be hypothesized as follows. Depending on the social

A diachronic overview 75 status of the participants involved, an act of humiliation is a considerable risk to its performer which may result in various forms of retaliation (cf. in spite of your king, above). The description of a situation in which somebody is being humiliated may thus invite the reader or listener to draw inferences about the possible reactions of the target of the humiliation. Over time, these inferences may have received a more prominent place in the interpretation of in spite of. This, in turn, led to the establishment of a newly conventionalized, concessive meaning. In other words, the semantic change undergone by in spite of is a typical case of context-induced reinterpretation. In a next step, the construction generalized to a larger range of discourse contexts by allowing non-animate entities as complements in the prepositional phrase (e.g. in spite of the rain). This development represents an increased level of abstraction because the potential response to the performed action can no longer be seen to originate from the entity denoted by the complement of in spite of. At an even later stage, the construction could also be used in connection with noun-phrase complements with a positive connotation. As a case in point, consider (30): (30) In spite of excellent press notices . . . the play folded up at the end of eight weeks. (OED, 1937 N. Coward Present Indicative v. vi. 191; fold v.) In this context, no element of negative impact is expressed by excellent press notices and the original meaning of the nominal element spite has been completely lost. In Early and Late Modern English, in spite of thus follows a typical path towards an increased level of grammaticalization. A final point worth noting in the development of the complex preposition in spite of is the fact that a considerable number of its early examples are followed by expressions which are referring to features of the face (i.e. nose, teeth, beard, face, etc.). A typical instance is shown in (31): (31) Thou harlott preist! peiste thou me? I will be here when I lyst, in spite of thy teithe. (OED, c.1570 Durham Depos. (Surtees) 116; peise v.) You ‘halott priest’! Will you force me? I will be here when I choose to, in spite of your teeth. (32) Our English usual expression, in spite of the nose of mine enemies. (OED, 1659 Hammond On Ps. cxxxviii. 7; nose n.) In fact, almost one-third (7/24) of all quotations dating from before the year 1600 exhibit this pattern of co-occurrence and further examples are found up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Sentence (32) confirms the usage of these expressions during the period of Early Modern English. To the modern reader, the meaning of these apparently idiomatic expressions may be difficult to discern and the OED does not give any

76 A diachronic overview further details with respect to its common usage. Rissanen (2002: 198) paraphrases it as ‘ “unwillingly”, “against one’s wish” ’ although he indicates that this is only a rough approximation of its meaning. It may very well be that these early uses of in spite of contributed to its extension to other types of non-animate complements.11 The development of the remaining two complex prepositions in the earliest group of PNP-constructions, by means of and in respect of will only be discussed very briefly. By means of is first found around 1400 (in the form by mene of ). Its nominal element mean literally signifies ‘that which is in the middle’ (OED, sense I) and – through figurative extension – ‘an intermediary agent or instrument’ (OED, sense II). Both senses are recorded before the year 1400. While some of the earliest instances of by means of still carry aspects of the more literal, spatial sense of the noun (e.g. chyle which is said to spread through the liver by means of hair-like veins12), present-day usage denoting ‘by the instrumentality of (a person or thing)’ (OED, sense II.14.f.a) became the norm by the Early Modern English period. The first cooccurrence with a gerund (by means of promoting the granulation) is found in the middle of the eighteenth century. However, even in Present-day English usage, the gerund only rarely follows by means of (35 of a total of 1591 instances in the written component of the BNC). The PNP-construction in respect of is first found in the fourteenth century. As in the case of by virtue of and in despite of, the introduction of the nominal element respect into the vocabulary of English as a borrowing from both Latin and Old French occurred at about the same time as the first uses of the PNP-construction are found.13 This is particularly interesting since the earliest occurrences of in respect of appear to be used with the meaning of ‘in comparison with’. Respect on its own, however, referred to ‘relationship’ or ‘regard’. It thus seems that the meaning of the construction in respect of was, from very early on, partially opaque or idiomatic. It may in fact be hypothesized that in respect of, like by virtue of, could have been borrowed from French as a fully grammaticalized construction: a respieg de with the meaning ‘in comparison with’ is found in Old French as early as the year 1300 (cf. Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch). The original usage of in respect of, which was particularly common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is shown in (33): (33) For every labourer is miserable and beastlike in respect of the idle abounding men. (OED, 1631 Donne Biathanatos (1644) 91; abounding ppl.) The more modern meaning of ‘with reference to; as relates to or regards’ arose around the beginning of the sixteenth century.14 To summarize, the six early complex prepositions discussed in the present section display a relatively heterogeneous set of grammaticalization paths. The replacive complex preposition in place of was discussed in the

A diachronic overview 77 most detail. As I have shown, the data retrieved from the OED quotations suggests that the development towards today’s status as a fixed unit did not fully proceed as described in the somewhat idealized model proposed by Schwenter and Traugott (1995). By way of was shown to be a special case because the prototypical development from concrete to abstract reference is reversed. In virtue of and in respect of exhibit some features of a grammaticalized construction at a very early time. I therefore suggested that the grammatical structure may have been borrowed from Latin or French together with the lexical items which are today found as nominal elements in the PNP-constructions under consideration. By means of and in spite of both follow a fairly typical development of grammaticalization. However, in the case of in spite of, the ambiguity found in terms of the exact meaning expressed certainly makes it difficult to assess the grammatical status of the earliest recorded instances.

Complex prepositions established between 1500 and 1700 The group of complex prepositions which entered the grammar between 1500 and 1700 contains the following ten items: in common with, in conjunction with, in favour of, in need of, in relation to, in search of, on behalf of, on top of, with regard to and with respect to (cf. Table 5.1). As was the case for the first group of early complex prepositions, the majority of these items contain a nominal element which was borrowed from French and/or Latin during the Middle English period. The exceptions are in need of, on behalf of and on top of, all three of which contain native English nouns. These will be discussed first. Then, in a second step, I will turn my attention to the remaining seven complex prepositions. The PNP-construction in need of is first attested in 1340 in Richard Rolle of Hampole’s The Psalter or Psalms of David. However, this is the only attested occurrence in Middle English and the construction only reemerges in the OED data after the year 1500, as shown in sentence (34): (34) If you stande in nede of me you shall fynde I am your frende. (OED, 1530 Palsgr. 733/2; stand v.) Example (35), conversely, is taken from Present-day English. As is immediately obvious, the use of in need of in (35) is very close – if not identical – to the much earlier example shown in (34). (35) But the doctor was right: he stood in need of help, and where else was there to turn? (BNC: H82: 2723) The complex preposition in need of differs from all the other PNPconstructions discussed so far in that its meaning is fully transparent. In other words, there is no situation-dependent ambiguity or vagueness which

78 A diachronic overview consequently – and over time – leads to a reinterpretation of the meaning of the whole construction (as was, for example, the case for in view of or in place of ). Furthermore, no loss of semantic content of the noun can be observed. In addition, adjectival premodification of need is fairly frequent. There are 133 instances in the written component of the BNC (e.g. in urgent need of, in desperate need of ), which is a sizeable number of instances in comparison with the total of 741 occurrences of in need of in the same set of texts. Finally, when the noun phrase complements of in need of are considered, no generalization towards a larger range of discourse contexts is apparent. For example, non-animate entities (e.g. relief, watering, victuals) are in the majority even in the early OED quotations (i.e. up until the year 1600) and this is also the case in present-day usage. The question may thus be asked whether in need of should be included at all among the list of complex prepositions.15 As I discussed in Chapter 3, the claim that PNP-constructions are units of grammar can be supported with the help of quantitative data. In the case of in terms of, the low number of filled pauses before and after the nominal element terms was taken as a strong indication that the whole sequence is stored in and consequently retrieved from memory as a single chunk. Given the low frequency of in need of in spoken language (only 33 instances in the ten million words of the spoken component of the BNC), such a method of analysis can of course not be meaningfully applied. The decision about the complex prepositional status of in need of must thus rely on the parallelism of its functional and formal properties to other PNP-constructions whose unit-like nature can be more easily accounted for on the basis of quantitative data. From a diachronic perspective, one further aspect of the use of in need of deserves attention, namely its frequent co-occurrence with the verb to stand (cf. examples (34) and (35) above). Both in the OED quotations and in the Gutenberg Corpus, all early instances of in need of are preceded by the verb to stand. This suggests that we are in fact dealing with a larger idiomatic expression and that consequently in need of cannot be analysed as a (potential) unit-like entity on its own. In the OED quotations, the first use of a different verb before in need of is only attested in 1744: (36) Is our Account still too loose and in need of stricter Determination? (OED, 1744 Harris Three Treat. i. (1765) 27; determination) However, it is only in the nineteenth century that the strong idiomatic link with to stand becomes less categorical: 13 of the 26 instances of in need of in quotations found between 1800 and 1899 are in fact preceded by a different verb.16 As Table 5.4 shows, this development has advanced even further in Present-day English. Table 5.4 lists the ten strongest verb collocates of in need of in a window of one to four words to the left of the PNP-construction under consideration.17 As can easily be seen, the verb to stand certainly exhibits a

A diachronic overview 79 Table 5.4 The ten strongest verb collocates of the complex preposition in need of (within a window of one to four words to the left) in the written component of the BNC Verb (lemma)

n in BNC (written)

n collocate

in n texts

log-likelihood value

be feel stand may look identify see might seem find

3,537,475 53,514 28,412 107,812 88,507 12,493 152,938 50,757 55,715 87,671

388 23 14 16 15 6 12 8 8 7

312 21 13 14 15 5 11 8 8 6

1,487.53 142.06 90.07 65.67 65.35 38.24 34.96 33.67 32.26 20.57

much weaker link with in need of than in earlier centuries: it only features as the third strongest verb collocate of the construction. However, Table 5.4 also shows that the list of verb collocates of in need of is still rather limited. With a log-likelihood value of almost 1,500, the verb to be is by far the strongest collocate and the phrase to be in need of something would certainly have to be included among the lexicalized sentence stems proposed by Pawley and Syder (1983).18 Even though the idiomatic link with the verb stand has largely disappeared in recent centuries, Table 5.4 offers further support for the claim that in need of should perhaps not be included among the list of common complex prepositions. The second complex preposition with native English origins in Group 2 is on behalf of. Its nominal element behalf has an interesting history. According to the OED, it [. . .] arose about 1300, by the blending of the two earlier constructions on his halve and bihalve him, both meaning ‘by or on his side’ [. . .]. By the mixture of these in the construction on his bihalve, bihalve, previously a preposition, and originally a phrase, be healfe ‘by (the) side’, became treated, so far as construction goes, as a n., and had even a plural behalfes, behalfs in 16–17th c. (OED, behalf n.) The striking aspect in this connection is the fact that a preposition (bihalve) was reanalysed as a noun. This is the reverse of the typical development from noun to preposition which can also be observed in the earlier development from the phrase be healve to the formation of a preposition bihalve. However, since this change was effected via the blending of two phrases, it would be rash to interpret this development as a valid counter example to the general tendencies observable in grammaticalization.

80 A diachronic overview A second noteworthy point in connection with the noun behalf is that its use is (right from its earliest occurrence at the beginning of the fourteenth century) restricted to a small number of phrases, most importantly in/on (his, etc.) behalf and – from the sixteenth century onwards – in/on (the) behalf (of ).19 The earliest recorded occurrence of on behalf of in the OED dates from 1646 and another 100 years pass before the second occurrence is found (1753). Until about 1820, only a handful of uses are documented. In these early examples, on behalf of is exclusively employed with the meaning ‘in the name of, as the agent or representative of’. From about 1840 onwards, the number of quotations containing in behalf of rises considerably. A typical example of the earliest uses is shown in (37): (37) Things which a servant may do on behalf of his master . . . proceed upon this principle, that the master is answerable for the act of his servant, if done by his command, either expressly given, or implied. (OED, 1768 Blackstone Comm. I. 429; behalf ) The variant in behalf of, however, which is more frequently found already in the seventeenth century, expressed a different meaning, as exemplified by (38): (38) A petition to the Court in behalf of a Popish priest, a prisoner. (OED, 1631 High Commission Cases (Camden) 197; priest n.) Here, a suitable paraphrase would be ‘in the interest of’ or ‘for the benefit of’ (cf. OED sense I.2.b). The same difference in meaning as found in examples (37) and (38) can be observed in the use of on (his, etc.) behalf versus in (his, etc.) behalf, particularly in quotations after the year 1600. However, towards the end of the eighteenth century, this distinction is no longer upheld and on behalf begins to incorporate the meaning of in behalf, as shown in (39) and (40): (39) I will not interpose on their behalf. (OED, 1791 Cowper Iliad iv. 63; behalf ) (40) This gracious work wrought on behalf of one who was in arms against his life. (OED, 1862 Trench Mirac. xxxii. 448; behalf ) In (39), the meaning expressed is not ‘I will not interpose in their name’ but rather ‘I will not interpose with the intention of representing their interests’. It is interesting to note that the rise in frequency of the PNPconstruction on behalf of coincides with the loss of the meaning distinction between in behalf and on behalf. While the OED laments this development – it notes the ‘loss of an important distinction’ – it is by no means unmotivated. If an action is performed in the name of some other person or institution, this presupposes, at least under normal circumstances, that

A diachronic overview 81 the result of the action will be beneficial to this person or institution. This interpretation thus reflects the evaluation of the writer or speaker. In other words, on behalf of underwent the process of subjectification typical of grammaticalizing constructions. Over time, this aspect of the use of on behalf of must have become predominant enough to replace the variant form in behalf of. Indeed, the number of OED quotations containing in behalf of rapidly declines towards the end of the nineteenth century whereas the number of recorded instances for on behalf of steadily rises during the same time period. In Present-day English, in behalf of is virtually obsolete as is shown by the fact that there are only three instances of this construction in the entire BNC. The earliest recorded instance of on top of in the OED quotations dates from 1583. However, this PNP-construction gains wider currency only around the middle of the nineteenth century.20 The rivalling form in top of is found in two quotations at around the same time (1610 and 1616) but these are the only attested instances in the OED. The variants with a definite article (on the top of and in the top of ), conversely, are much more common. Both are found from about 1550 onwards. The predominant use of on top of throughout the last three centuries carries a concrete locative meaning, with its nominal element top referring to ‘the highest or utmost part’ of the entity referred to by the noun phrase complement of the PNP-construction. A suitable paraphrase would be given by the simple preposition over.21 Thus, although the noun top can be seen to have undergone the process of decategorialization (through the loss of the definite article), the meaning of the whole construction remains largely transparent. The first figurative or abstract use of on top of is only found in the year 1878: (41) On top of this there came a fight among the Hootzenoo Indians here. (OED, 1878 Dennis in W. G. Morris Rep. Customs Dist. Alaska (1879) 122; Hoochinoo) In Present-day English, this figurative use accounts for about 25 per cent of the 2,161 instances of on top of in the BNC. I will now turn my attention to the seven complex prepositions which feature a nominal element borrowed from French or Latin. The first of these is in common with. The noun common originally meant ‘fellowship or brotherhood’ but was already being used before the year 1500 to refer to ‘common land or estate; the undivided land belonging to the members of a local community as a whole’ (OED, common n., sense 5.a). The earliest recorded instance of in common with is shown in (42): (42) A liberall man that partaketh his goods in common with his friends. (OED, 1561 T. Hoby tr. Castiglione’s Courtyer (1577) K v; partake v.)

82 A diachronic overview Here, a suitable paraphrase would be ‘together with’. This particular use of the PNP-construction under consideration thus represents a figurative extension to the purely locational noun common. While the meaning expressed by in common with is clearly locative (i.e. the participants share the same physical location), the actual place where the described action is carried out is of less importance. In any case, it does of course not explicitly take place on ‘common land or estate’. Interestingly, there are no earlier uses of variant forms of in common with in the OED quotations which would suggest a gradual development towards the meaning expressed in example (42).22 The earlier meaning ‘together with’ disappears towards the beginning of the twentieth century, and in Present-day English, in common with refers to the sharing of or participation in attributes, characteristics and actions (OED, common n., sense 13.h). As in the case of in need of, a strong collocational bond with a single preceding verb can be noted: the combination to have something in common with is first attested in the middle of the seventeenth century and today accounts for the large majority of all occurrences of the PNP-construction in the BNC. In the remaining instances, the construction can often be paraphrased with the simple preposition like. A typical example is shown in (43): (43) Britain’s foremost agony aunt has, in common with the rest of us, a real genuine love of dogs. (BNC: ACM: 1446) The nominal element of the PNP-construction in conjunction with carried several meanings in Middle English. In Chaucer it referred to the ‘union’ or ‘connexion’ between God and mankind (OED, sense 1). It was also employed in the context of alchemy where it was used to describe the mixture or union of ‘elements’ or substances (OED, sense 2.d). In addition, conjunction referred to an ‘uninflected word used to connect clauses or sentences, or to co-ordinate words in the same clause’ (OED, sense 6). This grammatical use – found in Wyclif – was borrowed directly from Latin where the meaning existed as a loan translation from Greek (cf. CDE, conjunction n.). For the development of the complex preposition in conjunction with, however, yet another meaning of the nominal element appears to have been of crucial importance. In astrology, conjunction is used to refer to ‘an apparent proximity of two planets or other heavenly bodies; the position of these when they are in the same, or nearly the same, direction as viewed from the earth’ (OED, conjunction n., sense 3). The large majority of the early instances of in conjunction with in the OED quotations make reference to astrology or religion. The earliest recorded instance is shown in (44): (44) Neither could Venus in coniunction with Mars cause any to mistresse

A diachronic overview 83 another mans wife. (OED, 1603 Sir C. Heydon Jud. Astrol. xii. 318; mistress v.) Other typical noun phrase complements of in conjunction with include the Deity, Mars, the Sun, the priests of God, etc. In the eighteenth century, the range of possible discourse contexts is greatly enlarged and the PNPconstruction is used to describe a strong link between two aspects in a given situation: (45) Visible figure is never presented to the eye but in conjunction with colour. (OED, 1764 Reid Inquiry vi. vii; conjunction) From the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, a further level of generalization can be observed in the fact that in conjunction with is increasingly used to denote actions rather than spatial relationships. As a case in point, consider (46): (46) The President . . . has to act in conjunction with the Court of Directors. (OED, 1853 Bright Sp. India 3 June; conjunction) In the situation described in (46), the President and the Court of Directors do not necessarily have to share the same physical location in order to work together. Rather, the temporal aspect of their cooperation receives special emphasis. Exhibiting a typical feature of grammaticalization, in conjunction with has thus been extended to denote a more abstract concept (i.e. from location to time). This development is further evidenced by the fact that, in Present-day English, the strongest collocate to the left of in conjunction with is the verb use.23 An example of this is shown in (47): (47) This therapy is often used in conjunction with others. (BNC: AYK: 539) Thus, while the spatial meaning of in conjunction with is not completely lost, it is certainly not the predominant concept expressed. A further indication of the advanced stage of grammaticalization of in conjunction with is given by the fact that the PNP-construction exhibits virtually no internal variation. For example, only three occurrences of adjectival premodification of the nominal element can be found (two instances of in close conjunction and once in organic conjunction with). The earliest recorded instance of the PNP-construction in favour of dates from 1477. However, it is only towards the end of the sixteenth century that the second occurrence of the construction is found. From then on, its use is documented through a steadily increasing number of quotations, and today in favour is the fifth most frequent complex preposition in the written component of the BNC (3,252 instances). The noun favour

84 A diachronic overview carries a whole range of meanings, of which ‘propitious or friendly regard, goodwill’ (OED, favour n., sense 1.a) and ‘an act of exceptional kindness’ (OED, favour n., sense 2.b) are perhaps the most prototypical. In favour of exhibits an interesting development which has not been noted for any of the other complex prepositions discussed thus far. In its early uses, it is standardly employed as shown in (48) and (49): (48) The Tuscans . . . got hart and were very iolie, saying that the Gods were in favour of them. (OED, 1600 Holland Livy x. 358; jolly a. and adv.) (49) They . . . resolved to write a letter in favour of us to the old Queen. (OED, 1653 H. Cogan tr. Pinto’s Trav. xlviii. 185; favour, favor n.) The two main patterns are thus somebody is in favour of something and somebody performs an action in favour of somebody or something. In Present-day English, the use of in favour of as shown in (48) and (49) is still fully idiomatic.24 However, in the course of the grammaticalization of in favour of, an additional dimension was introduced to the range of meanings expressed by this particular PNP-construction. As a case in point, consider (50) and (51): (50) No less a person than Firth, not someone, one supposes, who would have rejected all learning in favour of the bottle, observes that grammarians ‘make regular use of nonsense’. (BNC: CBR: 1206) (51) Perrier’s French television advertisements eschew weighty health talk in favour of Gallic schmaltz. (BNC: ABF: 2288) Here, the original meaning of favour (i.e. ‘an act of exceptional kindness’) is at least partly lost (cf. again the concept of semantic bleaching). More importantly, however, in favour of has gradually acquired a more abstract, text-structuring function. In both (50) and (51), two entities are brought into opposition. The first (all learning, weighty health talk) is evaluated as positive while the second (the bottle, Gallic schmaltz) carries negative connotations.25 This ability of in favour of to express a metalinguistic concept is a clear sign of its advanced stage of grammaticalization.26 The three PNP-constructions in relation to, with regard to and with respect to will be discussed together. One reason for this decision is that they all express relatively similar concepts. In fact, with regard to and with respect to can often be used interchangeably. The more noteworthy point in the present context, however, is that all three constructions exhibit very little change in their use from their first recorded instances to the present day. (The dates for the earliest recorded instances in the OED quotations are 1594 for in relation to, 1614 for with regard to and 1652 for with respect to.) Consider sentences (52)–(54), which represent typical early uses of each item under consideration:

A diachronic overview 85 (52) Fruits . . . are to be as well consider’d in relation to their Lasting and Continuance, as to their Maturity and Beauty. (OED, 1664 Evelyn Kal. Hort. Introd. (1729) 188; continuance) (53) Some make a Difference between Prescription and Usucaption, maintaining that the latter is only used with regard to Moveables, and the former with regard to Immoveables. (OED, 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v.; usucaption) (54) They ought to judge of things as they are in their own naked essences, and not with respect to that which extra-essentially adheres to them. (OED, a1652 J. Smith Sel. Disc. iv. 112; extra- prefix) None of the three constructions demonstrates an obvious development towards a greater level of grammaticalization. One possible reason for this may be found in the nature of their nominal elements: relation, regard and respect all expressed abstract concepts by the beginning of the Early Modern English period. For example, the noun relation was borrowed from French at the end of the fourteenth century and was used to refer to ‘the particular way in which one thing is thought of in connexion with another; any connexion, correspondence, or association, which can be conceived as naturally existing between things’ (OED, sense 3.a).27 As a consequence, the modern meaning of the three complex prepositions cannot be considered the result of a context-based reinterpretation of the construction as a whole. In other words, their meaning is largely transparent. The reader may recall that I made a similar remark about in need of and it is perhaps no coincidence that need also expresses an abstract concept. In the case of in need of, I pointed out that its status as a complex preposition is, at least to some extent, debatable. The transparency of its meaning and the lack of discernible development over time (e.g. with respect to possible noun phrase complements) formed part of the basis for such an interpretation. As a consequence, the question arises as to whether the complex prepositional status of in relation to, with regard to and with respect to must also be considered doubtful. However, the parallels to in need of are only partial. In the case of in need of, for example, the existence of a relatively large number of instances with a premodifying adjective before the nominal element (e.g. in urgent need of ) was presented as a clear sign for the less advanced stage of fossilization of the construction. A further point given was the strong collocational link of in need of with certain preceding verbs. In the case of in relation to, with regard to and with respect to, such observations cannot be made. For example, in relation to hardly exhibits any internal variation such as adjectival premodification which is only found in 18 sentences in the written component of the BNC (e.g. in direct relation to). With its 4,329 occurrences, in relation to is the third most frequent complex preposition in the BNC; the ratio between the number of instances with premodified and bare nominal

86 A diachronic overview element is thus 1:240. In addition, none of the three constructions forms strong collocational links with a preceding verb. The quantitative data thus suggests that the three PNP-constructions under consideration are just as much unit-like in nature as other complex prepositions which underwent a gradual change in meaning and which were consequently extended in use to encompass a larger range of discourse contexts. An alternative – albeit hypothetical – interpretation of the fact that some complex prepositions appear to come into existence without exhibiting the typical features of a gradual grammaticalization process may be that the development of such units can at least partly be attributed to their structural properties. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the sequence ‘preposition  noun  preposition’ was already well established as a potential unit-like structure via a number of combinations. In addition, the continuously strong French influence on English – where the same construction (e.g. en faveur de) can also be found – may have contributed to its familiarity. Such familiarity would facilitate the creation of new sequences with the same structure. This may in turn lead to a situation where relatively new combinations acquire a unit-like status without undergoing the processes normally required for such a development. In other words, the structure exists in an abstract, grammaticalized state but may – when necessary – be filled with new lexical items. Yet another way of describing this process is to say that it is possible to have (relatively instant) grammaticalization by analogy.28 The last complex preposition in Group 2, in search of, can certainly be considered support for such a hypothesis. Its earliest recorded instance, shown here in sentence (55), is found in Shakespeare: (55) If zealous loue should go in search of vertue, Where should he finde it purer then in Blanch? (OED, 1595 Shakes. John ii. i. 428; search n.) Again, this use of in search of fully conforms to the present-day usage of this particular PNP-construction. Furthermore, the scarcity of rivalling forms from the very beginning suggests that in search of was indeed treated as a single entity perhaps even as early as Shakespeare’s time. In my discussion of recent complex prepositions (Group 3), I will return to the hypothesis of grammaticalization by analogy in more detail.

Complex prepositions established after 1700 The third group of complex prepositions contains 14 PNP-constructions of more recent origin: by reference to, in accordance with, in addition to, in charge of, in connection with, in contrast to, in excess of, in front of, in line with, in response to, in return for, in support of, in terms of and in view of. Their establishment as elements of the grammatical system largely

A diachronic overview 87 falls within the period of time covered by the Gutenberg Corpus. On the one hand, this increases the data available for a descriptive analysis of their diachronic development. Combined with the fact that the OED quotations from works written after about 1800 are much more numerous than in earlier periods, the reliability of the tendencies observed will be much higher. It may be recalled that in the case of early PNP-constructions such as in place of, a comprehensive description of their usage and development during the period of Middle English was made very difficult by the lack of available data. For the time after the year 1700 there are fewer such limitations. On the other hand, the addition of data from the Gutenberg Corpus also makes it possible to capture the diachronic development of PNP-constructions towards a more grammaticalized state by way of a frequency-based approach (cf. Chapter 2). Not all of the 14 PNP-constructions in Group 3 will receive equally close attention in the present section. Apart from avoiding unnecessary repetition, this is mainly motivated by the fact that a considerable number of these 14 items do not exhibit any discernible development towards a more grammaticalized state. In other words, they are further examples of the relatively abrupt grammaticalization process mentioned towards the end of the previous section. As a typical representative of these items, in front of will be looked at in more detail. With 5,481 instances, in front of is the second most frequent complex preposition in the written component of the BNC. Before discussing in front of, however, I will briefly concentrate on those PNP-constructions in Group 3 which display a clear diachronic development: in excess of, in line with, in terms of and in view of. Of these, only data for in excess of and in line with will be presented. The grammaticalization of in view of was already described in Chapter 4, and in terms of, which is the most frequent complex preposition in the written component of the BNC (8,608 instances), will receive a more detailed treatment in a chapter devoted exclusively to it (Chapter 7). The construction in line with is not specifically mentioned as a phrase in the OED and only a total of 41 relevant quotations can be retrieved. Its earliest recorded use, which is shown in example (56), dates from 1796: (56) From this situation of the flank march, it is that every regiment is required to begin the deploy, when forming in line with others. (OED, 1796 Instr. & Reg. Cavalry (1813) 126; deploy n.) In (56) and all the other early uses of this PNP-construction, it refers to a situation where (animate or inanimate) entities are ‘arranged along a (straight) line’ (OED, line n.2, sense III). The meaning thus refers to a particular spatial relationship between a number of concrete elements. A slight variant of the meaning expressed in (56) is shown in (57), where in line with expresses the line formed by the movement of the ball across the position of the ear:

88 A diachronic overview (57) For the ordinary overhand service the ball should be thrown up in line with the right ear and slightly backwards. (OED, 1900 A. E. T. Watson Young Sportsman 379; overhand adv. and a.) From about 1925 onwards, however, in line with is used figuratively. A typical example is shown in (58): (58) It is believed here that the British and Japanese acceptances will pave the way for a conference of these Powers with the United States to consider the limitation of warcraft other than capital ships in line with the principles of the Washington Conference. (OED, 1927 Daily Tel. 1 Mar. 11/3; warcraft) The spatial arrangement along a straight line is thus extended to signify coordination and cooperation on a metaphorical level. In line with thus follows the path typical of a grammaticalizing construction in having first a concrete and only later an abstract denotation. In Present-day English, the figurative meaning as shown in (58) has almost completely replaced the earlier concrete one. The development of the complex preposition in excess of is somewhat more difficult to trace. This is partly conditioned by the fact that the available data in my corpora is relatively sparse: only 11 instances can be retrieved from the Gutenberg Corpus and the number of OED quotations containing in excess of only increases after about the year 1860. In Presentday English, in excess of is not particularly common either. Indeed, with its 773 instances in the written component of the BNC, it is among the least frequent of the 30 complex prepositions discussed in the present chapter. The noun excess was borrowed from French excès and Latin excessus and is first attested towards the end of the fourteenth century. In relation to its literal meaning of an ‘action of going out or forth’ (OED, sense 1.a), it was used in combination with mind or soul to refer to a state of trance or ecstasy (OED, sense 1.c). It is in this combination that the phrase in excess of is first found: (59) I was in the citee of Ioppe preiynge, and I sy in excess of my soule a visioun. (OED, 1382 Wyclif Acts xi. 5; excess n.) I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. A second early usage of excess refers to ‘intemperance in eating or drinking’ (OED, sense 5.b). As in its original use, which is exemplified by (59), excess signifies the transgression of a boundary or limit – in this case the limits of moderation. Again, an early instance of this meaning can be found in the combination in excess of: (60) A man, pat hyt Theodorus, in glotonye, euermore pamperyd his

A diachronic overview 89 bely in exces of mete & of drynk. (OED, c.1440 Jacob’s Well 157; pamper v.) A man called Theodorus through gluttony crammed his stomach with too much meat and drink. By extension, excess gradually came to be used in a more general sense in reference to ‘the fact of exceeding something else in amount or degree’ (OED, sense 6.a) or ‘the amount by which one number or quantity exceeds another’ (OED, sense 6.b). Again, this meaning can also be found in the combination in excess of as shown in (61): (61) The only course remaining would be to allow oneself to become the dupe of imposition by tipping the postillions an amount slightly in excess of the authorized gratification. (GUT: Smollett (1721), Travels through France and Italy) Sentence (61) is the first instance of this PNP-construction which is employed in the modern sense of the phrase. As in the case of in line with shown above, in excess of clearly undergoes a process whereby increasingly abstract relations can be expressed. In contrast to in line with, however, this development is not restricted to the PNP-construction as a whole but can also be observed in the changing meanings of the noun excess itself. As a consequence, dating the establishment of in excess of as a complex preposition is an even more controversial undertaking than is the case with other PNP-constructions. Although a handful of very early instances of in excess of can be found in my data, I nevertheless decided to include this PNP-construction among the items in Group 3. This decision was mostly motivated by the parallelism of examples like (61) with modern usage as well as by the observation that the number of relevant OED quotations significantly rises from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards. In Present-day English, the PNP-construction in excess of can typically be paraphrased by the simple preposition over (in the sense of ‘more than’). As example (62) shows, the concept of moving beyond a particular notional boundary – e.g. between sanity and insanity or moderation and immoderateness – has largely been lost. (62) In excess of 14,000 diver man hours were spent in saturation without a single decompression problem or lost time accident. (OED, 1975 BP Shield Internat. May 5/1; saturation) The quantity exceeded is established by the context and does not carry any connotations of culturally predefined norms. I will now turn my attention to those complex prepositions in Group 3 whose establishment is difficult to reconcile with the principles outlined by

90 A diachronic overview the theory of grammaticalization. The main emphasis will be placed on a discussion of in front of. The nominal element of this PNP-construction was borrowed from French and Latin towards the end of the thirteenth century and originally referred to the forehead (and by extension to the whole face) (OED, senses I.I.a and I.2). In the military context, it is found only half a century later referring to ‘the foremost line or part of an army or battalion’ (OED, sense II.5.a; first quotation in 1350). By the year 1400, it is attested with the meaning of a ‘part or side of an object which seems to look out or to be presented to the eye; the fore-part of anything, the part to which one normally comes first’ (OED, sense II.7.a). A later example of this use of the noun front is shown in (63): (63) We found the fyrst front of this land to bee broader. (OED, 1555 Eden Decades 85; front n.) As an extension of the original sense referring to the anatomy of a human being, front could thus be used in connection with those parts of the landscape (or a building, etc.) which face an approaching observer. This meaning is certainly more abstract, but it differs in an important way from the situation expressed by the PNP-construction in front of: there are only two elements involved, i.e. the observer on the one hand and the object which comes into the range of vision. In the case of in front of, however, an additional element enters the equation. This third element is placed in a spatial relationship with an object which is seen from the perspective of a particular vantage point. This is shown in sentence (64), which demonstrates a typical use of in front of in Present-day English: (64) They were sitting in front of the house and looking at the ocean. (BNC: FP7 2089) The vantage point in (64) is located somewhere on the extension of a (hypothetical) line drawn between the house and the people sitting in front of it. It is thus not coextensive with the position (and therefore perspective) of the observer. In front of thus expresses a relational concept which is even more abstract than what is denoted by front in example (63) above. The diachronic analysis of the use of in front of in the OED quotations shows that even its earliest recorded instances fully correspond to the use found in Present-day English. Sentence (65), for example, is the very first occurrence dated from the year 1751:29 (65) The Vocative . . . was nothing more than the Form of address in front of names, titles, and epithets. (OED, 1751 Harris Hermes i. viii. (1786) 145 note; vocative a. and n.)

