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Taking a multi-theoretical approach, this book offers the first in-depth study of the function and development of evaluative of-binomials.
The binomial noun phrase, or of-binomial, is an important phenomenon in the English language. Defined as a noun phrase that contains two related nouns, linked by the preposition of, examples include a hell of a day and a beast of a storm. This pioneering book provides the first extensive study of the evaluative binominal noun phrases (EBNP) in English, exploring the syntactic rules that govern them, and the (functional) semantic and pragmatic links between the two nouns. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, corpus data, and two different theoretical approaches (Construction Grammar and Functional Discourse Grammar), it argues that the EBNP now functions as a stage in a grammaticalization path that begins with a prototypical N+PP construction, continues with the head-classifier, and ends with two new of-binominal constructions: the evaluative modifier and binominal intensifier. Comprehensive in its scope, it is essential reading for researchers in syntax, semantics, and English corpus linguistics.
What do 'bimbo,' 'glitch,' 'savvy,' and 'shtick' all have in common? They are all expressions used in informal American English that have been taken from other languages. This pioneering book provides a comprehensive description of borrowings in informal American English, based on a large database of citations from thousands of contemporary sources, including the press, film, and TV. It presents the United States as a linguistic 'melting pot,' with words from a diverse range of languages now frequently appearing in the lexicon. It examines these borrowings from various perspectives, including discussions of terms, donors, types, changes, functions, and themes. It also features an alphabetical glossary of 1,200 representative expressions, defined and illustrated by 5,500 usage examples, providing an insightful and practical resource for readers. Combining scholarship with readability, this book is a fascinating storehouse of information for students and researchers in linguistics as well as anyone interested in lexical variation in contemporary English.
This is the first textbook on Functional Discourse Grammar, a recently developed theory of language structure which analyses utterances at the pragmatic, semantic, morphosyntactic and phonological level. It focuses principally on English and provides extensive exercises for students to use and evaluate the theory.
The first full study of intensifiers in Late Modern English, combining a range of different theoretical perspectives on courtroom discourse.
Focusing on /str/-retraction, this pioneering book uses a combination of phonological and sociolinguistic theories to explore consonantal sound change in American English. Detailed yet engaging, it is essential reading for both researchers and students in phonetics, phonology, language variation and change, sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics.
Presents both a new, corpus-driven method to analyse pragmatic functions and an exploration of epistemic stance in Early Modern English.
This handbook provides an authoritative, critical survey of current research and knowledge in the grammar of the English language. The volume's expert contributors explore a range of core topics in English grammar, covering a range of theoretical approaches and including the relationship between 'core' grammar and other areas of language.
This volume presents a collection of papers using the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) to analyse and explain a number of specific constructions or phenomena (external possessor contructions and binominal constructions, negation, modification, modality, polysynthesis and transparency) from different perspectives, language-specific, comparative and typological. In addition to applying the theory to the topics in question, these papers aim to contribute to the further development of the theory by modifying and extending it on the basis of new linguistic evidence from a range of languages, thus providing the latest state-of-the-art in FDG. The volume as a whole, however, does more than this, as separately and together the papers collected here aim to demonstrate how FDG, with its unique architecture, can provide new insights into a number of issues and phenomena that are currently of interest to theoretical linguists in general.