Corpus analysis and pragmatics

a study of the negative structure fail to

María José Luzón Marco | University Jaume I of Castellón

Fail to belongs to a type of verbal structures which are in a syntactic construction with other verbs (e.g. fail to win) and which have meanings related to aspect or modality. In this paper we used the COBUILD corpus to analyse the discursive function of fail to and the meaning it adds to the verbal group where it occurs. The paper shows that with regard to function fail to is more similar to auxiliaries than to lexical verbs. Fail to is used in positive clauses to deny an expectation, which explains its association with non-durative aspect and with the modality meanings "non-achievement" and "unfulfilled obligation", and in rhetorical questions and negative clauses it is used to express the speaker's strong commitment to the certainty of a proposition.

Published online: 01 January 1999
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.123-124.02luz

References

AITCHINSON, J. and AGNIHOTRI, R.K.

(1985) : I deny that I am incapable of not working all night. In R. Eton et al. (eds.). Papers from the Fourth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. Current issues in Linguistic Theory, 41. Amsterdam : John Benjamins.

BIBER, D., CONRAD, S. and REPPEN, R.

(1994) : Corpus-based approaches to issues in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 15, n°2, 167-189.

CLEAR, J.

(1993) : From Firth principles : computational tools for the study of collocation. In M. Baker, G. Francis and E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds.). Text and Technology, 271-292. Amsterdam : John Benjamins.

DIXON, R.

(1991) : A New Approach to English Grammar on Semantic Principles. Oxford : Clarendon Press.

FIRTH, J.R.

(1957) : Papers in Linguistics. London : O.U.P.

FREED, A.F.

(1979) : The Semantics of English Aspectual Complementation. Dordrecht : D. Reidel.

JESPERSEN, O.

(1917) : Negation in English and Other Languages. Copenhagen; reprinted in Selected Writings of Otto Jespersen. London : Allen & Unwin.

KARTONNEN, L.

(1971) : Implicative verbs. Language, 471, 340-58.

KENNEDY, G.

(1991) : Between and through: the company they keep and the function they serve. In K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg (eds.). English Corpus Linguistics, 95-110. New York : Longman.

KJELLMER, G.

(1975) : ‘The weather was fine, if not glorious’. On the ambiguity of the concessive if not . English Studies, 561, 140-146.

(1989) : Even if and even though. English Studies 31, 256-269.

LEITNER, G.

(1993) : Where to begin or start? Aspectual verbs in dictionaries. In M. Hoey (ed.). Data, Description and Discourse. London : Harper Collins Publisher.

LEMMES, M. and WEKKER, H.

(1991) : On the relationship between lexis and grammar in English Learners’ Dictionaries. International Journal of Lexicography, 4, n°1, 1-14.

LEWIS, M.

(1993) : The Lexical Approach. Hove : Language Teaching Publications.

PAYNE, J.R.

(1985) : Negation. In T. Shopen (ed.). Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. 1 : Clause Structure. 197-242. Cambridge : C.U.P.

QUIRK, R., GREENBAUM, S., LEECH, G. and SVARTVIK, J.

(1985) : A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London : Longman.

SINCLAIR, J. McH.

(1992) : The automatic analysis of corpora. In J. Svartvik (ed.). Directions in Corpus Linguistics. Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 82. 379-397. Berlin : Mouton De Gruyter.

TOTTIE, G.

(1991) : Negation in English Speech and Writing. A Study in Variation. San Diego, Academic Press.

TRAUGGOTT, E. and HEINE, H.

(1991) (eds.) : Approaches to Grammaticalisation vol. II1. Amsterdam : John Benjamins.

VENDLER, Z.

(1967) : Linguistics and Philosophy. Ithaca : Cornell University Press.

WILLIS, D.

(1990) : The Lexical Syllabus. Collins Cobuild.