Part of
Diachronic Corpus PragmaticsEdited by Irma Taavitsainen, Andreas H. Jucker and Jukka Tuominen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 243] 2014
► pp. 29–52
Edited by Irma Taavitsainen, Andreas H. Jucker and Jukka Tuominen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 243] 2014
► pp. 29–52
I had lost sight of them then for a bit, but I went on pretty fast
Two degree modifiers in the Old Bailey Corpus
This article investigates the degree modifiers pretty and a bit in the subsection 1730s–1830s of the Old Bailey Corpus (OBC), containing speech-based/related data (ca. 50 million words). Pretty is shown to be already grammaticalized, with the degree modifier uses clearly dominating. Subjectification is evidenced both by the downtoning and upgrading degree meanings as well as by the ironic uses. While a bit is also semantically versatile and shows nuances of subjectification, it is far less grammaticalized than pretty, as the degree uses are in the clear minority. The change seems to be led by a bit of (a)-constructions rather than by simple a bit.
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.
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Cited by (13)
Cited by 13 other publications
Amaral, Patrícia
Claridge, Claudia, Ewa Jonsson & Merja Kytö
2021. A Little Something Goes a Long Way: Little in the Old Bailey Corpus. Journal of English Linguistics 49:1 ► pp. 61 ff. 
Blanco-Suárez, Zeltia
2020. Two sides of the same coin?. In Corpora and the Changing Society [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 96], ► pp. 169 ff.
Brinton, Laurel J. & Tohru Inoue
2020. A far from simple matter revisited. In Late Modern English [Studies in Language Companion Series, 214], ► pp. 272 ff.
Oksefjell Ebeling, Signe & Hilde Hasselgård
2020. Chapter 18. Intensification in dialogue vs. narrative in a corpus of present-day English fiction. In Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 97], ► pp. 302 ff.
Claridge, Claudia
2019. Chapter 11. Drinking and crime. In Corpus-based Research on Variation in English Legal Discourse [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 91], ► pp. 261 ff.
Claridge, Claudia & Merja Kytö
2019. Chapter 4. A (great) deal of: Developments in 19th-century British and Australian English. In Processes of Change [Studies in Language Variation, 21], ► pp. 49 ff.
Berber Sardinha, Tony
2018. Dimensions of variation across Internet registers. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 23:2 ► pp. 125 ff.
HARTMAN, JENNY
2016. A meaning potential perspective on lexical meaning: the case ofbit. English Language and Linguistics 20:1 ► pp. 85 ff.
D'Arcy, Alexandra
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.