Change and variation in complement selection: a case study from recent English, with evidence from large corpora

Publisher： Rodopi

ISSN： 0921-5034

Source： Language and Computers, Vol.71, Iss.1, 2009-11, pp. : 47-66

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Abstract

The study examines change and variation in the system of English predicate complementation in recent times on the basis of three major corpora, the Corpus of English Novels (the CEN), comprising some 18 million words, the full Bank of English Corpus, comprising some 524 million words, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, comprising some 360 million words in the version used, with the focus on the matrix predicate submit and its sentential complements. The sentential complements in question are of the to infinitive and to -ing types. It is shown that there are sharp grammatical differences between these two types of complement in English. However, submit is a matrix verb that has selected both types in recent English. In the CEN, representing usage from about a century ago, to infinitive complements predominated over to -ing complements by a ratio of over five to one, but in current English, to -ing complements predominate over to infinitives by a ratio of almost two to one. The study examines the nature of the variation and change, and it is pointed out that, in spite of the sharp grammatical differences between the two patterns, in the CEN both types of complement were found in one and the same text by one author, without any apparent distinction relating to genre, register, or style between the two variants. A difference in meaning is also hard to establish on the basis of contrasts generally posited in the literature for to infinitives and -ing forms. However, the study shows that passive and passive-like lower predicates with lower subjects of the type Patient or Undergoer are often associated with submit, and it is suggested that this association may have promoted the grammatical change from to infinitives to to -ing complements in the present case, in the overall context of what has come to be called the Great Complement Shift in the recent literature. The -ing pattern is virtually unique to English as a pattern of nonfinite complementation, and the grammatical change in question, it is suggested, is an example of system-internal change. The present study suggests that it is desirable to conduct follow-up work on the nature of the semantic roles of lower subjects as a factor bearing on grammatical change in the case of predicates selecting nonfinite sentential complements in recent centuries.