Abstract
The present study aims to describe the linguistic features of make + adjective combinations (e.g. make clear, make sure) and their transformation from the Late Modern English (LModE) period to Present Day English (PDE). Specifically, the objective is to examine the syntactic features and phraseological variation exhibited by these combinations from the year 1850 to 1999.
Studies with a synchronic orientation have examined verb + adjective combinations and described their linguistic status and peculiarities (Quirk et al. 1985; Biber et al. 1999). Other works have studied the diachronic development of these verbs from Old English (OE) to modern times (Claridge 2000; Mindt 2011) and they have often mentioned verbs formed with make which are considered prototypical examples of the whole category of verb + adjective combinations (Mindt 2011). However, to date, no studies have provided a detailed analysis of combinations formed with make and have examined their development from the LModE time to PDE.
The present study aims to fill this gap and to describe the linguistic features of combinations formed with make during the years 1850–1999. It is a corpus-based investigation undertaken on the multi-genre ARCHER corpus which covers the years 1600–1999.
The analysis reveals that make + adjective combinations are characterized by phraseological variability over time which intertwines with stable features: processes of renewal affected instances during the LModE time whereas more stable features are attested in the 1900s and 1950s.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Biber, D., Finegan, E., Atkinson, D.: ARCHER and its challenges: compiling and exploring a representative corpus of historical English registers. In: Fries, U., Schneider, P., Tottie, G. (eds.) Creating and Using English Language Corpora. Papers from the 14th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora, Zurich 1993, pp. 1–13. Rodopi, Amsterdam (1994)
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., Finegan, E.: Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Pearson Education Limited, Harlow (1999)
Bolinger, D.: The Phrasal Verb in English. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (1971)
Brezina, V.: Statistics in Corpus Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2018)
Brinton, L.J.: The Development of English Aspectual System Aspectualizers and Post-verbal Particles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1988)
Brinton, L.J.: Attitudes toward increasing segmentalization. Complex and phrasal verbs in English. J. English Linguist. 24(3), 186–205 (1996)
Claridge, C.: Multi-word Verbs in Early Modern English. A Corpus-based Study. Rodopi, Amsterdam/Atlanta (2000)
Constant, M., Eryigit, G., Monti, J., van der Plas, L., Ramisch, C., Rosner, M., and Todirascu, A.:: Multiword expression processing: a survey. Assoc. Comput. Linguist. 43(4), 837–892 (2017)
Cowie, A.P. (ed.): Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, and Applications. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1998)
Davies, M., Chapman, D.: The effect of representativeness and size in historical corpora: an empirical study of changes in lexical frequency. In: Chapman, D., Moore, C., Wilcox, M. (eds.) Studies in the History of the English Language VII: Generalizing vs. Particularizing Methodologies in Historical Linguistic Analysis, pp. 131–150. De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston (2016)
Denison, D.: Aspects of the History of English Group-Verbs, with Particular Attention to the Syntax of the ORMULUM. University of Oxford, Oxford, PhD diss. (1981)
Francis, G.: A corpus-driven approach to grammar. Principles, methods and examples. In: Baker, M., Francis, G., Tognini-Bonelli, E. (eds.) Text and Technology: in Honour of John Sinclair, pp. 137–156. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (1993)
Fraser, B.: The Verb-Particle Combination in English. Taishukan Publishing Company, Tokyo (1974)
Gill, P.: Reassessing the canon. ‘Fixed’ phrases in general reference corpora. In: Granger, S., Meunier, F. (eds.) Phraseology. An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 95–108. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2008)
Gries, S.T.: Phraseology and linguistic theory: a brief survey. In: Granger, S., Meunier, F. (eds.) Phraseology. An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 3–25. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2008)
Hardie, A.: CQPweb—combining power, flexibility and usability in a corpus analysis tool. Int. J. Corpus Linguist. 173, 380–409 (2012)
Hardie, A.: Using the spoken BNC2014 in CQPweb. In: Brezina, V., Love, R., Aijmer, K. (eds.) Corpus Approaches to Contemporary British Speech. Sociolinguistic Studies of the Spoken BNC2014, pp. 27–30. Routledge, New York/London (2018)
Huddleston, R., Pullum, G.K.: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2002)
Hundt, M. (ed.): Late Modern English Syntax. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2014)
Jespersen, O.: A Modern English Grammar. On Historical Principles. 7 Volumes. Ejnar Munksgaard/Allen, Copenhagen/London (1928)
Leone, L.: Syntactic reanalysis and analogical generalization in the Late Modern English period: verb-adjective combinations in focus. In: Lavidas, N., van Gelderen, E., Bergs, A., Sitaridou, I. (eds.) On Language Change. The Naxos Papers (forthcoming)
Leone, L.: Phrasal verbs and analogical generalization in Late Modern Spoken English. ICAME J. 40, 39–62 (2016)
Mindt, I.: Adjective Complementation: An Empirical Analysis of Adjectives followed by That-Clauses. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2011)
Oxford English Dictionary (OED). http://oed.com
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J.: A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, London (1985)
Sinclair, J.: Corpus, Concordance Collocation. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1991)
Stubbs, M.: Words and Phrases Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Blackwell Publishing, Malden/Oxford (2002)
Svensson, M.H.: A very complex criterion of fixedness: non-compositionality. In: Granger, S., Meunier, F. (eds.) Phraseology. An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 81–93. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2008)
The ARCHER Corpus. https://cqpweb.lancs.ac.uk/
Visser, F.T.: An Historical Syntax of the English Language. E.J. Brill, Leiden (1963)
Yáñez-Bouza, N.: ARCHER past and present (1990–2010). ICAME J. 35, 205–236 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Leone, L. (2022). Make + Adjective Combinations During the Years 1850–1999: A Corpus-Based Investigation. In: Corpas Pastor, G., Mitkov, R. (eds) Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology. EUROPHRAS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13528. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15925-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15925-1_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-15924-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-15925-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)