A Synchronic and Diachronic Study of Predication in Small Clauses and Secondary Predicates

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25770184
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Nagoya Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Yokogoshi Azusa 名古屋工業大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (80508391)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 小節 / 叙述

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study is dedicated to the structure of small clauses and secondary predicates in English. It is argued that small clauses in present-day English is headed by the functional category Pr, and the syntactic structure headed by Pr is a phase. Evidence for the presence of Pr in small clauses and secondary predicates began to be attested in the fourteenth century. The investigation based on historical corpora has revealed that there was a change from the structure headed by a lexical category to the structure headed by Pr, which is shown to have been completed during the eighteenth century, and the structure of small clauses and secondary predicates has changed.

Free Research Field

英語学