English Adjective Comparison

A historical perspective

Author

Victorina González-Díaz | University of Liverpool

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027248152 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027290953 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

The present work contributes to a better understanding of the English system of degree by means of a study of a number of aspects in the evolution of adjective comparison that have so far either been considered controversial or not been accounted for at all. As will be shown, the diachronic aspects analysed will also have synchronic implications. Furthermore, unlike previous synchronic as well as diachronic accounts of adjective comparison, this monograph does not concentrate only on the ‘standard’ comparative strategies (i.e. inflectional and periphrastic forms), but also deals with double periphrastic comparatives, thus providing an analysis of the whole range of comparative structures in English.

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 299] 2008. xix, 252 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.299

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements | pp. xiii–xiv

Abbreviations | pp. xv–xix

Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–13

Chapter 2. The origin of periphrastic comparatives | pp. 15–50

Chapter 3. French influence and the spread of periphrastic comparatives in English | pp. 51–73

Chapter 4. Inflectional v. periphrastic comparison in EModE and LModE | pp. 75–107

Chapter 5. Inflectional v. periphrastic comparison in Present-day English | pp. 109–134

Chapter 6. Double periphrastic comparatives in English: Linguistic development | pp. 135–158

Chapter 7. Double periphrastic comparatives: A socio-stylistic analysis | pp. 159–213

Chapter 8. Comparatives and beyond | pp. 215–225

Index | pp. 249–252

“[...] an important contribution to the study of historical linguistics, adjective comparison and semantic-pragmatic aspects presently discussed in language contact issues and variation research. It provides new insights into the emergence and historical development of English comparatives and uncovers a range of hitherto unknown aspects concerning the origin of analytic comparative forms.”

Britta Mondorf, Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz, in Folia Linguistica 43/2 (2009)

Cited by

Cited by 29 other publications

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Bonami, Olivier

2015. Periphrasis as collocation. Morphology 25:1 ► pp. 63 ff.

CHEUNG, LAWRENCE & LONGTU ZHANG

2016. Determinants of the synthetic–analytic variation across English comparatives and superlatives. English Language and Linguistics 20:3 ► pp. 559 ff.

CHUA, DEBORAH

2018. Understanding comparative alternation iny-adjectives: What else might we need?. Journal of Linguistics 54:3 ► pp. 459 ff.

Crystal, David

2019. Language. In The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, ► pp. 161 ff.

Elenbaas, Marion

2011. More Support forMore-Support: The Role of Processing Constraints on the Choice between Synthetic and Analytic Comparative Forms (Studies in Language Variation 4). English Studies 92:2 ► pp. 234 ff.

Fanego, Teresa

2019. Shakespeare’s Grammar. In The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, ► pp. 184 ff.

Gu, Qianping

2017. A corpus-based comparative study on the superlative forms in British English and Singapore Colloquial English. <i>WORD</i> 63:4 ► pp. 241 ff.

Janda, Richard D.

2020. Perturbations, Practices, Predictions, and Postludes in a Bioheuristic Historical Linguistics. In The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ► pp. 523 ff.

Markopoulos, Theodore

2015. Contact-induced grammaticalization in older texts. In New Directions in Grammaticalization Research [Studies in Language Companion Series, 166], ► pp. 209 ff.

Méndez-Naya, Belén

2017. Co-occurrence and iteration of intensifiers in Early English. English Text Construction 10:2 ► pp. 249 ff.

Percy, Carol

2012. Attitudes, prescriptivism, and standardization. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of English, ► pp. 446 ff.

Watanabe, Ayano & Yoko Iyeiri

2020. Explaining the variability of adjective comparatives and superlatives: entering the twenty-first century. <i>WORD</i> 66:2 ► pp. 71 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. 5. Discourse marker eh. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 69 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Acknowledgements. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. ix ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Appendix 2. Excerpt from a transcript. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 233 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. 1. Introduction. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 1 ff.

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2014. 8. Standardization, levelling and identity in Jersey: A bird’s eye perspective. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 181 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48],

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2014. List of maps, figures and tables. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. xi ff.

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2014. Index. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 235 ff.

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2014. 2. Theoretical foundations. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 7 ff.

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2014. 7. Other grammatical features: An overview. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 147 ff.

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2014. 9. Conclusion. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 205 ff.

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2014. 3. Jersey English in context. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 25 ff.

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2014. References. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 213 ff.

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2014. 4. Methods and data. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 43 ff.

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2014. 6. Features of the Jersey English verb phrase. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 103 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Appendix 1. Written questionnaire. In Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English [Varieties of English Around the World, G48], ► pp. 229 ff.

[no author supplied]

2016. Contrastive Pragmatics and Translation [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 261],

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