Observations on the Grammaticalization Paths of Progressive Aspect in the Late Modern English Period on the basis of Cognitive and Historical Linguistics

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24520546
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Kagawa University
• Principal Investigator: NAGAO Satoshi 香川大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (30294739)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 英語史 / 文法化 / 構文文法 / 認知文法 / アスペクト / 近代英語

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study is on the grammaticalization paths of Early & Late Modern English progressive forms, the usage of which is said to be established in as late as the Present-Day English Period. From the perspectives of Cognitive Linguistics and English Historical Linguistics, the paths are characterized both by structural and semantic factors and by lexical factors forming the progressive constructions. Observations on the functional classification of verbs and on formative factors of constructions show expanding productivity of English progressive forms: from intransitive to transitive constructions. The data are driven mainly from the Helsinki Corpus and Bible English. It was a plan to make Late Modern English Corpus by myself, but did not come true, which made this study a smaller observation than I expected. Parts of the results of this study were compiled in the book "Studies on Modern English" written in Japanese.

Free Research Field

英語学（英語史）