Getting at GET in World Englishes: A Corpus-Based Semasiological-Syntactic Analysis 9783110497311, 9783110495997

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Elisabeth Bruckmaier Getting at get in World Englishes

Topics in English Linguistics

Editors Elizabeth Closs Traugott Bernd Kortmann

Volume 95

Elisabeth Bruckmaier

Getting at get in World Englishes A Corpus-Based Semasiological-Syntactic Analysis

ISBN 978-3-11-049599-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-049731-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-049357-3 ISSN 1434-3452 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgments This book has grown out of my doctoral dissertation submitted at the LMU Munich in 2015. I would like to express my appreciation and thank Prof. Stephanie Hackert for supervising the thesis, as well as Prof. Hans-Jörg Schmid, who agreed to be my second examiner. The feedback received at various workshops and conferences was extremely valuable, and I am particularly grateful to the organisers and participants of the workshop “Frequency effects in language contact” held in Freiburg in June 2014. Many thanks are due to Prof. Bernd Kortmann for accepting the dissertation for the TiEL series, as well as to Kathleen Rabl and Tom Hawes for proofreading the manuscript. I also wish to express my gratitude to all colleagues and friends who stood by me during my time in Munich and encouraged me that I was on the right track. Special thanks go to my parents, who have spared no efforts to support me, to my brother and sister for their uplifting sense of humour and their encouraging presence, and to Alex for his continuing confidence. The present book is the result of two attempts: getting at GET and getting to grips with some of the complexities of life. Thanks to all who have helped me in both endeavours.

Contents Acknowledgments | v Abbreviations | x List of figures | xii List of tables | xiv 1

Introduction | 1 1.1 GET: origins and previous research | 1 1.2 Aims and overview of the present study | 3

2

Theoretical and methodological framework | 6 2.1 Models of World Englishes | 6 2.2 The sociolinguistic situation of Jamaica and Singapore | 8 2.3 Database | 12 2.4 Methodological stance | 16

3

Issues and factors in the variation of GET in World Englishes | 22 3.1 Prescriptivism | 22 3.2 The colloquial style of GET | 25 3.3 Substrate effects | 27 3.4 Effects of second language acquisition | 28 3.5 Influence of the two major standard varieties | 31

4

Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes | 33 4.1 Token frequencies of GET | 33 4.2 Word-forms of GET | 44

5

Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes | 51 5.1 Verb-complementational profile of GET | 51 5.2 Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 56 5.2.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 56 5.2.2 Results: frequencies and forms | 63 5.2.3 Results: meaning | 72 5.2.4 Results: mode and genre | 79 5.2.5 Summary | 84 5.3 GET as a linking verb | 85

viii | Contents

5.4

5.5

5.6

5.7 5.8

5.9

5.10 5.11

GET-passives | 89 5.4.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 89 5.4.2 Results: frequencies | 100 5.4.3 Results: mode and genre | 102 5.4.4 Results: grammaticalisation and meaning | 107 5.4.5 Summary | 113 5.4.6 Causative GET-passives | 114 GET-existentials | 117 5.5.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 117 5.5.2 Methodology | 123 5.5.3 Results: frequencies and mode | 126 5.5.4 Results: subtypes | 131 5.5.5 Results: genre | 139 5.5.6 Summary | 145 GET-PVs | 146 5.6.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 146 5.6.2 Results: frequencies | 157 5.6.3 Results: forms, range, versatility, and meaning | 161 5.6.4 Results: mode and genre | 184 5.6.5 Summary | 190 GET as a verb of motion | 191 Possessive (HAVE) got | 200 5.8.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 200 5.8.2 Results: frequencies and forms | 207 5.8.3 Results: mode and genre | 214 5.8.4 Summary | 219 Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 220 5.9.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 220 5.9.2 Results: frequencies and forms | 230 5.9.3 Results: mode and genre | 238 5.9.4 Results: meaning | 243 5.9.5 Summary | 253 Catenative GET | 254 GET-chunks | 264 5.11.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses | 264 5.11.2 Lexical bundles with GET | 266 5.11.3 Collocates of GET | 277 5.11.4 GET-idioms | 283 5.11.5 Summary | 293

Contents | ix

6

Discussion and summary | 294 6.1 The position of GET on the lexis-grammar continuum | 294 6.2 Summary: issues and factors revisited | 299

7

Conclusion and outlook | 312

References | 315 Index | 327

Abbreviations AdjP AdvP AmE APiCS Online ARCHER BNC BNCweb BrE EFL ENL ESD ESL eWAVE FLOB Frown GloWbE ICE ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-SIN itr JamE LOB LSWE MI NE NP OED phrprepv phrv pmw PP prepv PV sb SingE SLA SOV sth SVA SVC SVO SVOA SVOC

adjective phrase adverb phrase American English (in tables) Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers British National Corpus BNC web version British English (in tables) English as a foreign language English as a native language English as a second dialect English as a second language The Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English Freiburg-LOB Corpus Freiburg-Brown Corpus Corpus of Global Web-Based English International Corpus of English ICE-Great Britain ICE-Jamaica ICE-Singapore intransitive (in tables and figures) Jamaican English (in tables) Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus Longman Corpus of Spoken and Written English Mutual Information New English (in tables) noun phrase Oxford English Dictionary phrasal-prepositional verbs (in tables and figures) phrasal verbs (in tables and figures) per million words prepositional phrase prepositional verbs (in tables and figures) particle verb somebody Singaporean English (in tables) second language acquisition subject–object–verb something subject–verb–adverbial subject–verb–complement subject–verb–object subject–verb–object–adverbial subject–verb–object–complement

Abbreviations | xi

tr V VP

transitive (in tables and figures) verb (in tables) verb phrase

List of figures Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 4.1 Figure 4.2 Figure 4.3 Figure 4.4 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2 Figure 5.3 Figure 5.4 Figure 5.5 Figure 5.6 Figure 5.7 Figure 5.8 Figure 5.9 Figure 5.10 Figure 5.11 Figure 5.12 Figure 5.13 Figure 5.14 Figure 5.15 Figure 5.16 Figure 5.17 Figure 5.18 Figure 5.19 Figure 5.20 Figure 5.21 Figure 5.22 Figure 5.23 Figure 5.24 Figure 5.25 Figure 5.26 Figure 5.27

Language spoken most frequently at home in Singapore in 2010 (per cent of resident population aged five years and over) | 11 Formal and semantic analysis of GET | 20 GET in LOB, FLOB, ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN (absolute token numbers) | 34 GET in several ICE corpora (absolute token numbers, uncleaned) | 35 Mode distribution of GET (tokens per 100,000 words) | 37 Distribution of the word-forms of GET in ICE (per cent) | 46 Overview of GET-constructions in LOB and FLOB (absolute token numbers) | 54 Overview of GET-constructions in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 55 Monotransitive GET in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 64 Monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent of all GET-tokens) | 65 Basic ditransitive construction and prepositional object construction after GET in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 66 Formally intransitive GET in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 69 Mode distribution of monotransitive GET (tokens per 100,000 words) | 80 GET-passives in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 102 Mode distribution of GET-passives (tokens per 100,000 words) | 103 Meaning of the GET-passive in all written and spoken (sub-) corpora (absolute token numbers) | 108 Comparison of analyses of copular GET (SVC) in LOB and FLOB (absolute token numbers) | 111 Relation between copular GET (SVC) and GET-passives in ICE | 112 Causative GET-passives in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 115 Mode distribution of causative GET-passives (tokens per 100,000 words) | 116 Existential constructions (tokens per 100,000 words) | 127 Existential constructions in ICE-GB (per cent) | 130 Existential constructions in ICE-JA (per cent) | 130 Existential constructions in ICE-SIN (per cent) | 131 Zero-subject-got-existentials in ICE-SIN (absolute token numbers) | 136 Genre distribution of existential constructions in ICE-GB spoken (tokens per 100,000 words) | 143 Genre distribution of existential constructions in ICE-JA spoken (tokens per 100,000 words) | 143 Genre distribution of existential constructions in ICE-SIN spoken (tokens per 100,000 words) | 144 GET-PVs (absolute token numbers) | 159 GET-PVs in ICE (per cent of all GET-tokens) | 160 Types of GET-PVs (per cent of all GET-PVs) | 161 Range of GET-PVs in ICE per subtype and region | 168 Structures pointing to versatility in the use of GET-PVs in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 169

List of figures | xiii

Figure 5.28 Figure 5.29 Figure 5.30 Figure 5.31 Figure 5.32 Figure 5.33 Figure 5.34 Figure 5.35 Figure 5.36 Figure 5.37 Figure 5.38 Figure 5.39 Figure 5.40 Figure 5.41 Figure 5.42 Figure 5.43 Figure 5.44 Figure 5.45 Figure 5.46

Particle placement in transitive phrasal verbs featuring GET (absolute token numbers) | 184 Mode distribution of GET-PVs (tokens per 100,000 words) | 185 GET as a verb of concrete motion (absolute token numbers) | 192 Formal realisation of the complement in the use of GET as a verb of concrete motion (absolute token numbers) | 194 GET as a verb of metaphorical motion (absolute token numbers) | 197 Mode distribution of GET as a verb of motion (tokens per 100,000 words) | 198 Possessive (HAVE) got (absolute token numbers) | 208 Mode distribution of possessive (HAVE) got (tokens per 100,000 words) | 215 Semi-modal (HAVE) got to (absolute token numbers) | 233 Mode distribution of semi-modal (HAVE) got to (tokens per 100,000 words) | 239 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in LOB and FLOB (absolute token numbers) | 247 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 248 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE-GB (per cent) | 249 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE-JA (per cent) | 249 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE-SIN (per cent) | 250 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in private dialogues in ICE-GB (per cent) | 252 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in private dialogues in ICE-JA (per cent) | 252 Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in private dialogues in ICE-SIN (per cent) | 252 Catenative GET (absolute token numbers) | 259

List of tables Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 4.7 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9 Table 5.10 Table 5.11 Table 5.12 Table 5.13 Table 5.14 Table 5.15 Table 5.16 Table 5.17 Table 5.18

LOB/FLOB corpus design | 13 ICE corpus design | 14 Mode differences in the use of GET in several British English corpora (tokens pmw) | 36 Expected and observed distribution of GET in LOB (N=1,403) and FLOB (N=1,342) | 39 Expected and observed distribution of GET in ICE-GB written (N=623), ICE-JA written (N=603), and ICE-SIN written (N=512) | 40 Expected and observed distribution of GET in ICE-GB spoken (N=2,948), ICE-JA spoken (N=2,000), and ICE-SIN spoken (N=2,232) | 43 Word-forms of GET (absolute token numbers) | 45 Post-hoc tests on the distribution of the word-forms of GET in ICE | 45 Word-forms of GET sorted according to frequency per 100,000 words per subcorpus in ICE | 47 Basic ditransitive construction after GET in GloWbE (absolute token numbers and tokens pmw) | 67 Meaning of monotransitive GET in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 74 Agentivity of monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent) | 75 Type of object (abstract/concrete) of monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent) | 75 Type of object (count/non-count) of monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent) | 75 Collocates of monotransitive GET in ICE | 78 Typical objects of monotransitive GET in ICE | 78 Expected and observed distribution of monotransitive GET in ICE-GB (N=795), ICE-JA (N=1,146), and ICE-SIN (N=918) | 83 Copular GET (SVC) (absolute token numbers, tokens per 100,000 words, and per cent of all GET-tokens) | 87 Genre differences in the use of copular GET (SVC) (tokens per 100,000 words) | 88 Complex-transitive GET (SVOC) (absolute token numbers, tokens per 100,000 words, and per cent of all GET-tokens) | 89 Expected and observed distribution of GET-passives in ICE-GB (N=63), ICE-JA (N=100), and ICE-SIN (N=74) | 104 Negative verbal participles in GET-passives in ICE (per cent of all GET-passives) | 110 Overview of existential constructions relevant for the present study | 119 Classification of zero-subject-got-existentials in Colloquial Singapore English | 121 Existential constructions retrieved in LOB, FLOB, and ICE | 124 Mode differences in the use of existential constructions in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (tokens pmw) | 128 Existential constructions in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (absolute token numbers) | 129

List of tables | xv

Table 5.19 Table 5.20 Table 5.21 Table 5.22 Table 5.23 Table 5.24 Table 5.25 Table 5.26 Table 5.27 Table 5.28 Table 5.29 Table 5.30 Table 5.31 Table 5.32 Table 5.33 Table 5.34 Table 5.35 Table 5.36 Table 5.37 Table 5.38 Table 5.39 Table 5.40 Table 5.41 Table 5.42 Table 5.43 Table 5.44 Table 5.45 Table 5.46 Table 5.47

Systematisation of zero-subject-got-existentials proposed for Singaporean English | 136 Expected and observed distribution of GET-existentials in ICE-GB (N=155), ICE-JA (N=31), and ICE-SIN (N=109) | 141 Framework for GET-particle combinations | 153 Mode distribution of phrasal-prepositional verbs featuring GET in ICE (per cent of all GET-PVs) | 162 Use of the most frequent types of GET-PVs in ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-PVs) | 163 Most frequent GET-PVs in ICE | 165 Types and tokens of GET-PVs in ICE | 166 Individual GET-PVs used in ICE per subtype | 167 Passive GET-PVs in GloWbE (absolute token numbers) | 171 Semantic fields of GET-PVs in ICE (absolute token numbers) | 173 Expected and observed distribution of GET-PVs in LOB (N=215) and FLOB (N=229) | 187 Expected and observed distribution of GET-PVs in ICE-GB (N=366), ICE-JA (N=272), and ICE-SIN (N=203) | 189 Possessive HAVE got in ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-tokens) | 208 Possessive got in ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-tokens) | 211 Auxiliary omission in possessive (HAVE) got in ICE-GB (N=804), ICE-JA (N=79), and ICE-SIN (N=484) (per cent of all (HAVE) got-tokens) | 211 Expected and observed distribution of possessive (HAVE) got in LOB (N=91) and FLOB (N=123) | 217 Expected and observed distribution of possessive (HAVE) got in ICE-GB (N=804), ICE-JA (N=79), and ICE-SIN (N=484) | 218 Auxiliary omission in semi-modal (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=236), ICE-JA (N=51), and ICE-SIN (N=208) (per cent of all (HAVE) got to-tokens) | 233 Expected and observed distribution of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in LOB (N=42) and FLOB (N=31) | 241 Expected and observed distribution of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=236), ICE-JA (N=51), and ICE-SIN (N=208) | 242 Meaning of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in LOB (N=42), FLOB (N=31), and ICE-GB written (N=13) (per cent) | 244 Meaning of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=236), ICE-JA (N=51), and ICE-SIN (N=208) (per cent) | 244 Strength of obligation of deontic (HAVE) got to in LOB (N=34) and FLOB (N=24) (per cent) | 245 Strength of obligation of deontic (H AVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=171), ICE-JA (N=25), and ICE-SIN (N=171) (per cent) | 246 (HAVE) got to : must in ICE (absolute token numbers and ratios) | 251 Systematisation of catenative GET-constructions | 258 Meaning of GET + to-infinitive (absolute token numbers) | 261 Meaning of GET + NP + to-infinitive (absolute token numbers) | 261 Lexical bundles with GET in LOB, FLOB, and ICE-GB | 270

xvi | List of tables

Table 5.48 Table 5.49 Table 5.50 Table 5.51 Table 5.52 Table 5.53 Table 5.54 Table 5.55 Table 5.56

Table 5.57 Table 5.58 Table 5.59 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5

Lexical bundles with GET in ICE | 271 GET-fivegrams in ICE | 272 Lexical bundles with GET (except with got) in ICE | 273 Common-core GET-clusters (excluding got-clusters) in ICE | 275 Variety-specific GET-clusters (excluding got-clusters) in ICE | 276 Collocates of GET in ICE | 280 GET-idioms in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-tokens) | 286 GET-idioms in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (numbers of types and type-token ratios) | 286 Level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses in LOB (N=1,403), FLOB (N=1,342), ICE-GB (N=3,571), ICE-JA (N=2,603), and ICE-SIN (N=2,744) (per cent of all GET-clauses) | 288 Mode differences in the use of GET-idioms in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (per cent of all GET-tokens) | 289 Expected and observed distribution of GET-idioms in ICE-GB written (N=19), ICE-JA written (N=13), and ICE-SIN written (N=8) | 291 Expected and observed distribution of GET-idioms in LOB (N=31) and FLOB (N=40) | 292 Lexical and grammatical uses of GET | 296 Lexical vs. grammatical uses of GET in LOB (N=1,403) and FLOB (N=1,342) (per cent) | 296 Lexical vs. grammatical uses of GET in ICE-GB (N=3,571), ICE-JA (N=2,603), and ICE-SIN (N=2,744) (per cent) | 297 Position of the varieties on the lexis-grammar continuum of GET | 298 Factors relevant in the variation of GET in Jamaican and Singaporean English | 304

1 Introduction 1.1 GET: origins and previous research The major reference dictionary of English, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (2009: s.v. “get, v.”), has 81 entries for GET in verbal use, not counting draft entries. In the book version (1989), this amounts to ten full pages reserved for GET. GET is adopted from Old Norse geta ‘to get, to obtain, to beget, to guess’, and, in the form of geten, first used as a simple lexical verb in the Middle English period. In Old English, only compounds with *-gietan existed, e.g. forgietan. The Indo-European root *ghed/*ghod ‘to seize, to take hold of’ is also found in Latin prehendere ‘to catch, to lay hold of’ and Greek χανδάνειν ‘to hold, to contain, to be able’. During the Middle English period, the original Old Norse e vowel of the past participle changed to o by analogy, yielding gotten, and in the 16th century, also the past tense form gat assumed the o vowel. By the 17th century, got and gotten were the usual forms. In England, gotten was then superseded by got, while it has remained common in the US. Why is this attempt being made to get at GET? Pursuing research on verbs with the meaning ‘to get’ is motivated by […] their high frequency, their formal and semantic complexity, their high variability in intra- and interlingual comparisons and (from a historical or panchronic perspective) their susceptibility to semantic extension and also to grammaticalization. […] As GET verbs are highly dynamic verbs, their semantic and grammatical changes as well as their synchronic variation offer many research opportunities. (Lenz and Rawoens 2012: 1075)

Applying this to English, Kirchner (1952), as early as the middle of the 20th century, attempted a comprehensive syntactic and semantic analysis of ten of the most important verbs in British and American English, among them GET, and placed special focus on idioms of which they are a part. His description of GET alone amounts to 70 pages. Firth (1968: 12, 18), too, very early used GET to exemplify his contextual approach to meaning, stating that the traditional categories and assumptions of semantics, such as that single words and sentences could be safely examined as for their meaning without regarding their environment, are inadequate and must be replaced by abstractions that use the larger contexts of the words and describe whole systems derived from contextualised structures. GET, Firth concluded, has a “unique position” (1968: 22) in the English language:

2 | Introduction

Get is formally involved and widely distributed in a large number of collocations functioning in creative, possessive and highly conative situations. It is easy to understand why taboos grew up about this word of power, especially among puritans and schoolmasters. (1968: 23)

Quirk et al. (1985) use GET as an example of multiple class membership and refer to it in 7 of their 19 chapters, “[y]et there is no attempt in the grammar to show the connections between the various uses of the verb”, as Johansson and Oksefjell (1996: 57) deplore. They attempt a unified account and start by counting the word-forms of GET and classifying its constructions in 350,000 words of written and spoken British and American English from the Lancaster-Oslo/ Bergen Corpus, the Brown Corpus, and the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English. After relating certain constructions of GET to similar constructions into which the primary verbs BE and HAVE can enter, they suggest a syntacticsemantic prototype of GET, which has the three historically original features of GET, viz. an agentive subject, the expression of change, and the expression of causation (cf. Johansson and Oksefjell 1996: 71–73). These features have been preserved to a different extent in the different constructions that are used today. Possessive HAVE got is declared a new prototype in that it lacks all of the three original features. However, Johansson and Oksefjell fail to point out that their prototype is in no way connected to frequency or salience. In fact, the most frequent constructions, viz. monotransitive GET and possessive HAVE got, exhibit only vestiges or none of the original features. Thus, the corpus-based approach that they use in the first part is not only based on a limited amount of data but, more seriously, does not fulfil any function for the conclusion. Biber et al. emphasise the “invisibility” of GET despite its frequency, and dedicate a whole page of their grammar to general information about it. They state: The verb get goes largely unnoticed, and yet in conversation it is the single most common lexical verb in any one register. The main reason that get is so common is that it is extremely versatile, being used with a wide range of meanings and grammatical patterns. (1999: 376)

Later, they illustrate verb patterns with the help of GET because “the range of valency patterns matches the exceptional range of meanings the verb can have” (1999: 391). Attempts at describing the meaning of GET are found in Kimball (1973: 206, 214–215), Hübler (1998: 169), Gronemeyer (1999: 11–12), and Dixon (2005: 357). They differ, among other things, in what they consider to be the basic or source meaning(s) of GET, from which other meanings can be derived. For instance,

Aims and overview of the present study | 3

Kimball suggests ‘to come to have/be’ as the basic meaning, Hübler a causative meaning as well as the meaning ‘to receive/obtain’, Gronemeyer an ingressive meaning combined with the meaning ‘to have’, and Dixon suggests four basic uses. A fairly comprehensive overview is provided by Biber et al. (1999: 376), who list six meanings in addition to possessive (HAVE) got, and add semi-modal (HAVE) got to, the passive use, and idiomatic uses as “specialised functions and meanings”.

1.2 Aims and overview of the present study GET often goes unnoticed among speakers of English, but not much less so in linguistic studies, and this contrasts decisively with its exceptional frequency. With over 12,000 tokens per million words (pmw), GET is the fourth most frequent English verb after BE, DO, and HAVE in spontaneous speech in the British National Corpus (BNC) (cf. Krug 2000: 26). In the conversational part of the Longman Corpus of Spoken and Written English (LSWE), GET occurs about 9,000 times pmw (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 373–374), and in private dialogues in the British component of the International Corpus of English (ICE), GET is found 7,765 times pmw. A classification of GET as a fourth so-called primary verb would not be unwarranted. In fact, just like the verbs traditionally called primary, viz. BE, DO, and HAVE, “the three most important verbs in the language” (Quirk et al. 1985: 64), GET is exceptionally frequent, particularly in conversation, and it is exceptionally versatile, being used not only both as a main verb and as an auxiliary verb, but also in functions in between, i.e. it can also have an intermediate status (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 136). Furthermore, GET is frequently used in idiomatic expressions and fixed chunks. The previous research on GET is limited, however. Only single phenomena have been looked at, and mainly in a diachronic perspective. Close analysis has been restricted to small amounts of data, and varieties other than British or American English have not been considered. The present study is corpus-based and deals with all occurrences of GET in over 5 million words of written and spoken English, which amounts to a total of 11,663 tokens analysed. It aims at providing a comprehensive semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET, i.e. an analysis of all its meanings and all the constructions into which it enters. The choice of corpora allows several dimensions of analysis. Two corpora of written British English make a diachronic investigation possible and are used to make statements about changes in the use of GET over time. Three synchronic corpora

4 | Introduction

of spoken and written English are analysed for similarities and differences between British English and two New Englishes,1 viz. Jamaican English and Singaporean English. All five corpora are exploited for mode and genre differences in the use of GET. Thus, the present study subscribes, in analysing all occurrences of GET, to the request of corpus-based research for total accountability, it is based on large token numbers, and it covers diachronic, regional, and stylistic variation, weighting influencing factors according to their respective importance for the phenomenon under consideration. Models of World Englishes and where British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English can be located in them are the topic of the following section, chapter 2.1. The latter issue also surfaces in chapter 2.2, which is devoted to the sociolinguistic situation of Jamaica and Singapore. The database and the corpora used for the present study are outlined in chapter 2.3, while the methodological stance is detailed in chapter 2.4, which not only expands on the corpus-based approach, but also asks the question of how diachronic, regional, and stylistic variation becomes apparent. Furthermore, it examines how a consideration of form must be combined with an analysis of meaning to arrive at a complete description of GET. Comments on the statistical tests applied and on notational devices conclude the methodological section. In chapter 3, five factors that play a role in determining the variation of GET will be suggested and explored. They will continually resurface in chapters 4 and 5, which are the core of the study and contain the results from the corpus analysis. Chapter 4.1 comprises an investigation of the token frequencies of GET in several corpora, pointing to first regional and stylistic differences, and chapter 4.2 argues for a close look at individual word-forms. While the analyses in chapter 4 deal with surface forms, formal and semantic analyses are intertwined

|| 1 New Englishes is a term used to refer to newly emerged varieties of English, usually used as second languages. It will be explained in chapters 2.1 and 2.2 that it might not be considered entirely appropriate to speak of English used as a second language in the case of Jamaican English because of the creole continuum, and in the case of Singaporean English because many speakers now use English as a first language. However, the term New Englishes will still be used in the present study for ease of reference to commonly designate Jamaican and Singaporean English, and to emphasise the newness or recent emergence of these varieties as opposed to British English (cf. Schneider 2013: 133). Note that the alternative term Postcolonial Englishes, which would also include American English, is not used here in order to draw a clear line between Jamaican and Singaporean English on the one hand and American English as an increasingly important linguistic epicentre for these varieties on the other hand. For more details on the origins and use of the terms World Englishes, New Englishes, and Postcolonial Englishes, cf. Schneider (2013: 132–133).

Aims and overview of the present study | 5

in the description of the ten constructions – monotransitive GET, ditransitive GET, GET as a linking verb, GET-passives, GET-existentials, GET-particle verbs (GET-PVs), GET as a verb of motion, possessive (HAVE) got, semi-modal (HAVE) got to, catenative GET – and of GET-chunks in chapter 5. The description of these eleven phenomena is preceded by an overview of the verb-complementational profile of GET. The uses of GET are so varied that the question arises whether this verb is primarily a lexical word or a grammatical word. Therefore, chapter 6.1 expands on where the individual GET-constructions can be situated on the lexis-grammar continuum, what the relation between lexical and grammatical uses is in terms of frequency, and where on the continuum of GET the three focal varieties can be located in sum. Chapter 6.2 summarises the diachronic and synchronic analyses of the present study and reconsiders the respective importance of the five factors for the variation of GET. Finally, chapter 7 brings together the insights gained and suggests avenues for further research.

2 Theoretical and methodological framework 2.1 Models of World Englishes The present study deals with diachronic change in the use of GET in British English, as well as with variation in the use of GET in World Englishes, i.e. varieties of English spoken around the world. Three standard varieties of English are the centre of interest here: British English, Jamaican English, and Singaporean English.2 In the following, I will present three models of World Englishes and explain how they account for the varieties focussed on in this study. Strang (1970: 17–19) was the first to distinguish English-speaking communities by how they have acquired the language and how they use it, but Quirk et al.’s (1972) distinction between English as a native language (ENL), English as a second language (ESL), and English as a foreign language (EFL) has become most famous. Individual speakers may differ in the functional range in which they use English, but Quirk’s tripartite model is community-based and not speaker-based, and thus does not, for instance, specifically consider speakers of ENL in ESL communities. Note, furthermore, that the notion of what a native speaker of a language is should be treated more discriminately than what the original model catered for: many speakers in so-called ESL countries, e.g. in Singapore, may have grown up using an indigenous mother tongue but have shifted to using English predominantly. They do not qualify as native speakers of English as defined by the model, but are certainly speakers of English as a first language. Using the term functional nativeness, coined by Kachru (1997, quoted in Schneider 2007: 17), in contrast to genetic nativeness, does justice to their use of English. Kachru also presented a model of World Englishes, and he depicts the varieties in three circles, which “represent the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition, and the functional allocation of English in diverse cultural contexts” (1992: 356). Put simply, the inner circle comprises countries where ENL applies, such as Great Britain, the outer circle those where ESL applies, and the expanding circle contains countries where English is spoken as a foreign language. The new idea of Kachru’s model is that the ownership of English and the right to establish norms of correctness are no longer exclusively accorded to the inner circle (cf. Schneider 2013: 135). Quite to the contrary, multicultural identities,

|| 2 Note that the terms British English, Jamaican English, and Singaporean English are used in the present study to designate the respective standard varieties only.

Models of World Englishes | 7

formally and functionally, are ascribed to English. However, Kachru specifically refers to Jamaica when he points out that some countries are difficult to situate in the model: “[i]n terms of the English-using populations and the functions of English, their situations are rather complex” (1992: 362n1). Singapore is placed in the outer circle. If one keeps the drawbacks and simplifications of the two models in mind, the distinction between ENL and ESL, or inner circle and outer circle, is useful for present purposes because it distinguishes British English, one of the two major standard varieties of English, from Jamaican and Singaporean English, two New Englishes for which British English is the parent variety. In communities where ESL applies, English is usually acquired at school. It plays an important social role in the community and is used for international as well as intranational functions. However, while the target norm will be a native-speaker norm for EFL learners, it may deviate from a native-speaker norm for ESL speakers. What is considered deviant or nonstandard language production thus crucially depends on what is considered to be the target norm (cf. Götz and Schilk 2011: 80–81; Ellis 2008: 6). The Dynamic Model by Schneider, the third model of World Englishes sketched here, presents the histories of Postcolonial Englishes as “instantiations of the same underlying process” (2007: 5), viz. a progression of five characteristic phases, which can be summarised as “a gradual and mutual cultural and linguistic approximation of the two parties in a colonization process” (2007: 5). In contrast to the other two models, this one puts the focus on contact and its effects and is therefore primarily concerned with the New Englishes. Schneider builds on Thomason’s (2001) and Mufwene’s (2001) language contact theories. Thomason (2001), for instance, emphasises that a high degree of multilingualism in a community makes strong contact effects more probable. In a similar vein, Ansaldo states that “multilingual ecologies are by definition a natural locus of change, and multilingual speakers are natural innovators” (2009: 136). Moreover, the longer the contact period and the greater the intensity of contact, the more likely is the transferral not only of lexical features, but also of structural features (cf. Thomason 2010: 37). Mufwene (2001) claims that new language varieties emerge in a competition-and-selection process between features available to speakers in a contact setting. The internal ecology, i.e. the coexistence of linguistic features in a feature pool, as well as the external ecology, i.e. the sociohistorical context of language contact, determine the choice of variants (cf. Schneider 2007: 21–23). An important process is nativisation, which occurs in phase 3 of the Dynamic Model and means that locally characteristic linguistic patterns emerge.

8 | Theoretical and methodological framework

What many Postcolonial Englishes have in common is “a tension between ‘standard’ forms and local variants […], with the former being associated with overt and the latter with covert prestige” (Schneider 2013: 141), as is the case in Singapore, where Singaporean English is the standard variety but Colloquial Singapore English epitomises local identity. The Dynamic Model argues that the same processes operate in the formation of all Postcolonial Englishes, but different varieties can of course be differentiated, e.g. according to the type of colony where they originated. While in Jamaica, a plantation colony was established, leading to an extreme language contact situation, with creolisation being the linguistic outcome, Singapore is an example of a former exploitation colony (cf. Schneider 2013: 138–140). Both Jamaican and Singaporean English are described as having reached phase 4 today, that of endonormative stabilisation. This means that structural nativisation has occurred, that local norms are accepted, and that the variety is stabilising (cf. Schneider 2007: 56). For Singaporean English, phase 5 has been discussed because of ethnic varieties within Singaporean English (cf. Deterding 2007: 5, 87; also cf. Ansaldo 2004).

2.2 The sociolinguistic situation of Jamaica and Singapore Jamaica is an island of 11,000 km2 in the Caribbean, and has a population of 2.7 million (year 2013; cf. Statistical Institute of Jamaica 2015). The vast majority of the population are of African or partially African descent. In 1655, the British conquered Jamaica, taking it over from the Spanish, and there was a population influx from many Caribbean countries. The British established a plantation colony, introduced sugar cultivation, and imported a great number of slaves from Africa from the 1690s on (cf. Schneider 2007: 227–229). Various British dialects, African languages, Caribbean English, and African pidgins were spoken at that time. Jamaican Creole originated in this setting of language contact: “the demographic proportions, the constant influx of Africans, and the fact that their target was the speech of other slaves produced a comparatively basilectal creole” (Schneider 2007: 233). With the end of the British slave trade in 1807, there was a “decline of direct African influence in the nineteenth century and […] movement toward a creole society that accepted Jamaica as its home” (Lalla and D’Costa 1990: 26). With the Act of Emancipation, all slaves in the British Caribbean were freed in 1834, and the Negro Education Grant came into force, which meant the introduction of Standard English in public education for locally born people. At the beginning, British people formed the majority of teachers, but soon, larger portions of the Creole-speaking population became teachers, and public education expanded (cf. Devonish and Thomas 2012: 181–182). Until

The sociolinguistic situation of Jamaica and Singapore | 9

1962, when Jamaica gained independence, the target of English language use was undoubtedly Standard British English, while use of the Creole was stigmatised (cf. Devonish and Thomas 2012: 189). Whether the Standard English spoken in Jamaica is ENL or ESL is not undisputed (cf. chapter 2.1) because it is also connected to the question of whether Jamaican Creole is classified as a variety of English or as a separate language. Technically, the language situation in Jamaica could be classified as a diglossic one, with official English complementing the local English-lexifier creole as a “high” variety. However, in practice there is extensive mixing of the two codes along a continuum, and most Jamaicans, whatever their attitude towards the local creole and creolised English, see themselves as English-speaking. (Mair 2007: 455)

One should thus subscribe to the notion of the post-creole continuum (cf. DeCamp 1971: 349) to depict the language situation in Jamaica today because various mesolectal varieties between basilectal Jamaican Creole and acrolectal Jamaican Standard English are in use. If Jamaican Creole is considered a basilectal variety of English, the term ENL would have to be used to denote English in Jamaica. However, to do more justice to the complex language situation, the term English as a second dialect (ESD) (cf. Görlach 1991: 70–72; Nesselhauf 2009: 4) has been suggested for the acrolectal variety, i.e. Jamaican English as analysed in the present study. The term ESL is also used, however. In any case, it is clear that applying labels such as ENL, ESD, or ESL to whole speaker communities inevitably glosses over individual sociolinguistic realities. English is the official language in Jamaica. However, Standard English, used for official purposes, in government, administration, schools, and media, is primarily transmitted by the education system and is not the usual home variety of Jamaicans. “What most Jamaicans grow up with and what is most widely audible in public is a mesolectal form of Jamaican Creole, with a lot of variation toward and away from the standard or basilectal ends” (Schneider 2007: 235). This means that full command of Standard English indicates an upper-class elitist status. In written educated language, Jamaican Creole can become apparent in loanwords, quotes, or as an indirect substrate influence. In spoken language, much more of the non-acrolectal varieties of the continuum will surface, even in the language use of educated speakers (cf. Mair and Sand n.d.). In the last few decades, with a growing sense of nationalism, Jamaican Creole has also made inroads into more formal contexts in the political or media landscape, leading Shields-Brodber (1997) to project a requiem for Standard Jamaican English. While for spoken language, Creole influence on acrolectal varieties cannot be denied and the exonormative British English teaching target

10 | Theoretical and methodological framework

prevailing until the 1960s has eroded and lost prestige, for written language, the claim is probably exaggerated (cf. Schneider 2007: 234–236). Singapore, an island of 716 km2 situated at the southern tip of Malaysia, has a total population of 5.4 million, and a resident population of 3.8 million (year 2013; cf. Department of Statistics Singapore 2014), with 74.2% of the people of Chinese origin, 13.3% of Malay, 9.1% of Indian, and 3.3% of other origin. Singapore was founded by the British in 1819. Together with Malacca, it became the Straits Settlement in 1826 and a Crown Colony in 1867. Because of the rapidly expanding economy, a large number of immigrants from southern China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Asia came to Singapore, which led to a fast increase in population numbers as well as an ethnolinguistic mix of peoples. In 1823, the first English-medium school was set up in Singapore. By the 1920s and 1930s, in many Malay- and Chinese-medium schools, too, English was taught as a subject. In 1947, about one third of all students, mainly from upper-class families, attended English-medium schools, in which the English language standard was an exonormative one, i.e. Standard British English. Because most teachers were from the region, in reality, a diverse number of locally influenced English varieties were spoken (cf. Lim 2012: 275–278). During colonial rule, Bazaar Malay, a colloquial variety of Malay with Chinese features, was used as a lingua franca (cf. Ansaldo 2009: 138). Upon independence in 1965, English was made one of the four official languages of the country, the others being Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. Of these, “English has been and is the primary working language, the language of law and administration” (Lim 2012: 281). The use of English has been promoted by language policy, with the aim of an English-based bilingualism, which means that English should be the first language and one of the other three official languages a socalled mother-tongue second language (cf. Schneider 2007: 156; Deterding 2007: 85–86). Since 1987, English has been the medium of instruction in all schools, and thereafter became the dominant language of more and more children (cf. Lim 2012: 281–282). As Figure 2.1 illustrates (cf. Department of Statistics Singapore 2010), in 2010, for about a third of all people aged over five, English was the language spoken most frequently at home, which indicates that Singapore is in a transition from an ESL to an ENL community (cf. Schneider 1999: 193).

The sociolinguistic situation of Jamaica and Singapore | 11

40 35

35.6 32.3

30 25 20

14.3

15

12.2

10 5

3.3

2.3

Tamil

Others

0 Mandarin English

Chinese

Malay

dialects Figure 2.1: Language spoken most frequently at home in Singapore in 2010 (per cent of resident population aged five years and over)

Colloquial Singapore English emerged as a contact language in Singapore’s multilingual ecology after independence. It is the variety spoken on an everyday basis by the majority of Singaporeans, and is also referred to as Singlish, sometimes as Singapore English. It draws much of its vocabulary from English, but is unique in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, with influences from Malay, Hokkien, Tamil, Cantonese, and more recently Mandarin (cf. Ansaldo 2009: 138–139). Colloquial Singapore English can be regarded as functioning as the Low variety and Standard Singaporean English as functioning as the High variety in a diglossic situation. However, since there is a high degree of variability depending on education and formality, the English used in Singapore could also be conceptualised on a continuum (cf. Lim and Ansaldo 2013b; Deterding 2007: 6), with the English described and analysed in the present study situated at the acrolectal end, Colloquial Singapore English situated at the basilectal end, and various mesolectal varieties in between. Of all the countries in SouthEast Asia where English spoken, the establishment of a standard variety is most advanced in Singapore, and this is certainly also due to campaigns such as the “Speak Good English Movement”, launched in 2000 to ensure that the English spoken by Singaporeans is understood by people universally. It has been suggested, however, that the gap between Colloquial Singapore English and Standard Singaporean English has been closing, with Standard Singaporean English not only taking on features of phonology, but also grammatical features from Colloquial Singapore English (cf. Lim 2012: 275, 285–287; Lim and Ansaldo 2013b).

12 | Theoretical and methodological framework

2.3 Database Five corpora are used in the present study to arrive at an empirically-grounded semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes: the LancasterOslo/Bergen Corpus (LOB), the Freiburg-LOB Corpus (FLOB), and the International Corpus of English (ICE) corpora for Great Britain, Jamaica, and Singapore. The database allows the exploration of diachronic, regional, and stylistic variation, and all in all consists of more than 5 million words of written and spoken English. The corpora will be briefly introduced in the following. LOB and FLOB are part of the so-called Brown family of corpora and contain exclusively written material. The data for LOB are from 1961, those for FLOB from 1991. The original version of LOB used in the present study was published in 1978 (cf. Johansson et al. 1978), that of FLOB in 1999 (cf. Hundt et al. 1999). In design, the corpora are modelled after the American English Brown corpus and are completely parallel, each containing 500 texts of about 2,000 words, distributed across 9 informative and 6 imaginative text categories. While the texts for LOB were obtained by stratified random sampling within certain guidelines, the texts for FLOB were selected so as to match the LOB corpus closely, which enables researchers to study recent change in written British English. The classification of LOB and FLOB into different text types can also be exploited to study language phenomena in more formal or “uptight” genres as opposed to more informal or “agile” genres, among the latter press language and fiction (cf. Hundt and Mair 1999).3 Table 2.1 (cf. Johansson et al. 1978) illustrates the corpus design, with numbers in brackets indicating how many texts occur in each category.

|| 3 In the present study, the terms text type and genre are used interchangeably to refer to the various types of textual material contained in the five corpora. Register is used by Biber et al. (1999: 15).

Database | 13

Table 2.1: LOB/FLOB corpus design

A

Press: reportage (44)

B

Press: editorial (27)

J

Science (80)

C

Press: review (17)

K

General fiction (29)

D

Religion (17)

L

Mystery and detective fiction (24)

E

Skills, trades, and hobbies (38)

M

Science fiction (6)

F

Popular lore (44)

N

Adventure and Western (29)

G

Belles lettres, biographies, essays (77) P

Romance and love story (29)

H

Miscellaneous (30)

Humour (9)

R

The ICE project started in 1990 “with the primary aim of collecting material for comparative studies of English worldwide” (The ICE Project 2014). The ICE corpora comprise about 1 million words each, follow a common design of 500 texts of 2,000 words, and constitute “a uniquely suitable database for […] comparative investigations, despite unavoidable limitations due to cultural differences and methodological pitfalls” (Schneider 2004: 227). They aim at depicting Standard English in places where English is spoken as a native or a second language, and focus on educated speakers. The criteria for texts to be included are summarised as follows: The texts in the corpus date from 1990 or later. The authors and speakers of the texts are aged 18 or above, were educated through the medium of English, and were either born in the country in whose corpus they are included, or moved there at an early age and received their education through the medium of English in the country concerned. (The ICE Project 2009)

A major advantage of the ICE corpora besides the common corpus design, which is illustrated in Table 2.2 (cf. The ICE Project 2009), with numbers behind each category indicating how many texts occur in it, is their large component of 60% spoken material.

14 | Theoretical and methodological framework

Table 2.2: ICE corpus design

SPOKEN (300)

Dialogues (180)

Monologues (120)

WRITTEN (200)

Non-printed (50)

Printed (150)

Private (S1A) (100)

Face-to-face conversations (90) Phonecalls (10)

Public (S1B) (80)

Classroom lessons (20) Broadcast discussions (20) Broadcast interviews (10) Parliamentary debates (10) Legal cross-examinations (10) Business transactions (10)

Unscripted (S2A) (70)

Spontaneous commentaries (20) Unscripted speeches (30) Demonstrations (10) Legal presentations (10)

Scripted (S2B) (50)

Broadcast news (20) Broadcast talks (20) Non-broadcast talks (10)

Student writing (W1A) (20)

Student essays (10) Exam scripts (10)

Letters (W1B) (30)

Social letters (15) Business letters (15)

Academic writing (W2A) (40)

Humanities (10) Social sciences (10) Natural sciences (10) Technology (10)

Popular writing (W2B) (40)

Humanities (10) Social sciences (10) Natural sciences (10) Technology (10)

Reportage (W2C) (20)

Press news reports (20)

Instructional writing (W2D) (20)

Administrative writing (10) Skills/hobbies (10)

Persuasive writing (W2E) (10)

Press editorials (10)

Creative writing (W2F) (20)

Novels/short stories (20)

Database | 15

In the present study, ICE-Great Britain (ICE-GB), ICE-Jamaica (ICE-JA), and ICE-Singapore (ICE-SIN) will be analysed. The texts included in ICE-GB date from 1990 to 1993 (cf. UCL Survey of English Usage 2013), which means that written texts were published, and spoken texts recorded, during that period. The texts for ICE-JA were published or recorded between 1990 and 2008 (cf. Rosenfelder et al. 2009). For ICE-SIN, no information is provided, but to conform to the guidelines, the texts must date from after 1989. The publication dates of the plain text versions of the corpora in the order mentioned are 1998, 2009, and 2002. While all corpora used in the present study are in principle comparable as they are because they all contain approximately 1 million words, for all calculations here, exact word counts were used to ensure maximum precision. The total numbers of words for the complete corpora need to be determined with care because they can influence, even if only to a small extent, other calculations and test results. For ICE-GB, the official word count was taken from the homepage (cf. UCL Survey of English Usage 2013). For LOB, FLOB, and ICE-JA, the counts provided in the manuals were used (cf. Johansson et al. 1978; Hundt et al. 1999; Rosenfelder et al. 2009). In the ICE-SIN manual, no information on word numbers is provided. I calculated the word number for the corpus cleaned of extra-corpus material by using the orthographic word definition also used for the other corpora, viz. one element between blank spaces counting as one word. In order to ensure that no tags were counted as words, the corpus had to be cleaned of all tags. This was done using the search and replace function of the text editor Notepad++. Great care has to be taken to exclude extra-corpus material from any query in ICE since otherwise, the results could be very much distorted (cf. The ICE Project 2011). Extra-corpus material contains, for instance, non-contemporary English, or English uttered by people that do not fulfil the criteria for inclusion as speakers in the respective corpus but whose contributions are necessary for understanding a certain text or conversation, such as questions by foreign fieldworkers conducting interviews, or whole units of quotations that the speaker has integrated into his or her own text. Extra-corpus material can be identified with the help of the tags and , indicating the beginning and end of extra-corpus material, respectively. The ICE-GB version used in the present study was already cleaned of extra-corpus material. I cleaned ICE-JA as well as ICE-SIN of extra-corpus material by using regular expressions in the search and replace function of Notepad++. For ICE-JA, I was able to ensure that all and only the relevant text parts were removed from the original texts by comparing the word numbers of the resultant files with the word numbers provided in the manual. In the ICE-SIN manual, unfortunately, no word numbers are provided.

16 | Theoretical and methodological framework

For the analysis, the plain text files of the corpora were used. The software AntConc 3.2.4w was used to process the corpora. AntConc is a freeware corpus analysis toolkit, with functions such as Concordance, Collocates, and Word List. The search can be made using words, wildcards, and regular expressions. The results can be exported to be analysed in a spreadsheet programme. Apart from LOB, FLOB, and ICE, the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) and the web version of the BNC (BNCweb) were searched to provide additional information where called for. GloWbE contains 1.9 billion words from web pages in 20 different English-speaking countries and was released in 2013. Since the corpus exclusively contains web-based English, it cannot be considered representative of English as a whole. However, its size is a clear advantage. The British part consists of 387,615,074 words, the Jamaican one of 39,663,666, the Singaporean one of 42,974,705, and the US subcorpus consists of 386,809,355 words. It can be searched using an online interface. The BNC is a balanced corpus of written and spoken language of late 20th-century British English. It contains 100 million words, thereof approximately 90% written and 10% spoken language. It can be searched using the BNCweb interface, first released in 2002.

2.4 Methodological stance This section is intended to clarify the meaning of the statement that the present study is corpus-based, and therefore starts by providing an overview of how corpus-informed, corpus-based, and corpus-driven research can be distinguished. It then goes on to expand on how diachronic variation can be observed, and on the fact that World Englishes differ in a quantitative and qualitative regard. The need to combine formal and semantic analysis in the study of GET is illustrated before comments on statistical tests and notation conclude the chapter. Corpus-informed research, which uses the data of corpora to illustrate and exemplify a linguistic issue (e.g. used for the reference grammars by Quirk et al. 1985 and Huddleston and Pullum 2002), can be distinguished from corpusbased research, in which quantitative information is used to formulate new conclusions (e.g. used for the reference grammar by Biber et al. 1999). Usually, corpus-based research is committed to the notion of total accountability, which means that all corpus instances of the phenomenon under investigation should be integrated into the analysis. While corpus-informed and corpus-based are terms used to describe a methodology, corpus-driven entails the view that corpus linguistics is a separate domain of study within linguistics rather than “only” a methodology. Corpus-driven research uses corpora to formulate new

Methodological stance | 17

theories and to redefine established concepts (e.g. used by Hunston and Francis 2000 for their Pattern Grammar) (cf. Collins 2009a: 5–6). Thus, the corpusdriven position emphasises a break from previous work, while the corpus-based position emphasises continuity with previous work (cf. Stubbs 2013: 23). However, it has also been pointed out that neutral observation of language and theory-free induction are hardly possible, which means that the distinction between corpus-driven and corpus-based can be reduced to the distinction between sequence, i.e. an observable feature of texts, and theoretical order, i.e. a feature of linguists’ models (cf. Stubbs 2013: 17, 22–23). The present study is corpus-based in that it uses corpora as a source of quantitative information in order to test hypotheses put forward on the basis of earlier research and to formulate new conclusions. It can therefore, strictly speaking, no longer be corpus-driven because it makes use of established notions, categories, and theories from a variety of sources: diachronic and regional variation, World Englishes, grammaticalisation, verb complementation, modality theory, etc. To a certain extent, however, it incorporates elements of corpus-driven research. The analysis of token frequencies and word-forms, for instance (cf. chapter 4), is theory-neutral: it puts forward claims purely on the basis of what the data yield. The analysis of lexical bundles (cf. chapter 5.11.2) is also corpus-driven in that it looks at sequences occurring in texts and lets structures emerge from the data without putting down theoretical order beforehand. Furthermore, rather than having been postulated prior to the data analysis, a number of categories have emerged during the course of it, i.e. as a consequence of letting the data speak for themselves, for instance the categories for the meaning analysis of GET-PVs (cf. chapter 5.6.3) or the class of zerosubject-got-existentials in Singaporean English (cf. chapter 5.5.4). The corpora LOB and FLOB are used in the present study to make statements about diachronic developments in the use of GET. While the time depth of 30 years between LOB and FLOB might at first seem too short to allow statements about change, “if we understand such changes to include changes of frequency, significant grammatical changes do take place within a generation” (Leech 2003: 223). Additional information from sources going further back in time will be provided in this study wherever it is called for. ICE-GB represents Present-Day British English and will be used as a standard of comparison for the New Englishes here. Of course, ICE-GB does not reflect the variety that was part of the input for Jamaican and Singaporean English. In each area of the British Empire, there was an individual mix of varieties. In most colony types, e.g. in plantation colonies such as Jamaica, non-standard varieties served as English input varieties, whereas in Singapore, Standard English, which was transmitted

18 | Theoretical and methodological framework

to the local society’s elite through formal education, played a larger role (cf. Schneider 2007: 65–66, 101). What the parent varieties of New Englishes looked like exactly can hardly be determined and there is no historical corpus available that could be used to compare it with ICE-JA and ICE-SIN. If one keeps this in mind, ICE-GB can be a valid baseline for assessing differences between British English and New Englishes (cf. Mukherjee and Gries 2009: 34–36). Moreover, current synchronic patterns in the distribution of GET in ICE are not only descriptive accounts of its variation but “can be interpreted as pathways in the diffusion of linguistic change” (Krug 2000: 29). This means that differences that can be observed at a synchronic point in time may reflect a diachronic development, but, of course, only diachronic data can provide conclusive evidence of change. What forms the body of research in World Englishes and still remains a general question to be answered in the discipline is to what extent World Englishes actually differ. Mukherjee and Gries claim that […] only recently has it been noted that structural nativisation not only refers to entirely new and innovative forms and structures in individual varieties, but also covers quantitative differences between varieties of English in the use of forms and structures that belong to the common core […] that is shared by all Englishes. (2009: 28).

This means that innovative features and qualitatively new uses in New Englishes are only one aspect of nativisation and affect only a small number of individual forms. It is quantitative differences in the use of common core features that distinguish varieties of English most. Schneider thinks that […] individual varieties differ from each other first and foremost in their combinatory preferences, in their constructions, in the frequencies of their lexicogrammatical choices, collocations, word uses, and so on. It is not only, and perhaps not even primarily, the occasional occurrences of well-known “distinctive features” that attribute its uniqueness to a variety; it is the subconscious set of conventions regulating the norm level of speech habits, of what is normally done and uttered, the “way things are said” in a community. (2007: 92)

These differences do not strike the eye in the same way as the use of innovative forms. In fact, while supposedly innovative features of a variety are quickly detected by the anecdotal observer but possibly overrated in their importance4

|| 4 A case in point for overrating the importance of a supposedly increasing innovative feature in English is the use of the present progressive with stative verbs. Corpus-based studies have so far not been able to establish convincing quantitative proof of this phenomenon (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 129–130).

Methodological stance | 19

because they are one-off features, differences in common core features are more stable. They “operate way below the level of linguistic awareness: without quantitative methodology no observer would have expected such differences to exist” (Schneider 2007: 87). In spite of that, while quantitative differences of common core grammatical variables have been the subject of extensive corpuslinguistic investigation into British and American English, research on New Englishes has so far focussed on conspicuous features that set them apart from the common core (cf. Hundt 2001: 121). In the present study, I attempt to trace and explain both quantitative differences in the use of common core features, i.e. frequency differences in uses of GET shared by all varieties, as well as qualitative differences between varieties, i.e. innovative or regionally exclusive usages of GET. The reason is that the nativisation of New Englishes becomes not only apparent in transparent features of the latter kind, but also in more subtle quantitative differences that reflect the conventionalisation of typical uses. It has been claimed that grammatical differences across regions are less extensive than differences across registers (cf. Collins 2009b: 284; Biber et al. 1999: 21) and that stratifications of register are relatively uniform across varieties of English (cf. Zipp and Bernaisch 2012: 169). However, Biber et al. (1999: 392) also point out that register differences are minor for the valency preferences of most verbs. Regarding verb complementation, Mair claims that “[m]edium, genre and style still account for a greater amount of the potential variability in this area of the grammar than the effects of nationally specific processes of grammatical standardization” (Mair 2009: 274), with the regional factor certainly worth studying, but probably being secondary to style or mode in many cases. Only a corpus-based analysis can test these claims. The present analysis of GET takes into account both form and meaning, both separately and in conjunction, in order to arrive at a comprehensive semasiological-syntactic description of GET. The individual phenomena listed in Figure 2.2 are the topic of chapters 4 and 5. The analysis of token frequencies and word-forms is independent of meaning, but as can be seen, for the major part of the present study, formal and semantic analyses are intertwined and go hand in hand: the occurrence of GET in certain syntactic patterns cannot be analysed independently of meaning if the analysis is to yield convincing results (also cf. chapter 5.1). To illustrate briefly at this point, it is hardly informative to lump together all the uses of GET with a direct object: several meanings would be treated in one and the same syntactical category and considerable variation would be masked. A more fine-grained analysis can be achieved and more factors in the variation of GET can be considered if monotransitive uses of GET are differentiated into those carrying the meaning ‘to receive’, existential uses, PV

20 | Theoretical and methodological framework

uses, and possessive uses. Similarly, I claim that PVs can only be meaningfully defined if both formal and semantic criteria are considered. Since PVs form a closely defined category, the drawback that it is the only category which is constituted by several constructions – monotransitive and intransitive uses feed into it – is minor.

