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In:Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax
Edited by Claudia Claridge and Birte Bös
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 346] 2019
► pp. 199–222

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Signs of grammaticalization

Tracking the get-passive through COHA

Published online: 27 May 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.346.10sch
Abstract
In this study, I examine a large number of get-passives from different genres and time periods in the Corpus of Historical American English for signs of grammaticalization by looking for evidence of semantic bleaching and morphosyntactic generalization. A comparable set of be-passives is included as a control group throughout. The study shows a dramatic increase in the frequency of central get-passives between the 1870s and the 1990s. Changes in situation type, subject type, and range of past-participle collocates, which are traced through all four genres in the corpus, provide further indications that the get-passive is continuing to grammaticalize over the period.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Aim and scope
    • 1.2Grammaticalization and the get-passive
    • 1.3Parameters investigated in the present study
  • 2.Material and methods
    • 2.1COHA
    • 2.2Data selection and retrieval
    • 2.3Classification of passives in the data sets
  • 3.Results and discussion
    • 3.1Diachronic frequency of central and semi-passives in COHA
    • 3.2Situation type
    • 3.3Subject type
    • 3.4Frequent past participles in get- and be-passives
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
  • Appendix
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