Abstract
ABSTRACTThe prodigious expansion of the progressive (be + ingperiphrastic form, wherebeis at the same time the copula and a statement of existence) was a major feature of the modernization of the English verb system in the 19th century, when its frequency quadrupled. A survey (1787–1880) of the collections of private letters from 22 people, most of them famous writers, reveals that linguistic factors played a relatively small quantitative role in this development, whereas a clear correlation is found with two sociolinguistic factors: gender and intimacy. Frequencies are consistently higher for women than for men, and they increase with more intimate correspondents. Some parallels with biographical and literary data suggest that the Romantic vision, in a wide sense, may have contributed to the rise of this concrete, expressive, warmer existential form.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Education,Language and Linguistics
Cited by
39 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献