Figure 2.2: Formal and semantic analysis of GET

Since this study bases many of its conclusions on frequency data, statistical tests have been applied to ensure that these conclusions have an objective and quantitative validation. Calculations of significance are based on chi-square tests, with post-hoc tests provided where necessary to be able to determine more exactly the causes of the differences. Fisher’s exact test has been used to test for significance where token numbers are too low for the application of the chi-square test. In accordance with common practice in linguistic literature, differences at the 5% level, i.e. with p ICE-SIN > ICE-JA > ICE-India (ICE-IND) > ICE-East Africa (ICE-EA) > ICEPhilippines (ICE-PHI). This means that no ESL corpus exceeds the token frequencies of ICE-GB in the case of GET.

4,000

3,783 3,412

3,500

3,125 2,882

3,000

2,450

2,500

2,024

1,940

ICE-EA

ICE-PHI

2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 ICE-GB

ICE-HK

ICE-SIN

ICE-JA

ICE-IND

Figure 4.2: GET in several ICE corpora (absolute token numbers, uncleaned)

In GloWbE, a megacorpus consisting of web pages, British English again turns out to have the highest token figure (2,704 tokens pmw), closely followed by Singaporean English (2,677), with Jamaican English being last (2,247). Although the differences between British English and the other varieties are less extreme in GloWbE than in ICE, it is clear that a more frequent use of the high-frequency verb GET in ESL than in ENL, in line with an assumed lexical teddy bear effect, cannot be determined at this point. It might be that prescriptivism against the use of GET,

36 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

a factor less relevant in the use of GIVE, for instance, is more effective in outercircle than in inner-circle varieties. This receives support from the fact that American English, with 2,857 tokens pmw in GloWbE, also has higher token frequencies than Jamaican and Singaporean English. The token frequency is even higher than that of British English in GloWbE, in line with what has been found above and pointing to advanced colloquialisation of American English. However, there might still be individual constructions or uses that are overused in the New Englishes as compared to British English. Because of the extreme versatility of GET, what is necessary is a detailed analysis of how frequently this verb is used in a certain construction or with a certain meaning before the teddy bear effect can be said to be irrelevant for GET in ESL in general. Finally, Table 4.1 provides a comparison of the frequencies of GET in several British English corpora, split up according to mode. It shows that all written (sub-) corpora yield similar results. For spoken English, BNCweb yields even higher token numbers than ICE-GB spoken, almost double. All the results presented so far allow one to conclude that the higher overall token figure of GET in ICE-GB compared to ICE-JA and ICE-SIN reflects a real regional difference in the absolute frequency of use of this verb. British English is ahead in the use of GET, possibly surpassed by American English, while outer-circle varieties feature lower absolute token frequencies. Table 4.1: Mode differences in the use of GET in several British English corpora (tokens pmw)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

BNCweb

spoken

--

--

4,627

9,181

written

1,393

1,334

1,473

1,340

In the following, mode and genre differences in the use of GET will be analysed. The colloquial nature and strong text type dependence of GET are assumed to influence the distributions in LOB, FLOB, and ICE. Biber et al. (1999: 376) explain that GET “is relatively rare in most written registers because many of its uses have strong casual overtones which are avoided by more careful writers of informational prose”. The results from the data analysis corroborate this (cf. Figure 4.3): GET occurs fewer than 150 times per 100,000 words of written language, but more than 300 times in spoken language in all varieties. In written language, the distribution across all corpora is relatively similar, but ICE-SIN displays the lowest token number, with significant differences between

Token frequencies of GET | 37

this corpus and ICE-GB (p=0.004, χ2=8.51, df=1) as well as ICE-JA (p=0.004, χ2=8.54, df=1). There are larger differences in the spoken mode: ICE-GB is first with 462 occurrences per 100,000 words, and ICE-JA last with 317 occurrences, while ICE-SIN is in between with 367 tokens. These differences are highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=181.32, df=2). This means that in spoken language, much clearer intervarietal differences emerge in the use of GET than in written language, with the New Englishes, particularly Jamaican English, displaying less frequent use of GET than British English. In written language, Singaporean English is differentiated from the other varieties because of a less frequent use.

500

462 367

400 317 300

spoken 200

139

133

147

147

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

124

written

100 0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-SIN

Figure 4.3: Mode distribution of GET (tokens per 100,000 words)

When comparing the three varieties as to how strongly GET is preferred in the spoken mode, one finds that Singaporean English is much closer to British English than Jamaican English is to British English. The speech-writing ratio is 3.1 : 1 in ICE-GB, almost similarly high in ICE-SIN with 3.0 : 1, and only 2.2 : 1 in ICE-JA. This means that GET is about 3 times more frequent in spoken than in written language in British and Singaporean English, but only about 2 times in Jamaican English. The word-form with the highest speech-writing ratio per corpus is got in ICE-GB (7.5 : 1) and ICE-SIN (3.9 : 1), while it is gets in ICE-JA (4.1 : 1). That is, got is characteristic of spoken British and Singaporean English and strongly responsible for the lower absolute token number of GET in Jamaican English as compared to British English: ICE-JA spoken has more than 1,000 gottokens fewer than ICE-GB spoken. The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN is not so easily explicable by a single word-form: while in written language, only

38 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

get is less frequently used in ICE-SIN than in ICE-GB, in spoken language, all word-forms except the low-frequency forms gotta and gotten yield fewer token numbers in ICE-SIN than in ICE-GB (also cf. chapter 4.2). To sum up, while Singaporean English displays much lower overall token figures of GET than British English, British and Singaporean English are practically identical in mode distribution, even going down to the level of the wordform. Jamaican English, by contrast, not only has lower overall token numbers than British English, but also stands out with a much less extreme preference for GET in spoken language than the other two varieties. Table 4.2, Table 4.3, and Table 4.4 are the result of a genre analysis of GET.14 This analysis starts from the theoretical assumption that GET is equally distributed across all text types within one corpus and that the expected frequency in a category therefore only depends on the total number of words of that category and not on text type characteristics. If the difference between observed and expected frequency is positive, this means a more frequent use than expected, while a negative value indicates a less frequent use than expected. The deviations from the expected frequencies are termed over- and underuses, respectively. The terms should be taken to mean that the respective construction is used more frequently or less frequently compared to the assumption that the construction is equally distributed across genres (also cf. footnote 7). The standard deviation of each corpus allows statements about the genre sensitivity of a variety as regards the phenomenon at hand: a large value means that over- and underuses are very extreme, while a low value means that the distribution across the different text types is relatively homogeneous. The mean differences given in the last columns of the tables are arrived at by summing up all the differences of the corpora per genre and dividing the sum by the number of corpora. In many cases, mean differences are a clear help in obtaining an overview and are therefore provided in all genre analyses in the present study, even if they merge results from diachronic data or regional varieties. Because of the high token numbers and the extreme mode dependence of GET just demonstrated, the calculation of over- and underuses of GET in the individual text types below will be separated according to mode, i.e. the reference value will be token numbers of GET within either spoken or written language. It is then also possible to compare the results from LOB and FLOB with those from ICE written. For easier reference, the text types that can be compared in LOB, FLOB, and ICE written are printed in bold in Table 4.2 and Table 4.3.

|| 14 Due to rounding up or down, the numbers per column do not always add up to 100 or 0.

15.4 6.0

34,000 198,000 154,000

Press reviews (C)

Popular writing (religion, skills, popular lore) (D, E, F)

Belles lettres, biographies, essays (G)

25.2 100

252,000 1,000,000

Fiction (K, L, M, N, P, R)

TOTAL

16.0

60,000 160,000

Instructional writing (Miscellaneous) (H)

Academic writing (Learned and scientific writing) (J)

19.8

3.4

5.4

54,000

Press editorials (B)

8.8

88,000

WRITTEN

GET

expected %

Press reportage (A)

number of words

100

50.7

5.5

2.3

10.6

14.8

2.8

4.3

9.1

LOB observed %

Table 4.2: Expected and observed distribution of GET in LOB (N=1,403) and FLOB (N=1,342)

0

25.5

-10.5

-3.7

-4.8

-5.0

-0.6

-1.1

0.3

LOB difference %

100

56.7

2.1

1.4

5.2

17.9

2.8

4.5

9.4

FLOB observed %

0

31.5

-13.9

-4.6

-10.2

-1.9

-0.6

-0.9

0.6

FLOB difference %

0

28.5

-12.2

-4.2

-7.5

-3.5

-0.6

-1.0

0.5

mean difference %

Token frequencies of GET | 39

15.0

10.0 100

60,000 80,000 80,000 40,000 40,000 20,000 40,000 400,000

Letters (W1B)

Academic writing (W2A)

Popular writing, non-academic writing (W2B)

Press reportage (W2C)

Instructional writing (W2D)

Press editorials (W2E)

Fiction (W2F)

TOTAL

5.0

10.0

10.0

20.0

20.0

10.0

40,000

WRITTEN

Student essays and exams (W1A)

100

17.7

2.7

23.6

8.2

13.6

2.7

29.7

1.8

0

7.7

-2.3

13.6

-1.8

-6.4

-17.3

14.7

-8.2

100

23.4

4.1

5.0

8.5

8.3

1.5

42.8

6.5

0

13.4

-0.9

-5.0

-1.5

-11.7

-18.5

27.8

-3.5

100

16.2

4.3

4.9

8.2

20.1

2.1

40.6

3.5

0

6.2

-0.7

-5.1

-1.8

0.1

-17.9

25.6

-6.5

0

9.1

-1.3

1.2

-1.7

-6.0

-17.9

22.7

-6.1

number ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean GET expected observed difference observed difference observed difference difference of words % % % % % % % %

Table 4.3: Expected and observed distribution of GET in ICE-GB written (N=623), ICE-JA written (N=603), and ICE-SIN written (N=512)

40 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

Token frequencies of GET | 41

In LOB and FLOB (cf. Table 4.2), the most striking results are the underuse of GET in academic writing, which has increased from 10.5% in the 1960s’ data to 13.9% in the 1990s’ data, and the overuse in fiction, which has increased from 25.5% to 31.5% (also cf. Johansson and Oksefjell 1996: 57–58 for similar results in Brown). The underuse in academic writing can be explained by prescriptive rules to avoid GET in learned language due to its underspecified meaning and informal character, while the increasing overuse in fiction can be explained by the speech-like nature of much of this genre and points to colloquialisation of written language. In ICE written (cf. Table 4.3), one can find a similar underuse in academic writing of 17.9% on average, while the overuse in fiction is much less pronounced with an average of 9.1%. This less extreme overuse in ICE written as compared to LOB and FLOB can be due to the selection of more formal types of fiction in ICE than in LOB and FLOB and certainly also has to do with the amount of direct speech occurring in the texts selected. For the two other comparable text types, viz. press reportage and press editorials, no striking over- or underuses can be found in any of the corpora. The remaining categories in LOB and FLOB indicate either fairly neutral use or the category is quite heterogeneous, as in the case of category G, so that no hard and fast explanation can be provided for a specific distribution. In ICE written, more deviations from an equal distribution of tokens are found, but regional differences are small, and the three varieties pattern similarly most of the time. An underuse worth noting in ICE written apart from that in academic writing is that of 6.1% in student essays and exams. Although it is low, it indicates that prescriptive rules that GET should be avoided in written language of a more formal character are adhered to also in the educational context of schools. A striking overuse in all varieties is found for letters, ranging from 14.7% in British English to a use of more than a fourth more than expected in the New Englishes. While the vast majority of GET-tokens unsurprisingly occur in the subcategory social letters, a text type which mimics informal direct conversation, business letters are not exempt from the use of GET in any variety, particularly not in ICE-JA, where 31 tokens in various constructions occur, compared to 20 in ICE-GB and 14 in ICE-SIN. The only categorical difference between regional varieties in ICE written, i.e. where an overuse is found in one variety and an underuse in another variety, occurs in instructional writing, but this can be explained by an unfortunate accumulation of GET-constructions in one type of texts in ICE-GB: the overuse of 13.6% in ICE-GB, contrasted with the underuse of around 5% in each of the New Englishes, is due to an accumulation of word-forms of GET, repeated in the same or similar constructions, in a small number of information leaflets

42 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

explaining how to claim benefits, and not due to a general overuse of GET in instructional writing in British English. The underuse in popular writing in ICEGB and ICE-JA and the neutral use in ICE-SIN for this category are at present only explicable by the wish to convey a more formal and more informal tone, respectively, in the publications chosen. In spoken language, just as in written language, only a few intervarietal differences can be found (cf. Table 4.4). A strong overuse of GET in private dialogues, the most informal text type, is common to all varieties: GET is used on average 15.7% more frequently in that genre than expected, but British English displays the most extreme value with 19.3%. A homogeneous intervarietal picture is also apparent for the most formal category in spoken language, viz. scripted monologues, where GET is used 11.2% less frequently than expected. There are two categorical differences that occur, viz. for class lessons and for unscripted monologues. In the case of class lessons, the numerical differences are so minor and the overall token numbers relatively low that no far-reaching conclusions should be drawn. However, the underuse of 4.9% in unscripted monologues in ICE-GB and the slight overuse of about 2% in that category in each of the New Englishes could, together with the strong overuse of GET in private dialogues in ICE-GB, be indicative of a stronger genre sensitivity in British English than in the New Englishes. In line with this, ICE-GB spoken has the highest standard deviation of all three varieties (8.9, as compared to 6.9 in ICE-JA spoken and 6.7 in ICE-SIN spoken). The claim that inner-circle varieties display a greater stylistic heterogeneity than outer-circle varieties (cf. Hundt 2009: 127; Collins and Yao 2013) will be pursued throughout the present study for the various constructions in which GET can be used.

3.3 3.3

60,000 20,000

Broadcast discussions and interviews (S1B-021–050)

Parliamentary debates (S1B-051–060)

Legal cross-examinations (S1B-061–070) 20,000

16.7 100

100,000 600,000

Scripted monologues (S2B)

TOTAL

23.3

140,000

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

3.3

20,000

Business transactions (S1B-071–080)

10.0

6.7

40,000

Class lessons (S1B-001–020)

33.3

200,000

Private dialogues (S1A)

SPOKEN

100

4.8

18.4

4.2

2.2

0.6

8.4

8.7

52.7

0

-11.9

-4.9

0.8

-1.1

-2.7

-1.6

2.1

19.3

100

5.0

25.5

4.1

1.9

1.1

9.2

6.4

46.9

0

-11.7

2.1

0.8

-1.4

-2.3

-0.8

-0.3

13.6

100

6.6

25.0

4.0

1.3

1.4

8.3

5.9

47.4

0

-10.1

1.7

0.7

-2.1

-1.9

-1.7

-0.8

14.1

0

-11.2

-0.4

0.8

-1.5

-2.3

-1.3

0.3

15.7

number ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean GET expected observed difference observed difference observed difference difference of words % % % % % % % %

Table 4.4: Expected and observed distribution of GET in ICE-GB spoken (N=2,948), ICE-JA spoken (N=2,000), and ICE-SIN spoken (N=2,232)

Token frequencies of GET | 43

44 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

In summary, the analysis of the overall frequencies of GET in LOB, FLOB, ICE-GB, ICE-JA, ICE-SIN, and various other corpora has indicated a stable diachronic situation in written British English and much higher token figures for GET in inner-circle than in outer-circle varieties. More specifically, ICE-GB is far ahead in the use of GET, with ICE-JA and ICE-SIN trailing. GET and all its individual word-forms are much more used in spoken than in written language in all varieties, but the New Englishes display individual differences compared to British English. Although Singaporean English has a lower absolute token frequency of GET than British English, the two varieties are practically identical in the mode distribution. This is in contrast to Jamaican English, which is different from British English in absolute token numbers mainly due to the strong avoidance of got in spoken language. The use of GET depends very much on text type in all varieties, with particularly strong underuses determined for academic writing and scripted monologues, and overuses for fiction, letters, and private dialogues. From this bird’s-eye view considering all constructions together, regional differences in genre dependence are small, but there are indications of a greater stylistic heterogeneity in British English than in the New Englishes.

4.2 Word-forms of GET In the following, I will attempt to shed more light on the different frequencies of individual word-forms of GET across region and mode. This corpus-driven analysis is based on the assumption that the word-form has to be the basic unit of analysis and not the lemma, let alone larger syntactic structures, because each word-form has its own grammar and meanings (cf. Biber 2009: 278). While a radical corpus-driven approach has probably always been more proclaimed than actually applied, the emphasis it places on the individual word-form has triggered new analyses. Gries (2011: 238) criticises that most researchers have so far glossed over differences between inflectional forms and have either lumped together different word-forms under the heading of lemma or have left the actual word-form that was the object of study unspecified or have used the infinitive form. Sinclair (1991: 105) points to the importance of the individual word-form as well as its integration into larger chunks: the lexical item, even the word-form, and its phraseology should become the focal point in the presentation of data. While phraseology and chunking are treated in chapter 5.11, the frequencies and characteristics of individual word-forms of GET will be more closely analysed in the present section. Table 4.5 provides the results of a query regarding all word-forms of GET in the five corpora analysed in the present

Word-forms of GET | 45

study. The following analysis of the distributions shows that if one did not attend closely to the word-forms, major differences between the corpora would be overlooked. Table 4.5: Word-forms of GET (absolute token numbers)

corpus

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

1,006,834

1,006,198

1,061,264

1,040,204

1,022,255

get

738

648

1,506

1,586

1,231

gets

58

79

139

153

107

getting

177

170

305

308

243

got

428

443

1,618

503

1,140

gotta

2

1

1

17

11

gotten

0

1

2

36

12

1,403

1,342

3,571

2,603

2,744

corpus size

total GET-tokens

Chi-square tests were carried out on the frequencies of the word-forms to determine whether the differences between the corpora are significant. For that purpose, the token numbers of gotta and gotten were added to those of got: this is necessary because occurrences of gotta and gotten are less frequent than 5 in several cases and is justified by the functional similarity of the word-forms. Individual analyses and tests of gotta and gotten below will reveal any intervarietal differences masked by this decision. Since more than two variables were compared, post-hoc tests (cf. Table 4.6) were used to determine the elements that are responsible for any high significance values. Table 4.6: Post-hoc tests on the distribution of the word-forms of GET in ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

χ2

post-hoc

χ2

post-hoc

χ2

post-hoc

get

29.26

-1

83.30

1

7.39

-1

gets

2.70

0

11.46

1

2.03

0

getting

4.16

0

13.53

1

1.58

0

got/gotta/gotten

60.13

1

179.98

-1

17.81

1

46 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

Between LOB and FLOB, differences are minor and only just significant (p=0.044, χ2=8.11, df=3). The post-hoc tests show zero values throughout, which means that there have been no conspicuous changes in the distribution of the word-forms. Across the ICE corpora, a much more heterogeneous distribution can be detected. The differences between ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN are highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=413.33, df=6, φc=0.15), and individual comparisons show that a gulf opens up between ICE-JA and the other two corpora.15 The posthoc tests (cf. Table 4.6) indicate a particularly frequent use of get as well as a particularly infrequent use of got/gotta/gotten in ICE-JA compared to the other two corpora. The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN does not attain statistical significance. Figure 4.4 illustrates that British and Singaporean English are very similar in the distribution of the individual word-forms of GET, while Jamaican English behaves differently.

100%

80%

got/gotta/gotten got/gotta/gotten

60%

getting getting 40%

gets gets get get

20%

0% ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 4.4: Distribution of the word-forms of GET in ICE (per cent)

A major reason for the lower percentage of got/gotta/gotten in Jamaican English lies in the infrequent use of possessive HAVE got as well as of semimodal HAVE got to (cf. chapters 5.8 and 5.9). The significant differences between Jamaican English and the other two varieties suggest that neither the use of possessive got or semi-modal gotta nor the use of the past participle gotten, all

|| 15 ICE-JA and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=381.36, df=3, φc=0.25; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=271.35, df=3, φc=0.23.

Word-forms of GET | 47

of which would indicate strong American English influence, can compensate for the non-use of HAVE got and HAVE got to. Table 4.7 gives more information on the distribution of the word-forms of GET in spoken and written language. The word-forms are ordered according to frequency per 100,000 words per subcorpus, with the most frequent word-form listed first. One can immediately detect that the only difference between all corpora in the ranking of the word-forms can be found in the two most frequent forms in ICE-GB spoken. In that subcorpus, got is much more frequent than get, due to the frequent use of HAVE got and HAVE got to in spoken British English, while in all other subcorpora, the ranking of the word-forms is get > got > getting > gets > gotten > gotta. In ICE-SIN spoken, the frequency of got almost equals that of get, confirming the similarity to British English, while in ICE-JA spoken, got is far behind get. Table 4.7 thus provides evidence of the underuse of got in spoken Jamaican English already noted in chapter 4.1, and also reveals that in the use of the forms gotten and gotta, the New Englishes are more similar to each other than British English and either of the New Englishes. Table 4.7: Word-forms of GET sorted according to frequency per 100,000 words per subcorpus in ICE

ICE-GB spoken

ICE-JA written

spoken

ICE-SIN written

spoken

written

got

233.2

get

93.2

get

196.0

get

85.5

get

162.8

get

58.2

get

174.3

got

30.9

got

60.9

got

29.1

got

159.9

got

40.6

getting 36.2 getting 17.5 getting 33.1 getting 24.2 getting 27.6 getting

18.1

gets

18.2

gets

5.4

gets

20.9

gets

5.1

gets

14.0

gets

5.3

gotten

0.3

gotten

0.0

gotten

4.1

gotten

2.4

gotten

1.5

gotten

0.7

gotta

0.2

gotta

0.0

gotta

2.1

gotta

1.0

gotta

1.3

gotta

0.7

To summarise the analysis of word-forms of GET, from LOB to FLOB, no diachronic change has occurred. In ICE, British and Singaporean English are very similar in the relative frequencies of individual word-forms of GET. The gulf here opens up between ICE-JA and the other two ICE corpora because of much lower relative and absolute frequencies of got in Jamaican English. In the frequent absolute use of got, ICE-GB spoken displays such an extreme result that it is the only subcorpus in which the frequency ranking get > got > getting > gets > gotten > gotta is overturned. Subanalyses of individual constructions in the following

48 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

chapters will give more detailed reasons for the findings just presented. At this point, the word-forms gotta and gotten, lumped together with got in the statistical analysis above and added to the respective constructions in which they are used in the following chapters, will be accorded attention in greater detail. In the analyses above, gotta has been treated as a word-form of its own. It is actually of course a combination of got and to with cliticisation of the infinitive marker. The coalescence suggests two things: first, the transcription as gotta implies a phonetic reduction and can indicate an American English flapped pronunciation of the phoneme /t/; second, the univerbation of got and to is a sign for a more grammaticalised status compared to a separate orthographic rendering and pronunciation (cf. Krug 2001: 314–316). It is striking that while the search for gotta hardly yields any results for British English, a total of 17 valid tokens occur in ICE-JA, and 11 in ICE-SIN (cf. Table 4.5 on page 45). One has to take into account that different transcribers are responsible for the renderings of the spoken texts so that conclusions must be drawn with caution, but the large difference in numbers between the British English corpora and ICE-JA strongly suggests an American English pronunciation of the combination got + to in Jamaican English, a finding that could have been expected given the geographical proximity of Jamaica to the US and the strong American influence under which Jamaica is known to be. For Singaporean English, too, a certain, though weaker, tendency to use a flapped pronunciation is suggested by the results.16 An alternation between the two past participle forms got and gotten occurs in perfect tenses in American English, but not in British English. According to Burchfield, “[n]othing points more clearly to the North Americanness of a person than the ability to use the pa.pple [past participle] forms got and gotten in a natural manner” (1996: 338). The presence of gotten in a text rules out British origin (cf. Mair 2007: 457), but there is a fair amount of variation in American English, where it has been retained. American English conversation, where HAVE gotten occurs about 140 times pmw, is “unexpectedly conservative in retaining the irregular form have gotten”, according to Biber et al. (1999: 399). Gotten has also been found in New Zealand and Australian English used by young people and might be spreading elsewhere (cf. Burchfield 1996: 338). In general, gotten can be used with the dynamic meaning ‘received’ or ‘obtained’, i.e. in a monotransitive or ditransitive construction, as in In fact actually they have gotten the flat […] (); it can also be || 16 For Jamaican English phonology, cf. Devonish and Harry (2008), for Singaporean English phonology, cf. Wee (2008b). As regards the grammaticalisation of got + to, cf. chapter 5.9.1.

Word-forms of GET | 49

used when a notion of progression is involved, i.e. in a construction with an obligatory adverbial expressing movement (SVA), as in This is the furthest […] I could have gotten from my house (); finally, it can be used when it is followed by a complement (SVC), as in Everything has gotten a bit quicker […] (). Only got can be used even in American English when the meaning is stative, i.e. ‘possessed’. Certain combinations, amongst which are PVs but also passive constructions, seem to be particularly prone to be used with the gotten participle in the perfect in American English (cf. Burchfield 1996: 338; Biber et al. 1999: 398–399). Burchfield also points out that [t]he matter cannot be neatly resolved since get has so many other senses and applications, and the prospect of examining the distribution of gotten and got in all of them would be very daunting indeed. (1996: 338)

The Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English (eWAVE) has information on two features containing the word-form gotten. Feature 144 is the above described typically American English use of gotten for dynamic meanings, and feature 145 is the use of gotten for stative meanings (cf. Kortmann and Lunkenheimer 2013). For both features, the experts on Jamaican English (cf. Sand 2013), Jamaican Creole (cf. Patrick 2013), and Colloquial Singapore English (cf. Lim and Ansaldo 2013a) report an attested absence for their respective variety. However, in the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, the information is provided that [t]he widely current use of got in [… possessive and modal] functions prompts many educated CE [Caribbean English] speakers to use AmE [American English] gotten in place of got as the pa.t. [participle] of get, and this is now much seen in writing. (Allsopp 1996: 264)

Contrary to the statements in eWAVE but in line with Allsopp (1996), 36 tokens of gotten occur in ICE-JA. In ICE-SIN, gotten still occurs 12 times, while it is unsurprising to find only 2 tokens of gotten in ICE-GB. They come up in PV use in direct conversation: […] I’ve gotten over it […] () and […] I’d gotten up (). The only token of gotten that occurs in written British English is used in fiction revolving around the mission of the US Air Force (cf. example (1)). It occurs in a motion construction and could well have been chosen in order to convey an American English flavour.

50 | Analysis of surface forms of GET in World Englishes

(1)

If Beamish had been good enough to put his aircraft into a dive, Romulus could have gotten exactly as far as where Talley ran into something… (FLOB, N27 190–192)

Of all 36 tokens of gotten in ICE-JA, exactly half are used in monotransitive constructions expressing an event of receiving or obtaining, 7 occur in PVs, 6 in copular constructions with an adjectival complement, 4 in motion constructions with an obligatory adverbial, and 1 in a complex-transitive construction. Gotten occurs in private and public dialogues as well as in unscripted monologues, but not in scripted monologues, the most formal spoken category. The 10 instances of gotten that are found in the written subcorpus of ICE-JA occur exclusively in the text types social letters and fiction. The same is true of the 3 instances of gotten in ICE-SIN written. In ICE-SIN spoken, 9 tokens occur, spread across all categories. Of all 12 tokens in ICE-SIN, just as in ICE-JA, exactly half are used in monotransitive constructions, 5 occur in PVs, and 1 in a motion construction. To recapitulate, gotten can be found exclusively in spoken language, mainly in more informal text types, or in the very speech-like written categories letters and fiction. It is practically not used in British English, while it occurs quite frequently in Jamaican English, certainly because of American English influence, and to a limited extent in Singaporean English, where one can assume that colloquialisation and orientation towards the British English model work in opposite directions, ultimately leading to a moderately high frequency of gotten. The most frequent uses of the form occur in monotransitive constructions and PVs. In the data from ICE, the particles into, over, together, and up are recurring ones in PV constructions with gotten. The above analysis has indicated that Jamaican and Singaporean English, as well as all other New Englishes analysed, feature lower token numbers of GET than British English. This is striking and runs counter to a possibly expected overuse of versatile high-frequency verbs in ESL. In the frequencies of the individual word-forms of GET, a very similar distribution in British and Singaporean English was detected, confirming an overall British English model in the case of Singaporean English, whereas Jamaican English is differentiated from the other varieties mainly due to a much lower frequency of got. This can be associated with an avoidance of the distinctly British English constructions HAVE got and HAVE got to, i.e. the possessive and semi-modal uses of GET, which are also avoided in American English. In both the Jamaican and the Singaporean corpora, the word-forms gotta and gotten occur, which suggests an increasing American English influence on both New Englishes.

5 Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes 5.1 Verb-complementational profile of GET This chapter is intended to provide an overview of the semantics and syntax of GET in World Englishes. I have attempted to employ traditional and established terminology, as used in the reference grammars by Quirk et al. (1985), Biber et al. (1999), and Huddleston and Pullum (2002), where possible, but have adapted the definitions and the use in order to arrive at a consistent description of the use of GET. No explanation of the categories and constructions will be given at this point, since in the following chapters, terminology and definitions will be laid out and justified in detail.17 In presenting the verb-complementational profile of GET, this overview provides one part of the verb-complementational profile of a variety, a concept introduced by Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2006) and Hoffmann and Mukherjee (2007), viz. the distribution of a verb across all of its patterns.18 However, here, this profile is expanded to several varieties, and each of the patterns will be considered individually in the following chapters. Verb complementation is particularly relevant in the description of the structural nativisation of varieties of English and “is increasingly considered as a significant area in which varieties of English develop their own local norms” (Mukherjee 2009: 128). Olavarría de Ersson and Shaw (2003: 138) state that “[v]erb complementation is an all-pervading structural feature of language and thus likely to be more significant in giving a variety its character than, for example, lexis” – at least, it has certainly been underestimated, as Mukherjee and Hoffmann note (2006: 149), and they claim that “[f]uture research into the endonormative stabilisation of New Englishes will thus have to delve much more deeply into the verb-complementational profiles of varieties of English” (2006: 167). The difficulty in analysing the verb-construction associations of an individual verb lies in the fact that many differences in verb complementation are gradual in nature and consist, at least in an early stage, of small shifts in frequency and of different trends and preferences rather than clear-cut differences (cf. Mukherjee and Hoffmann 2006: 148; Schilk et al. 2012: 162). Moreover, “the

|| 17 For a summary of Quirk et al.’s (1985) as well as Biber et al.’s (1999) models of verb complementation and some of their drawbacks, cf. Schilk (2011: 28–32). 18 The other part of the concept deals with the range of verbs with which an individual pattern is associated in a variety.

52 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

reasons for incipient changes in the frequency and distribution of the complementation patterns of a specific verb are […] multifaceted” (Mukherjee 2009: 130). Chapter 3 has suggested several possible reasons for differences in the use of GET across time, region, and genre, and these will be explored in the following chapters. Thompson and Hopper point to the fact that the frequency of an individual verb form influences the fixity of argument structures: the more frequent a verb is, the less fixed will be its number of argument structures. So-called lowinformation verbs (Napoli 1993, quoted in Thompson and Hopper 2001: 50) are high-frequency verbs like GET. They “put few limitations on the contexts in which they can be used [… and correspondingly] have a range of possible ‘argument structures’” (2001: 50). Get is a prime example of a verb with no easily imagined obvious argument structure, precisely because it is used in so many lexicalized ‘dispersed’ predicates and specific constructions […]. (Thompson and Hopper 2001: 49)

Whereas for theoretical description and empirical analysis it is necessary to devise categories of constructions, Thompson and Hopper importantly indicate that […] the notion of argument structure […] may not be relevant for understanding how humans produce and process language. Rather, predicate ‘meanings’ can only be understood as including a vast range of semantic and pragmatic associations [… and] are actually generalizations from many repetitions of hearing predicates used in association with certain types of human events and situations over the course of a person’s lifetime. What appears to be a fixed ‘structure’ is actually a set of schemas, some more ‘entrenched’ […] than others, arising out of many repetitions in daily conversational interactions. (2001: 47)

A given utterance may thus have characteristics of several argument structures devised by linguists and, in the speaker’s brain, not be stored in one or the other category. A case in point are GET-PVs in the present study: GET into sth, categorised as an intransitive prepositional verb in But I can’t get into that at all (), i.e. as intransitive GET followed by the adverbial prepositional phrase (PP) into that and carrying idiomatic meaning, might be stored by the speaker as such. However, it might just as well be stored as GET into followed by a noun phrase (NP), i.e. as a transitive verb followed by its object, or it might be stored as both or neither. It is therefore important to bear in mind that any categories that are set up for linguistic analysis in the present study are in no way intended to explain how meanings or constructions are stored in or

Verb-complementational profile of GET | 53

retrieved from the speaker’s brain. The categories are used for linguistic analysis and I do not wish to imply any correspondence to cognitive representations. I suggest that ten categories are necessary for a complete semasiologicalsyntactic description of GET (cf. Figure 5.1 and Figure 5.2).19 These categories have emerged in the course of an exhaustive quantitative and qualitative analysis of all the tokens of GET in LOB, FLOB, ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN, and thus have an empirical basis in diverse genres of written and spoken English in three regional varieties. The ten categories presented in this overview and explained in detail in chapters 5.2 to 5.10 – monotransitive GET, ditransitive GET, GET as a linking verb, GET-passives, GET-existentials, GET-PVs, GET as a verb of motion, possessive (HAVE) got, semi-modal (HAVE) got to, and catenative GET – combine form and meaning. I have claimed that it is only with this approach that (variation in) the use of GET can be satisfactorily described (cf. chapter 2.4). Note that monotransitive GET and ditransitive GET are separate constructions, but discussed in conjunction in chapter 5.2. GET-chunks, treated in chapter 5.11, do not feature in the graphs because they are an additional classification that cuts across complementation patterns.

|| 19 A very small number of unanalysable tokens classified as “other” does not occur in the graphs and explains the slightly lower token numbers in Figure 5.1 and Figure 5.2 as compared to Figure 4.1.

54 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

100% 90%

X IX VIII

X IX VIII

80% VII

VII

70% 60% 50% 40% 30%

VI V IV

VI V IV

III II

III II

20% I 10% 0%

I

LOB

FLOB

catenative (X)

50

54

modal (IX)

42

31

possessive (VIII)

91

123

motion (VII)

295

266

PV (VI)

215

229

3

11

passive (IV)

80

87

linking (III)

175

190

ditransitive (II)

25

17

monotransitive (I)

425

332

existential (V)

Figure 5.1: Overview of GET-constructions in LOB and FLOB (absolute token numbers)

Verb-complementational profile of GET | 55

100%

X IX

90% 80%

50%

X IX

VII VIII

VIII VI

70% 60%

X IX VIII

VII

V IV III

VI

VII VI V IV

II 40%

V IV

30%

III

III II

II I

20% 10% 0%

I I

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

catenative (X)

97

115

125

modal (IX)

236

51

208

possessive (VIII)

804

79

484

motion (VII)

517

364

191

PV (VI)

366

272

203

existential (V)

156

31

112

passive (IV)

119

178

118

linking (III)

332

327

318

31

27

21

906

1,158

949

ditransitive (II) monotransitive (I)

Figure 5.2: Overview of GET-constructions in ICE (absolute token numbers)

56 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

5.2 Monotransitive and ditransitive GET 5.2.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses Monotransitive GET20 is the construction for which the OED gives the earliest attestation of the verb. The example dates from around 1200 and reads: Forr whase itt iss þatt grediȝ iss To winnenn erþlic ahhte, Aȝȝ alls he mare & mare gett Aȝȝ lisste himm affterr mare. (Ormin) (OED 2009: s.v. “get, v., 1. a.”)

The meaning is described as ‘to obtain, to procure’. Until the late 14th century, the construction GET + object was in fact the only one with GET that occurred. Objects were typically concrete and subjects typically agentive, but the frequency of agentive subjects has decreased with time, in Gronemeyer’s (1999: 22) data from the Helsinki corpus from 87% in the 14th century to 42% in Present-Day English. The meaning ‘to receive’ has thus gained in importance. From the start, GET has become overwhelmingly polysemous. Not only have many lexical sub-uses developed from the original meaning, but GET has also grammaticalised and developed grammatical meanings. Nevertheless, the original meaning of GET seems to play the main role in the cognitive representation of the verb in its lexical use. Elicitation experiments have shown ‘to obtain’, i.e. the sense in the agentive use, to be the most salient lexical sense of GET (cf. Raukko 1999, quoted in Hundt 2001: 80n19). Since lexical uses of GET are more frequent than grammatical uses, one can assume that monotransitive GET meaning ‘to obtain’ is overall the most salient use of GET. Whether the agentive sense of monotransitive GET is also still paramount in terms of frequency in the ICE corpora will be determined below. Note that there are some instances in the data analysed for the present study where GET is used with the meaning ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’ but where the object NP is elided, as in the second sentence of example (2). Only in the subsequent sentence does the understood object NP, viz. batik, surface, and GET is then used in a full monotransitive construction:

|| 20 Note that in the present study, monotransitive GET means the use of GET followed by a direct object with a meaning close to ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’. Possessive uses are not treated here but in chapter 5.8.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 57

(2) I ever bought a jacket a sweater know two dollars In Jarkarta can we get or not Yes can get can get batik quite cheap Constructions like In Jarkarta can we get or not are termed formally intransitive and counted separately in the present study but considered to belong to the overall category of monotransitive uses of GET. For determining the meaning of these constructions, the same categorisation as for monotransitive constructions is used. Below, the frequency, the meaning, and the mode and genre distribution of monotransitive GET in British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English will be detailed, with the formally intransitive construction also considered in the analysis. GET can also occur with two objects, with objects understood here in the broadest possible sense, but this ditransitive use is generally rare. In the present study, following Quirk et al. (1985), the term ditransitive construction will be used as a superordinate term for two semantically similar realisations, viz. the basic ditransitive construction and the prepositional object construction. In the basic ditransitive construction, also called double-object construction, as in I was going to get you an Arabic rug you know (), the verb is followed by two object NPs: first by an indirect object fulfilling the role of the recipient and then by a direct object fulfilling the role of the patient, i.e. GET sb sth. In the case of the verb GET, the agent intends to cause the recipient to receive the theme or patient, i.e. the basic sense of the ditransitive construction is extended by the seme of intention (cf. Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003: 228). A collostructional analysis of ICE-GB has shown that GET is not strongly associated with the basic ditransitive construction. More specifically, GET is not among its top 30 collexemes (Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003: 229). The roughly synonymous syntactic alternative to the basic ditransitive construction is called prepositional object construction here. The direct object fulfilling the role of the patient comes first and the indirect object fulfilling the role of the recipient follows as a PP, as in “I could get some days work for you in Negril where I am working,” said Jackie […] ().21 GET sth for

|| 21 In Quirk et al.’s (1985) framework, PPs cannot be objects, which means that the prepositional object consists of the NP only. This leaves the preposition without a proper function or role since an analysis as a prepositional verb is not called for either. Since alternative analyses, for instance the analysis as a complex-transitive construction (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 248; Schilk 2011: 30; Standop 2000: 223), have other drawbacks, I will stick to Quirk et al.’s framework.

58 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

sb is also referred to as prepositional dative or as dative/prepositional alternation (cf. Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003: 240; Schilk et al. 2012: 142), terms which are avoided here because particularly the latter can be more specifically used to denote constructions where the direct object is the recipient and the patient is encoded in the PP, as in SERVE sb with sth (cf. König and Gast 2012: 155). According to Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 309), the difference between the basic ditransitive construction and the prepositional object construction is largely a matter of information packaging.22 In the present study, I will focus on the frequency and meaning of ditransitive GET in British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English, and compare the basic ditransitive construction with the prepositional object construction. As far as meaning is concerned, I coded monotransitive and formally intransitive GET for two criteria, viz. the basic meaning of the verb and the type of object that follows the verb. As regards the first distinction, I differentiated between an agentive and a non-agentive use and used the most typical paraphrase of each of these meanings as a tag, so that an agentive meaning was coded as “obtain”, as in They could get a dog, she thought (), and a non-agentive meaning as “receive”, as in Needless to say I never got a paper and she never got a mark (). To distinguish between agentive and non-agentive monotransitive GET, the preceding and/or the following context, e.g. adverbial PPs following the verb, had to be studied. In some cases, the ambiguity of monotransitive GET cannot be resolved, however. I have set up a separate category called “ambiguous” for the cases where it was impossible to decide whether an agentive or a non-agentive meaning was to be expressed, where contextual clues, such as verb premodification

|| 22 In Construction Grammar, both patterns (and additional ones) are regarded as realisations of ditransitivity at a cognitive level, even if only one object NP surfaces formally (cf. Mukherjee and Hoffmann 2006: 151; Hoffmann and Mukherjee 2007: 9). More specifically, what is called basic ditransitive construction here is called ditransitive construction in Construction Grammar, and what is called prepositional object construction here is referred to as transfer-caused-motion construction and seen as syntactically separate from the ditransitive construction, but as semantically related (cf. Schilk 2011: 35). The ditransitive construction has been the subject of extensive study in collostructional analysis. However, exhaustive collostructional analyses, as suggested by Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003) and Mukherjee and Gries (2009), are only possible with parsed corpora. Moreover, ditransitive verbs are a low-frequency phenomenon, so that mega-corpora are needed to make claims about innovative forms. This applies all the more to high-frequency verbs, such as GET, MAKE, or TAKE: they are strongly repelled by the ditransitive construction because their semantic characteristics are not central to the ditransitive (cf. Gries 2011: 242), in contrast to those of the verbs OFFER, PROMISE, or TELL, for instance.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 59

or adverbials, were conflicting, or where elements from both semantic domains were present, as in And you can get them from Marks and Spencer’s (), where the verbal meaning ‘to buy’ conflicts with the preposition from. As regards the second distinction, abstract objects (tag “abstract”), e.g. idea or job, were distinguished from concrete objects (tag “concrete”), e.g. materials or salmon, with tokens where the object occurred as an indefinite pronoun such as it or that or where it was impossible to determine the type of object receiving the tag “other”. Additionally, I coded the objects for countability. Count nouns (tag “count”), such as point or sheet, were distinguished from non-count nouns (tag “non-count”), such as money or sleep. Many nouns, for instance idea or value, can be count or non-count depending on their meaning and use, so that it was always the use in context that determined the coding. Apart from the two basic coding distinctions, four meanings of monotransitive GET received a special coding because they turned out to be particularly frequent. Their separate coding ensured that their use as possible preconstructed chunks would not go unnoticed. These meanings are ‘to catch’, as in Because we tried to get him we couldn’t get him (), ‘to contract [an illness]’, as in They were in hospital for a week and I never even got a cold when I was there (), ‘to hold’, as in It’s very hard to get hold of another like it (),23 and ‘to understand’, as in Yeah I get what you’re saying (). Moreover, monotransitive uses of GET that are listed in a dictionary of idioms, e.g. Sadly too much sunshine and far too much alcohol got the better of him (), or that otherwise fulfil the criteria for idiom status (cf. chapter 5.11.4) were not pressed into the distinctions of agentivity and type of object either. In all of the cases just presented, a distinction between agentive and non-agentive as well as between concrete and abstract would have been inexpedient, the reason being that they represent meanings very distant from ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’. In the coding of ditransitive constructions, the basic ditransitive pattern (GET sb sth) was distinguished from the prepositional object construction (GET sth for sb). The basic meaning of the ditransitive construction is always one of obtaining and transferring. However, a distinction was made following Gronemeyer (1999: 3) between cases where the subject is a volitional agent, as in You ought to see what I got you for your Christmas present (), and cases where the subject exerts less direct volitional influence but is still a causer, as in I

|| 23 The meaning ‘to hold’ is special in that only one combination feeds into it, viz. GET hold of.

60 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

was awfully disappointed but it got us quite a good grade (). For determining the type of object, the same distinction as for monotransitive constructions was applied. I propose that language-acquisitional issues, more specifically simplification, the overuse of already frequent constructions, and rationalisation of problem areas, play the main role in determining the frequencies, the distribution, and the use of monotransitive, formally intransitive, and ditransitive GET in World Englishes.24 Cultural issues and substrate effects can influence the frequencies of the constructions dealt with in the present chapter, too. All factors will be expanded on in the following, and hypotheses for my data will be derived from them. Simplification, the overuse of already frequent constructions, and rationalisation are processes that are claimed to operate in Jamaican and Singaporean English because these varieties are used as second languages by the majority of their speakers. In Jamaica, Standard English is used at school and for formal domains, but the acrolect is not the usual home variety of Jamaicans. Similarly, in Singapore’s multilingual ecology, English may be acquired as a first language, but it is typically a second language (cf. chapter 2.2). In many New Englishes from different regions, simplification occurs, its natural limit being that encoding must be ensured (cf. Schneider 2007: 89). Hoffmann and Mukherjee (2007) speculate that non-native second-language speakers simplify and increase transparency and systematicity in the grammatical system of English, and specifically in the verb-complementational system, to a greater extent than native speakers. In fact, Mukherjee (2009) has shown for GIVE that the monotransitive pattern is most frequent in Indian English, with the to-prepositional pattern also frequent, while in British English, the basic ditransitive pattern with two object NPs is most frequent. Data from ARCHER show a stable situation of the complementation of GIVE in British English from the 17th to the 20th century, which means that a change in the form of simplification can be claimed for Indian English because superstrate retention can be excluded as a reason for the differing numbers. The findings are all the more remarkable since GIVE is the prototypical verb for encoding transfer. A study of SEND in ICE-GB and ICE-India confirms the results for GIVE: verbs that can be used ditransitively seem to be used in a monotransitive construction more frequently in Indian

|| 24 Note that this chapter focusses on variation in the ICE corpora since most hypotheses bear on issues connected with SLA and substrates. No diachronic change in written British English is expected, so that no extensive analysis of LOB and FLOB will be presented. However, information on the results from LOB and FLOB will be provided where of interest.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 61

English (cf. Mukherjee and Hoffmann 2006: 156). Steger and Schneider (2012: 187) hypothesise that cognitive principles which operate most actively during acquisition processes, especially iconicity and transparency, lead to an increased simplicity of second-language varieties, and in particular New Englishes. Monotransitive GET is not only the historically first attested construction of GET, it has always been the most frequent construction, its prototypical meaning is the cognitively most entrenched meaning of GET, it dominates use in language acquisition and adult language, and it is among the simplest syntactic patterns that are available for GET (at least lexical GET; cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 11). This means that if simplification as an effect of SLA plays a role, a more frequent use of the monotransitive construction can be expected for the New Englishes (hypothesis 1). It is also known that language learners cling to well-known patterns, so that a high-frequency pattern such as the monotransitive construction can easily become even more frequent in a variety acquired as a second language in an educational context. One should keep in mind in this context that multilingual settings such as those one encounters in countries where English is spoken as a second language can also introduce new structural complexity to the language in other domains (cf. Schneider 2007: 89). Olavarría de Ersson and Shaw (2003: 159) have offered a cultural explanation for complementational differences: in South Asian cultures, for instance, the individual is seen as a small object in a larger whole, while Northern European culture is characterised by subjectivism and a focus on the individual. This could explain a higher frequency of monotransitive patterns in less individualistic cultures, since the object NP typically expresses what is given or received, while the recipient surfaces only in ditransitive constructions or in patterns with an additional adverbial. That is, when the speaker has the choice to either express or to leave out the recipient, a more frequent expression of the recipient would be expected in British English, i.e. more basic ditransitive constructions as well as prepositional object constructions, and a less frequent expression in certain other cultures, i.e. a lower overall number of both types of ditransitive construction (hypothesis 2). A more frequent use of simpler patterns entails a rationalisation of the whole verb-complementational system (cf. Hoffmann and Mukherjee 2007: 19–20) because more complex uses are avoided and possibly fall out of use in the end. Sand suggests that second-language speakers of English may find themselves in a situation in which “language contact magnifies ‘problem areas’ or ‘weak spots’ in the grammatical system of English and intensifies a development away from these” (2005: 459). The basic ditransitive construction can certainly constitute such a problem area: historically, the ditransitive construc-

62 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

tion first occurred only insignificantly later than the monotransitive construction, but it is much less frequent overall and much more complex in structure, so that a development away from it is conceivable in second-language varieties. If the recipient does not need to be expressed, this would reinforce a rise in monotransitive constructions. However, if the recipient necessarily needs to be expressed, the simpler and more iconic prepositional object construction suggests itself as an alternative construction (hypothesis 3). While the cultural explanation can certainly be contested and has not yet been substantially proved, there may well be an interplay of the various factors, leading in sum to higher absolute frequencies of the monotransitive construction in the New Englishes than in British English, lower absolute frequencies of both types of ditransitive construction, i.e. constructions where the recipient is profiled, and higher frequencies of the prepositional object construction as compared to the basic ditransitive construction. As far as formally intransitive GET, i.e. the elliptical version of monotransitive GET, is concerned, more colloquialised varieties as well as the spoken text types will be more likely to exhibit high frequencies of this pattern because eliding the object in otherwise standard language use attests to a colloquial tone and is suggestive of informality. Since previous studies have shown that Singaporean English is advanced in colloquialisation, and since substrate influence can be assumed to play a major role, more specifically the fact that Colloquial Singapore English is a pro-drop language (cf. Wee 2008a: 598), for which object pronoun omission is usual, I expect to find the highest frequency of formally intransitive GET in ICE-SIN (hypothesis 4). The focus in the analysis of meaning will lie on high-frequency monotransitive GET, for which fine-grained differences between the varieties as regards agentivity and type of object would go unnoticed without a corpus-based analysis of large token numbers. Direct objects of monotransitive GET frequent in all varieties as well as direct objects characteristic of regional varieties will be determined with the help of additional cluster and collocational analyses. Because substrate influence as well as effects of SLA are assumed to occur in New Englishes, instances of nonstandard use in connection with monotransitive GET in otherwise standard language are expected to feature more frequently in the New Englishes than in British English (hypothesis 5). Substrate influence is expected to appear, for instance, in the form of nonstandard time reference in Jamaican English. Finally, mode and genre differences will be presented, with monotransitive GET expected to be preferred in spoken language in all varieties due to its simple pattern and informality. The highest degree of genre sensitivity can be assumed

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 63

for British English, due to previous research which has indicated a greater stylistic heterogeneity of inner-circle varieties (cf. Hundt 2009: 127; Collins and Yao 2013) (hypothesis 6). In sum, these are the hypotheses suggested: – Hypothesis 1 (frequencies, monotransitives): higher frequencies of monotransitive GET in the New Englishes than in British English – Hypothesis 2 (frequencies, ditransitives): lower absolute frequencies of constructions where the recipient is profiled, i.e. the basic ditransitive construction as well as the prepositional object construction, in the New Englishes than in British English – Hypothesis 3 (forms, ditransitives): higher relative frequencies of the prepositional object construction than of the basic ditransitive construction in the New Englishes – Hypothesis 4 (forms, formally intransitives): highest absolute frequency of formally intransitive GET in Singaporean English – Hypothesis 5 (forms, nonstandard uses): more nonstandard uses in the New Englishes than in British English – Hypothesis 6 (mode, genre): preference of monotransitive GET for spoken language; greatest genre sensitivity in British English

5.2.2 Results: frequencies and forms Figure 5.3 gives an overview of the absolute token frequencies of monotransitive ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN, split up into spoken and written language.25 While ICE-JA has token numbers highly significantly larger than ICE-GB (p≪0.001, χ2=34.75, df=1) and ICE-SIN (p≪0.001, χ2=21.4, df=1), the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN compared to the total number of words of the corpora is statistically insignificant. Two conclusions can be drawn from these bare numbers: first, starting from the basic assumption that the ICE corpora are comparable in terms of text types, which means that the need to express ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’ should be approximately equal as well, GET seems to be more popular for the expression of ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’ in Jamaican English

GET in

|| 25 Note that 425 tokens of monotransitive GET occur in LOB and 330 in FLOB. I explain this fall in numbers not by a general change in written language but by the extreme text type dependence of monotransitive GET in writing. Since monotransitive GET is very vague in meaning, individual preferences of authors and writers, and thus the selection of texts for the corpora, will have very much influenced the use or avoidance of this construction.

64 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

than in the other two varieties; second, the use in Singaporean English seems to be very similar to that in British English, disregarding any mode differences, which will be detailed below.

1,400 1,146

1,200 1,000

900

800

262

257

918 160

written

600 400

889 638

spoken 758

200 0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.3: Monotransitive GET in ICE (absolute token numbers)

For the question of whether simplification plays a role in the choice of constructions in the New Englishes, the percentages that the simple monotransitive constructions constitute of all uses of GET are more telling than absolute token numbers. The results reveal that the differences between the varieties are now even more extreme. If one recalls that ICE-JA has the lowest absolute token number of GET overall, the fact that Jamaican English goes far ahead in the percentage ranking now hardly comes as a surprise (cf. Figure 5.4). Almost every other use of GET (44.0%) in ICE-JA is a monotransitive use, while in ICE-SIN, it is every third use (33.4%), and in ICE-GB only every fourth use (25.2%). The differences between all corpora are statistically highly significant, with the difference and the effect size particularly high for ICE-GB and ICE-JA.26 This means that the New Englishes display a highly significantly different behaviour from British English in the shares that the monotransitive GET-constructions constitute of all GET-constructions, with Jamaican English being additionally different because of its extremely high absolute token number of monotransitive GET. Hypothesis 1, higher frequencies of monotransitive GET in the New Englishes than in British English, and a preference for monotransitive constructions after GET in the New

|| 26 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=240.72, df=1, φc=0.2; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=51.7, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=62.78, df=1.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 65

Englishes, explicable by simplification processes, can be confirmed. It is very probable that the extreme result for Jamaican English has been reinforced by another learner effect, viz. the teddy bear effect (cf. Hasselgren 1994: 237), i.e. the clinging to frequent and familiar patterns, leading to their overuse, all the more since monotransitive GET is a high-frequency construction and since the teddy bear effect will be shown to play a major role in different domains of Jamaican English (cf., for instance, chapter 5.6 on GET-PVs).

