Academic Paper |
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| Title: | The Rise and Fall of Constructions and the History of English Do-Support |
| Author: | Peter W. Culicover |
| Email: | click here to access email |
| Homepage: | http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~culicove |
| Institution: | Ohio State University |
| Linguistic Field: | Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Syntax |
| Subject Language: |
English
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| Abstract: | Do-support is a unique characteristic of English. Many languages other than English have do-periphrasis but not English-type do-support. This raises the obvious question: What is special about English? The goal of this paper is to provide an account of English do-support that explains why do-support, with its attendant properties, is found uniquely in English. I review the classical derivational approaches to do-support and argue that they do not satisfactorily capture the generalizations. I suggest an alternative, non-derivational account of contemporary do-support that makes crucial use of constructions. Finally, I propose an account of the history of do-support in English that characterizes the changes in terms of the content and scope of constructions. The rise of do-support can be understood as a consequence of the contraction and re-specialization of particular constructions in the wake of well-documented changes in the overt morphological system of the language. |
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This article appears in Journal of Germanic Linguistics Vol. 20, Issue 1, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST . |
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