The Verb Phrase in English: Investigating Recent Language Change with Corpora

Description

The chapters in this volume feature new and groundbreaking research carried out by leading scholars and promising young researchers from around the world on recent changes in the English verb phrase. Drawing on authentic corpus data, the papers consider both spoken and written English in several genres. Each contribution pays particular attention to the methodologies used for investigating short-term patterns of change in English, with detailed discussions of controversies in this area. This cutting-edge collection is essential reading for historians of the English language, syntacticians and corpus linguists.

Bas Aarts is Professor of English Linguistics and Director of the Survey of English Usage at University College London. Joanne Close is Lecturer in English Language in the English Department at the University of Chester. Geoffrey Leech is Professor Emeritus of English Linguistics at Lancaster University. Sean Wallis is a Senior Research Fellow in the Survey of English Usage at University College London.

'I highly recommend The Verb Phrase in English, both as a resource for students and scholars who want an overview of currently ongoing changes in the verbal domain, but also, and no less importantly, as an inspiration for further research ... The editors and the authors are to be complimented on a volume that showcases the merits of the currently ongoing enterprise of investigating recent change in English on the basis of diachronic corpora. The book offers the reader an authoritative and well-organised overview of changes that pertain to verbal structures.' Martin Hilpert, Cercles