A diachronic overview 91 This instance is particularly interesting because items such as names or titles – unlike houses – do not have parts which typically are thought of as having a front. Also, the vantage point in (65) is somewhere in the preceding text and the spatial relationship evolves out of the linear ordering of words on paper. If in front of had followed a typical path of grammaticalization, an example such as (65) would certainly reflect a more advanced stage of the process. The data for in front of in the Gutenberg Corpus largely mirrors the situation found in the OED quotations. The first occurrences are found in works of authors born in the first part of the eighteenth century. Sentence (66) is taken from Lawrence Sterne: (66) Trim! – said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his pipe, and smoak’d about a dozen whiffs. – Trim came in front of his master, and made his bow; – my uncle Toby smoak’d on, and said no more. – Corporal! (GUT: Sterne (1713), Tristram Shandy) Interestingly, example (66) – like some of the other very early examples of in front of in the Gutenberg Corpus – can also be interpreted in terms of a spatial development, a movement, with in front of indicating the goal of the direction. Also, the collocation with come is relatively unusual in Present-day English. Perhaps sentences such as (66) could be interpreted as a less advanced stage in the grammaticalization of in front of since the description of movement recalls the situation where the ‘front’ of an object comes into the visible range of an observer. However, such considerations are too hypothetical and would certainly have to be tested using further data. In addition, they do not invalidate the observation that contemporaneous – and apparently fully grammaticalized – uses of in front of such as shown in (65) occur without any discernible prior development. Figure 5.1 illustrates the rapid rise in the frequency of in front of from the seventeenth century onwards as represented by the Gutenberg Corpus. The data for Present-day English is taken from the BNC. Whereas in the front of is clearly more frequent than in front of in the first two periods, this situation is completely reversed in texts written by authors whose date of birth is between 1750 and 1799. In Present-day English, the variant with the definite article is virtually non-existent. The picture presented by Figure 5.1 is highly reminiscent of the development of in view of described in the previous chapter. The major difference between the two items, however, is that the complex prepositional use of in view of could be shown to have developed out of a more concrete earlier meaning. As I have mentioned above, this is not the case for in front of. Of the 14 PNP-constructions in Group 3, nine further items exhibit a similarly abrupt change towards their Present-day English status as complex prepositions: by reference to, in accordance with, in addition to, in charge of, in connection with, in contrast to, in response to, in return

92 A diachronic overview

Figure 5.1 The distribution of in front of and in the front of over the Gutenberg Corpus and the written component of the BNC.

for and in support of. While three of these constructions are first attested in the eighteenth century (by reference to, in return for and in support of ), the majority are only formed after the year 1800 – in contrast to and in response to for example appear as late as 1870. Given the considerable amount of data available for the nineteenth century (i.e. over 620,000 OED quotations and the relevant sections of the Gutenberg Corpus), this lack of traceable development towards a unit-like entity is certainly surprising. It does, however, fully conform to the view that grammaticalization can occur by analogy. A particularly typical construction in support of this hypothesis is in accordance with. The noun accordance was borrowed from French around the year 1300. Throughout the entire period of its existence in the English language, it is rarely used on its own. In the OED quotations, a total of 35 such instances can be found, of which 20 date from an earlier period than the first record of in accordance with (1830). In the Gutenberg Corpus, which contains 116 instances of in accordance with, only two single occurrences of the noun are attested. Finally, the 1,978 instances of in accordance with in the written part of the BNC stand in stark contrast to the three occurrences of accordance as a noun on its own. Judging from the rapidly growing number of OED quotations from about 1850 onwards, the PNP-construction in accordance with must have quickly become accepted usage, even though the noun accordance itself had hardly been

A diachronic overview 93 employed before.30 If it is assumed that the formation of the complex preposition in accordance with happened in analogy to already wellestablished PNP-constructions, this sudden development is much less in need of an explanation. It must also be noted that one feature is shared by all the constructions in Group 3 whose grammaticalization towards a unit-like entity cannot be traced on the basis of my data: their nominal element denotes an abstract concept. Furthermore, as in the case of in search of or in need of, the meaning of this nominal element remains mostly unchanged when it is integrated into the PNP-construction. As a consequence, the meaning of the whole complex preposition is largely compositional and transparent. While this lack of semantic opacity certainly facilitates the establishment of new PNP-constructions, it also raises certain theoretical questions. In the literature on grammaticalization, processes such as the loss of the original semantic content in combination with ensuing pragmatic strengthening (via context-induced reinterpretation) have been identified as prototypical features in a development towards a more grammatical state of a word or a sequence of words (cf. for example Heine et al. 1991). In highlighting the discourse-pragmatic factors involved in this development, such an approach succeeds in explaining or motivating change rather than simply describing change. However, such discourse-pragmatic processes cannot have played a significant role in the establishment of the majority of PNP-constructions in Group 3. Nevertheless, their formal and distributional characteristics are clearly parallel to such (comparatively) uncontroversial PNP-constructions as in spite of or in view of. In my opinion, the concept of grammaticalization by analogy is a plausible explanation for their existence as unit-like entities.

Grammaticalization and corpus data At the outset of this chapter, I gave two reasons for presenting an overview of the diachronic development exhibited by some of the most frequent complex prepositions in Present-day English. On the one hand, such an overview would make it possible to determine whether there are common features in the establishment of PNP-constructions as unit-like entities even though they enter the language system at very different periods of time. On the other hand, I was interested in testing the gradual nature of grammaticalization. In the case of in view of (discussed in Chapter 4), the data suggested that aspects of its development occurred at a greater speed – or in a more abrupt manner – than commonly observed in grammaticalizing constructions. It was hoped that the data available through the discussion of a larger range of frequent PNP-constructions would shed further light on this situation. As I have shown, the picture presented by my set of complex prepositions is by no means homogeneous. However, certain trends can

94 A diachronic overview clearly be established even though they may not apply to all of the PNPconstructions included in the survey. For example, items from all three groups could be shown to exhibit a clear development from the initial description of a concrete situation towards the denotation of abstract – and sometimes clearly text-structuring – concepts (e.g. in place of, in spite of, in common with, in favour of, and in line with). This trend corresponds to the typical development of grammaticalizing constructions amply documented in the literature. As an interesting counter-example to this general trend, however, by way of was shown to exhibit the opposite development: although the construction was in frequent use in earlier periods of English, the first instance referring to an actual way or road being taken only occurs towards the end of the eighteenth century. A further common point observable in a number of complex prepositions is the increased level of subjectification they display. This was particularly noted for in behalf of and in virtue of. However, the same observation also certainly applies to a larger number of the items under consideration. In the course of my discussion, it was repeatedly noted that the amount of data available for analysis is not sufficient to provide a fully comprehensive description of the (presumably gradual) processes and developments at work. This observation is particularly relevant for the earlier periods of English – most notably Middle English – where sometimes only a handful of examples could be retrieved. While it may often still be possible to use this limited amount of data to detect general trends, I also cautioned against the dangers involved in interpreting such isolated examples as irrefutable evidence of a particular course of events (cf. the discussion of in place of ). In the context of more recent changes, however, a lack of available data cannot to the same extent be responsible for the reported failure in observing gradual trends. As I have shown, the modern usage of a considerable number of complex prepositions appears to arise without any prior development whatsoever. This is particularly astonishing in the case of items such as in front of, which is not only of recent origin but also frequently attested in the Gutenberg Corpus and the OED quotations soon after its first recorded use. I have offered the concept of grammaticalization by analogy as a possible explanation of this situation. It appears plausible that familiarity with the structural properties of earlier constructions may play a decisive role in the establishment of new PNP-constructions. Such familiarity with earlier constructions may consequently also have facilitated the relatively abrupt establishment of in view of as a complex preposition. In my discussion of low-frequency PNP-constructions in Chapter 8, I will again return to the concept of grammaticalization by analogy. In the following chapter, however, I will turn my attention to the use of complex prepositions in Present-day English.

6

Complex prepositions in Present-day English

Introduction In Chapter 3, I provided evidence for the existence of a class of complex prepositions with the help of quantitative data from Present-day English on the basis of the 100-million-word British National Corpus. As I was able to show, the 30 most frequent PNP-constructions are predominantly employed in a way which is compatible with the concept of an indivisible unit. My discussion was based on the complete corpus – or, in the case of hesitation markers, on its spoken component – and consequently no use was made of the rich annotation of metatextual categories available for the BNC texts. In Chapters 4 and 5, my focus turned to a description of the major points of grammaticalization theory and its usefulness for a study of complex prepositions over time. In this context, I occasionally made reference to a text type specific use of the PNP-constructions under consideration. For example, I noted that by virtue of was frequently, although not exclusively, employed in legal contexts. As a reason for this fact I hypothesized that the original meaning of the noun virtue ‘moral excellence, moral strength’ still carried a certain weight in the grammaticalized construction. In the present chapter, I will now turn my attention to the use of complex prepositions in modern English. However, rather than offering a detailed qualitative description of each PNP-construction similar to the diachronic overview given in the previous chapter, I will be focusing on a presentation of descriptive statistics. After the discussion of the distributional characteristics of complex prepositions in general, I will concentrate on a number of selected items in more detail. I will also try to assess whether it is, in fact, possible to offer a meaningful interpretation of the observed distributional patterns. In a final step, I will then turn my attention to the concessive complex preposition in spite of and its variants despite and notwithstanding. As I mentioned in the introduction to this study, the class of complex prepositions has received comparatively little scholarly attention. Moreover, most of the limited literature available focuses on aspects of diachrony rather than on a description of current usage (e.g. Schwenter

96 Complex prepositions in Present-day English and Traugott 1995). In quantitative studies of prepositions in modern English, PNP-constructions are mostly neglected. Mindt and Weber (1989), for example, who compare the frequency of almost 100 prepositions in British and American English on the basis of the two one-million word corpora Brown and LOB, explicitly exclude complex prepositions from their analysis. This step was motivated by the observation that such multi-word units were not consistently tagged for their word class in the two corpora. Biber et al. (1999: 92) offer distributional statistics for the whole class of prepositions but do not treat complex prepositions separately. In their data, prepositions occur most frequently in ‘Academic prose’, followed by ‘News’ and ‘Fiction’. The frequency in their fourth category – ‘Conversation’ – is about 2.5 times lower than in academic prose. Finally, Leech et al. (2001) present a whole range of extensive frequency lists on the basis of data from the BNC. Complex prepositions are included in the analysis but are not treated in any detail.1 For example, in their comparison of conversational and task-oriented speech (i.e. the context-governed versus the spoken demographic components of the BNC), in terms of is the only complex preposition which occurs frequently enough to be mentioned (i.e. more than 100 instances per million words). To my knowledge, there is no quantitative account of complex prepositions in Present-day English in the literature. The present chapter is intended to fill this gap. I will make use of the same set of 30 frequent PNP-constructions that formed the basis of the discussion in the previous chapters (see Chapter 2, Table 2.3). The results presented here are thus based on a total of approximately 65,000 tokens. From a practical point of view, the restriction to the 30 most frequent complex prepositions has a clear advantage. As I showed in the previous chapter, all of these sequences have acquired the status of a grammaticalized, syntactic unit. Although the phenomenon of layering allows for various stages of grammaticalization to coexist in the development of a particular feature, this is very rarely the case for my set of 30 items. As a result, the retrieval of relevant PNP-constructions for a synchronic description of current usage can almost fully rely on automated retrieval. The precision of this process is potentially compromised when preposition–noun–preposition sequences are retrieved which span a major syntactic boundary. This could particularly occur in spoken data where punctuation markers are not necessarily employed by the transcribers according to the rules of written English but rather to indicate intonational boundaries. As a consequence, an utterance such as (1), where of course is prosodically left unseparated from the preceding words, would be matched by a search for on top of on the basis of a fully automated retrieval process. (1) Yeah, but er, this is usually you’ve got to work on top of course you’ve gotta. (BNC: KDM: 7574)

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 97 Sentences such as (1) were manually discarded. In order to test the reliability of my retrieval procedure for written texts, I manually checked a random subset of 500 PNP-constructions for irrelevant sequences. Only one single instance, shown in (2), was found: (2) This could not have come at a worse time, with the prospect in view of becoming an ‘officer’s lady’. (BNC: AMC: 950) Here, of becoming an ‘officer’s lady’ postmodifies the noun prospect and the sequence in view of certainly does not function as a complex preposition. Given the scarcity of such examples, my fully automated retrieval procedure was considered highly reliable.2 The analysis of complex prepositions in Present-day English will be entirely based on data from the BNC. This corpus lends itself well to this type of comprehensive overview, given its size, the range of included text types and the extensive amount of metatextual information available. For the presentation of my results, I will make use of both the more general classification into text domains and the genre classification scheme provided by David Lee (cf. Chapter 2).

General distribution Figure 6.1 gives an overview of the distribution of my entire set of 30 PNP-constructions over the nine domains in the written component as well as the two major parts of the spoken component. As is immediately

Figure 6.1 The distribution of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions over the text domains of the BNC.

98 Complex prepositions in Present-day English apparent, considerable differences are found between the individual domains. ‘Social science’ and ‘Commerce and finance’ by far exhibit the highest frequency in the use of PNP-constructions, while ‘Imaginative prose’ and ‘Leisure’ are the categories with the lowest frequencies in the written component of the corpus. This situation confirms the results of an earlier study, Hoffmann (2002), where I examined the distribution of 275 PNP-constructions over the major categories ‘Fiction’ and ‘Non-fiction’ in the Gutenberg Corpus and the BNC. Using this diachronic approach, I observed that the frequency of PNP-constructions in fictional texts gradually decreased over time. Conversely, for the category ‘Non-fiction’, my data suggested an opposite trend: in comparison with the earlier Gutenberg texts, the non-fiction texts in the BNC (i.e. the texts belonging to the eight domains of ‘Informative prose’) were found to exhibit more than a two-fold increase in the frequency of complex prepositions. The picture presented in my earlier study for a total of 275 PNP-constructions thus also holds true for the smaller list of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions: on the whole, informative texts are far more likely to contain the constructions under investigation. A further important distinction can be noted between the two spoken categories: with 676 instances per million words, the context-governed component contains almost five times as many complex prepositions as the spoken demographic part (139 instances pmw) with its predominantly informal and spontaneous mode of conversation. When compared with the written component, the spoken context-governed texts rank in frequency between the domains of ‘Applied science’ and ‘World affairs’. Although Figure 6.1 is certainly indicative of general trends, it necessarily contains at least two levels of oversimplification. On the one hand, it cannot be assumed that all individual complex prepositions display a similar distribution over the different text domains. In the following section, I will therefore investigate a number of PNP-constructions in some more detail. On the other hand, the broad categorization scheme into only a total of eleven distinct components is likely to obscure more subtle differences between individual contexts of usage. This second point can be addressed by making use of Lee’s more differentiated genre classification. However, rather than presenting the distribution of the 30 complex prepositions over the full set of 70 genre categories, I will focus on only those ten genres where the constructions under investigation occur either the most or the least frequently. This information is presented in Table 6.1. In addition to the total number of complex prepositions within each genre category, Table 6.1 also lists their frequency per million words as well as the number of different types of PNP-constructions found per category. On the basis of the data contained in Table 6.1, a number of interesting observations can be made. First, it must be noted that half of the ten genres in which complex prepositions are most frequently employed belong to the spoken component of the BNC. Furthermore, the spoken

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 99 Table 6.1 The 20 genre categories in which the set of 30 complex prepositions occurs the most and the least frequently; ordered by frequency pmw Genre

No. of words

Tokens

Types

Freq. pmw

W_admin S_pub_debate W_ac_polit_law_edu S_courtroom W_institut_doc W_letters_prof W_commerce S_parliament S_lect_nat_science S_speech_scripted

219,946 283,507 4,640,346 127,474 546,261 66,031 3,759,366 96,239 22,681 200,234

482 616 7,710 209 765 89 5,045 120 28 242

24 25 30 20 30 16 30 23 6 26

2,191 2,173 1,662 1,640 1,400 1,348 1,342 1,247 1,235 1,209

S_interview_oral_history W_email W_essay_school W_newsp_brdsht_nat_science S_sermon S_lect_commerce S_consult W_fict_poetry S_conv W_fict_drama

815,540 213,045 146,530 65,293 82,287 15,105 138,011 222,451 4,206,058 45,757

229 54 36 16 20 3 23 34 583 6

23 16 17 10 8 2 10 12 24 4

281 253 246 245 243 199 167 153 137 131

genre ‘Public debates and discussions; meetings’ (S_pub_debate; 2,173 instances pmw) contains almost as many complex prepositions as the written genre category ‘Administrative and regulatory texts for in-house use’ (W_admin; 2,191 instances pmw), which exhibits the highest frequency of PNP-constructions overall. The results shown in Figure 6.1 above thus clearly do not capture the extent to which complex prepositions are also employed in certain spoken genres: in the much broader domain-based analysis, the spoken context-governed part was ranked in a middle position with respect to the various written text domains. Given that the context-governed part covers a whole range of very different usage situations, a global average of complex prepositional use in this taskoriented component as shown in Figure 6.1 will necessarily carry only a limited degree of explanatory power. Using Lee’s genre categorization scheme, it becomes apparent that certain types of spoken interaction indeed make just as much use of complex prepositions as is the case for written genres. A further noteworthy point evident in Table 6.1 is that genres pertaining to official and legal contexts clearly favour the use of complex prepositions. The most prominent of these highly formal contexts is made up of the 4.6 million words of the genre ‘Academic prose: politics law education’ (W_ac_polit_law_edu; 1,662 instances pmw), which accounts for almost

100 Complex prepositions in Present-day English 12 per cent of all PNP-constructions in my data (7,710 of a total of 65,000 instances). However, genres like ‘Administrative and regulatory texts for in-house use’ (W_admin; 2,191 pmw), ‘Legal presentations or debates’ (S_courtroom; 1,640 pmw), and ‘Official/governmental documents/leaflets’ (W_institut_doc; 1,400 pmw) certainly contribute to this overall impression. At the other end of the scale, the genre ‘Face-to-face spontaneous conversations’ is found in second to last position (S_conv; 137 instances pmw).3 Thus, none of the genres constituting the spoken context-governed component of the BNC exhibits a lower frequency of PNP-construction usage than spontaneous conversation. The only written genre with a lower frequency of PNP-constructions is ‘Excerpts from two modern drama scripts’ (W_fict_drama; 131 instances pmw). However, considering the small size of the genre – about 45,000 words – and the fact that it consists of only two texts, the frequency information calculated on the basis of the six tokens cannot be given much significance. The same observation is valid for the genre ‘Lectures on economics, commerce & finance’ (S_lect_commerce; 199 pmw), which consists of only three texts. As mentioned before, frequency information for such small sub-sets of the BNC is prone to be highly unreliable. Thus, the not-at-all unlikely use of three additional complex prepositions by the lecturers would have doubled the total frequency per million words. This, in turn, would have resulted in a radically different ranking of the genre overall. In addition to the usual methodological difficulties in interpreting the trends suggested by such low figures, the idiosyncrasies of individual authors or speakers undoubtedly represent a further element of possible bias for the results obtained from searching such small categories. With respect to the distinction between formal and informal contexts, the ten genres in the lower half of Table 6.1 clearly tend to be more informal. For example, the 119 texts of the genre ‘Oral history interviews/ narratives’ (S_interview_oral_history) largely contain speech situations in which an interviewer tries to extract personal information from a conversational partner. A relaxed atmosphere in which a casual chat takes place is most likely to produce such information. The same is true for the genre ‘S_consult’, which largely consists of medical consultations involving a doctor and a patient. Interesting parallels have been suggested between spontaneous face-to-face conversation and the more specific interaction which takes place in a doctor–patient medical consultation. The typical analysis of such encounters generally focuses on the power differential between the two interlocutors and how this power asymmetry influences turn-taking behaviour.4 However, over and beyond this discussion, some researchers have also noted striking similarities between this institutionalized medical discourse and casual dialogue between two more equally matched conversational partners. Maynard (1991: 449), for example, notes that ‘doctor–patient interaction involves sequences of talk that have

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 101 their home in ordinary conversation’. Although a more detailed analysis of medical encounters is beyond the scope of the present study, as the following brief extract shows, these speech situations are by no means necessarily formal in nature: (3) Doctor: Patient: Doctor: Patient: Doctor: Patient: Doctor: Patient: Doctor: Patient: Doctor:

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Patient: Doctor:

11

Patient: Doctor:

12 13 14 15 16

Patient:

Well Mr , what can we [do] [] for you today? Busy today is it not? [we just don’t believe it.] [ about an hour] I’ve been out there. Oh aye. I can believe it. Due a line today are you? Yes Doctor. <pause> I’ve been sitting here since two o’clock my two o’clock cup of coffee. Not very funny [Doctor.] [ <end of voice quality>] <pause> I wasn’t expecting you’d be that busy just now. Oh. Holidays. Never come at holiday weekend. Mhm. (BNC: H4R: 1–16)

The interaction shown in (3) is clearly reminiscent of casual conversation and a look at the 119 relevant texts in the BNC reveals that this extract is certainly not exceptional. In almost all these medical encounters, the doctors can be seen to encourage the establishment of a relaxed atmosphere. I therefore believe that it is no coincidence that the genre ‘S_consult’ exhibits a frequency of complex prepositions very similar to that found for spontaneous face-to-face conversations. Having established that complex prepositions are largely a feature of formal contexts of language use, the question about the reason for this observed preference needs to be addressed. Given the descriptive character of the present chapter, I will only briefly concentrate on one possible answer. In Hoffmann (2002), I commented on the continuous rise of PNP-constructions in non-fiction texts by offering the following tentative hypothesis: The 17th and 18th centuries mark the beginning of an immense advancement in the sciences. Imitation of the classics goes out of

102 Complex prepositions in Present-day English fashion and a clearer, more scientific style emerges that places great emphasis on clarity and precision. It seems highly probable that this could have an influence on the use of complex prepositions. (Hoffmann 2002: 134) Such an explanation tacitly assumes that complex prepositions are indeed features of language which enable a clearer and more precise mode of expression. Support for such a view can be found in Rohdenburg’s (1996: 151) complexity principle: ‘In the case of more or less explicit grammatical options the more explicit one(s) will tend to be favoured in cognitively more complex environments.’ Rohdenburg further notes that ‘the more explicit variant is generally represented by the bulkier element or construction’ (Rohdenburg 1996: 152). As a case in point, the author discusses the choice between the ‘contextually equivalent’ prepositions on and upon following verbs such as call, count, depend, prevail and rely (Rohdenburg 1996: 170). In contrast to on, the formal variant upon can clearly be considered as more explicit, and it favours abstract uses such as that shown in sentence (4): (4) . . . I then prevailed upon the editor of the newspaper I then wrote for, the Daily Mail, to send me . . . (The Times or Sunday Times 1991, example taken from Rohdenburg 1996: 170) Here, a further (infinitival) complement follows the prepositional object, which results in a relatively complex type of construction. The simpler preposition on, on the other hand, is said to be ‘far more general in meaning than upon’ and can be used in ‘a great variety of concrete and abstract’ contexts (ibid.). The claim that upon is indeed more likely to be employed in cognitively more complex situations is supported by the fact that upon is far more frequently found following a passive verb. Referring to studies such as Clark and Clark (1977) and Davidson and Lutz (1985), Rohdenburg (1996: 162) states ‘that – under the same circumstances – the processing complexity associated with passive clauses tends to be significantly greater than that involving their corresponding actives’. Many of the complex prepositions under consideration in the present study could also be replaced by simple prepositions (e.g. in favour of versus for). Users of the language thus have a choice between two or several options of expressing the same concept. Following Rohdenburg’s approach, this choice is likely to be influenced by the level of cognitive complexity presented by the usage context. The longer and more expressive complex prepositions would consequently lend themselves better to use in cognitively more demanding contexts that are more likely to occur in formal situations of language use.5 When looking at the number of types found per genre, the data shown in Table 6.1 suggests that the contexts constituted by the individual genres

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 103 do not greatly restrict the range of PNP-constructions employed. Thus, three genres can be seen to contain the full set of 30 items (‘Academic prose: politics law education’, ‘Official/governmental documents/leaflets’, and ‘Commerce & finance, economics’) and more than 80 per cent of all types can be found even in relatively small genres such as ‘Administrative and regulatory texts for in-house use’ or ‘Planned speech’ (with just over 200,000 words each). This observation is also largely true for the genres in the lower half of Table 6.1. For example, although the genre ‘Broadsheet national newspapers: science material’ (W_newsp_brdsht_nat_science) only contains a total of 16 PNP-constructions, they represent ten different types. No genre-specific preference for particular complex prepositions can therefore be observed in the data presented in Table 6.1. In the following section, I will now turn my attention to a more detailed description of the distributional properties of some individual complex prepositions.

The distributional characteristics of some individual complex prepositions The number of different PNP-constructions per genre as it was presented in the previous section is a very crude measurement of the distributional characteristics of complex prepositions. A closer look at individual PNPconstructions will reveal much clearer tendencies. For example, although the majority of complex prepositions are indeed attested in spontaneous conversation (24 types with a total of 583 instances, cf. Table 6.1 above), their individual frequencies vary greatly. In fact, two constructions together – in front of (234 instances) and on top of (186 instances) – account for 72 per cent of the total of 593 instances, while seven of the 24 different types are only found to have a single occurrence (by way of, by means of, in accordance with, in connection with, in excess of, in return for and in search of ). In the current section, the distribution of the four complex prepositions in relation to, in search of, in spite of and on top of will be presented in some more detail. The selection of these particular four items is motivated by the fact that their distributional characteristics are quite distinct from each other. In discussing the differences between them, I will make repeated reference to other members of my set of 30 most frequent PNPconstructions which exhibit similar features. Using this approach, it will be possible to convey a more detailed impression of the Present-day English usage of complex prepositions in general. Figure 6.2 displays the distribution of the four above-mentioned PNPconstructions over the same 11 text-domains that formed the basis for the general overview presented in Figure 6.1. The order of the categories is the same in all four charts in order to allow easy comparison. (Note, however, that the values on the x-axis are not identical.) As is immediately noticeable, considerable differences between the four PNP-constructions can be

Figure 6.2 The distribution of the four complex prepositions in relation to, in search of, in spite of and on top of over the text domains of the BNC.

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 105 observed. With respect to the text-type specific use of these complex prepositions, in relation to displays the most varied picture. While it is most commonly employed in ‘Social science’ (139 pmw), texts within the domain ‘Imaginative prose’ hardly contain any instances at all (4 pmw): there is a 34-fold difference between the frequencies in these two written domains. This kind of highly domain-specific use is typical of a whole range of complex prepositions. Similarly large variations are found for by reference to, in accordance with, in conjunction with, in excess of, in line with, in respect of, in support of, in terms of and with respect to, all of which occur at least 20 times more frequently in the written text domains with the highest frequency of PNP-constructions compared to those with the lowest. With respect to is the most extreme case with ‘Natural and pure sciences’ exhibiting a more than 200-times higher frequency than ‘Imaginative prose’ (63 pmw versus 0.3 pmw). All of these complex prepositions have in common that they occur with the lowest frequency in the domain ‘Imaginative prose’. At the other end of the scale, no single category stands out, but the commerce and science domains strongly dominate. A similarly pronounced difference between two categories can also be found in the spoken texts. While in relation to is relatively common in the task-oriented component of the corpus (59 pmw), it is virtually absent in spontaneous conversation, where only a total of eight instances were retrieved (1.9 pmw). Again, this situation is not at all uncommon. For 22 out of the entire set of 30 complex prepositions, the frequencies for the context-governed and spoken demographic domains differ by a factor of over ten.6 On the whole, the distributional characteristics of in relation to are thus fairly prototypical for a whole range of PNP-constructions. This situation is further confirmed when the distribution of in relation to across the more detailed genre categories is considered. For example, most of the genres which were shown to exhibit a frequent use of the whole set of 30 complex prepositions (cf. Table 6.1) also rank among the top-ten genres with the highest frequency of in relation to.7 The concessive preposition in spite of exhibits a much more balanced distribution over the various written text domains. It is most frequently found in the domain ‘World affairs’ (41 pmw) while the least frequent usage is attested in ‘Applied science’ (20 pmw). This relatively small difference in frequency stands in sharp contrast to complex prepositions such as in relation to mentioned above. Interestingly, the domain ‘Imaginative prose’ is the category with the second highest frequency of in spite of (39 pmw). This is particularly noteworthy since the domain ‘Leisure’ is found at the other end of the frequency scale (21 pmw). In most of the other PNP-constructions investigated, the opposite is the case: the domains ‘Imaginative prose’ and ‘Leisure’ exhibit very similar frequencies of complex prepositional usage. This pattern can be seen in Figure 6.2 for in relation to, in search of and on top of.

106 Complex prepositions in Present-day English Given the relatively balanced distribution of in spite of over the written domains, its much lower frequency of use in the two spoken domains requires further comment (7.7 pmw in the context-governed and only 1.4 pmw in the spoken demographic part). As Table 6.2 shows, the difference between the written and the spoken component is clearly much more marked than between any of the written domains distinguished in Figure 6.2. With 30.4 instances per million words, the written texts on the whole exhibit a six times higher frequency of use than the spoken texts (5.1 instances pmw). The more detailed genre classification greatly supports the observation that spoken and written language radically differ in their use of in spite of. When the 70 genres are ranked by frequency, only one single spoken genre is found among the first half of this list (‘TV or radio news broadcasts’, 34 instances pmw). The concept of concession is thus clearly less likely to be expressed in spoken language with the help of the PNP-construction in spite of. In a later section of this chapter, I will return to the discussion of concessive links in more detail and will investigate the use of possible alternative expressions. Like in spite of, the complex preposition in search of is much more frequent in written than in spoken language (11.1 pmw versus 0.9 pmw).8 Another noteworthy fact is that the domains ‘Arts’ (22 pmw), ‘Leisure’ (15 pmw) and ‘Imaginative prose’ (15 pmw) exhibit the most frequent use of in search of. For the majority of my set of complex prepositions, these three domains are typically found at the lower end of the frequency scale (e.g. in accordance with, in addition to, in contrast to, in return for, in support of, in view of, with respect to, etc.; cf. also Figure 6.1). Interestingly, in search of displays a very different distribution from the noun search itself, which is most frequently found in ‘Applied science’ (111 pmw), ‘Natural and pure sciences’ (102 pmw) and ‘Commerce and finance’ (95 pmw).9 As can be seen in Figure 6.2, ‘Applied science’ is the domain where in search of is in fact the least frequently found (5 pmw). By comparison, the domains ‘Arts’, ‘Leisure’ and ‘Imaginative prose’, which exhibit the most frequent use of in search of, are found at the bottom of the frequency scale for the singular noun search. What explanation can be offered for these sharply opposing distributional characteristics? The noun

Table 6.2 The use of in spite of in the written and spoken components of the BNC Component

No. of words

No. of instances

Frequency pmw

Written Spoken

87,284,364 10,341,729

2,650 53

30.4 5.1

Total

97,626,093

2,703

27.7

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 107 search can of course be employed in different types of syntactic environments or collocational frames (e.g. with a following PP as in his search for gold, with or without adjectival premodification, etc.) and the distribution of these structures over different text domains will naturally reveal some preferences for certain contexts. However, such a clearly divergent distribution pattern as that displayed by in search of is nevertheless rather striking. One possible interpretation of this situation is that search and in search of are indeed much more unrelated than their orthographic similarity suggests. In other words, the distributional characteristics of in search of lend further support to the claim that PNP-constructions are units of English grammar rather than compositional sequences of words which are assembled on the basis of common syntactic rules. Finally, on top of is the only PNP-construction among the four items shown in Figure 6.2 which is very common in spoken language.10 More importantly, on top of is also the only complex preposition in the set of 30 PNP-constructions which is more frequent in the spoken demographic part (44 pmw) than in the context-governed part (28 pmw). In fact, the 186 instances of on top of account for almost one-third of the total of 583 occurrences of my set of 30 PNP-constructions in spontaneous face-to-face conversation. In the written component, on top of also displays a rather untypical distribution: it is most frequently found in ‘Imaginative prose’ (41 pmw) and ‘Leisure’ (40 pmw) and least frequently in ‘Social science’ (11 pmw). As in the case of in spite of, a more detailed genre classification again supports the general impression. For example, in the genre ‘Administrative and regulatory texts for in-house use’ (W_admin), which contains the highest frequency of PNP-constructions overall, not a single instance of on top of can be found. In many ways, on top of is thus an exceptional complex preposition whose distribution radically differs from PNPconstructions such as in relation to.

