The Present Perfect and the Preterite in Late Modern and Contemporary English: A corpus-based study of grammatical change
Xinyue Yao
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 114] 2024. xvii, 235 pp.
Xinyue Yao
List of John Benjamins publications for which Xinyue Yao plays a role.
Title
Subjects Corpus linguistics | English linguistics | Germanic linguistics | Historical linguistics | Semantics | Theoretical linguistics
Articles
2021 Diachronic register change: A corpus-based study of Australian English, with comparisons across British and American English Register Studies 3:1, pp. 33–87 | Article
A number of studies have found that grammatical differences across registers are more extensive than those across dialects. However, there is a paucity of research examining intervarietal register change, exploring how registers change differently over time in different regional varieties. The… read more
2020 Predicting translation behaviors by using Hidden Markov Model Translation, Cognition & Behavior 3:1, pp. 76–99 | Article
The translation process can be studied as sequences of activity units. The application of machine learning technology offers researchers new possibilities in the study of the translation process. This research project developed a program, activity unit predictor, using the Hidden Markov Model.… read more
2018 Colloquialisation and the evolution of Australian English: A cross-varietal and cross-generic study of Australian, British, and American English from 1931 to 2006 English World-Wide 39:3, pp. 253–277 | Article
This paper investigates whether colloquialisation – a stylistic shift by which written genres come to be more similar to spoken genres – has played a role in the endonormativisation of the grammar of Australian English, a variety which has long been noted for its penchant for colloquialism. The… read more
2016 Cleft constructions in Hong Kong English English World-Wide 37:2, pp. 197–220 | Article
Existing second language acquisition research converges on a picture where learners of English exhibit marked divergence from native speakers in their use of information-packaging constructions, even at advanced stages of acquisition. This study extends the investigation of these constructions to… read more
2016 The evolution of the “hot news” perfect in English: A study of register-specific linguistic change Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17:1, pp. 129–152 | Article
This paper deals with the “hot news” use of the English present perfect. Previous research has suggested that this use marks the end point of the perfect category, paving the way for further grammaticalisation to a perfective or past tense. To examine its historical development in Modern English,… read more
2015 The present perfect and the preterite in Australian English: A diachronic perspective Grammatical Change in English World-Wide, Collins, Peter (ed.), pp. 247–268 | Article
The present study explores diachronic shifts in the use of the present perfect and the preterite in Australian English. Research on British and American English has shown that the present perfect has lost ground to the preterite since the 18th century, a process underpinned by the weakening of the… read more
2014 The subjunctive mood in Philippine English: A diachronic analysis Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English, Pfenninger, Simone E., Olga Timofeeva, Anne-Christine Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt and Daniel Schreier (eds.), pp. 259–280 | Article
American English has been observed to be leading the way in the revival of the (mandative) subjunctive, leaving behind British English and its postcolonial “children”. Drawing on data from two sets of corpora, sampled in the 1960s and the 1990s, this paper examines the extent to which Philippine… read more
2013 Colloquial features in Word Englishes International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 18:4, pp. 479–505 | Article
A powerful discourse-pragmatic agent of grammatical change in English since the mid-twentieth century has been the increasing acceptance of colloquialism. Little is known, however, about its influence on grammatical developments in regional varieties of World English other than the two inner circle… read more
2012 Modals and quasi-modals in New Englishes Mapping Unity and Diversity World-Wide: Corpus-Based Studies of New Englishes, Hundt, Marianne and Ulrike Gut (eds.), pp. 35–54 | Article
Recent research on modals and quasi-modals has identified two complementary trends: a rise in the popularity of quasi-modals and a decline in that of modals. There is a strong tendency for American rather than British English to be leading the way in these developments. Furthermore, quasi-modals… read more