The changing verb phrase in present-day British English

People

Professor Bas Aarts (PI).

Jill Bowie (Research Fellow).

Project Details

Traditionally, the study of the development of the morphosyntax of English has been carried out by historical linguists who have concerned themselves mostly with changes occurring across long periods of time (e.g. the development of the English inflectional system from Old to Middle English). Changes across shorter periods of time have received much less attention up to the 1990s, with a few exceptions, such as Barber (1964). Recently, there has been a realisation among syntacticians (following work by sociolinguists like Labov) that languages change all the time, often in very subtle ways. This is belied by the old synchronic/diachronic dichotomy that has entrenched itself in the field. In the field of syntax 'recent change' is thus an emerging research area which recognises that short-term changes are an important part of grammar systems. Key publications are Denison (1993, 1998, 2001, 2004), Mair (1995, 1997), Mair & Hundt (1995, 1997), Mair & Leech (2006), Leech (2000, 2003, 2004), Smith (2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2005), Smith & Leech (2001) and Leech et al. (forthcoming).

In the present project we will conduct a large-scale investigation of changes in the (morpho)syntax of the spoken British English verb phrase (VP; conceived of as a verb+dependents) over a period of twenty-five years (1960s-1990s), using the Diachronic Corpus of Present-day Spoken English (DCPSE), and addressing the following research questions:

  • Which changes have occurred in the structure of the VP, concerning word order and complexity?

  • Which changes have occurred in the major verb complementation patterns in English? And are there changes in the way complementation patterns are 'mixed'? In this connection the Principal Investigator (PI) has found many examples like the following:

    Five-year strategies need us to change and adapt. (Sky News)='require us to change and adapt'+'pose a need for us to change and adapt'

    Are you prepared to track down who these people are? (Channel Four News)='Are you prepared to track these people down'+'Are you prepared to find out who these people are?'

  • This returns us to an issue... (student dissertation) = 'This brings us to an issue'+'I return to an issue'.

Is this kind of blending a new trend? What conditions it?

  • Have there been changes in the aspectual system? There is evidence that the progressive is much more widespread than it used to be (witness the McDonalds slogan I'm loving it! and the so-called 'interpretive progressive', see Smith 2005), and there are signs that English present perfect constructions are now being used with adjuncts specifying a definite time reference.

  • Have there been changes in the mood system of English? The use of the subjunctive has both been argued to be on the increase and on the decline. Is there evidence for either position? And is the spoken/written dimension of relevance here?

  • Have there been changes in the English tense and voice systems, e.g. the use of the past and present tenses and the passive?

  • Have there been shifts in the use of auxiliary verbs, especially the semi-auxiliaries and the modals?

Regarding all of the above: why have the changes, if any, taken place? And are the differences, if any, statistically significant?

Intertwined with the issues above are questions that have wider implications for grammar systems in general:

  • Are particular components of grammar more prone to change than others, and if so, why?

  • In this connection, is it possible to devise a model for a notion of 'productivity in change', perhaps using methods recently adopted in morphology (Baayen 1989, 2001)?

  • What are the differences between long-term and short-term changes?

  • Do changes propagate themselves equally in all genres of spoken English, or do particular forms of spoken English, e.g. conversation, display more change than others?

As will be clear from the above, there is a wide spectrum of interrelated research questions, making this a fertile area of investigation.

In summary, the objectives of the project are:

  1. A series of comprehensive and detailed studies of the (morpho)syntactic changes (and the nature of these changes) that have occurred in the spoken English VP over a period of some twenty-five years (1960s-1990s) which address a number of closely related research questions, detailed above.

  2. A quantitative account of the perceived changes, obtained by conducting statistical studies on DCPSE.

  3. An explanation of the perceived changes and statistical patterns, relating them especially to long-term changes.

  4. A contribution to the debate regarding the study of language change in general, and grammar systems in particular, e.g. the question whether certain components of grammar are more prone to change than others, whether it is possible to devise a model for a notion of 'productivity in change', and the question whether there are differences between long-term and short-term change and between genres of spoken English.

The original project proposal, which is a more detailed description of the project, can be found here.

Papers

Aarts, Bas, Jill Bowie and Sean Wallis (forthcoming) Profiling the English verb phrase over time: modal patterns. In: Merja Kytö and Irma Taavitsainen (eds.).

Aarts, Bas, Joanne Close, Geoffrey Leech and Sean Wallis (forthcoming) Choices over time: methodological issues in current change. In: Bas Aarts, Joanne Close, Geoffrey Leech and Sean Wallis (eds.) The English verb phrase: corpus methodology and current change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Aarts, Bas, Joanne Close, Geoffrey Leech and Sean Wallis (forthcoming) Introduction. In: Bas Aarts, Joanne Close, Geoffrey Leech and Sean Wallis (eds.) The English verb phrase: corpus methodology and current change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Aarts, Bas, Joanne Close and Sean Wallis (2010) Recent changes in the use of the progressive construction in English. In: Bert Cappelle and Naoaki Wada (eds.) Distinctions in English grammar, offered to Renaat Declerck. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. 148-167. » Draft version of paper (PDF).