Interpreting distributional data: conceptual frequency and style The frequency information presented in the current chapter has been exclusively given in terms of normalized frequency counts. Given the size of the BNC, the measurement of ‘frequency per million words’ provides a useful basis for comparing different text types or genres. It must, however, be noted that a comparison on the basis of frequency per million word counts overlooks the fact that different text domains and genres do not necessarily offer the same opportunities for complex prepositions to occur. For example, we know that noun phrase complexity varies considerably across different types of contexts (cf. Aarts 1971; de Haan 1987). On the one hand, since prepositions take noun phrases as complements, a preponderance of long and complex noun phrases will result in a lower number of possible slots for PNP-constructions per number of words. On the other

108 Complex prepositions in Present-day English hand, some text domains are more ‘nouny’ than others, which in turn increases the number of possible slots for complex prepositions. Clearly, frequency per million word counts can only offer an approximate type of information (cf. also Ball 1994). Having said that, the fact that a particular feature, e.g. a word or a phrase, occurs with a certain frequency depends on at least two very different factors. I would like to refer to the first of these as ‘conceptual frequency’. Every linguistic feature expresses a certain concept when it is employed.11 The complex preposition in spite of, for example, is used to express a concessive link between two entities in the text. In spite of is thus obviously only employed when the given context requires the expression of the particular concept of concession. Different contexts of language use will require different types of concepts to be expressed more or less frequently. As a consequence, if a concept does not necessitate frequent expression, its linguistic realizations will necessarily be relatively rare in terms of their normalized frequency counts. In itself, this is a trivial observation, but it may nevertheless have far-reaching implications for the evaluation of distributional statistics which are sometimes neglected in descriptive studies of language use. The second factor which influences the frequency of individual items is the availability of a ‘linguistic choice’ between several types of realizations. It is a commonplace observation that there may be various ways of expressing the same concept, e.g. by using different, near-synonymous lexical items or by employing different syntactic structures. As a case in point, consider (5) and (6): (5) A friend and I were in the back streets of St Tropez, looking for a taxi, and I was desperate for a pee. (BNC: CA9: 915) (6) She snatched them from him, cursed angrily at them both, then strode off in search of a taxi. (BNC: EF1: 162) The two phrases looking for a taxi and in search of a taxi clearly express the same concept, but this concept is linguistically realized in two distinct ways. In other words, language users have a choice between various options of saying the same thing. The choice of a particular variant is usually a matter of style. Thus, there is the common distinction between formal and informal language use, which is often a reflection of the social relationship between the language producer and the recipient. As noted by Quirk et al. (1985), this type of variation between formal and informal language is a question of ‘attitude’: We are here concerned with the choice of linguistic form that proceeds from our attitude to the hearer (or reader), to the topic, and to the purpose of our communication. We recognize a gradient in attitude between FORMAL (relatively stiff, cold, polite, impersonal) on the

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 109 one hand and INFORMAL (relatively relaxed, warm, rude, friendly) on the other hand. (Quirk et al. 1985: 25–6)12 As an illustration of the difference between formal and informal usage, Quirk et al. (1985: 26) offer the following examples: (7) Overtime emoluments are not available for employees who are nonresident. (formal) (8) Staff members who don’t live in can’t get paid overtime. (informal) Several features make it quite easy to identify example (7) as belonging to a formal context (no contractions, highly specific Latinate vocabulary, etc.), while the use of phrasal verbs, the get-passive and contractions clearly places (8) in a much more informal domain.13 A meaningful interpretation of the distributional characteristics of a particular linguistic item requires attention to both linguistic choice and conceptual frequency. In the context of complex prepositions, the choice is typically between a simple preposition and a PNP-construction. For example, in favour of and for are in many contexts semantically equivalent and can therefore often be used interchangeably. The same can be said about a whole range of PNP-constructions (e.g. on top of versus on; on behalf of versus for, etc.). In addition, as shown in (7) and (8) above, the options for linguistic choice are greatly extended by the ability to express the same concept with the help of completely different syntactic realizations. At the beginning of the current chapter, I noted that complex prepositions are most frequently found in genres which represent highly formal contexts (e.g. administrative documents or other types of legal language). Although this observation was somewhat modified by establishing that certain PNP-constructions are more common in spontaneous conversation or the written domain ‘Imaginative prose’, it certainly holds true for the majority of my set of 30 complex prepositions. However, the explanatory power of these descriptive statistics deserves further scrutiny. In fact, I argue that it is necessary to go beyond frequency information concerning individual complex prepositions and look at how often certain concepts are expressed instead. Obviously, the overall frequency of a particular concept may vary greatly between different text domains. Consequently, if a certain complex preposition is found more frequently in ‘Arts’ than in ‘Imaginative prose’ this must be interpreted as the combined result of two independent factors. On the one hand, the higher frequency may be caused by language users exhibiting their personal preference for the PNP-construction more often (i.e. as opposed to, for example, a simple preposition). On the other hand, it may also be the case that the concept expressed is simply more often required by the context. In the first case, a higher frequency of the complex

110 Complex prepositions in Present-day English preposition could indeed be interpreted as an expression of the attitude of the language user. In the second case, however, the explanatory power of the difference in frequency is clearly reduced if the analysis of distributional data is restricted to the PNP-construction alone. Thus, in order to assess whether a complex preposition is indeed, for example, typical of ‘more formal’ usage, its relative frequency must be calculated with respect to the sum of all the possible linguistic realizations of the particular concept it expresses. In other words, the Labovian principle of accountability is highly relevant for the present context, too: a complete description can only be achieved by determining both how often a particular feature is found as well as how often it could have been found but in fact was expressed differently (cf. Labov 1969: 737–8). From a methodological point of view, this insight raises an important practical issue: how is it possible to determine the full range of linguistic realizations of a particular concept? Given the creativity of language, it is not feasible to produce an exhaustive list of variants. As a result, any automated retrieval from an electronic corpus using a necessarily incomplete list will therefore inevitably fail to capture the whole picture. This limitation is particularly important in the context of comparisons which involve realizations of different concepts. As it happens, the 30 complex prepositions considered in the present study express largely unrelated concepts. The only common features are their formal parallelism and their syntactic status of grammaticalized units functioning as heads of preposition phrases. If the varying levels of conceptual frequency in different textdomains and genres are left unaccounted for, the linguistic analysis of distributional characteristics clearly runs the risk of comparing apples with pears. Because of these methodological limitations, a comprehensive evaluation of the data presented so far in this chapter must remain beyond the scope of the current study. Such an undertaking would necessarily involve the establishment of a very large set of linguistic realizations of the 30 different concepts expressed. However, by way of example, I will examine one single concept and carry out a more detailed study of concession as it is expressed – among other variants – by in spite of. In particular, I will be looking at the variation between in spite of and despite to determine whether either of the two realizations can be considered more formal.

The case of concession: in spite of and its variants A concessive relation expresses a relation of unexpectedness between two propositions. In English, concessive relations between two clauses, or between a clause and an adverbial, can be marked by a whole range of linguistic means. They include conjunctions such as although, while and whereas, conjunctional adverbs such as nevertheless and still, and prepositions such as despite or in spite of. As the constructed examples (9) to (11)

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 111 show, these three choices are largely synonymous and the selection of a particular type of connective depends on the syntactic environment: (9) Carl wants to climb up the hill although the weather is bad. (10) The weather is bad. Nevertheless Carl wants to climb up the hill. (11) Carl wants to climb up the hill in spite of the bad weather. In general, concessive constructions are semantically rather complex. This statement is supported by the observation ‘that [concessives] develop relatively late in the history of a language and are also acquired much later than other types of adverbial clauses’ (König 1994: 679). Given the relatively large range of linguistic realizations, a comprehensive study of concessive relations is certainly not an easy undertaking. This is particularly true given the fact that some sentences may carry a concessive interpretation even though they do not contain an overt marker of concessiveness. As a case in point, consider example (12), quoted from König (1985: 2). (12) I have to do all this work and you are watching TV. The inclusion of such sentences into the analysis is particularly relevant in the case of spoken language. As Barth (2000) observes, concessive relations are by no means rare in spoken interaction. Rather, ‘[s]poken and written language differ . . . in the frequency and distribution of particular kinds of concessive constructions’ (Barth 2000: 430–1). Instead of employing hypotactic constructions using conjunctions such as although, speakers exhibit an overwhelming preference for constructions in which the concessive relation is expressed by means of the paratactic conjunction but. The reasons for this choice may relate to such considerations as ‘on-line production and processing, room to manoeuvre and politeness’ (Barth 2000: 431). The relatively low frequency noted above for in spite of in spoken language is thus not likely to be a reflection of the low overall conceptual frequency of concessive relations. Rather, for the purpose of spoken interaction, users of the language appear to opt for a different linguistic realization of the same concept.14 In this context, I would now like to return to the question of the distinction between formal and informal language. However, rather than investigating all (near-synonymous) linguistic realizations of concessive relations, I will restrict myself to the three prepositions in spite of, despite and notwithstanding.15 From a methodological point of view, this restriction is justified by the fact that my focus remains on the concept of concession rather than on a comparison between the other concepts expressed by my set of 30 complex prepositions. Thus, although this type of analysis only captures a subset of the relevant items, differences in frequencies and the patterns of co-occurrence are nevertheless meaningful expressions of the choice between different linguistic forms.

112 Complex prepositions in Present-day English Sentences (13) to (15) exemplify typical uses of the three prepositions under investigation: (13) In spite of his slender appearance, he was very strong. (BNC: CEX: 2800) (14) The graceful tail extensions make a tempting target for some aggressive fish, but the fish is otherwise robust despite its slender appearance. (BNC: FBN: 382) (15) Notwithstanding the spread size, the critical factor for any borrower is fluctuations in LIBOR which determines most of a loan’s interest cost. (BNC: B1W: 1974) While in spite of and despite are exclusively employed as prepositions, notwithstanding can also be used as a subordinator, as a conjunct and as a postposition. These three uses are exemplified in (16) to (18): (16) Miller pointed out that ‘Oranges, jesmines[sic], capers, olives and pomegranites[sic] are annually brought from Italy and, if skilfully managed, very few of them miscarry, notwithstanding they are many times three or four months out of the ground.’ (BNC: ALU: 762) (17) Notwithstanding, it is an ideal volume for a bright 12–14-year-old, especially one who is (or shows signs of being) addicted to computers. (BNC: EAK: 1188) (18) Their apparent wealth notwithstanding, there are rumblings of unease within parts of the lieutenancy about the cost of it all. (BNC: ADB: 329) Instances of notwithstanding in functions such as shown in (16) to (18) were excluded from my analysis. As can be seen in Table 6.3, notwithstanding is the least frequent of the three items while despite is by far the most frequent concessive link (3 per cent versus 81.6 per cent). The PNPconstruction in spite of accounts for just over 15 per cent of the total. It is therefore clearly not the predominant choice of expression when a concessive relation needs to be conveyed with the help of a preposition. Table 6.3 The three concessive prepositions despite, in spite of and notwithstanding in the BNC Preposition

No. of instances

despite in spite of notwithstanding

14,359 2,703 521

Total

17,583

Percentage 81.6 15.4 3 100

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 113 Although the three prepositions under consideration are semantic equivalents, they are commonly associated with different levels of formality. Quirk et al. (1985: 666, 705–6), for example, attach the label ‘’ to notwithstanding and note that it is ‘rather legalistic in style’. By comparison, in spite of is identified as a ‘general-purpose preposition’. Finally, despite, is marked as somewhat more formal than in spite of. This distinction is also partly reiterated in Rissanen’s (2002) diachronic study of concessive prepositions in English. He surmises that ‘although notwithstanding was a rhythmically impressive word, it could easily be regarded as inconveniently long and, with its associations with officialese, stylistically marked’ (Rissanen 2002: 200). As a result, notwithstanding can be seen to decline rapidly in frequency from the end of the seventeenth century onwards. Rissanen (ibid.) further notes that despite became more frequent only in the second half of the twentieth century and claims that ‘[h]ere we are witnessing a change still in progress’. Although Rissanen also refers to Quirk et al.’s (1985) categorization of despite as more formal than in spite of, he still suggests that ‘[a] more detailed genre-based analysis might give an answer to the question whether despite is still regarded as “rather more formal” than in spite of ’. In what follows, I will attempt to answer this question by investigating the distributional characteristics and the collocational patterns of the three prepositions under consideration. Figure 6.3 shows the distribution of the three concessive prepositions over the 11 text domains of the BNC. (The graph for in spite of is reproduced from Figure 6.2 for ease of comparison. The values on the x-axis are again not identical.) It is immediately apparent that in spite of and despite exhibit a relatively similar picture. Like in spite of, despite is employed fairly equally in all written text domains: the domains with the highest and lowest frequencies differ only by a factor of about 2.5 (‘World affairs’, 219 pmw versus ‘Imaginative prose’, 89 pmw). In the spoken component, despite is relatively rare and the difference between the context-governed and demographic parts is even more marked than for in spite of. Notwithstanding, on the other hand, displays a radically different pattern of distribution. Its distributional pattern is highly reminiscent of the one found for in relation to: the differences between individual text domains are very pronounced and the category with the lowest frequency is established by ‘Imaginative prose’ (0.6 instances pmw). This picture is again confirmed by the distribution over the more detailed genre classification scheme, where the genres ‘Academic prose: politics law education’ (W_ac_polit_law_edu) and ‘Administrative and regulatory texts for in-house use’ (W_admin) clearly exhibit the highest frequency of use of notwithstanding. The distributional patterns shown in Figure 6.3 certainly support the claim that notwithstanding is used in more formal contexts than in spite of and despite. The difference between the latter two items is however less obvious. The only truly supportive evidence for the claim that despite is more formal is perhaps found in the fact that the domain ‘Imaginative

Figure 6.3 The distribution of the three concessive prepositions despite, in spite of and notwithstanding over the text domains of the BNC.

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 115 prose’ is located at opposite ends of the frequency scale for the two items: for in spite of, ‘Imaginative prose’ is the written domain with the highest frequency while it contains the lowest number of instances of despite. Even though the domain-based categorization scheme is relatively broad, texts classified as belonging to ‘Imaginative prose’ generally tend to be less formal than the eight informative domains. However, only a closer look at the specific contexts in which in spite of and despite are used can give a conclusive answer with respect to their precise stylistic status. For this purpose, a comparison of the collocations of the two items under consideration can provide important clues: if there is a difference in formality between the two prepositions, then it should be reflected in the differing kind of collocates found in their immediate environment. Since both items function as heads of preposition phrases and consequently take noun phrases as complements, an analysis of their noun collocates may be particularly relevant. Table 6.4 shows a list of the ten strongest noun collocates within a window of one to three words to the right of in spite of and despite. The ranking of collocates is calculated on the basis of the loglikelihood formula. It is clear that the noun collocates of the two prepositions are nearly identical. In both cases, fact is by far the strongest collocate, followed by efforts and recession. In the remaining seven positions, six further nouns are shared by the two PNP-constructions. The plural noun differences, which is found at position nine for in spite of, is also a fairly strong collocate of despite, where it ranks thirteenth. The only true difference in noun collocates concerns doubts, which does not belong to the top-50 noun collocates of despite.16 A similar picture emerges in an analysis of the adjective collocates of in spite of and despite. Again, the large majority of the strongest collocates Table 6.4 The ten strongest noun collocates of in spite of and despite in the BNC (Collocates within a window of one to three words to the right of the node) in spite of No.

Collocate

N

log-likelihood

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

fact efforts recession difficulties protests attempts doubts lack opposition problems

132 34 20 20 14 16 12 16 15 18

1,064 309 176 152 145 126 109 105 97 84

despite ■ Collocate fact efforts recession attempts lack protests problems difficulties differences opposition

N

log-likelihood

846 177 102 94 105 71 132 90 90 89

7,167 1,608 891 759 738 733 702 658 634 597

116 Complex prepositions in Present-day English are shared (e.g. apparent, recent, obvious, considerable). This level of congruence displayed between the collocations of the two prepositions under consideration is certainly striking. It suggests that in spite of and despite are indeed used in very similar contexts. This, in turn, speaks against a classification of despite as a more formal expression than in spite of. In order to determine possible other influences on the choice between in spite of and despite, a number of additional points were investigated. For instance, I calculated the average length of the noun phrase complements of the two prepositions. Longer – and therefore usually syntactically more complex – noun phrases could be interpreted as indicative of a more formal style. However, no significant differences could be detected. I therefore turned my attention to possible differences with respect to the sentence positions in which in spite of and despite are employed. While this would not give further insights as to their level of formality, I hoped that such an investigation would reveal a decisive factor in the choice between the two prepositions. Table 6.5 lists the ten most frequent items found in the position just before the PNP-constructions. The percentage figures are calculated with respect to the total number of instances of the two prepositions. The label refers to a sentence boundary – in these cases, the preposition occurs sentence-initially. As Table 6.5 shows, the lists of ten items are identical for in spite of and despite and only minor differences in the ranking can be found. While despite is somewhat more likely to occur in sentence-initial position, this difference is not large enough to be considered a decisive factor in the choice of preposition (32.3 per cent for in spite of versus 36.9 per cent for despite). In the case of a preceding comma, the percentages are even closer (29.1 per cent for in spite of versus 31.7 per cent for despite). Furthermore, in about 6–7 per cent of all instances, both prepositions under

Table 6.5 The ten most frequent items in the position immediately before in spite of and despite in the BNC in spite of No.

Item

N

Percentage

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

, and but that  – yet is (

876 788 99 85 72 36 31 28 15 14

32.3 29.1 3.7 3.1 2.7 1.3 1.1 1.0 0.6 0.5

despite ■ Item , and but that –  ( yet is

N

Percentage

5,294 4,558 464 352 293 232 129 115 105 50

36.9 31.7 3.2 2.5 2.0 1.6 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.4

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 117 consideration are preceded by a coordinating conjunction (but or and). Clearly, the patterns found for in spite of and despite are very similar. Considering this failure to isolate a decisive context-based or structural factor in the choice between the two prepositions, I also investigated whether individual authors can be seen to display personal preferences for or against the use of a particular preposition. For this purpose, I concentrated on those texts where either in spite of or despite occur with a particularly high frequency. In addition, my analysis was restricted to texts written by single authors, as individual preferences could otherwise not be detected. Table 6.6 lists the number of instances of in spite of and despite for a total of 30 different files. The difference between the use of in spite of and despite in the files shown in Table 6.6 is striking. Those authors who frequently use in spite of make very little use of its synonym despite. There is only one single file (GUE) with a relatively even number of instances of both prepositions (18 in spite of versus 11 despite). Given that, on the whole, despite is considerably more frequent than in spite of, these low figures are even more surprising. In the right half of the table, the distinction is made even more sharply: in spite of is virtually absent in files whose authors make frequent use of despite. The data shown in Table 6.6 thus suggests that idiolectal preferences are the primary factor in the choice between the use of in spite of and despite.

Table 6.6 In spite of versus despite in 30 different files of the written component of the BNCa Filename

in spite of

despite

Filename

in spite of

JXM AM4 F9P AT8 A1A FR9 B12 HY2 ARX CLR EX1 CDS A07 HY0 HY8

1 – – – – – 1 – – – – – – – –

52 45 45 36 37 28 26 9 11 25 10 24 26 30 29

2

433

H7C BN2 CM6 AS7 FR2 BMW EF2 GUE APW H0C BMH B2H EFA A6F B02

5 19 18 18 10 17 14 18 15 16 12 12 12 13 10

– 1 – – 3 – 3 11 – 2 – – 1 2 –

Total

209

23

despite

Note a The ranking of files is according to the extrapolated frequency per million words.

118 Complex prepositions in Present-day English This interpretation is further supported by an examination of the genre categories for the 30 files. Both sets of data contain about the same number of files from academic and non-academic genres. The same is true for the texts taken from official and legal contexts. On the basis of these observations, no tendency towards a more or less formal set of contexts can be detected for either in spite of or despite. It must thus be concluded that the personal preferences of individual authors are indeed a major factor for the selection of one of the two variants.

Conclusion In the current chapter, I have presented an extensive range of descriptive statistics concerning the use of complex prepositions in Present-day English, beginning with the general distributional characteristics of the whole set of 30 PNP-constructions over the different domains and genres in the BNC. There seemed to be a clear preference for complex prepositional use in more formal contexts, but this impression was somewhat modified when I looked at the four prepositions in relation to, in search of, in spite of and on top of in more detail. I determined that the features displayed by in relation to can be considered typical of a whole number of complex prepositions. The most notable traits of these PNP-constructions are a highly uneven distribution over the different text domains (with a clear dispreference for ‘Imaginative prose’) as well as their almost total absence from spontaneous conversations. I also suggested that the distributional characteristics of in search of lend further support to the view that complex prepositions are self-contained units of grammar. This conclusion was motivated by the fact that the noun search alone displays a radically different distribution over the various text domains in the BNC. Finally, on top of was identified as the only PNP-construction which is most frequently found in spontaneous face-to-face conversations. In my evaluation of the distributional characteristics of my set of 30 PNP-constructions, I drew attention to the importance of two independent factors, namely linguistic choice and conceptual frequency. I argued that comparisons concerning the use of different items across the various text domains and genres are only meaningful when both factors are taken into account. Since different contexts call for different concepts to be expressed more or less frequently, comparisons of the use of PNP-constructions are only truly relevant when all possible linguistic realizations of the concepts under consideration are included in the analysis. Finally, as an example of variants expressing a conceptual notion, I analysed the use of in spite of and its variants notwithstanding and despite. All three items are used to express the concept of concession, but they are commonly said to convey different levels of formality. While notwithstanding was clearly identified as belonging to a more formal type of context, hardly any difference between in spite of and despite could be dis-

Complex prepositions in Present-day English 119 covered. Perhaps surprisingly, the choice between the two prepositions appears to depend primarily on the personal preferences of individual authors. More research into the different linguistic realizations of the concepts expressed by the whole set of PNP-constructions will be required to determine to what extent the use of other complex prepositions can be considered the result of idiolectal preferences. In any case, it does seem conceivable that the frequent use of complex prepositions may also be indicative of a personal style rather than a mere reflection of different contexts of usage.

7

In terms of A new discourse marker

Introduction With 10,060 instances, in terms of is the most frequent complex preposition in the BNC. However, frequency alone is not the only reason why this particular PNP-construction is treated in a chapter of its own. After tracing its development over the last few centuries, I will move on to a brief overview of its distributional characteristics in Present-day English use as represented by the BNC. The bulk of the present chapter will then be concerned with a detailed description of in terms of in spoken language. On the basis of this description, I am going to argue that this PNPconstruction has acquired additional discourse-specific functions which go beyond the features described so far for the other complex prepositions.

Historical development Example (1) displays the earliest attested use of the PNP-construction in terms of in the OED quotations database: (1) So oure clerkis . . . whan pai will speke in termis of her religion. (OED, c.1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 384; term n.) So our clergymen . . . when they want to speak using the terms of their religion. According to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (CDE), termis was borrowed from the Medieval Latin terminus ‘word, expression’ and carried the meaning ‘words or phrases which are used in a limited or precise sense’. A slightly extended sense of this usage is found in (2), where terms refers to a particular manner of expressing oneself, a way of speaking: (2) He at length broke out in terms of the grossest abuse, and altogether unworthy a king. (OED, 1850 Arab. Nts. (Rtldg.) 400; gross a. and n.) The majority of the early uses of in terms of are further examples of the

In terms of: a new discourse marker 121 senses shown in (1) and (2). In Present-day English, however, this original use of in terms of appears to be obsolete. From the sixteenth century onwards, the noun term is also found in a mathematical sense and refers to ‘each of the two quantities composing a ratio (antecedent and consequent), or a fraction (numerator and denominator)’, and ‘each of (two or more) quantities connected by the signs of addition () or subtraction () in an algebraical expression or equation’ (OED, term n., sense III.11.a and c). The first use of this mathematical meaning as part of a PNP-construction is shown in sentence (3): (3) If a Series be required to be express’d in Terms of that Quantity whose 2d, 3d Fluxion, &c. is in the Equation. (OED, 1743 Emerson Fluxions 38; term n.) In the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, the possibility of expressing one entity ‘in terms of’ another entity or set of entities was extended to contexts outside the restricted area of mathematics and related fields of science. A typical example can be seen in sentence (4): (4) Music . . . defines each sound in terms of its pitch, intensity, and duration . . . So should color be supplied with an appropriate system, based on the hue, value, and chroma of our sensations. (OED, 1905 A. H. Munsell Color Notation i. 8; chroma) Here, the concept of a mathematical equation is extended to denote a much looser relationship of equivalence: when the three elements pitch, intensity and duration are considered in conjunction, they can be employed to fully describe the nature of a particular sound. In this sense, however, equivalence is neither mathematical nor quantitative but notional: one element or entity is seen in the light of (or as being constituted by) one or several others. In later examples, the element of mathematical correspondence is further weakened. From a discourse-pragmatic point of view, exact equivalence between two entities outside of the mathematical domain is very unlikely. The invited inference is therefore that certain features of the juxtaposed entities become highlighted. Notional equivalence as the one seen in (4) thus gives way to a meaning which focuses on certain aspects only. As a case in point, consider example (5): (5) Every idea is judged in terms of its political manipulability. (OED, 1947 Partisan Rev. Sept.–Oct. 473; manipulability, n.) Rather than expressing a relationship of equivalence between two entities (or sets of entities), in terms of is employed to emphasize one particular aspect of the ideas which is relevant within the larger context of the

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In terms of: a new discourse marker

current situation. In (5), the complex prepositions with respect to or with regard to would represent suitable paraphrases for in terms of. The possible application of the PNP-construction in terms of was thus extended to a much larger range of discourse contexts. This is also shown by its cooccurrence with the verb to judge, which would have been incompatible with the earlier concept of mathematical or notional equivalence. As I will show below, this process of generalization is also reflected in the overall frequency of use. The type of usage shown in (5) is almost entirely restricted to quotations dating from the twentieth century. However, there is one interesting exception which is found in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: (6) In tearmes of choise I am not solie led By nice direction of a maidens eies. (OED, 1596 Shakes. Merch. V. ii. i. 13; term n.) The OED notes that this particular (early) use of the noun term is restricted to Shakespeare and paraphrases it as ‘vaguely or redundantly: relation, respect’ (OED, sense III.10). However, no connection is made to its common modern usage. In present-day use, in terms of can be employed with an even looser sense of equivalence. This is shown in (7), where the noun offering is not overtly juxtaposed with any other entity in the sentence. (7) ‘We’re thinking in terms of an offering of one million five of the common’, he said. (OED, 1966 ‘E. Lathen’ Murder makes Wheels go Round i. 4; common a.) The nominal element terms has almost completely lost its original senses ‘way of speaking’ and ‘elements in an equation’. The OED attaches the label ‘colloquial’ to this type of use and paraphrases it as follows: ‘to make (a particular consideration) the basis of one’s attention, enquiries, plans’ (OED, term n., sense IV.11.b). The extent of the semantic change is also nicely demonstrated by example (8): (8) The trouble with fitness is that it leads to mistakes about evolution because it makes people think in terms of qualitative terms. (BNC: HUM: 485) Although this juxtaposition of in terms of with the noun terms is stylistically odd, it certainly lends further support to the view that Englishspeakers use this PNP-construction as a self-contained grammatical unit which is no longer (syntactically and semantically) related to terms. Although the earliest use of in terms of dates back as far as the fourteenth century, the PNP-construction appears to have been rarely employed until late into the second half of the nineteenth century. In the

In terms of: a new discourse marker 123 23.5 million words of the Gutenberg Corpus, only 50 instances can be found. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of these examples are of the earlier usage type shown above in sentence (2) (i.e. ‘manner of expressing oneself’). A search for in terms of (and its spelling variants) in the OED quotations yields a total of 621 instances. However, most of these retrievals are in fact twentieth-century uses, and only 22 are dated before the year 1850. Since the number of quotations per decade varies considerably, only normalized frequency counts can offer a reliable picture of the development. This information is contained in Figure 7.1, which displays a remarkable increase in the frequency of in terms of in the OED quotations cited over the last 150 years. More importantly, in the relatively short span between the years 1890 and 1950, the use of the PNP-construction in terms of can be seen to increase by a factor of over 11 (1.3 versus 14.5 instances per 10,000 quotations). This striking increase in the number of instances of in terms of is entirely due to the expansion of its meaning to encompass more modern uses like in examples (5), (7) and (8) above. Like in view of, in terms of thus displays the typical parallel between increased level of grammaticalization and a considerable increase in the frequency of use (cf. Chapter 4). In fact, the sense of ‘manner of expressing oneself’ disappears completely in the OED by the middle of the twentieth century. The most recent example to appear in the OED quotations database, here shown in (9),

Figure 7.1 The number of occurrences of in terms of in the OED quotations (instances per 10,000 quotations).

124

In terms of: a new discourse marker

dates from 1934 and the only instance I was able to locate in the BNC, shown in (10), is in fact a quotation from an earlier work: The man who works for a living . . . is generally referred to in terms of contempt such as working stiff, Honest John, Square John, sucker or scissor bill. (OED, 1934 Detective Fiction Weekly 21 Apr. 113/1; square a.) (10) He was more than a little inclined to pomposity (‘I am bound to speak in terms of high eulogium on the subject of Rouen’s literary reputation’), but his fussiness over detail makes him a useful informant. (BNC: G1A: 908)

(9)

The quotation in (10) is attributed to a Reverend George M. Musgrave and dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. Having established a broad outline of the development of in terms of over the last five centuries, I will now turn my focus to a more detailed description of Present-day English usage. In this context, I will place particular emphasis on the use of in terms of in spoken interaction.

Present-day use As previously mentioned, in terms of is the most common complex preposition in the BNC. However, this statement needs to be somewhat modified when its use in the different text domains is considered. As Figure 7.2 shows, in terms of displays a relatively uneven distribution over the various contexts of usage. In written language, it is most frequently employed in ‘Social science’ (204 instances pmw) and ‘Belief and thought’ (191 pmw). By comparison, in ‘Imaginative prose’ and the informative domain ‘Leisure’, writers use the PNP-construction much less frequently (7 pmw and 29 pmw). Even more importantly, there is a considerable difference in the frequency of in terms of used in the task-oriented, contextgoverned part in comparison to the face-to-face conversations from the spoken demographic part: while the latter domain has only 31 occurrences of the complex preposition (7 pmw), the context-governed part is the domain with the highest frequency of use (233 pmw) for all 11 domains shown in Figure 7.2. Although an uneven distribution over the different text domains is by no means unusual for complex prepositions (cf. the figures given for in relation to in Chapter 6), this very high frequency of use in the task-oriented part of the spoken component requires further analysis. In this context, the question needs to be asked which particular kinds of discourse situations are most likely to promote the use of in terms of. To answer this question, a closer look at individual instances of use is required. Such an examination will complement the broad picture established by the descriptive statistics presented in Figure 7.2. As I will show, in terms of differs in an important way from the other

In terms of: a new discourse marker 125

Figure 7.2 The distribution of in terms of over the text domains of the BNC.

complex prepositions examined in the current study. In the following section, I will present data which suggests that a meaningful description of the use of in terms of must pay close attention to its discourse-pragmatic functions.

