Usage-based perspectives on diachronic morphology: a mixed-methods approach towards English ing-nominals

Fonteyn, L.; Hartmann, S. (2016)

Article / Letter to editor

This paper illustrates how different methodological approaches can be combined to reveal complex patterns of constructional variation and change in the diachronic development of English ing-nominals. More specifically, we argue that approaching the data from a schema-based (rather than morpheme-based) perspective shows that nominal gerunds in English, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, have undergone a semantic drift towards more “nouny” construal variants. This hypothesis is supported not only by raw frequency counts, but also by association measures and by a detailed analysis of hapax legomena.

• All authors: Fonteyn, L.; Hartmann, S.
• Date: 2016-05-08
• Journal: Linguistics Vanguard
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 1
• DOI: doi:10.1515/lingvan-2016-0057
• Link: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/lingvan.2016.2.issue-1/lingvan-2016-005...