50

44.0

40 30

33.4 25.2

20 10 0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.4: Monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent of all GET-tokens)

Figure 5.5 provides absolute numbers for the basic ditransitive construction and the prepositional object construction after GET in ICE.27 With the caveat that token numbers are low overall and that the differences are not statistically significant, the hypothesis about lower absolute frequencies of constructions where the recipient is profiled, i.e. basic ditransitive constructions as well as constructions with a prepositional object, in the New Englishes than in British English (hypothesis 2) can be tentatively confirmed. If only the more complex basic ditransitive construction is considered, the difference between British English and Jamaican English is statistically significant (p=0.044, Fisher’s exact test). Since the distribution of the basic ditransitive construction after GET (ranking ICE-GB > ICE-SIN > ICE-JA) is the exact reverse of that of the monotransitive GET-construction (ranking ICE-JA > ICE-SIN > ICE-GB), one could indeed make the

|| 27 In LOB, 19 basic ditransitive constructions occur, in FLOB 13. As regards prepositional object constructions, 6 can be found in LOB, and 4 in FLOB. All differences in frequencies as well as in the meaning of the verb and of the objects are statistically insignificant.

66 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

claim that in cases where the recipient would be additional information, he or she is more likely to be omitted from the construction in the New Englishes than in British English. Simplification from the basic ditransitive construction to the monotransitive construction and cultural factors would then go hand in hand. Moreover, basic ditransitive GET is of such low frequency that its status as a weak spot in the grammar of English might be reinforced, one consequence of which can be its continued avoidance in second-language varieties.28

35 30

31 3

27

25 13

20 15

21

prepositional object

5

construction

28

basic ditransitive

10 5

14

16

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

construction

0 ICE-GB

Figure 5.5: Basic ditransitive construction and prepositional object construction after GET in ICE (absolute token numbers)

An analysis of much larger parsed corpora of World Englishes is necessary to make safer claims about whether simplification and cultural factors can be considered responsible for any differences between New Englishes and British English in the use of ditransitive constructions. Due to the lack of such corpora at the present time, I searched the British, Jamaican, and Singaporean subpart of the GloWbE corpus. This megacorpus is tagged but not parsed, so that I used the search string “[get] [pp*] [at*]|[d*] [nn*]” (GET + personal pronoun + article/ determiner + NP) to retrieve the most frequent type of basic ditransitive construction, viz. the one where the indirect object is expressed as a personal pro-

|| 28 The results from the present study are also in line with Mukherjee and Gries (2009: 45–47), who have shown with the help of collostructional analysis that verbs that are strongly connected to the basic ditransitive construction in British English, e.g. ASK, COST, or LEND, are strongly connected to the monotransitive construction in Asian Englishes. In Singaporean English, for instance, LEND is even more strongly associated with a monotransitive than with a ditransitive construction.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 67

noun. A search for two NPs after GET would yield an unmanageable number of undesirable other constructions but not many more ditransitive constructions in return. Note that the token numbers include a small number of invalid tokens, viz. those where the personal pronoun is followed by a time adverbial, as in get it this time, but because of the sizes of the corpora, these tokens were not removed manually. Table 5.1 shows how infrequent the basic ditransitive construction after GET is in GloWbE (6 to 7 tokens pmw) in comparison to ICE (14 to 28 tokens pmw; cf. Figure 5.5), certainly due to the web-based nature of GloWbE. While the British and the Singaporean GloWbE subcorpora can be said to be on a par because the difference between them is statistically insignificant, a comparison of the British and the Jamaican corpora (p=0.028, χ2=4.81, df=1) confirms the lower frequency of the basic ditransitive construction in Jamaican English than in British English found in ICE. That is, with the data from GloWbE, a lower frequency of the basic ditransitive construction can be confirmed for Jamaican English compared to British English, while a generalisation for New Englishes seems to be unwarranted. In general it has to be said that the differences between the three corpora in GloWbE are only just significant (p=0.049, χ2=6.05, df=2) and that the variation is on a low level. Only an analysis of more diverse but still comparable and ideally parsed corpora allows safe conclusions to be drawn regarding the relation between British English and New Englishes. Table 5.1: Basic ditransitive construction after GET in GloWbE (absolute token numbers and tokens pmw)

corpus size absolute token number tokens pmw

Great Britain

Jamaica

Singapore

387,615,074

39,663,666

42,974,705

2,666

235

312

6.9

5.9

7.3

Figure 5.5 indicates that in all varieties, the basic ditransitive construction is more frequent than the prepositional object construction after GET, with the ranking in terms of preference for the basic ditransitive construction being ICEGB > ICE-SIN > ICE-JA, but in ICE-JA, the frequencies of the two constructions approximate each other. The difference between the British English distribution and the distribution in the New Englishes is statistically significant (p=0.008, Fisher’s exact test), and the hypothesis of the higher relative frequencies of

68 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

prepositional object constructions than of basic ditransitive constructions in the New Englishes (hypothesis 3) can be confirmed. As suggested above, I claim that this is due to the fact that problem areas in varieties acquired as second languages are rationalised and that more complex uses are avoided. The prepositional object construction, as in That’s not a problem, I will try my best to get the stuff for you (), is a simpler way of expressing that somebody fetches or organises something for somebody else than the basic ditransitive construction. This is ultimately because the prepositional object construction is more transparent and iconic (cf. Steger and Schneider 2012: 159–160): the object NP comes directly after the verb GET and the recipient is only mentioned as the second element after GET, in a PP. The motion that is inherent in ditransitive GET, viz. the motion of the object from the subject to the recipient, is represented iconically only when the prepositional object construction is used. The basic ditransitive construction, as in I could uhm get you that other book when I stay at Hilda’s if you’re near UC (), by contrast, in which the recipient is profiled first, runs counter to iconicity and is thus also more complex. It might be argued that other factors override concerns of iconicity in the choice between the basic ditransitive and the prepositional object construction and that the length of the two constituents after GET and discourse-pragmatic factors are responsible for variation. The weight principle considers the difference between light and heavy constituents and can be split up into the factor lexical category of the object, i.e. whether the object is a pronoun or a fullyfledged NP, and a discourse-pragmatic factor, viz. the focussing of elements. The fact that this principle can influence the choice between the order of the objects (cf. König and Gast 2012: 191–193) cannot be evaluated systematically here due to low token numbers. However, in the data retrieved, the vast majority of ditransitive constructions with GET have the recipient encoded as a pronoun and the patient or theme encoded as an NP, in both the basic ditransitive construction and the prepositional object construction, so that apart from iconicity, only focussing can be responsible for the use of the prepositional object construction. An analysis of the tokens and their contexts demonstrates that this is only very rarely a convincing reason for the use of the prepositional object construction in the New Englishes, which is why I claim that the wish to iconically render the motion meaning of GET is a plausible reason for the higher frequencies of prepositional object constructions in the New Englishes. Formally intransitive GET, by which I here understand constructions intransitive in form but with the meaning ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’, will be analysed in the following. In all these cases, the object NP is omitted but retrievable from the context.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 69

35 29

30 25 20

written

15

12

spoken

10 5

6

0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.6: Formally intransitive GET in ICE (absolute token numbers)

Figure 5.6 above shows that formally intransitive GET occurs appreciably often in ICE-SIN (29 tokens), but much less frequently in ICE-JA and ICE-GB. Examples from ICE-SIN, provided in the larger context, are: (3) This morning I just I’ve just got the no no not this one What baggage No the Luggage For our trip So I don’t have to get now lah No no not now not now Okay (4) Where can I get soil ah […] For what Planting ah what else Uhm get in plant shop Where the hell is a plant shop you idiot Uh for what you want to get The difference in token frequencies between ICE-SIN and ICE-GB is highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=15.99, df=1), and that between ICE-SIN and ICE-JA is significant (p=0.007, χ2=7.35, df=1), which means that hypothesis 4, the highest frequency of formally intransitive constructions in Singaporean English, can be

70 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

confirmed. Two main reasons can be cited. First, Colloquial Singapore English is a pro-drop language (cf. Wee 2008a: 598). This means that not only subject pronouns but also object pronouns can be omitted if they can be inferred from the context. Since Colloquial Singapore English is widely spoken also by speakers of Standard Singaporean English, it is only natural to see that the nonstandard variety influences spoken educated language use as represented in ICE. Second, previous studies have shown Singaporean English to be advanced in terms of colloquialisation. An overtly colloquial, and, from a British English point of view, nonstandard feature such as the omission of the object NP seems to be more readily accepted in this variety. That intransitive GET is indeed an informal feature is proved by the mode distribution, inferable from the graph. Only 2 tokens of all 47 tokens in ICE occur in a written text. Further evidence in this context is that LOB and FLOB, the written British English corpora, also only display 2 tokens altogether. In the following, further examples of nonstandard uses in connection with monotransitive GET will be presented. Not counting omitted29 or nonstandard NP subjects, which must be assumed to be relatively independent of the type of construction into which GET enters, there are 3 nonstandard uses in ICE-GB (0.3% of all tokens of monotransitive GET), 71 in ICE-JA (6.2%), and 42 in ICE-SIN (4.6%). The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-JA (p≪0.001, Fisher’s exact test) as well that between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN (p≪0.001, Fisher’s exact test) is highly significant, while the difference between the two New Englishes is insignificant. The hypothesis of more nonstandard uses in the New Englishes than in British English (hypothesis 5) can be confirmed. Past time reference of tokens that are not formally marked for past tense occurs conspicuously frequently in Jamaican English, where 14 tokens of this kind are found, as illustrated in examples (5) and (6), while in ICE-SIN, 5 cases of this kind occur, and in ICE-GB only 1. The tokens in ICE-JA are explicable by substrate influence from Jamaican Creole, where active predicates occurring in the base form and without an overt tense marker have a simple past (or alternatively a present habitual) reading (cf. Farquharson 2013a: 85).

|| 29 With 3.3% of all instances of monotransitive GET being affected, the phenomenon of subject omission occurs most frequently in Singaporean English, which is easily explicable by the prodrop nature of Colloquial Singapore English. Compared to subject omission in connection with other constructions in which GET is used, particularly those that involve got, e.g. semi-modal (HAVE) got to (cf. chapter 5.9.2), the percentage is low.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 71

(5) So I was right you’re a damn country boy who get a a good education (6) Mhm Mister Coster loved me too cause I really get the highest in the class for doing nothing you know While only 2 further nonstandard constructions occur in ICE-GB, there are 56 instances in ICE-JA, and 37 in ICE-SIN. These include the lack of an article before object NPs, as in examples (7) and (8), nonstandard inflection, as in (9) and (10), nonstandard negation, as in (11), or an otherwise nonstandard construction, as in (12): (7) I guess probably with him because he’s surrounded by Trinidadians or whatever he’s compelled […] to get accent or whatever (8) Then how come she she’s got the pamphlet there She can get pamphlet without buying the ticket what (9) I am talking to Him on the Phone now anyway he said he is alright and is still trying to get something and he will be going to stay with Dwayne and as soon as he get something (10) If the gate get contact with the front one that means the circuit is on (11) The food was horrible I hear you didn’t ever get none (12) So it was no joke business you couldn’t bribe a man to look the other way because him not going get just a reprimant […]

72 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

5.2.3 Results: meaning For analysing the meaning of GET in monotransitive, in formally intransitive, and in ditransitive constructions, all tokens were coded as described above. In the analysis below, however, the focus will be on monotransitive GET because for formally intransitive and for ditransitive GET, a regional differentiation is not warranted due to low token numbers. As regards formally intransitive GET, the only variety where it comes up reasonably frequently, viz. Singaporean English, exhibits equal amounts of agentive, non-agentive, and ambiguous meaning. As regards ditransitive GET, I have distinguished for the type of subject, viz. volitional agents as opposed to causers without volitionality, and the type of object, viz. abstract objects as opposed to concrete objects. The data indicate that causers without volitionality are not possible in the prepositional object construction, while they are in a minority but do occur in the basic ditransitive construction (7 of 90 tokens) in British and Jamaican English (cf. examples (13)–(14)). As far as the direct object in ditransitive GET is concerned, concrete objects, as in example (15), occur in almost 70% of all instances, while abstract objects are in the minority.30 This ties in with the meaning of transfer, which is always inherent in ditransitive GET. (13) But anyway AUT are trying to do something nationally about part-timers but they rely on local activity to get them information cos part-time staff generally aren’t included in the uh in the uh USR returns (14) […] it’s good to say live within your means but it’s what can your means get you these days (15) Well I need to get Clare a a clock Monotransitive GET is a high-frequency phenomenon, so that a quantitative analysis of its meaning is more easily possible and can also be conducted across region. Table 5.2 provides absolute token numbers for all meaning combinations that emerged from the coding explained above, listed in alphabetical order, for each ICE corpus as well as in total. Recall that the three categories for

|| 30 This is in contrast to monotransitive GET, where the distribution is exactly vice versa when only the tokens are analysed for which a differentiation between abstract and concrete is possible.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 73

the basic meaning of the verb, apart from special meanings, are “obtain” (agentive), “receive” (non-agentive), and “ambiguous”, and that the latter means that both semes of obtaining and receiving are present or that a decision for one or the other meaning was impossible. The basic meaning of the verb is ‘to receive’ in 1,807 cases and thus in 61.0% of all uses of monotransitive GET across all varieties. The agentive meaning ‘to obtain’ occurs in 505 tokens of monotransitive GET, which constitutes only 17.0%. Ambiguous cases or other meanings make up the remaining 22.0%. The results go counter to the claim by Hundt (2001: 61–63) that the meaning ‘to obtain’ is the most frequent meaning even today and suggest that its decrease (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 21–22) has progressed to the benefit of the meaning ‘to receive’, which is now the prototypical meaning. In fact, the most frequent meaning of monotransitive GET according to the data from ICE is ‘to receive a count abstract object’ (689 tokens), as in Shedden’s control just letting him down but he gets another chance and then he gives it away (). This meaning accounts for almost a quarter (23.2%) of all uses in all three ICE corpora analysed in the present study and is top by a large distance. In regard to the type of object, count abstract objects (939 tokens) are most frequent after monotransitive GET in ICE, accounting for almost a third of all uses (31.7%), followed by count concrete objects (560 tokens, 18.9%) and non-count abstract objects (516 tokens, 17.4%). Non-count concrete objects (134 tokens, 4.5%) are only used in a minority of cases, which means that concrete objects are no longer the typical objects of monotransitive GET. The remaining percentage is constituted by objects classified as “other”, the special meanings, and the idioms.

74 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.2: Meaning of monotransitive GET in ICE (absolute token numbers)

Meaning (tag)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

total

ambiguous_abstract_count

34

44

40

118

ambiguous_abstract_non-count

20

48

22

90

ambiguous_concrete_count

21

29

41

91

ambiguous_concrete_non-count

1

10

6

17

ambiguous_other

23

33

33

89

catch

26

18

20

64

contract

24

6

36

66

hold

12

1

11

24

obtain_abstract_count

34

50

48

132

obtain_abstract_non-count

17

20

14

51

obtain_concrete_count

58

46

73

177

obtain_concrete_non-count

17

7

8

32

obtain_other

47

33

33

113

receive_abstract_count

219

278

192

689

receive_abstract_non-count

116

170

89

375

receive_concrete_count

85

107

100

292

receive_concrete_non-count

24

49

12

85

receive_other

102

159

105

366

understand

13

31

27

71

idioms

7

7

8

22

900

1,146

918

2,964

total

For variation across region, first consider again the basic meaning of the verb. Of the three varieties, the New Englishes display higher percentages of ambiguous cases than British English. Of all monotransitive GET-constructions in the respective corpus, they amount to 17.3% in ICE-SIN, 14.8% in ICE-JA, and 11.8% in ICE-GB. The difference between British English and the New Englishes is statistically significant (p=0.005, χ2=7.77, df=1), while the two New Englishes are similar and the difference between them is insignificant. Apparently, instances where both semes are present are more typical of the New Englishes than of British English. If one disregards the ambiguous cases (cf. Table 5.3), one can see that Jamaican English prefers the prototypical non-agentive meaning even more than the other two varieties. ICE-JA clearly stands out (ICE-JA and

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 75

ICE-GB: p=0.0004, χ2=12.62, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=19.68, df=1), while the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN is insignificant. Table 5.3: Agentivity of monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

agentive (‘to obtain’)

24.1

17.0

26.1

non-agentive (‘to receive’)

75.9

83.0

73.9

As far as the type of object is concerned, one can see again that ICE-JA has the highest percentage of the prototypical element, viz. 71.1% of abstract objects (cf. Table 5.4). However, this time, only the difference between ICE-JA and ICESIN is statistically highly significant. This points to another striking distribution: in Singaporean English, concrete objects are used significantly more often than in British English (p=0.044, χ2=4.04, df=1) and highly significantly more often than in Jamaican English (p=0.0007, χ2=11.58, df=1), as in Yes I got your last letter and do tell Tony tt I haven’t forgotten his request (). Regarding the countability of the object, it is also Singaporean English that stands out (cf. Table 5.5), with highly significant differences from British English (p=0.006, χ2=7.55, df=1) as well as Jamaican English (p≪0.001, χ2=25.2, df=1) in that even more count nouns are used in Singaporean English than in the other two varieties. Table 5.4: Type of object (abstract/concrete) of monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

abstract

68.1

71.1

62.8

concrete

31.9

28.9

37.2

Table 5.5: Type of object (count/non-count) of monotransitive GET in ICE (per cent)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

count

69.8

64.6

76.6

non-count

30.2

35.4

23.4

76 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

The four specially analysed meanings of GET, viz. ‘to catch’, ‘to contract’, ‘to hold’, and ‘to understand’, as well as idioms constitute between about 1% and 2% each of all uses of monotransitive GET in ICE. While no regional differences in the use of ‘to catch’ and ‘to understand’ can be found, Jamaican English obviously varies in the much less frequent use of the meanings ‘to contract’ and ‘to hold’. ‘To contract’ is found 6 times and ‘to hold’ only once in ICE-JA and thus much less frequently than in the other corpora, where there are between 24 and 36 and between 11 and 12 tokens, respectively. While a low occurrence of a certain meaning or form is no proof of non-use, the numbers still allow the speculation that other verbs are preferred in Jamaican English for expressing ‘to contract an illness’ and that the chunk GET hold of sth plays less of a role in Jamaican English than in the other varieties. Only analyses of all the members of the respective semantic fields in larger corpora can clarify this issue. To sum up, it has been shown that ‘to receive a count abstract object’ is the prototypical meaning of monotransitive GET, accounting for almost a quarter of all of its uses in ICE. In the New Englishes, more oscillation between agentive and non-agentive semes of GET can be found than in British English. Where the meaning is unambiguous, Jamaican English makes even more use than the other varieties of the prototypical non-agentive meaning of the verb and of the prototypical abstract object, two indications that the teddy bear phenomenon, i.e. the clinging to frequent and well-known uses, is in effect in Jamaican English. While the typical object after monotransitive GET is a count abstract noun, such as chance, job, or problem, in all varieties, Singaporean English also has count concrete nouns as objects to a considerable degree, as in Maybe we should go down and get some brochures from the course (). Finally, for Jamaican English, a limited use of monotransitive GET for expressing ‘to contract an illness’ can be assumed as well as a dispreference for the chunk GET hold of sth.31 In order to determine the most frequent lexemes functioning as direct objects of GET in the three ICE corpora, I carried out an analysis of lexical bundles with all word-forms of GET (get, gets, getting, got, gotta, gotten) with the help of the software AntConc (also cf. chapter 5.11.2). I set the minimum cluster size to 2 and the maximum size to 5 to the right of the verb, and the minimum cluster frequency to 3. The resulting lists of between 295 and 406 GET-clusters were manually screened. Care had to be taken that the lexemes functioned as direct objects of monotransitive GET. In many cases, the corpus had to be || 31 Note that all quantitative differences between LOB and FLOB in the basic meaning of the verb and the types of objects are statistically insignificant.

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 77

checked to ascertain this. In addition, duplicate lexemes that occur in a longer and a shorter cluster had to be subtracted from the count. The results for all word-forms were lumped together in the count, as were uses with different or no determiners before the object NP because the focus here is not on the exact form of the cluster but on the head of the object NP. The lexemes that occur in at least two corpora as top direct objects and can be said to be the most frequent direct objects of monotransitive GET in the ICE corpora are, in descending order of frequency: job (48), ball (34), money (16), chance (15), things (14), impression (12), information (12), and help (9). Among them, job, ball, and things are the lexemes that occur in all three corpora. The high frequency of ball is due to the inclusion of football, cricket and rugby commentaries in the categories S2A001–S2A-020 (spontaneous commentaries). While this analysis of lexical bundles provided the most frequent objects of monotransitive GET across ICE, the following collocational analysis will provide object lexemes that are particularly characteristic of a variety and thus differentiate it from the others (also cf. chapter 5.11.3). Collocations are in this context understood as “associations between lexical words, so that the words co-occur more frequently than expected by chance” (Biber et al. 1999: 988). I carried out a collocational analysis up to 4 words to the right of GET and the minimum frequency set to 7. As statistical information, I chose Mutual Information (MI), in order to identify not primarily the most frequent but the most characteristic direct objects of GET. The frequency threshold ensured that, despite MI, which favours unusual combinations, no one-off occurrences were retrieved. The results were searched for lexemes that actually function as direct objects in the respective corpus and were cleaned of those that occurred in any of the other corpora above an MI threshold of 5.0. Table 5.6 lists the collocates with their respective MI values.

78 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.6: Collocates of monotransitive GET in ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

MI

lexeme

MI

lexeme

MI

lexeme

9.1

credits

7.4

scholarship

9.7

license

7.8

Benefit

6.4

response

7.6

message

7.5

impression

6.4

mail

6.8

tickets

7.5

bus

6.0

grade

6.2

experience

6.6

cold

5.8

degree

6.6

ideas

5.8

points

6.5

benefit

5.7

name

6.1

feeling

5.7

friends

6.0

picture

5.4

friend

5.8

test

5.4

problem

5.8

value

5.3

things

It is only natural that some of the results of the cluster as well as the collocational analysis will have been influenced by the make-up of the corpora and the specific texts chosen for the categories. In the following overview, this unavoidable shortcoming will be compensated for by combining the results from both analyses to retrieve only those lexemes that scored highly in both tests. Thus, Table 5.7 presents, in alphabetical order, the prototypical direct objects of GET in all corpora as well as the direct objects that are particularly characteristic of a corpus. Table 5.7: Typical objects of monotransitive GET in ICE

direct objects of GET typical of ICE

direct objects of GET typical of ICE-GB

direct objects of GET typical of ICE-JA

direct objects of GET typical of ICE-SIN

ball, chance, job, money, things

benefit, cold, credits, feeling, test

response, scholarship degree, message

While the consultation of dictionaries as well as the native speaker’s intuition might provide information about commonly occurring objects of GET, only a corpus linguistic study like this can yield information about their robustness as well as differences between regional varieties. As Newman and Rice put it:

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 79

We stress, again, the virtue of corpus linguistic techniques for the descriptive linguist and lexicographer alike. By sampling thousands of instances of actual uses of an item, the full extent of inferences and collocational properties associated with a verb becomes apparent and the ensuing description becomes more observationally adequate. (2006: 248)

5.2.4 Results: mode and genre The following analysis will be concerned with mode and genre. Because an analysis of the distribution of ditransitive GET across text types would lead to very low token numbers, no mode or genre analysis will be carried out for ditransitive GET. The informal nature of formally intransitive GET having been pointed out above, the focus here will be on monotransitive GET, for which occurrences are so frequent that a very fine-grained mode and genre analysis is fruitful. At this point, it is necessary to mention that, in order to counteract skewed results in the analysis, I had to manipulate the data from ICE-GB. The category administrative writing (W2D-001–W2D-010), which contains 10 texts and thus about 20,000 words, features an extremely high number of 105 tokens of monotransitive GET in ICE-GB, due to the fact that 7 of the 10 texts are publications by the HMSO (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office) Publication Centre in which monotransitive GET is used repeatedly in the same phrases. The publications are booklets and leaflets on unemployment benefit, travel safety, and National Insurance or National Health Service claims and contain tens of similar uses such as get an NHS sight test, get your NHS sight test, get your sight test, get the sight test application form, etc. While the overuse of monotransitive GET in this category should be kept in mind, for the calculation of mode and genre differences, I set its number to 10 tokens, which is the average of ICE-JA and ICE-SIN for this category. Since the numbers in the genre analysis depend on each other, the token number of category W2D in ICE-GB would otherwise have extremely distorted all the results. By standardising the numbers from ICE-GB in this way, all British English written (sub-) corpora are fairly in line, which indicates that this measure is the right decision. The mode distribution of monotransitive GET is presented in Figure 5.7. It is obvious that monotransitive GET is much more popular in spoken than in written language, irrespective of the variety. However, compared to other uses of GET, for instance possessive (HAVE) got (cf. chapter 5.8.3), the preference for spoken language is much less extreme. For easier inter-corpus comparison, consider the speech-writing ratio, which is 2.7 : 1 in ICE-GB, 2.2 : 1 in ICE-JA, and 3.2 : 1 in ICESIN. These ratios are very similar to those for all uses of GET in the respective

80 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

variety (ICE-GB 3.1 : 1, ICE-JA 2.2 : 1, ICE-SIN 3.0 : 1), which means that no mode deviations for monotransitive GET from the overall use of GET can be detected. Of the three varieties, it is in Singaporean English that monotransitive GET is most frequently used in spoken language as compared to written language, with over 3 tokens in spoken language per 1 token in written language, followed by British English, with Jamaican English last. The analysis per text type below will reveal whether the comparatively frequent use of monotransitive GET in written Jamaican English can be explained by an overuse in a specific genre.

160

140.9

140

124.7

120

100.1

100 spoken

80 60

62.8 42.2

40

written 32.8

38.6

37.1

20 0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.7: Mode distribution of monotransitive GET (tokens per 100,000 words)

Table 5.8 indicates the results of the genre analysis of monotransitive GET. The expected percentages provided in the third column of the table reflect the number of words of the genre at hand and assume an equal distribution of the phenomenon across genres. For instance, because private dialogues make up 20.0% of the ICE corpus, the relative frequency of monotransitive GET is expected to be 20.0%. The observed absolute frequency of monotransitive GET in ICE-GB is 327 tokens, however, which equals an observed relative frequency of 41.1%. This means that monotransitive GET is overrepresented in private dialogues in ICE-GB by 21.1%. The standard deviation calculated for each region in the case of monotransitive GET yields the highest value for ICE-GB (12.0), so that the hypothesis about the greatest genre sensitivity in British English can be confirmed, but the other corpora follow closely (ICE-JA: 11.1, ICE-SIN: 10.7). In addition, over- and underuses are often quite similar across regions. Some noteworthy results will

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 81

however be described in more detail. One of them concerns the abovementioned overuse of monotransitive GET in private dialogues, which not only holds for ICE-GB, but also for the other two corpora. Monotransitive GET is overused in private dialogues by almost 19% on average. The preference for using this very simple structure mainly in the most informal spoken genre is not surprising, but note the most extreme value of British English. While monotransitive GET is used more frequently than expected in private dialogues, public dialogues, and unscripted monologues in all three varieties, it is underused in the most formal spoken category, which is scripted monologues, on average by 5.1%. This is totally in line with the expectation that the vague expression GET sth is inappropriate use in broadcast talks and is avoided whenever language users have time to script their talks or speeches in advance. Here, one can see more extreme values for British and Jamaican English, while the underuse in Singaporean English is milder. This could be due to advanced colloquialisation of this variety, which appears in the increasing informality of more formal text types. Within the category public dialogues, underuses of monotransitive GET can be determined for parliamentary debates and legal cross-examinations, but they are so slight that they do not lead to a negative number for the whole category. The general rareness of monotransitive GET in written as compared to spoken language is visible in the negative numbers of all the written categories in ICE in the table. There is only one exception and that is the positive number for ICE-JA in the category non-printed writing, viz. 2.7%. In fact, the comparatively frequent use of monotransitive GET in written Jamaican English noted above can be explained by this. The category non-printed writing consists of student essays and exams and letters. While all three varieties exhibit an overuse of monotransitive GET in letters, this overuse is slight in British and Singaporean English and compensated for by the underuse in student essays and exams (thence the negative numbers in the table), but much higher in Jamaican English, which leads to the positive number for the whole category of nonprinted writing in Jamaican English: there are 116 tokens in letters in ICE-JA, but only 62 each in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN. The underuse in student essays and exams is least pronounced in ICE-JA, where 30 tokens occur, compared to only 8 in ICE-GB and 5 in ICE-SIN. This might testify to a reduced sensitivity towards the avoidance of vague monotransitive GET in the written language of young Jamaicans. Note, too, that the underuse in fiction, the most informal written text category, is very mild in all varieties in ICE (on average 1.0%), while it is much more pronounced for the category informational writing (18.8%). A closer look

82 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

at the individual text types indicates, as expected, the most extreme value for the most formal category academic writing, in which monotransitive GET occurs only 16 times in 240,000 words in all ICE corpora, while it would be expected 229 times if the distribution were equal in the language.32 In sum, hypothesis 6, the preference of monotransitive GET for spoken language and the greatest genre sensitivity in British English, can be confirmed.

|| 32 More information on the distribution of monotransitive GET in written British English can be gained from the results from LOB and FLOB. While it should be kept in mind that monotransitive GET is in general rarer in written than in spoken language, LOB and FLOB confirm what has been found in the data from ICE, viz. that within written text types, monotransitive GET is overused in press language and fiction, while it is underused in academic writing and in practically all other text types.

160,000 140,000 100,000 100,000 260,000 40,000 1,000,000

Public dialogues (S1B)

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

Scripted monologues (S2B)

Non-printed (W1)

Informational writing (W2A–W2E)

Fiction (W2F)

TOTAL

WRITTEN

200,000

Private dialogues (S1A)

SPOKEN

number of words

100

4.0

26.0

10.0

10.0

14.0

16.0

20.0

100

3.8

7.2

8.8

3.4

17.2

18.5

41.1 18.0 3.4 12.7 6.5 3.1

3.2 -6.6 -1.2 -18.8 -0.2

100

19.5

2.5

0

36.7

21.1

0

-0.9

-19.5

2.7

-6.6

4.0

3.5

16.7

100

2.2

8.0

7.3

8.0

16.1

20.7

37.8

0

-1.8

-18.0

-2.7

-2.0

2.1

4.7

17.8

0

-1.0

-18.8

-0.4

-5.1

3.1

3.5

18.6

monoICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean transitive observed difference observed difference observed difference difference GET % % % % % % % expected %

Table 5.8: Expected and observed distribution of monotransitive GET in ICE-GB (N=795), ICE-JA (N=1,146), and ICE-SIN (N=918)

Monotransitive and ditransitive GET | 83

84 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

5.2.5 Summary The analysis has shown that the historically first attested construction of GET, monotransitive use with the meaning ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’, is still the most frequently used one in all varieties. However, the New Englishes, particularly Jamaican English, surpass British English in token numbers and even more so in the shares of all GET-tokens (cf. Figure 5.2 on page 55),33 which allows the conclusion that effects of SLA have been at work in the New Englishes, leading to a clinging to and an overuse of simple and familiar patterns. The basic ditransitive construction, in contrast, is a low-frequency phenomenon and occurs even less frequently in the New Englishes than in British English, indicating its status as a weak spot in the grammar and its subsequent avoidance in second-language varieties. The more iconic alternative, the prepositional object construction, seems to have taken over in the New Englishes. Substrate influence and colloquialisation have been adduced as factors leading to the most frequent instances of object omission in Singaporean English. Substrate influence as well as simplification have been found to be responsible for the considerably more frequent instances of nonstandard uses in the New Englishes than in British English, e.g. nonstandard past time reference or nonstandard inflection. The decrease of the agentive meaning ‘to obtain’ seems to have progressed to the benefit of the non-agentive meaning ‘to receive’, which is the prototypical meaning today. In fact, ‘to receive’ is the most frequent meaning of monotransitive GET in all varieties (61.0%), and the prototypical object of monotransitive GET is abstract and count (31.7%). The combination of these two, i.e. tokens such as get a chance or get a job, constitutes about a quarter of all uses of monotransitive GET across ICE. Jamaican English uses the prototypical meaning even more than the other varieties, suggesting, together with the high absolute token numbers of monotransitive GET, that the teddy bear effect is at work in this variety. The mode and genre analysis has shown that monotransitive GET is preferred in spoken language, particularly in Singaporean English, but that the genre dependence is relatively similar across the varieties: in private dialogues, monotransitive GET is appreciably overused, while it is underused in the most formal spoken category, viz. scripted monologues. Underuses have also been determined for parliamentary debates, legal cross-examinations, and academic writing. In letters, by contrast, monotransitive GET occurs quite frequently, particularly in Jamaican English. || 33 Note that formally intransitive uses are subsumed under “monotransitive” in the overview graph.

GET as a linking verb | 85

5.3 GET as a linking verb This chapter deals with GET as a linking verb. Two uses are subsumed under this term in the present study: copular GET used in the construction subject–verb– complement (SVC) and complex-transitive GET used in the construction subject– verb–object–complement (SVOC).34 A verb has copular complementation when it is followed by a subject complement (also called subject predicative or subject attribute) (type SVC) or an obligatory adverbial (also, more precisely, called predication adjunct) (type SVA) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1171). Subject complements can be realised as adjective phrases (AdjPs), NPs, or PPs, while obligatory adverbials come in the form of adverb phrases (AdvPs) or PPs. Alternative terms for the copular construction are complex-intransitive construction, pseudo-passive, statal passive, or stative passive. The term copula is often reserved for the verb BE in copular function, with verbs functionally equivalent to it termed copular verbs (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 54). In the case of GET, only an AdjP can function as a subject complement. Historically, GET + adjective is attested from the 17th century onwards (cf. Hundt 2001: 69). GET, as in […] and then it got dark (), is a resulting copular verb, “identify[ing] an attribute that happens as a result of some process of change” (Biber et al. 1999: 436) or getting into a state, and associating this attribute with the subject of the clause. The meaning is thus close to ‘to become’ and, in fact, in written language, the verb BECOME will often be the more likely choice. Recurring adjectives following copular GET are, for instance, angry, better, bored, cold, drunk, old(er), ready, tired, upset, or worse, and many express “some affective or attitudinal stance” (Biber et al. 1999: 444). Dixon claims that the surface subject is “at least partly responsible for being in a certain state” (2005: 357), similarly to the GET-passive. When GET is followed by an AdvP or a PP, as in […] they got to the airport […] (), it is used as a verb of motion and is followed by an obligatory adverbial (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 436; Quirk et al. 1985: 53–54). This copular use of GET in the construction SVA is treated separately in chapter 5.7. The present chapter thus covers copular GET, meaning ‘to become’, followed by a subject complement in the form of an AdjP, i.e. constructions of the type SVC. The AdjP can contain an adjective, as in example (16), or an adjectival past

|| 34 Copular GET in the construction subject–verb–adverbial (SVA) and complex-transitive GET in the construction subject–verb–object–adverbial (SVOA) are analysed in the chapter on GET as a verb of motion (chapter 5.7).

86 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

participle, as in example (17). Note at this point that the differences between all five corpora analysed for the present study in the use of an adjective or an adjectival participle after copular GET are insignificant. (16) I seem to get slower and uh I don’t walk too well nowadays (17) But but I mean like I said I’d put it in the lounge so they get used to seeing it […] The difficulty of separating verbal participles, which form passives in conjunction with GET (cf. chapter 5.4.1), from adjectival participles, which function as complements, is pointed out by Granath, who states that [m]ost participles have properties which are typical either of verbs or of adjectives, whereas the status of others is unclear, and the participles must therefore be examined singly in order to determine to which word class they belong. Even so, it may not always be possible to determine class membership. (1997: 68)

A note on GET rid of is in order at this point: Givón and Yang (1994: 135–136) regard this frequent combination as an extension of the GET-passive construction. While this may be correct historically, in the present study, GET rid of is classified as a copular construction with an adjectival participle. If an NP intervenes between GET and the adjective or the adjectival participle, the construction is complex-transitive (type SVOC) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1195), as in I’ll never get it straight (). The NP functions as an object, while the AdjP functions as an object complement. As in the copular construction, GET has a resultative meaning and introduces the attribute, which here, however, applies to the object instead of to the subject. The complex-transitive construction of GET with an AdjP increased during the 17th century, coinciding with the rise of the causative passive (cf. Hundt 2001: 68–69). The latter construction consists of the combination GET + NP + verbal participle, as in I’ll get it repaired tomorrow (), and is treated in chapter 5.4.6. Again, note that complex-transitive motion constructions, i.e. combinations of GET + NP + AdvP/PP (type SVOA), as in And I got her to her office in Sloane Square with time to spare (), are treated in the chapter on GET as a verb of motion (chapter 5.7). The results from the data analysis for copular GET (SVC) are provided in Table 5.9. LOB and FLOB are practically identical, both in terms of absolute token numbers and in terms of percentages of all GET-tokens, which means that

GET as a linking verb | 87

copular GET is stable in diachrony in written British English. A separate analysis of ICE-GB written confirms this. Across ICE, the differences in absolute token numbers are statistically insignificant. However, in terms of the percentages that the copular uses of GET constitute of all GET-tokens, the New Englishes (ICEJA: 11.5%, ICE-SIN: 10.5%) display higher values and are highly significantly different from ICE-GB (7.9%) (ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=22.82, df=1; ICEGB and ICE-SIN: p=0.0005, χ2=12.14, df=1). A separate analysis of all spoken and all written subcorpora reveals that the differences mainly lie in written language, where particularly ICE-SIN written is set apart from ICE-GB written, both in terms of absolute token numbers (ICE-SIN: 101, ICE-GB: 60; p=0.0007, χ2=11.39, df=1) and in terms of the share of all GET-tokens (ICE-SIN: 19.7%, ICEGB: 9.6%; p≪0.001, χ2=23.53, df=1). The differences between ICE-JA written and ICE-GB written are less extreme, but still significant (ICE-JA: 85, ICE-GB: 60; p=0.023, χ2=5.21, df=1; ICE-JA: 14.1%, ICE-GB: 9.6%; p=0.016, χ2=5.86, df=1). This means that a more frequent use of copular GET can be determined for written English in the New Englishes as compared to British English, which is indicative of colloquialism in the New Englishes. Mode differences are least extreme in Singaporean English, where the results of written English approach those of spoken language (ICE-SIN spoken: 30.6 tokens per 100,000 words, ICESIN written: 24.4 tokens). Compared to other uses of GET, copular GET is overused in written language in all varieties, but particularly so in the New Englishes. Table 5.9: Copular GET (SVC) (absolute token numbers, tokens per 100,000 words, and per cent of all GET-tokens)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

absolute token number

160

166

283

300

287

per 100,000 words

15.9

16.5

26.7

28.8

28.1

per cent of all GET-tokens

11.4

12.4

7.9

11.5

10.5

In both Jamaican Creole and Colloquial Singapore English, the deletion of the copula BE before an AdjP is pervasive (cf. Patrick 2013; Lim and Ansaldo 2013a). Moreover, Jamaican Creole can make use of the marker de and a stative predicate, as in Di fuud de kuol ‘The food is getting cold’ (cf. Farquharson 2013a: 86) to express an inchoative meaning. The frequent use of GET in copular function could therefore be a combination of colloquialism and indirect substrate

88 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

influence in that it is overused because, as a substitute of the zero copula, it is not perceived as so informal in the New Englishes as it is in British English. With regard to genre differences, Biber et al. (1999: 437–439) find that GET is among the top three copular verbs in all genres with the exception of academic prose. Copular GET is particularly common in conversation and by far the most frequent copular verb in this genre. It is relatively common in fiction, moderately common in news, and rare in academic prose. Table 5.10 shows that this ranking can, with higher absolute token frequencies, be confirmed by the data from LOB/FLOB and ICE, with the exception of fiction in ICE, which displays an even higher frequency than spoken language. In all written corpora, copular GET is overrepresented in the genre fiction, but there are regional differences: the average occurrence in ICE-GB is 40.0 times per 100,000 words, in ICE-JA it is 77.5, and in ICE-SIN it is 47.5. Table 5.10: Genre differences in the use of copular GET (SVC) (tokens per 100,000 words)

Biber et al.

LOB/FLOB

ICE

conversation/spoken language

25.0

--

33.3

fiction

19.0

34.7

55.0

news/press

11.5

15.9

15.0

academic prose

2.5

2.2

2.1

Complex-transitive GET (SVOC) is very rare and occurs only between 2 and 5 times per 100,000 words (cf. Table 5.11). While there is some variation between the corpora, such as overall lower numbers in LOB and FLOB than in ICE, and a significantly more frequent occurrence in ICE-GB than in ICE-JA (p=0.016, Fisher’s exact test), these observations are based on low token numbers. Moreover, no significant differences between any of the corpora can be determined for the percentages of all GET-tokens.

GET-passives | 89

Table 5.11: Complex-transitive GET (SVOC) (absolute token numbers, tokens per 100,000 words, and per cent of all GET-tokens)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

absolute token number

15

24

49

27

31

per 100,000 words

1.5

2.4

4.6

2.6

3.0

per cent of all GET-tokens

1.1

1.8

1.4

1.0

1.1

In an overview, a British English-New English divide can be determined for the use of copular GET, which is found less frequently in the former variety than in the latter varieties. In terms of mode, compared to British English, copular GET is overused in written language in the New Englishes, particularly in Singaporean English, which exhibits the highest degree of colloquialism and the least difference between spoken and written language. Complex-transitive GET is very rare overall.

5.4 GET-passives 5.4.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses The usual formal definition of the GET-passive is GET + past participle (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 167). However, when studying variation it is not advisable to set up such a broad category of GET-passives because the unique function of the central GET-passive would be overlooked and structures which have little in common except for surface form would be lumped together. The past participle plays a central role in distinguishing structures because it can oscillate between a more adjectival and a more verbal use: “[i]t is difficult to distinguish adjectival and verbal past participles in English, and none of the diagnostics proposed in the literature is watertight”, as Gronemeyer (1999: 6) puts it. If the participle is adjectival, the combination approaches a copular construction; if it is verbal, it approaches a central passive use. Only the combination of the Janus-headed past participle and contextual clues, such as the presence or absence of an agent-like phrase or even only the possibility of such being implied, tips the scales in favour of one or the other interpretation. Aarts (2007: 178–180) therefore pleads for the description of these data as an intersective gradience between the two classes of verbs and adjectives. Similarly, a passive gradient is described by Svartvik (1966; also cf. the description in Aarts 2007: 178–179) and

90 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

adopted in a less fine-grained form by Quirk et al. (1985: 167) to accommodate the fact that examples of GET + past participle should best be regarded as being situated on a scale. However, in order to be able to classify and quantify data, certain cut-off points need to be determined. Under these circumstances, I follow Quirk et al. (1985: 160–171) in their tripartite division of combinations of GET + past participle into central passives, semi-passives, and pseudo-passives. With the help of close reading and context analysis, a classification of GET + past participle into one of the three classes will be feasible in practically all cases: – central passives (participle is verbal) = GET-passives, e.g. He got arrested. – semi-passives (participle is both verbal and adjectival), e.g. He got interested in linguistics. – pseudo-passives (participle is adjectival) = copular use, e.g. He got bored. In the case of central passives, the participle is verbal. Only central passives will be called GET-passives in the present study. A clear case of a central passive from the data is the example You know your bikes will get stolen (). It could easily be expanded with a by-agent, it has a correspondence with an active clause, and the participle cannot be premodified by very. Note that the presence of a by-phrase, which often, though by no means always, makes a GET + past participle construction verbal (for details cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 168–169), is very rare for GET-passives because they are preferably used to put the emphasis on the subject referent’s unfavourable condition. In central passive constructions, GET exhibits an in-between status between full verb and auxiliary use. It displays some full verb properties, e.g. dummy DO in negation, as in He didn’t get arrested, or in tags, as in He got arrested, didn’t he? On the other hand, GET is clearly not a typical full verb in the GET-passive because the main verb, in the form of a past participle, only comes after it. A combination of GET and past participle that cannot be expanded by an agent is called a pseudo-passive. Pseudo-passives are equivalent to copular (or complex-intransitive) constructions because GET acts as a resulting copular verb and the participle is stative (therefore also statal passive, cf. Aarts 2007: 178), e.g. I get bored after a while (), where bored = ‘in a state of boredom’. Other common expressions that fall into this category are get dressed, get lost, or get tired (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 161). Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1441) add a point that helps distinguish between central and pseudopassives: the explicit or implicit agent must be distinct from the subject referent in the case of central passives. This is also why Let’s get started cannot be a central passive – it is similar to Let’s start and the agent is we.

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Participles in semi-passives, as in Tried twice to start reading that and couldn’t get interested at all (), have both verbal and adjectival properties. On the verb-like side, semi-passives have active analogues (here That didn’t interest me). On the adjective-like side, the participle can be coordinated with an adjective (e.g. keen), it can be modified (e.g. with quite), and GET can be replaced by a copular verb (e.g. feel) (for details cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 168–169). For practical coding, I developed the guideline that an agentlike phrase, which can come in many forms, often as a PP but also as a thatclause, has to be either present (e.g. I got surprised at her behaviour – Her behaviour surprised me) or implicit (e.g. We got encouraged to go on with the project – [The results] encouraged us to go on) for the combination to be a semi-passive because only then is a transformation into an active clause possible. If this is not the case, the combination GET + past participle is classified as a pseudopassive. Boundaries between the three categories are fuzzy, and Denison (1998: 181) points out that many examples of GET + past participle are ambiguous: the passive analysis is possible but an alternative analysis in which GET is a change-ofstate verb is also conceivable. Clearly, in real language data, clues as to the interpretation will often only be implicit and any analysis of GET-passives is very much dependent on the close interpretation of the whole context. Consider Huddleston and Pullum’s (2002: 1440–1443) example They got frightened, where the participle can be made verbal by adding a by-agent and adjectival by adding the premodifier very. In the first case the construction is a central passive, in the second case it is a pseudo-passive. The tripartite analysis used in the present study allows for a fine-grained analysis without setting up artificial categories. Where ambiguity arises, the interpretation most probable in the context of the whole utterance has been chosen.35 After a classification of the combination GET + past participle has been established, clarification is still needed for what makes the GET-passive different from the BE-passive semantically in Present-Day English and what restrictions || 35 Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1440–1443) use a classification similar to Quirk et al.’s and speak of verbal GET-passives (= central passives), adjectival GET-passives (= pseudo-passives), and ambiguous cases. Biber et al. (1999: 476) adopt a broad and very vague definition of GETpassives, which makes any comparison of their counts in the LSWE with other data problematic. Although they subclassify combinations such as GET hit, GET involved, GET left, GET married, and GET stuck as stative passives, they count them among GET-passives and do not provide separate figures for central passives. On the other hand, Biber et al. state that GET-passives are “rare” and “restricted primarily to conversation” (1999: 481). However, the use of the stative passive is certainly not rare, as Biber et al.’s own figures demonstrate.

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apply to its use. Previous analyses have treated the GET-passive only marginally and ascribed to it the role of a “modern variant of the be-passive” (Hübler 1998: 162), but it displays typical characteristics, which can be summarised in the following points and will be explained subsequently in detail: – low frequency – usually no expressed animate agent – dynamic verbs – responsibility on the part of the subject – expression of adversity or benefit – informal register First, the GET-passive is much less frequent than the BE-passive, even in informal style (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 161). Biber et al. state that the GET-passive is “extremely rare” (1999: 476), making up only 0.1% of all verbs even in conversation. Combinations with catch, do, hit, involve, kill, leave, mix, or pay (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 481; Mindt 2000: 283) seem to be relatively frequent. Second, there is often no expressed animate agent in GET-passives. Thus, examples without an agent, such as James got beaten last night, or with an inanimate agent, such as The cat got run over by a bus, are more likely to occur than examples with an animate agent, such as James got caught by the police (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 121–127, 161). Third, Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1442) point out that GET-passives are found only with dynamic verbs, which can be explained by the fact that other uses of GET are always dynamic (except, it should be added, in cases such as I got a problem, where got = have; cf. chapter 5.8). Therefore, while It was believed that… is perfectly possible, *It got believed that… is not, at least not if the sentence is to refer to a certain point in time instead of to a gradual development (cf. Visser 1973: 2031). Fourth and fifth, agentivity or responsibility on the part of the subject and the expression of adversity or benefit are two further characteristics pointed out by Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1442–1443) which make the GET-passive the more natural choice over the BE-passive in certain cases, as in She managed to get transferred to the finance department. Emphasis is on the preferably human subject, who is affected by the event. When an inanimate subject does come up, “some human associated with the subject, or with the event in some other capacity, may either retain responsibility, be emotionally involved, or adversely affected” (Givón 1993: 69), as in How did this window get opened?, where the speaker wants to convey an unfavourable attitude towards the action and the

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hearer is held responsible (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 161; Givón 1993: 68–70; Hübler 1998: 165). Dixon elaborates on the responsibility of the subject, saying that […] the speaker wishes to imply that the state which the passive subject (deep O [object]) is in is not due just to the transitive subject, or to the result of chance, but may in some way be due to the behaviour of this passive subject. […] John got fired implies that he did something foolish […] which would be expected to lead to this result. (2005: 357)36

This means that while the combinations called GET-passives in the present chapter are equated with central passives, it should be clear that central and particularly semi-passives formed with GET are always closer to a middle voice, with the subject carrying some agent-like features, than central BE-passives, where the subject is clearly in a passive position. Finally, the GET-passive is said to be avoided in formal style (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 161). It is, in contrast to the BE-passive, more frequently used in spoken than in written texts (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 476). Anderwald (2012a: 31) mentions that in grammars prescriptive opinions opposed to the use of the GET-passive are not encountered before the 20th century. She calls the inconspicuousness of the GET-passive in 19th-century grammars “a mystery that needs to be discussed” (2012a: 39), while also pointing out that a certain frequency threshold seems to be necessary for a change to receive attention in grammars (2012a: 44). Given the multitude of definitions and interpretations as to what constitutes a GET-passive, it is no surprise that the dates given in various publications for the first attested GET-passive are also far apart. According to Biber et al., the GETpassive is “clearly a recent innovation in English” (1999: 477), but no further information or evidence is given to support this statement. However, if one takes seriously the idea that the passive is “first and foremost a natural cognitive concept” (Hübler 1998: 167), thus a semantic concept, and pays heed to considerations of meaning, the origins of the GET-passive cannot be traced prior to the 18th century. Hübler (1998: 168) suggests the date 1731 and rejects Visser’s mid-17th century dating. Hundt (2001) pleads for the late 17th century, Givón for the late 18th century, and the OED gives the 19th century for central GET-passives. The example from the OED from the 17th century, which is standardly cited, viz. A certain Spanish pretending Alchymist..got acquainted with foure rich Spanish merchants (Gaule) (OED 2009: s.v. “get, v., 34. b.”), certainly involves a more

|| 36 Dixon (2005: 359) is the only one to claim that GET-passives are used for describing recent events rather than events long past. He got run over, Dixon suggests, implies something like last week rather than ten years ago.

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adjectival than verbal participle and does not fall under the definition of GETpassive used in the present study. More unanimity can be established when it comes to its popularity, which only emerged in the 20th century. In fact, Hübler regards the GET-passive as a “contemporary linguistic phenomenon” (1998: 168), Visser speaks of the “enormous popularity” (1973: 2032) of the GET-passive in the 20th century and its “rapid and steady encroachment” (1973: 2031) on the BE-passive, Weiner and Labov (1983: 34, quoted in Gronemeyer 1999: 29) claim that a shift to the GETpassive is under way in Present-Day English, and Denison states that “[t]he true GET passive is certainly on the increase” (1998: 181). Empirical studies have attested an increase in GET-passives in both British and American English, with American English in the lead. Hundt (2001: 71–72), in the ARCHER corpus, detects a substantial increase in the numbers of GET + past participle in British English in the hundred years between 1850 and 1950, while in American English, the increase started as early as 1750. For the time period between the 1960s and 1990s, an increase in GET-passives has been claimed by Leech et al. (2009: 156) for written American English, and, to a slightly lesser extent, for written British English. Differing results reported for the same database37 show that a re-analysis is necessary and justified, particularly because I also want to compare the results with those from ICE. It should also be noted that in much previous research, tags were (at least to some extent) used to search for GET-passives (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 156; Hundt 2001), which means that some relevant tokens will have been missed. In the following, I will point out which factors can influence change or variation in the use of the GETpassive. Hypotheses will be formulated and then be tested with the help of the data analysed. Colloquialisation is a phenomenon that has affected the English language in recent years, making written categories more speech-like (cf. chapter 3.2). This means that colloquialisation, together with waning prescriptivism, is a factor that one can expect will increase the use of the GET-passive in written texts over time. A re-examination of LOB and FLOB will show whether the diachronic rise can be confirmed using my categorisation and conducting a manual search for GET-passives among all occurrences of GET (hypothesis 1).

|| 37 For instance, Leech et al. report a rise from 29 tokens in Brown to 60 tokens in Frown (2009: 156). Hundt’s (2001: 87) token number for Brown is 31, while Gronemeyer (1999: 6–7) has 47 (the latter number calculated from Gronemeyer’s statement that there are 38% inchoative (= copular) constructions among the 75 instances of GET + past participle).