In terms of in spoken language Although the distribution presented in Figure 7.2 above suggests a major division between task-oriented spoken interaction and spontaneous faceto-face conversations, some spoken genres are clearly more likely to contain the complex preposition in terms of than others. This can be seen in Table 7.1, which lists the ten spoken genres where in terms of is most commonly employed. The highest frequency is found in the genre ‘Public debates, discussions, meetings’ (S_pub_debate), where in terms of occurs almost once every 1,000 words (907 instances pmw). A closely related genre is ‘Business or committee meetings’ (S_meeting) where in terms of is also used quite frequently (310 pmw). With nearly 1.4 million words, this genre constitutes the largest category within the context-governed part. The remaining genres shown in Table 7.1 make up a relatively mixed set of discourse contexts. However, conversations within a public domain clearly prevail. Consider for example the three genres comprising lectures on ‘Natural sciences’, ‘Social and behavioural sciences’ and ‘Humanities and arts subjects’ (S_lect_nat_science, S_lect_soc_science, and S_lect_humanities_arts), the mass-media genre ‘TV or radio discussions’ (S_brdcast_discussn), or ‘More or less unprepared speech’

126

In terms of: a new discourse marker

Table 7.1 In terms of in spoken language: the ten genres with the highest frequency of use Genre

No. of words

N

Frequency pmw

S_pub_debate S_lect_nat_science S_tutorial S_lect_soc_science S_meeting S_interview S_lect_humanities_arts S_brdcast_discussn S_speech_unscripted S_unclassified

283,507 22,681 143,199 159,880 1,384,302 123,816 50,827 757,317 464,937 421,554

257 19 76 55 429 37 13 156 92 81

907 838 531 344 310 299 256 206 198 192

(S_speech_unscripted). However, in the case of ‘University-level tutorials’ (S_tutorial) and ‘Job interviews & other types’ (S_interview), the setting is certainly somewhat more private. A more detailed look at individual instances of use is therefore required to obtain a better understanding of the ways in terms of is employed in spoken interaction. Consider example (11) extracted from a careers service meeting (genre: S_meeting). The participants are two advisors, Sue (30 years) and Keith (40 years). Before the chosen extract, they had been discussing the format and contents of a spreadsheet to be presented to a number of other people involved in careers advising. Keith has just opted for the inclusion of a number of additional aspects and has explained his choice to Sue, who feels that this will have to be excluded again at a later stage. However, she clearly has difficulty making her point: (11) Sue:

1088

Keith: 1089 Sue: 1090

Keith: Sue: Keith: Sue:

1091 1092 1093 1094 1095

I mean I think at the end of the day because we’re w– going to have to basically in a sense your job I think even though at the moment you’re saying you know fine I’m not gonna exclude anything, I think it’s actually going to be sort of, to try and eliminate most of this. I think so [yeah.] [Because] at the end of the day I think that a– although it’s quite significant in terms of workload we might be able to address it [elsewhere I mean I think the] [ yeah.] special needs thing can be addressed Yeah. in a slightly different way. I think the management thing can be addressed in a

In terms of: a new discourse marker 127

Keith: 1096 Sue: 1097

Keith: 1098

different way erm excuse me erm, oh I’ve lost my thread now but, oh yeah that’s [right] [Yeah.] in terms of when you’re taking so much into consideration, the actual lo– loading or weighting of that factor would actually s– turn into dr– into something very insignificant in terms of weighting I think. Yes. (BNC: H5D: 1088–98)

Sue’s utterance contains a considerable number of hesitation phenomena such as partial repetitions (e.g. a– although, s-unit 1090), false starts, filled pauses and syntactically incomplete sequences, which is a clear indication of her struggle to maintain her train of thought. Rather than give up completely, however, she first attempts to salvage the situation by maintaining the floor long enough to regain control of her argument. This she at least partly achieves by filling potential gaps which would otherwise disrupt the continuity of discourse and which would thereby offer an opportunity for the conversational partner to take over the floor (cf. Brown 1977: 109; Edmondson 1981: 154). Such gaps are particularly likely to occur when the exigencies of the current discourse situation surpass the cognitive limits imposed by the on-line production of language. In example (11), Sue clearly does not have enough time to plan the successful completion of her utterance. In addition to using filled pauses (erm, s-unit 1095), she also employs a whole range of items such as basically, sort of, in a sense, I think and I mean. These items are commonly referred to as discourse markers. In Schiffrin’s (1987: 41) definition, discourse markers are ‘members of a functional class of verbal (and non-verbal) devices which provide contextual coordinates for ongoing talk’ (emphasis in the original). As Stenström (1990) notes, discourse markers are typically multi-functional and ‘they are used for taking, keeping, and yielding the turn by performing a speech action, for empathizing with the listener, or for organizing the message’ (Stenström 1990: 139). As pointed out by Schourup (1985: 154), discourse markers are used ‘to relate what is covert to what is overt in ongoing conversation activity’. Thus, with discourse markers ‘speakers can display ongoing sensitivity to the importance of what is not expressed in an interaction’ (Schourup 1985: 156). The discourse markers employed in example (11) predominantly function as hedges (cf. G. Lakoff 1972). Apart from filling potential gaps, hedges can also alleviate the potentially negative impression listeners may have of speakers who are seemingly unable to express themselves clearly. As Aijmer notes, [h]edges make it possible to comment on one’s message while one is producing it either ‘prospectively’ or ‘retrospectively’. The hedge

128

In terms of: a new discourse marker signals that a word is not treated in the usual sense [. . .] but that it is inappropriate, insignificant, negatively evaluated or approximate. (Aijmer 1986: 14)

A similar function is fulfilled by I mean, which, according to Schiffrin (1987: 309), ‘marks speaker orientation toward the meanings of own talk’ by focusing ‘on the speaker’s own adjustments in the production of his/her own talk’ (emphasis in the original). All of these strategies notwithstanding, Sue is eventually forced to admit defeat after she completely loses her train of thought. She in fact acknowledges this defeat in s-unit 1095. Her final attempt at recapturing her line of reasoning in s-unit 1097 is only partially successful, as she still is unable to clearly state her point. Her final I think underscores the fact that she is herself aware of her lack of clarity. Within the relatively short extract shown in (11), Sue uses the complex preposition in terms of three times (s-unit 1090 and twice in s-unit 1097). I suggest that this repeated use is directly related to her inability to clearly express her opinion. Just like the other types of discourse-specific items Sue employs, her use of in terms of must be interpreted as an attempt at mastering her insecurity. Furthermore, she, at the same time, also uses the PNPconstruction to keep the floor. Due to its grammatical status as a preposition, which consequently requires a complement, in terms of raises expectations in conversational partners that they will be provided with further information. Although this is of course true of all prepositions, it is perhaps especially so in the case of in terms of given its typical function of highlighting a specific aspect of the elements involved in the ‘equation’ (cf. example 5 above). Of the three instances of in terms of found in example (11), the first occurrence in s-unit 1097 is of particular interest (in terms of when you’re taking so much into consideration . . .). Here, the complex preposition is not followed by a noun phrase complement, but the speaker continues with an adverbial clause. On the one hand, given Sue’s tendency to produce syntactically incomplete sequences in the extract under consideration, this instance of in terms of may of course have been yet another of her aborted attempts at making her point. On the other hand, a more likely interpretation is that the main purpose of uttering in terms of was simply to signal Sue’s on-going claim to the floor. Furthermore, in terms of at the same time also fulfils the function of a prospective hedge. If such a function were indeed served by in terms of, this usage differs very little from the other discourse markers found in extract (11). The plausibility of this interpretation can be shown by replacing in terms of with typical hedges like basically, in a sense or I mean: (11) Basically when you’re taking so much into consideration, the actual lo– loading or weighting of that factor would actually s– turn into dr– into something very insignificant in terms of weighting I think.

In terms of: a new discourse marker 129 I suggest that the first occurrence of in terms of in s-unit 1097 performs exactly the same function as basically in (11). In other words, in terms of clearly has acquired the communicative functions of a discourse marker.1 Such an interpretation is further supported by sentences (12) and (13), which display the use of in terms of with further unexpected types of complements. (12) What I will do is emphasize what we you know where you can go in terms of money-wise. (BNC: JA4: 167) (13) and we were talking mainly, an elderly, a female elderly client group, let’s be honest you know, in terms of blind you know, and just wait till you see it, it’s lovely. (BNC: J8B: 187) In (12), the PNP-construction is followed by an adverb phrase (moneywise) and in (13) by an adjective phrase (blind). In both cases, in terms of could be replaced by the discourse marker like without any perceivable change in the communicative effect.2 Examples such as these strongly underscore the conjecture that in terms of does indeed take on interactionspecific functions which are similar to those of more established discourse markers which convey information about the speaker’s relation to what is asserted in the sentence. As a consequence, this new use of the complex preposition as discourse marker makes it impossible to consider moneywise and blind in sentences (12) and (13) as prepositional complements. Examples (11) to (13) illustrate another typical feature of discourse markers in that in terms of can be seen to have variable scope. In the utterance-initial use seen in s-unit 1097 of extract (11), the scope spans at least the whole adverbial clause, whereas in (12) and (13) it is much more restricted and only extends over a simple phrase. As Brinton (1996: 34) notes, this flexibility to combine with various levels of syntax has given support to the view that discourse markers ‘occur either outside the syntactic structure or loosely attached to it and hence have no clear grammatical function’. As a result, some scholars have been reluctant to see discourse markers as grammaticalized entities and instead prefer to discuss their development under such headings as ‘pragmaticalization’ and ‘lexicalization’ (cf., for example, Erman and Kotsinas 1993; Krug 1998a). However, as studies by Brinton (1996, in press) and Traugott (1995b, 2003) have convincingly shown, discourse markers indeed ‘undergo many of the morphosyntactic and semantic changes thought criterial to grammaticalization’ (Brinton, in press). Consequently, as Traugott (1995b: 15) argues, to treat the development of discourse markers ‘as a case of something other than grammaticalization would be to obscure its similarities with the more canonical clines’. Seen from a diachronic perspective, examples such as those shown in (11) to (13) clearly suggest that in terms of has recently moved to a more advanced stage of grammaticalization. Thus, the establishment of the discourse-specific use of in terms of goes hand-in-hand with an increase in

130

In terms of: a new discourse marker

the level of subjectification typical of more grammaticalized constructions. In the case of discourse markers, this involves ‘a shift from relatively objective reference to use as markers of discourse reference; i.e. they acquire a metalinguistic function of creating texts and signalling information flow’ (Traugott 1995a: 39).3 The advanced stage of grammaticalization of in terms of must thus be seen as the result of discourse-pragmatic processes which have continuously shaped the development of this PNP-construction over the past few centuries. The extracts shown in examples (11) to (13) alone certainly do not warrant the claim that the kind of interpretation I have offered is a general characteristic of in terms of. In what follows, I will therefore present additional examples where in terms of is used as a discourse marker. In addition, I will provide quantitative data which will make it possible to assess these examples as typical uses of in terms of in the task-oriented component of the BNC. In my discussion of extract (11) above, I drew attention to the floorkeeping function of in terms of.4 Such an interpretation is further supported by its frequent co-occurrence with other discourse-specific features that have a similar function. The most obvious of these is certainly made up of filled pauses, which are transcribed in the BNC as er and erm. However, as the three examples in (14) to (16) demonstrate, it is often a combination of several features which work together. In other words, hesitation phenomena often occur in clusters.5 (14) <pause> Yes, yes, I mean, the third point in terms of the erm, the er, the agreement itself, in addition to the information from the Department of Health, and of course the commitment for ninety four, ninety five, er, is the question of, of the budget. (BNC: J3R: 145) (15) Rod:

Lynda: Rod: Lynda: Rod:

221

222 223 224 225

Er now we’ve got but we do have two products there of equal standing in terms of product er sorry of of erm salary potential Mhm. remuneration Yeah. earnings whatever you like to say money. (BNC: JA1: 221–5)

(16) But, we have interest rates at the lowest rate they’ve been, well, in my memory, really, in terms of er er my time in business, and they may even go down a further one per cent. (BNC: J9C: 20) In all three extracts, filled pauses occur in the immediate environment of in terms of. In (14), the context of the utterance is a committee meeting in which the speaker has just given a lengthy summary of the issues involved

In terms of: a new discourse marker 131 in an agreement with the health authorities. The utterance shown in (14) is the final point made by the speaker before yielding the floor to the chairman of the meeting. Interestingly, although the beginning of the s-unit looks like the response to a previous statement or question by a conversational partner (yes, yes, I mean), this is in fact not the case. The speaker has been talking uninterruptedly for several minutes. Rather, it seems that the speaker has suddenly realized that he has forgotten to mention an important point, namely the budget, which he then quickly chooses to add. His line of argumentation is subsequently somewhat thrown off balance by this sudden awareness, which is manifested by the use of filled pauses, the repetition of the definite article and the hedge I mean. I would argue that his use of the complex preposition in terms of in such a situation is further testimony to his difficulties in finding the right words under time pressure. In (15), the speaker clearly also struggles to find the suitable expression of his thoughts. Not only does he offer a whole list of possible noun phrase complements to in terms of (product, salary potential, remuneration, earnings, money), but his utterance also exhibits other features of hesitation (i.e. repetitions, filled pauses). In (16), finally, the use of in terms of is very similar to the one discussed in extract (11) (s-unit 1097). Again, the utterance of the speaker must be seen as an attempt to buy time, perhaps even without having a suitable noun phrase complement to the complex preposition in mind. In fact, the combination in terms of my time in business only makes limited sense in this context. This general impression is further confirmed by the two immediately following filled pauses. It could also be hypothesized that the speaker has realized that the authoritative statement he or she made about the low level of interest rates requires some additional qualification. Maybe he or she suddenly feels insecure about the validity of the assertion and somehow wants to give it a certain touch of vagueness for those listeners who may not know how long exactly the speaker has been ‘in business’. Thus sentence (16) clearly is an example of in terms of being used as both a hesitation marker and a hedge. The uses of in terms of displayed in (11) to (16) are by no means rare occurrences. This is clearly supported by the data shown in Table 7.2, which lists the number of instances of this PNP-construction in the BNC which are found to co-occur with pauses, filled pauses, discourse markers and repetitions. In addition, Table 7.2 also contains information on those utterances which display other types of syntactically odd constructions in the immediate environment of in terms of (such as truncated sequences of text). On the whole, this set of features can be considered typical characteristics of speech. They reflect production problems as they are produced under the time constraints imposed by natural conversation. In addition, they are often uttered to save the addressees’ face. The most frequent of these features found in connection with in terms of is the filled pause (er, erm). In 13 per cent of all of the instances of in terms of, the speakers produce a filled pause just before or after the

132

In terms of: a new discourse marker

Table 7.2 In terms of in spoken interaction. Co-occurrence with pauses, filled pauses, repetitions, discourse markers, and as part of syntactically odd constructions. (Multiple countings are excluded from the total given in the bottom row.) Co-occurrence with

N

% of all occurrences of in terms of

Filled pause Repetition Discourse marker Odd syntax Pause

190 125 84 73 70

13 9 6 5 5

Overall (minus double countings)

436

30

complex preposition.6 Repetitions are also fairly frequent, with just under 10 per cent of all instances. In the case of syntactically odd structures and pauses, about 5 per cent each of all uses of the PNP-construction are affected. In terms of also quite frequently co-occurs with discourse markers such as I mean, you know and sort of which here perform the function of hedging the speaker’s apparent lack of confidence in his or her choice of words. Of these, a total of 84 instances can be found in the immediate environment (/ two words) of the PNP-construction. This figure corresponds to 6 per cent of all 1,464 occurrences of in terms of in the spoken component of the BNC. The features shown in Table 7.2 are, of course, not mutually exclusive. In fact, as examples (11) to (16) have shown, several of them sometimes co-occur. The figures presented in Table 7.2 therefore cannot simply be added up. The overall figure of 436 instances (30 per cent) thus refers to the total number of uses of in terms of where at least one of the discussed features can be found. In other words, almost every third use of in terms of co-occurs with one or more of these typical speech characteristics. Given the different nature of the two major components of the BNC, the task-oriented language use of the context-governed domain is much more likely to contain speech situations which favour hesitation phenomena. This general statement is certainly supported by the number of filled pauses found in the two major spoken domains of the BNC: with 18,387 instances per million words, filled pauses occur twice as frequently in the context-governed part as in the spoken demographic part (9,021 instances pmw). This statement is perhaps particularly true of public speech situations such as debates or meetings, where the function of the interaction is usually to share information and where speakers often have to construct cognitively complex utterances under unusually strenuous time constraints.7 Until now, my description of the use of in terms of has centred on it being a reflection of different types of speech situations. Another interest-

In terms of: a new discourse marker 133 ing issue concerns the question of whether or not individual speakers exhibit significant differences in their use of in terms of. In the previous chapter, I showed that the variation between in spite of and despite appears to be largely an expression of the personal choice of language users. It is therefore necessary to test whether idiolectal preferences can also be seen to play a decisive role in the use of in terms of. For this purpose, it is helpful to concentrate on those speakers who employ in terms of with the highest frequency. This information is shown in Table 7.3. In addition to the speaker identification code and the name of the BNC file, the table also contains information about the total number of words uttered by the individual speakers. To enable a comparison with previously mentioned frequencies, the number of occurrences of in terms of per speaker is extrapolated to reflect instances per million words. The column to the extreme right, finally, contains information about the context in which the speaker makes frequent use of the complex preposition. As Table 7.3 shows, some speakers indeed make very frequent use of the complex preposition in terms of. In fact, with an extrapolated frequency of approximately 8,000 instances per million words, the top-three speakers employ in terms of about once every 125 words. This frequency is about 35 times higher than the average calculated for all speakers in the context-governed domain (233 pmw, cf. Figure 7.2). Table 7.3 further shows that the majority of all usage contexts are represented by business meetings (7/10). Text K79 is a presentation in the form of an unscripted speech delivered to the Confederation of British Industries and thus is quite similar in nature to the other business meetings. The rather restricted set of genres shown in Table 7.3 would therefore suggest that the type of setting is indeed a major trigger for the use of in terms of and that idiolectal preferences are less likely to play a decisive role than for the choice between in spite of and despite. Table 7.3 The ten speakers in the spoken component of the BNC with the highest frequency of use of in terms of Speaker

Filename

N words

in terms of

Freq. pmw

Context

PS44J FY6PS000 PS29G PS1PT PS5PT PS402 PS43P J9VPS006 PS3MN PS3YS

JJ9 FY6 GYK FLS K79 KM7 JAD J9V J3P J9U

1,811 2,492 2,198 2,945 2,151 1,935 3,551 1,287 10,537 11,619

15 20 17 16 11 9 15 5 40 42

8,283 8,026 7,734 5,433 5,114 4,651 4,224 3,885 3,796 3,615

meeting interview interview meeting presentation meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting

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In terms of: a new discourse marker

The only radically different context can be found in the two texts FY6 and GYK, both of which are interviews made for an oral history project. In both texts, the interviewer makes lavish use of in terms of in his or her formulation of the questions (20 and 17 instances, respectively, in less than 2,500 words of text). Unfortunately, no socio-demographic information is available on the two speakers. Consider examples (17) to (23), which are all produced by the interviewer in text FY6. He or she wants to find out more about the living conditions in ‘the flats’, an area of low-income council housing with severe social problems. The interviewee is a resident of this area. (17) So have you ever, in terms of the crime, have you ever been affected by it in any way (BNC: FY6: 84) (18) Do you know when you actually go out does it actually, you know cos it used, you said in terms of, does it actually worry you going out, do you actually f– think there’s a risk? (BNC: FY6: 99) (19) Yeah, how do f–, in terms of the police, I mean how do, what kind of work do they do in d– in response to the crime? (BNC: FY6: 173) (20) And with with when you s– said in terms of renting a T V, what’s happened with them when you tried? (BNC: FY6: 350) (21) Do you use, in ter– in terms of going onto erm local shops, do you use those at all? (BNC: FY6: 364) (22) In ter– in terms of getting milk delivered, I mean do many people get milk delivered or (BNC: FY6: 418) (23) Is it you know in terms of erm in the flats f– erm is there any <pause> how how do people you know of different <pause> you know white and coloured people do do they get on o– okay or is or is there is there a problem there or not? (BNC: FY6: 619) Just as in the other examples discussed in the present section, the speaker often struggles to find the appropriate words. As a result, repetitions, pauses and other types of hesitation markers abound. In contrast to business meetings, however, these phenomena are unlikely to be caused by the speaker’s difficulty in coping with the relatively high level of cognitive complexity necessitated by the formulation of requests for information in the discursive context. Also, given the setting of the conversation, the interviewer’s right to the floor is hardly at risk since the standard turn-taking rules typical of informal face-to-face conversation are at least partly supplanted by a preallocated sequence of turns (cf. Greatbatch 1988; Heritage and Greatbatch 1991). The hesitation phenomena can thus not be ascribed to the kind of floor-keeping strategies described in the context of examples such as (11) and (14) to (16). It could perhaps be hypothesized that some of the observed difficulties are due to the fact that the interviewer is endeavouring to avoid asking potentially face-threatening questions. This hypothesis is particularly strengthened by (23), where the interviewer is quite obviously anxious about

In terms of: a new discourse marker 135 finding an acceptable way to refer to people of different skin colours. Because he or she has started speaking before settling on a suitable choice of words, some further planning is required during the actual production of the utterance. The interviewer’s use of in terms of (in conjunction with the hedge you know and a filled pause) could be interpreted as indicative of this untimely planning process. However, as a look at the other frequent uses of in terms of reveals, the speaker predominantly employs this particular PNP-construction for a different purpose. As an interviewer, he or she needs to exert some influence on the selection of the issues which are being discussed. Indeed, an interviewer is likely to have a certain set of questions (or question topics) in mind even before the conversation starts. Thus, topic choice and topic transition in such a conversational setting are at least partly restricted and largely directed by the interviewer. Before commenting further on examples (17) to (22), I would like to demonstrate this on the basis of a longer extract from the same interview, shown in (24): (24) Interv:

140

Resident: 141 142

143 Interv: 144 Resident: 145 Interv: 146

Resident: 147 Interv: 148 Resident: 149 150 151

Interv: 152 Resident: 153

154

So do you any kind of precaution to actua– against that kind of thing happening? Well I’ve fitted extra chain locks on the door, and extra locks on me door downstairs. I’m not so bothered about the windows so much cos if they break someone’s bound to hear them smash. I don’t know if they’d be bothered, but [they’d hear] [Mhm.] [them.] [In terms of] facilities you you’ve got a young daughter, what about, what are the facilities like round here in terms of erm I mean. I haven’t seen any anyway. Nothing at all? Nothing. I suppose if there was I wouldn’t take her anyway, not not round this area. See at I can just let her go and play out on the park, or at anything, you know with the other kids, but round here you can’t. Mhm. Cos you never know if they’re gonna get into trouble with other people, or whether they’re gonna get er sexually assaulted or raped or mugged or owt. In streets you can never tell round here.

136

In terms of: a new discourse marker Interv:

155

Resident: 156 Interv: 157 Resident: 158

So what do you, if had er, in terms of, how do you feel about bringing up children round here, what do you what do you feel about that, bringing up? I wouldn’t, [I’d have] [You wouldn’t.] to move. (BNC: FY6: 140–58)

In (24), the first few s-units (140–5) contain the final points pertaining to the main issue of the high level of crime in the area. In s-unit 146, the interviewer apparently feels that this subject matter has been discussed sufficiently and now wants to switch the focus to a completely different aspect of life in the flats, namely the facilities it offers for its residents. Given that the interviewee has a young daughter, the interviewer begins by asking about the facilities for children. This radical topic shift is marked by an utterance-initial instance of in terms of.8 However, the interviewee does not take up this cue. He or she clearly feels that the topic of crime has not been fully exhausted. As a consequence, the speaker emphasizes the fact that the high level of crime makes it impossible to let children go out and play on their own. In s-unit 155, the interviewer therefore attempts to change the topic a second time. However, this time the transition is not as abrupt as the previous one seen in s-unit 146. Rather, the interviewer tries to accommodate to his or her conversational partner’s wish by focusing on possible attitudes towards bringing up children in the kind of social environment offered by the council housing. Presumably, the interviewer feels that this compromise will eventually lead to a discussion of the available facilities. Interestingly, this second topic shift, too, is marked by the use of the PNPconstruction in terms of. The instances of in terms of shown earlier in examples (17) to (22) also perform the function of signalling either the introduction of a completely new topic or a change in the focus of the topic which is currently being discussed. In (17), the interviewer switches focus to a discussion of the high crime rates in the flats and asks how this has affected the interviewee. In (18), this focus is slightly changed by directing the subject matter to the influence of crime on the interviewee’s habits (i.e. leaving the house). In (19), the main topic is still crime, but the attention now turns to the role of the police in the area. Finally, in (20) to (22), different aspects of the main topic of shopping are introduced to the discussion. Out of the 20 instances of in terms of used by the interviewer, a large majority occur at discursive boundaries between two subject matters. Therefore, in terms of has clearly acquired a discourse-structuring function which goes beyond the normal use of the other complex prepositions discussed earlier. Just like its innovative use as a hedge or hesitation marker, this discourse-specific use of in terms of can be interpreted as an advanced

In terms of: a new discourse marker 137 stage of grammaticalization. As a complex preposition, in terms of is restricted to the juxtaposition of two or more elements in the text (or to highlighting a particularly important aspect of an element which is relevant for the larger context of the text). Conversely, in its discourse-specific function the emphasis is on a much more interpersonal level. By acquiring this new function, in terms of seems to have undergone a further step of semantic change. While it is clearly strengthened with respect to its pragmatic force, it loses much of its semantic content. In its discourse-specific function, in terms of is thus even further removed from the original meaning expressed in the early examples of the OED quotations.9 Let me now return to the question of idiolectal preferences. In the case of in spite of and despite, the influence of personal choice became immediately obvious as soon as the frequencies of these items in different texts were compared. For in terms of, the picture is somewhat more complicated. On the one hand, my analysis is restricted to the single item in terms of, which makes it impossible to investigate variation with respect to possible alternative choices for expressing the same concept. On the other hand, the multi-functionality of in terms of (i.e. as a complex preposition and as a discourse marker) clearly poses methodological difficulties within a purely form-based, quantitative investigation. While a detailed functionbased analysis of all 1,464 instances of in terms of in the spoken component of the BNC would certainly offer relevant additional insights, space only permits a few general comments in the present context. As mentioned in the discussion of the results in Table 7.3, the fact that eight of the ten speakers with the highest frequency of in terms of use this PNP-construction in business meetings strongly suggests that context is a main determining factor. This having been said, it is important to note that the two remaining speakers in Table 7.3 (FY6PS000 and PS29G, no demographic information available) are both interviewers who are engaged in a conversation about an area of council houses in Nottingham. In contrast to text FY6, which contains the extracts shown in (17) to (24), where the interviewed person is a tenant of ‘the flats’, the interviewee in text GYK is a worker at a law centre. The topic of the conversation is rehousing people from a tower block complex. Given the similarity of the topics, it seems likely that the almost equally frequent use of in terms of by the two speakers in texts FY6 and GYK in fact represents a typical feature of the speaker’s idiolect. Thus, despite the fact that a closer analysis of the individual utterances of speakers FY6PS000 and PS29G reveals that the functions performed by in terms of are not identical, the idiolectal preference still appears to be a plausible explanation for the similar frequencies. In the interview with the tenant (text FY6), the majority of instances of the PNP-construction introduced a shift in the topic of the conversation. In text GY6, the majority of uses belong to the category of hesitation phenomena.10 In both texts, however, in terms of not only serves the standard function of a complex preposition but also frequently functions as a

138

In terms of: a new discourse marker

specific interpersonal discourse marker which is highly indicative of idiolectal preference.

Summary and conclusion The present chapter has placed the focus on one single complex preposition, namely the one which exhibits the highest frequency of all PNPconstructions in the BNC. This singular focus on in terms of made it possible to examine its use in greater detail. I first noted that the complex prepositional use of in terms of is a relatively new addition to the grammatical repertoire of the language. Although it is occasionally found towards the end of the nineteenth century, it only acquired general currency during the first decades of the twentieth century. I then shifted the focus to the use of in terms of in Present-day English, where I observed a varied type of distribution across the different text domains not unlike many of the other complex prepositions discussed in Chapter 6. Since in terms of was found to occur most frequently in the spoken context-governed domain, the bulk of the present chapter was then devoted to its use in spoken interaction. In the course of this investigation, I subsequently presented data which suggest that in terms of has reached a further level of grammaticalization whereby it has acquired a number of discourse-specific functions while, at the same time, losing much of its original semantic content. In particular, I showed that in terms of is frequently employed in contexts which, by nature of their public setting, often exert an increased time pressure on the planning process of the speakers. In these contexts, the PNP-construction clearly often functions as a hesitation marker. On the basis of an extract from a business meeting (example 11), I demonstrated that in terms of can also be employed as part of a strategy to hold the floor. Furthermore, in terms of was shown to perform the function of marking the speaker’s insecurity about his or her statements. In order to substantiate these claims, I discussed a number of additional extracts from a range of different texts and presented quantitative data which confirmed the observation that in terms of frequently co-occurs with a whole range of other elements characteristic of spoken language (e.g. filled pauses, repetitions and false starts). Finally, I concentrated on those speakers who make the most frequent use of in terms of in the spoken component of the BNC. In this context, I remarked on the fact that most of these speakers were participants in business meetings. I suggested that this fact supports the hypothesis that usage context is a primary trigger for the selection of in terms of in spoken language. I therefore concluded that idiolectal preferences such as those observed in the case of in spite of are less likely to play a decisive role. However, two speakers made highly frequent use of in terms of outside of business meetings, i.e. in interviews. One of these speakers could be shown to make frequent use of an additional discourse-specific function of in

In terms of: a new discourse marker 139 terms of, namely marking topic shift. Although this observation was only limited to the speaker in the second interview, I suggested that the highly frequent use of in terms of in the two texts could in fact mean that this was the same speaker. However, further detailed research would be required to capture the true range of discourse-specific functions of in terms of as well as the possible influence of individual idiolects. In sum, the combination of a diachronic approach with an investigation of Present-day English has revealed that in terms of has undergone a process of grammaticalization which goes beyond the development described for all the other PNP-constructions examined in this investigation. As the result of this process, it could be shown that in terms of in some linguistic contexts no longer functions as a complex preposition but may be used as a discourse marker. This addition of discourse-specific functions lends strong and clear support to the assertion that in terms of should indeed be considered a single indivisible unit.

8

Are low-frequency complex prepositions grammaticalized?

Introduction In the present chapter, I will investigate the connection between frequency of occurrence and the process of grammaticalization. In a theory which considers language use and language structure to be interrelated, frequency of occurrence is likely to play an important role. Indeed, there seems to be a general consensus that a relatively high discourse frequency is a prerequisite for a particular form to grammaticalize (for a different view, see Mair 2004), although specific ‘threshold’ frequencies have, to the best of my knowledge, never been suggested in the literature. Most lists of complex prepositions found in standard grammars and descriptions of English also include very rare items, e.g. by dint of and in compliance with (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 670–1), both of which have less than 100 occurrences in the 100-million-word British National Corpus. The crucial question of this chapter is whether there are any grounds for regarding such exceedingly rare constructions as cases of grammaticalization or whether their low frequency precludes the kind of processes that have been observed for high-frequency items. The methodology employed for answering these questions is again that of corpus linguistics. Corpora have proven to be highly valuable sources for the investigation of many aspects of the language system. However, a study of low-frequency items on the basis of corpus data will invariably raise a number of methodological difficulties. Concepts such as statistical significance, the representativeness of a corpus, corpus size, the genrespecific use of a linguistic feature, etc., all present serious problems when the total number of occurrences of the item under consideration is extremely low. Apart from investigating the possible grammaticalization processes of low-frequency complex prepositions, the interpretation of my data will therefore also be aimed at testing the methodological limits of corpus linguistics.

