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Broadening the Spectrum of Corpus Linguistics: New approaches to variability and change
Edited by Susanne Flach and Martin Hilpert
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 105] 2022
► pp. 8–39

Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle

A contrastive outlook

| Paris 8 University | Adam Mickiewicz University
| Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

This paper presents a contrastive study on the role of syntactic complexity in the choice between different future constructions in English and Norwegian. Previous work on the English future alternation (BE going to vs. will) has shown that going to is preferred in syntactically complex contexts. We replicate this result for English on the basis of data from the Spoken BNC 2014. In addition, we address the question of whether this account can be generalized to another language that shows a very similar alternation, namely Norwegian (skal/vil vs. kommer til å). We use data from the Norwegian Speech Corpus (NoTa) and the BigBrother corpus, showing that syntactic complexity correlates with the shorter form skal here. We take this as an indication that the observed syntactic distribution is actually a side-effect of semantic differences and suggest possible explanations for this.

Keywords: future constructions, alternations, complexity principle, comparative linguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The future alternation and the Complexity Principle
    • 2.1Previous research
    • 2.2The complexity principle
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Corpora
    • 3.2Variables
      • 3.2.1Dependent variables: Length and meaning of construction
      • 3.2.2Independent variables: Negation and interrogation
      • 3.2.3Independent variables: Subordination and if-clauses
      • 3.2.4Random-effect variables: Speaker and lemma
      • 3.2.5Inter-annotator agreement
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Distribution in corpora
    • 4.2Modelling the variation
    • 4.3Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Corpora
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.105.01mik
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