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The GET-passive is generally an infrequent phenomenon compared to the BEpassive and one major reason must certainly be located in prescriptive objections against its use, particularly in more formal, written registers. These prescriptive objections do not seem to apply to all varieties to the same degree, however. In fact, it has been claimed that resistance to the use of the GET-passive has generally been greater in British English than in American English (cf. Denison 1998: 182), and Hundt (2001: 71) attributes the slower and later spread of GET + past participle in British English to exactly this factor. While prescriptivism might be waning in general in all varieties and lead to more GET-passives, researchers suggest that American English is leading the change towards more GET-passives (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 156). Collins and Yao (2013: 495–496) find American English38 greatly outnumbering British English in the ratio of GETpassives vs. BE-passives in their data from ICE. The conservative character of British English as far as the GET-passive is concerned has already been pointed out by Leech et al. (2009: 156, in comparison to American English) and Biewer (2009b: 372–373, in comparison to New Zealand English and Fijian English, being vague about reasons but suggesting style). Assuming an American English influence on Jamaica, one can expect a larger number of GET-passives in Jamaican English than in British English (hypothesis 2). Because it is assumed that substrate languages can influence standard language use in New Englishes, it is necessary to know how Jamaican Creole and Colloquial Singapore English express passive meaning in order to be able to explain variation in the use of GET-passives in World Englishes. Jamaican Creole (cf. Farquharson 2013b) has four options for expressing passive meaning, which will be explained in the following: – BE-passive – GET-passive – passive without verbal coding (also called basic passive) – active construction with impersonal subject GET is a common passive auxiliary in English-based pidgins and creoles (cf. Haspelmath 2013: 358), also in Jamaica (cf. Allsopp 1996: 253), as in […] di fuud get kuk (Farquharson 2013a: 86; note the base form of the main verb and the past meaning ‘the food was cooked’), while BE is rarer in this function. What is also common in Jamaican Creole is a passive without verbal coding, as in Di

|| 38 Due to the lack of a spoken American English ICE corpus, the spoken subcorpus is assembled from parts of the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English.

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chrii kot […] ‘The tree was cut’ (Farquharson 2013a: 86).39 A common alternative to the constructions presented so far for the expression of passive meaning in Jamaican Creole is to use an active construction with an impersonal subject, as in Dem kil di kou ‘The cow was killed’ (Farquharson 2013a: 86). Winford (1993: 140–142) points to different conversational implicatures of the BE- and the GET-passive in Caribbean English Creoles but also to the possibility of removing voice ambiguity by inserting GET in basic passives that have an animate subject, as in Plentii soldja kil laas nait vs. Plentii soldja get kil laas nait. He goes on to say that “speakers seem to employ get passives in cases where vagueness or misinterpretation might result from the use of basic passives with animate subjects” (1993: 143). While no passives without verbal coding are expected in standard language use, it is probable that substrate influence from Jamaican Creole translates into a more frequent and more unrestricted use of GET-passives in Jamaican English than in British English (hypotheses 2 and 5). This occurs for three reasons: first, in Jamaican Creole, the BE-passive is said to be rarer than the GET-passive; second, the GET-passive is reported to be firmly established as a separate structure; and third, GET is inserted in the alternative passive structure of Jamaican Creole, viz. the passive without verbal coding, to remove ambiguities. The above-mentioned influence of American English can be expected to contribute to a frequent use of the GETpassive in Jamaican English. The passive in Colloquial Singapore English seems to be more often morphologically marked than that in Jamaican Creole. The following are the passive constructions reported to be used in Colloquial Singapore English (cf. Lim and Ansaldo 2013b): – BE-passive – GET-passive – kena-passive – give-passive The BE-passive can be used as in Standard British English, but Bao and Wee (1999: 1) note that omission of BE is also possible, which would correspond to a passive without verbal coding. Like the BE-passive, the GET-passive was acquired through successful SLA and no further special meaning or restriction on the GET-

|| 39 The widespread use of the latter option for encoding the passive makes Bailey say that “[t]he Creole verb does not have a distinct passive form” (1966: 146), but while the construction without verbal coding is phonetically empty, it may certainly not be concluded that Jamaican Creole lacks a passive (cf. LaCharité and Wellington 1999).

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passive is noted in the literature, with local languages exhibiting no corresponding pattern. Lee et al. (2009: 310) assume that the original properties of the GET-passive are maintained in Colloquial Singapore English and state that the verb must be eventive and affect the subject in some way, just as in British English. The kena-passive, as in The book kena burnt already, shows clear Malay influence and is in fact the only construction in Colloquial Singapore English that supports the Malay substratum hypothesis for this variety (cf. Lee et al. 2009: 314–315). Kena in its lexical use means ‘to strike’ but in the kena-passive construction can be better translated as ‘to suffer’. Lee et al. claim that Hokkien speakers were still the agents in the development of the kena-passive because they borrowed kena from Malay to relexify Hokkien tioq, which expresses adversative meaning, due to the lack of an apt English word. The kena-passive is neither possible with stative verbs nor with actions that do not affect the subject adversely. So while The book kena burnt already is possible, *The book kena read by John is not (cf. Bao and Wee 1999: 2–3). The give-passive, as in John give his boss scold, is a calque on Hokkien and is special in that the subject of the active clause, viz. The boss in The boss scolded John, does not become an oblique-marked phrase but the object of give, hence John give his boss scold ‘John was scolded by his boss’, and is obligatorily present (cf. Haspelmath 2013: 359). Like the kena-passive, the give-passive requires an adversative reading. The subject must be animate and the lexical verb must always be in the base form (cf. Bao and Wee 1999). According to Lim and Ansaldo (2013a), the give-passive is a pervasive feature in Colloquial Singapore English. It is in fact one of only three varieties of English out of 76 for which the give-passive is actually attested (cf. Kortmann and Lunkenheimer 2013: feature 153). However, the kena-passive is still more common than the give-passive in Colloquial Singapore English, regardless of the ethnic origin of the speaker (cf. Bao and Wee 1999). Bao and Wee claim that this is due to the continuing pressure of Standard English, which promotes the more standardlike form and weakens the effect of substrate influence. They also state that “the adversity effect is a salient property of the substrate-derived passives, not the English-derived passive” (1999: 8) but forget to mention that there is also an English-derived passive, viz. the GET-passive, that can be used for expressing adversity. I assume that the kena- and the give-passive are too marked to be used in Standard Singaporean English. Since no American English influence is suggested, I claim that in the case of passives, ICE-SIN will be oriented towards British English and display a frequency and use of GET-passives similar to that in the parent variety (hypotheses 2 and 5).

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It is well known that the use of BE-passives is dependent on register, style, and text type (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 166). BE-passives are most frequent, for instance, in informative writing, scientific articles, and news reporting. As far as GET-passives are concerned, Huddleston and Pullum only state that they “tend to be avoided in formal style” (2002: 1442), without seeing a need for further discussion, and Dixon (2005: 359) claims a colloquial tone for GET-passives. Thus, while in the major reference grammars little information is given separately on the distribution of GET-passives as contrasted with BE-passives, I assume major differences between the two passives, with the GET-passive being more frequently used in spoken than in written language because of its informal and colloquial character, thus being in clear contrast to the BE-passive, where the reverse is known to hold true (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 476). Since research has suggested an advanced stage of Singaporean English in terms of colloquialisation, the gap between spoken and written language in the use of the GET-passive can be assumed to be quite small in this variety. As regards the distribution across text types, Biber et al. (1999: 476) claim that the GET-passive only occurs in conversation or as an occasional example in dialogues in colloquial fiction. Mindt (2000: 282–283) finds GET-passives in his data to be most frequent in spoken conversation, relatively frequent in fictional texts, and least frequent in expository prose. In Collins and Yao’s data from ICE (2013: 495–496), the percentage of GET-passives is highest in private dialogues and lowest in informational writing for practically all ten varieties studied by them. The exact genre distribution of the GET-passive in the varieties this study focusses on will be detailed below. Both mode and genre differences are expected to be more pronounced in British English than in the New Englishes, as previous research has indicated more stylistic homogeneity of outer-circle varieties (cf. Hundt 2009: 127; Collins and Yao 2013) (hypothesis 3). In order to understand present-day meaning and use of the GET-passive and to be able to relate it to other GET-constructions, it is necessary to adopt a historical perspective. The GET-passive is the result of a process of grammaticalisation: GET has turned from a full verb with a possessive meaning element into an auxiliary by undergoing the processes of metaphor and semantic bleaching. Givón (1993: 65–66, here simplified; also cf. Givón and Yang 1994) sketches a possible grammaticalisation chain for the passive meaning of GET-constructions: – monotransitive lexical ‘to obtain’ > bitransitive locative ‘to move’ (He got a horse > He got a horse for himself > He got a horse for her > He got the horse to her > He got the horse to the barn) (14th–16th century) – ‘to move’ > causative (He got her into the house > He got her to go into the house > He got her to go > He got her to play)

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–

causative > de-transitivisation (He got her to admit it > He got her to be admitted > He got himself to be admitted > He got to be admitted > He got admitted) (18th century)

Givón and Yang add that “[w]hile we have identified a plausible linear progression in the rise of the GET-passive, we feel that it would be misleading to describe the process in purely linear terms” (1994: 145). Hundt (2001: 55) also points out that the process of grammaticalisation has to be conceived of as a multi-stranded development. If one wanted to continue the chain, however, GETpassives with inanimate subjects and/or with by-phrases can be seen as further steps in the process of grammaticalisation. This is because an inanimate subject necessarily takes on the role of an affected patient and cannot carry responsibility for the event described as an animate subject can: compare Dixon’s example That meeting got postponed (2005: 359), where the adversity of the situation is obvious but where the subject clearly cannot carry responsibility since it is inanimate. Similarly, the presence of a by-agent means that the subject has less responsibility and that the middle meaning of the GET-passive becomes weaker. A more grammaticalised use of the GET-passive thus means a less restricted use, or, put differently, an extension of its meaning. Contextual clues such as the use of certain verbs (e.g. AVOID, TRY, or WANT to) in the vicinity of GET or the use of if (cf. Hundt 2001), by contrast, indicate subject responsibility and therefore retention of middle meaning and no further grammaticalisation. Due to the conservative character of British English in connection with the GET-passive suggested by previous research, I do not expect British English to be excessively advanced in the grammaticalisation process but still assume that the language will naturally progress on the grammaticalisation chain. That is, I expect an extension of meaning over time from LOB to FLOB, reflected in a rising number of inanimate subjects and by-agents, for instance. One can also expect the spoken ICE subcorpora to display more grammaticalised uses than the written subcorpora because spoken language is generally at the forefront of change. It will be of interest to see whether a more frequent use of the GET-passive is accompanied by a neutralisation of the adversity meaning (cf. Lindquist 2009: 135) and thus an extension of meaning or whether it is independent of it. Normally, one would expect high frequency to go hand in hand with a high degree of grammaticalisation (cf. Krug 2001: 312) (hypothesis 4). Information will finally be given on the meaning of GET-passives in British English and the New Englishes today. For that purpose, I will indicate how often speakers of Jamaican and Singaporean English use GET-passives with middle

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voice meaning and how often with a meaning closer to prototypical passives. For Jamaican English, as indicated above, I expect a quite unrestricted use. By contrast, I expect use and meaning in Singaporean English to be similar to that in British English because the passives used in Colloquial Singapore English are too marked to have an influence on standard language use. The GET-passive is the only construction that remains for expressing adversative meaning in Standard Singaporean English (hypothesis 5). The hypotheses relating to the GET-passive can be summarised as follows: – Hypothesis 1 (frequencies, diachronic change): increase in the GET-passive from LOB to FLOB – Hypothesis 2 (frequencies, World Englishes): higher frequency of the GETpassive in Jamaican English than in British English; similar frequencies in British and Singaporean English – Hypothesis 3 (mode, genre): higher frequency of the GET-passive in spoken language (ICE spoken) than in written language (LOB, FLOB, ICE written); small mode gap in Singaporean English; greater mode and genre differences in British English than in the New Englishes – Hypothesis 4 (grammaticalisation): further grammaticalisation of the GETpassive from LOB to FLOB and in spoken language; correlation between high frequency and further grammaticalisation of the GET-passive – Hypothesis 5 (meaning): less restricted use of the GET-passive in Jamaican English than in British English; similar use and meaning of the GET-passive in Singaporean and British English

5.4.2 Results: frequencies My analysis of LOB and FLOB shows that in written British English, a rise in the number of GET-passives can be detected from the 1960s to the 1990s. While Hundt (2001) found an increase in GET-passives from 35 (LOB) to 51 (FLOB) and Leech et al. (2009: 156) from 34 (LOB) to 47 (FLOB), my analysis allows for an even stronger conclusion, with an increase from 27 (LOB) to 48 (FLOB). This rise is statistically significant (p=0.015, Fisher’s exact test). The share of GETpassives of all GET-tokens has also increased significantly from 1.9% in LOB to 3.6% in FLOB (p=0.010, Fisher’s exact test). Although the only diachronic data that I have at my disposal for the present study are written texts, in which prescriptive restrictions on the use of GET will be more pronounced than in spoken language, the proportion of fiction is exceptionally high in LOB and FLOB: about a quarter of each corpus, viz. 126 texts (categories K–R), consists of

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fiction, which is one of the most speech-like and colloquial written categories (cf. Collins and Yao 2013). Direct speech frequently comes up in fiction so that a great number of the GET-passives in LOB and FLOB can actually be said to occur in (mimicked) spoken language. The hypothesis that the GET-passive is diachronically on the increase (hypothesis 1) can be confirmed, with the rise explicable by general waning prescriptivism against the use of GET and accordingly the GET-passive and by increasing colloquialisation. The share of GET-passives of all GET-constructions has also increased, which means that the importance of GET-passives among all GET-constructions has risen. If one looks at absolute token numbers in the three ICE corpora (cf. Figure 5.8), the hypothesis about the higher frequency of GET-passives in Jamaican English than in British English, and similar results in British and Singaporean English (hypothesis 2), can be confirmed. With 100 tokens as compared to 63, GET-passives are significantly more frequent in absolute terms in ICA-JA than in ICE-GB (p=0.002, χ2=9.16, df=1). Moreover, in ICE-JA, 3.8% of all uses of GET are GET-passives, while in ICE-SIN, the percentage is 2.7, and in ICE-GB only 1.8. If one adds semi-passives to this comparison, ICE-JA is set apart even more from the other two corpora. This means that the GET-passive occupies a more prominent position as one of the uses of GET in Jamaican English than in the other varieties, with the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-JA being statistically highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=25.28, df=1). I assume two reasons for the results. First, Jamaican English is in close geographical vicinity to the US and known to be influenced by American English, which is at the forefront of a change towards more GET-passives. Second, substrate influence from Jamaican Creole might reinforce the use of GET-passives in Jamaican English. The frequency difference between Singaporean English and British English is not statistically significant, which allows the conclusion that the British English exonormative model with its high degree of conservative prescriptivism against GET-passives retains its grip on Singaporean English. The marked passives of Colloquial Singapore English have practically no influence on standard language use.

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120 100 100 80

74 63

60 40 20 0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.8: GET-passives in ICE (absolute token numbers)

5.4.3 Results: mode and genre When one counts the numbers of GET-passives separately for all written and spoken (sub-) corpora, one can see a clear effect of mode, with the use of the GET-passive much preferred in spoken language. The hypothesis about the higher frequency of the GET-passive in spoken language than in written language can therefore be confirmed without reservation. Figure 5.9 shows that in ICE-JA spoken, there are 12.8 GET-passives per 100,000 words, in ICE-SIN spoken 9.5, and in ICE-GB spoken 8.3, while in the written subcorpora, the figures are 4.6, 3.9, and 2.4, respectively. The addition of semi-passives, with 20, 26, and 14 tokens for ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN, respectively, would not change the distribution greatly. The semi-passives will therefore not be considered any further.40 While all mode differences within ICE are very marked and statistically highly significant,41 the difference between the spoken and the written subcorpus is most marked for British English, with a ratio of 3.5 : 1, while the New Englishes exhibit lower ratios (ICE-JA 2.8 : 1, ICE-SIN 2.4 : 1). Note that the speech-writing ratio is higher for GET-passives than for GET in general in British and Jamaican English, whereas this ratio is lower for GET-passives than for GET in general in Singaporean English. This means that the GET-passive is overused in || 40 In LOB, 16 semi-passives occur, in FLOB, there are 15. 41 GET-passives in ICE-GB spoken and ICE-GB written compared to the total number of words: p≪0.001, χ2=15.2, df=1; ICE-JA spoken and ICE-JA written: p≪0.001, χ2=17.37, df=1; ICE-SIN spoken and ICE-SIN written: p=0.0009, χ2=10.97, df=1.

GET-passives | 103

comparison to other constructions into which GET can enter in spoken language in British and Jamaican English, while in Singaporean English, it is less frequently used. The GET-passive can therefore be said to be particularly characteristic of spoken language in British and Jamaican English, but less so in Singaporean English.

14

12.8

12 9.5

10

8.3

8

spoken

6 4

4.8 2.7

4.6

3.9

written

2.4

2 0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.9: Mode distribution of GET-passives (tokens per 100,000 words)

In ICE-SIN, the difference between written and spoken language is the smallest of all the corpora, and the number of GET-passives in written language is comparatively high. While for ICE-GB and ICE-JA, the shares of GET-passives of all tokens of GET in the respective subcorpora are higher in spoken than in written language, in ICE-SIN, the percentage is higher in written (3.1%) than in spoken (2.6%) language. This means that the very informal GET-passive is firmly established even in written language. A high degree of colloquialism of Singaporean English can thus be confirmed by the results on GET-passives. To sum up, the GET-passive is a phenomenon of spoken language in all the varieties of English analysed here, and even more characteristic of spoken language than other uses of GET in British and Jamaican English. Singaporean English is special in displaying an established use of the GET-passive even in written language, explicable by this variety’s more advanced stage of colloquialisation as compared to British and Jamaican English. All hypotheses relating to mode can thus be fully confirmed.

16.0

160,000 140,000 100,000 400,000

1,000,000

Public dialogues (S1B)

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

Scripted monologues (S2B)

WRITTEN

TOTAL 100

40.0

10.0

14.0

20.0

100

15.9

3.2

22.2

17.5

41.3 18.0 2.0

8.2 -6.8

0 100

19.0

30.0

1.5

-24.1

31.0

21.3

0

-21.0

-8.0

4.0

14.0

11.0

100

21.6

4.1

13.5

17.6

43.2

0

-18.4

-5.9

-0.5

1.6

23.2

ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN GETpassives observed difference observed difference observed difference expected % % % % % % %

200,000

SPOKEN

Private dialogues (S1A)

number of words

Table 5.12: Expected and observed distribution of GET-passives in ICE-GB (N=63), ICE-JA (N=100), and ICE-SIN (N=74)

0

-21.2

-6.9

3.9

5.7

18.5

mean difference %

104 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

GET-passives | 105

To determine the effect of genre on the use of the GET-passive, differences between the expected and observed frequencies per text type were calculated for ICE (cf. Table 5.12 above).42 Since the number of GET-passives is low for written language, written language is not split up into text types. The predominantly positive figures for the spoken texts and the negative figures for the written texts in the columns that provide the differences in per cent corroborate what has been found above, viz. that the GET-passive is overused in spoken language and underused in written language. As can be further seen, strong deviations in individual text types are the norm, which means that the use of the GET-passive is strongly stratified in terms of genre. Although the standard deviations across all text types per region show no clear British English-New English divide, British English is first: ICE-GB has a standard deviation of 17.0 before ICE-SIN with 15.1 and ICE-JA with 14.5. The hypothesis about genre stratification can, at least, not be rejected: genre stratification is very pronounced for GET-passives in all the varieties and British English shows even more heterogeneity than the New Englishes. In more detail, what strikes the eye is that the GET-passive is conspicuously frequent in private dialogues, particularly in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: there is an overuse of over 20% each in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, and of 11.0% in ICE-JA. In public dialogues, by contrast, the GET-passive is neither over- nor underused in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, while there is an even more pronounced overuse of 14.0% in ICE-JA. This can indicate that speakers of British and Singaporean English decrease their use of GET-passives in more public settings, whereas this is not the case in Jamaican English. It may well be that the style of the GET-passive is perceived differently in Jamaican English. However, for the more formal monologues, ICE-JA does not display major differences from British English. In fact, in the most formal spoken genre represented in ICE, viz. scripted monologues, the GET-passive is underused in all varieties, on average by 6.9%. This indicates that in all varieties, the GET-passive is avoided or at least not frequently used in more public and formal spoken language situations. The only exception is public dialogues in Jamaican English. The results for the written texts demonstrate that the GET-passive is very similarly underused in all three varieties compared to an equal distribution across all genres (on average by 21.2%). Token numbers are low, but the results allow the conclusion that there are hardly any regional differences. For instance, a closer look at the data suggests that awareness of the inappropriate|| 42 For LOB and FLOB, token numbers distributed across text types are too low to allow meaningful conclusions.

106 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

ness of the GET-passive is in place in all varieties to a similar degree for the categories student essays and exams, academic writing, popular writing, instructional writing, and press language. The only written text type for which an overuse, even if only a slight one, can be determined for all three varieties is fiction. This is as expected because it ties in with the speech-like nature of this genre. In sum, hypothesis 3 can be confirmed.At this point, some comments on nonstandard inflection or syntax in connection with the GET-passive are in order. The five corpora used in the present study form a cline as far as the use of nonstandard GET-passives is concerned, with LOB and ICE-JA representing opposite ends. In LOB, only standard constructions occur, in FLOB, 1 nonstandard construction comes up, in ICE-GB, the number of nonstandard constructions is 2, in ICE-SIN 5, and in ICE-JA 16. While 2 of the 3 nonstandard tokens in British English feature the base form get instead of inflected 3rd-person singular gets, the second token in ICE-GB is an interesting hybrid of a GET-passive with by-agent and a causative passive: and she got her sent a huge sheaf of flowers by her son (). One of the nonstandard GET-passive constructions in ICE-SIN is the following one: So since when you get promoted (). Here, the auxiliary is omitted. Other examples in ICE-SIN feature the base in place of an inflected verb.43 ICE-JA has the highest number of nonstandard examples, all occurring in the spoken subcorpus, e.g. Him get booed out […] (), meaning ‘He got booed out’, […] and on Sundays you can get call out (), with a base verb in the place of the past participle, or […] I don’t believe it was a one time and you get catch (), showing GET not only followed by a base past participle but also with past time reference. The combination of GET and vex(ed), meaning ‘to become angry’, has its own entry in the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage: Allsopp (1996: 253–254) writes that the antiformal form get vex, where vex is sensed as an adjective, is more common in the Caribbean than the form get vexed, where vex is used as a transitive verb as in Standard English. ICE-JA has 1 token of get vex (cf. example (18)), which I counted as a copular construction and not as a GET-passive, in accordance with the categorisation explained above.

|| 43 Note that the example of a GET-passive with an unmarked participle that Hundt (2009: 125) provides for ICE-SIN occurs in the extra-corpus material, which should not have been part of her investigation in the first place (for details cf. The ICE Project 2011). This obviously distorts her results and also explains the high number of tokens of GET she claims for ICE-SIN (2009: 127).

GET-passives | 107

(18) Don’t get panicky about it don’t get vex when it’s our turn to be scrutinised but just deal with it you know Also consider some more complex GET-passive constructions, which mainly occur in ICE-GB. In this corpus, 2 tokens of a GET-passive with a passivised indirect object occur, such as Not that one doesn’t get offered nice things (). ICE-SIN has 1 token of this type, but the other corpora do not feature this construction. Furthermore, ICE-GB is the only corpus with a passivised prepositional object in a GET-passive. The middle semantics becomes exceptionally clear in this example: note the if-clause as a formal indication, the responsibility of the subject expressed, and the adversity of the situation described: Why is it that if you try to be supportive of people you so often get taken advantage of? ().

5.4.4 Results: grammaticalisation and meaning In the following, the meaning of the GET-passive in varieties of English remains to be clarified. For that purpose, GET-passives were categorised as to whether they exhibit clear signals of a meaning close to the prototypical BE-passive – note contextual clues such as inanimate subjects or by-phrases, as in Dr Arthur Beng said that the PAP needs the party whip otherwise it might get toppled by its own back-benchers () – or whether they exhibit clear signals of middle meaning – note the use of verbs such as AVOID, TRY, or WANT to, as in No I don’t want to get drawn in that at all (), or the use of if-clauses, as in I mean what’s the good of being dead if you’re still trying to get published on earth (). The first category will be called BE-passive-like GET-passives in the following. A higher number of them indicates that the GET-passive is grammaticalising further. The second category will be called prototypical GET-passives. The numbers of GET-passives without any indications were added to those of prototypical GET-passives because elements of middle meaning can be considered to be standardly present in GETpassives if no other signals are used. Figure 5.10 gives the detailed results for all (sub-) corpora.

108 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-SIN

LOB

FLOB

BE-passive-like

5

14

3

7

6

19

19

23

prototypical

22

34

7

12

10

34

62

35

written written written spoken spoken spoken

Figure 5.10: Meaning of the GET-passive in all written and spoken (sub-) corpora (absolute token numbers)

From LOB to FLOB, a change towards more BE-passive-like GET-passives, such as Their activity demand gets replaced by cyclical things like lots of feetlicking (FLOB, E14 136–138) can be detected, with shares rising from 18.5% (5 of 27 tokens) to 29.2% (14 of 48 tokens), but the difference is statistically not significant. ICE-GB written has 3 BE-passive-like GET-passives, which amounts to 30.0% and would corroborate the change. Since token numbers are quite low, however, an analysis of higher token numbers in larger diachronic corpora (as yet unavailable for British English) is necessary and could possibly clarify the issue. As the bars in Figure 5.10 illustrate, the distribution of the further grammaticalised BE-passive-like GET-passives and of the prototypical GET-passives with middle semantics is very similar in ICE written and ICE spoken. Spoken language cannot be said to be at the forefront of a change towards further grammaticalisation and extension of meaning. Quite to the contrary, the percentage of BE-passive-like GET-passives is even slightly higher in written (35.6%) than in spoken language (31.8%). Since neither a statistically significant change from LOB to FLOB nor a statistically significant difference between spoken and written language in ICE can be determined, the hypothesis about the further grammaticalisation of the GET-passive has to be rejected for the time being. In the data analysed for the present study, there are no indications, neither in

GET-passives | 109

British English nor in the New Englishes and neither in terms of diachrony nor in terms of mode, that the GET-passive is grammaticalising further. A correlation between high frequency and further grammaticalisation cannot be found either. ICE-JA, the corpus with the highest number of GET-passives, is at variance in containing the fewest GET-passives with extended, i.e. more grammaticalised, meaning. This finding suggests that there is no correlation between frequent use and further grammaticalisation of the GET-passive. In sum, hypothesis 4 has to be rejected. The hypothesis about the less restricted use of the GET-passive in Jamaican English can still be confirmed, however. As has been shown above, the GETpassive is highly frequent in Jamaican English and constitutes a high percentage of all GET-constructions in ICE-JA, with the differences between this variety and both British and Singaporean English being statistically significant. It has also been shown above that there are more nonstandard uses in connection with the GET-passive in ICE-JA than in the other corpora and that the GET-passive is overused in public dialogues, which is not the case in the other corpora. While the preferred person used with the GET-passive is the 3rd person in all corpora, with percentages ranging from 54.0% to 64.5%, the lowest percentage of 54.0% applies to ICE-JA, where, accordingly, the distribution of the uses across all persons is more even, the use of the GET-passive thus broader. In all corpora, the GET-passive is used much more frequently with present time reference. Only in ICE-JA does past time reference, with 40.0%, attain almost the same percentage as present time reference with 45.0%. Again, ICE-JA displays a more even distribution in use. Thus, many signs point to a relatively unrestricted use of the GET-passive in Jamaican English. The generally less restricted use of the GET-passive in Jamaican English does not entail an extension of meaning, however. Quite to the contrary, BE-passivelike GET-passives are less frequent in ICE-JA (26.0%) than in all other corpora except LOB (19.0%). Furthermore, Table 5.13 shows that ICE-JA is the corpus where the participle standing after GET most frequently expresses something negative happening to the subject. For this analysis, the participles were rated as either negative (e.g. caught, killed) or not negative/neutral (e.g. offered, sprayed) (cf. Lindquist 2009: 135–136). An extension of meaning would have to be reflected in quite the opposite distribution, viz. with Jamaican English exhibiting a much larger percentage of neutral uses, i.e. where GET does not express adversity. With the results from Table 5.13, the general claim that the GET-passive expresses adversity can be confirmed for all varieties, with the adversity meaning being particularly strong in Jamaican English (ICE-JA and ICEGB: p=0.036, χ2=4.39, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p=0.010, χ2=6.71, df=1).

110 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.13: Negative verbal participles in GET-passives in ICE (per cent of all GET-passives)

negative verbal participles in GET-passives (per cent of all GET-passives)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

57.1

73.0

54.1

In ICE-SIN, the distribution of meaning is very similar to that in ICE-GB: there are neither significant differences in the grammaticalisation of the GETpassive (cf. Figure 5.10) nor in the use of negative verbal participles (cf. Table 5.13), which means that the GET-passive shows no signs of extended meaning in Singaporean English. I assumed that the kena- and give-passives of Colloquial Singapore English are too marked to be used in standard language, given their conspicuous structures, which point to their Malayan and Hokkien origins, respectively. A search for kena in ICE-SIN shows that the kena-passive indeed comes up only twice in the whole corpus. The give-passive does not contain foreign words, but its syntax is so striking that it can be safely assumed that the number of tokens in ICE-SIN is very low if it occurs at all. For Singaporean English, a use and meaning of the GET-passive similar to that in British English can be concluded: the exonormative British English model seems to be in place. As a result, hypothesis 5 about the meaning and use of the GET-passive in varieties of English can be confirmed. Finally, light shall be shed on the relation between the frequency of copular GET (type SVC, cf. chapter 5.3 for terminology) and the middle meaning of GETpassives. As has been shown above, there are no signs of further grammaticalisation of the GET-passive in the data analysed. Hundt speculates that the rise of copular GET, more precisely GET + adjectival past participle and GET + adjective, in the past thirty years might keep the middle interpretation of GET-passives alive (2001: 76–77). I will reassess the assumptions made in order to clarify whether the number of these copular uses of GET possibly correlates with the middle semantics of GET-passives. To make the comparison with Hundt’s analysis of LOB and FLOB more transparent, Figure 5.11 shows how the results Hundt obtained compare to mine. The numbers Hundt adduces are in all likelihood – the exact coding methodology has not been provided – culled from a query of tags in the tagged versions of the corpora, so that not all relevant data have been retrieved. Neither can certain claims based on the semi-automatic

GET-passives | 111

analysis be upheld.44 The graph shows that Hundt’s claim of a (statistically insignificant) rise from 104 to 129 tokens of copular GET (SVC) in written British English cannot be confirmed by my token analysis, which shows a stable situation with 160 tokens for LOB and 166 tokens for FLOB. Hundt missed out on a great number of tokens of GET + adjectival past participle. Partially, this may be due to combinations that she counted as idioms, e.g. get rid of. Her claim that the rise in copular GET helps keep the middle semantics of the GET-passive alive must be rejected because the number of copular GET has in fact not increased.

200 150 100

160

166

76

81

84

85

129

104 87

50 0

get GET++adjective adjective

75

get GET++adjectival adjectival

29

42

LOB

FLOB

LOB

FLOB

(Hundt

(Hundt

(present

(present

2001)

2001)

study)

study)

past pastparticiple participle

Figure 5.11: Comparison of analyses of copular GET (SVC) in LOB and FLOB (absolute token numbers)

To see whether there are any correlations in ICE, consider Figure 5.12. Absolute token numbers are given for both copular GET and GET-passives. Percentages are provided for the amount that prototypical GET-passives and BE-passive-like GET-passives constitute of all GET-passives. They add up to 100% for each corpus. The graph shows that there is a correlation between a high number of copular GET and a high number of GET-passives, as well as a correlation between a high || 44 Regarding the surface combination GET + past participle, Hundt’s claim of an increase in grammaticalised uses of GET + past participle and a decrease of the overall number of GETconstructions has to be rejected. A chi-square test run on Hundt’s data shows that neither the rise in grammaticalised uses of GET + past participle of all GET-constructions nor the decrease in the overall number of GET-constructions is in fact significant. A statistical analysis of my results for the same categories (GET + past participle in LOB: 127, in FLOB: 148; all GET-constructions in LOB: 1,403, in FLOB: 1,343) also shows that there are no significant changes.

112 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

number of copular GET and a high percentage of prototypical GET-passives, but the correlations are not very strong. More data would be needed for a definitive statement. For LOB and FLOB, a relationship between a high number of copular GET and a high number of prototypical GET-passives cannot be noted and the results from ICE are not clear either, so that the claim that the number of copular GET correlates with the prototypical meaning of GET-passives cannot be confirmed at present.

350 300 300

287

283

copular get (absolute copular GET token number) (absolute token numbers)

250

get-passives GET-passives(absolute token number) (absolute token

200

numbers) 150

prototypical prototypicalget-passives (per cent of all getGET-passives

100

passives) (per cent of all

100 74

63 50

65%

74% 61%

GET-passives)

be-passive-like BE-passive-likegetpassives (per cent of all GET-passives get-passives) (per cent of all

35%

39% 26%

GET-passives)

0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.12: Relation between copular GET (SVC) and GET-passives in ICE

GET-passives | 113

5.4.5 Summary The GET-passive is on the rise in British English, with the popularity of GETpassives even surpassing the general popularity of GET. Waning prescriptivism against the very informal GET-passive as well as increasing colloquialisation of the language in general are important factors in this development. Assumptions about a further grammaticalisation of the GET-passive towards more BE-passivelike GET-passives have to be rejected, however. Neither in British English over time, nor in mode, do any differences become evident that would support them. In general, the GET-passive, in contrast to the BE-passive, is a phenomenon of spoken language and strongly stratified in terms of genre, with overuses being particularly pronounced in private dialogues and underuses in most written genres. Previous claims of correlations between a high number of copular GET and the retention of the middle semantics of the GET-passive, and between a high number of GET-passives and an extension of meaning of the GET-passive have to be rejected. In regard to variation in World Englishes, GET-passives are more frequently used in Jamaican English than in British English, both in terms of absolute token numbers and in terms of the share of all GET-constructions, and similarly frequently in Singaporean and British English. As reasons for the clear difference between British English and Jamaican English I suggest influence from American English as well as from the substrate on Jamaican English, two factors that promote the number of GET-passives. In Singaporean English, by contrast, a greater degree of colloquialism competes with the British English model, so that only insignificantly more GET-passives than in British English occur. Substrate influence of Jamaican Creole on the use of GET-passives in the speech of educated Jamaicans is apparent in nonstandard GET-passive use, e.g. in constructions with missing or nonstandard subjects, nonstandard time reference, missing auxiliaries, and base forms in place of inflected verbs. Together with their high frequency and a more flexible use of person and tense, this points to an unrestricted use of GET-passives in Jamaican English, which nevertheless does not entail an extension of meaning towards BE-passive-like GETpassives. In Singaporean English, the GET-passive is used in much the same way as in British English. Both the kena-passive and the give-passive are used in Colloquial Singapore English to express adversity but are not used in the language as represented in ICE.

114 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

5.4.6 Causative GET-passives Simple GET-passives have been the subject so far, but GET-passives can also occur in a causative version. This complex version of the simple GET-passive construction, viz. the combination GET + NP + verbal past participle, will be called causative GET-passive in the following (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1207; Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1236; Kirchner 1952: xxii). Historically, the causative GET-passive arose prior to the simple GET-passive, and Givón (1993: 75–76) suggests that the simple passive derived from the causative passive containing a reflexive pronoun: He got himself rescued > He got rescued. It is important to point out again that the participle has to be verbal for the combination to qualify as a passive, as in example (19), which also illustrates that the causative GET-passive has an active rather than a real passive meaning. (19) What I thought I’d get these printed out because I hadn’t actually got the support letters printed out If the participle has adjectival properties, by contrast, as in example (20), the construction is complex-transitive. Note how the adjectival properties of the participle become clear in the last utterance of example (20) because excited is repeated and used predicatively. Complex-transitive constructions are treated in chapter 5.3. (20) Can we motivate them Can we get them excited You see we are excited about our areas of interest Causative GET-passives occur 37 times in LOB and 24 times in FLOB, which is an insignificant change. While a diachronic rise of simple GET-passives was determined in written British English, this increase is not backed up by a similar increase of causative GET-passives. In ICE, the numbers of causative GET-passives are distributed similarly to simple GET-passives: ICE-JA stands out and features the highest token number with 52 occurrences, while ICE-GB and ICE-SIN are more or less on a par (cf. Figure 5.13). Only the difference between ICE-JA and ICE-SIN is statistically significant, however (p=0.019, χ2=5.53, df=1). In ICE-JA, 2.0% of all uses of GET are causative GET-passives, which is a significant difference from ICE-GB (p=0.001, χ2=10.49, df=1) as well as ICE-SIN (p=0.007, χ2=7.24, df=1). Thus, like

GET-passives | 115

the simple GET-passive, the causative GET-passive seems to be more widespread in Jamaican English than in the other varieties.

60

52

50 40

36 30

30 20 10 0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.13: Causative GET-passives in ICE (absolute token numbers)

Figure 5.14 shows the mode distribution of causative GET-passives by giving token numbers per 100,000 words in all spoken and written (sub-) corpora. It can be easily compared with Figure 5.9 on simple GET-passives (page 103). As in the case of simple GET-passives, causative GET-passives are overall less frequent in written than in spoken language. However, the mode differences are less extreme than for simple GET-passives, which is mainly due to the much lower frequencies of causative GET-passives in spoken language. In written language, the token numbers of causative GET-passives do not differ much from those of simple GET-passives. Equally to simple GET-passives, the speech-writing ratio is largest in ICE-GB (2.7 : 1), whereas the New Englishes exhibit lower ratios (ICE-JA 1.8 : 1, ICE-SIN 1.4 : 1). While the ratios of ICE-GB and ICE-JA conform approximately to those of all uses of GET considered together in the respective variety, the ratio of causative GET-passives in ICE-SIN is much lower than that of all uses of GET in ICE-SIN, as was the case for simple GET-passives, but even more so. This means that the causative GET-passive is less frequently used in spoken language than GET in general in Singaporean English, or put differently, that the causative GET-passive is particularly uncharacteristic of spoken Singaporean English.

116 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

14 12 10 8

spoken

6.0 6 4

4.6

written

3.7

3.4 2.4

2

3.3 2.4

1.7

0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.14: Mode distribution of causative GET-passives (tokens per 100,000 words)

In terms of genre distribution, causative passives are said to be most common in conversation (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 940, who use the term passive verb complements). This can be explained by the fact that in causative passives, in contrast to simple passives, both the agent and the action are always expressed, as is usual in conversation, where agents are normally not omitted. For the genre analysis of causative GET-passives, only data from ICE were analysed because of low token numbers in LOB and FLOB. Overall, striking overuses in private dialogues and underuses in written language, as for simple GETpassives, could be determined. A greater preference for causative GET-passives, with expressed agents, compared to simple GET-passives, with agents normally not expressed, could not be found in conversation, however. Presumably the reason is that GET-passives are so strongly stratified in terms of genre (and differently from BE-passives) that any agent expression or omission does not change the picture greatly. Within spoken language, the more or less pronounced underuses in scripted monologues correspond to the findings for simple GET-passives. The overuse in public dialogues determined for simple GETpassives in ICE-JA cannot be confirmed for causative GET-passives. What is conspicuous, however, is that while standard deviations for simple GET-passives are similar across regions, for causative GET-passives, Singaporean English shows much weaker genre dependence than the other varieties, with over- and underuses very mild throughout: compare the mean standard deviation of 6.0 in ICESIN to 15.0 and 17.4 in ICE-GB and ICE-JA, respectively. Overall, the analysis of causative GET-passives confirms the findings for simple GET-passives, both in terms of frequencies across varieties and in terms of

GET-existentials | 117

mode and genre distribution, but with less extreme figures throughout. What is striking is the less frequent use of the causative than of the simple GET-passive in spoken language, certainly due to the higher complexity of the causative construction. Semi-GET-passives, simple GET-passives, and causative GETpassives counted together, i.e. all constructions counted among the category “passive” in the overview in chapter 5.1, 80 tokens occur in LOB, 87 in FLOB, 119 in ICE-GB, 178 in ICE-JA, and 118 in ICE-SIN. Jamaican English stands out in absolute token numbers and is highly significantly different from British as well as from Singaporean English (ICE-JA and ICE-GB: p=0.0003, χ2=12.94, df=1; ICEJA and ICE-SIN: p=0.0008, χ2=11.14, df=1), while British and Singaporean English are on a par. 3.3% of all uses of GET in ICE-GB are passive uses, 6.8% in ICE-JA, and 4.3% in ICE-SIN (cf. Figure 5.2 on page 55). Here again, Jamaican English stands out and is highly significantly different from British as well as from Singaporean English (ICE-JA and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=40.41, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=16.45, df=1). The difference between British English and Singaporean English is only just significant (p=0.045, χ2=4.02, df=1). In sum, GET-passive constructions can be said to be more prominent in Jamaican English than in either British or Singaporean English.

5.5 GET-existentials 5.5.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses When it comes to specifying what existentials are, and even more so if a definition is to be applicable across languages, the most central distinction to be heeded is the one between existential propositions and existential clauses: existential propositions are semantically defined and express that something exists or occurs, while existential clauses are syntactically defined and are necessarily language-specific. Already within one language, this distinction is valuable, as Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1392) point out. In English, the combination of there and BE constitutes the existential clause, but an existential proposition can be expressed by many other clauses, e.g. a simple clause containing the verb EXIST, or, if one wants to stretch the definition even more, a warning such as Danger! Vice versa, existential clauses express existential propositions in most cases, but not necessarily so, as in There is also me to consider, which does not assert the existence of the speaker. When I speak of existentials in the following, I mean existential propositions, which can be realised by many different kinds of constructions.

118 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

If one now takes the function of existentials “to bring the existence of an entire proposition […] to the attention of the hearer” (Quirk et al. 1985: 1403) or to introduce an addressee-new entity into the discourse (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1396), it is only logical that this entity is formally usually an indefinite NP and not a definite one (cf. Freeze 2001: 941). The most typical English existential clause consists of an indefinite NP preceded by the expletive45 subject there and a form of BE, as in There was a moment’s silence (Quirk et al. 1985: 1406). A number of variations on or additions to this basic pattern are possible. First, often an adverbial is added, mostly a place or time adverbial, and usually it is at the end of the clause (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 947). Second, the verb BE may occasionally be replaced by other intransitive verbs denoting existence or occurrence, such as ARISE, EXIST, or SEEM (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 945). Third, the head of the NP may be followed by a nonfinite clause: an -ing-form, as in There’s a bear sitting in the corner, or a past participle, as in There are two scales of temperature used in science (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 947). There is a much less common existential construction in English, viz. the HAVE-existential, as in The porter has a taxi ready (Quirk et al. 1985: 1411).46 Its typical form can be defined as NP + HAVE + indefinite NP + complement. Particularly in British English, HAVE got is also possible as a verb (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1411), which is where GET enters. This kind of existential construction will be called HAVE got-existential. Since the auxiliary HAVE can be dropped in informal language,47 got must also be considered as a possible variation of the verb phrase (VP), and this existential construction will be called got-existential. HAVE got-existentials and got-existentials form the group of (HAVE) got-existentials. The complement can be a locative (or less often temporal) adverbial, e.g. in the form of a PP or an adverb, or it can have the form of an adjective, a relative clause, or a nonfinite clause, e.g. an -ing-form, as in They had a few supporters helping them (Quirk et al. 1985: 1411). The subject can appear in all persons in HAVE- and (HAVE) got-existentials. As has been made clear, the formal devices for expressing existentials are practically infinite in every language. Besides got in the (HAVE) got-existential, other word-forms of GET can be used. The combination you get + NP, for

|| 45 Expletive is defined as a dummy element without a thematic role (cf. Crystal 2008: 179). 46 Huddleston and Pullum (2002) do not mention the HAVE-existential. 47 For ease of reference, HAVE will be called an auxiliary and the omission of HAVE in existential HAVE got, possessive HAVE got (cf. chapter 5.8), and semi-modal HAVE got to (cf. chapter 5.9) will be called auxiliary omission, even though the status of HAVE as an auxiliary is unclear in these constructions (for a discussion cf. Chalcraft 2009: 67–73).

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instance, is not the device most typical of English for expressing existential propositions, but it is one option. A combination of NP + get/gets + NP (+ complement) that expresses an existential proposition will be called get-/getsexistential. The complement can have the form of a PP, an adverb, an adjective, or a clause, just as in the (HAVE) got-existential. To determine the role of GET in expressing existential propositions in varieties of English, I will look for what I will call GET-existentials (cf. Table 5.14), i.e. existentials that contain get, gets, or got, and compare them to there-existentials. From what is known about the informal nature of GET, I expect clear mode differences in the use of GETexistentials and assume that GET-existentials will be avoided in written language, in contrast to there-existentials (hypothesis 1). Table 5.14: Overview of existential constructions relevant for the present study

GET-

existentials

existential construction

verb-form used

there-existentials

is, are, was, were, and other less common ones, e.g. seem, seems, seemed, used to

HAVE-existentials

has, have, had

HAVE got-existentials

has got, have got, had got

got-existentials

got

get-/gets-existentials

get, gets

(HAVE) gotexistentials

For determining a possible influence from the substrates on the use of existential clauses in Jamaican and Singaporean English, the expression of existential propositions in the substrates will be sketched in the following. In the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (cf. Allsopp 1996) and the Dictionary of Jamaican English (cf. Cassidy and LePage 1980), no information on any existential use of GET is given. However, the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online (APiCS Online) provides the following information on existential constructions in Jamaican Creole, the substrate of Jamaican English: The major existential construction in Jamaican is formed with gat (< English got) or hav (< English have) preceded by an indefinite pronoun, i.e. yu ‘you’ or dem ‘they’. In some cases, even the 1st person plural wi ‘we’ is used. Which pronoun is selected depends on the speaker’s attitude towards the thing which the discourse is about and whether or not

120 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

s/he wants to be identified with it. Yu gat is the default construction which does not take this discourse feature into consideration. (Farquharson 2013b)

The example given is Yu gat som piipl we groj yu fi evriting yu gat ‘There are some people who covet everything you have’ (Farquharson 2013b). The existential construction is followed by a relative clause, which seems to be typical of Jamaican Creole, since the other two examples provided in APiCS Online are also of this structure. Patrick (2013), in eWAVE, also claims existentials with forms of GET to be a feature of Jamaican Creole, stating that they are neither pervasive nor extremely rare, and adds an example which has the structure location + yu get + theme, viz. [I]ivn St Thomas yu get nais manggo ‘Even in St Thomas there are nice mangoes’. Assuming that Jamaican Creole influences standard language use in Jamaica, I expect to find a large number of existential propositions formed with you got, you get, and, to a lesser extent, they got, we got, and other GET-existentials in ICE-JA. Since got- and get-existentials are also possible in British English, substrate influence of Jamaican Creole on Standard Jamaican English can only be claimed if their frequency is higher in ICE-JA than in ICE-GB (hypothesis 2). In the case of Singaporean English, the situation is more complex. A unified account of the options available in Singaporean English for using GET in expressing existential meaning has, to my knowledge, not been given so far, which is why the following survey of the information dispersed throughout various publications on Colloquial Singapore English and the data analysis of ICE below are also an attempt to provide this. Lim and Ansaldo (2013b) claim that in Colloquial Singapore English, the there-existential occurs, but that it is less frequent than an existential construction like Table got food ‘There is food on the table’: here, the subject position is occupied by the location realised as an NP, it is followed by got and the theme, and no complement occurs. There are some other existentials with got apart from the one type of form mentioned by Lim and Ansaldo (2013b). A locational adverb can fill the subject position, as in Here got many nice houses (Lee et al. 2009: 295). Lee et al. (2009: 296) add the possibility of constructing an existential with a locational PP. In contrast to a locational adverb, which can go to the beginning or to the end of the sentence, a locational PP can only stand at the end of the existential sentence, i.e. it cannot occupy the subject position. The three types of existentials with got just described will be called zero-subject-got-existentials because a zero subject can be assumed for them: the NP, adverb, or PP in the vicinity of got expresses a

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location and thus its function can best be described as adverbial.48 From the example occurring in Leimgruber’s (2013: 78) data, viz. […T]hen got silat, which is martial arts, it can be concluded that the mention of a location is not obligatory in got-existentials. In a subcategory of this reduced type, called complex existential sentence by Lee et al. (2009: 295), a reduced relative clause is attached: Got people want to go ‘There are people who want to go’. Table 5.15 provides an overview of the zero-subject-got-existentials that can be differentiated in Colloquial Singapore English according to the literature. Note that in examples like Here got many nice houses, it is also possible that there fills the position at the beginning of the sentence, but this would be the unreduced locational there, and not the phonologically reduced locational demonstrative used in there-existentials. The sentence would therefore have to be rendered as There are many nice houses there in Standard British English. Table 5.15: Classification of zero-subject-got-existentials in Colloquial Singapore English

1

Table got food (Lim and Ansaldo 2013b)

– –

zero subject NP + got + theme

2

Here got many nice houses (Lee et al. 2009: 295)

– –

zero subject adverb + got + theme, got + theme + adverb

3

Got two pictures on the wall (Lee et al. 2009: 295)

–

zero subject got + theme + PP

[…T]hen got silat, which is martial arts (Leimgruber 2013: 78)

– –

4

–

–

zero subject got + theme subtype: complex existential sentence (Got people want to go; Lee et al. 2009: 295)

The origin of existential got is clearly Chinese, as both Mandarin (yŏu ‘have’) and Hokkien (ū ‘got’) have an existential verb that functions in a similar way to Colloquial Singapore English got (cf. Leimgruber 2013: 77–80). Consider the Hokkien equivalent of Here got many nice houses, which is Jit dao u jin zway

|| 48 Zero-subject-got-existentials must be differentiated from the above-mentioned gotexistentials, which are elided versions of HAVE got-existentials. All got-existentials retrieved in the present study have a pronoun in subject position. They usually also have a complement. This is in contrast to zero-subject-got-existentials, which never have a pronoun in subject position.

122 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

swee e cu, literally ‘This place u intensifier many nice modifier house’ (cf. Lee et al. 2009: 301). The use of jau in Cantonese and of ada in Malay for both existential and possessive meanings (for examples cf. Lee et al. 2009: 304) is only further evidence of a Chinese influence on existential (and also possessive) got in Colloquial Singapore English. Because in Colloquial Singapore English, got fulfils the functions of Hokkien u, and, to a lesser extent, Cantonese jau and Malay ada (cf. Lee et al. 2009), the overlapping function of got as a possessive and an existential verb can be explained. Lee et al. (2009: 294) have described in more detail than researchers before the relationship between got and u in Hokkien, which is, as they claim, the main substrate of Colloquial Singapore English. They (2009: 310–311) state that when get and got are used with the meaning ‘to receive’ or ‘to become’ or in the GETpassive in Colloquial Singapore English, the source of these uses must lie in British English, the main lexifier language of Colloquial Singapore English. These uses were acquired through successful SLA, evidence coming from two sides: first, none of the possible substrate languages (Hokkien, Cantonese, Baba Malay) uses its word for ‘to be/have’ to denote ‘to receive’ or ‘to become’; second, there are inflected forms in Colloquial Singapore English for these uses, viz. got and get, which shows that the language acquisition process from the lexifier language was successful. By contrast, for the innovative uses of got in Singapore, such as the zero-subject-got-existential, Lee et al. assume that the meanings expressed by u in Hokkien were relexified with uninflected got in Colloquial Singapore English. Either HAVE got or got was the source in British English. If it was HAVE got, a simplification occurred. Assuming that Colloquial Singapore English influences standard language use in Singapore, I expect to find zero-subject-got-existentials in ICE-SIN, with a majority of the examples featuring the location before the verb (hypothesis 3). The simple occurrence of zero-subject-got-existentials in ICE-SIN, even if numbers are low, is evidence of a profound influence of Colloquial Singapore English and its substrate languages on standard language use in Singapore. The occurrence of (HAVE) got-existentials and get-/gets-existentials, by contrast, cannot be explained by substrate influence because these existential constructions also occur in British English and are a result of successful SLA. However, their frequencies will certainly be influenced by the alternative options available in the language and therefore also by zero-subject-got-existentials. Since less genre sensitivity has been claimed for New Englishes than for British English, I expect a more genre-sensitive use of GET-existentials in the latter variety, which can manifest itself in higher frequencies in more informal

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genres and lower frequencies in more formal genres (hypothesis 4). Here is an overview of the hypotheses proposed: – Hypothesis 1 (frequencies, mode): avoidance of GET-existentials in written language – Hypothesis 2 (subtypes, ICE-JA): frequent occurrence of got-existentials (in particular with you got, to a lesser extent with they got and we got) and other GET-existentials (in particular with you get) in Jamaican English – Hypothesis 3 (subtypes, ICE-SIN): occurrence of zero-subject-got-existentials in Singaporean English – Hypothesis 4 (genre): greater genre sensitivity in the use of GET-existentials in British English and more homogeneous genre distribution in the New Englishes

5.5.2 Methodology For determining the role that GET plays in expressing existential meaning in varieties of English, I have used a coding methodology based on meaning as well as form: an existential proposition must be expressed as well as the formal criteria described for each specific construction must be fulfilled before a combination can be classified as an existential. In order to be able to measure the relative importance of GET for expressing existential propositions, the frequency of GET-existentials must be compared with the frequencies of other existential constructions. Retrieving all existential constructions in the corpora is not possible. What I have been able to retrieve with the help of a concordancer are the great majority of there-existentials.49 All GET-existentials have been retrieved by the manual analysis of all GET-tokens (cf. Table 5.16). HAVE-existentials are not covered and must be relegated to the infinitely large group of theoretically possible existential clauses. This is due to the overwhelming quantity of HAVEtokens and the fact that the existentials among them have no easily definable surface form that would allow for a simple form-based search with the help of a concordancer.

|| 49 The share of existential clauses formed with there that do not express an existential proposition is negligible, which is why there-existentials have not been checked for meaning.

