The English Posture Verbs: their demise and the unboundedness of the English language

This thesis investigates whether the demise of the cardinal posture verbs (CPVs): sit, stand, and lie, in Modern English can be ascribed to the rise of the [be +V-ing] construction. Using the data from the Penn Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English and the Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English, together comprising a period from 1500 to 1914, the frequency with which the CPVs occur have been found to nearly half in size whereas the frequency of the [be + V-ing] construction increases by more than a tenfold. There is a strong negative relationship between these constructions ( = -0.733) but not significant (p < 0.055). However, the combined coefficient of the three CPVs cumulated improves compared to the correlation coefficient of each of the CPVs individually (r = 0.13 for sit, r = -0.67 for stand, and r = -0.64 for lie). A definite semantic clash between the CPVs and the [be +V-ing] construction has been found unlikely. Instead, competition within the functional-semantic...Show moreThis thesis investigates whether the demise of the cardinal posture verbs (CPVs): sit, stand, and lie, in Modern English can be ascribed to the rise of the [be +V-ing] construction. Using the data from the Penn Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English and the Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English, together comprising a period from 1500 to 1914, the frequency with which the CPVs occur have been found to nearly half in size whereas the frequency of the [be + V-ing] construction increases by more than a tenfold. There is a strong negative relationship between these constructions ( = -0.733) but not significant (p < 0.055). However, the combined coefficient of the three CPVs cumulated improves compared to the correlation coefficient of each of the CPVs individually (r = 0.13 for sit, r = -0.67 for stand, and r = -0.64 for lie). A definite semantic clash between the CPVs and the [be +V-ing] construction has been found unlikely. Instead, competition within the functional-semantic domain of ongoingness in Modern English potentially lead to a period of attraction between these two construction types and possibly more, e.g. be busy and keep V-ing. Moreover, the English language became unbounded due to a larger change in the English aspectual system (Los, 2012). The other Germanic languages are bounded languages which use the CPVs richly but have no progressive that is equivalent to the [be +V-ing] construction. The typological switch in English may have, therefore, influenced the halted grammaticalisation of the CPVs and the thriving grammaticalisation of the [be +V-ing] construction and alike constructions.Show less

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The English Posture Verbs: their demise and the unboundedness of the English language