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 141

The data The data analysed in the current chapter is based on a frequency list of preposition–noun–preposition sequences occurring between five and 100 times in the written component of the BNC. The retrieval algorithm is similar to the one used for the establishment of the 30 most frequent complex prepositions in Present-day English, but the nominal element of the PNP-construction is restricted to singular nouns. This restriction is motivated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of frequent complex prepositions contain a nominal element in the singular (cf. Table 2.4 in Chapter 2). Clearly irrelevant entries in the resulting database were discarded without consulting the corresponding sentences in the corpus. In many cases, this concerned instances where the singular noun was a place name (e.g. a city or country) as shown in (1): (1) Rabin also attended the Socialist International meeting in Berlin on Sept. 15–16. (BNC: HLP: 2168) For the remaining 1,537 different types, sample sentences from the corpus were considered before I decided whether to exclude them or not. In total, a list of 132 PNP-sequences were identified which were felt to be suitably parallel in usage to the established, more frequent complex prepositions. The complete list of items, including their number of occurrences in the written component of the BNC, is shown in Table 8.1. The list of 132 PNP-sequences contains a number of items (e.g. by dint of, in contradistinction to) which would also be found in a traditional enumeration of complex prepositions such as Quirk et al. (1985) and others. They have in common that the nominal element itself is a very rare lexical item which is almost exclusively encountered in the combination under investigation: dint, for example, occurs 68 times in the written component of the BNC, and 66 of these are instances of by dint of.1 Other PNPsequences shown in Table 8.1 appear to be variants of more common complex prepositions. In face of, for example, with 60 instances, is clearly related to in the face of, which occurs 1,437 times in the written component of the BNC. In the case of in search for (13 instances), the variant part is the second prepositional element (cf. in search of, 972 instances in the written component). Many of the sequences shown in Table 8.1, however, are not related to more frequent complex prepositions and also do not contain very rare nominal elements (e.g. in presence of, for consideration of and in awareness of ). Examples (2) to (6) illustrate the typical usage of some of the items contained in Table 8.1. The numbers in brackets refer to the total number of instances of the PNP-construction in the written component of the BNC.

142 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? Table 8.1 Low-frequency preposition–noun–preposition sequences in the BNC (written component only) in presence of under mistake of in proof of in continuation of without breach of on return of on publication of in counterpoint to in admiration of in wake of on review of in distinction to in want of on exercise of in disregard of at cost of with relation to in emulation of in token of in remembrance of in contradiction with by analogy to at sight of in right of in proximity to on proof of in commemoration of in attendance on in collusion with in acknowledgement of by contrast to in search for in hope of in contradistinction to in hunt for in interaction with from fear of from loss of in awareness of in contradiction to on entry to for love of in quest of in tribute to

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 9 10 10 11 11 13 13 13 13 13 14 15 16 16 16 16 16 17 18 18 18 19

by return of in contemplation of by right of in reliance on in liaison with by consideration of in appreciation of in furtherance of in solidarity with for recognition of in exercise of in relationship to for completion of in unison with by operation of in obedience to in discussion of on turnover of on production of by addition of for consideration of in expectation of in restraint of for measurement of upon receipt of in settlement of by recourse to with support for in compensation for by exposure to by act of in collision with in support for in fairness to in celebration of in series with by force of by appeal to in ignorance of in respect to with news of by courtesy of in cooperation with in point of

20 20 21 21 21 23 24 24 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 26 26 29 29 29 29 30 30 30 32 33 34 34 34 35 36 37 39 40 43 43 45 46 46 47 47 48 49 50

in course of 50 in league with 52 under threat of 52 on pain of 54 in imitation of 54 in sight of 54 with emphasis on 55 in default of 55 for use of 56 in reaction to 57 for possession of 57 in wait for 57 by analogy with 58 in face of 60 in retaliation for 60 in concert with 62 on suspicion of 64 in alliance with 65 in reference to 65 in conformity with 65 in violation of 66 by dint of 66 in sympathy with 66 by word of 68 from lack of 69 in praise of 69 in tandem with 70 in readiness for 72 without loss of 74 without fear of 76 in deference to 77 by order of 85 in company with 88 under cover of 88 without prejudice to 89 by contrast with 90 in fear of 90 in contravention of 90 in awe of 91 at war with 93 without regard to 95 in consideration of 97 in compliance with 98 in harmony with 100

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 143 (2) by dint of (66): And as every greyhaired person knows by dint of experience, there is no black and white issue, only grey. (BNC: B1J: 132) (3) in presence of (5): No-one after all would believe Kylie, of all people, would shed her bikini top in presence of the blond bombshell and frolic in the waves, unless they were an ‘item’. (BNC: ADR: 1036) (4) at sight of (9): At sight of those silken black figures rushing their way, d’Arquebus jerked forward as though mesmerised. (BNC: CJJ: 1611) (5) in acknowledgement of (13): In acknowledgement of this, IASC, which comprises the leading world accounting bodies, sent out a separate invitation to interested parties asking for their views on the subject. (BNC: A1E: 364) (6) in search for (13): As a result it was also a place where much could be learnt and where people went, not only in need of a drink, but in search for something or someone. (BNC: F9U: 768) Although all of the PNP-constructions in sentences (2) to (6) are very rare, they are clearly parallel in use to much more frequent complex prepositions such as in front of (5,915 instances) or in relation to (4,328 instances). Consider sentences (7) and (8): (7) We’ll tie up just beyond the lock, just in front of those other boats. (BNC: HHA: 1544) (8) In relation to this, a number of cohesive chains were identified in the analysis, the most significant of which are the progressions of phrases relating to the cabinet ministers and the soldiers. (BNC: J89: 180) If it is assumed that in front of and in relation to are grammaticalized sequences of words constituting units of storage in the mental representation of grammar, is the low text frequency of the PNP-constructions contained in sentences (2) to (6) reason enough to disallow them the same kind of complex prepositional status? In order to answer this question, I will first present an overview of relevant literature on the importance of frequency for grammaticalization. It will become apparent that frequency of occurrence is indeed often assigned a pivotal role in the process of language change. I wish to argue, however, that an exclusive emphasis on frequency would be an oversimplification. Rather, I will claim that concepts such as ‘conceptual frequency’ and ‘saliency’ can cast a different light on the role of frequency phenomena. It is also important to note that the perceived parallelism between highfrequency and low-frequency PNP-constructions, as shown in sentences (2) to (8), relies on intuition rather than a thorough quantitative and qualitative

144 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? analysis of data. I will therefore present further corpus-based data and discuss their possible implications for an assessment of the grammaticalization status of low-frequency items.

The importance of frequency in grammaticalization It is a basic tenet of functional linguistics that language use shapes grammar. However, the exact mechanisms which underlie the interaction between language use and language structure are a matter of continuous debate. One of the variables in the equation is certainly ‘frequency of occurrence’: given that a usage event is accorded the (potential) power of influencing the abstract representation of grammar in a speaker’s mind, it is an obvious assumption that repeated occurrence of the same usage event will have a stronger impact than an isolated instance. Not surprisingly, then, frequency of occurrence features more or less prominently in many descriptions of grammaticalization phenomena. The current section is intended as an overview of the points raised in the relevant literature. The direct connection between language use and language structure was already postulated towards the end of the nineteenth century by the German linguist Hermann Paul: ‘The true cause of the change in usage is nothing else but ordinary communicative activity’ (Paul 1920: 32).2 In his view, language change progresses according to the same principles as those formulated by Darwin for the evolution of species: the propagation and spread of a new form or structure depend on its perceived utility in comparison with other competing ways of expressing the same concept. New forms occur in the first place because speakers enjoy a certain level of freedom and creativity in language use. In order for these new forms to become accepted, their successful application must be negotiated between interlocutors, both of whose cognitive set-up (‘psychischer Organismus’) is influenced by this novel language use in a similar manner. Repeated application of (and exposure to) such novel usage eventually results in a shift in the language system. Paul’s view is quite modern in several respects. On the one hand, he does not regard grammar as a self-contained, abstract set of rules. Instead he stresses the importance of context-dependent negotiation about meaning and expression in the language users’ quest for a common basis for communication. That this process may have an influence on language structure was reiterated almost a century later in Grice’s famous observation that it ‘may not be impossible for what starts life . . . as a conversational implicature to become conventionalized’ (Grice 1978: 58).3 A similar view is expressed more forcefully in Horn’s statement that ‘grammars and lexicons are rife with instances in which a pragmatogenic process has become partially conventionalized’ (Horn 1988: 137). As Krug (1998b: 307) notes, however, neither Grice nor Horn give any indication of the necessary level of frequency for such inferences to become conventionalized.4

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 145 On the other hand, Paul’s emphasis on the influence of language users’ repeated exposure to similar usage events upon their cognitive set-up is reflected today in the field of cognitive grammar in Langacker’s concept of entrenchment. Here, frequency of occurrence plays a decisive role: Every use of a structure has a positive impact on its degree of entrenchment, whereas extended periods of disuse have a negative impact. With repeated use, a novel structure becomes progressively entrenched, to the point of becoming a unit; moreover, units are variably entrenched depending on the frequency of their occurrence. (Langacker 1987: 59; my emphasis) Deeply entrenched items entail lower processing costs in their retrieval from memory. Such an account of a gradual development towards more and more unit-like status is of course anathema to the traditional structuralist description of language with its emphasis on clearly delimited categories and constituency boundaries. It does, however, tally well with the view expressed in Pawley and Syder’s influential paper (1983) in which they claim that a considerable portion of (native-like) language production relies on the application of prefabricated chunks rather than on a rulebased composition made up of individual lexical items. The view that sequences of linguistic items can become individual storage units through frequent usage over time is also often found in the literature on grammaticalization. In his discussion of routinization processes, for example, Haiman (1994) draws a basic connection between the effect of frequent repetition (automatization), the ensuing loss of meaning via habituation, and double articulation, a fundamental property of human language: In the end result of automatization, of course, we can also recognize double articulation: the smallest meaningful signs are made up of still smaller units which are themselves meaningless. [. . .] Sounds now meaningless may have evolved originally from meaningful morphemes. (Haiman 1994: 9; emphasis in the original) In other words, automatization leads to the reanalysis of formerly separate elements in the grammar of a language into single, meaningful units. Krug (1998b) takes a similar position, but extends the relevance of the process to other levels of grammatical structure: String frequency itself, on the basis of my data, can safely be considered the most important motivation in phonological and morphological changes that result in the cliticization and merger of two adjacent items across languages. From this thesis, inference to other domains seem admissible. (Krug 1998b: 309)

146 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? Although Krug cautions that string frequency may not be the dominant factor in the development of other syntagmatic lexical relations such as collocations and idioms, its influence on grammaticalization – which he views as ‘essentially a cognitive concept which figures on all levels of linguistic organisation’ (Krug 1998b: 308) – must nevertheless be seen as vital. A more extreme position is found in Bybee (2001), who discusses the effects of frequency on French liaison, i.e. ‘the appearance of a word-final consonant before a vowel-initial word in words that in other contexts end in a vowel’ (Bybee 2001: 338). In present-day spoken French, liaison is obligatory in a number of syntactic contexts (e.g. vos [z] enfants) but variable in others (e.g. enfants [z]? intelligents or des découvertes [z]? inquiétantes). In traditional accounts of the phenomenon, the presence or absence of liaison is usually explained by morpho-syntactic and lexical factors as well as the degree of syntactic cohesion of the construction. Bybee argues that this approach is inadequate since it fails to consistently account for the observed variability. She claims that a more direct connection between phonology and syntax exists than is commonly assumed. Bybee shows that the likelihood for liaison to occur is highest in connection with high-frequency lexical items (e.g. est [t] un  noun, where virtually all instances exhibit liaison). By comparison, liaison is much less often found in combinations that occur more infrequently. This data ‘supports the view that what has been called “syntactic cohesion” is frequency of occurrence, the fact which determines the strength of the association between the first element and the second one’ (Bybee 2001: 355). In other words, phonological evidence is seen as a mirror of syntactic structure. Such a view basically dispenses with many tenets of traditional syntactic theory because usage is taken as the main determining factor for constituency. Thus, highly frequent contracted forms such as I’ll and I’m, which in the traditional view span across a major constituency break, would be seen as a unit. The above-mentioned studies (Haiman 1994; Krug 1998b; Bybee 2001) have in common that they see grammatical structure as a more-or-less immediate result of routinization processes which reduce the language users’ cognitive effort in encoding and decoding messages relevant to their current communicative context. In the alteration of grammatical structures, frequency of occurrence clearly is of the highest importance. As Detges and Waltereit (2002: 178) pointedly state, ‘since routines are designed to solve some frequently occurring problem, they are, by definition, frequent themselves’. Since grammaticalization is standardly defined as the change whereby content words become more grammatical (and already grammatical morphemes even more grammatical), the lexical sources for grammaticalization should consequently be recruited from frequently occurring lexical items. Indeed, as Heine et al. (1991: 32ff.) show, most of the source concepts used for grammaticalization denote funda-

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 147 mental elements of human experience. In terms of lexical semantics, they typically represent either basic-level terms (e.g. back, hand) or superordinate terms (e.g. person, thing) while ‘lexical items naming subordinatelevel categories are not the ones likely to be grammaticalized’ (Sweetser 1988: 402, quoted in Heine et al. 1991: 33; see also Taylor 1989: 46–51 for a brief overview of basic-level terms). Yet, as the authors point out, it would be a mistake to overestimate the influence of frequency. Citing a study of Swahili by Bertoncini (1973), Heine et al. (1991: 39) observe that ‘the pool of concepts from which grammatical concepts have been drawn in Swahili is to be found in [. . .] approximately 20 per cent of the most frequently used lexemes’. However, none of the top-15 most frequent items has served as a source for grammaticalization. The authors conclude that frequency alone cannot be the decisive factor in the selection of lexical items as sources for grammaticalization. Nonetheless, ‘it is likely to form a concomitant feature of the concepts recruited for this purpose’ (Heine et al. 1991: 39). When a lexical item (or a sequence of items) grammaticalizes, its textfrequency typically rises dramatically because the construction generalizes and can now be used in contexts which would have been incompatible with its original grammatical status and meaning (cf. the data presented for in view of in Chapter 4). In addition, frequent repetition leads to increased automatization and habituation, further affecting both its semantic and phonological characteristics. Once initiated, such a grammaticalization process thus proceeds in a spiralling motion (semantic bleaching, phonological attrition, etc.). As a consequence, frequency can be interpreted as an indicator of the level of grammaticalization. Hopper and Traugott (2003: 106), for example, state that ‘[t]he more frequently a form occurs in texts, the more grammatical it is assumed to be. Frequency demonstrates a kind of generalization in use patterns.’5 However, several authors have also noted that extremely high frequency can have the opposite effect: due to its high level of entrenchment, which is constantly being reinforced, a particular word or sequence of words may in fact resist the processes just mentioned (see, for example, Greenberg 1966: 68–9; Bybee 2003). In other words, high frequency can also result in what Bybee and Thompson (2000: 380) have termed the conserving effect: ‘high frequency sequences take on a life of their own, and resist change on the basis of newer productive patterns for juxtaposing words and morphemes.’ A typical example of this conserving effect is seen in the case of highly frequent irregular verbs (e.g. be, can, go, know, etc.) which retain their conservative irregular past tense forms rather than being replaced by the highly productive regular -ed pattern. The present overview of relevant research on the role of frequency in language change in general, and grammaticalization processes in particular, has shown that frequency is generally assumed to be a highly influential variable, although comments such as those quoted from Krug

148 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? (1998b) make it clear that it should not be regarded as the only determining force behind the observed changes. Still, given the perceived important role of frequency, it would nevertheless seem risky to talk of the grammaticalization of low-frequency complex prepositions. In the following section, I will therefore present a number of further considerations supporting this notion.

Frequency and saliency Much of the argumentation in the previous section assumes a linear connection between level of entrenchment and frequency of occurrence: the more frequently a word or a sequence of words is encountered, the more entrenched it becomes. As a case in point, consider for example the following quotation from Bybee: If we metaphorically assume that a word can be written into the [mental] lexicon, then each time a word in processing is mapped onto its lexical representation it is as though the representation was traced over again, etching it with deeper and darker lines each time. Each time a word is heard and produced it leaves a slight trace in the lexicon, it increases in lexical strength. (Bybee 1985: 117) However, I wish to argue that such a conceptualization of the relationship between frequency of occurrence and the level of entrenchment represents an oversimplification of matters. Two important issues need to be tackled in this context: first, what exactly is meant by ‘frequency’; and second, what is the relationship between frequency and saliency? In empirical linguistics, frequency of occurrence is often accorded a fairly unproblematic status. This is, no doubt, partly conditioned by the dramatic increase in the speed and overall user-friendliness of computerized analyses carried out on language corpora. Today, modern computers equipped with powerful concordancing software can be used to generate frequency counts of individual lexical items or whole structures in corpora containing several hundred million words. Provided that the computer is properly instructed, such an analysis can be carried out reliably in a fraction of the time needed for the – much less reliable – manual scanning of printed text. On the basis of the data retrieved, relative frequency counts for different linguistic phenomena can be calculated and used as a basis for comparison. However, the apparent ease with which quantitative analyses of linguistic data can be carried out is deceptive, and there are several methodological pitfalls that require careful attention.6 One of these pitfalls is that frequency of occurrence is given the status of an absolute variable. It is temptingly easy to discover that a feature which occurs 2,000 times in one million words is more common than a feature which is, on average, only found 20 times in text of the same length. However, if the two fea-

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 149 tures have nothing in common (e.g. meaning, functional load, etc.), the retrieved frequency information is little more than a compilation of figures. To put it differently, frequency information for an individual linguistic item only becomes meaningful as a diagnostic tool if it is compared with the frequency of occurrence of related linguistic phenomena. As a consequence, a frequency-based analysis not only needs to determine how often a particular item is actually found, but also how often it could have occurred but didn’t because the concept was expressed differently. Such an approach represents a more differentiated, two-layered view of frequency phenomena. On the one hand, there is what I referred to in Chapter 6 as conceptual frequency, i.e. the frequency with which a particular concept or speech event occurs. As I pointed out, this type of frequency is difficult to assess by way of automated retrieval strategies because the concept can be realized in a great number of different and formally unrelated ways. On the other hand, there is also textual frequency, i.e. how often a particular realization of the concept under investigation is found. Most importantly, however, this frequency can be expressed both in absolute terms (i.e. frequency per million words) and in terms of its relative proportion with respect to the other realizations of the same concept. If a particular form constitutes the majority of realizations of a particular concept, it is the preferred choice of expression, even if its absolute frequency is relatively low. It appears likely that the cognitive representation of a linguistic item is influenced by the status it has as a preferred or dispreferred choice of expression. As a result, certain low-frequency items – which occur infrequently simply because they express relatively rare events or concepts – may in fact, due to their status as preferred expressions, be more deeply entrenched than more frequent items whose use is less preferred. The decisive factor behind the level of entrenchment thus shifts away from pure frequency of occurrence to the concept of saliency (or prominence) as experienced by the language user. Such a view of the mental organization of language structure is much less mechanistic than an approach which exclusively focuses on textual frequency. It is even more sensitive to the fact that language is used and shaped in the context of social interaction rather than as an abstract and self-sufficient entity. In stating this, I do not wish to contradict the claims made by Bybee (2003) and others as presented in the previous section. In fact, I see no reason to doubt the general validity of their observations. Conceptual frequency and textual frequency of course do not exist independently of each other. If a concept is often made use of by language users, this will naturally result in a high absolute (textual) frequency of the preferred realizations of that concept. These forms will in turn be subjected to the kind of habituation processes described in the previous section. But these processes only capture certain aspects of the whole picture and a more differentiated approach towards frequency of occurrence is required in order to cover all of its aspects and implications.

150 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? Consider for example the complex preposition in front of. Its meaning is closely related to that of the simple preposition before. In fact, in a large portion of the sentences, before could conceivably be used instead of in front of without greatly altering the denotative meaning of the sentence.7 This near-synonymous relationship is clearly shown in (9) and (10): (9)

I first saw her when I was called to see one of Mrs Ainsworth’s dogs, and I looked in some surprise at the furry black creature sitting before the fire. (BNC: G3S: 2192) (10) I could be comfortably at home sitting in front of the fire watching television. (BNC: KA6: 137) Of course, the meaning of before is not restricted to the expression of a spatial relation. In fact, the temporal meaning of before is by far more frequent in Present-day English. From a diachronic point of view, an interesting development can be observed. Table 8.2 lists the frequency of both the locative and the temporal use of before in the early texts of the Gutenberg Corpus (author birth-date 1600–1700) and the BNC. In addition, it contains the figures for in front of, which has an exclusively locative meaning. In the early Gutenberg texts, the most frequent item is temporal before (1,304 pmw), followed by locative before (473 pmw). In front of does not occur at all. In Present-day English, the distribution is quite different: before in its locative meaning has become quite rare in comparison with its temporal counterpart, which is more than ten times more frequent (72 pmw versus 799 pmw). What is most important in the present context is, however, the fact that in front of (63 pmw) is today almost as frequently found as locative before (72 pmw). Table 8.2 presents a relatively crude picture of the situation. For example, it disregards the fact that different genres and speech events will impose different stylistic restrictions on the use of the constructions available for the expression of the spatial relation under investigation. It also neglects the influence of idiomaticity on the supposed semantic equivalence of in front of and before. For example, in front of cannot replace before in Table 8.2 The distribution of in front of and before (in its locative and temporal meanings) in early Gutenberg texts and the BNCa

temporal before locative before in front of

Gutenberg corpus (1600–1700) BNC ■ n pmw n

pmw

1,521 544 0

799 72 63

1,304 473 0

78,015 7,061 6,123

Note a Figures for before are extrapolated from random subsets of 1,000 sentences each.

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 151 All men are equal before God. Furthermore, there are certainly other, less frequent ways of expressing the same concept of spatial relation. A much more detailed study would indeed be required to establish the patterns of usage in a more conclusive way. These caveats clearly show that a meaningful interpretation of frequency counts is far more complex than a simple comparison of the total number of occurrences. Table 8.2 is nevertheless relevant for the present discussion because it shows that in front of has, over time, come to be used in a sizeable proportion of cases when this particular spatial relation needs to be expressed. Regardless of its absolute frequency, the sequence in front of is thus among the prime choices for the realization of this concept. If grammaticalization is indeed the result of routinization processes which reduce the language users’ cognitive effort in encoding and decoding messages relevant to their current communicative context, it is highly likely that the preferred choices for a certain communicative context (e.g. the expression of a particular concept) are given more weight in this process than less preferred choices. For the corpus linguist, the concept of saliency is notoriously difficult to define. Since it represents a subjective assessment of familiarity, it cannot be measured in a straightforward (and quantitative) way. Some entities are thought to be salient because their physical properties make them stand out from their surrounding environment. Other items may be salient due to their cultural importance. In the second case, saliency has been linked up with ‘world-frequency’, i.e. the frequency with which a culturally relevant item is encountered by members of a speech community. As a result of their prominence, terms used to signify such highly salient referents are, in turn, also used more frequently. However, as Croft (2000) cautions, such a view on its own may be too simplistic: But what explains frequency of use? It is not frequency of occurrence in the world, but frequency of being talked about. Frequency of being talked about is a consequence of (joint) salience for the members of the relevant speech community. Hence joint salience determines frequency of use, which in terms motivates erosion of form (via the joint goal of minimizing time expended [. . .]). (Croft 2000: 75–6) On the other hand, items or events may be salient even though they are not frequently encountered in language use. Sobkowiak (1997), for example, notes that ‘[s]ex, death and defecation are socio-culturally and doubtless also psychologically rather salient, but not very frequent as conversation topics’. He concludes that ‘[t]he relationship between the different types of extralinguistic frequency, as well as between them and the (different types of) linguistic frequency may be very complex, too complex to be captured by simple deterministic claims’ (ibid.).8 In the present section, I have suggested that frequency can at least partly

152 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? act as a suitable proxy for saliency when frequency of occurrence is seen in relation to the total number of instances of the concept expressed by the linguistic item under investigation. However, in the light of these last observations, this supposition must be subjected to further scrutiny. This inference is further supported by the fact that some of the low-frequency complex prepositions listed in Table 8.1 clearly do not represent preferred choices for the concepts they express. Consider, for example, in face of, which has 60 occurrences in the written component of the BNC. As sentences (11) and (12) show, in face of must be considered a variant of the much more frequent combination in the face of, which is found 1,461 times. (11) Tate Gallery perseveres with rotating the collections in face of mounting criticism. (BNC: CKU: 537) (12) The problem of continued support in the face of declining membership is being addressed. (BNC: A67: 358) The concepts expressed in (11) and (12) are clearly the same. The hypothesis that in face of represents a preferred choice for this particular concept can thus hardly be supported. If one wishes to claim that in face of is just as much a grammaticalized unit as its more frequent variant in the face of, it is therefore necessary to provide additional modes of explanation that apply independently of (the different kinds of) frequency of occurrence.

Grammaticalization by analogy In the previous sections, I have placed little emphasis on the formal characteristics of recurrent elements in language structure. Moreover, I have not been concerned with the different functional properties of such recurring elements. Rather, I have concentrated on an evaluation of the various types of frequency (i.e. conceptual, absolute textual and relative textual frequency) as a single explanatory force behind the processes underlying the grammaticalization of individual lexical items and sequences of words. Towards the end of the last section, it became clear that such a purely frequency-driven approach is too simple and that additional factors require attention. I would like to propose that one such factor is given by the shared functional and formal properties of complex prepositions. Much research has been conducted on the nature of the prefabricated sequences of text that make up a considerable part of our everyday use of language (for an overview, see Wray 2002: 44ff.). Various types of classification have been proposed, focusing on such aspects as function, form, provenance and meaning. Furthermore, as Yorio (1980: 438) notes, prefabricated units of text play an important part not only in terms of their economizing role in speech production but also in terms of the social dis-

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 153 course functions they perform. Consider, for example, the conversational routines described in Aijmer (1996) and the affective stance typically expressed by the use of idioms. It is highly unlikely that such interpersonal, pragmatic factors have no influence on the level of entrenchment of individual sequences; the variable ‘frequency of occurrence’ may in fact only be of marginal importance in some (highly salient) contexts.9 While the term ‘prefabricated unit’ is certainly useful as a linguistic concept, it is also important to stress that it covers a wide range of phenomena. The complex prepositions under investigation in the present chapter are clearly much less socio-interactional than other types of recurring sequences of language. Given their status as grammatical elements, their main task lies in the structuring of text on an informational level of organization. Irrespective of their overall frequency, all of the complex prepositions under investigation have in common that they express a relation between two entities. While their individual meanings are clearly not identical, they all share an abstract, text-organizing property. At the same time, the complex prepositions are structurally alike: all of them consist of two simple prepositions with an intervening nominal element. There is thus, at least on a certain level, a strong congruence between form and function. In Chapter 5, where I presented a diachronic overview of complex prepositions over the past 750 years, I noted that a considerable number of PNP-constructions enter the system of the language without any noticeable process of grammaticalization (e.g. by reference to, in accordance with, in addition to). To illustrate this fact, I offered the concept of grammaticalization by analogy to structurally and functionally related constructions. As a corollary to this, I would like to suggest that the grammaticalization of such relatively frequent complex prepositions as in favour of and in view of also has an impact on the grammatical status of (formally) parallel constructions that occur much more rarely. In other words, low-frequency combinations grammaticalize by analogy towards their more frequent ‘structural relatives’. With such a view of the mental organization of language, the saliency of a particular combination of words is at least partly defined by its formal parallelism to more frequent constructions. As a consequence, very rare PNP-sequences such as in light of will be interpreted (and stored in memory) as single units even though the routinization processes normally involved in this development do not apply. As an extension to this proposal, it could also be hypothesized that certain aspects of grammaticalization rely much less on the nature and contextdependent use of individual content words than previously assumed. Using such an approach, grammaticalization would result in the establishment of constructional schemas whose slots can be filled with suitable lexical items. It is important to note that this proposal is tentative in nature. While it neatly solves the problem of low-frequency complex prepositions, its general applicability to other types of grammaticalization processes would

154 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? require further analysis. The complex relationship between (low) frequency and structure certainly deserves more serious linguistic and statistical examination.