124 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.16: Existential constructions retrieved in LOB, FLOB, and ICE

existential construction

verb involved

there-existentials

BE, SEEM, used to be, APPEAR to

be, BE supposed to be, COME, OCCUR, EXIST

GET-

existentials

HAVE got-existentials

HAVE got

got-existentials

got

get-/gets-existentials

get, gets

zero-subject-gotexistentials

got

(HAVE) gotexistentials

The frequency of there-existentials has been determined with the help of some specific queries in a concordance programme. Although many kinds of variations are possible, e.g. there happens to be, there is said to be, there will be, or there seem to have been, complex VPs in there-existentials are generally rare, and only those with SEEM and used to be are more common. There-existentials formed with a verb other than BE are also rare, with EXIST being the most frequent single alternative (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 945–946). The queries that I used in AntConc have retrieved there is/was/are/were and their negated forms, there seem(s/ed) (to be), there used to be, there appear(s/ed) to be, there is/are/ was/were supposed to be, there come(s)/came, there occur(s)/occurred, there exist(s/ed), and thus all constructions that Biber et al. (1999: 945–946) list as the most common variations of the typical there-existential. In the search strings, one word was allowed after there and before the existential verb to retrieve tokens with adverbs or complex tenses, and the results were manually cleaned of invalid tokens. The retrieval of GET-existentials, i.e. HAVE got-existentials, got-existentials, get-/gets-existentials, and zero-subject-got-existentials, can be claimed to be exhaustive in all corpora since I have analysed every construction in which GET is involved. HAVE got-existentials are illustrated in examples (21) and (22), and a got-existential can be found in (23). More often than not, if the NP is definite, the token is not an existential. However, as examples (22) and (23) show, an existential reading is not excluded with a definite NP.

GET-existentials | 125

(21) Then I should think uh before the time of Deuteronomy you’ve got a specialist class emerging the Levites (22) Because we have got this worldwide correlation in some parts. (23) Then you got the eight metre long octopus If HAVE got has a possessive meaning (cf. chapter 5.8), an existential reading is excluded, as in the following example: (24) There is you know like those that cashmere rug I’ve got on my wall In examples (21)–(23), by contrast, the pronoun in subject position is generic, and no possessive meaning can be assumed. There are ambiguous cases, such as when Singapore is in subject position and could, on the one hand, function as the location in a zero-subject-got-existential, or, on the other hand, be seen as a personification of the people living in Singapore, which would make a possessive meaning possible. Decisions in those cases have been made on an individual basis, taking into account the larger context. Note that in the present study, the coding of existential meaning has been done in a restrictive fashion: only if a specific reference of a pronoun is excluded has the token been considered to be a possible candidate for carrying existential meaning. To fathom the existential meaning, the larger context always has to be taken into consideration. To exemplify this, I here provide the context of a get-/ gets-existential, viz. […] what one gets is a pervasive distrust […] (), which does not carry the meaning of somebody receiving something, but instead denotes the existence of something and could therefore be rendered as There is a pervasive distrust. Note the verb exist and the thereexistential in the vicinity of the token: (25) First the absence of a civil society The more time I spend in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union the more conscious I become of how important a civil society is What does one mean by that One means by that the fabric of voluntary organisation open relationships a willingness for people to move together to try to change and alter and sustain things One means in effect the social contract about which John Locke wrote at the end of the seventeenth century and which has been

126 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

perhaps been one of the greatest inheritances of the Anglo-Saxon world In the absence of a civil society and at least to a very considerable extent it doesn’t really exist in the post-Communist societies what one gets is a pervasive distrust what Vaclav Havel described as a moral vacuum And in a situation where there’s a moral vacuum the absence of any certain borders the absence of any settled nationality tends to mean that rootless populations and beleaguered minorities feel themselves and indeed are considerably at risk () If, by contrast, in the construction NP + get/gets + NP (+ complement), a reference to a person, e.g. the addressee, is explicit or implied and can be understood from the context of the token, or if get/gets has the lexical meaning ‘to receive’ or the like, no existential meaning is ascribed to it. The respective construction is monotransitive and dealt with in chapter 5.2. Note that all tokens coded as GET-existentials in my data have pronouns in subject position if they are no zero-subject-got-existentials.50 In sentences with nominal subjects, specific reference is made to those involved in the discourse situation, i.e. to concrete people in the extralinguistic reality. The pronoun you, in contrast, is often used as a generic pronoun, i.e. “with reference to ‘people in general’” (Quirk et al. 1985: 353), as are, less often, one, they, and we. In the following, the results for existential constructions in LOB, FLOB, ICEGB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN will be presented. After an overview of the frequencies of there- and GET-existentials and an analysis of their mode distribution, each of the five subtypes listed in Table 5.16 on page 124 will be looked at separately, and the hypotheses on substrate influence and genre will be tested.

5.5.3 Results: frequencies and mode Figure 5.15 shows that the average frequency of existential constructions in each corpus ranges around 200 per 100,000 words. From LOB to FLOB, the two written corpora of British English, a decrease of 20.8 tokens per 100,000 words can be detected for the 30-year gap (p=0.001, χ2=10.48, df=1). Across the ICE corpora, the British corpus has the highest frequency of existential constructions

|| 50 While GET-existentials with an extra participant in the form of a common noun in subject position can differ in information structure from there-existentials (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1411–1412; Biber et al. 1999: 956), this factor is excluded here.

GET-existentials | 127

(229.5 constructions per 100,000 words), while the frequencies are highly significantly lower for Jamaica (ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=32.26, df=1) and Singapore (ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=20.96, df=1). ICE-JA and ICE-SIN display no significant difference. In all ICE corpora, existential constructions are slightly more frequent in the spoken than in the written subcorpora. Thus, the existential constructions searched for in the present study might be on a decrease in written language, are more frequent in spoken than in written language, and are more frequent in British English than in the New Englishes.

240 230

229.5 219.2

220 210

200.1

198.4

200

193.5

190 180 170 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.15: Existential constructions (tokens per 100,000 words)

Table 5.17 details how often which type of existential is used pmw in the spoken and the written (sub-) corpora analysed for the present study. GETexistentials occur on average about 39 times pmw of spoken language, but only about once pmw of written language. The distribution of there- and GETexistentials shows a highly significant mode difference (p≪0.001, χ2=451.99, df=2). A post-hoc test shows that this difference can be reduced to the highly frequent use of GET-existentials in spoken language, so that hypothesis 1 can be fully confirmed: GET-existentials are overwhelmingly more frequent in spoken than in written language, which is explicable by the informal nature of GET.

128 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.17: Mode differences in the use of existential constructions in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (tokens pmw)

there-existentials GET-existentials

spoken (ICE spoken)

written (LOB, FLOB, ICE written)

1,983.2

2,043.9

39.3

1.4

That GET-existentials are practically exclusively used in spoken language appears to be independent of the regional variety. LOB has only 3 GETexistentials: 2 occur in direct speech and 1 is a nonstandard zero-subject-gotexistential untypical of the British variety. FLOB features 11 GET-existentials, but this relatively high number can be easily explained. It is mainly due to the use of HAVE got-existentials with a following -ing-form, as in I’ve got three serving now (FLOB, K16 139), and of the 11 tokens, 9 occur in fiction. All of them occur in direct speech, so that all of these tokens are actually spoken data. ICE-JA written has no GET-existential at all, ICE-GB written has 1, and ICE-SIN written has 3. The token in ICE-GB is a you get-existential. Of the 3 tokens in ICE-SIN written, 1 is a zero-subject-got-existential not found in any of the other written corpora, 1 is a HAVE got-existential, and 1 a got-existential. While for LOB and FLOB, the few GET-existentials that do occur are actually spoken use and can be explained by the specific make-up of the two corpora, GET-existentials are non-existent in ICEJA written, and practically non-existent in ICE-GB written and ICE-SIN written. However, differently from the tokens in LOB and FLOB, the 3 tokens that occur in ICE-SIN written must be explained, due to their specific form, as innovative usage encroaching from spoken informal language on written language. This is a further indication of the advanced stage of colloquialisation of Singaporean English. Table 5.18 lists the detailed absolute numbers of all existential constructions retrieved in all five corpora. A visual illustration and overview of how existential meaning is expressed in ICE is provided in Figure 5.16, Figure 5.17, and Figure 5.18. The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN in the share of GETexistentials of all existential constructions retrieved is not significant (cf. Figure 5.16 and Figure 5.18), which already points to a high degree of similarity in the British and Singaporean English overall use of GET-existentials, with differences lying in the individual subtypes, as will be described below. ICE-JA, by contrast,

GET-existentials | 129

is different from both ICE-GB and ICE-SIN in its very infrequent use of GETexistentials, as Table 5.18 and the graphs illustrate.51 In terms of shares of all GET-tokens, GET-existentials constitute 4.4% in ICE-GB, 4.1% in ICE-SIN, but only 1.2% in ICE-JA. The percentages take into account that GET is overall more frequent in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN than in ICE-JA, and demonstrate that existential uses of GET are underrepresented in Jamaican English. This means that there is clearly no influence from Jamaican Creole on the frequency of GET-existentials. However, it will be shown that the few GET-existentials that are actually used in Jamaican English are exclusively you get- and you got-existentials, which are typical of Jamaican Creole. That is, while there is no substrate influence on Jamaican English on the frequency of GET-existentials, an influence on the type of GET-existentials can be assumed. Table 5.18: Existential constructions in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (absolute token numbers)

total there-existentials total GET-existentials

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

2,204

1,985

2,280

1,982

1,934

3

11

156

31

112

HAVE got-existentials

1

7

96

1

39

got-existentials

0

1

4

4

13

get-/gets-existentials

1

3

54

25

17

zero-subject-got-existentials

1

0

2

1

43

2,207

1,996

2,436

2,013

2,046

total existential constructions

|| 51 ICE-JA and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=64.76, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=46.2, df=1. Note that the difference between LOB and FLOB is statistically significant (p=0.029, Fisher’s exact test) but will not be pursued further because token numbers are very low.

130 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

4.1%

2.2%

0.1%

therethere-existentials existentials (HAVE)gotgot(HAVE) existentials existentials get-/getsget-/getsexistentials existentials

93.6%

zero-subjectzero-subject-gotgot-existentials existentials

Figure 5.16: Existential constructions in ICE-GB (per cent)

0.2%

1.2%

0.0%

therethere-existentials existentials (HAVE) got(HAVE) existentials existentials get-/getsget-/getsexistentials existentials zero-subjectzero-subject-gotgot-existentials existentials

98.5%

Figure 5.17: Existential constructions in ICE-JA (per cent)

GET-existentials | 131

0.8%

2.1%

2.5%

therethere-existentials existentials (HAVE)gotgot(HAVE) existentials existentials get-/getsget-/getsexistentials existentials zero-subjectzero-subject-gotgot-existentials existentials 94.5%

Figure 5.18: Existential constructions in ICE-SIN (per cent)

5.5.4 Results: subtypes Each type of existential construction will be considered in turn in the following. There-existentials, unsurprisingly, make up the largest proportions of the existentials retrieved. The proportions are still quite different, however: ICE-GB and ICE-SIN are similar, with 93.6% and 94.5% respectively, while in ICE-JA, the percentage is 98.5, which means that GET serves a much more limited role in expressing existential meaning in Jamaica than it does in Great Britain and Singapore. The British English-New English divide in absolute token numbers of there-existentials (cf. Table 5.18) should also be noted. There BE-existentials, i.e. existential constructions formed with there is, there was, there are, there were, and their negated forms, are similarly frequent in all corpora. However, a more detailed look at the range of there-existentials other than there BE-existentials, e.g. there appeared to be or there exist, is revealing. Singaporean English exhibits a less frequent use of alternative there-existentials than British English in both written and spoken language, with the difference between ICE-GB spoken (5.2 tokens per 100,000 words) and ICE-SIN spoken (1.6 tokens) reaching statistical significance (p=0.002, χ2=9.62, df=1). I suggest an explanation for this phenomenon: as Table 5.18 indicates, ICE-SIN is the corpus which has the most evenly distributed use of GET-existentials. All subtypes have a certain moderate frequency in ICE-SIN, while the other corpora exhibit peaks for certain constructions and hardly any use of other constructions. Certainly, the range of existential constructions is different in different varieties of English. The low variability within the class of there-existentials in ICE-SIN, viz. the low

132 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

frequency of alternative there-existentials and the low range of verbs used after there in ICE-SIN (with 5 out of 8 verbs used, it is lowest, while the other corpora all show 7 or 8 uses out of 8), can be a consequence of the broad pool of existential constructions established overall in Singaporean English. As far as (HAVE) got-existentials are concerned, overall, only 2 tokens occur in written language in ICE, viz. 2 in ICE-SIN. The written corpora will therefore not be considered here. In spoken language, however, (HAVE) got-existentials are a substantial option for expressing existential meaning in British and Singaporean English, but not in Jamaican English. There are 100 tokens in ICE-GB spoken, only 5 tokens in ICE-JA spoken, and 50 tokens in ICE-SIN spoken. The differences between the three spoken subcorpora in the use of (HAVE) gotexistentials compared to the total number of existential constructions retrieved are statistically highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=72.34, df=2). Recall that the category of (HAVE) got-existentials consists of HAVE got-existentials and gotexistentials, i.e. of tokens where HAVE is expressed and tokens where it is omitted. Differences will be pointed out below. As regards Jamaican English, it has been indicated above that although no Jamaican Creole influence is reflected in the frequency of got-existentials, influence can be assumed in the type of GET-existentials used, so that hypothesis 2 can be partially confirmed. This is because the few GET-existentials that are used in Jamaican English feed exclusively on you get- and you got-existentials, which are typical of Jamaican Creole. In the few cases where the got-existential is used in Jamaican English, the subject is always you. The same is true for get-/getsexistentials, where the subject is always you in ICE-JA. While the non-use of the surface structure HAVE got is explicable by American English influence, the low frequency of got in existential function runs counter to expectations. Of the 100 tokens of (HAVE) got-existentials in ICE-GB spoken, only 4 (= 4.0%) are got-existentials, which means that auxiliary omission is practically not an option in British English. Of the 50 tokens in ICE-SIN spoken, 12 are gotexistentials (= 24.0%), and of the 5 tokens in ICE-JA spoken, 4 are got-existentials (= 80.0%). The ranking of the varieties in terms of auxiliary omission thus seems to be ICE-JA > ICE-SIN > ICE-GB.52 The specific nature and form of (HAVE) gotexistentials in Great Britain and Singapore will be detailed in the following.

|| 52 The limited significance of the Jamaican English percentage due to low token numbers goes without saying. However, the ranking of the varieties seems to be a justified conclusion because several results point to it. Compare, for instance, the similarly low figure (4.3%) for auxiliary omission for possessive (HAVE) got in ICE-GB spoken, a similarly high figure (35.1%) in ICE-SIN spoken, and a very high figure (40.6%) in ICE-JA spoken (also cf. chapter 5.8.2).

GET-existentials | 133

First of all, with 100 tokens as compared to 50 tokens, (HAVE) gotexistentials are highly significantly more frequent in absolute terms in Great Britain (p=0.0001, χ2=14.39, df=1), and, with 3.4% of all GET-constructions in ICE-GB spoken as compared to 2.2% of all GET-constructions in ICE-SIN spoken, they also make up a significantly greater portion of the use of GET (p=0.014, χ2=5.99, df=1). However, a more detailed look will show that the differences are more profound: 71.0% of the (HAVE) got-existentials in ICE-GB spoken feature a complement. This means that the theme has an adverb, a PP, an adjective, or a clause in its vicinity, as in but we’ve still got the odd one that comes along and says (), which is an example of a HAVE got-existential with relative clause, or as in And there you’ve got a sort of foppishness arguably (), which is an example with an adverb (there). In ICEGB spoken, an adverb, a PP, or an -ing-form are about equally frequent, at around 30% each, with adjectives, finite clauses, and past participles in a clear minority. In contrast to ICE-GB spoken, only 38.0% of the (HAVE) got-existentials in ICE-SIN spoken display a complement, which is a statistically highly significant difference (p=0.0001, χ2=15.12, df=1, φc=0.32). The preferred type of complement in ICE-SIN is an -ing-form (57.9%), as in He’s got Sundram asking for help (). The other types are very rare and, together, account for only 8 tokens. Apparently then, Singaporean English follows British English in making use of (HAVE) got-existentials, but with two caveats: first, Singaporean English uses (HAVE) got-existentials to a lesser extent; second, it prefers simpler structures in omitting the auxiliary in some cases, and in not adding a complement in the majority of cases. HAVE got-existentials with complements are the most typical (HAVE) got-existential in British English. This means that in practically all cases, the auxiliary is realised, and in almost three quarters of the cases, the theme is followed by a complement, which is usually an adverb, a PP, or an -ing-form. In Singaporean English, in three quarters of all occurrences of (HAVE) gotexistentials, the auxiliary is realised, but in contrast to British English, (HAVE) got-existentials without complements are more typical than those with complements. In ICE-JA, the HAVE got-existential is not used. The got-existential is very rarely used, and if so, the subject is you. Jamaican English does not follow British English usage, nor is it, quite surprisingly, influenced by Jamaican Creole in any high frequency of got-existentials. The reason can be the combination of the general avoidance of GET in Jamaican English and the more specific but unconscious wish to omit existential GET in educated language in order to avoid any impression of Creole influence.

134 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Get- and gets-existentials are an option for expressing existential meaning in all three spoken corpora. Since only 1 token occurs in ICE written, viz. in ICEGB, and 4 in LOB and FLOB, only the spoken ICE subcorpora will be considered in the following analysis. There are 53 tokens in ICE-GB spoken, 25 in ICE-JA spoken, and 17 in ICE-SIN spoken. Get-/gets-existentials are less noticeable than (HAVE) got-existentials in ICE-GB spoken and even less in ICE-SIN spoken, while they are the only reasonably frequent GET-existential in ICE-JA. The overwhelming majority of get-/gets-existentials in all three subcorpora have a 2nd-person subject, i.e. they are of the form you get + NP. In ICE-JA spoken, this is exclusively so. In ICE-SIN spoken, 1st-person subjects come up occasionally, and in ICE-GB spoken, he, one, and we also feature as subjects once or twice. As far as the complements are concerned, the picture resembles that of (HAVE) got-existentials, with most complements occurring in British English and fewer complements in the New Englishes, but the distributions are less extreme and not statistically significant. The most frequent types of complements in ICEGB spoken are again -ing-forms (35.5%), as in And And uh so you get in effect the local Levites uh being degraded (), which has an especially complex VP because a passive -ing-form is used, and PPs (28.2%), but also adverbs (28.2%). The preferred type of complement in ICE-SIN is, just as for (HAVE) got-existentials, an -ing-form (65.5%), as in […] in my embassy I get officers constantly changing (). In ICE-JA spoken, almost two thirds of the get-/gets-existentials have no complement, i.e. the NP has no adverb, PP, adjective, past participle, -ing-form, or other clause referring to it, as in You can get three values of moment of inertia […] () or You get this weird mix (). This might be compensated for by the fact that in over one third of the tokens in ICE-JA spoken, other verbs stands between you and get, e.g. BE going to, can, could, or will, as in […] you can get examples of Mento that are virtually Calypso (), which is in contrast to ICE-GB spoken and ICE-SIN spoken, where verbs before get-/gets-existentials are rare with only 4 and 3 such tokens, respectively. To sum up, while get-/gets-existentials are not as frequent in ICE-SIN spoken as in ICE-GB spoken, in the detailed usage of the constructions, the two varieties tally and Singaporean English seems to follow the British English model. The low number in ICE-SIN spoken can be explained by the frequent use of the substrate-influenced zero-subject-got-existential, which might be filling the place of get-/gets-existentials. ICE-JA spoken exhibits a moderate frequency of you get-existentials, with frequent insertion of future periphrases or modals before got and infrequent use of complements. Thus, Jamaican English seems to

GET-existentials | 135

have developed its own characteristic get-existential, with a you + (modal) verb + get-chunk playing a major role. As regards the final type of GET-existential, Table 5.18 on page 129 and Figure 5.18 on page 131 indicate that zero-subject-got-existentials occur 43 times in ICE-SIN and constitute 2.1% of all existential constructions retrieved in this corpus, which means that they are almost as important as (HAVE) gotexistentials. In the other corpora, by contrast, got-existentials with zero subjects practically do not occur. Only 1 token can be found in ICE-JA, and 2 in ICE-GB, but these tokens, e.g. Got really good Christmas trees this year (), might in fact better be interpreted as (HAVE) got-existentials with omitted auxiliary and omitted subject, which is explicable by the occurrence of auxiliary and subject omission in informal and spontaneous speech. The tokens in ICE-SIN, in contrast, are clearly substrate-influenced, and hypothesis 3, the occurrence of zero-subject-got-existentials in Singaporean English due to substrate influence, can be confirmed. Zero-subject-got-existentials constitute an important because perspicuous use of GET in Singaporean English. Keeping in mind that all informants of the ICE corpora are educated speakers, the occurrence of 43 zero-subject-got-existentials, which look decidedly nonstandard from a British English point of view, is all the more telling and suggests that in Singaporean English, this construction does not have an overtly nonstandard flavour in spoken language. In the written subcorpus of ICE-SIN, there is only 1 zero-subject-got-existential and it occurs in direct speech. Thus, zero-subjectgot-existentials seem to be acceptable in Singapore in educated speech, but not in writing. Their exact form will be detailed in the following, in order to arrive at a unified description and classification of zero-subject-got-existentials in Singaporean English based on corpus evidence. Of the 43 tokens in ICE-SIN, 34 correspond to the 4 types in Table 5.15 on page 121. However, 9 new tokens appear in the data, which is why I suggest a classification of zero-subject-got-existentials in Singaporean English that consists of 7 types, as shown in Table 5.19, where examples from ICE-SIN are provided. The frequencies of the 7 types are illustrated in Figure 5.19.

136 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.19: Systematisation of zero-subject-got-existentials proposed for Singaporean English

1

Asian Village got the Viking […] ()

– –

NP + got + theme NP expresses place

2

[…] Inside got a lot of fruits ()

– –

adverb + got + theme, got + theme + adverb adverb expresses place

3

Then got this one also in in in in Sunway Lagoon ah ()

– –

PP + got + theme, got + theme + PP PP expresses place

4

Oh got durian cake ah ()

–

got + theme: bare type

5

Dance always got big class what ()

– –

6

Weekend got very pathetic shows ()

– –

7

Sushi has got raw fish ()

– –

NP + got + theme NP in subject position is not a typical place but expresses location via a more complex relation NP + got + theme NP expresses time NP + HAVE got + theme NP in subject position either expresses place or expresses location via a more complex relation consequence of hypercorrection

–

19

20

15

10

5

8 4

3

4

3

2

0 type 1

type 2

type 3

type 4

type 5

type 6

type 7

Figure 5.19: Zero-subject-got-existentials in ICE-SIN (absolute token numbers)

GET-existentials | 137

Types 1 to 4 are zero-subject-got-existentials which have been described in the literature on Colloquial Singapore English. Figure 5.19 shows that they also occur in ICE-SIN. Type 1, suggested by Lim and Ansaldo (2013b) as representative of Colloquial Singapore English, does occur, but it is by no means the one most typical of Singaporean English according to the data from ICE-SIN, since it occurs only 3 times, as in Asian Village got the Viking […] (). Type 2 can be found 8 times, as in […] Inside got a lot of fruits (), while type 3 occurs 4 times, as in Then got this one also in in in in Sunway Lagoon ah (). Apparently, however, the PP can also stand before got, as the example Then at the bottom got water () illustrates. Type 4, for which I suggest the term bare type because neither the subject slot is filled nor a locational adverb or PP occurs, can be found most frequently, viz. 19 times, as in the following example: (26) Not too bad but I think the best is uh walnut and her durian cake Oh got durian cake ah Ya The subtype called complex existential sentence, which can be found in Colloquial Singapore English, does not occur in my data, however. The analysis of the data in ICE-SIN shows that for a complete description of zero-subject-got-existentials in Singaporean English, a finer distinction for the meaning of the NP in subject position must be made. To illustrate this, consider the following examples: (27) But Kallang got one Fun world what lah (28) Dance always got big class what (29) Hamburger also got beef (30) Today is Saturday ah Any night show Ah go ahead Weekend right Weekend got very pathetic shows you see

138 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Probably got horrible shows and you are forced to go out (31) Then June got Arts Fes In (27), the NP in subject position indicates a place, corresponds to type 1, and could be turned into a there-existential preceded by a PP, e.g. But in Kallang, there is a Fun world. Example (28) illustrates that the NP in subject position can also express a relation that is more complex than place. It could be rendered as There are always many people in the dance class. While dance is clearly not a place, a location in the widest sense is expressed. Example (29) is another case in point. Although the example could be paraphrased with a there-existential and a simple preposition as There is also beef in hamburgers (also note the plural here), hamburger is clearly not a place, and Hamburgers contain beef would be a more natural paraphrase. The NPs in such examples thus express locational meaning but are not typical places. I suggest a new category for them, viz. type 5. In example (30), the NP in subject position expresses time and the token could be rendered as There are only pathetic shows on weekends. Similarly, (31) can be rendered as In June, there is an Arts Festival. I suggest type 6 as a new category. Note that none of the examples can be conceived of as possessive. Finally, there are another 2 tokens of zero-subject-got-existentials with an NP in subject position in ICE-SIN which warrant a separate subtype (type 7). They both occur in private direct conversations, but in two different texts. On the surface, these 2 tokens are HAVE got-existentials, but I argue that they are basically zero-subject-got-existentials with a subsequently added auxiliary HAVE, thus a consequence of hypercorrection with the aim of obscuring the form of the supposedly nonstandard got-existential. In the first example, the NP in subject position is a place: Ya but anyway Bandung has got a lot of T-shirts and shoes and jeans (). It is unreasonable to assume a possessive meaning since a personification of the city Bandung is hardly conceivable here. The paraphrase In Bandung, there are/you can buy a lot of T-shirts… is more likely. For the second example, viz. Sushi has got raw fish (), There is raw fish in Sushi or Sushi contains raw fish would be possible paraphrases. Two further tokens from ICE-SIN are worth citing. First, Only inside there’s got sea water () is an example of a there-existential combined with a zero-subject-got-existential, and shows the equivalent semantic status of the two existential constructions in Singaporean English. Apparently, the speaker started out constructing a there-existential (there’s sea

GET-existentials | 139

water), then changed direction and started anew with a zero-subject-gotexistential (got sea water). Second, the token Then that time lah got two teachers start loving each other () illustrates that the zerosubject-got-existential can even be used in sentences with past time reference. The zero-marked verb start has, taking the context into account, a clear past time reference. The zero-subject-got-existential is then also used with a past time reference and the sentence could alternatively be roughly rendered as That time there were two teachers who started loving each other.53 To recapitulate, substrate influence from Chinese via Colloquial Singapore English is apparent in zero-subject-got-existentials, which are used in educated spoken language in Singapore, but not in British or Jamaican English. The majority of zero-subject-got-existentials occurring in the data (types 2, 3, and 4) do not have an NP before got. The data further suggest that the most typical zero-subject-got-existential in Singaporean English is what I have called the bare type (type 4), i.e. the one with an empty position before the verb and no further element except got and the theme. Zero-subject-got-existentials without an NP in subject position but where a place is indicated with the help of an adverb or a PP at the beginning or end of the construction (types 2 and 3) are also frequent. Less than a third of all zero-subject-got-existentials (types 1, 5, 6, and 7) have an NP in subject position. The NP indicates a location (either it is a typical place or it indicates a location via a more complex relation) more frequently than it indicates time.

5.5.5 Results: genre For determining the genre dependence of GET-existentials, differences between the expected and observed frequencies per text type have been calculated and are provided in Table 5.20. Since GET-existentials are practically non-existent in the written (sub-) corpora, only the spoken subcorpora are considered, for which I have formed four subcategories. Note that for this overview, all four kinds of GET-existentials are considered together: HAVE got-existentials, gotexistentials, get-/gets-existentials, and zero-subject-got-existentials.

|| 53 It should be added, of course, that this example is nonstandard in another respect, viz. the link between teachers and start. Unfortunately, pauses are not consistently marked in ICE-SIN, but one could assume a pause before the verb start and regard the example as two utterances, viz. Got two teachers and Start loving each other, both with zero subjects. Alternatively, the example could be regarded as one utterance, with the relative pronoun omitted.

140 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

In all three varieties, one can note a strong underuse of GET-existentials in scripted monologues (on average 16.1%). Apparently, GET-existentials are inappropriate for this most formal spoken text type in all varieties. Apart from that, an overuse of GET-existentials occurs in public dialogues in ICE-GB (12.0%), in unscripted monologues in ICE-JA (15.4%), and in private dialogues in ICE-SIN (23.6%). While the overuse in the more informal categories in British and Singaporean English is as expected, the overuse in unscripted monologues in Jamaican English goes counter to the underuse in scripted monologues. However, because of the infrequent overall use of GET-existentials in Jamaican English, this result should not be ascribed too much importance. The hypothesis that British English is in general more sensitive in terms of genre stratification of GET-existentials (hypothesis 4) cannot be confirmed. In fact, the standard deviation shows ICE-SIN in the lead (16.7), with ICE-JA (13.2) and ICE-GB (12.2) more or less on a par, but at a considerable distance from ICESIN. For more specific statements about genre stratification, the individual subtypes of GET-existentials need to be considered and put in relation to the number of there-existentials. This will be done with the help of Figure 5.20, Figure 5.21, and Figure 5.22, which provide token numbers per 100,000 words in ICE-GB spoken, ICE-JA spoken, and ICE-SIN spoken for each type of existential across the four subcategories already used for Table 5.20.

26.7

160,000 140,000 100,000 600,000

Public dialogues (S1B)

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

Scripted monologues (S2B)

TOTAL 100

16.7

23.3

33.3

100

0.6

29.7

38.7

31.0 38.7 0.0

6.3 -16.0 100

25.8

12.0

0

35.5

-2.4

0

-16.7

15.4

-0.9

2.2

100

0.9

21.1

21.1

56.9

0

-15.8

-2.2

-5.6

23.6

0

-16.1

6.5

1.9

7.8

ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean GETexistentials observed difference observed difference observed difference difference expected % % % % % % % %

200,000

SPOKEN

Private dialogues (S1A)

number of words

Table 5.20: Expected and observed distribution of GET-existentials in ICE-GB (N=155), ICE-JA (N=31), and ICE-SIN (N=109)

GET-existentials | 141

142 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

There-existentials with verbs other than BE were considered in the above analysis of there-existentials but their frequencies are negligibly small when distributed across four subcategories. Therefore, only there BE-existentials are considered in Figure 5.20, Figure 5.21, and Figure 5.22. There BE-existentials display a uniform genre distribution across the three varieties, as a comparison of the graphs reveals. In all three corpora, they are most frequent in public dialogues, with figures ranging from 263 to 284 tokens per 100,000 words, and least frequent in private dialogues, with figures ranging from 139 to 170 tokens per 100,000 words. The numbers for monologues cover the ground in between. In the case of GET-existentials, the distributions are much less uniform. A look at the category scripted monologues across all three varieties confirms the underuse noted above. In fact, this category has hardly any tokens of GETexistentials in any variety although its results for there BE-existentials cover the middle ground in all varieties. The category scripted monologues contains broadcast news and broadcast and non-broadcast talks or speeches, i.e. conceptually written texts, and is the most formal category of spoken texts in ICE. The informal character of GET seems to preclude the use of GET-existentials in formal spoken language just as in written language. It can therefore be claimed that GET-existentials are a feature of informal spoken language. Figure 5.20 for ICE-GB indicates that the frequencies of the GET-existentials common in British English, viz. get-/gets-existentials and (HAVE) got-existentials, correlate fairly well with the distribution of there BE-existentials. For instance, the highest number of get-/gets-existentials is 12 per 100,000 words and the highest number of (HAVE) got-existentials is 26, and these numbers both apply to public dialogues, which is the category with the highest number of there BEexistentials. If one takes there BE-existentials to be the neutral because by far most common existential construction in English, no preference of GET-existentials for certain genres in spoken British English can be detected since their frequency correlates with the frequency of there BE-existentials across genres: the overuse of GET-existentials in public dialogues noted above turns out to be unspecific since existential constructions are in general more frequent in this subcategory.

GET-existentials | 143

281

300 250 200

219

212

there thereBE-existentials BE-existentials

170 (HAVE) (HAVE) got-existentials got-existentials

150 100 50

get-/gets-existentials get-/gets-existentials 15 9

26 1

12

21 0

11

0

0 1 0

0 private dialogues

public

unscripted

scripted

zero-subject-gotzero-subject-gotexistentials existentials

dialogues monologues monologues

Figure 5.20: Genre distribution of existential constructions in ICE-GB spoken (tokens per 100,000 words)

In ICE-JA spoken, the use of GET-existentials is in general very infrequent (cf. Figure 5.21). The numbers are too low to allow statements about genre distinctions. One can easily see, however, that get-/gets-existentials are the only type of GET-existentials relevant in Jamaican English. The overuse in unscripted monologues noted above can be traced to the use of get-/gets-existentials. As already stated, this overuse is based on very low token numbers and should not be given too much weight.

300

263

250 200

there BE-existentials there BE-existentials 186

194

161

(HAVE) (HAVE)got-existentials got-existentials

150 100

get-/gets-existentials get-/gets-existentials

50 1 5 0

0 4 1

2 6 0

0 0 0

0 private dialogues

public

unscripted

scripted

zero-subject-gotzero-subject-gotexistentials existentials

dialogues monologues monologues

Figure 5.21: Genre distribution of existential constructions in ICE-JA spoken (tokens per 100,000 words)

144 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

In ICE-SIN spoken, the distribution of zero-subject-got-existentials is to be noted (cf. Figure 5.22). They occur highly significantly more frequently in private dialogues (20 tokens per 100,000 words), the most informal of the spoken genres, than in the three other categories (1 token each) (e.g. unscripted monologues: p≪0.001, Fisher’s exact test). One can thus confirm a style restriction in the use of this GET-existential, viz. that it is only acceptable in very informal speech (cf. Leimgruber 2013: 77–80). The frequent use of the zero-subject-gotexistential in private dialogues is responsible for the overuse of GET-existentials in this genre noted above. It can also explain the highest value of standard deviation in genre distribution detected for ICE-SIN. Also note that the number of there BE-existentials is lowest in private dialogues, where substrateinfluenced zero-subject-got-existentials are most frequent. This means that the most frequent existential construction and the substrate-influenced construction seem to be functionally equivalent. The number of there BE-existentials is also quite low in unscripted monologues, where (HAVE) got-existentials seem to step in.

284

300 250

209

200 150

159

there BE-existentials there BE-existentials

(HAVE) (HAVE) got-existentials got-existentials

139

100

get-/gets-existentials get-/gets-existentials

50 6 3

20

7 5 1

13

2 1

0 0 1

0 private dialogues

public

unscripted

scripted

zero-subject-gotzero-subject-gotexistentials existentials

dialogues monologues monologues

Figure 5.22: Genre distribution of existential constructions in ICE-SIN spoken (tokens per 100,000 words)

Finally, genre peculiarities in the distribution of (HAVE) got-existentials with realised and omitted auxiliary in ICE-SIN spoken are noteworthy, i.e. the distribution of HAVE got-existentials and got-existentials. Of the 38 HAVE gotexistentials in ICE-SIN spoken, 9 occur in private dialogues, 11 in public

GET-existentials | 145

dialogues, and 18 in unscripted monologues.54 By contrast, of the 12 gotexistentials in ICE-SIN spoken, 8 occur in private dialogues, 3 in public dialogues, but only 1 in unscripted monologues. This means that while both types of (HAVE) got-existentials are absent from scripted monologues, HAVE gotexistentials occur in similar numbers in dialogues and monologues, whereas got-existentials can be said to be restricted to dialogues. Apparently, the omission of the auxiliary is perceived as informal and not considered appropriate for unscripted monologues. In the even more formal scripted monologues, not even HAVE got-existentials occur. Recall that in ICE-GB spoken, forms with omitted auxiliaries are practically not used at all.

5.5.6 Summary GET-existentials are a feature of spoken informal language, and GET serves a much more limited role in expressing existential meaning in Jamaica than it does in Great Britain and Singapore. With regard to the subtypes, (HAVE) gotexistentials are part of standard spoken language use in Great Britain and Singapore, but not in Jamaica. Get-/gets-existentials are altogether less noticeable than (HAVE) got-existentials. They are most frequent in British English and the only reasonably frequent GET-existential in Jamaican English, where they occur about as frequently as in Singaporean English. Except for these few tokens of get-/gets-existentials, for which a predilection for a you + (modal) verb + get-chunk could be determined, possibly substrate-influenced, GET does not qualify for existential use in Jamaican English: no influence of Jamaican Creole on Jamaican English in the form of much higher token numbers of gotexistentials could be found. By contrast, major substrate influence has been proved in the case of Singaporean English. This is expressed in the use of zerosubject-got-existentials, unique to this variety, for the classification of which I have suggested 7 types retrieved from the data, with the so-called bare type, i.e. the one with an empty position before the verb and no further element except got and the theme, the most common one. Zero-subject-got-existentials stand out because they occur highly significantly more frequently in private dialogues than expected. The use of substrate-influenced existentials can even be claimed to lead to a less frequent use of there-existentials.

|| 54 Note that there is also an overuse of 13.1% of possessive (HAVE) got in unscripted monologues in ICE-SIN (cf. chapter 5.8.3).

146 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

There seems to be a relatively broad pool of existential constructions established overall in Singaporean English, which has the highest values of over- and underuses in the different text categories of all ICE corpora. British English exhibits a range of constructions similar to Singaporean English, though with less genre stratification, a predilection for HAVE got-existentials, more variability than the New Englishes in the use of there-existentials, and greater use of complements than the latter.

5.6 GET-PVs 5.6.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses Biber et al. (1999: 412–413) list GET as one of five verbs, the others being COME, GO, PUT, and TAKE, that are so common and unusually polysemous that they are most productive in forming particle verbs (PVs). Among the five verbs, GET and GO are most productive in being used with both adverbs and prepositions. In Biber et al.’s corpus, GET forms 6 phrasal and 5 prepositional verbs that occur over 10 times pmw; it thereby occupies the second and first position of all verbs respectively (1999: 413, 422). Because GET is one of the top high-frequency verbs and has a high propensity for PV use, the data analysis of LOB, FLOB, and the ICE corpora will not only allow conclusions on the development of PVs featuring GET over time and their current status in World Englishes, but also on the way the varieties make use of the PV structure in general. In the following, PVs will first be defined, and the framework applied to combinations of GET + particle in the present study will then be presented. Subsequently, the variational scope of GET-PVs will be detailed and hypotheses postulated. The major part will be devoted to the results from the data analysis. Defining the subtypes of verb + adverb/preposition combinations is a complex process. The constructions to be considered range all the way from relatively free literal combinations of verb + locative PP to firmly welded idioms where each element is fixed. In between, one finds a wealth of subtypes of semiliteral, semi-idiomatic, and fully idiomatic phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs, all with or without one or several objects. There is widespread agreement that clear distinctions in this area are not possible. The use of adverbs such as frequently, often, relatively, and usually abounds in definitions and descriptions, and often, the methodology of coding is not made explicit and definitions are evasive or examples inconsistent. This is understandable to a certain extent, given the subjective interpretation that has to enter whenever exclusively formal criteria do not suffice to delineate con-

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structions, as is the case with PVs. However, comparisons of studies are only of limited value if they do not take this definitional difficulty into account. A common and widely accepted differentiation is made between phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs. Phrasal verbs are verb + adverb combinations, prepositional verbs are verb + preposition combinations, and phrasal-prepositional verbs are verb + adverb + preposition combinations. This classification is also put forth by Quirk et al. (1985: 1150–1151), who define particles as morphologically invariable elements used in close association with verbs. The class comprises three subcategories: – class (A): elements that can function as prepositions only, e.g. at, for, into – class (B): elements that can function as prepositions or adverbs, e.g. about, in, past – class (C): elements that can function as adverbs only, e.g. away, back, together Class (A) particles require a following NP, while class (C) particles can only be used in an adverbial construction, i.e. without a following NP. Class (B) particles can be used in both prepositional and adverbial constructions, i.e. e.g. in He got past the house as well as in He got past. In the following, I will first review and assess definitions and analyses of PVs provided in the literature, taking Quirk et al.’s (1985: 1150–1168) classification of multi-word verbs as the baseline. Using this classification, I will outline the definitions and methodology I decided on, taking into account the focus on the verb GET and any research questions this involves. I will use Quirk et al.’s terminology but will indicate my own more specific criteria for classification, where idiomaticity will turn out to be a moot point. As will become clear, attempts to ignore the criterion of idiomaticity are not successful.55 A combination of a verb and a class (B) or (C) element is called a phrasal verb by Quirk et al. A phrasal verb can be transitive (e.g. get sth off) or intransitive (e.g. get by), depending on whether or not an NP in the function of a direct object follows. When the object is a personal pronoun, it has to follow the verb || 55 An exclusively formal approach to PVs is suggested by Palmer (1988: 215–239), for instance, who applies Quirk et al.’s terms to all combinations of verb and obligatory particle, even if they have a literal meaning. However, Palmer also concedes that for semantic reasons one should treat prepositional verbs as a special class. Since, apparently, one cannot achieve an integral classification of PVs without considering meaning, I believe that the semantic criterion should be applied to all subtypes of PVs from the beginning. Although some studies claim to use a “‘formal’ approach in order to eliminate […] subjectivity” (Nelson and Hongtao 2012: 203), they can in fact not do without semantic criteria (2012: 201–202).

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immediately and cannot be postponed (e.g. get it off). In terms of semantics, Quirk et al. state that phrasal verbs are usually idiomatic and, for unclear cases in between idiomatic and free verb-adverb combinations, allow for “semiidiomatic” combinations and state that the meaning of phrasal verbs is not necessarily semantically opaque (1985: 1156). In Huddleston and Pullum’s terms, phrasal verbs are verb-particle-object constructions. They explicitly allow for both non-idiomatic combinations (e.g. bring down sth with locative meaning) and idiomatic combinations (e.g. bring down the price). However, in the case of intransitive verbs, idiomaticity seems to be a prerequisite for phrasal verb status: when the verb is intransitive and the adverb is locative in meaning, Huddleston and Pullum always speak of a free combination (e.g. get out, jump off). Although idiomaticity describes the semantics of a construction, it has syntactic consequences. This means that the presence or absence of certain syntactic features can help determine the degree of idiomaticity of a construction, and often more objectively so than a purely semantic interpretation. The more idiomatic and lexicalised a phrasal verb is, the less likely it is able to undergo certain syntactic manipulations, such as the preposing of the particle (Down he sat vs. *Down he broke, cf. Palmer 1988: 226–228), insertion of an adjunct (climbed slowly up vs. *gave slowly up), or order alternation (He carried the chairs out vs. ? He carried the threat out; cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 284–285). In the present study, only verb-particle combinations with non-literal meaning will be called phrasal verbs, independent of the presence or lack of any objects. Biber et al. also claim to include only idiomatic combinations in their definition of PVs. However, a close look at the examples and the frequency counts provided (e.g. of get back, in, off, out, up; cf. Biber et al. 1999: 410–411, 423) indicates that they in fact often use the possibility of replacement by a single verb as a criterion for PV status, and not idiomaticity. They concede that [i]n practice, it is hard to make an absolute distinction between free combinations and fixed multi-word verbs; one should rather think of a cline on which some verbs, or uses of verbs, are relatively free and others relatively fixed. (1999: 403)

Biber et al. rightly and importantly refer to uses of words, which means that context and meaning have to be considered in any analysis of PVs. This has, however, clearly not been the case in many previous studies. Consequently, and because coding consistency between studies cannot be assumed, any comparisons between studies on PVs in general have to be treated with caution. In this vein, Thim (2012: 253) points to the lack of a consistent semantic and functional classification of PV constructions, which is the reason why quantita-

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tive diachronic and variationist studies carried out so far on this topic have not yielded many comparable data. Particularly for the differentiation between intransitive phrasal verbs and free combinations with an adverb, there are hardly any reliable structural indicators. For instance, for the combination of GET and out, the semantic context is necessary to determine the classification: I got out meaning ‘I got out of the house’ or ‘I got outside’ (meaning disambiguated with the help of the context) contains a free combination, while I got out meaning ‘I escaped’ or ‘I was freed’ (meaning disambiguated with the help of the context) is at least semi-idiomatic and contains a phrasal verb. Back, down, in, out, and up are examples of particles which frequently oscillate between a literal and an idiomatic meaning.56 A combination of a verb and a class (A) or (B) element and its complement is called a prepositional verb by Quirk et al. It can be of type I, i.e. without a direct object following the verb, or of type II, i.e. with a direct object following the verb. For the sake of simplicity, I will speak of intransitive prepositional verbs (e.g. get through sth) and transitive prepositional verbs (e.g. get sb through sth), respectively. This is unambiguous because I will call the NP following the preposition a prepositional object, it being the object of the preposition and not of the verb.57 Note that there is a difference between the two major reference grammars in that Quirk et al. prefer using the term prepositional verb for the whole verb-preposition combination, whereas Huddleston and Pullum use it for the verb only. I will follow Quirk et al. in this respect. Although idiomatic combinations seem to be “better” exemplars of prepositional verbs, both Quirk et al. (1985: 1156–1157) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 277–280) use the term prepositional verb for both idiomatic and non-idiomatic combinations, the basic criterion for prepositional verb status being a very much undefined association of, or bond between, verb and preposition. Granath summarises this situation:

|| 56 The examples Quirk et al. give to delimit phrasal verbs from free combinations of verb + adverb are inconsistent several times (cf. e.g. 1985: 1153–1154). Probably, frequency of use is an implicit criterion in Quirk et al.’s decision about what counts as a free combination and what as a PV. Also, the type of object (animate, inanimate, etc.) may play a role. 57 The reason why Quirk et al. see possible ambiguity is that they present two syntactic analyses for the combination of a verb, a specified preposition, and an NP: intransitive verb + preposition + prepositional object, or transitive verb + direct object. The second analysis as a transitive verb runs into problems in cases like He got me through the test, which would exhibit two direct objects, viz. me and the test, and be a ditransitive. For the sake of clarity, I will call an object determined by a preposition a prepositional object; it is then unproblematic to speak of transitive and intransitive prepositional verbs.

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Thus, although the term “prepositional verb” is frequently used by grammarians, its definition seems to be based on linguistic intuition concerning the lexical cohesion between the verb and a preposition and not on syntactic evidence. (1997: 58)

The bottom line is that semantics is the best criterion for differentiating between prepositional verbs and free combinations, with syntactic tests acting as helpful devices. This is why the decision was taken that all of the combinations of GET and preposition in the present study have to be idiomatic in order to be classified as prepositional verbs, such as get over sth ‘to begin to feel better, to recover’. A syntactic criterion that can help decide that a combination is an idiomatic prepositional verb and not a non-idiomatic free combination is the possibility of forming who(m)- and what-questions (i.e. questions with a pronoun wh-word), rather than when-, how-, why-, and where-questions (i.e. questions with an adverb wh-word) to ask for the PP (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1165–1166). Having determined that a combination is a PV, the question is how to distinguish between transitive phrasal verbs and intransitive prepositional verbs. For this purpose, Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 281–282) suggest five syntactic tests. Not all of them apply in all cases, but the simplest and best test is to determine whether the NP (the direct object in the case of phrasal verbs and the prepositional object in the case of prepositional verbs) can be replaced by an unstressed personal pronoun: if it can, the verb must be a prepositional verb. Since GET is highly polysemous and displays its meaning only in context – compare get on a plane with get on the phone and get over a difficult situation – it turns out that for an integral analysis of the combination GET + preposition, prepositional verbs must be delimited from two other categories. The first one contains more lexically filled combinations of GET and particle. These relatively frequent combinations are used in a metaphorical sense but the connection with the literal and core meaning of GET, viz. movement, is still clearly palpable because locative lexemes form part of the combination, as in get on top of sth meaning ‘to manage to deal with sth’, or get sb out of the way meaning ‘to dispose of sb’. These constructions are dealt with in chapter 5.7 under the heading of metaphorical motion. Quite a number of them are also idioms. I do not consider the combinations at stake as prepositional verbs because certain lexemes connected with the motion meaning are a fixed part of the combination, e.g. top or way. Examples of the second class of combinations which must be examined in this context are get the better of sb, get control of sb/sth, get the hang of sth, get hold of sb/sth, get a look at sb/sth, and get the worst of both worlds. These sequences consisting of GET, a fixed object NP, a preposition, and a prepositional object are collocationally closely linked or even fixed, but most of them are semantically fairly transparent. Since the PP is dependent on the NP

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rather than specified by the verb, these combinations are classified as monotransitive + adverbial and are dealt with in chapter 5.2. A combination of a verb, a class (B) or (C) element and a class (A) or (B) element with its complement is called a phrasal-prepositional verb by Quirk et al. It can be of type I, i.e. without a direct object following the verb, or of type II, i.e. with a direct object following the verb. Again, I will speak of intransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. get away with sth) and transitive phrasalprepositional verbs (e.g. get sth through to sb), respectively. It is important to note that a combination of a phrasal verb and a PP is not automatically a phrasal-prepositional verb. The decision between the two formally equal structures is determined by the question to what extent adverb and preposition form one unit. For instance, get away with sth, meaning ‘to succeed in not being punished’, is a phrasal-prepositional verb, while get on with sth is a phrasal verb followed by an adverbial because get on alone signifies ‘to continue’, with the PP only giving additional information. In the present study, the verb-adverb combination must specify the following preposition and the whole combination must be idiomatic for it to qualify as a phrasal-prepositional verb. The classification of elements such as into, onto, on to, out of, or outta as simple or complex prepositions or as combinations of adverb and preposition requires some comment since their classification determines the type of PV they constitute when they are combined with verbs, viz. prepositional verbs or phrasal-prepositional verbs. Orthography cannot be adduced as a reliable factor (cf. on to with onto, or out of with outta and into) so that I took pragmatic decisions, partially influenced by the frequencies of certain spellings: GET into = prepositional verb, GET on to/onto = phrasal-prepositional verb, GET out of/outta = phrasal-prepositional verb. It might seem like a handy way to solve problems of classification by consulting dictionaries of PVs. However, these dictionaries – for instance the Collins COBUILD Phrasal Verbs Dictionary (2002), the Longman Phrasal Verbs Dictionary (2000), and the Cambridge Phrasal Verbs Dictionary (2006) – have only loosely guided me in the classification of PVs and have not influenced any decisions in a rigid way. I mainly used them for pinpointing the meanings of specific combinations. The reason is that due to differing and loosely applied definitions, which are sometimes not even made explicit, the fact that a combination is included in one of the dictionaries listed above has no significance in itself. For example, Granath (1997: 64) found that for her list of over 3,800 prepositional verbs, the 1987 Collins dictionary and the 1987 Longman dictionary agreed in only about 40% of the cases. Clearly, phrasal verb dictionaries are mainly intended for learners of English. A linguistically watertight use of terms,

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let alone categorisation, is neither necessary nor intended for this purpose. Note that all of the dictionaries have the term phrasal verbs in their title but cover everything from phrasal over (phrasal-) prepositional verbs to free combinations. In fact, that a combination is listed in any of the dictionaries is no statement about the idiomatic or metaphorical status of the combination. The Collins COBUILD Phrasal Verbs Dictionary, for instance, specifically states that for 38 common verbs, among them GET, also literal combinations are included (2002: vi). It has become clear that the decision for or against PV status has to be taken individually for each use of GET. While idiomaticity can only be represented as a scalar property, for classification, certain cut-off points between free combinations and PVs need to be determined. For instance, get up can express a simple vertical movement, in which case it is used as a free combination, but will in most occurrences involve more than that, e.g. a process of waking up and getting out of bed, in which case it is used as a PV. Get on a train is arguably less idiomatic than get on well because a seme of physical movement will usually be activated in the former but not in the latter. However, its meaning is not simply ‘to move somewhere’, as would be the case in get to the zoo, let alone a physical movement onto the top of a train, but can be paraphrased by ‘to board’, which usually involves more than a simple movement, e.g. buying or showing a ticket. While all PVs considered in this study are idiomatic, combinations with fixed NP elements are one step higher on the idiomaticity scale and can additionally be classified as idioms (cf. chapter 5.11.4), for instance get in on the act, which is a phrasal-prepositional verb with the NP the act having become fossilised, meaning ‘to start taking part in an activity, often without being asked, to get sth for yourself’. Consider, in contrast, get sb through sth (e.g. in He got her through the test), which is a transitive prepositional verb because the structure is idiomatic and fixed, with the preposition selected by the verb, but does not qualify as an idiom because both NP slots can be variably filled, with the meaning of the PV staying similar, as in He got them through the winter.58 The devised framework for GET-particle combinations, applied to all corpora in the present study, is summarised in Table 5.21, which lists the subcategories of PVs as well as adjacent categories necessary for delimitation. Since for an integral analysis of GET, the classification cannot be restricted to a certain type

|| 58 Note that the category of aspectual PVs, while an important piece in the description of verbparticle structures (cf. Dehé 2000: 5–7; Thim 2012: 13–14), does not play a role for GET because particles which telicise or atelicise the event or express semes such as ‘from beginning to end’ or ‘again’ do not occur with GET.

