Description

Book Synopsis

The class of verbs of Desire comprises verbs whose syntax and semantics have undergone important changes in the course of their histories. Their argument structure involves a Desirer and a Desired, and in earlier English they could be used impersonally in constructions lacking a subject marked for the nominative case. The book presents three case studies based on a comprehensive survey of the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary and on corpus data retrieved from EEBOCorp 1.0 (1470s–1690s). The results obtained unveil the loss of impersonal uses and their gradual replacement by personal patterns, in particular a pattern where the verb governs a prepositional complement representing the Desired as a metaphorical goal.



Table of Contents
Introduction - The function and development of English impersonal constructions - The nature of verb meaning and constructional meaning - The class of verbs of Desire - Data and methodology - Lust - Thirst - Long

Argument Structure in Flux: The Development of

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    A Paperback / softback by Noelia Castro-Chao

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      View other formats and editions of Argument Structure in Flux: The Development of by Noelia Castro-Chao

      Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
      Publication Date: 21/01/2021
      ISBN13: 9783034341899, 978-3034341899
      ISBN10: 303434189X

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      The class of verbs of Desire comprises verbs whose syntax and semantics have undergone important changes in the course of their histories. Their argument structure involves a Desirer and a Desired, and in earlier English they could be used impersonally in constructions lacking a subject marked for the nominative case. The book presents three case studies based on a comprehensive survey of the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary and on corpus data retrieved from EEBOCorp 1.0 (1470s–1690s). The results obtained unveil the loss of impersonal uses and their gradual replacement by personal patterns, in particular a pattern where the verb governs a prepositional complement representing the Desired as a metaphorical goal.



      Table of Contents
      Introduction - The function and development of English impersonal constructions - The nature of verb meaning and constructional meaning - The class of verbs of Desire - Data and methodology - Lust - Thirst - Long

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