Chapter published in:
Changing Structures: Studies in constructions and complementation
Edited by Mark Kaunisto, Mikko Höglund and Paul Rickman
[Studies in Language Companion Series 195] 2018
► pp. 151–167

Patterns of direct transitivization and differences between British and American English

| Universität Bremen
Rohdenburg (2009) found that prepositions are increasingly omitted in several types of verbs, marking a shift in complementation from an intransitive pattern with a prepositional object to a transitive pattern featuring a direct object noun phrase. In particular, the decrease of prepositional objects after antagonistic verbs (appeal, battle, fight, protest) and verbs of leaving (depart, escape, flee, resign) has been interpreted in line with an ongoing tendency in the history of English to functionally expand the category of the direct object at the expense of prepositional phrases in particular. Other verbs that are said to allow the preposition-less variant are mentioned only sporadically in the literature but have not yet been examined systematically on a broader empirical basis. This chapter provides corpus data from British and American English suggesting that several other verbs may also be in the process of undergoing direct transitivization.
Keywords: verb complementation, direct transitivization, omission of prepositions, grammatical economy, British English, American English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Direct transitivization
  • 2.Lexicographic treatment of the different complementation patterns
    • 2.1 Graduate
    • 2.2 Impact
    • 2.3 Shop
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1 Graduate
    • 4.2 Impact
    • 4.3Shop
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.195.09cal
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