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of verb-particle combination, which would make the set-up of a coherent framework much easier, and since a strictly formal definition of PVs is not successful, I suggest that idiomaticity should be a prerequisite for PV status and thus for the first three types of verb-particle combinations listed. Table 5.21: Framework for GET-particle combinations

type of combination

form

transitivity

meaning

example

phrasal verb

verb (+ NP) + adverb

transitive or intransitive

idiomatic

get off

prepositional verb

verb (+ NP) + PP

transitive or intransitive

idiomatic

get over sth

phrasalprepositional verb

verb (+ NP) + adverb + PP

transitive or intransitive

idiomatic

get down to sth

metaphorical motion, lexically filled combination of GET + particle

verb (+ NP) + PP

transitive or intransitive

semi-idiomatic, still strong links to a directional reading

get in sb’s way

monotransitive verb + obligatory adverbial

verb + NP + fixed PP

transitive

transparent meaning, but close collocational links

get control of sb

concrete motion, free combination

verb (+ NP) + PP / adverb

transitive or intransitive

concrete, directional

get to Singapore / there

It is surmised that PVs are affected by variation in World Englishes, but systematic large-scale studies in that domain have not been published and descriptions are mainly based on anecdotal observation, certainly also due to the difficulties of defining PVs and, arising from this, the incomparability of existing studies. Apart from the use of a narrow definition, I suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the exact forms and uses of PVs because differences will go unnoticed if similar frequencies are the result of counteracting tendencies, for instance a propensity for innovation vs. the reduction of complexity. There are several reasons why GET-PVs in World Englishes are especially worthy of investigation: first, their high frequency; second, the difficulties PVs

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pose to learners; third, the special linguistic status of PVs at the lexis-grammar interface; and fourth, the historical and sociolinguistic status of PVs, connected with idiomaticity, colloquialisation, and prescriptivism. I will explain these points in detail in the following and postulate hypotheses relating to variation in the use of GET-PVs in World Englishes as I proceed. First, because of the high frequency of GET in PV combinations, the 1 million-word corpora used in the present study yield enough types and tokens to allow meaningful quantitative conclusions about the behaviour of this verb. Kirchner (1952: xiv–xvi), in his treatise on the 10 major verbs of English, lists 56 idiomatic GET-PVs and points out that, at the time of writing, GET seemed to be the verb that allowed the most diverse combinations with different adverbs. After PVs had been superseded by Romance, Latin, and Greek words, he saw them very much on the rise again. I believe that two general trends affecting English have strengthened and will continue this historical development towards more frequent PV use, viz. analyticisation and colloquialisation. The trend in English towards analytic rather than synthetic structures (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 264; Biewer 2009a: 43) favours an increase in PVs: the meaning of a PV is spread across at least two elements, and these are often even separated by another element such as an object. Thus, in cases of rough functional equivalence with a simplex verb, the PV is the choice more in line with the general typological trend of English (cf. Smitterberg 2008: 285). Colloquialisation is known to be affecting English in general and can be assumed to promote the use of informal PVs, all the more those formed with GET. I therefore expect an increase in the frequency of GET-PVs from the 1960s’ LOB to the 1990s’ FLOB corpus (hypothesis 1). Second, due to their semantic and syntactic complexity, PVs are perceived as notoriously difficult by learners.59 Processes known to apply in SLA, e.g. the reduction of complexity, are therefore expected to lead to lower frequencies of GET-PVs in the New Englishes than in British English (hypothesis 2), all the more so since all of the PVs coded as such in this study are idiomatic and the use of idiomatic combinations requires special study and mastery of a language because meaning cannot be derived ad hoc but has to be deduced from several encounters with the combinations in use. Various empirical studies have found that learners prefer non-opaque simplex verbs to phrasal verbs. However, no agreement has been reached on the reasons for the avoidance of PVs: the absence or presence of PV-like structures in the first language, overall English

|| 59 The simplified use of the term second-language learners has been pointed out above.

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proficiency, and the frequency of certain PV types in English have been adduced as reasons as well as refuted (cf. Chen 2013: 420–421, 433). Further assumptions relating to effects of SLA are that a small number of simple, wellknown, and established forms are overused in the New Englishes, which can be explained by simplification and the lexical teddy bear effect (hypothesis 3), that the range of GET-PVs used is narrower in the New Englishes than in British English (hypothesis 4), and that British English exhibits a greater versatility in the use of GET-PVs than the New Englishes (hypothesis 5). These hypotheses receive empirical support by Zipp and Bernaisch (2012: 193), for instance, who have shown that the evolutionary status of varieties correlates with the range and frequency of occurrence of PVs with up in written texts. In line with a narrower range of GET-PVs in the New Englishes, it can be assumed that the meaning spectrum of GET-PVs is broader in British English (hypothesis 6). A data-driven descriptive account of the semantic fields in which GET-PVs occur will provide details and indicate concentrations of meanings. Third, PVs are situated at the lexis-grammar interface, a domain of language use known to be particularly susceptible to variation and innovation in World Englishes. It can therefore be expected that innovations also occur with GET-PVs in the corpora analysed in the present study. It needs to be considered, however, that the creation of new PVs is less probable for GET than for other verbs because no derivationally related noun exists that could strengthen new formations (cf. Nesselhauf 2009: 19–21). If new verb-particle combinations cannot be shown to be established, at least variation and insecurity in their use can be expected (hypothesis 7). Since it is notoriously difficult to decide where the cut-off point is between a new or innovative verb-particle combination and a performance error, especially if the data are limited, claims about nativisation have to be treated with caution. However, further data from BNCweb as well as native speaker evaluations will be used to back up the findings. In any case, the results will have the potential to suggest relevant factors in the study of PVs in World Englishes. In this context, the placement of the particle in transitive phrasal verbs featuring GET will be studied. It can be influenced by both effects of SLA, viz. the avoidance of complexity, and information structure. Fourth, “particle verbs have a special historical and sociolinguistic status in English, with possible ramifications in WE [World English] formation” (Schneider 2004: 229). Schneider states that many appeared in Early Modern English, as alternatives to Latinisms, with the education and class difference holding to the present day. In order to understand what the incidence of PVs can signify today, it is worthwhile to look at their historical development. What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that combinations of verbs and particle

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carried predominantly literal meanings in Early Modern English (cf. Smitterberg 2008: 271) and were not yet associated with great informality or a colloquial tone. In fact, these characteristics did not become associated with phrasal verbs before the 19th century and coincide with the idiomaticisation of certain combinations (cf. Thim 2012: 251). Although phrasal verbs have increased in writing over time, they have not lost their conversational and “oral” connotations. Morover, because of their lexical character – in contrast to the grammatical character of the progressive, for instance – PVs are easily noticeable and have also been directly affected by prescriptive and/or stylistic resistance (cf. Smitterberg 2008: 271, 286). These factors are expected to translate into a strong mode difference, i.e. into high frequency differences between the spoken and the written texts in the corpora (hypothesis 8). Since PVs are said to be particularly register-dependent, a fine-grained analysis of their distribution across genres promises to yield interesting results. As Smitterberg (2008: 269–270) shows, drawing on previous studies as well as on his own research, phrasal and phrasal-prepositional verbs60 increased in the 19th and the 20th centuries in the most informal written genres, which are comedies and private letters in the 19th century and newspapers in the 20th century – a development he accounts for by colloquialisation. Written genres that aim at a specialised readership and at conveying factual information, e.g. scientific writing, displayed no increase or became even less “oral”. For the present study, I therefore expect the most formal genres of written language, e.g. academic writing (cf. Zipp and Bernaisch 2012: 185; Biber et al. 1999: 409), to exhibit an underuse of GET-PVs. More informal written genres, such as fiction, however, and written genres prone to change, such as newspapers (cf. Hundt and Mair 1999: 236), are expected to indicate an increase in their use over time, in line with colloquialisation (hypothesis 9). Drawing on Zipp and Bernaisch (2012: 186) as well as Nelson and Hongtao (2012: 205), who report an overuse of PVs for fiction in World Englishes, and on Collins and Yao’s (2013) research on colloquialisation, the greatest overuse of GET-PVs in the ICE corpora is expected for private dialogues, with fiction and newspapers also displaying high values. In general, the New Englishes are expected to exhibit more stylistic homogeneity (cf. Hundt 2009: 127; Collins and Yao 2013), while British English is expected to be more genre sensitive (hypothesis 10).

|| 60 Smitterberg did not examine prepositional verbs. His terms denote idiomatic and literal combinations.

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– – – – – – – – –

–

In sum, the following hypotheses will be posited: Hypothesis 1 (frequencies, diachronic change): increase in the frequency of GET-PVs from LOB to FLOB Hypothesis 2 (frequencies, World Englishes): lower frequencies of GET-PVs in the New Englishes than in British English Hypothesis 3 (forms): overuse of simple and established GET-PVs in the New Englishes Hypothesis 4 (range): narrower range of GET-PVs in the New Englishes than in British English Hypothesis 5 (versatility): greater versatility in the use of GET-PVs in British English than in the New Englishes Hypothesis 6 (meaning): broader meaning spectrum of GET-PVs in British English than in the New Englishes Hypothesis 7 (forms, lexis-grammar interface): innovation, variation, and insecurity in the use of GET-PVs in World Englishes Hypothesis 8 (mode): conspicuous mode difference due to stylistic and prescriptive resistance against the use of PVs as well as GET Hypothesis 9 (genre, diachronic change): underuse in academic writing; colloquialisation of more informal written genres such as fiction and newspapers Hypothesis 10 (genre, World Englishes): overuse in private dialogues, fiction, and newspapers; greater genre homogeneity in the New Englishes than in British English

5.6.2 Results: frequencies In what follows, the results from the data analysis will be presented. Since GET is a highly frequent and multifunctional verb and is among the top verbs to be used in combination with particles, it is possible to extrapolate from the results obtained in this analysis to the general ability of the varieties to deal with fixed and idiomatic units that are PVs. In this context, it might seem tempting to measure the incidence and establishment of PVs by comparing their frequencies with the frequencies of simplex-verb alternatives (cf. e.g. Schneider 2004). However, several factors speak against this pragmatic procedure, which is why it will not be used here. As is well known, total synonymy does not exist and the meaning of a PV is usually much more complex than what can be captured by a simplex-verb alternative. In the case of GET, which is already highly polysemous on its own, an equation of one PV with one simplex verb is even more difficult

158 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

than in the case of other verbs. Moreover, stylistic differences would be glossed over in such an equation. Figure 5.23 gives an overview of the frequencies of GET-PVs in all five corpora. From LOB to FLOB, a slight diachronic rise in GET-PVs from 215 to 229 tokens can be detected. This means that 15.3% of all GET-tokens in LOB are used in PVs and 17.1% in FLOB. However, neither of the two differences between LOB and FLOB is statistically significant. While the popularity of GET-PVs seems to be unabated, no statistically significant rise in their use can be found in written British English and hypothesis 1 can only be partially confirmed. Spoken data can be assumed to indicate a stronger increase, pointing to waning prescriptivism against the use of GET-PVs and increasing colloquialisation as well as analyticity of the language in general. A look at absolute frequencies across ICE shows that ICE-GB is in the lead with 366 tokens, followed at a great distance by ICE-JA with 272 tokens and ICESIN with 203 tokens (cf. Figure 5.23). Of the three varieties, British English is clearly most inclined to use GET-PVs. Even the written British English corpora display higher figures than the mixed ICE corpus of Singapore. The difference between ICE-GB and each of the corpora of the New Englishes in the frequency of GET-PVs is statistically highly significant (ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p=0.0005, χ2=12.03, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=40.82, df=1). Hypothesis 2, the less frequent use of GET-PVs in the New Englishes than in British English, can be confirmed. Second-language learners have been shown to experience difficulties with phrasal verbs, with possible effects being “less overall frequency, avoidance of unknown forms, and overuse of known forms” (Zipp and Bernaisch 2012: 177). This can be explained by the syntactic and semantic complexity of PVs,61 so that their avoidance can be interpreted as a strategy to reduce complexity. Less stabilised varieties can also be influenced to a greater extent by prescriptive rules against the use of GET as well as informal PVs, reflected in the complaint tradition, particularly in Singapore, while prescriptive influence is said to be waning in inner-circle varieties.

|| 61 By semantic complexity, I here understand the fact that all PVs designated as such in the present study have an idiomatic meaning. For a detailed distinction between syntactic complexity and semantic and lexical complexity, cf. Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann (2012: 9).

GET-PVs | 159

400

366

350 76 300 250

272 215

229

58

200

58

150 100

203

290 215

229

written spoken

214 145

50 0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.23: GET-PVs (absolute token numbers)

The relative amount of PV use among all GET-tokens can give further information on differences across ICE: the difference between ICE-GB, which displays 10.2% of all GET-tokens in PV use, and ICE-SIN (7.4%) remains statistically highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=15.39, df=1), while ICE-GB (10.2%) and ICE-JA (10.4%) are now on a par (cf. Figure 5.24). This means that while for Singaporean English, one can readily adduce a strategy to avoid complexity as an explanation for the low number of GET-PVs, which are idiomatic and require a large amount of cognitive processing, this is less probable for Jamaican English because the percentage of PVs among the uses of GET is similar to that of British English. Rather, in the case of Jamaican English, the infrequent use of GET in general finds its logical consequence in low numbers of GET-PVs. Studies on PVs containing different verbal elements in Jamaican English have to clarify more general issues.

160 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

12

10.2

10.4

10 7.4

8 6 4 2 0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.24: GET-PVs in ICE (per cent of all GET-tokens)

It can be concluded that the significant differences between the corpora in absolute token numbers of GET-PVs have more to do with the characteristics of GET and less with the characteristics of PVs in the case of ICE-JA, and more with the characteristics of PVs and less with the characteristics of GET in the case of ICE-SIN. Previous claims about difficulties that users of ESL have with PVs, reflected in less frequent overall use, can be confirmed by my data for Singaporean English if one takes GET-PVs to be representative of PVs overall, an assumption possible because of the high frequency of GET. For Singaporean English, the fact that the phrasal verb structure is missing in Chinese (cf. Chen 2013: 433) could play an important part and contribute to the perceived complexity of the PV structure. Further support comes from a first look at mode differences in ICE (cf. Figure 5.23): GET-PVS are overrepresented in relative terms in ICE-SIN written. Since the written medium allows language users more time to process the language, this overrepresentation is a further sign that the perceived complexity of these constructions is higher in Singaporean English than in British or Jamaican English. Schneider’s claim (2004: 235–236) of a propensity for Singaporean English to use PVs cannot be confirmed at all by the present data.62

|| 62 It needs to be borne in mind that Schneider’s (2004) conclusions are based on a selection of only 20 PVs, of which 9 did not yield any data, and that the results can be very much influenced by chance occurrences of certain types. Moreover, the PVs chosen are exclusively intransitive phrasal verbs, which means that the conclusions that Schneider draws are actually not generalisable for the group of PVs as a whole.

GET-PVs | 161

5.6.3 Results: forms, range, versatility, and meaning The following analyses will show whether there are differences in the use and range of certain types of GET-PVs in varieties of English, whether the strikingly high frequency in ICE-GB correlates with a high versatility of use and a broader meaning spectrum, and in what way insecurity in the use of PVs can be traced.63 The overall leading position of ICE-GB in terms of frequency of GET-PVs can be confirmed for each of the three subtypes of PVs, viz. phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs. Similarly, ICE-JA is always second, and ICE-SIN uses each subtype of PVs least frequently. As to the share of each of the three subtypes of all GET-PVs (cf. Figure 5.25), one can detect the same ranking in all three varieties, with phrasal verbs forming the largest group and phrasal-prepositional verbs forming the smallest group. However, in ICEGB, the distribution across the three types is more even than in the New Englishes. While the percentage of prepositional verbs is similar in the three varieties, phrasal verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs are the types that seem to be responsible for a British English-New English divide (p=0.004, χ2=10.98, df=2). Their use will be considered in greater detail.

ICE-GB

42.3%

29.2%

28.4% phrasal verbs

ICE-JA

53.3%

ICE-SIN

51.7%

28.3%

18.4%

prepositional verbs phrasal-prepositional verbs

0%

20%

26.1%

40%

60%

22.2%

80%

100%

Figure 5.25: Types of GET-PVs (per cent of all GET-PVs)

|| 63 In line with the hypotheses, I will focus on the ICE corpora for these analyses.

162 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Although PVs are in general a complex language phenomenon, phrasal verbs, particularly intransitive ones, are the simplest among them: only one particle follows the verb, no prepositional object is present, and in the case of intransitive phrasal verbs, not even a direct object. In ICE-JA and ICE-SIN, phrasal verbs make up more than half of all GET-PVs, while in ICE-GB, they constitute only slightly over 40% (cf. Figure 5.25). Within the phrasal verb class, intransitive ones are in the majority in all three ICE corpora. While they account for 69.0% and 69.5% in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, respectively, in ICE-JA, their share, at 83.4%, is even higher. The differences between ICE-JA and the other two corpora are statistically significant (p=0.002, χ2=9.86, df=1). Thus, within the GETPV group, the simple phrasal verbs are more frequent in the New Englishes than in British English, with intransitive phrasal verbs scoring remarkably high in ICE-JA. The other type of PVs where relative distributions differ across ICE is phrasal-prepositional verbs. Phrasal-prepositional verbs are presumably the most difficult kind of PV to process: two particles follow the verb and contribute to the meaning, and a prepositional object is always present. The share of phrasal-prepositional verbs is highest in ICE-GB with 28.4%, lower in ICE-SIN with 22.2%, and even lower in ICE-JA with 18.4% (cf. Figure 5.25), with the difference between British English and Jamaican English being statistically significant (p=0.003, χ2=8.58, df=1). A look at the mode distribution of phrasalprepositional verbs (cf. Table 5.22) reveals that the two New Englishes have a larger share of this type in written language, where language users have more processing time, than in spoken language. This contrasts with British English, where this share is smaller in the written subcorpus. Again, only the Jamaican English result is statistically significant (p=0.001, χ2=10.16, df=1, φc=0.19). This means that in the variety where phrasal-prepositional verbs are the least frequent type of GET-PVs, they are, when they occur, overrepresented in written language compared to the other two varieties. Table 5.22: Mode distribution of phrasal-prepositional verbs featuring GET in ICE (per cent of all GET-PVs)

spoken subcorpus

written subcorpus

ICE-GB

29.3 > 25.0

ICE-JA

14.5 < 32.8

ICE-SIN

21.4 < 24.1

GET-PVs | 163

To summarise, the findings suggest that simple GET-PVs, such as phrasal verbs, are overrepresented in the New Englishes, while complex GET-PVs, such as phrasal-prepositional verbs, are underrepresented as compared to British English. Jamaican English is more extreme in this tendency and makes particularly frequent use of the simplest type, viz. intransitive phrasal verbs, and particularly infrequent use of the most complex type, viz. phrasal-prepositional verbs. When the more complex PVs are used in the New Englishes, they are preferred in written language, where language users have more processing time. The hypothesis that simple forms are overused in the New Englishes can be confirmed, particularly for Jamaican English. It will be clarified in the following whether the so-called teddy bear effect can also be said to be in place in the New Englishes in the use of GET-PVs. Zipp and Bernaisch (2012: 176–178), for instance, have shown that in Ghanaian English, PVs with the particle up are in general disfavoured compared to other varieties, but that the token number of the 5 most frequent PVs with up in the Ghanaian corpus constitutes a third of all PVs with up in this corpus, which is the highest share of all nine corpora under comparison. I determined the 5 most frequent types of GET-PVs and their token numbers in the complete ICE corpora from Great Britain, Jamaica, and Singapore (cf. Table 5.23), and also separately for the spoken and written subcorpora. It will be demonstrated that the Jamaican English use of GET-PVs is clearly influenced by the teddy bear phenomenon, i.e. that the most frequent GET-PVs are comparatively overused.64 Table 5.23: Use of the most frequent types of GET-PVs in ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-PVs)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

token number of the 5 most frequent types of GET-PVs

136

131

75

token number of all GET-PVs

366

272

203

per cent of all GET-PVs

37.2

48.2

36.9

|| 64 In the analysis, transitive and intransitive PVs formed with the same particle are treated as separate types of PVs for the sake of granularity. I did the same calculations irrespective of the transitivity of the PV to check any influence of this factor: the distribution of the results was the same, with the differences between ICE-JA written and all the other written (sub-) corpora being even larger.

164 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

In detail, Table 5.23 shows that while ICE-GB and ICE-SIN behave almost identically, with the 5 most frequent types of GET-PVs constituting about 37% of all GET-PVs in the respective corpus, ICE-JA stands out with a percentage of 48.2. This means that few GET-PVs are used particularly frequently in ICE-JA – these are the teddy bears the speakers know well and cling to – while the majority of combinations are used very infrequently. In ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, the distributions across the whole range of GET-PVs are more even. The 5 GET-PVs determined as the most frequent ones in each variety are listed in Table 5.24, with the specific subtypes as well as absolute token numbers provided. It can be seen that all of the 5 lexical teddy bears in ICE-JA are intransitive PVs, while in ICESIN, 1 of the 5 PVs (the one in 5th position) is transitive, and in ICE-GB, 2 are transitive (the ones in 4th and 5th position). Intransitive constructions are shorter and less complex than transitive ones, so the results corroborate claims about simpler constructions being favoured in second-language varieties. In Jamaican English, 3 of the 5 PVs are intransitive phrasal verbs, the simplest type of all PVs: GET along, GET through, and GET up. The analysis for the spoken and written subcorpora of ICE reveals that the teddy bear effect in Jamaican English holds for GET-PVs in both spoken and written language. The readiness to employ the same PVs over and over again is even higher in written (62.1%) than in spoken Jamaican English (48.6%).65 While the teddy bear effect only occurs in Jamaican English, in sum, hypothesis 3, the overuse of simple and established GET-PVs in the New Englishes, can be fully confirmed.

|| 65 Percentages have also been calculated for LOB and FLOB. The results of 43.3% and 46.3%, respectively, are remarkably similar to those of ICE-GB written and ICE-SIN written. This is further evidence that Jamaican English is the odd one out.

GET-PVs | 165

Table 5.24: Most frequent GET-PVs in ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

GET-PV

subtype

token number

GET into sth

intransitive prepositional verb

45

GET on

intransitive phrasal verb

34

GET up

intransitive phrasal verb

22

GET sth out of sth

transitive phrasal-prepositional verb

20

GET sb/sth into sth

transitive prepositional verb

15

GET up

intransitive phrasal verb

45

GET into sth

intransitive prepositional verb

45

GET through

intransitive phrasal verb

16

GET back to sb/sth

intransitive phrasal-prepositional verb

13

GET along

intransitive phrasal verb

12

GET into sth

intransitive prepositional verb

29

GET together

intransitive phrasal verb

12

GET up

intransitive phrasal verb

12

GET down to sth

intransitive phrasal-prepositional verb

11

GET sth out of sth

transitive phrasal-prepositional verb

11

Not only the distribution of the tokens on certain types of GET-PVs, but also the range of GET-PVs, i.e. the number of particles GET combines with, are of interest. Table 5.25 lists all details about the range of GET-PVs per subtype, separately analysed for the spoken and written subcorpora, with total types and token numbers also provided for the complete corpora.66 The results for the

|| 66 The following analyses, in line with the hypotheses, focus on the ICE corpora. However, the same categorisations and analyses as the ones for ICE were carried out for LOB and FLOB, with the results not indicative of any change in British English regarding the range of GET-PVs: the results differ in maximally 2 types per kind of PV, except for intransitive prepositional verbs, where FLOB has 10 different types and LOB only 6. Note at this point, too, that the results of LOB and FLOB do not surpass those of ICE-GB in any of the 6 categories of PVs. For this

166 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

number of types across ICE indicate that intransitive GET-PVs generally have wider ranges than transitive GET-PVs (17, 11, 15 vs. 11, 4, 6), with intransitive phrasal verbs occurring in the largest number of combinations of all GET-PVs. Of the 64 different idiomatic combinations of GET and particle found overall in ICE, ICE-GB yields tokens for 58 types, ICE-JA for 44 types, and ICE-SIN for 41 types. Apparently, in British English, GET-PVs are used most productively: not only are the token numbers highest of all corpora (366 tokens), but also the type numbers (58 types). The two New Englishes feature appreciably lower type numbers than British English, so that the hypothesis about the narrower range of GET-PVs in the New Englishes (hypothesis 4) can be confirmed. The individual idiomatic GET-particle combinations used in the three ICE corpora are listed in Table 5.26.67 Table 5.25: Types and tokens of GET-PVs in ICE

types across ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

spoken

written

spoken

written

spoken

written

types/ tokens

types/ tokens

types/ tokens

types/ tokens

types/ tokens

types/ tokens

itr phrv

17

15/81

6/26

11/94

8/27

12/49

9/24

tr phrv

11

11/38

5/10

8/24

0/0

8/25

6/7

itr prepv

11

10/70

4/18

8/60

4/11

6/33

4/11

tr prepv

4

4/16

1/3

2/5

1/1

1/7

1/2

itr phrprepv

15

14/66

5/15

10/27

7/14

7/23

5/10

tr phrprepv

6

1/19

4/4

2/4

1/5

2/8

1/4

total

64

55/290

25/76

41/214

21/58

36/145

26/58

58/366

44/272

41/203

|| analysis, the range of PVs was determined in the complete ICE-GB corpus and in LOB and FLOB: the maximum range of types increased slightly because LOB and FLOB feature some GETPVs that do not occur in the ICE corpora. 67 Note that for better readability, the direct objects of transitive GET-PVs (sb/sth) are not listed in this table and GET is not capitalised.

GET-PVs | 167

Table 5.26: Individual GET-PVs used in ICE per subtype

intransitive phrasal verbs

get about, get ahead, get along, get around, get away, get back, get by, get down, get in, get off, get on, get out, get over, get round, get through, get together, get up

transitive phrasal verbs

get across, get around, get down, get in, get off, get on, get out, get over, get through, get together, get up

intransitive prepositional verbs

get around, get at, get behind, get in, get into, get off, get on, get over, get round, get through, get to

transitive prepositional verbs

get in, get into, get off, get on

intransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs

get around to, get away from, get away with, get back at, get back into, get back on, get back to, get down to, get in on, get off on, get on to, get out of, get round to, get through to, get up to

transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs

get away from, get back on, get down to, get on to, get out of, get through to

Figure 5.26 is an illustration of the broader range of GET-PVs in British English than in the New Englishes for each of the six PV subtypes per region. As can be seen at first glance, the line for ICE-GB is the one closest to the top line, which gives the total number of subtypes across all three ICE corpora, and even touches it twice, which signifies that the range in British English equals the total range for transitive phrasal verbs and transitive prepositional verbs. The two lines for ICE-JA and ICE-SIN never surpass the line of British English, let alone touch the top line, which means that ICE-GB exhibits the widest range of GETPVs in all six subtypes of PVs distinguished. ICE-JA comes second of all corpora in all but two of the PV categories. It is surpassed by ICE-SIN only in the categories of intransitive and transitive phrasal verbs.

168 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

itr

tr

itr phrv

tr phrv

itr prepv

tr prepv

types across ICE

17

11

11

4

15

6

types in ICE-GB

15

11

10

4

14

4

types in ICE-JA

11

8

9

2

12

2

types in ICE-SIN

14

9

7

1

8

2

phrprepv phrprepv

Figure 5.26: Range of GET-PVs in ICE per subtype and region

That phrasal verbs, particularly intransitive ones, are the category where peculiar differences occur has been demonstrated above. Here, the phrasal verb category is the only one where ICE-JA is surpassed by ICE-SIN, which, apart from that, exhibits the lowest overall range as well as the lowest overall absolute frequencies of GET-PVs of all three corpora. Table 5.25 reveals a further peculiarity worth noting, viz. the difference between ICE-GB written and the other two written subcorpora in the category intransitive phrasal verbs, where British English is surpassed in type numbers by both New Englishes and in token numbers by Jamaican English. Note that all the intransitive phrasal verbs occurring in ICE-JA written and ICE-SIN written, but not in ICE-GB written, can be found in ICE-GB spoken. However, the fact that intransitive phrasal verbs in written language are the only type of GET-PVs where ICE-GB can reasonably be said to be equalled or surpassed in range supports the claim that complexity and processing time are factors that influence the use of GET-PVs in World Englishes, intransitive phrasal verbs being the least complex of all PVs. The leading role of ICE-GB in the range of GET-PVs cannot be contested at all. ICE-JA, and even more so ICE-SIN, have lower type numbers in all categories. The general claim that British English uses PVs in a broader range than New Englishes, suggested in previous studies, can thus be confirmed. In my data, phrasal verbs have been shown to be the only type of PVs where ICE-SIN surpasses ICE-JA in range and where ICE-GB written is surpassed in range by the

GET-PVs | 169

New Englishes. I suggest that the general trend of a wide range of idiomatic verb-particle constructions used in British English and a narrower range in New Englishes is potentially weak at one point only: that of the least complex type of PVs, viz. phrasal verbs, particularly intransitive ones. The occurrence of GET-PVs in a wide range of structures testifies to a high versatility of the variety concerned in the use of PVs. In the following, the use of GET-PVs in passives, with preposed object NPs, and in idioms, will be analysed. While all three structures are infrequent in general, taken together, they can be considered as evidence of a more versatile use, where I assume British English to be in the lead. Due to their lesser degree of stabilisation, the New Englishes are assumed to display fewer instances of versatile use. The results from ICE will be backed up by additional data from the much larger GloWbE corpus. Information on LOB and FLOB will also be provided. Figure 5.27 sums up the results from ICE and shows ICE-GB in front with 11 tokens and the New Englishes behind with 5 and 3 tokens, respectively. What becomes visible, for each structure, is that ICE-GB is in the lead or at least never surpassed by the other ICE corpora. Each of the three structures will be considered in more detail now.

12

11

10 8

idioms

8 6

5

4 2

2

0

1

1

3 1 1 1

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

4

preposed object NPs passives

Figure 5.27: Structures pointing to versatility in the use of GET-PVs in ICE (absolute token numbers)

Passive structures are associated with very formal style and can be assumed to be more complex than plain active structures in cognitive and syntactic terms (cf. Bulté and Housen 2012: 31), and all the more so in conjunction with a GETPV. Only 1 token each comes up in ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, and none in ICE-JA. In LOB, 3 tokens are found, and in FLOB, 1 token occurs. While no conclusive statement about versatility can be made based on these numbers, it is interest-

170 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

ing to know about the PV types as well as the text types in which the tokens occur. The single token in ICE-SIN is a transitive phrasal-prepositional verb and it occurs in the written part of the corpus, more specifically in instructional writing: There is so much that can be got out of story-telling (). This means that not only is the PV type the most complex one, but the token also occurs in a very formal text type. In LOB, 2 of the 3 occurrences contain a transitive phrasal verb, as in This was in 1744, and the performance was got up in honour of Margaret Woffington’s daughter Mary […] (LOB, G46 5253), while all other occurrences in the three British English corpora are prepositional verbs. In other words, the subtypes of passive GET-PVs occurring in the British English corpora are less complex and the tokens come up in the categories belles lettres/biographies/essays, fiction, and spontaneous conversation, respectively, i.e. text types which are all more informal than instructional writing. This might indicate that GET-PVs in the passive voice are integrated into more informal styles in British English, which points to a versatile use. The number of transitive phrasal verbs in which the position (pre- or postnominal) of the adverb cannot be determined because the object NP is preposed – most often because of the use of a relative clause – supports the assumption of the syntactically more flexible use of GET-PVs in British English, as in It’d be a hellish charge to get across in court (LOB, N26 149–150): there are 2 tokens of this type in LOB and 2 in ICE-GB spoken, but only 1 each in ICE-JA spoken and ICESIN spoken. The use of GET-PVs as part of a fixed sequence of elements listed in a dictionary of idioms (cf. chapter 5.11.4) further supports what has been said so far. There are 8 occurrences of GET-PVs that can additionally be classified as idioms in ICE-GB, 4 in ICE-JA, and only 1 in ICE-SIN. Examples are GET down to brass tacks, GET in on the act, GET into gear (ICE-GB), GET off to a flying start, GET one’s act together (ICE-JA), and GET one’s own back on sb (ICE-SIN). In sum, the data from LOB, FLOB, and ICE are indicative of a more versatile use of GET-PVs in British English than in the New Englishes, but token numbers are low, and any ranking of ICE-JA and ICE-SIN behind ICE-GB would be pure speculation. To make the conclusion more valid, I conducted an additional analysis of passive GET-PV structures in the megacorpus GloWbE for the regions Great Britain, Jamaica, and Singapore. There are some caveats: first, GloWbE contains exclusively web-based English; second, the search will not exhaustively retrieve all GET-PVs occurring in a passive structure because not every possible word order or combination of elements can be accounted for, only the most frequent ones; third, the search depends on the tagging of the corpus. I searched for the combinations are got, be got, been got, is got, was got, and were got followed by an adverb (tag “[r*]”) and cleaned the results to count only those combinations

GET-PVs | 171

where the adverb functions as a particle and where the resulting combination is in line with the definition of PVs used in the present study.68 Table 5.27: Passive GET-PVs in GloWbE (absolute token numbers)

corpus size

Great Britain

Jamaica

Singapore

387,615,074

39,663,666

42,974,705

retrieved

valid

retrieved

valid

retrieved

valid

are got + [r*]

5

3

0

0

0

0

be got + [r*]

64

42

0

0

2

0

been got + [r*]

13

9

0

0

0

0

is got + [r*]

5

1

1

0

0

0

was got + [r*]

13

7

1

1

0

0

were got + [r*]

8

3

0

0

0

0

108

65

2

1

2

0

total

Table 5.27 above shows that while the Jamaican and the Singaporean corpora hardly yield any tokens, GET-PVs are found 65 times in a passive structure in the British corpus.69 The differences between British English and each of the New Englishes are statistically significant (Great Britain and Jamaica: p=0.030, Fisher’s exact test; Great Britain and Singapore: p=0.003, Fisher’s exact test). Thus, the analysis of a megacorpus supports the indications from the analysis of LOB, FLOB, and ICE of a more versatile use of GET-PVs in British English than in the New Englishes. While neither analysis allows a ranking of the New Englishes, a British English-New English divide seems to be in place and hypothesis 5 can be confirmed. In what follows, the meanings of GET-PVs will be analysed, before variation and insecurity in the use of idiomatic verb-particle combinations are pinpointed, being reflected in the occurrence of possibly new combinations and the use of established combinations with new meanings or in new structures. When

|| 68 Although a search for the tag “[rp*]” (adverbial particle) is possible in GloWbE, I found that several adverbs, such as across and away, which can form GET-PVs such as GET sth across, were not considered in this more fine-grained search for adverbial particles. Therefore, I decided to search for adverbs in general and to clean the results for GET-PV uses. 69 For comparing the numbers, the different corpus sizes have to be taken into account here.

172 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

it comes to determining the meanings of GET-PVs, the methodological problem of which categories to delimit takes centre stage. While Schneider (2004: 242–243), for instance, pleads for the pragmatic solution of determining a finite set of paraphrases for each PV from the meanings provided in dictionaries and from any additional uses found in the complete dataset, I decided for a semantic analysis independent of paraphrases and explanations as suggested by dictionaries in order to avoid postulating any categories a priori or fixing a certain number of paraphrases for a specific verb-particle combination. While it would already have been very difficult to actually find a concise paraphrase for each meaning that occurs, this method would have led to an unmanageable amount of paraphrases in the case of GET-PVs. This is why I decided against paraphrases and instead formed semantic fields by using tags. These are specific enough to allow a differentiation between meanings, but broad enough to cover more than one PV in the majority of cases. In the following description, for ease of comprehension, in addition to the tags, paraphrases of typical meanings in the respective semantic field will be provided. In a few cases, one meaning, e.g. ‘to rise’ (tag “rise”), corresponds to one structure, here GET up. This applies particularly to high-frequency GET-PVs. However, the more usual situation is that one structure, e.g. GET into, occurs in several meaning categories, here ‘to enter a situation or phase’ (tag “enter”), ‘to become interested in sth’ (tag “interest”), and ‘to enter an institution or network’ (tag “network”). This reflects the fact that PVs are often highly polysemous, so that one structure can carry several meanings. Because of the corpus-driven methodology chosen, quite naturally, the set of semantic fields emerged only in the course of the analysis and interpretation of the tokens in context, and continued to change until all GET-PVs were coded several times for meaning. The aim was to arrive at a reasonably low number of categories which are still as specific as possible to allow meaningful conclusions. Idioms form a category of their own, and causative meanings received an additional tag (tag “_cause”). Meanings that turned out to be too specific to be added to a semantic field and that occurred only once were put into the category “other”. Any meanings that seemed to be innovative or unusual as well as unusual structures were additionally categorised separately and will be discussed in the section on possible innovations below. The final set of semantic fields of GET-PVs comprises 26 categories (+ idioms), listed in alphabetical order of the tags in Table 5.28, with absolute token frequencies for the semantic fields provided for each corpus as well as across all corpora.

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Table 5.28: Semantic fields of GET-PVs in ICE (absolute token numbers)

Semantic fields (tag)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

total

act/start

25

12

13

50

avoid/stop

8

2

2

12

board

19

4

9

32

communicate

4

3

5

12

communicate_cause

6

3

6

15

contact

5

12

8

25

continue/resume

34

12

10

56

cope

24

21

15

60

difficulty

7

8

6

21

difficulty_cause

7

2

1

10

enter

22

21

21

64

enter_cause

12

8

6

26

interest

9

6

1

16

leave

30

23

13

66

leave_cause

31

11

22

64

manage

23

20

12

55

manage_cause

8

2

3

13

meet/organise

8

9

12

29

meet/organise_cause

9

5

6

20

network

17

26

7

50

network_cause

6

4

5

15

other

6

2

1

9

other_cause

9

1

3

13

progress

3

2

2

7

reach

5

4

1

10

rise

21

45

12

78

idioms

8

4

1

13

366

272

203

841

total

The numbers in bold in the last column of Table 5.28 point to meaning concentrations of one or several GET-PVs across all corpora. Most frequently, GET is combined with a particle to express ‘to rise’ (78 tokens, tag “rise”), ‘to leave a situation, institution or phase’ (66 tokens, tag “leave”), ‘to enter a situation or

174 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

phase’ (64 tokens, tag “enter”), ‘to cause sb to leave a situation, institution or phase or to obtain profit from a situation’ (64 tokens, tag “leave_cause”), ‘to cope with a situation’ (60 tokens, tag “cope”), ‘to continue or resume an action’ (56 tokens, tag “continue/resume”), ‘to manage to do sth’ (55 tokens, tag “manage”), ‘to start an action’ (50 tokens, tag “act/start”), and ‘to enter an institution or network’ (50 tokens, tag “network”). The numbers in bold in the columns for the individual corpora indicate where a variety deviates from the overall distribution in absolute or relative token numbers. As noted above, idioms are most frequent in British English and less often found in the other two varieties. Moreover, the meanings ‘to start an action’ (tag “act/start”) and ‘to board’ (tag “board”) are underused in Jamaican English compared to British and Singaporean English, while the meaning ‘to talk to sb’ (tag “contact”) is overused in Jamaican English but rare in British English. The meanings ‘to enter an institution or network’ (tag “network”) and ‘to rise’ (tag “rise”) are firmly established in all three varieties but overused in Jamaican English. A use not well-established in ICE-SIN is that for describing an interest in an activity (tag “interest”), as in GET into reading, while meanings closer to the literal meaning of GET, viz. ‘to enter a situation or phase’ (tag “enter”) and ‘to cause sb to leave a situation, institution or phase’ (tag “leave_ cause”), are relatively overused in ICE-SIN. Another point to note is that British English is the variety that makes most use of further single meanings, both simple (tag “other”) and causative (tag “other_cause”), i.e. the range of meanings in ICE-GB surpasses that of the other corpora. These further meanings include ‘to take revenge’, ‘to buy sth’, ‘to borrow sth’, ‘to become excited’, ‘to support sb’, ‘to note sth’, and ‘to cause sb or sth to rise’. In the above analysis, preferred semantic fields of GET-PVs and meanings well-established in all three varieties were pointed out. Furthermore, the analysis pinpointed a broader meaning spectrum of GET-PVs in British English, in line with the large range of combinations determined above. Hypothesis 6 can be confirmed. Moreover, in British English, GET-PVs are not only used more frequently as idioms, but the GET-PVs carry more metaphorical meanings overall, e.g. ‘to continue or resume an action’ (tag “continue/resume”), ‘to start an action’ (tag “act/start”), or ‘to become interested in sth’ (tag “interest”), whereas in the New Englishes, a relative overuse of meanings closer to the literal movement meaning of GET can be found, viz. ‘to rise’ (tag “rise”), ‘to enter a situation or phase’ (tag “enter”), ‘to cause sb to leave a situation, institution or phase’ (tag “leave_ cause”), and ‘to enter an institution or network’ (tag “network”). Next, innovative GET-particle combinations as well as new meanings or peculiar uses of well-established GET-PVs will be discussed, followed by an

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analysis of the placement of the particle in transitive phrasal verbs. A British English-centred analysis is avoided as effectively as possible because every combination of GET and particle occurring in the corpora has been analysed for status and meaning. This is in contrast to studies which select PVs and paraphrases of their meanings from dictionaries, count these uses in corpora, and thus inevitably miss new uses. Since I am dealing with individual observations, claims about nativisation are not warranted. However, even single occurrences can point to relevant phenomena not considered so far, such as the mixture of existing combinations arising from an insecurity in the use of the respective original structures, or the modelling of new combinations on existing templates resulting from a tendency towards analogy. Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2006: 166) call the latter phenomenon nativised semantico-structural analogy if the use is established. Altogether, 3 tokens from ICE-GB, 4 from ICE-JA, and 6 from ICESIN will be discussed. The results from ICE-GB were backed up by a search in BNCweb. For ICE-JA and ICE-SIN, only those occurrences have been chosen where my analysis coincided with positive results from answers provided in questionnaires that I had distributed to native speaker informants from Jamaica and Singapore, respectively. In the questionnaires, speakers were asked to paraphrase and evaluate language samples from ICE. In the British English data, I found variation of GET-PVs in the oscillation of a class (B) particle between adverbial and prepositional use. The three oscillating uses in ICE-GB concern the particle over, and all occur in the spoken subcorpus. Because over is a class (B) particle, both phrasal and prepositional verbs can be formed with it, but the two types of PVs are usually clearly distinguished: GET over can be used transitively as a phrasal verb meaning e.g. ‘to communicate information to others’,70 and intransitively as a prepositional verb meaning e.g. ‘to begin to feel better after an unpleasant experience’. The usual restrictions on word order and substitution with pronouns apply. However, over is known to be a special kind of particle in combination with GET: the prepositional verb GET over sth is unusual in taking stress on the preposition. Normally, adverbs but not prepositions take stress in PVs, which means that the prepositional verb GET over sth already has some phrasal verb characteristics in its “standard” use. Oscillation of over between adverbial and prepositional use in combination with verbs other than GET has been reported on, and also through seems to be particularly prone to oscillating use (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 283).

|| 70 Meanings in this section are adapted from the Cambridge Phrasal Verbs Dictionary (2006).

176 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

In ICE-GB, however, I found oscillating use only for GET + over (cf. examples (32), (38), and (39)). To back up the results, the spoken part of BNCweb was searched for GET + over and the 167 results screened for potentially oscillating uses. In example (32) from ICE-GB, GET over is used with a meaning that does not occur in any of the other corpora and is not listed in that form or function in any of the dictionaries. It is used intransitively in the imperative as a reaction to a joke, with a meaning similar to that of Come on or Stop it. In BNCweb, too, GET over occurs intransitively in the form of a phrasal verb with that meaning 3 times, viz. in (33), (34), and (35). Other examples present this form with a meaning like ‘to go off to sleep’ (cf. example (36)) or ‘to cope with sth’ (cf. example (37)). Apparently, then, the prepositional verb GET over sth can, at least in spoken colloquial discourse, be stripped off its object to be used as an intransitive phrasal verb with varying meaning. (32) Why does it take ten women with PMT to change a light bulb I don’t know Because it just does Get over Anyway do you want to hear mine (33) but then I’m waiting, see I I got erm you know the big ones in the central root up there I’ve I’ve hired one of these there. Ah well that don’t take Brian get up there, she said well he’s taller than you, I thought No I ain’t. he […] Get over like I said she said that’s enough like you’ve gotta leave some room for a (BNCweb, KCT 5644–5648) (34) Ha, great turbo Watch out mind that granny Whey, shit Get over you twat Stop me with […] in reverse No, stop it, doing a fucking hundred mile an hour you cunt (BNCweb, KE5 515–521)

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(35) Me eyes are watering. You’re eyes are walking? Watering. Oh Oh they probably are walking at the moment. Yeah. Get over. Well I’m fairly discomknockerated if the truth be told. (BNCweb, KBG 3766–3773) (36) I was overtired and I couldn’t go off to sleep. And I remember saying one time to our doctor […] about being tired and the same thing happened, waiting on them coming in and then going to bed and I couldn’t get over Aye (BNCweb, KDN 5491–5494) (37) but you see when you smoke all your damn life what do you expect? The ironic thing is you can’t And he couldn’t stop it, I, I never get over when the doctor said to him if I were you I wouldn’t smoke, it’ll do you good not to smoke, so he didn’t, and he stopped it Yeah just like that crazy after what, forty odd years of smoking he stopped it just like that (BNCweb, KP1 4022–4026) Examples (38) and (39) from ICE-GB illustrate one and the same phenomenon. The form of the PV is that of a prepositional verb because the personal pronoun it and the demonstrative pronoun this, respectively, follow the particle over. However, the meaning in both cases is clearly not that of the prepositional verb GET over sth, viz. ‘to begin to feel better, to cope with sth’, but that of the transitive phrasal verb GET sth over [with], viz. ‘to do or complete sth’. In (39), the meaning could even be understood to be more concrete, viz. ‘to read’. That is to say, the particle over oscillates and leads to insecurities in use even in Standard British English: the form of the prepositional verb is merged with the meaning of the phrasal verb, leading to a mixture of two established PVs. Similar uses are found in BNCweb, as is illustrated by example (40).

178 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

(38) I think I recorded it because I probably couldn’t really uh see it at that time but uh I’ve gotten over it now but it it really is a good film (39) You just again need one command to reply uhm Having got over this uh read your message you then have to decide exactly what you want to do with it now (40) Oh we used to do one with erm the band, sometimes I’d get it right, others I wouldn’t, but like you’ve just said they come […] come up after and say, ah, that bit late for […] I, but you did it for […] Yeah, yeah, like I come down the other week and I […] Yeah […] I’m getting it, I’m getting over it very, very, very slowly (BNCweb, KCF 3742–3747) To sum up, two phenomena in connection with the combination GET and over can be found in British English: first, the newly formed intransitive phrasal verb GET over used like Come on/Stop it, with the meaning ‘to go off to sleep’, or with the meaning of the intransitive prepositional verb GET over sth, viz. ‘to cope with sth’; second, the established intransitive prepositional verb GET over sth with the meaning of the transitive phrasal verb GET sth over, viz. ‘to do or complete sth’. In the corpora of the New Englishes, no oscillating, but rather more innovative, uses are found. To back up what I considered peculiar uses in ICE-JA, three native speakers of Jamaican English were asked to evaluate the examples.71 The 4 remaining examples will be presented here, of which 3 occurred in the spoken subcorpus and 1 in the written subcorpus. They are: (41) You mean Mr Cousins has the money there and won’t pay He doesn’t have uh well uh all he needs to say is that he don’t get any money […] from Ministry of Finance […] Instead […] he’s trying to to use something to get off this

|| 71 Many thanks to Matthias Klumm for passing on the questionnaire.

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But […] why would Mr Cousins have an interest in doing this (42) I wanted to become a doctor but a guy slammed his head into a a door in high school and he s he so started bleeding and I almost fainted and so I have to get the fear of blood over first and then I can do it (43) […] but uhm as I said we found […] the quality getting getting off (44) My most recent visit to the controversial Haddo dump over in Walkers Wood, St. Ann, revealed that very little seems to have changed. There were scores of flies, white gaulins and of course crows hovering above dying creatures, I suppose to get into the act In example (41), the prepositional verb GET off sth is used with the meaning of the phrasal verb GET away ‘not to be punished’ or the phrasal-prepositional verb GET out of sth ‘to escape’. This reading is confirmed by all three native speaker informants, giving a more idiomatic meaning than the one suggested by the established use, viz. ‘to leave (a bus etc.)’. However, all three informants would use get out of this to express the meaning. Example (42) involves the particle over also encountered in the British English examples. However, here, the situation is the other way round: formally, the example contains a transitive phrasal verb; in terms of meaning, however, the meaning of the prepositional verb, viz. ‘to be able to deal with sth, to overcome sth’, is the one that fits. The meaning is readily understood and confirmed by all three native speakers. However, they would all prefer the standard ordering of elements, i.e. to get over the fear of blood. In example (43), talking about the quality of a printer, the speaker uses GET off as an intransitive phrasal verb with a meaning not listed in the dictionaries or used in any of the other corpora, viz. ‘to worsen’ or ‘to disappear’. All three native speaker informants readily understand the meaning in this way. Two of them would also use the PV exactly like that themselves, one of the three would prefer GO down. In example (44), GET is used in the established prepositional verb GET into sth. However, since the lexeme following is act, the native use from a British

180 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

English point of view would have been the idiom to get in on the act, which all three Jamaican informants would prefer. For Singaporean English, six native speakers evaluated peculiar uses found in ICE-SIN.72 Here, 6 tokens will be presented (cf. examples (45)–(50)), of which 4 are from the spoken subcorpus and 2 from the written subcorpus. (45) I called up and uh Rosrena told me that she’ll be resigning So I think the the whole thing got quiet off you know (46) Crazy so they got down happily (47) They have English one and Chinese one I should have asked for Chinese and English Then I try which one I get in (48) If you keep quiet and I get through this part okay you’re going to view a tape and you can get your own back on me get back on me because I used to nit nit-pick on everything right that you do (49) He stood in the middle of the sitting room and stared round - but it was no use, he could get up no feelings of regret, even recognition, for the home he’d once lived in. (50) Some guy from a pretty well-established litigation-powered firm I know socially from the Sub courts bar room actually tried to get me over, even though he hasn’t seen me at trial & even though I warned him I’m only half a year in practice Example (45) features the intransitive phrasal verb GET off carrying the meaning ‘to stop, to disappear’ or ‘to be hushed up’.73 This use is an expansion of the usual, more literal meaning ‘to leave’. Three of the six speakers confirm the expanded meaning, though none of them would use the combination.

|| 72 Many thanks to Raymund Vitorio for providing me with answers by three native speakers, and to Raymond Chan for distributing the questionnaire to another three speakers. 73 Also note the adverbial use of the adjective quiet.

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In example (46), they refers to people getting off a taxi, which means that the phrasal verb GET down is used where British English speakers would prefer GET off. GET down as an idiomatic combination usually means ‘to leave the table after a meal’ (speaking of children) in British English, or, more informally, ‘to dance’. That GET down is used with the meaning of GET off in Singapore is confirmed by all six native speaker informants. Some have commented that GET down is “tolerable”, “OK”, or “bad grammar”, and all of them prefer using GET off themselves or would use the combination only when speaking to fellow Singaporeans. One informant assumed influence from the Mandarin word for ‘down’ (xià). In example (47), revolving about tests, GET in is used as a prepositional verb with the meaning ‘to be admitted to’ or ‘to pass’. Formally, ambiguity arises with the transitive phrasal verb GET sth in ‘to fit sth in’. A clearer way of expressing the meaning intended would certainly be to use GET with the unambiguous preposition into. However, one informant states that this is common use in Singapore and that he would reconstruct the sentence only when speaking to a foreigner or a non-native speaker. Two informants would avoid confusion by reconstructing the sentence and leaving out the particle in. All in all, four speakers found the combination acceptable and two did not. In example (48), the speaker uses the idiom GET one’s own back on sb ‘to take revenge on sb’. But it is the combination immediately following this idiom which is at the centre of interest here, viz. get back on me. It is clearly used in the same meaning to reaffirm the statement. However, the PV established in British English for this use is GET back at sb, and not GET back on sb. This seems to be another case where a speaker mixes up two established PVs and moulds them into a new PV. The idiom GET one’s own back on sb is not understood by the majority of informants. It is probably distinctly British English and certainly not in common use in Singapore. The newly formed PV GET back on sb would not be used by any of the informants. It seems to be a one-off occurrence. In example (49), the transitive phrasal verb GET sth up, which is collocated with lexemes such as party, petition, or team in British English to mean ‘to organise sth’, is used with the object feeling of regret, yielding the meaning ‘to summon (up) sth’ or ‘to evoke sth’, which is certainly not a use typical of British English. The combination does not seem to be commonly established in Singaporean English either. Although five of the six informants had no problems understanding the meaning, all of them would avoid the combination and use stir up, summon, or summon up instead. Finally, example (50) features the transitive phrasal verb GET sb over with the meaning ‘to persuade sb to join’ or ‘to win sb over’. In fact, the PV win me

182 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

over could have served as a template for get me over as used in (50). None of the informants had problems understanding the phrase, but most of them would avoid using it themselves and prefer headhunt me or a paraphrase. Two informants state that the use of get me over is fine, one of them would complement the combination by to his firm/side. In conclusion, hypothesis 7, innovation, variation, and insecurity in the use of verb-particle combinations with GET in World Englishes, can be confirmed and explained by the fact that PVs are situated at the lexis-grammar interface. Tokens from the ICE corpora and BNCweb as well as native speaker evaluations have shown that combinations of GET and the particles in/into, off, and over are particularly susceptible to peculiar uses and variation in several varieties of English. In addition to this, more variety-specific tendencies can be pointed out: British English exhibits oscillation of the particle over between phrasal and prepositional use in GET (sth) over (sth). In the New Englishes, signs of beginning nativisation can be claimed for GET off meaning ‘to worsen’ in Jamaican English and for GET down meaning ‘to alight’ in Singaporean English. In ICESIN, insecurity in the use of GET-PVs has been shown in the fact that two established PVs are moulded into a new PV (GET back on sb) and that a PV is formed on the template of a PV that involves a different verb but the same particle (GET sb over). The following analysis is intended to bring to light whether there is variation in the placement of the particle in GET-PVs. Particle placement can only be studied for phrasal verbs, and only for transitive ones. For all other types of PVs, no option is possible. Among the group of transitive phrasal verbs, those with a preposed object because of a passive or a relative clause structure have to be omitted from the count, as the NP obviously does not follow the particle. Those with a pronominal object have to be left aside as well because pronominal objects stand before the particle as a rule. This reduces the amount of tokens to pairs such as get across their story, which displays the continuous or neutral word order, and get their story across, which displays the discontinuous word order. Complications of word order are known to arise with certain combinations of verbs and particles, some explicable by the wish to avoid semantic ambiguities. In the case of GET, the order verb–object–particle is for example fixed in transitive GET up: I got John/him up is the only order possible, although phrasal verbs normally also allow an NP object to follow the particle. However, *I got up John is not possible (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 286). Schneider carried out a small-scale study on particle placement in World Englishes and surmises “that in ESL or ‘Outer Circle’ varieties a principle is in effect to maintain proximity between verb and particle” (2004: 239) because

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syntactic discontinuity means unnecessary complexity, the avoidance of which is a strategy known to be applied in SLA. Dehé (2002: 4–5) argues that the alternation between the continuous and the discontinuous word order is not free but depends on information structure. Thus, the continuous order is used if the object is focussed, while the discontinuous order is preferred whenever the object is part of the background information (2002: 279). While a full pragmatic analysis of the tokens from ICE is beyond the scope of the present study, I do not want to discard this important point raised by Dehé. I will therefore use object length, a formal criterion, as an indicator of object focussing. This involves subtracting from the count of transitive phrasal verbs in the continuous order all those cases in which the object is so long that the discontinuous order would hardly be an option. This methodology omits from the count most cases where the continuous word order is chosen because of information structure, because objects that are particularly focussed are often long NPs. The numbers that have been subtracted from the count for the continuous order are 1, 2, and 3 for ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN, respectively. An example of such a subtracted token is the following one from the written Singaporean corpus: (51) Also, for quite some time now, he has gotten together a good team of thinkers and planners who have solid ideas and plans to improve our living and working conditions […] Figure 5.28 indicates that, in any case, the discontinuous structure, as in Well it helps to get some things down I find (), is by far the majority structure for transitive phrasal verbs featuring GET in all three varieties. I have also noted the cases of discontinuous order where the object is so unusually long that the continuous order would seem first choice: in ICE-GB and ICE-JA, there is 1 occurrence each, and in ICE-SIN, there are even 3 such tokens, e.g. But it’s a start in getting foreign expertise and hard tourist dollars in (). It is finally interesting to see that only 4 different particles are used in the continuous order: down, in, on, and out. All these observations lead me to the following conclusions: particle placement in transitive phrasal verbs featuring GET is discontinuous in the vast majority of all cases in all three varieties studied, viz. in 86.9% (53 of 61 tokens), so that Schneider’s assumption cannot be confirmed. In Singaporean English, the discontinuous order is even applied to long object NPs. The only variety where the continuous order is reasonably frequent (5 of 15 tokens) is Jamaican English, which has been shown to be less flexible in the use of GET-PVs in

184 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

general in the other analyses reported so far. The difference between ICE-JA and ICE-SIN is statistically significant (p=0.009, Fisher’s exact test), but that between ICE-JA and ICE-GB is not. While the avoidance of complexity remains a possible explanation for Jamaican English, if only to a limited extent, I suggest that the specific particle could play a much larger role for particle placement than has been assumed so far. It is probable that the continuous order is favoured for the particles down, in, on, and out because GET and these particles are already stored as chunks, due to frequent use as intransitive phrasal verbs: in intransitive phrasal verbs, the particle always immediately follows the verb. In fact, intransitive GET down, GET in, GET on, and GET out occur 90 times in ICE, while their transitive counterparts occur only 47 times.

