Competing motivations in the diachronic nominalization of English gerunds

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20344673
AutoresLauren Fonteyn (0000-0001-5706-8418, The University of Manchester), Charlotte Maekelberghe (0000-0002-2743-5480, KU Leuven)
Año2018
Volumen35
Número4
Páginas487-524
Fecha de publicación2018-12-31
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDiachronica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0176-4225 • E-ISSN: 1569-9714
EditorialJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/dia.17015.fon
OpenAlexW2910984663
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas70

The present study is an in-depth, corpus-based analysis of the rise and institutionalization of the indefinite nominal gerund in Late Modern English, considering the observed developments in light of their interactions with functionally related constructions. Based on historical data taken from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts (version 3.1), we argue that the rise of indefinite nominal gerunds constitutes an instance of diachronic nominalization , in which the nominal gerund over time gradually comes to exploit a fuller range of paradigmatic properties associated with the nominal class. At the same time, this study investigates the potential influence of isomorphism on the observed developments. While the results do support the frequently investigated claim that language systems have a (weak) preference for a one-form-one-meaning organization in later stages of their development, the initial emergence of indefinite nominal gerunds can more accurately be explained by allowing system pressure as an enabling force of linguistic innovation. The picture presented in this study serves as evidence that the long-term development of linguistic constructions can be the result of competing – even maximally opposite – forces

Epistemology · Gerund · Linguistics · Nominalization · Noun · Sociology · History · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation