Senior Project Advisor

Xing, Janet Zhiqun

Document Type

Project

Publication Date

Winter 2019

Keywords

Linguistics, Grammaticalization, Taboo, Swear, Syntax, Language Change

Abstract

This study examines the grammaticalization of the verb “fuck” to the periphrastic interrogative “the fuck”. I use various forms of data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the Corpus of Historical American English to analyze (1) the evolution of “fuck” from a concrete lexical verb to an item diversified in meaning and part of speech, (2) the development of the phrase “what the X” from “what the devil”, and (3) the specific grammaticalization of “the fuck” as an interrogative. These processes are then discussed in terms of specific principles of grammaticalization which they illustrate.

Department

Modern and Classical Languages

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Fuck (The English word); English langauge--Semantics; English language--Etymology; English language--Obscene words

Genre/Form

student projects; term papers

Type

Text

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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Included in

Linguistics Commons

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