On the Use of As If, As Though, and Like in Present-Day English Complementation Structures

Abstract

This investigation is part of the authors’ larger research project on so-called minor declarative complementizers in the history of English, that is, connectives recruited mostly in the adverbial domain that are occasionally used in complementation. The present study sheds light on the complementizer use of the three originally comparative links as if, as though, and like in Present-Day English complement structures. In the theoretical part of the article, the authors argue for the complement analysis of certain clauses depending on as if, as though, and like (e.g., It seemed as if the strange little man had never been there). The empirical part of the study analyzes data drawn from the Brown family of corpora (LOB, Brown, FLOB, and Frown), the Diachronic Corpus of Present-day Spoken English (DCPSE), and the Toronto English Archive (TEA), which are representative of both written and spoken language at different time periods (1960s, 1990s, and early 2000s) and in different varieties of English (British English, American English, and Canadian English). Taking the corpus data as a starting point, and with the aim of revealing what ongoing change is observable in the contemporary language, the authors attend to the following issues: (a) the predicates and construction types associated with these minor links, (b) the factors determining the variation between the three comparative complementizers, and (c) the variation between as if, as though, and like and the default declarative complementizer that.