Morpho-syntactic Changes in Modern English: Correlation between the Establishment of Negative Contractions and the Development of their Related Idioms

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370557
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Aichi Prefectural University
• Principal Investigator: NAKAMURA Fujio 愛知県立大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (20149496)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 英語史 / 近代 / 日記・書簡 / 統語変化 / 形態変化 / 助動詞 / 否定辞縮約

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Little heed has been paid on the history of English negative contractions, with the possible exception of Brainerd (1989 [1993]). With no more than 461 examples collected from plays written between 1620 and 1800, however, his study cannot be regarded as well-grounded. Based upon the analyses of ten varieties of electronic corpora as well as one hundred and thirty volumes of private diaries and personal letters, I have attempted to elucidate the details of the history of negative contractions and their related idioms by delivering three oral presentations at international linguistic conferences and one oral presentation at a nationwide conference, as well as writing one jointly written book and two university journal articles.

Free Research Field

英語史