Aarts, Bas, Maria José López-Couso and Belén Méndez-Naya (forthcoming) Late modern English syntax. In: Laurel Brinton (ed.) Volume 2 of Historical Linguistics of English. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bowie, Jill, and Bas Aarts (forthcoming) Change in the English infinitival perfect construction. In: Terttu Nevalainen and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (eds.) Handbook on the history of English: rethinking approaches to the history of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. » Draft version of paper (PDF).

Bowie, Jill, and Sean Wallis (forthcoming) The perfect in spoken British English. In: Bas Aarts, Joanne Close, Geoffrey Leech and Sean Wallis (eds.) The English verb phrase: corpus methodology and current change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Close, Joanne. The subjunctive in spoken British English. In preparation. Draft version of paper coming soon.

Close, Joanne, and Bas Aarts (2010) Current change in the modal system of English: a case study of must, have to and have got to. In: Ursula Lenker, Judith Huber, and Robert Mailhammer (eds.), The history of English verbal and nominal constructions. Volume 1 of English historical linguistics 2008: Selected papers from the fifteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 15), Munich 24-30 August 2008. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 165-181. » Draft version of paper (PDF).

Conference Presentations, Talks and Seminars

Aarts, Bas (2009) Plenary lecture: Investigating current change in English at the conference English Language and Literature Studies: Image, Identity and Reality, Belgrade, Serbia.

Aarts, Bas (2009) Researching the English language, past and present, with parsed corpora. Research seminar, School of Language, Literature and Communication, University of Brighton.

Aarts, Bas (2009) Tracking changes in the use of the English progressive with DCPSE. Research seminar, School of English, University of Liverpool.

Aarts, Bas (2010) Change in modal verb phrase patterns. Paper presented at the conference English syntax: past and present, University of Manchester.

Aarts, Bas (2010) Morphosyntactic change in the English verb system. Paper presented at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.

Aarts, Bas (2010) Profiling the English verb phrase over time. Paper presented at the International Association of University Professors in English (IAUPE) conference, University of Malta.

Aarts, Bas (forthcoming, 2011) Plenary lecture: Modality on the move, at the 44th Annual Conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, La Rioja, Spain.

Aarts, Bas, Joanne Close and Sean Wallis (2009) Choices over time: some methodological issues in research into current change. Paper presented at the symposium Current Change in the English Verb Phrase, London. » PowerPoint Presentation (PPT).

Aarts, Bas, Joanne Close and Sean Wallis (2009) Using the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English to investigate changes in the English verb phrase. Presentation on current change at a workshop entitled Corpus-based advances in historical linguistics organised by the Philological Society, University of York.

Bowie, Jill (forthcoming, 2010) Recent change in spoken British English: the perfect construction. Research seminar, English Department UCL.

Close, Joanne, and Bas Aarts (2008) Changes in the use of the modals have to, have got to and must. Paper presented at the 15th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Munich, Germany. Also at the First Triennial Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE), Freiburg, Germany. » Handout (PDF).

Close, Joanne, and Bas Aarts (2008) MUST and its rivals in the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English. Paper presented at the First Triennial Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE), Freiburg. » Handout (PDF).

Close, Joanne, and Bas Aarts (2009) The subjunctive in spoken British English. Paper presented at the 30th meeting of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Lancaster. » PowerPoint Presentation (PPT).

Events

Bas Aarts co-convened (with Professor Geoffrey Leech, Lancaster) a workshop entitled Watching English Grammar Change at the First Triennial Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) in Freiburg, Germany, 8 October 2008.

Bas Aarts, with Devyani Sharma and Jenny Cheshire at Queen Mary, University of London, co-organised the third International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (ICLCE 3). The conference took place 15-17 July 2009 and was preceded by a one day workshop on Current Change on 14 July celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Survey of English Usage.

Bas Aarts and Jo Close, with Professor Geoffrey Leech, Lancaster, co-convened a one day symposium as part of the third International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (ICLCE 3) on 14 July 2009. This symposium celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Survey of English Usage and was based around the theme of Current Change in the English Verb Phrase. » Symposium Programme (PDF).

Resources

A bibliography of references is now available. This will be updated throughout the project with new references added regularly. » Bibliography (PDF) .

Throughout the project we will make available some data and Fuzzy Tree Fragmants (FTFs) on each of the topic areas. See the links below for a sample set of Fuzzy Tree Fragments (FTFs) with a sample database of examples from our case studies on the modal auxiliaries, the subjunctive, the progressive, and the perfect.

Findings

Some findings on the modal auxiliaries, the progressive, and the perfect are now available.

 

This page last modified 14 May, 2020 by Jill Bowie.