Low-frequency grammaticalization phenomena and corpus data In the present section, I will concentrate on methodological difficulties arising in the corpus-based study of rare linguistic features such as the 132 PNP-constructions listed in Table 8.1. Since, as will be shown, the value of corpora does not merely reside in the statistically significant results they may yield, they remain valuable sources of data even for such rare constructions. Qualitative versus quantitative analysis and the problem of statistical significance Most studies in corpus linguistics rely on the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis of the available data. In a qualitative approach, the main focus lies on a detailed description of the phenomena under consideration. Such a description makes it possible to capture the whole range of variation observable in an individual linguistic feature since subtle shades of meaning or minute differences in use can receive adequate attention. In the course of a qualitative analysis, low-frequency items can, in principle, receive the same kind of attention as more common linguistic features. In a quantitative analysis, however, the emphasis is on the description and classification of corpus data according to a limited set of criteria. Based on the assumption that the corpus is a representative sample of language use, the linguistic findings can be used to quantify differences in the preferred patterns of linguistic realizations across different populations (e.g. British and American English). In the words of McEnery and Wilson (2003), a quantitative analysis enables one to separate the wheat from the chaff: it enables one to discover which phenomena are likely to be genuine reflections of the behaviour of a language variety and which are merely chance occurrences. In the more basic task of looking non-comparatively at a single language variety, quantitative analysis enables one to get a precise picture of the frequency and rarity of particular phenomena and hence, arguably, of their relative normality or abnormality. (McEnery and Wilson 2003: 76–7) For the low-frequency PNP-constructions studied here, a qualitative analysis poses no serious methodological difficulties. It may lead to valuable pieces of individual insight, but will not contribute much towards a better

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 155 assessment of the central question at issue, namely the grammatical status of such constructions. As I have shown in my discussion of in view of in Chapter 4, a quantitative analysis is much more adequate for this purpose. A qualitative approach might very well be employed to describe the use of in view of in different periods of language use, but only a quantitative approach will yield information about the changing frequencies of individual variants in different samples and thus help to trace the development of PNP-constructions towards today’s complex prepositional use. In the interpretation of quantitative results, corpus linguistics makes extensive use of statistical methods of evaluation. Among other aspects, such calculations enable the researcher to assess the level of confidence with which his or her results can confirm a given hypothesis. The level of confidence, however, is heavily dependent on frequency of occurrence. If the number of instances for individual categories is very low, the observed distribution cannot be considered statistically significant. As a consequence, the results cannot be used as a reliable basis for comparison. In the case of the set of 132 PNP-constructions at issue, this situation will inevitably occur since even their total number of occurrences is very low. In other words, even if patterns could be observed that would confirm a given hypothesis, the results would only be of limited value. The likelihood that these patterns are due to chance is simply too high. Corpus representativeness It is a trivial observation that the lack of data for the 132 low-frequency constructions could be remedied by using larger corpora. However, for the study of rare phenomena, overall corpus size is not necessarily the only important variable. The reliability and meaningfulness of empirical data is heavily dependent on the assumption that language corpora constitute suitable mirrors of actual language use, either in its totality or at least in a wider functional domain. The choices made by the compilers of a corpus with respect to the selection and proportional representation of different text domains consequently have a direct influence on the relevance of the linguistic results. But what constitutes a representative sample of the English language? For most members of a given population, the majority of language production occurs in the realm of spoken interaction. It could therefore be argued that a representative corpus would have to consist largely of spoken data with only a small proportion of texts from a range of different written registers. Changing the perspective from production to perception, on the other hand, would make the inclusion of written material entirely defensible. However, as Biber (1993: 247) notes, there is a deeper issue of principle involved. A demographically and communicatively realistic corpus, with priority on everyday spoken interaction, would ‘permit summary descriptive statistics for the entire language represented by the corpus’, but chances

156 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? are that it would be of limited interest only for linguistic research: ‘[r]ather, researchers require language samples that are representative in the sense that they include the full range of linguistic variation existing in a language’. As a consequence, the frequency with which a particular linguistic feature is found in a corpus may in fact be quite different from the actual frequency with which an average language user is exposed to it in his or her daily language use. This observation has implications for the application of frequency-based concepts such as those discussed in previous sections (e.g. relative text frequency, conceptual frequency, preferred choice, etc.). Although the general validity of these concepts is not questioned, it may not be possible to reliably quantify their relevance – for example for the process of language change – on the basis of authentic data. For the study of low-frequency phenomena, an additional complication in connection with corpus representativeness results from the fact that most computerized corpora consist of text samples rather than whole texts.10 The optimal size of such a sample is given when it adequately represents the linguistic characteristics of the text type or genre to which it belongs. However, this optimal size cannot be stated in absolute terms; rather, it depends greatly on the frequency of the linguistic features under consideration. As Biber (1993: 249) points out, ‘frequency counts for common linguistic features are relatively stable across 1,000 word samples, while frequency counts for rare events . . . are less stable and require longer text samples to be reliably represented’. As a consequence, very infrequent phenomena will most likely not be reliably represented in any corpus which was compiled on the basis of text samples.11 It might thus very well be the case that the individual frequencies of my 132 PNPconstructions would turn out to be quite different in another corpus of comparable size and structure. Also, certain kinds of use may be accidentally overrepresented (e.g. through a-typical clustering of occurrences in a small number of text samples) while others are completely absent. Quantifying variation It is generally accepted that grammaticalization is a gradient phenomenon. As a consequence, the classification of linguistic realizations according to a binary system is an impossible task. In Chapter 4, I discussed how a careful diachronic study of corpus data can reveal the grammaticalized status of the relatively frequent complex preposition in view of. It was, for example, shown that the proportion of literal uses of the nominal element view declined sharply over centuries while the overall frequency of the construction (with an abstract meaning of view) dramatically increased. In the case of low-frequency PNP-constructions, such an approach will offer much less reliable results. In part this is due to the problems concerning representativeness discussed in the previous section. More importantly,

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 157 the Gutenberg Corpus is roughly a quarter of the size of the BNC and its individual time-spans constitute even smaller sets of data. A meaningful diachronic study of the development of my set of low-frequency PNPconstructions is therefore impossible simply because not enough data is available.12 Several scholars have identified a number of formal criteria in order to determine the relative level of grammaticalization of a particular construction. In contrast to the diachronic approach taken in Chapter 5, such formal criteria make it possible to study grammaticalization from a synchronic point of view. Lehmann (1995 [1982]), for example, established a set of six grammaticalization parameters (integrity, paradigmaticity, paradigmatic variability, structural scope, bondedness and syntagmatic variability). On the basis of the assumption that the six parameters normally correlate and jointly constitute the grammaticalization of an item or a paradigm, we may compute its global degree of grammaticalization as a function of the six values. Items and paradigms may then be compared as to their grammaticality values. (Lehmann 1995 [1982]: 168) However, while the parameters have the advantage of being fully formal, their quantification is nevertheless not a trivial task, as Lehmann himself observes (1995 [1982]: 160ff.). For the present purpose, Quirk et al.’s (1985: 671–2) descriptive account of complex prepositions is therefore more suitable. As shown in Chapter 3, the authors offer nine different criteria which help to distinguish complex prepositions from other, freer combinations. For example, in spite of allows no modifications whatsoever (*in the spite of or *in spite to or *in spites of ) whereas in pursuit of alternates with in the pursuit of and in hot pursuit of etc. The authors establish a ‘scale of cohesiveness’ with in spite of at one extreme, which behaves like a single word preposition in all ways possible; and on the shelf by (the door) at the other extreme. Assuming that a greater level of cohesiveness corresponds to a more advanced state of grammaticalization, Quirk et al.’s list of formal criteria offers a convenient basis for a quantitative, synchronic analysis of the grammatical status of complex prepositions. A full analysis of all nine criteria is beyond the scope of this investigation. In the present context, it will only be possible to focus on two criteria in somewhat more detail: the ability of the nominal element of a PNPconstruction to be preceded by a premodifying adjective or by a determiner. Typical instances of such forms of variation of the PNP-construction in expectation of are shown in (14) and (15). Sentence (13) first shows the construction without any kind of internal variation:

158 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? (13) As the dog learned the association between the sound of the bell and being fed, it salivated on hearing the bell in expectation of its meal. (BNC: GU8: 332) (14) A ringed hand held a thin cigar which – as if in impatient expectation of her arrival – he stubbed in a silver tray. (BNC: H82: 2823) (15) Anne left Germany in the expectation of seeing her family again before very long. (BNC: BNN: 333) Almost two-thirds of my set of 132 low-frequency PNP-constructions (85 types) are found at least once in the written component of the BNC with a premodifying adjective before the nominal element. However, only in four cases (in proximity to, with emphasis on, in disregard of and in contradiction to) are the variants with a premodifying adjective more frequent than the bare PNP-construction and for the large majority of constructions, adjectival premodification is rare. A similar picture emerges for the determiners a and the: more than half of all PNP-constructions are rarely found with a determiner before the nominal element. When the results for adjectival premodification and determiners are combined, 18 invariant types can be isolated. They are listed in Table 8.3. While Table 8.3 contains a few rare types where the total number of occurrences does not exceed 15 instances in the 87.3 million words of the written component of the BNC, ten of the types are represented with at least 30 instances. It is perhaps worth noting that this set of PNPconstructions also includes an item which commonly features in lists of complex prepositions found in reference grammars and other descriptions of English: by dint of. At least in the case of these slightly more common PNP-constructions, the formal invariance observed in the BNC could be taken as a tentative basis for the claim that they are indivisible units rather than sequences of words which are assembled according to the compositional rules of syntax.13 The limitation of such an approach is that it disregards the phenomenon of layering, i.e. the fact that several stages of grammaticalization can

Table 8.3 Low-frequency PNP-constructions which do not occur with a determiner or a premodifying adjective before the nominal element (n  number of occurrences in the written component of the BNC) PNP

n

PNP

n

PNP

n

by contrast with without prejudice to in readiness for in tandem with by dint of in wait for

90 89 72 70 66 57

in default of on pain of in fairness to upon receipt of by contrast to in commemoration of

55 54 41 32 15 11

on proof of in token of in remembrance of by analogy to in want of in distinction to

11 11 9 8 6 5

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 159 coexist over considerable stretches of time. As a consequence, this method can contribute little to an evaluation of the grammatical status of the remaining PNP-constructions which are also found with internal variation. More importantly, it is a purely formal approach and crucial aspects such as meaning or function are completely ignored. Since grammaticalization is seen as a phenomenon which arises from the use of language in different situational contexts, a categorization on the basis of such exclusively formal aspects can thus only offer supportive evidence. The distribution of low-frequency PNP-constructions The frequency information for the set of 132 PNP-constructions at issue has so far been restricted to the total number of occurrences in the written component of the BNC. I have thus not taken into consideration that individual items may be unevenly distributed over the various texts (or text domains) represented in the corpora. In an extreme case, a low-frequency PNP-construction could theoretically constitute an idiosyncratic use by a single speaker. Since grammar is the result of a joint process of conventionalization, such a case could then of course not be considered relevant for the present purpose. However, none of the low-frequency items under consideration is restricted to a single text. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority exhibit an astonishingly wide distribution over different texts. A simple measure for the degree of distribution can be found in the ratio between the total number of occurrences in the written component of the BNC and the number of different texts in which the item occurs. A low ratio means that the PNP-construction is quite evenly distributed whereas a high ratio indicates a concentration of its occurrences in a small number of different texts. In the case of by dint of, for example, this factor is 1.2 (66 instances in 55 different texts). The highest factor among my set of items is found for in series with (4.3, or 43 instances in ten different texts) but this is the exception rather than the rule: only eleven PNP-constructions have a factor above 2.0. In other words, the hypothesis that many of the low-frequency items under consideration represent isolated – and possibly idiosyncratic – uses by a small set of authors can safely be discarded. While such raw distribution data can already provide an impression of the use of low-frequency PNP-constructions, it leaves many questions unanswered. An analysis of the distribution over different text domains or genres can offer more conclusive results. In his overview of recent grammaticalization processes in German, Lehmann (1991: 503) states that ‘complex prepositions arise in a narrowly circumscribed set of contexts’ and only gradually spread to other areas of language use. On the basis of his data, he comments on the relationship between phraseology and grammaticalization and notes that newly formed expressions will not be perceived in isolation by other speakers but always in their specific context.

160 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? Consequently, they ‘will not then spread at once to all kinds of contexts which, given the rules of grammar, would admit it, but will initially be restricted to certain collocations which come close to being phraseologisms’ (ibid.). A wide distribution over different text domains and genres could therefore be interpreted as additional support for the claim that the PNP-constructions have indeed achieved the status of grammatical items. Table 8.4 gives an overview of the distribution of the 132 PNPconstructions over eight different sub-corpora in the BNC which were selected on the basis of Lee’s genre classification (cf. Lee 2001).14 The subcorpora cover a total of 81.4 million words and contain mutually exclusive sections of the BNC. As Table 8.4 shows, all eight genres in the BNC contain a relatively large proportion of my low-frequency PNP-constructions. In fact, even in the smallest sub-corpora, ‘Commerce’ (3.76 million words) and ‘Biography’ (3.53 million words), more than 50 per cent of all types can be found. The finding that the PNP-constructions occur across different genres of course does not per se constitute proof of their grammaticalized status. It simply confirms that the PNP-constructions under consideration are not restricted to certain narrow contexts. In other words, while it is clearly impossible to take the distributional characteristics shown in Table 8.4 as proof for the claim that we are indeed dealing with (grammaticalized) lowfrequency complex prepositions, the data also cannot be brought forward as counter-evidence against such a claim. For a more comprehensive picture, the data in Table 8.4 needs to be combined with a closer study of individual PNP-constructions. Consider for example the case of in readiness for. Typical uses are shown in (16) and (17): (16) I am now writing a history of the company in readiness for its centenary in 1999. (BNC: ALW: 1331) Table 8.4 Low-frequency PNP-constructions: number of types found in different genres of the BNC Genre

Number of words

Types (PNP)

Percentage of all types

BNC written component non-academic prose academic prose miscellaneous newspapers fiction popular lore commerce biography

87,284,364 16,634,076 15,429,582 9,140,157 9,345,878 16,194,885 7,376,391 3,759,366 3,528,564

132 119 119 108 88 84 77 76 71

100 90 90 82 67 64 58 58 54

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 161 (17) These muscles tense in readiness for action. (BNC: EB1: 372) The phrase in readiness for occurs 72 times in 65 different texts of the written component of the BNC and is found in all of the eight genres shown in Table 8.4. In addition to this, in readiness for exhibits no signs of being part of a larger sequence of words which functions as phraseologism. The complement noun phrases following in readiness for pertain to a whole range of contexts and situations (e.g. slaughter, rematch, lunch-time trade and the French) and few occur more than once (e.g. return, with four instances). Also, no strong collocational bonds can be observed with respect to the verbs preceding the construction. As a matter of fact, the large majority of the 132 PNP-constructions under consideration exhibit similar combinatory freedom.15 Again, while this cannot be taken as conclusive proof for the complex-prepositional status of these constructions, the data available clearly does not speak against such an interpretation. Intuition and corpus data Over the past few decades, computerized corpora have proven to be invaluable sources for the empirical study of linguistic phenomena. In recent years, the availability of large corpora such as the BNC has enabled an even more precise description of both language structure and language use: As a corpus gets larger, it does not simply show us the same data multiplied out, eg., each item being ten times as frequent in a corpus ten times as large. Instead, the larger corpus both turns up fresh data that did not appear at all in the smaller ones and displays the previous data in steadily finer delicacy for the range and frequency of the combinations. Hosts of regularities emerge that escaped notice in smaller data sets, and would elude unguided intuition and introspection. [. . .] Instead of coverage, convergence, and consensus decreasing when natural language data get rewritten into a formal notation, they are now increasing when data get treated in their naturally occurring formats. (de Beaugrande 1997: 44) As a result, few linguists will nowadays completely deny the relevance of corpora as empirical test-beds for intuition-based hypotheses about language. The recent publication of Biber et al.’s (1999) large corpus-based grammar is further testimony to the importance of corpora in language description and language teaching. In the discussion about the differences between (and respective merits of) generative and empirical linguistics, much emphasis has been placed on the role of intuition and observation. In generative linguistics, the

162 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? researcher aims at creating a cognitively plausible model of language which can encompass all (and only) its grammatical sentences. Put very simply, generative linguistics is thus concerned with the question of ‘possibility’. In this process, observation of actual language use is not given any active role and decisions are typically conducted purely on the basis of intuition. In other words, researchers access their own competence of language via introspection. By contrast, within empirical linguistics, the emphasis is clearly on the assessment of ‘probability’, i.e. how likely it is that a particular construction is actually produced. Observation of authentic language use is the key method in such an undertaking. On the basis of this data, the corpus linguist is able to evaluate the ‘acceptability’ of a particular construction.16 There can be little doubt that corpus linguistic methodology is superior to introspection in the description of actual language use. However, what is the role (and importance) of intuition for the corpus linguist? In his discussion of the differences between intuition-based and observation-based grammars, Aarts (1991: 47) makes the important statement that intuition and observation must necessarily complement each other: ‘[i]deally, the intuition-based grammar, through its confrontation with corpus data, becomes an observation-based grammar, i.e. one that also accounts for the facts of language use’ (emphasis in the original). The final grammar is thus a result of the merger between ‘grammatical sentences’ (i.e. products of competence) and ‘acceptable sentences’ (i.e. products of language use). However, any corpus will inevitably contain sentences which are clearly not suitable for inclusion in a grammar of the language (e.g. truncated sentences, deliberately ungrammatical expressions, etc.). The crucial point in the creation of an observation-based grammar is therefore to decide which of the retrieved sentences and patterns should be included in the grammar and which should be discarded as idiosyncratic, irrelevant or simply erroneous instantiations of language. In other words, ‘language use’ and ‘performance’ must be distinguished from each other: For every corpus sentence, therefore, that is not accounted for by their intuition-based grammar, [corpus grammarians] have to decide whether or not they want to give it the stamp of acceptability by inserting rules into their grammar that account for the structure that is represented by the sentence. And that is a very hard thing to do, because, strangely enough, they do not know exactly what they want their observation-based grammar to describe. (Aarts 1991: 50–1) Aarts suggests that an evaluation of the ‘currency’ of the construction under consideration can solve this dilemma. He defines currency as the joint product of two independent concepts, namely ‘frequency of occurrence’ and ‘normalcy’. The first of the two terms poses no specific dif-

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 163 ficulties for the corpus linguist; relative and absolute frequencies can be calculated quite easily. Within a usage-based view of language, such evidence can be interpreted as constituting a direct mirror of language structure. The concept of normalcy, however, is certainly more problematic since it ‘is much harder to capture and to translate into operational terms’ (Aarts 1991: 58). As a case in point, consider the following contribution to an electronic discussion on ‘Chomsky and corpus linguistics’: If some large group of people all have the same judgment about the acceptability of certain constructions, and those constructions are rare, then how can one explain their consensus? A case in point is parasitic gaps. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that they are vanishingly rare in corpora, and in the sort of input that children get. And yet the first time I heard constructed examples of parasitic gaps, I, and the other linguists who were hearing the report, immediately reacted the same way: they were ‘good English.’ It seems to me that there is a datum that needs explaining: you’ve never (or almost never) seen something before, but it is immediately familiar. (Maxwell 2001) Aarts concludes his discussion by stating that observation-based grammars must to some extent remain normative grammars, ‘if we understand “normative” as “based on the norms set by a not insignificant part of the language community” – that is, a grammar of structures used (frequency) as well as accepted (normalcy) by a large number of language users’ (Aarts 1991: 58). In the case of relatively rare linguistic features such as the set of 132 PNP-constructions under consideration, their currency is necessarily to a large extent defined in reference to an evaluation of their normalcy. It is perhaps telling that the list of complex prepositions given in Biber et al. (1999: 75) contains quite a few items which have a relatively low overall frequency in the written component of the BNC. The authors include for want of (163), in consequence of (151), in lieu of (141), at variance with (137), in light of (116), in compliance with (98) and in conformity with (67).17 While it is acknowledged that ‘it is impossible to establish a clear borderline between free combinations and complex prepositions’, no specific reason is given for the inclusion of such rare combinations into their explicitly corpus-based grammar (Biber et al. 1999: 76). It must be assumed that they were included because of intuition-based considerations of normalcy. In the introduction to this chapter, I stated that I would be testing the limits of corpus linguistic methodology. In the present section, I have shown that the need for statistical significance and corpus representativeness indeed imposes limitations on a meaningful interpretation of quantitative data. However, it has also become clear that the value of empirical low-frequency data should not be entirely discarded. While it is certainly

164 Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? not possible to ascertain the complex prepositional status of the 132 lowfrequency PNP-constructions on the basis of the method used for in view of in Chapter 4, the quantitative analysis of low-frequency data can still offer important insights into the nature of the phenomena under consideration.18 The data presented in the current section certainly supports the intuition-based hypothesis that we are indeed dealing with lowfrequency complex prepositions. In an area where intuition must necessarily play an important role, such data can thus be employed to confirm the currency of the constructions, even though it does not stand up to the normal rigours of statistical analysis.

Summary and conclusion In the present chapter, I have tried to answer the question of whether PNPconstructions such as by dint of, in readiness for and in proximity to can be considered grammaticalized units of language functioning as complex prepositions, even though their frequency of occurrence is extremely low. Within a usage-based model of language structure, such a claim is problematic because the commonly assumed mechanism of conventionalization via frequent repetition clearly cannot be at work here. In my discussion of the importance of frequency for the grammaticalization of linguistic structures, I offered a different interpretation of frequency phenomena which takes into account the fact that certain concepts are expressed less often than others. I suggested that the relative frequency of an individual linguistic item with respect to the sum of all possible realizations of a particular concept has an influence on the cognitive representation this linguistic item receives. Thus, if a certain low-frequency construction constitutes the preferred way of expressing a concept, it is likely to receive a more prominent weight than its overall text frequency would suggest. As a consequence, the construction could be more easily reanalysed (and stored) as an indivisible unit even though it occurs quite rarely. Rather than seeing entrenchment (or lexical strength) from a purely mechanistic perspective, such an approach focuses on the concept of saliency as a context-dependent variable. In addition to this different interpretation of frequency phenomena, I also briefly discussed the proposal that the grammaticalization of lowfrequency constructions can occur by analogy to more frequent, structurally similar sequences. Such a view of grammaticalization would imply that the saliency of a particular combination of words is at least partly defined by its formal parallelism to more frequent constructions. In the final section of this chapter, I concentrated on the data for lowfrequency PNP-constructions retrieved from the written component of the BNC. I tried to answer the question of how far a limited amount of empirical evidence can contribute to an evaluation of the grammatical status of the sequences under consideration. The need for corpus representativeness

Are low-frequency prepositions grammaticalized? 165 and statistical significance were identified as major stumbling blocks for such an undertaking, but it was nevertheless possible to discern some important tendencies. Thus, some PNP-constructions were shown to exhibit little or no variation whatsoever. In addition, I interpreted the relatively even distribution of the set of 132 PNP-constructions over different texts and genres and used the findings as evidence against the assertion that many of these sequences are restricted to highly specific contexts. While none of these points can be taken as conclusive proof for the complex-prepositional status of the constructions under consideration, these findings still offer important quantitative support in an area where intuition is, and continues to be, of paramount importance.

9

Conclusion

In this chapter, I offer a summary of the most important findings concerning the main themes of my study: the question of the syntactic status of complex prepositions, the application (and possible extension) of grammaticalization theory to the emergence of complex prepositions and aspects of usage. I conclude by suggesting directions for future research.

The status of complex prepositions as syntactic units One of the fundamental claims made in the present study is that complex prepositions are syntactic units which function in the same way as simple prepositions. The validity of this claim was investigated by analysing large amounts of language data from historical and Present-day English sources. The approach taken was thus resolutely empirical and quantitative. The underlying premises were that language use and language structure are interrelated and that the language system is constantly being shaped by its users. In Chapter 3, I took the study by Seppänen et al. (1994) as my starting point for an evaluation of the syntactic status of complex prepositions. The authors apply four standard constituency tests to preposition– noun–preposition constructions (coordination, interpolation, fronting and ellipsis) and claim that such an analysis reveals the existence of a major syntactic boundary after the nominal element of the construction. On the basis of this assertion they go on to draw the following radical conclusion: ‘Introduced into the grammar on the basis of an untenable analysis, the class of complex prepositions as defined by Quirk et al. is empty, and the term itself is thus not helpful in the description of English’ (Seppänen et al. 1994: 25). In my analysis, I showed that such a claim cannot be upheld when a functional approach to language is taken. I first investigated the different types of coordination which are found after PNP-constructions. These types are shown in (1) to (3): (1) They want to use less fuel and cause less pollution, but at the same time recoil from too many sacrifices in terms of comfort and performance. (BNC: AKM: 1250)

Conclusion 167 (2) All the common symptoms of a panic attack can thus be understood in terms of adrenalin being pumped round the body and in terms of the fight/flight mechanism. (BNC: EB1: 380) (3) Ethnic groups were defined in terms of common descent and of common institutions. (BNC: H0K: 1025) In (1), the complex preposition in terms of is followed by two coordinated noun phrases (comfort and performance), and in (2) it is repeated as part of the second conjoin. In both cases, the PNP-constructions remain intact as a whole. In (3), however, the second conjoin begins with of, which is a repetition of the second prepositional element of the complex preposition in terms of. Sentences such as (3) are employed by Seppänen et al. to support their claim that in terms of is assembled according to the compositional rules of syntax and that there is indeed a constituent boundary within the PNP-construction. On the basis of the data contained in the BNC, I showed, however, that the frequencies for the three types of coordination displayed in (1)–(3) differ radically. By far the most frequent type is represented by example (1). In 92 per cent of all cases, two coordinated noun phrases are found after the complex preposition. The variant featured in (2), where the whole PNP-construction is repeated, accounts for another 4 per cent of all sentences. In other words, in a total of 96 per cent of all instances, language users opt for a variant of coordination which leaves the complex preposition intact as a sequence. With just 4 per cent of all instances, sentences like the one shown in (3) are clearly a dispreferred mode of expressing coordination in conjunction with PNP-constructions. My analysis further demonstrated that many of these infrequent sentences exhibited correlative coordination, which is a stylistically marked variant of coordination (e.g. both with respect to X and to Y). Moreover, a disproportionally large number of such sentences with correlative coordination contained the complex preposition in terms of (64 per cent). Within the usage-based approach taken in my study, such pronounced differences in frequency of use were interpreted as expressions of an unconscious choice made by the language users. Irrespective of their internal syntactic structure, the sequences under consideration were overwhelmingly used in a way which is compatible with an analysis of complex prepositions as grammatical units. It seems reasonable to assume that these units are stored in the memory as whole entities rather than individual segments which are later assembled according to the rules of syntax. Further support for such a hypothesis was found in the analysis of spoken data. I investigated the occurrences of filled pauses (uh, uhm) in the immediate environment of PNP-constructions and within PNPconstructions. Such markers of hesitation can be taken as indicators of the planning process during on-line speech production and they offer a more reliable basis for an interpretation of the cognitive representation of

168 Conclusion linguistic structures than the interpolation test employed by Seppänen et al. (1994). My results provide strong evidence supporting the claim that complex prepositions are indeed retrieved from memory as whole units. Thus, while filled pauses were found frequently just before and just after the PNP-construction, such hesitation markers are virtually non-existent within complex prepositions. The unit-like nature of PNP-constructions was further substantiated by the diachronic analysis carried out in the framework of grammaticalization theory (see Chapters 4 and 5). Using the OED quotations database and the Gutenberg Corpus, I traced the development of 30 frequent complex prepositions over the last 750 years. The gradual movement towards a greater level of syntactic unity of PNP-constructions could be corroborated by observing a change in the categorial properties of the nominal element within a complex preposition. Thus, while early occurrences of constructions like in view of or in front of were also quite frequently found with a determiner or a premodifying adjective before view or front (e.g. in full view of or in the front of), such instances were very rare in Present-day English. This decategorialized status of a (former) noun which has lost its full range of syntagmatic variability is a clear sign that the item has acquired a different function within the grammatical system of the language. In the context of complex prepositions, the nominal element can no longer be interpreted as an independent lexical item but must instead be seen as an integral part of the entire construction. In a number of cases, this structural development was shown to be paralleled by a concurrent semantic change. It was observed that the meaning expressed by many complex prepositions followed the typical path of grammaticalizing constructions from concrete towards increasingly abstract denotation. (It was also noted, however, that not all PNPconstructions conform to this general pattern. By way of was identified as an exception and will be taken up again below.) Thus the PNPconstruction in place of, for example, first carried a purely locative meaning which was consequently extended to refer to situations where one entity had been replaced by another. Over time, a more abstract type of substitution or replacement could be expressed which did not require the prior removal of the original item from the location in question. In the course of this process, the PNP-construction became generalized and could be employed in a much larger set of discourse contexts than had previously been the case when it had a purely locative meaning. It is important to note that this type of semantic change did not involve the nominal element place in isolation. Rather the PNP-construction as a whole was affected. This fact offers further evidence that complex prepositions should be treated as indivisible units of grammar. A final point worth mentioning in the present context regards the use of the frequent complex preposition in terms of in spoken discourse. In Chapter 7, I observed that in terms of has acquired a number of discourse-

Conclusion 169 specific functions. For example, I demonstrated that this PNP-construction is often found in speech situations which display clear signs of an on-going planning process during the formulation of cognitively complex subject matters. In such contexts, in terms of carries a function similar to the one performed by filled pauses. In addition to the floor-keeping nature of such hesitation markers, in terms of is also employed to hedge the speaker’s uncertainty about the validity of his or her utterances. As sentence (4) illustrates, some occurrences of in terms of in spoken interaction could in fact be replaced by the discourse marker like without perceivably changing the meaning of the utterance. (4) What I will do is emphasize what we you know where you can go in terms of money-wise. (BNC: JA4: 167) Finally, in terms of was also shown to function as a marker of topic change. In cases like the one displayed in (4), the PNP-construction no longer functions as a preposition. Rather than expressing a textual or propositional relationship, it has a primarily pragmatic and interpersonal function. It thus represents a more advanced level of grammaticalization. This level is even further removed from a free preposition–noun–preposition sequence which is assembled on the basis of the open-choice principle (cf. Sinclair 1991). In sum, there is ample synchronic and diachronic evidence that complex prepositions are best considered single units which function identically to simple prepositions. The current investigation thus confirms that the class of complex prepositions should be treated on a par with regular one-word prepositions in English.

Complex prepositions and grammaticalization theory As mentioned in the previous section, grammaticalization theory proved to be a suitable framework for the analysis of the historical changes observed in PNP-constructions. However, while many complex prepositions do indeed follow the development predicted by grammaticalization theory, my study has also revealed a number of interesting additional phenomena of theoretical importance. The first of these is a clear counter-example to the prototypical development of grammaticalizing constructions, found in the case of by way of. This complex preposition is one of the oldest PNPconstructions among the set of 30 items analysed. In the normal course of events, the nominal element way would have been expected initially to carry a transparent, concrete meaning referring to a path or route taken from one location to another. A more abstract meaning, such as the one shown in (5), would then have developed out of this earlier meaning via the usual process of context-induced reinterpretation.

170 Conclusion (5) Make use of plentiful social reinforcers and the occasional treat by way of acknowledging your child’s continuing efforts. (BNC: B10: 921) However, as shown in Chapter 5, the opposite is in fact the case. Although by way of is attested in the OED quotations as early as the year 1340, the first use with a concrete reference to spatial movement does not occur until the end of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, the development displayed by by way of cannot be considered a true case of degrammaticalization, i.e. the reversal of a previously grammaticalized construction to a more lexical state.1 Rather, even the earliest instances of by way of in my corpus data exhibit the typical features of a grammaticalized construction. While a counter-example such as by way of certainly offers an interesting starting point for further research into the nature of language change, it is clearly an exceptional case and as such does not – in my view – invalidate the general claims put forward in the framework of grammaticalization theory. A second important point, which was repeatedly referred to in the present investigation, concerns the gradual nature of grammaticalization. One of the basic tenets of grammaticalization theory is that new categories (or new means of expressing a grammatical category) come into existence as the result of a gradual process. The concept of context-induced reinterpretation proposed by Heine et al. (1991) particularly relies on the repeated use of grammaticalizing items in contexts which invite the participants of a speech situation to draw conversational inferences. Such context-dependent readings may in due course become conventionalized and thereby lead to the establishment of new modes of expression. However, for a considerable number of complex prepositions, no such gradual development towards a greater level of grammaticalization could be detected. In particular, it was difficult to isolate a sufficient number of individual sentences which could be shown to invite context-induced reinterpretation. Furthermore, some PNP-constructions were found to have entered the grammatical system of the language without any discernible trace of a semantic development (e.g. in accordance with, in contrast to, in support of). A possible explanation for this observation is that the available body of data may simply not have been large enough to allow for the detection of subtle aspects of language change in the area of complex prepositions. Even with their stock of several hundred million words, today’s corpora still only represent a small fraction of the totality of the language used. Within a diachronic context, text collections such as the Gutenberg Corpus and the OED quotations database constitute an even smaller proportion of the language used in different periods of time. It may therefore very well be the case that certain developments are simply hidden from the attention of the corpus linguist. However, given that a considerable number of PNP-constructions do not exhibit a gradual development towards a greater level of grammatical-

Conclusion 171 ization, I offered the hypothesis that the grammaticalization of complex prepositions may be triggered by a formal parallelism with earlier constructions which are already part of the grammatical system of the language. In such a view, the grammaticalization of PNP-constructions thus occurs by analogy. As a consequence, the development of grammatical forms may in fact be less dependent on specific lexical items than has been previously assumed. Instead, the sequence ‘preposition–noun–preposition’ appears to be available as a grammaticalized yet abstract construct which under certain circumstances can be filled by new lexical entities to form a new complex preposition. The exact mechanisms underlying this grammaticalization by analogy must remain the subject of further investigation. One possible avenue of research on this point would involve the hypothesis that a certain level of semantic affinity to previously grammaticalized PNP-constructions is a prerequisite for such a process to begin. The connection between frequency of occurrence and grammaticalization, which was discussed in Chapter 8, is the third important aspect to be summarized here. Within a functionalist approach, it is generally assumed that frequency plays an important role in the establishment of a new form in the grammatical system of a language. As I discussed in an overview of the relevant literature, the connection between frequency of occurrence and the level of cognitive entrenchment is often thought to be fairly linear. Such a view would, however, preclude the acquisition of more advanced stages of grammaticalization by relatively rare language features. Nevertheless, infrequent items such as by dint of or in contradistinction to do feature in lists of complex prepositions presented in standard grammars such as Quirk et al. (1985). I therefore asked the question whether a set of 132 low-frequency PNP-constructions (with only five to 100 occurrences in the entire BNC) could nevertheless be considered grammaticalized units of language. In order to answer this question, both theoretical considerations and an analysis of quantitative data are necessary. First, it is important to distinguish between two very different types of frequency. On the one hand, there is ‘textual frequency’, which refers to an item’s total number of instances in a particular collection of texts. ‘Conceptual frequency’, on the other hand, refers to the frequency with which a particular concept or speech event occurs. A particular concept may of course be realized by different linguistic forms. The sum of the textual frequencies of these different forms then constitutes its conceptual frequency. I argued that the level of entrenchment of a linguistic item at least partly depends on its relative frequency with respect to the other variants expressing the same concept. Thus, if a particular item accounts for the overwhelming majority of all realizations of that concept, it will have a higher salience for the users of a language and will therefore reach a relatively high level of entrenchment even though its textual frequency may in fact be rather low. However, it was also noted that conceptual frequency is not the only determining factor. In this context, I again referred to the

172 Conclusion concept of grammaticalization by analogy, which clearly represents a convincing explanation for the existence of low-frequency complex prepositions. Second, in a quantitative analysis of low-frequency PNP-constructions, it is necessary to focus on the problems of corpus representativeness and statistical significance which are highly relevant limitations where rare language features are concerned. I demonstrated that, despite these methodological limitations, quantitative data can offer important insights which would normally elude a purely introspection-based analysis. My findings support the view that even low-frequency PNP-constructions should be considered grammaticalized units of language. However, it was also recognized that a quantitative analysis alone is not sufficient and that such an analysis cannot replace the intuitions of language users (and linguists). The last two decades of the twentieth century saw an almost euphoric application of grammaticalization studies to the description of language change. In recent years, however, critical voices have become more prominent and a number of scholars have questioned the validity of the approach taken by grammaticalization theory (see, for example, Newmeyer 1998; Fischer et al. 2000). In 2001, a whole issue of Language Sciences was devoted to these critical views and paper titles such as ‘Deconstructing grammaticalization’ (Newmeyer 2001), ‘What’s wrong with grammaticalization?’ (Campbell 2001) and ‘Is there such a thing as “grammaticalization”?’ (Joseph 2001) leave no doubt as to the general thrust of these publications. Among other aspects, the authors question the principle of unidirectionality and a number of apparent counter-examples are offered as supportive evidence. More importantly, however, these scholars voice serious doubts about the usefulness of grammaticalization as a theory in its own right and claim that it should rather be seen as a series of individual and potentially unrelated processes. Grammaticalization is thus claimed to be an epiphenomenon which carries little or no explanatory power as such. The current study of course cannot resolve the differences between the proponents of grammaticalization theory and their critics. However, this study provides ample support for the claim that the theoretical framework of grammaticalization can offer valuable insights into the nature of language structure and language change. While complex prepositions are far from being a truly homogenous group of grammatical items, my study has shown that common developments can indeed be observed which fully conform to the paths predicted by grammaticalization theory. Conversely, my analysis of large amounts of quantitative data has also brought a number of apparent inconsistencies to the fore. However, rather than trying to see these as damaging counterevidence, I have suggested ways of extending grammaticalization theory to account for these observations. I believe that the combination of grammaticalization theory and corpus data may help resolve many of the remaining issues in the near future.

