Language Between Description and Prescription: Verbs and Verb Categories in Nineteenth-Century Grammars of English

by Lieselotte Anderwald

Overview

Language Between Description and Prescription is an empirical, quantitative and qualitative study of nineteenth-century English grammar writing, and of nineteenth-century language change. Based on 258 grammar books from Britain and North America, the book investigates whether grammar writers of the time noticed the language changing around them, and how they reacted. In particular, Lieselotte Anderwald demonstrates that not all features undergoing change were noticed in the first place, those that were noticed were not necessarily criticized, and some recessive features were not upheld as correct. The features investigated come from the verb phrase and include in particular variable past tense forms, which -although noticed-often went uncommented, and where variation was acknowledged; the decline of the be-perfect, where the older form (the be-perfect) was criticized emphatically, and corrected; the rise of the progressive, which was embraced enthusiastically, and which was even upheld as a symbol of national superiority, at least in Britain; the rise of the progressive passive, which was one of the most violently hated constructions of the time, and the rise of the get-passive, which was only rarely commented on, and even more rarely in negative terms. Throughout the book, nineteenth-century grammarians are given a voice, and the discussions in grammar books of the time are portrayed. The book's quantitative approach makes it possible to examine majority and minority positions in the discourse community of nineteenth-century grammar writers, and the changes in accepted opinion over time. The terms of the debate are also investigated, and linked to the wider cultural climate of the time. Although grammar writing in the nineteenth century was very openly prescriptivist, the studies in this book show that many prescriptive dicta contained interesting grains of descriptive detail, and that eventually prescriptivism had only a small-scale, short-term effect on the actual language used.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190624668
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2016
Series:	Oxford Studies in the History of English
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Lieselotte Anderwald is Full Professor of English Linguistics at Kiel University, Germany. She specializes in corpus-based variation studies, dialect grammar, and grammar writing in the 19th century.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 First remarks 1.2 Previous research 1.2.1 The nineteenth century - still a gap 1.2.2 Eighteenth-century grammar writing: Bio-bibliographic studies 1.2.3 Studies of prescriptions/proscriptions 1.2.4 Correlating grammarians' views with language change 1.2.5 After 1800 1.3 This book 1.3.1 Grammaticography and normativity 1.3.2 The grammars: The CNG 1.3.3 Corpora employed 1.3.4 Background assumptions 1.3.5 Terminology used 1.4 Structure of this book 2 Defining the verb: form, meaning and syntax 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Defining verbs 2.3 Subdividing verbs: from active - passive - neuter to transitive - intransitive 2.4 The form of verbs: regular vs. irregular 2.4.1 The historical evolution of terminology 2.4.2 Defining regular, defining weak 2.5 The tenses of English 2.5.1 Defining tense 2.5.2 The status of the will-future 2.5.3 Other future constructions 2.5.4 The status of the perfect 2.6 Summary 3 Variable past tense forms I: strong verbs old and new 3.1 Introduction 3.2 u/a verbs 3.2.1 History of u/a-verbs 3.2.2 Corpus data 3.2.3 The SING and SLING classes in eighteenth-century grammar writing 3.2.4 The SING class in the CNG 3.2.5 Shrink in the CNG 3.2.6 The SLING class in the CNG 3.2.7 Qualitative comments in the CNG 3.3 Strong vs. weak verbs 3.3.1 Regularization and irregularization 3.3.2 Corpus data 3.3.3 Thrive, dive, sneak and drag in eighteenth-century grammar writing 3.3.4 Thrive in the CNG 3.3.5 Dive in the CNG 3.4 Summary and discussion 4 Variable past tense forms II: irregular weak verbs 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Weak verbs with vowel change: The DREAM class 4.2.1 History and previous studies 4.2.2 Corpus data 4.2.3 The DREAM class in eighteenth-century grammar writing 4.2.4 Kneel in the CNG 4.2.5 Dream in the CNG 4.2.6 Lean in the CNG 4.2.7 Leap in the CNG 4.2.8 Plead in the CNG 4.2.9 Interim summary 4.3 Irregular weak verbs without vowel change: The BURN class 4.3.1 History and previous studies 4.3.2 Corpus data 4.3.3 The BURN class in eighteenth-century grammar writing 4.3.4 Dwell in the CNG 4.3.5 Spill in the CNG 4.3.6 Burn in the CNG 4.4 Summary and discussion: Evidence of successful prescription? 5 The be-perfect: a grammatical blind spot 5.1 Introduction 5.2 History and previous studies 5.3 Corpus data 5.4. The be-perfect in eighteenth-century grammar writing 5.5 The be-perfect in the CNG 5.5.1 Overview 5.5.2 The be-perfect as a passive 5.5.3 The be-perfect as a stative construction 5.5.4 Evaluating the be-perfect 5.6 Summary and discussion 6 'A peculiar beauty of our language': The progressive 6.1 Introduction 6.2. History and previous studies 6.3 Corpus data 6.4 The progressive in eighteenth-century grammar writing 6.4.1 Defining the progressive in eighteenth-century grammar writing 6.4.2 Evaluating the progressive in eighteenth-century grammar writing 6.5 The progressive in the CNG 6.5.1 Defining the progressive 6.5.2 The progressive with stative verbs: I am loving, you are loving, they are loving 6.5.3 Evaluating the progressive 6.6 Summary and discussion 7 Two passive constructions 7.1 Introduction 7.2 'An absurd and monstrous innovation': The progressive passive 7.2.1 History and earlier studies 7.2.2 Corpus data 7.2.3 The passival in eighteenth-century grammar writing 7.2.4 The progressive passive in the CNG 7.2.5 Evaluating the progressive passive 7.2.6 The cultural values transported 7.2.7 Interim summary 7.3 'Unnecessary words and phrases': The get-passive 7.3.1 History and earlier studies 7.3.2 Corpus data 7.3.3 Get-constructions in eighteenth-century grammar writing 7.3.4 Get-constructions in the CNG 7.4.5 Prescriptive success? 7.4 Summary and discussion 8 Summary 8.1 Introduction 8.2. The prescriptivism of nineteenth-century grammar writing 8.3 The success of prescriptivism 8.4 Underlying premises of prescriptivism 8.5 Cultural key terms 8.6 The hyperactive production of English grammars in the nineteenth century

Editorial Reviews

"thoroughly researched and extremely well-written study of language change and grammatical description of Late Modern English verbal syntax." — Marianne Hundt, Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics

From the Publisher