The Dynamism of Language Change: The Synchronic and Diachronic Interface of English Deverbal Prepositions

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K19991
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0102:Literature, linguistics, and related fields
• Research Institution: Meikai University
• Principal Investigator: Hayashi Tomoaki 明海大学, 外国語学部, 講師 (70906693)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-08-30 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 文法化 / 漂白化 / 脱範疇化 / 動詞派生前置詞 / 汎時性 / 時間性 / 動詞性 / 前置詞性

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aims of this present study are to capture the gradualness of grammaticalization and identify the historical context motivating language change, through analyses of deverbal prepositions in Present-Day English. The first study focused on two deverbal prepositions: including and seeing. As for including, through a qualitative study based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and one with syntactic tests from previous studies, we examined whether the preposition has characteristics observed in typical prepositions. As for seeing, based on the British National Corpus (BNC), we conducted a quantitative study in terms of genre. Second, we analyzed considering and touching from synchronic and qualitative points of view, in order to reveal the cognitive basis of grammaticalization. Employing Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 2008), it was argued that their grammaticalization path is characterized as a shift from “temporal” to “atemporal” construal.

Free Research Field

英語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

動詞派生前置詞への文法化の連続的なプロセスは「動詞か、前置詞か」といった分類を厳密に行うことが難しく、同一コーパス内における品詞分類（タグづけ）も難しいという問題点がある。また、前置詞化したconcerningの意味が、もとの動詞concernの意味と異なったものとなっているように、通時的にみると起源と意味変化の過程が同一とは限らない（cf. 児馬 2001）。本研究は、このような言語変化の連続性を捉える上での視座を提供し、通時的な言語変化を共時性との接点から理論的に予測して分析するための方法論を提供するという点で意義を持つものである。