Conclusion 173

The use of complex prepositions In Chapter 6, I concentrated on the description of the distributional patterns of complex prepositions in Present-day English as represented by the BNC. For this purpose, I made use of the relatively broad categorization scheme annotated in the BNC, which consists of nine different written and two spoken text domains. In addition, I also employed the much more detailed classification system which separates the BNC texts into 70 distinct genres (cf. Lee 2001). My analysis revealed that the majority of PNP-constructions are favoured in formal contexts. By way of an explanation, I suggested that the complexity principle proposed by Rohdenburg (1996) could offer a possible reason for this preference. Given that complex prepositions are formally more prominent and also generally more explicit in terms of content than simple prepositions, the complexity principle would predict that they are more likely to be used in contexts which are cognitively more complex. A closer look at four individual complex prepositions (in relation to, in search of, in spite of and on top of ) showed that considerable differences with respect to their genre-specific use can in fact be observed. With its highly uneven distribution over the different text domains (and a clear dispreference for the domain ‘Imaginative prose’), in relation to was highlighted as exhibiting distributional characteristics typical for the majority of the analysed PNP-constructions. In spite of, conversely, was shown to be much more evenly distributed, while on top of, finally, was found to be the only complex preposition most frequently used in spontaneous spoken interaction. The genre-specific use of complex prepositions was further substantiated by the findings presented for in terms of in Chapter 7. This complex preposition was shown to be most prominently used in business meetings. However, as the final section of Chapter 6 showed, context of use is clearly not the only determining factor. An analysis of the near-synonymous concessive prepositions in spite of and despite revealed that individual authors in almost all cases showed a clear preference for one of the two items. Since no correlation with other factors such as text type or socio-demographic categories could be ascertained, I suggested that individual preferences of language users may constitute a primary reason for the observed pattern.

Outlook: suggestions for further research A number of possible directions for future research are suggested by the findings of the present investigation. A first – and perhaps almost too obvious – avenue of future research would involve a larger range of complex prepositions which also includes two-words items such as because of and owing to. Most prominently, however, the proposed concept of grammaticalization by analogy clearly requires further scholarly attention. In this context, an analysis of larger sources of diachronic data could provide important additional evidence. Furthermore, such an analysis might

174 Conclusion also cast further light on the possible influence of language contact on the process of grammaticalization. I tentatively suggested that grammatical constructions may even be borrowed as abstract concepts rather than as a combination of lexical entities. Thus, the existence of grammaticalized PNP-constructions in French may have facilitated the rise of (lexically unrelated) parallel constructions in English. The verification of such a hypothesis would require a quantitative, cross-linguistic investigation on a larger scale. A further major direction for possible future research is a more detailed investigation of the genre-specific use of complex prepositions. The current study clearly has only offered a preliminary level of description and the exact reasons for the frequent use of complex prepositions in more formal usage contexts certainly require further attention. In addition to a more detailed analysis of Present-day English usage, such an investigation would also benefit from the inclusion of a diachronic perspective. For example, Rissanen (2000: 256) suggests that ‘Chancery English, particularly the early statutes dating from the end of the [fifteenth] century, probably played an important role in the establishment of the complex preposition according to’. My hypothesis that it was the scientific advances of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which may have paved the way for an increase in the use of complex prepositions also remains open for future exploration (cf. Hoffmann 2002). The diachronic investigation of PNP-constructions presented in Chapter 5 was entirely based on complex prepositions which are frequent in modern English. It may thus have neglected other complex prepositions which in some earlier period of time were commonly used but have since decreased in frequency. My findings would consequently give only a partial picture of the overall development of PNP-constructions in the history of English. Future researchers may thus want to work with a more comprehensive list of PNP-constructions which is not derived from Present-day English data alone. However, such an undertaking would have to be postponed until a suitably large collection of historical data spanning the history of English is available in electronic format. Yet another possible direction for future research is offered by a closer investigation of the discourse-pragmatic functions of complex prepositions. In this context, it may be worthwhile to expand the scope of investigation to written language. For example, although hedges are a prominent feature of spoken interaction, they clearly also perform important functions in written texts (cf. for example, Hyland’s 1998 study of hedges in scientific research articles). Given the use of in terms of as a floor-keeping and a discourse-structuring device in spoken interaction, an investigation of complex prepositions used as hedges in written language may provide interesting additional insights. Whatever future scholars decide to focus on, I hope that the present study will serve as a useful basis for further explorations into the nature of this still relatively under-researched feature of the grammatical system.

Appendix I The texts of the Gutenberg Corpus

V: Variant (British English (BE); American English (AE)) G: Genre (‘non-f.’  non-fiction; ‘fict.’  fiction) PUB: Year of publication, if available BD: Birth-date of author

Defoe, Daniel Defoe, Daniel Swift, Jonathan Swift, Jonathan Swift, Jonathan Swift, Jonathan Congreve, William Franklin, Benjamin Fielding, Henry

Rowlandson, Mary White Defoe, Daniel Defoe, Daniel Defoe, Daniel Defoe, Daniel Defoe, Daniel Defoe, Daniel

Bunyan, John Bunyan, John

123,854 40,293 40,110 13,608 106,870 3,481 22,997 67,921 47,586

10,822 7,611 102,555 36,360 141,813 97,171

BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE AE BE

20,991

77,080 63,701

BE

BE BE

18,413 60,214 102,397

BE BE BE

Bunyan, John Bunyan, John

58,982

BE

Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend Areopagitica, A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England Grace Abounding to Chief of Sinners The Holy War, made by King Shaddai upon Diabolus, for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World; or, The Losing and Taking again of the Town of Mansoul Life and Death of Mr. Badman The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to that which is to Come, Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream Narrative of the Captivity and Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson Dickory Cronke Everybody’s Business is Nobody’s Business The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe From London to Land’s End The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders A Journal of the Plague Year, Written by a Citizen who continued all the while in London Robinson Crusoe Tour through Eastern Counties of England, 1722 Battle of the Books and Other Short Pieces Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers Gulliver’s Travels A Modest Proposal Incognita; or, Love and Duty Reconcil’d Autobiography From This World to the Next

Browne, Thomas Milton, John

n words

V

Title

Author

The list is ordered by the birth-date of the author. PUB

n/a n/a

fict. non-f. fict. non-f. fict. non-f. fict. non-f. fict.

non-f. non-f. fict. non-f. fict. non-f.

n/a 1725 n/a 1710 n/a 1729 n/a n/a 1743

1719 1725 n/a 1725 1683 n/a

non-f. n/a

fict. fict.

non-f. n/a non-f. n/a non-f. n/a

non-f. 1650

G

1661 1661 1667 1667 1667 1667 1670 1706 1707

1661 1661 1661 1661 1661 1661

1637

1628 1628

1608 1628 1628

1605

BD

V BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE AE AE BE AE

Title

Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia The Works of Samuel Johnson, vol. 4 of 16 The Governess [Female Academy] A Sentimental Journey Life of Tristram Shandy The Castle of Otranto The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

Travels through France and Italy

The Twin Hells Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents, and Speeches Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 2 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 4 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 5 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6 She Stoops to Conquer Common Sense Life of Johnson Adventures of Col. Daniel Boone The Federalist Papers

Maria or the Wrongs of Woman

The Life of Gen. Francis Marion

Author

Fielding, Henry Johnson, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Fielding, Sarah Sterne, Laurence Sterne, Laurence Walpole, Horace White, Gilbert Smollett, Tobias George Smollett, Tobias George Reynolds, John N. Burke, Edmund Gibbon, Edward Gibbon, Edward Gibbon, Edward Gibbon, Edward Gibbon, Edward Gibbon, Edward Goldsmith, Oliver Paine, Thomas Boswell, James Filson, John Hamilton, Alexander Wollstonecraft, Mary Weems, Mason Locke 86,774

47,380

70,372 48,684 284,208 312,916 267,616 293,655 275,794 251,062 26,313 22,380 229,896 7,367 201,325

148,331

46,434 38,487 92,831 52,087 43,809 202,576 38,557 88,854 160,662

n words 1754 1759 1752 1749 1765 1759 1764 1789 1771

PUB

1799

n/a 1770 1776 1781 1781 1788 1788 1788 1773 1776 1791 n/a 1787

non-f. n/a

fict.

n/a non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. n/a non-f. non-f. n/a non-f.

non-f. 1766

non-f. fict. non-f. fict. fict. fict. fict. non-f. fict.

G

1759

1759

1723 1729 1737 1737 1737 1737 1737 1737 1737 1737 1740 1747 1757

1721

1707 1709 1709 1710 1713 1713 1717 1720 1721

BD

V BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE AE AE AE AE AE BE AE AE BE BE BE BE

Title

History of Caliph Vathek Bride of Lammermoor Ivanhoe Emma Lady Susan Love and Friendship, et al. Mansfield Park Northanger Abbey Persuasion Pride and Prejudice Sense and Sensibility The Monk

Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion Astoria Little Britain Old Christmas The Adventures of Captain Bonneville The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Maid Marian

Last of the Mohicans

The Pathfinder

Latter-Day Pamphlets Life of John Sterling Sartor Resartus The French Revolution

Author

Beckford, William Scott, Walter Scott, Walter Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Lewis, Matthew Gregory Hazlitt, William Irving, Washington Irving, Washington Irving, Washington Irving, Washington Irving, Washington Peacock, Thomas Love Cooper, James Fenimore Cooper, James Fenimore Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas 77,081 92,544 83,360 319,254

186,695

154,534

33,000 172,061 5,259 17,999 122,593 12,164 37,504

38,092 131,989 202,950 173,650 24,344 35,288 168,188 81,757 87,238 103,958 126,551 145,468

n words

non-f. non-f. fict. non-f.

fict.

fict.

non-f. non-f. n/a non-f. non-f. fict. fict.

fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. n/a

G

1850 1851 1833 1837

1840

1826

1823 1836 n/a n/a n/a 1820 1822

1787 1819 1819 1816 1793 1789 1814 1818 1818 1813 1811 n/a

PUB

1795 1795 1795 1795

1789

1789

1778 1783 1783 1783 1783 1783 1785

1760 1771 1771 1775 1775 1775 1775 1775 1775 1775 1775 1775

BD

Title

Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 1 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 2 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 3 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 4 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 5 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 6 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 7 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 8 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 9 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 10 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 11 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 12 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 13 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 14 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 15 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 16 Carlyle, Thomas History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol. 17 Shelley Wollstone- Frankenstein craft, Mary Macaulay, History of England, James II, vol. 1 Thomas Babington Lee, Robert Edward Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee Lincoln, Abraham Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address Lincoln, Abraham Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Lincoln, Abraham Gettysburg Address Darwin, Charles Expression Emotion in Man & Animals Darwin, Charles On the Origin of Species Darwin, Charles The Voyage of the Beagle Kinglake, Eothen Alexander William

Author 19,821 37,790 56,442 42,615 34,219 41,542 49,960 24,950 60,435 46,690 52,548 77,143 63,568 58,828 78,066 93,746 39,137 78,585 236,988 149,710 3,780 743 323 115,418 160,451 217,650 91,664

BE AE AE AE AE BE BE BE BE

n words

BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE

V n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 1818

PUB

non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. fict.

1863 1861 1865 1863 1872 1859 1839 1844

non-f. 1849

non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. fict.

G

1807 1809 1809 1809 1809 1809 1809 1809

1800

1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1797

BD

V BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE

Title

Life of Charlotte Bronte, vol. 1 Life of Charlotte Bronte, vol. 2 Beacon Lights of History Some Roundabout Papers

The Rose and the Ring

Vanity Fair

A Christmas Carol A Message from the Sea A Tale of Two Cities American Notes Barnaby Rudge, A tale of the Riots of ’80 Bleak House Contributions to: All the Year Round David Copperfield Doctor Marigold Dombey and Son Great Expectations Hard Times Holiday Romance Hunted Down Little Dorrit Martin Chuzzlewit Master Humphrey’s Clock Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings Mugby Junction

Author

Gaskell, Elisabeth C. Gaskell, Elisabeth C. Lord, John Thackeray, William M. Thackeray, William M. Thackeray, William M. Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles 30,479 13,069 145,503 106,999 270,023 380,662 23,618 380,983 12,630 376,310 196,467 110,901 14,154 9,301 359,670 358,190 47,968 12,863 14,885 20,766

377,077

31,436

98,010 90,054 94,111 10,598

n words

fict. fict. fict. non-f. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict.

fict.

fict.

non-f. non-f. non-f. fict.

G

1843 1860 1859 1842 1841 1852 n/a 1849 1865 1848 1860 1854 1868 1860 1855 1843 1841 1864 1863 1866

1847

1855

1857 1857 n/a 1860

PUB

1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812

1811

1811

1810 1810 1810 1811

BD

V BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE

Title

Nicholas Nickleby Oliver Twist Our Mutual Friend Perils of certain English Prisoners Pictures from Italy Sketches of Young Couples Sketches of Young Gentlemen Some Christmas Stories Somebody’s Luggage Speeches: Literary & Social Sunday Under Three Heads The Battle of Life The Chimes The Cricket on the Heath The Holly-Tree The Lamplighter The Mystery of Edwin Drood The Old Curiosity Shop The Pickwick Papers The Seven Poor Travellers The Uncommercial Traveller Three Ghost Stories To Be Read At Dusk Tom Tiddler’s Ground Wreck of the Golden Mary Missionary Travels in South Africa Hunting Sketches North America, vol. 2 The Warden

Author

Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Livingstone, David Trollope, Anthony Trollope, Anthony Trollope, Anthony

342,104 168,184 348,038 20,583 75,304 19,892 18,060 22,036 20,680 80,808 11,427 31,998 33,047 33,880 14,330 7,367 101,117 229,225 325,432 10,598 149,158 22,127 4,881 10,347 13,347 324,412 19,865 148,245 75,226

n words fict. fict. fict. n/a non-f. fict. fict. fict. fict. non-f. n/a fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. n/a fict. fict. fict. n/a non-f. fict. non-f. fict.

G 1839 1837 1865 1857 1846 1840 1838 n/a 1862 n/a n/a 1846 1845 1846 1855 1841 n/a 1840 1837 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 1857 1865 1862 1855

PUB 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1812 1813 1815 1815 1815

BD

V BE BE AE AE AE AE AE AE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE AE AE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE

Title

Jane Eyre The Professor Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass, a Slave My Bondage and My Freedom Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Civil Disobedience Walden Walking Wuthering Heights Adam Bede Middlemarch Silas Marner Sesame and Lilies The King of the Golden River Agnes Grey The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Faraday As A Discoverer Letters from the Cape Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. 1

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. 2

After Dark Armadale The Black Robe The Evil Genius The Frozen Deep The Haunted Hotel I Say No

Author

Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Frederick Thoreau, Henry D. Thoreau, Henry D. Thoreau, Henry D. Bronte, Emily Eliot, George Eliot, George Eliot, George Ruskin, John Ruskin, John Bronte, Anne Bronte, Anne Tyndall, John Duff, Gordon Lucie Grant, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Ulysses Simpson Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie 145,206 318,598 117,191 120,396 31,492 67,604 131,198

162,056

199,382 93,417 8,505 144,883 43,271 9,740 121,798 12,779 123,936 226,152 338,596 74,925 50,635 10,500 71,481 176,815 41,224 39,444 135,402

n words 1847 1845 n/a n/a n/a 1849 1854 n/a 1847 1859 1871 1861 1865 1841 1847 1848 n/a n/a n/a

PUB

fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict.

1856 1866 1881 1886 1857 1878 1884

non-f. n/a

fict. fict. n/a non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. non-f. fict. fict. fict. fict. non-f. non-f. fict. fict. non-f. non-f. non-f.

G

1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824

1822

1816 1816 1817 1817 1817 1817 1817 1817 1818 1819 1819 1819 1819 1819 1820 1820 1820 1821 1822

BD

V BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE AE AE

Title

The Law and the Lady Man and Wife Miss or Mrs? The Moonstone My Lady’s Money The New Magdalena A Rogue’s Life The Two Destinies The Woman in White Autobiography & Selected Essays In Darkest England and The Way Out Alice in Wonderland Silvie and Bruno Through the Looking Glass Flower Fables Little Women Child Christopher A Dream of John Ball The Well At The World’s End Erewhon (Revised Edition) The Education of Henry Adams Jude the Obscure Far From the Madding Crowd The Mayor of Casterbridge A Pair of Blue Eyes The Return of the Native Tess of the d’Urbervilles The Woodlanders Fantastic Fables An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

Author

Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Collins, Wilkie Huxley, Thomas Booth, William Carroll, Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll, Lewis Alcott, Louisa Alcott, Louisa Morris, William Morris, William Morris, William Butler, Samuel Adams, Henry Hardy, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Bierce, Ambrose Bierce, Ambrose

152,613 250,197 33,665 212,168 57,580 110,465 50,767 96,017 263,780 56,569 132,411 28,352 70,561 31,851 35,378 195,568 50,295 32,471 230,996 87,171 187,602 156,625 150,331 124,004 140,944 152,127 159,140 144,273 30,369 4,122

n words fict. fict. fict. fict. n/a fict. n/a fict. fict. non-f. non-f. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. n/a fict. fict. fict. non-f. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict.

G 1875 n/a n/a 1868 n/a n/a n/a n/a 1860 n/a n/a 1865 1889 1872 1855 1868 n/a 1886 n/a 1872 1906 1896 1874 1886 1873 1878 1891 1887 1899 1891

PUB 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1824 1825 1829 1832 1832 1832 1832 1832 1834 1834 1834 1835 1838 1840 1840 1840 1840 1840 1840 1840 1842 1842

BD

V AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE AE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE AE BE BE BE

Title

The Altar of the Dead The Ambassadors The American The Aspern Papers The Beast in the Jungle In the Cage Confidence The Coxon Fund Daisy Miller The Death of the Lion The Europeans The Figure in the Carpet Glasses An International Episode The Jolly Corner The Lesson of the Master The Pupil Roderick Hudson The Turn of the Screw Pagan & Christian Creeds Arabian Nights Essays in Little Letters on Literature Letters to Dead Authors A Monk of Fife The Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot London’s Underworld The Country of the Pointed Firs The Secret Garden

Robert Louis Stevenson Style

Author

James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry James, Henry Carpenter, Edward Lang, Andrew Lang, Andrew Lang, Andrew Lang, Andrew Lang, Andrew Lang, Andrew Holmes, Thomas Jewett, Sarah Orne Burnett, Frances Hodgson Raleigh, Walter Raleigh, Walter 11,090 25,019

15,519 176,665 144,818 41,336 19,865 37,640 82,654 24,229 23,222 15,632 64,827 16,369 20,364 29,360 15,117 26,906 18,729 141,385 46,109 104,095 115,967 61,231 30,740 36,515 110,251 15,725 69,571 44,705 87,526

n words 1898 1903 1877 1888 1903 1898 1879 1894 1878 1894 1878 1896 1896 1879 n/a 1892 1892 1875 1898 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 1912 1896 1909

PUB

non-f. n/a non-f. 1897

fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. fict. non-f. n/a n/a non-f. non-f. n/a non-f. non-f. fict. fict.

G

1861 1861

1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1843 1844 1844 1844 1844 1844 1844 1844 1846 1849 1849

BD

Appendix II David Lee’s genre classification scheme

Written texts: 46 genres Code

Description

W_ac_humanities_arts W_ac_medicine W_ac_nat_science W_ac_polit_law_edu W_ac_soc_science W_ac_tech_engin

academic prose: humanities academic prose: medicine academic prose: natural sciences academic prose: politics law education academic prose: social & behavioural sciences academic prose: technology computing engineering administrative and regulatory texts for inhouse use print advertisements biographies/autobiographies commerce & finance economics e-mail sports discussion list school essays university essays excerpts from two modern drama scripts single- and multiple-author collections of poems novels & short stories Hansard/parliamentary proceedings official/governmental documents/leaflets company annual reports etc.; excludes Hansard instructional texts/DIY personal letters professional/business letters miscellaneous texts TV autocue data broadsheet national newspapers: arts/cultural material broadsheet national newspapers: commerce & finance broadsheet national newspapers: personal & institutional editorials & letters-to-the-editor

W_admin W_advert W_biography W_commerce W_email W_essay_school W_essay_univ W_fict_drama W_fict_poetry W_fict_prose W_hansard W_institut_doc W_instructional W_letters_personal W_letters_prof W_misc W_news_script W_newsp_brdsht_nat_arts W_newsp_brdsht_nat_commerce W_newsp_brdsht_nat_editorial

186 Appendix II Code

Description

W_newsp_brdsht_nat_misc

broadsheet national newspapers: miscellaneous material broadsheet national newspapers: home & foreign news reportage broadsheet national newspapers: science material broadsheet national newspapers: material on lifestyle, leisure, belief & thought broadsheet national newspapers: sports material regional and local newspapers: arts regional and local newspapers: commerce & finance regional and local newspapers: home & foreign news reportage regional and local newspapers: science material regional and local newspapers: material on lifestyle, leisure, belief & thought regional and local newspapers: sports material tabloid newspapers non-academic/non-fiction: humanities non-academic: medical/health matters non-academic: natural sciences non-academic: politics law education non-academic: social & behavioural sciences non-academic: technology computing engineering popular magazines religious texts excluding philosophy

W_newsp_brdsht_nat_report W_newsp_brdsht_nat_science W_newsp_brdsht_nat_social W_newsp_brdsht_nat_sports W_newsp_other_arts W_newsp_other_commerce W_newsp_other_report W_newsp_other_science W_newsp_other_social W_newsp_other_sports W_newsp_tabloid W_non_ac_humanities_arts W_non_ac_medicine W_non_ac_nat_science W_non_ac_polit_law_edu W_non_ac_soc_science W_non_ac_tech_engin W_pop_lore W_religion

Spoken texts: 24 genres Code

Description

S_brdcast_discussn S_brdcast_documentary S_brdcast_news S_classroom S_consult S_conv S_courtroom S_demonstratn S_interview S_interview_oral_history

TV or radio discussions TV documentaries TV or radio news broadcasts non-tertiary classroom discourse mainly medical & legal consultations face-to-face spontaneous conversations legal presentations or debates ‘live’ demonstrations job interviews & other types oral history interviews/narratives some broadcast lectures on economics, commerce & finance lectures on humanities and arts subjects

S_lect_commerce S_lect_humanities_arts

Appendix II 187 Code

Description

S_lect_nat_science S_lect_polit_law_edu S_lect_soc_science S_meeting S_parliament S_pub_debate S_sermon S_speech_scripted

lectures on the natural sciences lectures on politics, law or education lectures on the social & behavioural sciences business or committee meetings BNC-transcribed parliamentary speeches public debates discussions meetings religious sermons planned speech, whether dialogue or monologue more or less unprepared speech, whether dialogue or monologue ‘live’ sports commentaries and discussions university-level tutorials miscellaneous spoken genres

S_speech_unscripted S_sportslive S_tutorial S_unclassified

Notes

1 Introduction 1 2

3 4

For complex prepositions in German, some relevant studies include Benesˇ (1974); Biadun´-Grabarek (1991); Lehmann (1991); and Di Meola (2000). It must, however, be noted that Klégr’s criteria for inclusion are relatively generous. He explains that ‘[t]he study, whose aims were practical rather than theoretical, set out to collect as many examples of [preposition–noun–preposition] sequences as possible regardless of the degree of their grammaticality’. For a description of his approach and a brief overview of relevant research on complex prepositions in English and Czech, see Klégr (2002: 7–32). One notable exception is Krug’s (2000) corpus-based study of English modals. The terms ‘complex preposition’ and ‘PNP-construction’ will be used interchangeably in the present study.

2 Data collection and research methodology 1 One million words corresponds to about eight medium-sized books. 2 Further information about the Project Gutenberg can be found at their official web page at: http://promo.net/pg/. 3 My selection of texts also includes a smaller number of texts from American authors (2.87 million words; approximately 12 per cent). A complete list of the texts is found in Appendix I. 4 A total of 20 texts from authors born in the seventeenth century were not classified into fiction and non-fiction because such a classification would probably have been highly controversial. For instance, Swift’s A Modest Proposal defies a clear-cut classification into fiction or non-fiction. 5 Footnotes and other comments added by editors were deleted as far as they were possible to detect. 6 For example, the passival the house is building which was common in the seventeenth century but today is clearly ungrammatical could conceivably have been corrected to the house is being built. (See Visser (1963–73: 2004–19) and Denison (1993: 389–93, 408–10) for further information on the use of the passival in English.) 7 For example, adjectives and nouns ending in -ick which today would be spelled -ic are quite common in the earlier Gutenberg texts. In texts by authors who were born before the year 1800, these are the most frequent types: publick (157), musick (35), physick (27), topick (25), critick (24) and domestick (23). 8 The first fascicle of the OED – then still called The New English Dictionary – appeared in 1884. At the time of completion in 1928, the dictionary covered

Notes

9

10

11

12

13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22

189

ten volumes and contained a total of 214,165 entries. This first edition was reprinted in 1933 in 12 volumes under the new name, Oxford English Dictionary. The year 1933 also saw the completion of a first supplement to the OED, which added a further 28,722 entries and which was appended to the first complete republication. The top-20 periodicals by citation in the OED (first edition) covered about 80,000 quotations (4.4 per cent of the total of 1,827,306 quotations). Willinsky (1994: 209ff.) presents a number of tables containing detailed statistics on the composition of the OED quotations database. As Willinsky (1994: 11) notes, ‘[t]he OED will always represent something of the times in which it is being edited, as it absorbs common concerns about the state of the language’. He devotes a whole chapter entitled ‘The Sense of Omission’ to the many other limitations in the range of illustrative OED quotations (see Willinsky 1994: 176ff.). In addition, regional differences are difficult to capture since the bibliographical information given for individual quotations is often relatively sparse. In her study of the influence of American English on Australian and British English, Peters (2001: 306) makes extensive use of the OED quotations database. She describes the difficulties she faced because ‘[t]he sources to which [the quotations] were attributed were often enigmatic, just a name and initial, plus date: S. E. White 1901. The OED bibliography adds only title of publication but not publisher, so it remains unclear what regional variety they represent.’ Since a clean text version of the full quotations database was not available, only data for selected years can be presented. In order to calculate the figures presented in Table 2.2, all of the quotations in a particular year (or a sequence of years when the number of quotations was too low) first had to be exported to a text file. The slightly lower figure for the year 1951 is not a coincidence. All of the other years checked also showed similarly low percentages. This appears to be a reflection of different editorial practices for the second edition of the OED. A second possible explanation is that the funds available to the editors were considerably increased. In the introduction to the second edition of the OED, the total number of printed words is given as 59 million. This figure of course includes all definitions, etymological information, spelling variants etc. At the time of writing, the most complete and updated list of available corpora was David Lee’s web page (http://devoted.to/corpora). Aston and Burnard (1998) is based on the first release of the BNC. While their general information about the structure and contents of the corpus is still relevant, some of the word-totals given for individual metatextual categories may differ considerably from what is found in the World Edition. The term s-unit is largely synonymous with the concept of a sentence. Lee (2001: 54) further remarks that the two-million-word BNC sampler is neither a representative subset of the whole BNC nor of the English language because it was compiled on the basis of these very broad text domains. See also Diller (2001), who reviews a range of approaches to the concept of ‘genre’. The complete list of Lee’s genre classification scheme can be found in Appendix II. The individual elements of this regular expression have the following meaning: \s \S

a whitespace character (space, tab or newline character) a non-whitespace character, e.g. all letters, numbers and punctuation marks \S one or more non-whitespace characters

190 Notes {x,y} between x and y instances of the element contained in the preceding bracket \b a word-boundary For further information on Perl and regular expressions, see Wall et al. (2000). 23 The search for need of would of course also result in a very high level of recall. However, this would not retrieve instances of the PNP-construction where an intervening item occurs after the nominal element need. This could, for example, be the case in spoken language when a filled pause – or some other kind of hesitation marker – is inserted between the two lexical items. Also, a search for the lexical item need would of course miss those instances where need is spelled incorrectly or where it is used in an earlier variant of the word (e.g. nede, which was common from the eleventh to the sixteenth century). 24 The Perl script processes each line of a text file individually. If the format of such a text file is one sentence per line, the scope of a regular expression search is thus limited to only one sentence. 25 The part-of-speech information is vital for the retrieval of grammatical patterns. A second converted version of the BNC was therefore created in which the part-of-speech information was not discarded but attached to the word. Sentence (i) displays the converted format: (i) If_CJS you_PNP need_VVB increased_AJ0 quality_NN1 intermsof_PRP output_NN1 resolution_NN1 it_PNP is_VBZ vital_AJ0 to_TO0 look_VVI for_PRP products_NN2 that_CJT will_VM0 connect_VVI to_PRP true_AJ0 typesetting_AJ0_NN1 equipment_NN1 ._PUN 26 There is a limit of two megabytes for the resulting text file. Since a file of this size will contain more than 10,000 quotations, this limitation does not greatly restrict searches for the present study. 3 Complex prepositions: indivisible units or free constructions? 1 A notable exception is Jespersen (1909–49) who hardly treats prepositions at all. 2 In any case, he uses the word preposition only in his discussion of the invariable PNP-constructions. 3 For a similar approach towards complex prepositions in German, see Benesˇ (1974). 4 See also, for example, Biber et al. (1999: 76): ‘As variability is a matter of degree, it is impossible to establish a clear borderline between free combinations and complex prepositions.’ 5 The authors admit, however, that as a consequence of fossilization ‘there may be some indeterminacy as to the correct syntactic analysis in some cases’ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 622). 6 The ellipsis test is also referred to as the sentence fragment test (see, for example, Radford 1997: 107). 7 For example, Radford (1997: 102–10) makes no mention of the interpolation test in his section on ‘testing structure’. 8 It is a well-known fact that judgements of grammaticality and/or acceptability are unstable and inherently unreliable indicators. For a comprehensive overview of the issues involved and the implications for linguistic methodology, see Schütze (1996). 9 While many parenthetical expressions are delimited by commas, this is unfortunately not consistently the case.

Notes

191

10 This observation is also confirmed by Maclay and Osgood’s (1959) quantitative study of hesitation phenomena in spontaneous interaction. 11 Figure 3.4 also contains a fifth possibility to be discussed below. 12 A similar view is expressed in Bolinger (1961), who also questions the validity of an exclusively generative view of grammar: At present we have no way of telling the extent to which a sentence like I went home is a result of invention, and the extent to which it is a result of repetition, countless speakers before us having already said it and transmitted it to us in toto. Is grammar something where speakers ‘produce’ (i.e. originate) constructions, or where they ‘reach for’ them, from a preestablished inventory, when the occasion presents itself? . . . Probably grammar is both of these things. (Bolinger 1961: 381) 4 Grammaticalization and complex prepositions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8

See Crystal (2001) for a comprehensive overview of the influence of the Internet on today’s language use and Lehrer (1998) on the prefix cyber- in particular. Compare the seventeenth-century usage of the passive progressive as in the house was building with its present-day realization the house was being built. The term ‘grammaticization’ is used by some authors to express the same concept (e.g. Bybee et al. 1994). Some relevant works mentioned by Heine et al. (1991) are Condillac (1746), Bopp (1816), Humboldt (1825) and Schlegel (1818). For a concise overview of the issues at hand, see also Heine (2003). A typical example of layering is the above-mentioned construction be going to which can express both spatial meaning and futurity in Present-day English. In the BNC, there are 48 instances where the nominal element view is premodified by an adjective (46 occurrences of in full view of plus one each of in public view of and in clear view of). In all of these cases, in view of carries a literal sense referring to aspects of vision (cf. the above-mentioned concept of layering, which allows for different stages of grammaticalization to coexist). A similar view is expressed, for example, by Newmeyer (1998: 237ff. and 2001) and Fischer et al. (2000: 292).

