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Part of
Space in Diachrony
Edited by Silvia Luraghi, Tatiana Nikitina and Chiara Zanchi
[Studies in Language Companion Series 188] 2017
► pp. 329–346

Source-Location ambiguity and incipient decline in the recent evolution of the English directional particle away

| Aix Marseille University / LERMA Research Centre

This chapter reports on a corpus-based investigation of the evolution of spatial away over the Modern English period in the light of recent work on the expression of motion events. Three observations are made: firstly, a directional-locative polysemy develops, secondly productivity seems to stagnate, and thirdly, for a range of verbs, directional V-away seems to be being gradually replaced by V-off. The likely mechanisms behind these changes are discussed, and it is suggested that away may be an atypical directional particle in decline, possibly in the context of a reorganization or regularization of English directional particles.

Keywords: English, directional particle, motion event
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Away in present-day English
  • 3.The corpus and the data on away
  • 4.Recent evolution of away
    • 4.1Origins and trends
    • 4.2The development of locative away
  • 5.Potential decline of directional away
    • 5.1Idiomatization / lexicalization of V-away
    • 5.2Decline of V-away and autonomous away
    • 5.3 Away and off
  • 6.Possible motivations for an away > off shift
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.188.12lew
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