23

25

20 20 15 continuous order

10 10

discontinuous order

5 5

3 0

0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.28: Particle placement in transitive phrasal verbs featuring GET (absolute token numbers)

5.6.4 Results: mode and genre The following section deals with mode and genre differences in the use of GETPVs. Diachronic developments as well as synchronic distributions will be described with the help of LOB, FLOB, and ICE. First, the distribution of GET-PVs across speech and writing will be detailed before an analysis of the interaction between GET-PVs and text type is carried out. Figure 5.29, which provides occurrences per 100,000 words, allows a direct comparison of all corpora and indicates that the written (sub-) corpora, with an average of 18.0 occurrences, have lower numbers than the spoken subcorpora

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across the board, in which the average is almost double, viz. 34.4 occurrences, so that hypothesis 8 can at first sight be confirmed.74 However, there are clear differences between the regional varieties in spoken language, particularly compared to the mild differences in written language. In British English, GETPVs are 2.5 times more frequent in spoken than in written English, in Jamaican English 2.4 times, and in Singaporean English only 1.7 times. While in British English and particularly in Singaporean English, the speech-writing ratio is lower for GET-PVs than for GET overall (3.1 : 1 and 3.0 : 1, respectively), in Jamaican English, it is slightly higher than for GET overall (2.2 : 1). This means that GETPVs are slightly overrepresented in spoken language in Jamaican English compared to other uses of GET in that variety. By contrast, in British and particularly in Singaporean English, other uses of GET are even more typical of spoken language. Since stylistic resistance against the use of PVs or prescriptive resistance against the use of GET in written language would have to be reflected in higher speech-writing ratios in all varieties, these factors do not seem to be strong enough to be at work here, except possibly in Jamaican English, where the absolute token number in written language is on a very low level.

50

45.5

40

33.9

30 21.4

23.8

22.8 17.9

20

14.2

14.0

spoken written

10 0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.29: Mode distribution of GET-PVs (tokens per 100,000 words)

|| 74 The larger number in LOB and FLOB as compared to ICE-GB written can be explained by the high percentage of fictional texts represented in LOB and FLOB. Fiction (categories K–R) constitutes 126 texts each in LOB and FLOB and thus more than 25% of the whole corpora. In ICE, fiction is represented in only 20 texts and constitutes 10.0% of the written subcorpus, or 4.0% of the whole corpus.

186 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

GET-PVs are more complex than many other structures in which GET occurs. It can therefore be concluded that the complexity of PVs is the strongest factor in determining the mode distribution of GET-PVs, and particularly so in Singaporean English. The small amount of processing time available in spoken language counteracts a more frequent use of semantically and syntactically difficult verb-particle combinations, while in written language, where language users have more time to select and combine language elements, absolute token numbers exhibit only mild differences, and no major difference between the varieties can be detected in the range of GET-PVs. Note in this context that Singaporean English varies in that the range of types is only 1.4 times higher in ICE-SIN spoken than in ICE-SIN written, while for ICE-GB and ICE-JA, the range in spoken language is about double that in written language (cf. Table 5.25 on page 166). Token numbers in both spoken and written Singaporean English are surprisingly low, so that in the case of GET-PVs, there is absolutely no indication of colloquialism. In fact, GET-PVs could be relatively more associated with elaborate registers and formality in this variety. Table 5.29 shows the detailed results of the genre analysis of GET-PVs in LOB and FLOB. The development of the difference between expected and observed percentages in academic writing from LOB to FLOB reveals a growing underuse of GET-PVs in this genre, with figures changing from 11.3% to 14.7%. Academic writing, the most formal written genre, seems to be unaffected by colloquialisation in the form of GET-PVs in British English. Apparently, GET-PVs have been and remain too informal for this genre. For fiction, a very informal written genre because it contains much spoken language, an increase in overuse from 21.8% to 32.4% can be determined. The results for newspaper language (categories A–C), however, do not yield signs of an increasing use of GET-PVs, despite the claim that this is the genre most responsive to changes in the direction of orality in late 20th-century English (cf. Hundt and Mair 1999: 236). The increase from 35 to 39 tokens is insignificant. The diachronic data indicate that there is a widening gap between the most formal and the most informal written genres in the use of GET-PVs, but for newspaper language, no increase has been detected. Hypothesis 9 can only be partially confirmed.

252,000 1,000,000

Fiction (K, L, M, N, P, R)

TOTAL

6.0

60,000 160,000

Instructional writing (Miscellaneous) (H)

Academic writing (Learned and scientific writing) (J)

15.4

154,000

Belles lettres, biographies, essays (G)

3.4

100

25.2

16.0

19.8

34,000 198,000

Press reviews (C)

54,000

Popular writing (religion, skills, popular lore) (D, E, F)

5.4

88,000

Press editorials (B)

8.8

GET-PVs expected %

Press reportage (A)

WRITTEN

number of words

100

47.0

4.7

1.9

14.0

16.3

3.3

7.0

6.0

LOB observed %

2.6 1.3 57.6

-4.1 -11.3 21.8

100

7.0

-1.4

0

3.5 14.4

-3.5

2.2

-0.1

11.4

1.6

FLOB observed %

-2.8

LOB difference %

Table 5.29: Expected and observed distribution of GET-PVs in LOB (N=215) and FLOB (N=229)

0

32.4

-14.7

-3.4

-8.4

-5.4

0.1

-3.2

2.6

FLOB difference %

0

27.1

-13.0

-3.8

-4.9

-4.5

0.0

-0.8

-0.1

mean difference %

GET-PVs | 187

188 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

The genre analysis of GET-PVs in ICE supports previous claims that the stratifications of register are relatively uniform across varieties of English (cf. Zipp and Bernaisch 2012: 169). In the case of GET-PVs, the mean differences in the last column of Table 5.30 can be used to obtain a quick overview because the direction of the genre dependence of GET-PVs is similar for all corpora, with the regional differences lying mainly in the degree of genre dependence. Here, however, British English is most extreme, as was hypothesised: the standard deviation calculated per region indicates the highest value for ICE-GB (8.0) and lower values for the New Englishes (ICE-JA: 6.8, ICE-SIN: 4.7). This means that British English displays the most heterogeneity and deviates most from an equal distribution of GET-PVs across genres, while the New Englishes display greater genre homogeneity. Nevertheless, differences between individual text types are pronounced in all varieties. The most conspicuous result in the spoken ICE subcorpora is the clear overuse of GET-PVs in private dialogues (on average 17.4%). Thus, GET-PVs are in line with the general claim that PVs are highly frequent in conversation, and this applies to all ICE corpora, but most to ICE-GB (23.7%). With an average of -3.9%, scripted monologues, the most formal of the spoken genres, register the lowest value in ICE spoken, which indicates a less frequent usage than expected. This underuse of GET-PVs in scripted monologues applies to all ICE corpora, but again to the greatest extent to ICE-GB (-4.8%). In the written ICE subcorpora, an obviously less frequent use than expected can be determined for academic writing, student essays and exams, and popular writing. All varieties display the same behaviour, but ICE-GB has the most extreme numbers most of the time. The result of the less frequent use of GET-PVs in academic writing (on average -7.6%) confirms the assumption about the inappropriateness of GET-PVs for this genre in all varieties. In student essays, GET-PVs are also underused (-3.8%), presumably in an attempt to approximate to academic writing standards: the writers aim to signal that they master the genre’s conventions. Popular writing is not known to specifically favour or disfavour PVs, so that the underuse of GET-PVs in this genre (-4.4%) can at present only be explained by general semantic characteristics of GET.75

|| 75 The data from LOB and FLOB support the underuse of GET-PVs in popular writing (on average -4.5%).

160,000 140,000 100,000

Public dialogues (S1B)

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

Scripted monologues (S2B) 40,000 60,000 80,000 80,000 40,000 40,000 20,000 40,000 1,000,000

Student essays and exams (W1A)

Letters (W1B)

Academic writing (W2A)

Popular writing, non-academic writing (W2B)

Press reportage (W2C)

Instructional writing (W2D)

Press editorials (W2E)

Fiction (W2F)

TOTAL

WRITTEN

200,000

Private dialogues (S1A)

SPOKEN

number of words

100

4.0

2.0

4.0

4.0

8.0

8.0

6.0

4.0

10.0

14.0

16.0

20.0

100

3.6

1.9

1.9

1.9

3.6

0.0

7.9

0.0

5.2

14.2

16.1

43.7

2.9 0.7 1.1 1.8 7.4

-4.4 -2.1 -2.1 -0.1 -0.4

100

0.7

-8.0

0

0.0

7.7

6.6

17.3

0.2 -4.8

1.9

14.7

0.1

-4.0

39.0

23.7

0

3.4

-0.2

-2.9

-3.3

-5.1

-7.3

0.6

-4.0

-2.3

3.3

-1.3

19.0

100

5.9

2.0

2.0

3.9

4.4

0.5

9.4

0.5

5.4

19.2

17.2

29.6

0

1.9

0.0

-2.0

-0.1

-3.6

-7.5

3.4

-3.5

-4.6

5.2

1.2

9.6

0

1.6

-0.1

-2.3

-1.8

-4.4

-7.6

2.0

-3.8

-3.9

2.9

0.0

17.4

GET-PVs ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean expected observed difference observed difference observed difference difference % % % % % % % %

Table 5.30: Expected and observed distribution of GET-PVs in ICE-GB (N=366), ICE-JA (N=272), and ICE-SIN (N=203)

GET-PVs | 189

190 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

For fiction, the assumed overuse in ICE is mild, but extant, with an average of 1.6%.76 For newspaper language, however, no overuse can be determined. In addition, the regional differences in absolute frequencies of GET-PVs in newspaper language are insignificant. Apparently, this genre is too formal to allow the encroachment of GET-PVs, which are probably perceived as even more informal than other PVs because the informality of PVs is combined with the informality of GET. Prescriptive tendencies might therefore have a stronger influence. The findings are in line with Biber et al. (1999: 409), who note that (particularly intransitive) phrasal verbs are extremely rare in news. In conclusion, the genre analysis has shown that the genre dependence of PVs known from other studies also applies to GET-PVs. A widening gap between the genres fiction and academic writing has been determined. While the direction of genre dependence is similar across regional varieties, there is a greater genre sensitivity in British English contrasted with a more homogeneous distribution across genres in the New Englishes. The claim that greater stylistic homogeneity is a feature of outer-circle varieties has thus received further supportive evidence from the data on GET-PVs. While GET-PVs are readily used in British English fiction, their frequency is apparently not increasing in British English newspapers, nor are GET-PVs overused in newspaper language in any variety. This means that except for the part on newspapers, hypothesis 10 can be fully confirmed.

5.6.5 Summary The analysis of

GET-particle

combinations has indicated that the popularity of Singaporean English present much lower frequencies. Both type and token numbers are larger in spoken than in written language in all varieties. Complexity and cognitive processing time are adduced as factors hampering a much more frequent use of GET-PVs in spoken language, and particularly so in Singaporean English. For Jamaican English, the infrequent use of GET in general is reflected in low types and token numbers of GET-PVs. GET-PVs is unabated in British English, while Jamaican and

|| 76 Note that in Table 5.30, expected and observed percentages are calculated across all spoken and written text types. Because GET-PVs are more frequent in spoken language in absolute terms, this means that even low positive values for written text types equal a significant overuse within written language.

GET as a verb of motion | 191

Effects of SLA can explain the fact that in terms of subtypes, the simpler phrasal verbs are preferred in the New Englishes, while British English exhibits a more even use of all types of PVs. British English also displays the widest range of combinations, the most versatile use, and the largest pool of meanings in which GET-PVs are used, including highly metaphorical meanings. In both New Englishes, by contrast, meanings closer to the literal movement meaning of GET seem to be preferred. Moreover, in Jamaican English, a small number of frequent PVs are used particularly often (teddy bear effect). The particles in/into, off, and over in combination with GET have been found to be particularly susceptible to variation and deviation in all varieties, as well as the subtype of intransitive phrasal verbs, which I claim is the least complex type of all PVs. Insecurity and variation in the use of GET (sth) over (sth) has been detected in British English, and innovative uses have been pointed out for the New Englishes with GET down and GET off. Particle placement has been shown to be mainly discontinuous in all varieties studied. Finally, the use of GET-PVs is clearly dependent on mode and genre in all varieties. The complexity of PVs has been adduced as the strongest factor in determining the mode distribution of GET-PVs. In the genre analysis, British English presents more extreme values than the New Englishes in the majority of cases. In contrast to newspaper language, for which there are no signs that GETPVs are becoming more frequent, fiction seems to be colloquialising. Moreover, GET-PVs are overused in private dialogues and underused in student essays and exams, academic writing, and popular writing.

5.7 GET as a verb of motion In this chapter, the use of GET as a verb of motion will be analysed. The description will start with concrete motion and proceed with metaphorical motion. Mode differences will be described subsequently. Syntactically, the constructions are copular and complex-transitive constructions of the type SVA and SVOA, respectively (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 53; also cf. chapter 5.3). When GET carries a meaning of concrete motion – a use attested from the late th 14 century onwards (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 36) – it is complemented by an AdvP or a PP, as in get somewhere and get to a place, respectively. Both constructions can occur in a causative version, i.e. with a direct object placed between GET and the locative complementation, as in get sb/sth somewhere and get sb/sth to a place, respectively. Examples of the simple and the causative version from the corpora are And Indonesia just can’t get out of their own half at the moment () and Lock the cat in, prepare the sausages and the parkin, get the children outside […] (). Figure 5.30 provides absolute token numbers from the data analysis in all corpora. No statistically significant difference can be detected between LOB and FLOB, so that no diachronic change is suggested. This is confirmed by normalised numbers and percentages of both the simple and the causative concrete motion construction in ICE-GB written, which are very much in line with the results from LOB and FLOB.

400 353 350 300 250 200

104

38

135 249

176

50

causative concrete motion

54

181 35

150 100

232

214

simple concrete motion

33 178

146

102

0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.30: GET as a verb of concrete motion (absolute token numbers)

In ICE, GET as a verb of concrete motion occurs 353 times in ICE-GB, 232 times in ICE-JA, and only 135 times in ICE-SIN. The differences are considerable, all statistically highly significant,77 and indicate that GET is less frequently used as a verb of concrete motion in the New Englishes than in British English, least in Singaporean English. In terms of the percentages that the uses constitute of all GET-tokens, ICE-GB and ICE-JA (9.9% and 8.9%) behave similarly, while the differences between ICE-SIN (4.9%) and the other two corpora are statistically highly significant.78 The percentages reflect the fact that ICE-JA has fewer occurrences of GET overall and show that concrete motion is an important meaning

|| 77 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=22.67, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=89.45, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=23.98, df=1. 78 ICE-SIN and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=53.65, df=1; ICE-SIN and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=33.32, df=1.

GET as a verb of motion | 193

facet of GET in British and Jamaican English, but plays a significantly smaller role in Singaporean English. Whether there are differences between the simple and the causative use of GET as a verb of concrete motion will be the object of the following analysis. First, simple concrete motion will be looked at, as in we caught the evening boat and we got there and we changed some money (). In the three ICE corpora, simple concrete motion is a meaning of GET used considerably more often in ICE-GB (249 tokens) than in ICE-JA (178 tokens) and ICE-SIN (102 tokens) (cf. Figure 5.30). The differences between the corpora are all statistically significant.79 Simple concrete motion is a meaning more than twice as frequent in ICE-GB as in ICE-SIN, for instance. As above, in the share of all GET-tokens, the difference between ICE-GB (7.0%) and ICE-JA (6.8%) is insignificant, while the differences relating to ICE-SIN (3.7%) are highly significant.80 A detailed look at the form of the elements expressing the direction or destination reveals that ICE-SIN is conspicuous in a further respect: PPs are more often used than adverbs in ICE-SIN (54 : 48, or 1.1 : 1), while all the other corpora display a clear majority of adverbs, with the ratio in ICE-GB being very much different with 95 : 154 (or 0.6 : 1) and that of ICE-JA again in between with 77 : 101 (or 0.8 : 1). Examples of typical use in ICE-SIN are: They spread all over Singapore so other HDB owners can easily get to them () or Like how to get to this place or something like that you know (). In many cases, replacement of the PP (here to them and to this place, respectively) by a shorter adverb (e.g. there) would easily be possible without a loss of semantic content. I suggest that the use of PPs instead of synonymous adverbs in ICE-SIN reflects a tendency known from New Englishes worldwide to use more salient elements. What is important is that the increase in salience does not entail an increase in complexity: the sequence preposition + personal pronoun will hardly be perceived as more complex than the use of an adverb. In fact, the use of a PP even follows a further principle favoured by New Englishes, viz. the principle of isomorphism (cf. Steger and Schneider 2012: 157), because the meaning is split up into the indication of the direction (preposition) and the location itself (NP), and not merged in one adverb. That is, conceptual structure and surface form are transparently mapped one to one.

|| 79 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p=0.001, χ2=10.42, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=56.21, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=19.34, df=1. The difference between LOB and FLOB is insignificant. 80 ICE-SIN and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=31.28, df=1; ICE-SIN and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=26.19, df=1.

194 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

The picture given by simple concrete motion is corroborated when one considers causative concrete motion, as in Well if you’re interested get yourself there before this Sunday […] (). In ICE-GB, there are 104 tokens, in ICE-JA 54, and in ICE-SIN 33 (cf. Figure 5.30). All differences are statistically significant.81 For instance, causative concrete motion is more than three times as frequent in ICE-GB as in ICE-SIN. In the share of all GET-tokens, the difference between ICE-GB (2.9%) and ICE-SIN (1.2%) is the only one which is highly significant (p≪0.001, χ2=21.37, df=1). The use of PPs is again very frequent in ICE-SIN (19 : 14, or 1.4 : 1), as in […] once it comes in and I get everything sorted out I will get this to you […] (), with ICE-GB having reverse frequencies (48 : 56, or 0.9 : 1), and ICE-JA lying again in between with an equal amount of PPs and adverbs (27 : 27, or 1.0 : 1). Figure 5.31 illustrates the formal realisation of the complement in both the simple and the causative types of the concrete motion construction in all three ICE corpora and shows the cline towards more frequent PP use from ICE-GB to ICE-SIN. The bars in the graph indicate relative frequencies, but absolute frequencies are also given on each individual bar. The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN attains statistical significance (p=0.007, χ2=7.28, df=1).

ICE-GB

143

ICE-JA

210

104

PP

128

adverb ICE-SIN

73

0%

20%

62

40%

60%

80%

100%

Figure 5.31: Formal realisation of the complement in the use of GET as a verb of concrete motion (absolute token numbers)

|| 81 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p=0.0001, χ2=14.84, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=34.2, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p=0.030, χ2=4.71, df=1. The difference between LOB and FLOB is insignificant.

GET as a verb of motion | 195

In an overview, there seems to be a stable use of GET as a verb of concrete motion in British English, with no indications of any diachronic change. A difference is very much in place between the ICE corpora, however, with GET being less frequently used as a verb of concrete motion in the New Englishes than in British English, and with more salient PPs more frequently used as complements in the former than in the latter. All differences are parallel for simple and causative uses. Of the two New Englishes, Singaporean English is much more distant from British English than Jamaican English in all respects. In Singaporean English, GET as a verb of concrete motion plays a significantly smaller role than in the other two varieties both in absolute and in relative terms. The constructions analysed in the following are metaphorical uses of GET as a verb of motion. Just as for concrete motion, they comprise two basic types of constructions: GET followed by an AdvP, as in example (52), and GET followed by a PP, as in example (53). In both types of construction, GET is used in a metaphorical sense, but the connection to the literal meaning of movement is still present.82 The lexeme way that occurs in the PP in (53), for instance, has a clear connection to the semantic field ‘movement’, but the whole expression is not to be understood literally but metaphorically as ‘to bother sb’ or ‘to prevent sb from doing sth’. (52) So if you go to this organisation and you let them know that listen I know X and X you’ll get the job or you’re getting further than if you just go there and sit and not knowing anybody (53) Uhm personally uh-uh-uh the way you people dress on campus well I shouldn’t say people ladies dress on campus personally […] it bother me but then they don’t get in my way so I don’t bother trouble them The two types of constructions presented so far can also occur in a causative version, i.e. with a direct object intervening between GET and the metaphorically used locative complement, as in Flattery might get you everywhere Wilf () and We’ll do it on Saturday and get it out of the way (), respectively.

|| 82 I consider the constructions of metaphorical motion to be semi-idiomatic. They are therefore classified as having an intermediate degree of idiomaticity in chapter 5.11.4.

196 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Logically, all constructions of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion, except GET + adverb in the simple version, can have an NP firmly welded in a certain position and thus be additionally classified as idioms, e.g. GET sb off the hook in the utterance Liberal Democrats certainly do not believe that the Government have got themselves off the hook with this new council tax (). Since these are the most frequent type of idioms formed with GET, they will be treated in more detail in the chapter on idioms (chapter 5.11.4). Figure 5.32 illustrates the occurrence of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion in all corpora. The figures for British English (LOB and FLOB, confirmed by ICE-GB written) indicate no diachronic change, neither in the simple nor in the causative construction, and any differences are statistically insignificant. Across the ICE corpora, however, a picture even more extreme than the one found for the concrete motion use of GET emerges. The most frequent use occurs in ICE-GB and the least frequent use in ICE-SIN, with ICE-JA in between. ICESIN, for instance, has much less than half the occurrences of ICE-GB or ICE-JA. While the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-JA is statistically insignificant, ICE-SIN is highly significantly different from ICE-GB and ICE-JA.83 The same goes for the share of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion of all GET-tokens: ICEGB (3.7%) and ICE-JA (4.2%) behave similarly, while the differences between ICE-SIN (1.8%) and the other two corpora are statistically highly significant.84 The number of simple metaphorical uses of GET in ICE-JA (94 tokens), which even surpasses that of ICE-GB (85 tokens), should not be overestimated. Quite a number of these tokens are repetitions of the same sentence. Since the repetitions consist of whole utterances and the complementation patterns of the verb forms are complete, the respective tokens could not simply be dismissed but were counted as separate tokens.85

|| 83 ICE-SIN and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=34.36, df=1; ICE-SIN and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=22.36, df=1. 84 ICE-SIN and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=19.83, df=1; ICE-SIN and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=27.54, df=1. 85 The example of idioms among the metaphorical motion construction will illustrate the situation: among the 13 tokens in ICE-JA, there are only 6 different types. Among the 7 idioms in ICE-GB, by contrast, there are 6 different constructions.

GET as a verb of motion | 197

140

131

120

110 46

100 80 65

60 27

causative metaphorical

70

motion

24 85

40 20

16

38

46

LOB

FLOB

94

49 11

simple metaphorical motion

38

0 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.32: GET as a verb of metaphorical motion (absolute token numbers)

While the use of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion can be considered more complex than the use of GET as a verb of concrete motion semantically, the use of GET as a verb of causative metaphorical motion adds another aspect of complexity, viz. syntax, so that this use is complex in two respects: semantically, the verb is used in a causative figurative way; syntactically, a direct object intervenes between the verb and the adjunct. While it has been shown that Singaporean English hardly makes use of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion in general, Jamaican English is very hesitant about using the causative version of metaphorical GET. British English, by contrast, has the highest figure for the metaphorical motion meaning of GET and the highest share of causative uses. As the proportions of the bars in Figure 5.32 illustrate, in the share of causative constructions, the British corpora are at the top (LOB: 41.5%, FLOB: 34.4%, ICE-GB: 35.1%), while Jamaican English (14.5%) lags behind, with Singaporean English (22.4%) ranging in the middle. The British corpora behave similarly, while the only obvious difference across ICE emerges between ICE-GB and ICE-JA (p=0.0003, χ2=13.24, df=1, φc=0.23).86 For the description of mode differences in the use of GET as a verb of motion, concrete and metaphorical uses are considered together (cf. Figure 5.33). This is because the distributions are practically identical for these two uses: GET as a verb of motion is more frequent in the spoken than in the written subcorpora,

|| 86 The formal realisation of the complement in the use of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion will not be described separately due to the relatively low token numbers.

198 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

with multiples ranging from 2.0 to 2.2. It can be assumed that in written English, GET, because of its vagueness regarding various criteria such as the means of locomotion, is replaced by more concrete lexemes. However, the preference for spoken language is smaller here than for GET in general. That is to say, GET as a verb of motion is, compared to other uses, relatively more frequent in written language than in spoken language in all corpora. This is reflected in the speechwriting ratios, which are lower for all corpora in this use (ICE-GB 2.2 : 1, ICE-JA 2.0 : 1, ICE-SIN 2.2 : 1) than for GET in general (ICE-GB 3.1 : 1, ICE-JA 2.2 : 1, ICE-SIN 3.0 : 1).

70 58.5

60 50

40.7 40 30

27.7

spoken 24.9

26.2 20.8

23.0

written

20 10.6 10 0 LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.33: Mode distribution of GET as a verb of motion (tokens per 100,000 words)

To summarise, the data display a stable situation in the use of GET as a verb of motion in written British English. Across ICE, it could be shown that a frequent use of GET as a verb of concrete motion also means a frequent use of GET as a verb of metaphorical motion: British English is clearly at the top of both uses. The less inclined a variety is to use GET as a verb of concrete motion, the less inclined it is also to use GET as a verb of metaphorical motion: Singaporean English displays the least uses of both constructions, while Jamaican English exhibits a moderate use. In the use of the most complex construction analysed in this chapter, the causative use of metaphorical GET, Jamaican English is last. The formal realisation of the complementation in the use of GET as a verb of simple and causative concrete motion is about equally often a PP as it is an adverb in ICE-GB, while the New Englishes, particularly ICE-SIN, display a preference for more salient PPs. Compared to other uses of GET, the motion use is

GET as a verb of motion | 199

relatively more frequent in written language than in spoken language in all varieties, but still more frequent in absolute terms in spoken language. One can therefore conclude that GET is readily used as a short verb of motion in British English. This is not so much the case in the New Englishes, particularly not in Singaporean English, which is even more distant from British English than Jamaican English. If one ranks the three World Englishes as represented in ICE according to their frequencies of GET as a verb of motion, the sequence is the same as for GETPVs. Although Jamaican English displays the lowest number of GET-tokens overall, it comes second after British English in the use of GET-PVs and GET as a verb of motion. Since the PV use of GET is in most cases a metaphorical use of locative GET, if highly idiomatic and fixed, one can safely conclude that the use of GET as a verb of motion, both concrete and metaphorical, is less established in Jamaican English than in British English, and very poorly developed in Singaporean English. A minor class of constructions that needs to be mentioned for the sake of completeness is that of metaphorical combinations of GET and an obligatory adverbial in the form of a PP for which a classification of GET as a verb of motion seems plausible and intuitive because of the surface form, but where the connection to a locative meaning is much less obvious than in the cases presented so far because the complementation, usually the specific lexeme used in the complementation, does not allow this semantically, as in By the time […] it gets to my paper I mean I shall fall asleep (), Message Pad trying to get on terms but not making much headway (), or […] but when Haiti got to sugar production […] ().87 Frequently, the phrases used are so firmly welded in their position that the combinations are listed in a dictionary of idioms, e.g. GET to grips or GET in touch. The constructions can occur in a causative version, but only the British corpora yielded tokens, e.g. I got it to the right thickness () or the idiom in I’ll get them in touch with you in a couple of weeks time (). Simple and causative constructions considered together, 16 tokens occur in LOB, 15 in FLOB, 33 in ICE-GB, 22 in ICE-JA, and 7 in ICE-SIN. One can again see a clear sequence of most tokens in ICE-GB and least tokens in ICE-SIN, with ICE-JA ranging in the middle, and the written corpora showing a less frequent use in general.

|| 87 Nevertheless, because of their form, these constructions are subsumed under “motion” in the overview in chapter 5.1.

200 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

5.8 Possessive (HAVE) got 5.8.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses In the domain of stative possession, GET features in the expressions HAVE got and got. The main and most obvious alternative to the use of these forms is HAVE, whose origins for the expression of possession can be traced to the late 10th century (cf. Tagliamonte 2013: 141). It is the oldest of the three forms and still the most common one. Below, possessive HAVE got and got will be analysed in British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English. The data from the ICE corpora will be the focus of the analysis, with LOB and FLOB providing additional information on diachronic change. The first occurrence of HAVE got with a meaning of stative possession can be dated to a use by Shakespeare in the year 1596 (OED 2009: s.v. “get, v., 24.”). HAVE got was originally only possible as the perfect tense of GET but then it emerged as a “fortification” (Givón and Yang 1994: 134) of the possession sense of HAVE, became present in meaning and became frequent in this function in the 19th century (cf. Tagliamonte 2013: 145).88 According to Burchfield (1996: 330), HAVE got developed because language users felt the need to insert an element between HAVE and the object NP after the cliticisation of HAVE in the possessive use had become the norm, i.e. He’s got it was used in order to avoid *He’s it as a reduced form of He has it (also cf. Chalcraft 2009: 69). Examples of HAVE got before 1700 are ambiguous between the onset and the continuation of possession, as in but I thanke god, I have got good securitie for my mony (Knyvett, Letters, 1621, quoted in Gronemeyer 1999: 25), but approximately with the 18th century, the unambiguous stative possession sense of the construction HAVE got is grammaticalised (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 25). Nevertheless, the combination HAVE got can also be ambiguous in PresentDay English. Consider example (54), where HAVE got remains Janus-headed and both the perfect and the present interpretation are possible. The construction in the second sentence of (54) acts as a hinge between the first and the third sentence and can therefore be interpreted from both perspectives. The first sentence, uttered by speaker B, is in the present tense, which suggests a present tense interpretation also for the following HAVE got-token, uttered by speaker A.

|| 88 There is one exception to the fact that there are no comments on GET-constructions in prescriptive grammars of the 19th century, viz. the use of HAVE got in the place of HAVE: the addition of got to the verb HAVE is considered superfluous and the use of HAVE alone is prescribed in 19thcentury grammars (cf. Anderwald 2012a: 39).

Possessive (HAVE) got | 201

However, in the third sentence, speaker A uses an unambiguous perfect form of the verb DO and this retroactively emphasises the agentive and perfective meaning component of HAVE got: (54) It’s terrible Oh I’ve got all mine I have to say that I have done all mine Got is a very recent form for the expression of stative possession. Tagliamonte (2008: 120) dates it to the mid-19th century. Givón and Yang point out that GET competes with HAVE “in a complex functional and socio-linguistic distributional space” (1994: 146) and is replacing it, or has taken over some senses of it, in the semantic areas of possession and causation-manipulation. When got is used for the expression of stative possession, the originally meaning-carrying element HAVE is synchronically replaced with an element that is past in form but present in meaning. Diachronically, stative got can be explained as a direct result of the advanced grammaticalisation of HAVE in HAVE got: HAVE deteriorated both semantically and phonetically and pulled got towards stative use in a process of dragchain (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 26). When HAVE is dropped in the last step of the reanalysis of got, the main verb construction with got is assigned present tense, as in […] I got two weeks after the exams […] (). The present time reference of got may not always be clear without a context, however. This is illustrated by the following example from ICE-SIN, where the meaning of you got, ambiguous between a dynamic past meaning and a stative possessive meaning, is clarified by the following unambiguous stative [y]ou have: (55) How much is it a text I mean to you mean a recorder or the renting You mean you got a recorder You need a recorder You have a recorder I don’t I’m using my word when I stay at my friend’s house so I’m using his recorder Gronemeyer (1999: 26) assumes that an underlying auxiliary HAVE (cf. footnote 47) is always present in the structure. The auxiliary certainly has to resurface if a speaker wishes to use a question tag, as in the first sentence of example (56) from LOB. Also note the last sentence, where possessive have needs to be used because got does not allow preposed emphatic do:

202 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

(56) “Yes. Got a bit of paper there, have you?” This was for the benefit of the tape recordings, rather than a straight inquiry. “Ah, yes, sir. I do have a piece of paper here. (FLOB, B06 31–34) The variation between possessive HAVE and possessive HAVE got is said to differentiate regional varieties of English. While HAVE is extremely common for the expression of possession in all varieties of English, its extension by got is restricted to certain regional varieties, particularly British English, and there it is preferred in negative and interrogative clauses (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 131; Johansson and Oksefjell 1996: 65). The use of HAVE got increased dramatically in 19th-century British English, but in usage guides, there was no prescription for any form (cf. Tagliamonte 2013: 141, 145). In British English conversation today, HAVE got is about as common as HAVE alone to express possession, according to Biber et al. (1999: 466).89 For American English, by contrast, the situation is quite different. In the early 20th century, HAVE got was perceived as an error by American writers, it was stigmatised in American English usage guides, and the usage of HAVE was overtly prescribed. Prescriptivists claimed, for instance, that HAVE got must necessarily imply acquisition (cf. Chalcraft 2009: 64). In American English conversation today, HAVE got is much less frequently used than HAVE (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 467).90 There are also distributional restrictions on certain forms as well as semantic and stylistic differences between HAVE and (HAVE) got. For instance, the infinitival use of HAVE got is less frequent than the infinitival use of HAVE (cf. Kirchner 1952: 240). In fact, to have got occurs only twice in ICE-GB, viz. in examples (57) and (58), and not at all in the corpora of the New Englishes, while the base form without to occurs once in ICE-SIN, viz. after a modal in example (59).

|| 89 Unfortunately, Biber et al.’s counts are unclear at many points. They do not seem to differentiate between a truly perfective use, as in I have got ill, and a possessive use. I will therefore not cite any figures given by them. 90 As regards further regional differences, note that some conservative British dialects have retained high levels of HAVE for encoding stative possession to the present day, and that Canadian English displays an increasing use of HAVE, progressing towards a categorical use (cf. Tagliamonte 2013: 142, 145).

Possessive (HAVE) got | 203

(57) I think like an MBA uh in industry and commerce it’s as well to have got some feel for what what life out there is like (58) When I look around at my friends, virtually all of them seem to have got careers. (59) Have to connect to ground what Don’t connect to ground how Must have got return path what Participial use occurs 4 times, exclusively in ICE-GB spoken. One of the examples is: (60) Uh and then having got that at the end of the day it’s got to be your decision anyway Thus, the nonfinite use of HAVE got seems to be very rare in all varieties of English, but particularly in the New Englishes. Tagliamonte points to the fact that there are internal constraints for the use of HAVE vs. HAVE got, demonstrating with the help of historical data from the 18th to the 20th century as well as British dialect data that HAVE is more frequent with abstract objects, while HAVE got is more frequent with concrete objects (2008: 120). Apart from the type of object, the form of the subject also seems to play a role. Tagliamonte (2014) claims that NP subjects typically entail HAVE, while HAVE got is more likely to be used with pronoun subjects. Furthermore, HAVE got cannot be used to express iterative meaning, nor can it be used in light verb constructions or in dynamic senses (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 132) as can HAVE in HAVE a look or HAVE breakfast. Finally, style can influence the choice between possessive HAVE and possessive HAVE got, with the latter being more informal than the former (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 5; Quirk et al. 1985: 131). The distribution of possessive got is not entirely clear even in inner-circle varieties. It is considered American (cf. Tagliamonte 2008: 120) and even seems to be increasingly used as a main verb in colloquial American English, having been used as such in African American Vernacular English for quite some time (cf. Chalcraft 2009: 63). This means, for instance, that DO-support applies in negation, as in I don’t got leather seats (Chalcraft 2009: 64). What seems to be certain is that possessive got is considered very informal and, at least in written language, nonstandard (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 132).

204 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

The aim of the following analyses is to detail the status of HAVE got and got as expressions of stative possession in British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English. In order to be able to explain why these varieties differ in the use of possessive (HAVE) got, it is necessary to take several points into account. I claim that three factors are decisive: first, alternative constructions for the expression of possession will influence the use of (HAVE) got; second, substrate influence will be at work in the New Englishes and can influence the frequency of a certain expression; third, issues of SLA will play an important part in the choice of expressions in the New Englishes. I will expand on each of these factors in turn in the following, and it will become clear that they interact. The ICE corpora are designed as representative and balanced corpora of English, with region as the main variable. Because the corpora are fed by the same text types, one can assume that the need to express possession is approximately similar in all corpora. This means that differences in absolute token numbers of (HAVE) got are telling on their own. However, it cannot be ruled out that in a corpus of 1 million words, the topics of specific texts distort the balance and make possession a more frequent topic in one corpus than in another. Note in this context the difference between LOB (91 tokens) and FLOB (123 tokens),91 which could certainly be due to a rising importance of (HAVE) got but which could also be due to a different thematic composition of the corpora. Therefore, in order to determine the status of (HAVE) got as a means of expressing possession in a given variety, it would be ideal not only to provide the absolute and normalised token numbers of (HAVE) got that express stative possession but also to provide the percentages that these tokens constitute of all expressions of possession in the respective corpus. Clearly, this is in essence an impossible task to undertake without analysing a given database completely for meaning. If one contents oneself with the presumably most common expressions of possession and uses an automated search to retrieve the respective tokens, the problem, unfortunately, is not solved. This is because the main alternative to (HAVE) got as an expression of possession, viz. HAVE, is exceptionally frequent and has many other uses, e.g. auxiliary use or light verb use, where (HAVE) got is not an alternative and that would have to be omitted from the count. This would require a study of its own with the semantic analysis of tens of thousands of tokens and is hardly feasible without a tagged or parsed corpus. It will turn out, however, that the results from ICE are telling as they are. The reason is that the differences between the corpora in terms of absolute token numbers of (HAVE)

|| 91 This difference is significant: p=0.028, χ2=4.81, df=1.

Possessive (HAVE) got | 205

got are so exceptionally large that it is practically impossible for these differences to be due only to differently large numbers of expressions of possession in the respective corpora. In regard to the second factor, the lexemes used to express possession in Jamaican Creole and Colloquial Singapore English are expected to influence standard language use. In the Dictionary of Jamaican English, no information on possessive (HAVE) got is given, in contrast to the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, where got (and the more informal gat) is described as being used with a possessive meaning in the Caribbean in place of, or as an alternative to, Standard English HAVE, “often used absolutely, with some/none/it being understood as unstated object” (Allsopp 1996: 264). Farquharson (2013b) gives the example sentence Jan gat wahn haas ‘John has a horse’ for Jamaican Creole. While Jamaican Creole yu gat frequently has existential meaning, a construction with a pronoun other than yu, dem, or wi will be more likely to mean ‘to have’ than to bear existential meaning.92 Assuming that the substrate influences standard language use, I expect to find many tokens of got carrying stative possessive meaning in ICE-JA. Bailey (1966: 97) reports that, besides gat, the combination of the equating verb a and a possessive fi-phrase typically expresses a possessive relationship in Jamaican Creole, as in Da hous-de a fi tiicha ‘That is the teacher’s house’. However, this latter structure is certainly too marked for it to surface in ICE-JA and is not expected to influence standard language use. For Colloquial Singapore English, both HAVE and got are provided in APiCS Online as possibilities for expressing transitive possession. Consider Lim and Ansaldo’s (2013b) examples I have a gold ring and I got gold ring, both meaning ‘I have a gold ring’. Lee et al. (2009: 295) add that the possessive use of got in Colloquial Singapore English takes no inflections and has no alternative forms. In a process of relexification, Standard British English has got, simplified into got, was used to relexify the uses and meanings of u in Hokkien, and, to a lesser extent, of jau in Cantonese and ada in Malay. Evidence can be found in the many uses where Colloquial Singapore English got and Hokkien u correlate, for instance in expressing habitual aspect, completive aspect, emphasis, and existential meaning. The innovative use of uninflected possessive got in Colloquial Singapore English can confidently be added to this list of uses influenced by the

|| 92 This means that the same verb can be used in Jamaican Creole to express possession and existential meaning (cf. chapter 5.5.1), which is the situation typical of most pidgins and creoles. It also holds for Colloquial Singapore English, with the difference that there is an alternative form for both the existential verb (viz. the forms of BE) and the transitive verb of possession (viz. the forms of HAVE).

206 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

substrates (cf. Lee et al. 2009: 300–310). Got was selected among other possible candidates because of its invariable form and its salience (cf. Lee et al. 2009: 311–312). As regards the standard variety, it is probable that influence from Colloquial Singapore English becomes apparent in a high frequency of possessive got in ICE-SIN. The use of got in many other functions in Colloquial Singapore English, not only in the existential function as in Jamaican Creole, could also strengthen its possessive use. However, since the British English model can be assumed to be still important in educated language use, HAVE got is also expected to play a major role in the expression of possession in ICE-SIN. In SLA, simplification is a process known to be frequently at work. I assume that this process influences the choice of expressions for possession in Jamaican and Singaporean English in that it favours the use of got over HAVE got. Got is not only shorter but also uninflected, unlike HAVE got, where HAVE has to agree with a 3rd-person singular subject. But simplification could also mean that the whole system of expressing possession is simplified, leading to a preferred use of the most salient member and a further marginalisation of already peripheral members. The most salient member in this case is HAVE, which is not only short but also very frequent in other functions. While HAVE got is not a marginal member of the system of expressions for possession in British English, it is in American English, which could lead to a marginalisation of HAVE got in Jamaican English, given American English influence on this variety. In putting together the different types of influence on varieties of English, I propose the following hypotheses. British English, known for its preference for the surface form HAVE got, is expected to display the highest frequency of HAVE got for the expression of possession in all three varieties, with Singaporean English and Jamaican English following in that order. Jamaican English will be last due to American English influence and the striving for simplification of the system of possession. Singaporean English is expected to occupy a middle position due to counteracting factors, viz. the British English model as opposed to substrate influence and simplification (hypothesis 1). Possessive got is expected to play only a minor role in British English. In contrast to this, I expect high token numbers of possessive got in the New Englishes. The main reason for this is substrate influence. In both Jamaican Creole and Colloquial Singapore English, got is used to express possession. Colloquial Singapore English makes frequent use of got in other functions as well. Simplification processes at work in SLA are assumed to reinforce the situation, as is colloquialisation. Since in the case of Jamaican English, American English influence, substrate influence, and simplification suggest the same development, I expect got to outdo HAVE got in this variety. For Singaporean

Possessive (HAVE) got | 207

English, the British English model would lead to higher numbers of HAVE got, while substrate influence, simplification, and colloquialisation would lead to higher numbers of got. Therefore, I expect HAVE got and got to be currently on a par in Singaporean English, with British English influence possibly waning as nativisation proceeds and got taking over more and more. Furthermore, because of the effects of SLA, more nonstandard uses are expected to occur in the New Englishes (hypothesis 2). As far as mode differences are concerned, I expect a much higher frequency of (HAVE) got in spoken than in written language. More formal lexemes are assumed to be used for the expression of possession in written language. Informal got is expected to be even more clearly overrepresented in spoken language than HAVE got (hypothesis 3). Finally, I expect the mode and genre distribution to be more pronounced in British English than in the New Englishes, in line with previous research (hypothesis 4). The hypotheses proposed are summarised as follows: – Hypothesis 1 (frequencies): highest frequency of HAVE got in British English, lowest frequency in Jamaican English, and middle position of Singaporean English – Hypothesis 2 (frequencies, forms): higher absolute frequencies of possessive got, larger shares of auxiliary omission, and more nonstandard variants in the New Englishes than in British English – Hypothesis 3 (mode): higher frequency of HAVE got and particularly got in spoken than in written language – Hypothesis 4 (genre): greater mode and genre sensitivity in British English than in the New Englishes

5.8.2 Results: frequencies and forms For a first overview, consider Figure 5.34, which provides absolute token numbers of possessive (HAVE) got, i.e. forms with and without auxiliary, in LOB, FLOB, and the three ICE corpora. The individual data from ICE will be analysed in more detail below. Possessive got occurs only 3 times in LOB and 6 times in FLOB, while possessive HAVE got occurs 88 and 117 times, respectively. Apparently, the version without an auxiliary is too informal to be used in written British English. The rise in HAVE got is statistically significant (p=0.043, Fisher’s exact test), as is the change in the share of possessive HAVE got of all GET-tokens (p=0.016, Fisher’s exact test). The Briticism HAVE got thus seems to be very much alive in written British English and remains a regional marker.

208 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

900 804

800 700 600

484

500 400

got got

157

767

have HAVEgot got

300 200 100 0

91

123

88

117

LOB

FLOB

79

327

45 ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.34: Possessive (HAVE) got (absolute token numbers)

The absolute token number for possessive HAVE got is much larger in ICE-GB with 767 tokens than in ICE-SIN (327 tokens) and ICE-JA (45 tokens). In ICE-GB, possessive HAVE got is more than twice as frequent as in ICE-SIN, while its occurrence is negligibly small in ICE-JA. The ranking British English > Singaporean English > Jamaican English in terms of frequency of HAVE got (hypothesis 1) can be fully confirmed. The percentages that the possessive uses of HAVE got constitute of all the uses of GET in the respective corpus are analogous to the absolute token numbers (cf. Table 5.31): the percentage of ICE-GB is more than twice as high as that of ICE-SIN, while that of ICE-JA is negligibly small, with all differences being statistically highly significant.93 Table 5.31: Possessive HAVE got in ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-tokens)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

absolute token number

767

45

327

per cent of all GET-tokens

21.5

1.7

11.9

|| 93 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=514.02, df=1, φc=0.29; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=98.87, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=214.31, df=1.

Possessive (HAVE) got | 209

I suggest the following explanations for the distribution. The high absolute and relative frequency of HAVE got in British English can be explained by the distinctively British preference for the surface form HAVE got. Previous studies have shown the combination HAVE got (also with following to-infinitive) to be strongly connected to the British variety, and usage guides have never proscribed its use in Great Britain. The aversion to exactly this surface form in Jamaican English (cf. chapter 5.5.3 for the same observation in the case of HAVE got-existentials) is explicable by American English influence, particularly effective in Jamaica because of its geographical vicinity to the US, where HAVE got has never played a role and has even been proscribed.94 The striving for simplification in varieties acquired as second languages can work as a strengthening factor in the marginalisation or even ousting of HAVE got in Jamaican English. That Singaporean English is in a middle position is explained by counteracting factors at work at the same time: on the one hand, the orientation towards the British English model favours the use of HAVE got; on the other hand, substrate influence, simplification, and increasing colloquialisation favour the use of got. For determining the percentage of cliticisation of HAVE in possessive HAVE got, only positive tokens were considered. This is because in the case of negated HAVE got, cliticisation can not only occur with the subject, as in […] I’ve not got a uhm record player or anything (), but more frequently it occurs with the negator, as in I said well I haven’t got any obvious references (). For all positive tokens of HAVE got, I determined whether cliticisation would actually be an option in the given sentence. It is not an option, for instance, in questions, as in […] when you do a spell check have you got the American spelling (), or where the preceding word ends in a consonant that makes pronunciation impossible if HAVE were cliticised, as in Progress has got its own interactive data dictionary […] (). Cliticisation is the norm in all varieties. However, the differences between the varieties are considerable. In 96.6% (= 672 tokens) of all occurrences, possessive HAVE got is cliticised or has to be used in the full form in ICE-GB. In ICEJA, the percentage is 84.6 (= 33 tokens), and in ICE-SIN, it is 70.8 (= 221 tokens).

|| 94 Of all three ICE corpora, GET is lowest in number overall in ICE-JA, but if it is used, it much less frequently expresses possession there (3.0%) than it does in the other varieties (ICE-GB: 22.5%, ICE-SIN: 17.6%; cf. Figure 5.2). According to Gronemeyer (1999: 4), 7% of all the instances of GET in Brown express possession in the form of (HAVE) got. This shows that ICE-JA is even below the written American English percentage and confirms the exceptional status of Jamaican English in this respect.

210 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Whereas in ICE-GB, cliticised forms or forms where there is no option are almost 30 times more frequent than full forms, they are only 5.5 and 2.4 times more frequent in Jamaican and Singaporean English, respectively. A closer look at the data reveals more differences compared to British English: first, while in ICEGB, cliticised forms are even more frequent in spoken than in written language, in ICE-JA, there is a mode indifference; second, in ICE-SIN, cliticisation is more frequent in the written (74.3%) than in the spoken subcorpus (70.4%), which is a surprising distribution because it runs counter to the assumed informality of cliticisation and the assumed formality of the use of full forms (cf. the results on semi-modal HAVE got to in chapter 5.9.2 for more conclusions). That got plays a minor role in the expression of possession in British English, particularly in comparison to the use of HAVE got, becomes clear from a look at Figure 5.34 on page 208. The frequency of possessive got could be rising on a low level because of the general trends of colloquialisation and Americanisation, but larger diachronic corpora (as yet unavailable for British English) are needed to make definitive statements. Table 5.32 provides absolute token numbers for possessive got in ICE and the percentages these numbers constitute of all GET-tokens occurring in the respective corpus. It can be seen that possessive got is much more frequent in absolute as well as in relative terms in ICE-SIN than in ICE-GB and ICE-JA, viz. about 5 times more so. That Singaporean English stands out in the use of possessive got is confirmed by chi-square tests, which indicate that the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN (p≪0.001, χ2= 114.48, df=1) as well as that between ICE-JA and ICE-SIN (p≪0.001, χ2= 75.65, df=1) in the use of possessive got of all GET-tokens is statistically highly significant, while the difference between ICEGB and ICE-JA is insignificant. Thus, it is not the case that the New Englishes in general exhibit higher frequencies of got than British English. It seems instead that Jamaican English is peculiar in its general avoidance of the surface form got, quite surprisingly so, given that in Jamaican Creole, got/gat is commonly used to express possession. Singaporean English, by contrast, avails itself much more of got than British English, and this can be explained by the generally versatile use of got in Colloquial Singapore English as well as by an advanced degree of colloquialisation in the variety. In conclusion, the first part of hypothesis 2, viz. higher absolute frequencies of possessive got in the New Englishes, cannot be confirmed in general.

