The Grammaticalization of "because" in Standard English
Description
This diachronic investigation of because has its genesis in recent usage developments which deserve scrutiny. Leading up to its naming as the American Dialect Society’s 2013 “Word of the Year,” it was popularly considered, recently by McCulloch (2014) as a subordinating conjunction; alternately it is given as a subordinating preposition (Lobeck and Denham, 2013). Corpora study shows grammaticalization at all levels of linguistic analysis, and show unidirectionality in its clines. Compelling evidence of grammaticalization is detailed in morphophonological, semantic-pragmatic, and syntactic domains.
Document Type
Event
Department
Linguistics
Genre/Form
student projects; streaming video
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
English language--Prepositions; English language--Grammaticalization; English language--Social aspects
Type
MovingImage
Keywords
Grammatcialization, Because, Preposition, Diachronic
Rights
Copying of this presentation in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this presentation for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.
Language
English
Format
video/mp4
The Grammaticalization of "because" in Standard English
This diachronic investigation of because has its genesis in recent usage developments which deserve scrutiny. Leading up to its naming as the American Dialect Society’s 2013 “Word of the Year,” it was popularly considered, recently by McCulloch (2014) as a subordinating conjunction; alternately it is given as a subordinating preposition (Lobeck and Denham, 2013). Corpora study shows grammaticalization at all levels of linguistic analysis, and show unidirectionality in its clines. Compelling evidence of grammaticalization is detailed in morphophonological, semantic-pragmatic, and syntactic domains.
Comments
This presentation was part of the Linguistics Program at the Scholars Week 2017 Symposium, held on Wednesday, May 17 at 4:00 p.m. in Bond Hall 217 at Western Washington University.