Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T03:52:38.382Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Understanding comparative alternation in y-adjectives: What else might we need?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2017

DEBORAH CHUA
DEBORAH CHUA*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington & National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University
*
Author’s address: National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, NIE2-02-11, Singapore 637616, Singaporedebchua2004@gmail.com; deborah.chua@nie.edu.sg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the contribution of lexical spreads (or type counts) of English comparative more and -er constructions to an understanding of comparative alternation in the $y$-adjectives, that is adjectives ending in an orthographic ${<}\text{y}>$ and an /i/ sound, e.g. lazy. Comparative $y$-adjective constructions from seven corpora of stage plays spanning from the 17th to the 20th century were analysed with mixed-effects modelling and correlations drawn between the comparatives of $y$-adjectives and those of other adjectives. The findings indicate that while morphological complexity in $y$-adjectives biases them towards more, more occurrences with $y$-adjectives may also be related to the lexical spread of more in disyllabic adjectives that are not $y$-ones. The findings suggest moreover that predictions of comparative forms based on the syntactic positioning of $y$-adjectives and the [±voiced] nature of their penultimate segments may make sense only with respect to the lexical spread of more in other English adjectives. To understand why $y$-adjectives seem divided between -er regularisation and adherence to the trend in English comparisons of a more bias, this paper proposes a need to supplement accounts of comparative alternation focused on the characteristics of $y$-adjectives with considerations related to the lexical spread of comparative constructions.

Keywords

adjectivecomparativecorpuslexicalmorphologytype count
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , 01 August 2018 , pp. 459 - 491
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[1]

I would like to thank Laurie Bauer, Paul Warren and three anonymous referees of Journal of Linguistics for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