5 Complex prepositions: a diachronic overview 1 Since grammaticalization is generally thought of as a gradual process, the dates given in Table 5.1 should only be interpreted as very rough indications. 2 In addition, there is a tendency for substitutive in the place of in Present-day English to emphasize the locational dimension of the situation where one entity is replaced by another. Thus, (i) is more typical than (ii): (i) Most of us are used to the familiar Baker Street landmark now, its squat green (copper) dome topped with a disconcertingly transparent Saturn in the place of a weather vane. (BNC: B73: 2103) (ii) By that stage, you should feel totally at home with your new diet and confident that you can maintain it as a lifestyle with ease in the place of your former diet. (BNC: FEX: 1360) 3 The next instance of this type of use is, however, not found until the year 1634 – a date which lies well within the time-span postulated by Schwenter and Traugott for this type of usage (i.e. Early Modern English):

192 Notes (iii) In place of solyd walls, it is ingirt with liquid moats or trenches. (OED, 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. [1638] 179; solid a.) 4 One of the difficulties in finding very early examples of PNP-constructions in the OED quotations is constituted by the great range of known spelling variants for their individual lexical items. In order to retrieve most, if not all, relevant instances, a whole range of potential combinations was searched for (e.g. be wei of, bi wei of, be weye of, etc.). 5 This situation is mirrored in present-day usage as represented by the BNC: There are only 13 instances of by the way of in the written component of the BNC and only four of these express a concrete spatial movement. 6 In French, the earlier construction par la vertu de was replaced by en vertu de in the second half of the seventeenth century. 7 There is, however, a danger of being misled by the fact that the range of topics discussed in Middle English texts is much more limited than in modern writings. For example, the text domain ‘Belief and thought’ accounts for a much larger proportion of the extant text collections than is the case in later centuries. 8 As Rissanen (2002) shows, in spite of became more frequent than notwithstanding only in the nineteenth century. 9 The earliest recorded instance of in despit of is, at the same time, the oldest OED quotation containing the noun despit(e). As Rissanen (2002: 193–4) notes, ‘[i]t is, indeed, possible that English borrowed not only the noun from French but also the pattern for the prepositional idiom which lies behind the Present-day French en dépit de.’ 10 In the case of sentence (29), the concessive reading is perhaps the more probable candidate. 11 In addition to these idiomatic expressions pertaining to features of the face, the OED quotations contain three examples of the phrase in spite of spite which date from 1592, 1622 and 1855. The most recent of these is shown in (iv): (iv) His face, as I grant, in spite of spite, Has a broad-blown comeliness. (OED, 1855 Tennyson Maud i. xiii. i; spite n.) I have not found a convincing hypothesis as to the exact meaning and usage of these constructions. 12 The original Middle English version reads as follows: (v)

13 14 15 16

Pilke chylum spredep porwe al pe lyffere by mene of veynes Capillares. (OED, c.1400 Lanfrancís Cirurg 27; liver n.)

Chyle is ‘the white milky fluid formed by the action of the pancreatic juice and the bile on the chyme, and contained in the lymphatics of the intestines, which are hence called lacteals’ (OED, sense I). Interestingly, the quotation in (v) predates the first occurrence given under this word’s entry in the OED by about 140 years. In fact, the earliest recorded instance of respect in the OED is from c.1325 and contains the construction in respecte of (cf. the OED entries for adubment and respect, sense I.3.a). Interestingly, a similar development is found in French, where the original meaning ‘in comparison with’ disappears towards the end of the seventeenth century. Both Quirk et al. (1985) and Biber et al. (1999) include in need of among their lists of complex prepositions. In the OED, however, in need of is not specifically mentioned as a phrase. This situation is mirrored in the Gutenberg Corpus: the first occurrence of

Notes

17 18

19 20

193

another verb before in need of is found in The Twin Hells by John N. Reynolds, whose year of birth is 1723. Table 5.4 lists lemma forms rather than individual lexical items, i.e. the different word-forms of the verbs in question (e.g. stand, stands, standing, stood) are grouped together and are referred to by their base form. On closer scrutiny, the dominance of the verb to be as collocate of in need of is even more pronounced than is suggested by the ranking of verbs shown in Table 5.4. For instance, both may and might (positions 4 and 8 in the table) exclusively occur in combination with the verb to be (e.g. may be in need of ) and they therefore cannot be counted as autonomous verb collocates of PNPconstruction under consideration. The OED lists two further obsolete phrases: of his behalf (sense II.3) and to or for the behalf (sense II.4). Given the scarcity of relevant quotations before the year 1700, it could be argued that the PNP-construction on top of should have been included among the group of most recently formed complex prepositions (cf. Table 5.1). Its categorization as a member of Group 2 constructions was motivated by the fact that the two early occurrences before the year 1700 already display the typical usage found in later centuries. As a case in point, consider (vi): (vi) Some lead the groaning waggons, loaded high, With stuff, on top of which the Maidens ly. (OED, 1635–56 Cowley Davideis iii. 220; stuff n.)

21 Notice, however, that – contrary to over – on top of requires the two entities involved to be contiguous. 22 However, sense 13.d of the noun common in the OED is concerned with the phrase in common whose (now obsolete) meaning is given as ‘in joint use or possession; to be held or enjoyed equally by a number of persons’. Only two quotations are given before the year 1500, the later of which is shown in (vii): (vii) Whanne wille and goodis ben in comune. (OED, c.1400 Rom. Rose 5209; common n.) When inclinations and possessions are shared. 23 This strong link is also visible in terms of absolute frequencies: the verb use precedes in conjunction with in 172 sentences in the written component of the BNC (i.e. in 14 per cent of the total of 1,230 instances). 24 The two strongest verb collocates of in favour of – in a window of one to four words to the left of the construction – are to be and to vote. Their standard uses reflect the patterns shown in (48) and (49). 25 Depending on the verb, the opposite is of course also possible, as shown in (viii): (viii) States should abandon national economic protectionism in favour of international free trade, for unimpeded operation of the market, it was claimed, was the key to global prosperity and hence conducive to peace. (BNC: GV5: 1378) Here, the first element carries the negative connotation. Other verbs typically found in this type of construction are (in order of their collocational strength): discard, ignore, neglect, forsake, renounce and sacrifice. 26 A similar observation is made by Schwenter and Traugott (1995: 252) for the complex preposition instead of. They note a recent development towards the metalinguistic use of this very old construction which consequently makes sentences such as it rained instead of snowed possible. 27 Relation was also found at about the same time as a learned borrowing directly from Latin relationem (nominative relatio) referring to ‘the action of relating in

194 Notes words; narration, recital, account; report’. (OED, sense 1.a) It could be argued that this usage is expressing a somewhat less abstract concept than sense 3.a. However, no traces of this meaning can be found in the early records of in relation to. 28 For a related interpretation, see Bailey and Maroldt (1977: 32–3), who view Middle English as the result of a process of creolization. The exact relationship between language contact and the grammaticalization of English complex prepositions clearly requires further scholarly attention. 29 There are a few earlier instances of in the front of in the OED quotations. However, they either refer to a military front or to parts of buildings (e.g. the front of a church). In addition, no instances with an adjectival premodifier are attested in the OED quotations. Such rivalling forms are extremely rare in Present-day English, too, where only two such instances (e.g. in immediate front of) are found in the BNC. 30 Between 1850 and 1859, only one single instance is attested in 81,141 quotations. By the 1880s, the PNP-construction has reached a frequency of 19 instances per 100,000 quotations. This figure is only slightly higher in the first part of the twentieth century (between 22 and 36 instances per 100,000 quotations). 6 Complex prepositions in Present-day English 1 The part-of-speech tagging of the BNC was carried out at Lancaster University using the general-purpose tagger CLAWS (cf. Leech et al. 1994; Leech and Smith 2000b). The first step of the tagging process involves tokenization, i.e. the division of the text into individual word tokens and orthographic sentences. However, the tokenization of PNP-constructions as multi-word units (having single tags) was not carried out with full consistency. For example, of the set of 30 most frequent complex prepositions used for the present study, by virtue of, in contrast to and by reference to did not receive a single preposition tag. With reference to, conversely, which occurs less frequently than by reference to (383 versus 654 instances in the whole BNC) was assigned the status of a multi-word unit. With regard to the retrieval of relevant constructions for the present study, these inconsistencies were taken into account and the search algorithms were adapted accordingly. For further information on multi-word units, see Leech and Smith (2000c). 2 I also manually discarded all 39 occurrences of on top of in ‘to be on Top of the Pops’, which refers to the popular British TV show dedicated to the latest pop songs. 3 The texts of the genre ‘S_conv’ are co-extensive with the spoken demographic domain. 4 For a brief overview of the issues at hand, see Ainsworth-Vaughn (2001). 5 A completely different view is formulated in Fowler’s (1965) vehement condemnation of the class of complex prepositions. In his opinion, they are: almost the worst element in modern English, stuffing up what is written with a compost of nouny abstractions. To young writers the discovery of these forms of speech, which are used very little in talk and very much in print, brings an expansive sense of increased power; they think they have acquired with far less trouble than they expected the trick of dressing up what they may have to say in the right costume for public exhibition. Later they know better, and realize that it is feebleness instead of power that they have been developing; but by that time the fatal ease that the [complex

Notes

195

preposition] style gives (to the writer, that is) has become too dear to be sacrificed. (Fowler 1965: 102)

6

7

8 9 10

11 12 13

Such an interpretation of complex prepositional usage goes beyond the basic distinction made in the current chapter between formal and informal use. Rather, we are here concerned with much more subtle aspects of stylistic and pragmatic variation. This is also true for in respect of: although 22 instances are found in the spoken demographic part (5.2 pmw), 20 of these are from text KPA, which is a recording of a teacher and her class rehearsing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The sentence ‘Truly sir, in respect of a fine workman I am but as you would say a cobbler’ is referred to once and read out 19 times (and therefore annotated with the label ‘Voice quality: reading’). I decided to discard these 19 instances, which reduces the frequency of in respect of in the spoken demographic part to 0.7 pmw. This a good example of the methodological pitfalls involved in unquestioningly relying on descriptive statistics. ‘Professional/business letters’ (W_letters_prof) is the only genre where a radical difference in frequency can be found: While it ranks among the top-ten genres for the whole set of 30 PNP-constructions, it does not contain a single instance of in relation to. Again, given that the genre is constituted by a relatively small number of texts (11 texts with a total of only 66,031 words), this absence of the complex preposition in relation to should not be overrated. In search of is, however, not the most extreme case. Of the total of 877 instances of in contrast to in the BNC, only two are found in the spoken component (context-governed domain). These frequencies refer to the number of occurrences of the word search which are not preceded by in and followed by of. In other words, the two sets of data are mutually exclusive. The only other PNP-construction which displays a similarly high proportion of use in spoken language (141 pmw versus 99 pmw in the written component of the BNC) is in terms of. Both in front of and on behalf of are equivalently frequent in spoken and written language. The unit in terms of will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 8. Of course, I do not wish to imply that the connection between the linguistic sign and the concept it expresses is direct and therefore fixed. As Esser (1993: 25) remarks, Quirk et al.’s concept of a cline between formal and informal language use goes back to Joos (1961), who introduces the following five ‘styles’: frozen, formal, consultative, casual, intimate. Leech and Svartvik (1975: 28–31) offer a whole range of typical constructions of formal and informal style. In the second edition of their Communicative Grammar, however, they note that establishing the precise degree of formality is sometimes a controversial undertaking: One reason for this vagueness is that formality, as a scale, can be applied on the one hand to aspects of the situation in which communication takes place, and on the other hand to features of language which correlate with those aspects. There is a two-way relation here: not only does situation influence the choice of language, but choice of language influences situation – or, more precisely, the nature of the situation as perceived by the speaker and hearer. Thus, someone answering the phone with the question To whom am I speaking? would, by that very utterance, establish a more formal relationship with the other speaker than if the question had been Who am I speaking to? (Leech and Svartvik 1996: 31)

196 Notes 14 For further information on the frequency of different types of contrastive links in spoken and written language, see Altenberg (1986). See also Tottie’s (1986) notes on the low frequency of adverbials of concession in spoken English. 15 Two further prepositions with a concessive meaning are regardless of and irrespective of. However, they are not semantically equivalent to the three chosen prepositions and have therefore not been included. Consider (i) and (ii), where in spite of or despite could clearly not be used instead: (i) (ii)

The health service has genuinely noble ideals: it provides excellent treatment irrespective of income. (BNC: ABU: 719) In the future people will be selected for posts on merit, regardless of gender or race. (BNC: AJD: 205)

16 With a log-likelihood value of 85, it is ranked 93 on the list for despite.

7 In terms of : a new discourse marker 1 In the case of the second occurrence of in terms of in s-unit 1097, such an interpretation is less obvious since it is fully integrated into the grammatical structure of the utterance. However, as I have argued above, even this use of in terms of must be seen in the light of the apparent production problems experienced by the speaker. 2 For a discussion of like and its various discourse-specific functions, see Romaine and Lange (1991), Andersen (1996) and Siegel (2002). 3 As Romaine and Lange (1991: 260) note, a similar development can, for example, be observed for why which develops from ‘a question or interrogative element to a complementizer to a hearer-engaging discourse marker’. This can be seen in (i) to (iii): Why didn’t John come? [interrogative and propositional] She couldn’t understand why John hadn’t come. [complementizer and textual] (iii) If you have any trouble, why, just feel free to get in touch with me. [discourse marker and interpersonal] (examples from Romaine and Lange 1991: 260) (i) (ii)

4 In assigning a floor-keeping function to in terms of, I do not wish to exclude contexts such as monologues or other types of interaction where the current speaker’s right to the floor is not likely to be constantly contested. Even in such discourse contexts, however, speakers will generally strive to create a coherent and uninterrupted stretch of text. Difficulties in producing such a well-formed text are likely to result in the application of similar strategies as in the case of dyadic interaction. 5 This tendency of hesitation phenomena to occur in clusters is also noted in Walker’s (1985: 67) study of spoken language produced within a legal context. 6 In fact, filled pauses are among the strongest collocates of in terms of in the spoken component of the BNC. 7 Mahl’s (1956) early study of hesitation phenomena (which he referred to as ‘speech disturbances’) describes a correlation between the number of hesitations and the level of anxiety of a speaker. Although his findings are based on conversations between a psychotherapist and his patients and therefore pertain to a radically different usage setting than business meetings, they confirm that extralinguistic factors have a measurable influence on the production of speech. 8 The second instance of in terms of in s-unit 146, however, is best described as a hesitation marker.

Notes

197

9 In general, discourse markers are thought to be characterized by a lack of propositional meaning. However, the exact degree of this semantic emptiness is debated in the literature. For a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of discourse markers, see Brinton (1996, Chapter 2). 10 In the conversation with the tenant, the power differential between the two participants in the discourse is likely to be more pronounced than in the case of the interview with the worker at the law centre. It can be safely assumed that this difference in the degree of asymmetry will have an influence on the interviewer’s ease in manoeuvring the direction of the talk towards a discussion of those topics which are on his or her agenda. The strategies for initiating topic shift are therefore likely to differ depending on the type of conversational partner. 8 Are low-frequency complex prepositions grammaticalized? 1 One of the two remaining instances is a pseudo-transcription of a stretch of Norfolk dialect, with dint representing the standard English didn’t. The second instance occurs in a poem and has the meaning ‘a mark or impression made by a blow or by pressure’ (OED, dint n., sense 3). 2 The German original reads as follows: ‘Die eigentliche Ursache für die Veränderung des Usus ist nichts anderes als die gewöhnliche Sprechtätigkeit.’ 3 However, Grice remarks that this would ‘require special justification’ (Grice 1975: 58). 4 See also the discussion of the change from root meaning to epistemic possibility of the English modal may in Bybee et al.: This means that in a substantial number of cases, the hearer is entitled to infer a sense of epistemic possibility along with the literally expressed root possibility sense. We do not know how frequent the cases where such inferences are appropriate must be before the inference becomes part of the meaning, but the frequency of such cases in [the Middle English text Sir Gawain and the Green Knight] suggests that the inferential mechanism is highly likely to be involved in this case of a shift to epistemic meaning. (Bybee et al. 1994: 198) 5 A similar view is expressed in Greenberg (1966: 69): ‘Frequency [. . .] is in fact an ever present and powerful factor in the evolution of grammatical categories and thus helps in explaining the types of synchronic states actually found.’ 6 For an overview of these methodological considerations, see Ball (1994). 7 The stylistic differences caused by such a replacement may of course be considerable. 8 See also Hunston (2002: 194–5) for a brief discussion of the difference between cultural salience and frequency. 9 Consider, for example, the well-known fact that the idiom kick the bucket is very rare in actual language use but nevertheless certainly belongs to the inventory of prefabricated sequences. 10 There are of course also corpora which include complete texts, e.g. the Bank of English. 11 With 40,000 words, the target sample size for the BNC is quite large (cf. Burnard 2000: 6). However, the methodological limitation in connection with low-frequency items is nevertheless relevant. 12 This observation is even more relevant when the diachronic study of different text types or genres is concerned. See also Rissanen’s (1989) ‘mystery of vanishing reliability’. 13 With the help of a simple Google-search of the Internet, however, counter-

198 Notes

14

15 16 17 18

examples can easily be found (e.g. in loving remembrance of, in apparent readiness for). Even in the case of the largely fossilized by dint of, variants such as by the dint of or by sheer dint of are quite frequently attested. The information contained in Table 8.3 can thus only offer tentative support for the unit-like status of the PNP-constructions under consideration and must be complemented by other quantitative evidence. Lee’s classification scheme consists of 46 categories for the written component of the BNC. My eight categories were formed by collapsing several of the more specific sub-genres into larger super-genres (e.g. ‘W_fict_drama’, ‘W_fict_poetry’ and ‘W_fict_prose’ were merged to form my category ‘Fiction’). One of the exceptions is by return of, which strongly collocates with post. It is important to note that ‘acceptable’ does not necessarily equal ‘grammatical’. Interestingly, the list does not contain by dint of, which is clearly much more fossilized than many of the included items. One promising avenue of research would be to supplement low-frequency data with data received via elicitation tests (see for example the multi-method approach described in de Mönnink 2000).

9 Conclusion 1 See also Haspelmath (2004) for a discussion of the important difference between degrammaticalization and antigrammaticalization.

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Author index

Aarts, F. 107 Aarts, J. 162–3, 198n Aijmer, K. 127–8, 153 Ainsworth-Vaughn, N. 194n Akimoto, M. 1 Altenberg, B. 196n Andersen, G. 196n Aston, G. 18, 189n Atkinson, D. 7 Bailey, C.-J. N. 194n Ball, C. N. 108, 197n Barth, D. 111 de Beaugrande, R. 161 Benesˇ, E. 188n, 190n Berg, D. L. 11, 13 Bertoncini, E. 147 Biadun´-Grabarek, H. 188n Biber, D. 6, 7, 19, 38, 43, 96, 155–6, 161, 163, 190n, 192n Bolinger, D. L. 191n Bopp, F. 191n Bowen, R. 1, 4, 26, 31–4, 35, 36, 38, 39–40, 42, 45, 46, 47–9, 50, 53, 166, 168 Brightland, J. 26 Brinton, L. J. 129, 197n Brown, G. 127 Bryant, M. 194n Burnard, L. 17, 18, 20, 189n, 197n Butterworth, B. 43 Bybee, J. L. 146, 147, 148, 149, 191n, 197n Campbell, L. 58, 172 Chafe, W. 43 Chomsky, N. 34, 52 Christiansen, T. 190n Clark, E. V. 43–4

Clark, H. H. 43–4 Claudi, U. 52–3, 93, 146–7, 170, 191n Condillac, E. B. de 191n Conrad, S. 7, 38, 96, 161, 163, 190n, 192n Croft, W. 51, 151 Crystal, D. 191n Davidson, A. 102 Denison, D. 188n Detges, U. 146 Di Meola, C. 188n Di Micello, P. 8 Diller, H.-J. 189n Earle, J. 27–8 Edmondson, W. 127 Eggins, S. 19 Erman, B. 129 Esser, J. 195n Ferguson, Ch. 19 Finegan, E. 7, 38, 96, 161, 163, 190n, 192n Fischer, O. 172, 191n Fowler, H. W. 194–5n Fries, U. 7 Garside, R. 194n Gildon, Ch. 26 Givón, T. 27, 43 Goldman-Eisler, F. 43 Greatbatch, D. 134 Greenbaum, S. 1, 3, 28–30, 31, 32, 38, 40, 108–9, 113, 140, 141, 157, 166, 171, 192n, 195n Greenberg, J. H. 147, 197n Grice, H. P. 144, 197n

210 Author index de Haan, P. 107 Haegeman, L. 33 Haiman, J. 145, 146 Haspelmath, M. 58–9, 198 Heine, B. 52–3, 93, 146–7, 170, 191n Heritage, J. 134 Hoffmann, S. 98, 101, 174 Hopper, P. J. 53, 54, 55, 58, 68, 147 Horn, L. R. 144 Huddleston, R. 30–1, 50, 190n Humboldt, W. von 191n Hundt, M. 51 Hünnemeyer, F. 52–3, 93, 146–7, 170, 191n Hunston, S. 197n Hyland, K. 174

Mahl, G. F. 196n Mair, Chr. 51 Markus, M. 7 Maroldt, K. 194n Martin, J. R. 19 Mätzner, E. 26 Maxwell, M. 163 Maynard, D. W. 100–1 Meillet, A. 52 Mindt, D. 35, 96 de Mönnink, I. 198n Mulholland, J. 1, 29 Murray, J. A. H. 9 Murray, L. 26

Jespersen, O. 190n Johansson, S. 7, 9, 38, 96, 161, 163, 190n, 192n Joos, M. 195n Joseph, B. D. 172 Jucker, A. H. 9

Ochs, E. 43 Orwant, J. 190n Osgood, Ch. E. 191n

van Kemenade, A. 172, 191n Keränen, J. 7 Klégr, A. 1, 188n König, E. 111 Koopman W. 172, 191n Kotsinas, U.-B. 129 Krug, M. 129, 144, 145–6, 147–8, 188n Kruisinga, E. 28 Kurylowicz, J. 52 Kytö, M. 7 Labov, W. 110 Lakov, G. 127 Langacker, R. W. 57, 145 Lange, D. 196n Lee, D. Y. W. 19, 20, 73, 97, 98–9, 160, 173, 185–7, 189n Leech, G. 1, 3, 7, 17, 28–30, 31, 32, 38, 40, 96, 108–9, 113, 140, 141, 157, 161, 163, 166, 171, 190n, 192n, 194n, 195n Lehmann, Chr. 157, 159, 188n Lehrer, A. 191n Levin, M. 16 Lindquist, H. 16 Lowth, R. 26 Lutz, R. 102 McEnery, T. 154 Maclay, H. 191n

Newmeyer, F. J. 172, 191n

Pagliuca, W. 191n, 197n Palander-Collin, M. 7 Paul, H. 144–5 Pawley, A. 49, 50, 59, 79, 145 Perkins, R. 191n, 197n Peters, P. 189n Priestley, J. 26 Pullum, G. K. 30–1, 50, 190n Quirk, R. 1, 3, 28–30, 31, 32, 38, 40, 108–9, 113, 140, 141, 157, 166, 171, 192n, 195n Radford, A. 33, 190n Rayson, P. 96 Rissanen, M. 7, 76, 113, 174, 192n, 197n Rohdenburg, G. 102, 173 Romaine, S. 196n Sapir, E. 51 Schiffrin, D. 127, 128 Schlegel, A. W. von 191n Schmied, J. 7 Schourup, L. C. 127 Schütze, C. T. 190n Schwenter, S. A. 1, 63–6, 69, 77, 95–6, 191n, 192n Seppänen, A. 1, 4, 26, 31–4, 35, 36, 38, 39–40, 42, 45, 46, 47–9, 50, 53, 166, 168 Siegel, M. E. A. 196n Sinclair, J. McH. 10, 50, 59, 169

Author index 211 Smith, N. 17, 194n Sobkowiak, W. 151 Stenström, A.-B. 127 Svartvik, J. 1, 3, 28–30, 31, 32, 38, 40, 108–9, 113, 140, 141, 157, 166, 171, 192n, 195n Sweet, H. 27 Sweetser, E. E. 147 Syder, F. H. 49, 50, 59, 79, 145 Taylor, J. R. 147 Thompson, S. 147 Tottie, G. 196n Traugott, E. C. 1, 53, 55, 58, 63–6, 69, 77, 95–6, 129, 130, 147, 191n, 192n Trotta, J. 1, 4, 26, 31–4, 35, 36, 38, 39–40, 42, 45, 46, 47–9, 50, 53, 166, 168

Visser, F. Th. 188n Walker, A. G. 196n Wall, L. 190n Waltereit, R. 146 Weber, Chr. 35, 96 Willinsky, J. 11, 189n Wilson, A. 96, 154 Wilson, K. G. 70 Wray, A. 152 van der Wurff, W. 172, 191n Yorio, C. A. 152–3

Subject index

abstract (meaning/reference) 54, 58, 60, 68–9, 71, 75, 77, 81, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 169–70 acceptability 162, 190n adjectival premodification 21, 25–6, 56, 78, 83, 85–6, 157–8, 168, 191n, 194n analogy 57; see also grammaticalization, by analogy ARCHER (A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers) 7–8 British National Corpus (BNC) 7, 17–20, 22; genres 19–20; imaginative vs informative texts 17; part-ofspeech tagging 17, 194n; text domains 18 by means of 23, 62, 76, 103 by reference to 23, 62, 91–2, 105, 153 by virtue of 23, 62, 71–4; collocates of 72–3 by way of 23, 62, 67–71, 103, 169–70 choice (linguistic) 102, 109, 111, 149, 151–2, 156, 167 cognitive representation of grammatical structure 3, 5, 149, 167–8 competence 52, 162 complex prepositions: constructions analysed 3; distribution over genres 99; do not exist 33; domain-specific use 105; in fiction vs non-fiction texts 98; formal vs informal contexts 99–102; frequency list of 23; general distribution 97–8; gradient nature of grammatical category 28–9; in grammars 26–31; as grammatical category/class 1, 50; and grammaticalization 169–72; idiolectal preferences 117–18;

internal structure 36, 46, 48, 50; as loan translation 72; low-frequency 140–65, 172; metalinguistic use 65, 193n; retrieval from memory 2, 26, 44, 46, 168; as (syntactic) units 1, 25, 34, 37, 39, 44, 48, 50, 96, 107, 153, 158, 166–9; syntactic evidence against 31–3 complexity principle 102, 173 conceptual frequency see frequency, conceptual concessive 105–6, 108, 110–11 concrete/literal (meaning/reference) 53–6, 58, 60, 67, 68–9, 71, 76, 77, 81, 88, 91, 94, 169–70 constituency tests: coordination 32–3, 35–9, 166–7; ellipsis 32–3, 48–9; fronting 32–3, 46–8; interpolation 32–3, 34, 39–42; validity of 34 context-induced reinterpretation 56, 60, 67, 72, 75, 85, 93, 170 coordination 32–3, 35–9, 166–7; correlative 38–9, 167 corpus/corpora: vs collections of citations 10; comparing data from different corpora 16; data format 22; definition 10; historical 7; and intuition 161–4; qualitative vs quantitative analysis 154–5; representativeness 6, 11, 155–6; and the study of low-frequency phenomena 154–64 correlative coordination see coordination, correlative decategorialization 56–7, 65, 81, 168 degrammaticalization 170 discourse markers 127, 129, 132, 197n doctor-patient interaction 100–1

Subject index 213 ellipsis 32–3, 48–9 entrenchment 56, 145, 147, 148–9, 153, 171 filled pauses 43–6, 131–2, 167; distribution of 45–6 formal vs informal language use 108–9, 111, 195n frequency: as absolute variable 148; conceptual 107–10, 111, 149, 156, 171; conserving effect 147; effect on French liaison 146; importance in grammaticalization 144–8; as indicator of level of grammaticalization 147; interpretation of counts 151; linguistic vs extralinguistic 151; vs normalcy 162–3; vs saliency 151–2; and statistical significance 155; status of 34–5; textual 149, 156, 171 fronting 32–3, 46–8 generalization 54, 73, 75, 78, 83, 122, 147, 168 genre 19, 185–7 gerund 65–6, 69–70, 76 gradience 2, 4, 28, 50, 59, 170 grammaticalization: by analogy 4, 86, 92–3, 94, 152–4, 171–2; critics of 172; definition of 52; as epiphenomenon 58, 172; as gradual change/development 53, 60, 61, 170; of in view of 53–9; parameters 157; source concepts 146–7 Gutenberg Corpus 7, 8–9, 22, 175–84 hedges 40, 127–8, 174 Helsinki Corpus 7–8 hesitation 2, 43–4, 127, 130–2, 134, 137, 167–8, 196n idiolectal preferences 117–18, 137–8 idiom principle 50 in accordance with 23, 47, 62, 91, 92–3, 103, 105, 106, 153, 170 in addition to 23, 62, 91, 106, 153 in charge of 23, 47, 47, 62, 91 in common with 23, 47–8, 62, 81–2 in conjunction with 23, 62, 82–3, 105 in connection with 23, 47, 62, 91, 103 in contrast to 23, 47, 62, 91–2, 106, 170 in excess of 23, 62, 88–9, 103, 105 in favour of 23, 25, 47, 62, 83–4, 109

in front of 23, 47–8, 62, 87, 90–2, 103, 143, 168; vs before 150–1 in line with 23, 62, 87–8, 105 in need of 23, 47, 62, 77–9, 85; collocates of 78–9 in place of 23, 62, 63–6 in relation to 23, 62, 84–6, 103–5, 113, 143, 173 in respect of 23, 47, 62, 76, 105 in response to 23, 62, 91–2 in return for 23, 47, 62, 91–2, 103, 106 in search of 23, 47, 62, 103–4, 106–7, 173 in spite of 23, 29, 62, 74–6, 103–4, 105–6, 108, 110–18, 173; collocates of 115–16; vs despite and notwithstanding 111–18 in support of 23, 62, 92, 105, 106, 170 in terms of 23, 39, 47, 62, 105, 120–39, 167, 168–9, 173; cooccurrence with discourse-specific features 130–2; discourse-structuring function 136–7; distribution over spoken genres 125–6; distribution over text domains 125; frequency in OED quotations 123; as hedge 128–9, 131; as hesitation marker 131; historical development 120–4; idiolectal preferences 133; as marker of topic shift 136–7; present-day use 124–5 interpolation 32–3, 34, 39–42 intuition 143, 161–4, 172 in view of 23, 53–9, 62, 106, 168 language change 51–3 layering 54, 68, 96, 158–9, 191n lexicalization 30 literal (meaning/reference) see concrete/literal (meaning/reference) low-frequency complex prepositions 140–65, 172; distribution over genres 159–61; formal invariance 158–9; frequency list of 142; quantifying variation 156–9 mental representation of grammatical structure see cognitive representation of grammatical structure metatextual categories/information 17, 22, 95, 97 normalcy 162–3

214 Subject index OED quotations 7, 9–16, 22–3; balance of 12; constructed 11; deletions 12–14; length of 14–15; normalized frequency counts 14, 16; number of quotations 14–15; proportion of shortened quotations 13; range of sources 11–12; reliability of data format 12; representativeness 11; selection criteria 10; total number of words 15; unmarked deletions 14 on behalf of 23, 25, 62, 79–81, 109 on top of 23, 62, 81, 103–4, 107, 109, 173, 193n open choice principle 50 Oxford English Dictionary 9, 188–9n performance 52, 162 Perl 20, 22, 23 pied-piping 33, 47 PNP-constructions see complex prepositions precision (of search) 21, 96 prefabricated units 152–3 principle of accountability 110 Project Gutenberg 8, 188n

reanalysis 57–8, 79, 145 recall (of search) 21, 22–3, 41, 190n register 19 regular expressions 20–2 representativeness see corpus/corpora, representativeness retrieval (data, from corpus) 4, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 110, 149, 190n, 194n routinization 145–6, 151, 153 saliency 149, 151, 153, 171 scale of cohesiveness 29–30, 32, 157 scope (of discourse markers) 129 semantic bleaching 55, 72, 84 semantic change 54, 55–6, 63, 75, 122, 168 spelling variants 23, 192n spoken language 43 subjectification 55, 81, 94, 130 unidirectionality 58 with regard to 23, 47, 62, 84–6 with respect to 23, 62, 84–6, 105, 106

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