Composite Predicates in English

Processes of Specialization

Eva Berlage

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009675673
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Composite Predicates (CPs) are of particular interest to linguists in that only some of them are semantically restricted in present-day English, while others are not. This book explores the semantic-syntactic evolution of twenty-four different CPs in English from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, showing why some specialize over time while others do not. It highlights that the semantic scope and evolution of the morphologically and semantically related simple verb acts as a powerful predictor of whether or not a CP becomes semantically restricted in the course of time. In all those cases where CPs undergo specialization, semantic changes take place earlier than syntactic ones. Finally, large-scale corpus-analyses reveal that the CPs, which, in comparison to their morphologically simple verbs, can be considered analytic constructions, decrease from the nineteenth to twentieth century or show consistently low frequencies. This finding runs counter to the trend of English to become increasingly analytic.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series information
• Title page
• Imprints page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations and Symbols
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 The evolution of CPs: Theories, concepts and their relevance
• Chapter 3 The CPs under investigation, the simple verbs and the hypotheses
• Chapter 4 Methodology
• Chapter 5 The evolution of the simple verbs
• Chapter 6 The semantic evolution of Type I-CPs
• Chapter 7 The semantic evolution of Type II-CPs
• Chapter 8 The syntactic status of the CPs and a comparison of semantic and syntactic changes
• Chapter 9 Theoretical discussion
• Chapter 10 Conclusion and outlook
• References
• Index