References

Anthony, Laurence. 2011. Antconc: A Free Corpus Analysis Toolkit for Concordancing and Text Analysis. Tokyo: Center for English Language Education in Science and Engineering, School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University. http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc/releases/AntConc324/(accessed 15 April 2014).Google Scholar
Barber, Charles. 1964. Linguistic change in present-day English. Edinburgh & London: Oliver and Boyd.Google Scholar
Barber, Charles. 1997. Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Maechler, Martin, Bolker, Ben, Walker, Steven, Christensen, Rune Haubo Bojesen, Singmann, Henrik, Dai, Bin, Grothendieck, Gabor & Green, Peter. 2015. lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version 1.1-9. http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4 (accessed 18 April 2014).Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. 1994. Watching English change: An introduction to the study of linguistic change in standard Englishes in the twentieth century. London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie, Lieber, Rochelle & Plag, Ingo. 2013. The Oxford reference guide to English morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Brook, George Leslie. 1973. Varieties of English. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Brown, Cath. 2011. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Bio Factsheet, 144, 2 pp. http://www.curriculum-press.co.uk/products/biology-factsheet–144–spearman-s-rank-correlation-coefficient.html(accessed 15 April 2014).Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 2007a. Introduction. In Bybee(ed.), 5–22.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan(ed.). 2007b. Frequency of use and the organization of language. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Newman, Jean E.. 2007. Are stem changes as natural as affixes? In Bybee (ed.), 148–166.Google Scholar
Callister, Rick Mc.1998. Disc: Recent change in English. Linguist List 9.768. https://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-768.html (accessed 27 November 2016).Google Scholar
Carter, Ronald & McCarthy, Michael. 2006. Cambridge grammar of English: A comprehensive guide, spoken and written English grammar and usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, Lawrence & Zhang, Longtu. 2016. Determinants of the synthetic-analytic variation across English comparatives and superlatives. English Language & Linguistics 20.3, 559–583.Google Scholar
Clark, Megan J. & Randal, John A.. 2011. A first course in applied statistics, 2nd edn. Auckland: Pearson.Google Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2014. Functional partitioning and possible limits on variability: A view of adjective comparison from the vernacular. Journal of English Linguistics 42.3, 218–244.Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2004–. BYU–BNC (based on the British National Corpus from Oxford University Press). http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/(accessed 25 April 2013).Google Scholar
Denison, David. 1998. Syntax. In Romaine, Suzanne (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. IV: 1776–1997, 92–329. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
González-Díaz, Victorina. 2008. English adjective comparison: A historical perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer. 2001. Lexical frequency in morphology: Is everything relative? Linguistics 39.6, 1041–1070.Google Scholar
Hilpert, Martin. 2008. The English comparative: Language structure and language use. English Language & Linguistics 12.3, 395–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IBM Corporation. 2011. IBM SPSS Statistics. New York: IBM Corporation.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1949. A modern English of grammar on historical principles, part VII: Syntax. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. 1755. A dictionary of the English language in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. London: J. F. & C. Rivington.Google Scholar
Kluender, Keith R., Diehl, Randy L. & Wright, Beverly A.. 1988. Vowel-length differences before voiced and voiceless consonants: An auditory experiment. Journal of Phonetics 16.2, 153–169.Google Scholar
Kruisinga, E. 1932. A handbook of present-day English, part II: English accidence and syntax 3, 5th edn. Groningen: P. Noordhoff.Google Scholar
Kytö, Merja & Romaine, Suzanne. 1997. Competing forms of adjective comparison in Modern English: What could be more quicker and easier and more effective? In Nevalainen & Kahlas-Tarkka (eds.), 329–352.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey & Culpeper, Jonathan. 1997. The comparison of adjectives in recent British English. In Nevalainen & Kahlas-Tarkka (eds.), 353–373.Google Scholar
Leggatt, Alexander. 1998. English stage comedy, 1490–1990: Five centuries of a genre. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse. 1970. Suprasegmentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lighter, Jonathan. 2006. Funner and funnest. Linguist List. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2006-May/059865.html(accessed 27 November 2016).Google Scholar
Lindquist, Hans. 2000. Livelier or more lively? Syntactic and contextual factors influencing the comparison of disyllabic adjectives. In Kirk, John M. (ed.), Corpora galore: Analyses and techniques in describing English, 125–132. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Marchman, Virginia A. & Bates, Elizabeth. 1994. Continuity in lexical and morphological development: A test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language 21.2, 339–366.Google Scholar
Matthews, P. H. 1970. Recent developments in morphology. In Lyons, John (ed.), New horizons in linguistics, 96–114. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Mondorf, Britta. 2003. Support for more-support. In Rohdenburg, Günter & Mondorf, Britta (eds.), Determinants of grammatical variation in English, 251–304. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Mondorf, Britta. 2009. More support for more-support: The role of processing constraints on the choice between synthetic and analytic comparative forms. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
N.A. 1996. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/(accessed 8 October 2013).Google Scholar
Nesfield, John C. 1898. English grammar, past and present. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu & Kahlas-Tarkka, Leena (eds.). 1997. To explain the present: Studies in the changing English language in honour of Matti Rissanen. Helsinki: Société Néopilologique.Google Scholar
OED Online. n.d. Oxford English Dictionary. http://www.oed.com/(accessed 12 February 2013).Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank, Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K.. 2002. Inflectional morphology and related matters. In Rodney Huddleston & Geoffrey K. Pullum et al.  The Cambridge grammar of the English language, 1565–1620. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Proquest. 1996–2013. Literature Online (available from the Victoria University of Wellington library online database). http://lion.chadwyck.com/(accessed 1 March 2013).Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1972. A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2014. The R Project for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org/(accessed 1 April 2014).Google Scholar
Rohr, Anny. 1929. Dei Steigerung des neuenglischen Eigenschaftswortes im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert mit Ausblicken auf den Sprachgebrauch der Gegenwart. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Giessen.Google Scholar
Schibsbye, Knud. 1965. A Modern English grammar. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, George J. 1916. Longmans’ English grammar. New York: Longmans, Green & Company.Google Scholar
Stewart, Thomas W. 2016. Contemporary morphological theories: A user’s guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Sweet, Henry. 1900. A new English grammar, logical and historical, part I: Introduction, phonology, and accidence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Zandvoort, R. W. 1977. A handbook of English grammar. London: Longman.Google Scholar