Possessive (HAVE) got | 211

Table 5.32: Possessive got in ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GET-tokens)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

absolute token number

37

34

157

per cent of all GET-tokens

1.0

1.3

5.7

Table 5.33 gives the results for auxiliary omission in ICE. The percentages clearly show that there is a significantly larger amount of auxiliary omission in the New Englishes than in British English. Auxiliary omission is most frequent in ICE-JA, where almost half of all tokens of (HAVE) got are realised as got, followed by ICE-SIN, where auxiliary omission occurs in about a third of all occurrences, while it is much lower and the exception in ICE-GB. Forms without HAVE do not outdo forms with HAVE in Jamaican English as expected, however. It has been concluded above that Jamaican Creole does not exert a strong influence in the case of possessive got. It might very well be that the frequent use of got/gat in Jamaican Creole leads to an avoidance of got in the standard so as to eliminate any Jamaican Creole traces as much as possible. For Singaporean English, the percentage of auxiliary omission is high compared to British English, but got and HAVE got are not (yet) on a par as expected. The still rather high percentages for the New Englishes as compared to British English can then best be explained by American English influence in the case of Jamaican English and colloquialisation in the case of Singaporean English, in both cases strengthened by the fact that auxiliary omission leads to simpler forms. The substrates seem to lack power in favouring the use of possessive got over possessive HAVE got. The second part of hypothesis 2, viz. larger shares of auxiliary omission in the New Englishes, can be confirmed, but the results are not as strong as expected. Table 5.33: Auxiliary omission in possessive (HAVE) got in ICE-GB (N=804), ICE-JA (N=79), and ICE-SIN (N=484) (per cent of all (HAVE) got-tokens)

auxiliary omission

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

4.6

43.0

32.4

That there are quite a number of nonstandard uses in connection with possessive (HAVE) got even in the Standard English ICE corpora is shown by the examples provided below. There are 2 nonstandard uses of possessive (HAVE) got

212 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

in ICE-GB, 12 in ICE-JA, and 17 in ICE-SIN, not counting missing subjects, any nonstandard NPs following the verb, or other nonstandard phenomena occurring in the clause but not in direct connection with (HAVE) got. The third part of hypothesis 2, viz. more frequent nonstandard uses in the New Englishes than in British English, can be fully confirmed. Many nonstandard uses are only found in the corpora of the New Englishes. Nonstandard inflection or negation of (HAVE) got, for instance, does not occur in ICE-GB, but occurs 6 times in ICE-JA and 5 times in ICE-SIN. Examples (61) and (62) illustrate nonstandard and double negation. In neither case is the negative pronoun/place adverb replaced by the standard non-assertive equivalent. Further note the use of nonstandard ain’t in example (62). In example (63), speaker C treats HAVE got like a prototypical main verb and uses DO-negation. Speaker A resumes speaker C’s construction and replaces HAVE got with HAVE. (61) […] cos they’re saying your parents not got nothing and their parents not participate you understand so (62) I remember I can’t head back, cause I ain’t got nowhere to stay. (63) Oh I know Nicholas and who ah Heh the other one doesn’t have got a Christian name Oh doesn’t have ah Past time reference for a present tense form of HAVE got comes up once in ICESIN, viz. in example (64), in contrast to ICE-GB and ICE-JA, where no such token occurs. (64) Yes but only tried in Chiangmai because the rest of the places we’ve got were were shifted by the coach Oh but did you get to stay long in each location For possessive got, past time reference is more frequent. This certainly has to do with the fact that the surface form got typically signifies past tense. Examples occur in all three ICE corpora, but more frequently in the New Englishes. There are 2 cases in ICE-GB, and 6 each in ICE-JA and ICE-SIN. With the exception of one token in ICE-JA, they all occur in the spoken subcorpora. Consider one example from each corpus:

Possessive (HAVE) got | 213

(65) and then it was Pauline’s birthday a day or two afterwards and she got her sent a huge sheaf of flowers by her son and of course she got no vases left to put it in So she came round to me (66) […] or maybe Ruth told him that uhm there’s a lot of business to be had here and uh somehow he found out that uh it was much more than what they got couple servers and so on so he was wondering (67) But it so happen that Philips was also developing it But Philips thought that Sony got head start maybe we should just go and talk to Sony they may tell a thing or two So uh Philips brought their CD Example (65) is particularly interesting: the time frame is clearly established as past in the sentences before and after the sentence with possessive got. Note that in the second sentence, got is used in a (syntactically nonstandard) passive construction with past time reference. The direct neighbourhood to this past meaning of catenative got has certainly favoured the past use of possessive got. Consider, in contrast, the fact that the standard way of using possessive HAVE got with past time reference, i.e. with a past perfect surface form, is hardly an option in the New Englishes (ICE-JA: 0 tokens, ICE-SIN: 2 tokens), while it does come up once and again in British English (ICE-GB: 12 tokens),95 as in the following example: (68) Fortunately I’d got a very good neighbour and she’d got a daughter who were very very good What is peculiar to ICE-SIN and particularly striking are 5 instances of intransitive (HAVE) got, i.e. cases where the object is elliptical. Two examples are included in the following:

|| 95 Possibly an idiosyncrasy on the part of one speaker leads to an accumulation of 7 tokens in one and the same text in ICE-GB. Accounting for that, the token number for ICE-GB is still larger than that for the New Englishes.

214 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

(69) So do you all plan to get your own place Ya ya we have got already (70) Buy swimsuit for her She got Ah Really really Note further cases of nonstandard uses, which are not counted among the token figures provided above. Subject omission before (HAVE) got, for instance, is more frequent in the New Englishes (ICE-JA: 5.1%, ICE-SIN: 3.7%) than in British English (ICE-GB: 1.4%). The subject is practically never omitted when the auxiliary HAVE is presented, while this is relatively frequently the case when got stands alone. Here, ICE-GB in fact outdoes the corpora of New Englishes, with a fourth (24.3%) of all cases of possessive got featuring no subject in ICE-GB, while the fraction is less than a tenth in ICE-JA (8.8%) and ICE-SIN (9.6%). The high percentage in ICE-GB can be explained by the general perception of got as a nonstandard form in that variety. Possessive got is extremely rare in ICE-GB compared to possessive HAVE got and because of that low frequency even more stigmatised, so that the concurrence of this form and subject omission is not surprising. In ICE-SIN, the lack of articles before object NPs after HAVE got (5 of 285) but even more so after got (21 of 152) is striking, as in Actually my net is doing very well you know but my speaker got problem uh (), as well as the use of nonstandard plurals.

5.8.3 Results: mode and genre Figure 5.35 illustrates the mode distribution of possessive (HAVE) got for all (sub-) corpora under consideration in the present study. In every ICE corpus, possessive (HAVE) got is more frequent in spoken than in written language. The mode difference is by far largest in British English with a speech-writing ratio of 17.1 : 1, followed by Singaporean English (7.2 : 1), with Jamaican English trailing (2.8 : 1). Compared to the ratios for all uses of GET considered together (ICE-GB 3.1 : 1, ICESIN 3.0 : 1, ICE-JA 2.2 : 1), possessive (HAVE) got is extremely overrepresented in spoken language. Hypothesis 3, the higher frequency of (HAVE) got in spoken than in written language, can be confirmed for all varieties. In British and Singaporean English, the use of possessive (HAVE) got can be said to be much more typical of spoken language than other uses of GET, while in Jamaican English, (HAVE) got is

Possessive (HAVE) got | 215

only slightly overrepresented in spoken language compared to the general mode distribution of GET. Contrary to expectations, however, only in ICE-SIN, which displays the highest number of possessive got overall, does got (53.1 : 1) exhibit a more extreme preference for the spoken mode than HAVE got (4.9 : 1). The other corpora exhibit lower speech-writing ratios for got, which is assumed to be more informal, than for HAVE got. Low token numbers of got in written language might make the speech-writing ratios less reliable than in the case of HAVE got and an analysis of a larger database might lead to the expected results for all varieties.

140 121.4 120 100 72.7

80

spoken

60

written

40 20

9.0

12.2

7.1

10.2 3.7

10.1

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

0 LOB

FLOB

Figure 5.35: Mode distribution of possessive (HAVE) got (tokens per 100,000 words)

The extreme preference of (HAVE) got for spoken language in British English and its avoidance in written language can be explained by the fact that its stigma and low prestige make it an unsuitable form for written language. It can be assumed that more formal expressions such as OWN or POSSESS replace (HAVE) got in written language. That this is actually the case is confirmed by a count of all tokens of OWN and POSSESS in the British corpora.96 LOB turns out to have 116 tokens, FLOB 101, and ICE-GB 77. While the difference between LOB/FLOB and ICE-GB written in the use of OWN or POSSESS as compared to (HAVE) got is insignificant, the difference between LOB/FLOB and ICE-GB spoken is statistically highly

|| 96 For all of the results of the queries “possess*” and “own*”, all unwanted tokens were eliminated. For “possess*”, these include nouns and adjectives such as possession and possessive, and non-possessive verbal uses such as to possess sb to do sth. For “own*”, these include nouns such as owner and all adjectival uses of own.

216 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

significant (p≪0.001, χ2=355.09, df=1, φc=0.53) and can largely be attributed to the difference in mode between LOB/FLOB on the one hand and ICE-GB spoken on the other. These results suggest that more formal lexemes replace (HAVE) got in written British English, while (HAVE) got is readily used in spoken language, where the more formal alternatives are less frequent. The following tables present more details about the mode and genre dependence of possessive (HAVE) got. Within written British English, the extreme overuse of 51.2% in fiction is striking (cf. Table 5.34), explicable by the many dialogues that occur in this genre and that make it very speech-like. That this is not reflected in the ICE corpora, where fiction exhibits a slight underuse (cf. Table 5.35),97 can only be explained with differences between LOB/FLOB on the one hand and ICE on the other in the selection of texts for the category fiction. It seems that the category fiction in LOB/FLOB and the category fiction in ICE do not correspond well. All other text categories in LOB and FLOB exhibit underuses. The general rareness of (HAVE) got in written language is evident in the practically exclusively negative numbers for the written text categories in Table 5.35, which indicates the genre distribution in the ICE corpora. The figures suggest that it is informational writing, the most formal group of texts, that is mainly responsible for the avoidance of (HAVE) got in written language in all three varieties: the underuse is at around 25% in all three corpora. A genre analysis of OWN and POSSESS within the written ICE subcorpora reveals that all varieties overuse these more formal lexemes in the category informational writing and thus compensate for the underuse of informal (HAVE) got, which is not considered appropriate for this genre. For the spoken text types, the regional varieties exhibit relatively disparate behaviour, but the percentages suggest a cline with most overuse in the most informal genre private dialogues, less overuse or neutral use in more formal genres, viz. public dialogues and unscripted monologues, and an underuse in the most formal spoken genre scripted monologues. Low overall token numbers in ICE-JA mean that the results for ICE-JA are not as reliable as those for ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, which correspond to the expected pattern just described. The standard deviation for each corpus gives summative evidence for the stronger genre dependence of (HAVE) got in British English than in the New Englishes (ICE-GB: 19.2, ICE-JA 12.3, ICE-SIN 15.9). It is the exceptional overuse of (HAVE) got of 36.8% in private dialogues, the most informal genre, and the rather pronounced underuse in all written texts in ICE-GB that especially contribute to this. Hypothesis 4, the greater mode and genre sensitivity of British English, can be confirmed. || 97 Within written language in ICE, this would correspond to an overuse, which is not nearly as extreme as that in LOB and FLOB, however.

16.0

160,000 252,000 1,000,000

Academic writing (J)

Fiction (K, L, M, N, P, R)

TOTAL 100

25.2

41.2

412,000

General prose (popular writing, biography, instructional writing) (D, E, F, G, H)

17.6

176,000

WRITTEN

100

74.7

0.0

11.0

14.3

1.6 78.0

-16.0 49.5

100

11.4

-30.2

0

8.9

-3.3

0

52.8

-14.4

-29.8

-8.7

0

51.2

-15.2

-30.0

-6.0

(HAVE) LOB LOB FLOB FLOB mean got observed difference observed difference difference expected % % % % % %

Press (A, B, C)

number of words

Table 5.34: Expected and observed distribution of possessive (HAVE) got in LOB (N=91) and FLOB (N=123)

Possessive (HAVE) got | 217

100,000 26,000 40,000 1,000,000

Non-printed (W1)

Informational writing (W2A–W2E)

Fiction (W2F)

TOTAL

WRITTEN

140,000 100,000

Scripted monologues (S2B)

160,000

Public dialogues (S1B)

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

200,000

Private dialogues (S1A)

SPOKEN

number of words

100

4.0

26.0

10.0

10.0

14.0

16.0

20.0

100

0.6

1.1

2.0

2.7

10.7

26.0

56.8 24.1 7.6 15.2 0.0 3.8

-3.3 -7.3 -8.0 -24.9 -3.4

100

25.3

10.0

0

24.1

36.8

0

-0.2

-26.0

5.2

-2.4

10.1

9.3

4.1

100

0.8

1.9

6.0

2.5

27.1

15.7

46.1

0

-3.2

-24.1

-4.0

-7.5

13.1

-0.3

26.1

(HAVE) ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN got observed difference observed difference observed difference expected % % % % % % %

Table 5.35: Expected and observed distribution of possessive (HAVE) got in ICE-GB (N=804), ICE-JA (N=79), and ICE-SIN (N=484)

0

-2.3

-25.0

-2.3

-5.7

6.6

6.3

22.3

mean difference %

218 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Possessive (HAVE) got | 219

5.8.4 Summary The analysis has shown that a number of factors interact in determining the use and distribution of possessive (HAVE) got in World Englishes. The realisation with HAVE, i.e. as HAVE got, is strongly preferred in British English. HAVE got is also frequent in Singaporean English, where the British English model still seems to be important, but got appears to be increasing, due to substrate influence, viz. the versatile use of got in Colloquial Singapore English, as well as colloquialisation and simplification. In Jamaican English, both possessive HAVE got and possessive got are peripheral and assume only a negligibly small role in expressing possession. Apparently, (HAVE) got has been affected by simplification of the system of expressing possession in Jamaican English, and HAVE can be assumed to have stepped in for (HAVE) got. Surprisingly, the widespread use of possessive got/gat in Jamaican Creole does not have any effect on token numbers of (HAVE) got. In the light of this fact, it stands to reason that the high percentages of auxiliary omission in the New Englishes, as compared to British English, are less due to substrate effects and mainly due to American English influence in the case of Jamaican English and due to colloquialisation in the case of Singaporean English. Simplification as an effect of SLA acts as a strengthening factor in both cases. Cliticisation of HAVE in HAVE got is practically exceptionless in British English, while it is less frequent but still the norm in the New Englishes studied. A mode peculiarity could be detected in the case of Singaporean English in that cliticisation of HAVE is more frequent in written than in spoken language. Whereas British English makes more use of the various more complex forms at the language user’s disposal, such as past tense forms and nonfinite forms, the New Englishes display more tokens of various nonstandard uses, such as nonstandard time reference of (HAVE) got or nonstandard DO-negation. Possessive (HAVE) got has been shown to be a phenomenon of spoken language. A particular underuse has been determined for informational writing in all varieties, where more formal lexemes such as OWN and POSSESS are used instead. British English turns out to be the variety with the strongest genre sensitivity, with (HAVE) got being overused especially in the most informal spoken genre, viz. private dialogues.

220 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

5.9 Semi-modal (HAVE) got to 5.9.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses In the field of modality, GET occurs in the form of got in the semi-modal (HAVE) got to, which belongs to the semantic field of obligation and necessity. In the following, I will first define the field of modality and clarify issues of terminology. After that, the development, status, and meaning of (HAVE) got to will be traced before competitors in the onomasiological field are introduced. Throughout, the variational scope in the use of (HAVE) got to will be pointed out, and hypotheses based on previous research will be postulated. Modal expressions “change the meaning of a sentence from a basic descriptive statement […] into a statement about necessities, possibilities, obligations, abilities, etc. […], or into a statement expressing a conclusion or inference” (König and Gast 2012: 99). Research has shown that “the place to catch recent and rapid change in English is in the modal system” (Tagliamonte 2013: 142). In fact, the field of mood and modality has undergone sweeping changes throughout the history of the English language: in brief, mood has been weakened, while modality and the modal verbs have been strengthened.98 The proneness to change seems to be continuing, and one of its consequences is a phenomenon called layering by Hopper and Traugott (2003), which means that at a synchronic point in time, older and more recent forms that express more or less the same concept co-exist. It is of interest to explore how the situation of layering presents itself in different varieties of English today because “while all the major varieties exhibit structured heterogeneity (i.e. layering), the competing forms and the underlying organization of the system in certain locales may differ” (Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2007: 82). One common way of expressing modality in English is by using modals and semi-modals. Other terms for semi-modals (as used by Biber et al. 1999, for instance) are quasi-modals (used by Hopper and Traugott 2003), emerging modals (used by Krug 2000), and marginal modals, modal idioms, and semiauxiliaries (used by Quirk et al. 1985: 137). However, in the field of obligation and necessity, expressions such as It is necessary or necessarily can also be used to express modality, or the mandative subjunctive can enter the fray (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 114). Smith and Leech compare the players in the semantic field of

|| 98 Mood, which will not be further discussed here, concerns the use of indicative and subjunctive. For further information, the reader is referred to Palmer (2001) and Leisi and Mair (2008: 130–131, 148).

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 221

obligation and necessity with plants whose distributions change on an uncultivated plot of land over time. Important factors to be taken into account in the case of modals and semi-modals are processes like grammaticalisation, colloquialisation, and democratisation, but also syntactic, semantic, and genre factors (2013: 75–77). Because sociocultural situations are different in different regions, the contexts for expressing modality are probably not the same in different varieties of English, and nor is the amount of modal and semi-modal use. This makes clear the extreme complexity of the field and the need for many independent studies to arrive at reliable results and conclusions. The designation of modal meanings is a much-discussed issue, the description of which goes beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say that there is at least minimum agreement in major reference grammars as well as most publications on modality on the binary distinction between non-epistemic and epistemic modality (cf. Palmer 1990: 8), where non-epistemic modality can subsume different kinds of root meanings, such as deontic, dynamic, circumstantial, and dispositional. However, what exactly is understood by these more finegrained terms differs much from study to study. (HAVE) got to is a very recent construction and its first appearance in writing can be traced to the mid-19th century, where it also already occurs without HAVE (cf. OED 2009: s.v. “get, v., 24”; Givón and Yang 1994: 134; Biber et al. 1999: 487; Gronemeyer 1999: 32). Krug (2000: 62) assumes that (HAVE) got to had existed in spoken English for some time before that, given its relatively high frequency in Dickens’ work, where it is associated with nonstandard speech. Already a generation later, however, HAVE got to occurs in sophisticated speech in Wilde’s comedies and is associated with expressivity rather than nonstandardness. Today, it is still associated with informal speech. That the development of HAVE got to finds its precursor in HAVE to is suggested by Givón and Yang (1994: 134), who claim a “fortification” of HAVE to with the help of got. HAVE got to developed from the construction HAVE got + NP + to-infinitive by a change in word order and reanalysis of the object as belonging to the infinitive, as described for HAVE to, due to the general change in word order from SOV to SVO at the beginning of Middle English, i.e. along the lines I’ve got a call to make (‘to have sth to do’) > I’ve got to make a call (‘to be obliged to do sth’) (cf. Fischer 1994, quoted in Gronemeyer 1999: 33). Because the stative use of got was already well-established, the development of HAVE got to proceeded even faster. Krug (2000: 63–65, 73) takes the development of obligative HAVE got to along the lines of HAVE to to be cognitively plausible, with the insertion of got acting as a sort of reinforcer particularly because of the frequent cliticisation of HAVE, but also adduces textual evidence which suggests

222 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

otherwise, e.g. the fact that discontinuous structures with a deontic reading (of the type I’ve got a letter to write) are rare for HAVE got to up to the 19th century. Today, (HAVE) got to stands between main verbs and auxiliary verbs (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 141–142). One reason why it cannot be classified as a main verb is that it does not have nonfinite forms, i.e. it cannot, unlike HAVE to, occur in modal, perfective, or progressive constructions: *I may have got to leave early (Quirk et al. 1985: 145). Another reason is that DO-negation is excluded. However, (HAVE) got to is not a “true” auxiliary either because only the first part of the construction, viz. HAVE, takes over the function of the operator, e.g. in We haven’t got to pay already, have we? Negated HAVE got to is generally rare (cf. Collins 2009a: 72) and is in use in British English only, while American English substitutes for it with HAVE to, which allows DO-negation. The only occurrences of negated HAVE got to in my data are 2 tokens each in ICE-GB spoken and ICE-JA spoken. Got to/gotta has a highly defective paradigm and is not used in negation. Whenever a negated expression of obligation or necessity is called for, the candidates are HAVE to and NEED to, both of which allow DO-negation.99 Krug (2000: 107) gives an example from the BNC in which gotta is followed by the to-infinitive. This is a sign of the synchronic opacity of gotta, i.e. its origin in the coalescence of got and to is no longer perceived when it is used with a following to-infinitive. One instance of this kind can also be found in my data. ICE-SIN has the following token: (71) And I was paging for him paging for him paging for him didn’t return my call so I was so angry I gotta to shut the office right twelve thirty ’cause I am tired today That even got to/gotta is still a semi-modal in English and not fully grammaticalised can be seen in an example from ICE-GB spoken, where a question tag is added to the utterance. The question tag for got to is not formed by resuming got to (and adding not), but the auxiliary HAVE must be used. This means that in the question tag the omitted element resurfaces: You got to have the money though haven’t you ().100 Although (HAVE) got to exhibits many characteristics of auxiliaries (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 137), Quirk et al. see it closer to the category of main verbs. It has, for

|| 99 Must has internal negation, i.e. the proposition is negated and not the modal itself, and because of that cannot be used to express negated obligation. 100 In American English, don’t you would be more probable (also cf. Krug 2001: 321, 326), which assigns main verb status to gotta.

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 223

instance, a 3rd-person singular form and normal present/past tense contrast. The past tense is only used in British English, and even there, it is rare. Collins (2009a: 69) does not find a single attestation of past had got to in ICE-GB, ICEAustralia, or C-US.101 That had got to is rare can be confirmed by my data: the only occurrences are 2 tokens in LOB. They come up in fiction and even within one and the same text: She had got to think of some way out (LOB, N16 208) and She’d got to get to the police, somehow (LOB, N18 107). The form had got to is probably on its way out. Research does not point to a clear path of development for (HAVE) got to. Smith (2003: 263) speaks of the “stunted development” of (HAVE) got to in English in general. In terms of diachrony, previous studies suggest a general decrease of (HAVE) got to in written British English as well as in spoken American English, but a rise in written American English (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 97; Johansson 2013; Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2007; Tagliamonte 2013). Conflicting evidence exists as to a decrease or increase of (HAVE) got to in spoken British English because on the one hand, a decrease on a very low level has been found for spoken British English (cf. Close and Aarts 2010: 176), but on the other hand, a rise of (HAVE) got to in informal language has been documented (cf. Collins 2008: 134). Synchronically, (HAVE) got to seems to be less frequent in American English than in British English (cf. Collins 2009a: 72). In fact, although an American origin has been suggested for the semi-modal (cf. Hundt 2001: 71–72; Krug 2000: 78), British English seems to be the domain of (HAVE) got to today. Collins and Yao (2013: 491) assume that in the case of (HAVE) got to, the tradition of proscribing the use of got in the US can explain the low numbers in American English. As regards World Englishes, Collins (2009b: 289) has shown that (HAVE) got to is 2.6 times more popular in inner-circle than in outer-circle varieties of English. There are also some colloquialism-friendly varieties, such as Australian English, which particularly promote the use of (HAVE) got to (cf. Collins 2005: 265; Collins and Yao 2013). The distribution of (HAVE) got to depends not only on region, but also on mode and genre. Informal spoken language in general exhibits a strong use of and possibly increase in this semi-modal (cf. Krug 2000: 63, 77–78; Smith 2003: 263). Two factors can be considered responsible: the relative recency of (HAVE) got to as a player in the semantic field means that it is first used in conversation before it potentially spreads to written language (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 486–487);

|| 101 C-US is Collins’ American English substitute corpus for ICE-US.

224 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

second, Collins assumes that “[i]t is highly likely that the traditional stigma attached to got, especially in more formal styles, has had a role to play in [… the] generic imbalance” (2009a: 72). The stigma and logical censure of got differentiate inner-circle from outer-circle varieties in that (HAVE) got to is more heterogeneously distributed in terms of mode in inner-circle than in outer-circle varieties (cf. Collins and Yao 2012: 49). The reason is “greater awareness of and sensitivity to traditional proscriptions of the verb get amongst IC [inner-circle] speakers” (Collins 2009b: 289). With regard to genre, Collins and Yao (2013: 490–492) suggest that (HAVE) got to is a colloquial feature in all ten varieties of English analysed by them because it occurs most frequently in the most typical spoken genre, viz. private dialogues, and least frequently in the most typical written genre, viz. informational writing, in comparison with its central modal counterparts must and should. Even the difference between dialogue and monologue is important in that (HAVE) got to is much more common in the former than in the latter. (HAVE) got to displays a stronger predilection for informal genres than other semimodals and, in general, it seems to be much more complex in behaviour than many of the other semi-modals. This could also have to do with a point noted by Krug, viz. that “the behaviour of an item that has received critical remarks in style books throughout its existence – here HAVE GOT TO – is less adequately reflected in a speech-based written text type” (2000: 81) than a nonstigmatised item, which exhibits similar developments in speech-based written language and in actual spoken language. It can be concluded that the development, current status, as well as the future of (HAVE) got to are very much disputed. While studies have suggested a decrease in general frequency in written language, relatively high frequencies in spoken language have also been found in line with the general increase of semi-modals, but all developments seem to be very much dependent on the factors region, mode, and genre. However, I also suggest that not enough attention has been paid to the difference between HAVE got to and got to/gotta, i.e. forms with and without HAVE, and that considering both forms together masks important intervarietal differences. In my data, I expect the highest frequency of (HAVE) got to for British English and lower frequencies for the New Englishes (hypothesis 1), since previous studies have suggested that inner-circle varieties display higher frequencies of (HAVE) got to than outer-circle varieties. Within the New Englishes, I expect Jamaican English to have fewer tokens than Singaporean English. This is because American English can be assumed to influence Jamaican English, while for Singaporean English, it can be assumed that the British English model is still

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 225

strong. Whereas the realisation of the auxiliary HAVE (cf. footnote 47) suggests conservative British English influence, auxiliary omission is colloquial and suggests American English influence (cf. Burchfield 1996: 330). Substrate influence from Colloquial Singapore English will also favour the use of got to/gotta in Singaporean English. This means that not only the absolute frequencies of the semi-modal got to/gotta are expected to be higher in the New Englishes than in British English but also the percentages of auxiliary omission of all tokens of (HAVE) got to. Moreover, because of the effects of SLA, more nonstandard uses of (HAVE) got to are expected to occur in the New Englishes than in British English (hypothesis 2). Due to the informal nature of (HAVE) got to, its low prestige and the stigma attached to it, I expect clear mode differences in its use, viz. a much higher frequency in spoken than in written language. In regard to the distribution across text types, I expect differences to be more pronounced in the more genresensitive variety British English than in the New Englishes (cf. Collins and Yao 2012). The informality of (HAVE) got to is expected to be reflected in the distribution across genres, for instance in a strong overuse in the most informal genre, viz. private dialogues, and a strong underuse in very formal genres in written language. Since colloquialisation is affecting English in general, the gap between the most formal spoken text type and the most informal written text type can be assumed to be narrowing (hypothesis 3). Many studies on modals and semi-modals take into account a wealth of forms, determine their frequencies in a variety of corpora, and explain differing frequencies (cf. Krug 2000; Collins 2009a; Leech et al. 2009; Collins and Yao 2012). While these kinds of studies present good overviews, the variational potential of individual modal expressions is not exploited, particularly not in the area of meaning. The present study attempts to explore the full variational scope of the semi-modal (HAVE) got to and, at the same time, to take into account neighbouring elements in the semantic field. While I postulate classes of meaning, it should be understood that each class has core and peripheral members and that the meanings of modals and semi-modals do not always have clear boundaries and can be very fuzzy (cf. Close and Aarts 2010: 172). I will distinguish, as is usual, between the root and the epistemic use of modals and semi-modals. Among the root uses, one can find deontic and dynamic meanings. Deontic is reserved for “actions and events that humans (or other agents) directly control” (Biber et al. 1999: 485) and dynamic for “properties and dispositions of persons, etc., referred to in the clause” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 178). The term epistemic refers to “the speaker’s attitude to the factuality of past or present time situations” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 178)

226 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

and makes “a judgment about the truth of the proposition” (Palmer 1990: 6) or “assessments of likelihood” (Biber et al. 1999: 485). In the case of (HAVE) got to, which belongs to the semantic field of obligation and necessity, the root use subdivides into one of deontic obligation and one of dynamic necessity. The deontic source can be of different kinds: obligation or compulsion can arise from a person or an authority, also the speaker, who advocates a certain form of behaviour (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 225), or an obligation can come from conventions, i.e. background assumptions about duties and obligations (cf. König and Gast 2012: 107). In any case, it is imposed by a deontic source, as in You have got to come in now (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 205). Within the expression of obligation, different degrees can be differentiated, ranging from strong to weak obligation. The type of subject plays a role in determining the degree. A 2nd-person subject always addresses the hearer, for instance, and thus expresses stronger obligation than a 1st-person subject, who expresses self-obligation (cf. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2007: 64). For dynamic necessity, no deontic source is identifiable. Rather, necessity or need comes from physical conditions or force of external circumstances mentioned in the clause. This means that the factors which lead to a certain situation reside in the situation, as in Now that she has lost her job she has got to live extremely frugally (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 205; cf. Collins 2009a: 62). Necessity can also come from the subject referent’s properties, disposition or behaviour and thus constitute an individual’s internal need (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 185). This is called dispositional necessity by König and Gast (2012: 107).102 The second big type, the epistemic use, is based on conclusions and inferences on the part of the speaker, as in This has got to be the worst restaurant in town (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 205). Since epistemic (HAVE) got to is very infrequent, a more fine-grained distinction between epistemic and evidential modality as suggested by Palmer (2001: 8) is unrewarding here. While incidence, i.e. discourse frequency in a given amount of text, is an important measure, the comparison of an element to alternative options allows even more conclusions about its role. This is why in the semantic analysis

|| 102 In addition to deontic and dynamic uses, performative uses, i.e. uses with a speech act verb, can be distinguished, as in I’ve got to say or You have got to admit (cf. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2007: 73). Formulaic expressions such as these tend to retain relic and obsolescent forms, and Krug (2000: 97–99) argues that they have played a crucial role in the modalisation and grammaticalisation of HAVE got to. In the present study, tokens had to be subsumed under deontic use due to low frequencies.

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 227

below, I will not only describe the meaning facets of (HAVE) got to for each variety, but also determine the status and importance of this semi-modal by comparing it to alternative expressions within the same semantic field and by pointing out which forms compete in this system of layering and where similarities and differences between varieties lie. A comparison of LOB and FLOB will provide the background as far as the changing status of modals and semimodals of obligation and necessity in British English is concerned and will allow me to put the results of Present-Day English varieties into perspective. The group of modals and semi-modals expressing obligation and necessity consists of the elements must, (HAVE) got to, HAVE to, NEED (to), should, and ought to, with the latter two set apart already by Quirk et al. (1985: 221). They will not be considered here because they could indeed open up a semantic field of their own, being more non-committed in meaning and expressing only weak obligation. All negative occurrences of all modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity under scrutiny are excluded from the count. This is because negation is structured differently for the members of this group, viz. internal and external, respectively, so that negated instances would not be comparable in meaning. Need, followed by the bare infinitive, can safely be assumed to be so infrequent that it is unnecessary to include it in the count. Moreover, it is only possible in non-assertive contexts. Since negative occurrences are excluded from the analysis, hardly any occurrences of need would have existed anyway. While an even more detailed circumscription of the variable context would be desirable, such as the restriction to present temporal reference and declarative clauses, this is beyond the scope of the present study due to high token numbers and the fact that the corpora are not tagged or parsed. The modals and semi-modals considered here, ordered according to decreasing auxiliary status, are thus positive occurrences of must, (HAVE) got to, HAVE to, and NEED to.103 There are some semantic differences between (HAVE) got to and neighbouring elements in the semantic field of obligation and necessity which are, however, not recognised by all native speakers of English, as Quirk et al. (1985: 226) note. The epistemic use of (HAVE) got to is said to be more emphatic and || 103 For more on the grammatical properties of each of them, cf. Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 92), König and Gast (2012: 102–103), Palmer (2001: 100–101), Biber et al. (1999: 484), and Quirk et al. (1985: 138). Determining the exact meanings of all onomasiological alternatives in the same way as for (HAVE) got to would require a study of its own. It can be safely assumed, however, that an overwhelmingly large percentage of the uses of the semi-modals under consideration here will be root uses, with an epistemic token constituting the odd example, while in the case of the central modal must, one can assume a certain amount of epistemic uses, yet root uses will still form a clear majority even for this element.

228 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

more American when (HAVE) got to rather than must is used (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 226; Palmer 1988: 129). Moreover, (HAVE) got to is characteristically associated with immediate posteriority, i.e. the event described occurs after the time of speaking, and not with simultaneity, so that a habitual use is normally excluded (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 145; Collins 2009a: 68). Finally, while in the case of must, obligation is usually subjective, i.e. imposed by the speaker (or self-imposed in the case of a 1st-person speaker), it is neutral, i.e. independent of the speaker, in the case of (HAVE) got to, and objective, i.e. imposed by a source external to the speaker, in the case of HAVE to (cf. Collins 2009a: 68; Collins 2009b: 289; Palmer 1988: 129–131). This means that on a scale of objectivity, HAVE to is at the highest point and must at the lowest point, with (HAVE) got to in between. Consider in this context how in ICE-JA, although (HAVE) got to is generally rare, a speaker changes from the use of HAVE to to the use of got to, explicable by the more neutral semantics of (HAVE) got to, which is more easily compatible with the expression of self-obligation: (72) […] I’ll hope that that would be the case but I mean still I have to got to try and make yourself more word(s) It has been suggested that authoritative, deontic meanings of strong obligation have become unpopular in general because of sociocultural changes (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 88; Smith and Leech 2013: 77) such as democratisation, i.e. “the placing of emphasis on equality of power” (Collins 2005: 254; also cf. Collins 2008: 134). Independent of meaning, central modals have been on the decrease, while semi-modals have been on the increase in the recent past (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 89–90). This development seems to be more pronounced in spoken than in written language and more pronounced in American than in British English (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 78–79, 101). In the semantic field of obligation and necessity, must, which expresses strong subjective obligation, has notably declined in frequency in British as well as in American English, and particularly in spoken language (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 100, 283–284).104 It is likely that the semi-modals (HAVE) got to, HAVE to, and NEED to, which all express obligation in a less authoritarian way than must, have benefitted from this decline (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 88–89). In fact, HAVE to has slightly increased and become as frequent as must in both British and American English writing, and || 104 This ousting does not affect epistemic must, which is not under threat from other modal expressions (cf. Collins 2005: 255; Collins 2008: 134–139; Tagliamonte 2013: 140).

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 229

to has considerably increased its share in the semantic field. This has been shown with the help of the corpora of the Brown family (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 286). It can be assumed that American English is leading the way in this development (cf. Collins 2005: 259; Collins 2008: 136), a pattern called followmy-leader by Leech et al. (2009: 253), which means that British and American English move in the same direction, but with one variety taking the lead and the other variety following. For (HAVE) got to, as noted above, the development is less clear. To sum up, (HAVE) got to can take on much the same meanings as must and HAVE to, with the two main differences being that the epistemic use is very rare and that the deontic use is a more neutral use. I will sketch the meaning of (HAVE) got to in all five corpora at hand and expect a diachronic change and regional differentiation between different facets of meaning as well as between different degrees of obligation. In more detail, fewer overtly authoritative uses of (HAVE) got to, and more dynamic uses, are expected for FLOB than for LOB, reflecting a diachronic change towards fewer face-threatening uses. With regard to World Englishes, I expect British English to display fewer overtly authoritative uses of (HAVE) got to than both New Englishes, which might be lagging behind in the ongoing change (cf. Schneider 2007). In the case of the meaning of (HAVE) got to, American English influence will be very limited because it is used very little in this variety (hypothesis 4). Within the semantic field of obligation and necessity, a rise of the semimodals is expected from LOB to FLOB, in line with the colloquialisation of written language, with must still holding its own (hypothesis 5). As regards variation in ICE, since there are great differences in the use of modals and semimodals of obligation and necessity even between the inner-circle varieties British English and American English, I suggest that the US, functioning as a linguistic epicentre for nearby Jamaica, is a much more decisive factor in the distribution than any British English-New English or inner circle-outer circle divide. Thus, I assume that the share of semi-modals in Jamaican English will be larger than that of British English because of American English influence on the Caribbean variety. In particular, a low frequency of must in ICE-JA similar to that in American English is expected, while the situation should be closer to the situation in British English, and thus less extreme, in Singaporean English. Moreover, phenomena of SLA, such as simplification, here simplification of the modal system, and the lexical teddy bear effect, here the overuse of certain familiar and frequent forms such as HAVE to, could be at work in the New Englishes and reinforce in particular the presumed ousting of must in Jamaican English (hypothesis 6).

NEED

230 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

–

–

–

–

– –

These are the hypotheses that will guide the analyses: Hypothesis 1 (frequencies): highest frequency of (HAVE) got to in British English, lowest frequency in Jamaican English, and middle position of Singaporean English Hypothesis 2 (forms): higher absolute frequencies of got to, larger shares of auxiliary omission, and more nonstandard variants in the New Englishes than in British English Hypothesis 3 (mode, genre): higher frequency of (HAVE) got to in spoken than in written language; more pronounced genre distribution in British English than in the New Englishes, and reflection of the informality of (HAVE) got to in the genre distribution Hypothesis 4 (meaning): change from LOB to FLOB towards fewer overtly authoritative uses; fewer overtly authoritative uses in British English than in the New Englishes Hypothesis 5 (semantic field, diachronic change): rise of the semi-modals, but must still holding its own in written language Hypothesis 6 (semantic field, World Englishes): Jamaican English following American English, and Singaporean English following British English, in the distribution of modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity

5.9.2 Results: frequencies and forms In the analyses below, I will attempt to shed light on the development of the semi-modal (HAVE) got to in written British English as well as on its current frequency, use, and status in British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English. To that end, I will also show how (HAVE) got to compares and interacts with competing modals and semi-modals in the onomasiological field. All tokens of (HAVE) got to that carry modal meaning in LOB, FLOB, ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICE-SIN are considered in the following. Continuous constructions are most frequent, but I have also retrieved the discontinuous version of the semi-modal, which has the form (HAVE) got + NP + to-infinitive, as in Oh God I’ve got an essay to write (), where a direct object immediately follows got. The discontinuous version is less grammaticalised than the continuous version because it is closer to the original possessive scheme (cf. Krug 2000: 54–61). This also means that not all constructions of the formal type (HAVE) got + NP + to-infinitive in Present-Day English carry modal meaning and that many are possessive constructions with a following to-infinitive, as in I think we’ve got at least another five minutes to go ().

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 231

However, I claim that disregarding those that have modal meaning or subsuming them under possessive use, as done in previous studies (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 4–5), is not justified and would skew results. In this context, note other cases of formal similarity, such as the one which arises between modal HAVE got to and the perfective form of the catenative construction, where American English can clarify formally by using gotten for the catenative construction, and the one between modal got to and the past form of the catenative construction. First, Figure 5.36 provides absolute token numbers of (HAVE) got to in all five corpora, split up into tokens with a realised and tokens with an omitted auxiliary. From LOB to FLOB, (HAVE) got to has declined by 26.2% from 42 to 31 tokens.105 However, this decrease is statistically not significant. Moreover, token numbers are very low due to the fact that written language is not the locus of use of (HAVE) got to. This means that larger databases are needed to make definitive statements on diachronic change, but, at present, any claims of a general fall in the use of (HAVE) got to in written British English cannot be confirmed. Figure 5.36 shows that forms with omitted auxiliary are practically not used in written British English, so that no further analysis will be conducted on LOB (4 tokens) and FLOB (3 tokens) in this domain. In ICE, when forms with and without auxiliary are lumped together, the differences between ICE-JA (51 tokens) and the other two corpora, ICE-GB (236 tokens) and ICE-SIN (208 tokens), are highly significant (ICE-JA and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=115.6, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=97.94, df=1), while the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN is insignificant. Compared to the total number of GET-tokens in the respective corpus, the same pairings attain high statistical significance (ICE-JA and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=73.42, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=91.63, df=1) and no significance, respectively (ICE-GB and ICE-SIN). Hypothesis 1 can be partially confirmed: while Jamaican English indeed makes very infrequent use of (HAVE) got to, which can be explained by American English influence, British and Singaporean English display no significant difference in the frequencies of the semi-modal (HAVE) got to, at least prima facie and if one does not take different forms into account (also cf. Figure 5.2 on page 55). This also means that the general claims about higher frequencies of semi-modals in inner-circle than in outer-circle varieties do not apply to (HAVE) got to.

|| 105 If discontinuous constructions are omitted from the count, as Leech et al. (2009: 97, 286) apparently did, I obtain the same result as they did, viz. a (statistically insignificant) decline of 34.1% from 41 to 27 tokens.

232 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

In previous research, the path of development of (HAVE) got to has been sketched as very uncertain and diverse results have been obtained. Apparently, this semi-modal presents a much more complex picture than the majority of semi-modals. I claim that previous studies of (HAVE) got to in World Englishes have not sufficiently differentiated between forms with realised HAVE and forms with omitted HAVE and that an analysis taking this variation into account will lead to clearer results. There are three reasons that apply to the present study: first, the surface form HAVE got (to), in contrast to got (to), is associated with British English; second, tokens with omitted auxiliary are more colloquial than those with realised auxiliary; third, the versatile use of got in Colloquial Singapore English is more likely to influence token numbers of got to in Singaporean English than those of HAVE got to. The following analysis will consider these factors. The ICE corpora yield strikingly diverse results for occurrences of HAVE got to (cf. Figure 5.36). The most frequent use is in British English (224 tokens, accounting for 6.3% of all GET-tokens) and the least frequent use in Jamaican English (21 tokens, 0.8%), with Singaporean English in between (81 tokens, 3.0%). All differences are statistically highly significant106 and totally parallel to the results for possessive HAVE got (cf. chapter 5.8.2). The highest frequency in British English can be explained by the general prevalence of the surface form HAVE got (to) in British English, while the lowest frequency in Jamaican English is explicable by American English influence. As has been suggested for possessive HAVE got, the striving for simplification, here of the system of modality, can work as a strengthening factor in the marginalisation of HAVE got to in Jamaican English. That Singaporean English is in the middle position is explicable by the fact that orientation towards British English is still effective, while simplification and nativisation might be proceeding (also cf. the results on got to below).

|| 106 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=164.19, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=61.83, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=36.35, df=1. The same goes for the shares of HAVE got to of all GET-tokens: ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=118.04, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=37.23, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=32.85, df=1.

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 233

236 12

250

208

200 150

127 224

100 50

42

have HAVEgot gottoto 51

31

30

38

28

21

LOB

FLOB

0

got gotto/gotta to/gotta

ICE-GB

81

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.36: Semi-modal (HAVE) got to (absolute token numbers)

Figure 5.36 also illustrates the much higher absolute frequencies of got to/gotta in the New Englishes (ICE-JA: 30 tokens, ICE-SIN: 127 tokens) than in British English (LOB: 4 tokens, FLOB: 3 tokens, ICE-GB: 12 tokens). Table 5.36 compares the three synchronic mixed ICE corpora and shows that while auxiliary omission is the norm for the New Englishes studied here and occurs in over half of all cases, the realisation of the auxiliary is indeed a British English phenomenon, with omission occurring in only 5.1% of all possible cases in ICE-GB and practically not occurring in written British English at all, as has been noted above. Compare this with the results for possessive (HAVE) got (cf. chapter 5.8.2), where auxiliary omission occurs in only 4.6% of all possible cases in ICE-GB. The percentages for the New Englishes are even higher here than in the case of possessive (HAVE) got.107 Table 5.36: Auxiliary omission in semi-modal (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=236), ICE-JA (N=51), and ICE-SIN (N=208) (per cent of all (HAVE) got to-tokens)

auxiliary omission

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

5.1

58.8

63.8

|| 107 Grammaticalisation towards gotta could be a factor that leads to very high shares of auxiliary omission in the case of the semi-modal (HAVE) got to and that cannot be effective in the case of possessive (HAVE) got.

234 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Two examples from ICE-GB which indicate a certain awareness of the informality of got to even in spoken language are provided below. In each case, the construction without an auxiliary is followed by one where the auxiliary is realised. In (73), an utterance containing got to is broken off by the speaker and the resumed version contains HAVE got to, coinciding with greater emphasis and care of formulation. In (74), gotta is corrected by HAVE got to, even without resumption of the personal pronoun. (73) And it’s like the same thing with the voice you got to while you’re moving you’ve got to keep it there and the audience has got to see it up there (74) How come you gotta ’ve got to do twelve There’s only six The preference for auxiliary omission in the New Englishes can mainly be explained by their tendency towards simplification, a process known to apply in SLA. After all, the omission of the auxiliary entails the use of invariant got to or gotta, so that no verb has to be inflected. Furthermore, since, according to Collins, auxiliary omission is about two thirds averaged over ICE-GB, ICEAustralia, and C-US (cf. footnote 101; Collins 2009a: 68–72), and since ICE-GB, as I have shown, does not contribute to this low ratio, one can also assume that Americanisation plays a major role in the high percentage of Jamaican English, fostered by geographical proximity to the US: note the typically American use of the reduced form gotta with flapped pronunciation of /t/. For Singaporean English, I suggest, besides simplification, colloquialisation and substrate influence as important factors: first, auxiliary omission is associated with informal language use (also cf. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2007: 79), which means that it is in line with the advanced stage of colloquialisation Singaporean English is said to be in; second, got fulfils a variety of functions in Colloquial Singapore English and its versatile use is likely to contribute to the high token numbers of semimodal got to in Singaporean English. To conclude, the hypothesis about higher absolute frequencies of the semi-modal got to and larger shares of auxiliary omission in the New Englishes than in British English can be confirmed. The use of negated (HAVE) got to and past had got to, coalescence of got to, and tag use after (HAVE) got to have been described above. It has been shown that rare standard variants, such as negated (HAVE) got to and past had got to, occur even less frequently in the New Englishes than in British English. Further

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 235

standard variants in form and nonstandard peculiarities in the use of (HAVE) got to in the corpora studied will be presented in the following. These include cliticisation of the auxiliary, got to with past time reference, and subject omission. It will turn out that also the remaining part of hypothesis 2, viz. more nonstandard variants in the New Englishes than in British English, can be confirmed. For determining the percentage of cliticisation of HAVE got to, i.e. the use of ’ve/’s/’d got to, only those cases were counted where there was an option between the use of the full form and the cliticised form. The numbers of the cases where a cliticised form would not be possible anyway were added to the cliticised forms. That cliticisation is not possible can have several reasons, e.g. because HAVE got to occurs in a question, as in How much have you got to…?, because the subject is missing, as in Have really got to…, because the preceding word ends in a sound after which cliticisation is not possible, as in The audience has got to…, or because elements are inserted between the subject and HAVE got to, as in I very shortly have got to…. In general, cliticisation of HAVE got to is more frequent in British English than in the New Englishes. Of all instances with realised auxiliary in ICE-GB, 96.3% (= 206 tokens) are cliticised or have to be used in the full form, i.e. they cannot be cliticised. This percentage is 80.0 (= 16 tokens) in ICE-JA and 79.5 (= 58 tokens) in ICE-SIN. The results for British and Jamaican English are similar to those determined for possessive HAVE got, whereas the percentage of Singaporean English is about 10 higher here (cf. chapter 5.8.2). The phenomena of mode that have been found in the case of cliticisation of possessive HAVE got, viz. a mode indifference in ICE-JA and a more frequent cliticisation in written than in spoken language in ICE-SIN, can also be traced here and are even more extreme. British English exhibits a practically exclusive use of cliticised forms in spoken language (97.1%) and a moderately high use of full forms in written language (20.0%), but Jamaican English does not seem to differentiate much between mode, while Singaporean English uses more cliticised forms in written (100.0%) than in spoken language (76.9%), a moderately high percentage of full forms in spoken language (23.1%), and no full forms in written language at all. The combined evidence from possessive HAVE got and semi-modal HAVE got to suggests that the mode peculiarity in the cliticisation of HAVE in Singaporean English constitutes a pattern. While it has been described above that past had got to is practically not used, what one can find in the New Englishes is the form got to with a past time reference, which is not considered standard language use. In ICE-JA spoken, 2 examples can be found. For the first one, which contains many unclear transcriptions, consider the larger context:

236 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

(75) I was word in uhm nineteen sixty-one and his father was older then and his mother got to register and they send him to meet at the post office Uhu And his father name He get his father surname but his father Daniel did not go on the birth certificate Despite the uncertainty of some of the transcriptions, it is clear that the time frame is past: two uses of was establish past time reference, after which got to and two base forms are used, viz. send and get, the latter even after a 3rd-person singular pronoun. Because of the time frame established at the beginning and the last VP did not go, one can conclude that got to, send, and get are also used with past time reference. While here one could argue that verbs are simply used nonstandardly in their base form with past time reference, got to, because of its surface past tense form, is certainly more prone to be used with past time reference than other verb forms. The use of send and get with past time reference clearly testifies to Creole substrate influence. As Farquharson (2013a: 85) explains, active (or non-stative) predicates occurring in the base form and without an overt tense marker have a simple past (or alternatively a present habitual) reading in Jamaican. What also needs to be considered is that the verb following got to, viz. send, is marked as an uncertain transcription and an actual realisation as the past tense form sent can certainly not be excluded, in which case got to with past time reference would actually be flanked by past tense forms. In the second example from ICE-JA (cf. example (76)), got to is in fact surrounded by two past tense forms and possibly even perceived as a past tense form by the speaker because of analogy to past tense got: (76) I don’t think he came off the scene I just think he probably got to deal with him family but he just did that to take care the other day In ICE-SIN spoken, one token of got to with past time reference occurs. Here, too, consider the larger context: (77) At the beginning when we started organize activities for youth it was really an uphill task

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First of all the condition there is not really conducive as there’s no attraction and most of the youth do not know the existence of the PA Youth Movement So we got to launch an house-to-house campaign to publicize the Youth Movement so they come to know about it And to keep them coming the popular activities of that time were introduced Note that speaker C starts his or her statement in the past tense and then switches to present tense. This present tense can have past time as well as present time reference – the context does not disambiguate this. Probably, the forms are intended to have past time reference and to express a general truth at the same time. The following got to has however clear past time reference because it refers to a single event, the launch of a campaign. Got to, with its surface past tense form, can also function as a reminder that the time frame is past. Speaker D, who continues with the talk, then switches back to a standard past tense form and confirms the general time frame as past. The use of semimodal got to with past time reference in the New Englishes can be considered a case of overgeneralisation and thus a result of SLA because past time reference occurs in analogy to the standard past time reference of got as used, for instance, in monotransitive or copular constructions. Also note that the subject before (HAVE) got to is quite frequently omitted in the New Englishes, viz. in 11.8% of all uses of (HAVE) got to in ICE-JA and in 14.4% in ICE-SIN, but practically never in British English (0.8% in ICE-GB). The high percentages of subject omission in the New Englishes can be explained by simplification because the subject reference is clear in all those cases even without mention of the subject. In the case of Singaporean English, substrate influence certainly also contributes to the high percentage. Subject omission is even more frequent with the semi-modal than with the possessive use of GET (cf. chapter 5.8.2). Just as for possessive (HAVE) got, the subject is practically never omitted when the auxiliary HAVE is realised. Only 1 counterexample can be found, viz. in ICE-SIN in a private letter, where, presumably, the written medium fosters the use of the auxiliary, but the informality and speech-like nature of the letter lead to subject omission and thus this peculiar mix of features: Have really got to stop here (). Subject omission occurs most frequently with a 1st-person subject and got to/gotta (74.4% of all cases of subject omission across all corpora), as in Okay got to go back and get my friend now ().

238 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

In summary, hypothesis 2, higher frequencies of got to/gotta, higher percentages of auxiliary omission, and more nonstandard uses, viz. got to with past time reference and subject omission, in the New Englishes than in British English can be confirmed by the data at hand and explained by effects of SLA such as simplification and overgeneralisation. Rare standard variants, viz. negated (HAVE) got to and past had got to, by contrast, are even rarer in the New Englishes than in British English.

5.9.3 Results: mode and genre The hypothesis about mode distribution can be clearly confirmed by the data. They indicate that the semi-modal (HAVE) got to is a construction typical of spoken language, which confirms previous observations about the informality of (HAVE) got to. Figure 5.37 shows that the written (sub-) corpora have lower token numbers than the spoken subcorpora across the board. The much higher numbers of (HAVE) got to in speech in British and Singaporean English than in Jamaican English, as well as the speech-writing ratios, reflect the higher and lower degrees of colloquialism of the varieties. The speech-writing ratio is highest in ICE-GB with 11.4 : 1, i.e. (HAVE) got to is 11.4 times more frequent in speech than in writing in British English. It is considerably lower in ICE-SIN with 7.2 : 1, and a mere 2.7 : 1 in ICE-JA. When these ratios are compared to the ratios for all uses of GET (ICE-GB 3.1 : 1, ICE-SIN 3.0 : 1, ICE-JA 2.2 : 1), it turns out that (HAVE) got to is overrepresented in spoken language in all varieties but extremely so in British and Singaporean English. Apparently, much like possessive (HAVE) got, the stigma and low prestige of (HAVE) got to make it an unsuitable form for written language.108

|| 108 Just as for possessive (HAVE) got, the speech-writing ratio for the semi-modal with omitted auxiliary is higher only in the case of ICE-SIN with 8.9 : 1. Because of the very low token numbers of got to/gotta in British and Jamaican English, their speech-writing ratios should not be overestimated, however, and a larger database can be assumed to lead to the expected results for all varieties.

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 239

40

35.0

35

31.3

30 25 20

spoken

15

written

10 5

4.2

6.5 3.1

3.1

2.4

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

4.3

0 LOB

ICE-SIN

Figure 5.37: Mode distribution of semi-modal (HAVE) got to (tokens per 100,000 words)

Table 5.37 and Table 5.38 give the detailed genre results for (HAVE) got to for LOB and FLOB as well as for the ICE corpora. For LOB and FLOB, standard deviations across all text types are very high, viz. 34.5 and 28.1 respectively. This means that while (HAVE) got to is infrequent in LOB and FLOB because of the written nature of the two corpora, the sensitivity to single text types is appreciable. In particular, one finds an average underuse of 32.8% in general prose and an average overuse of almost 40% in fiction, the most speech-like genre. The slight overuse in press language as well as the underuse in academic writing are also in line with the ascription of informality to the semi-modal. Across ICE, a comparison of standard deviations points to the highest genre sensitivity in British English, which has a standard deviation of 19.4. Singaporean English follows with 16.9, and Jamaican English brings up the rear with 13.4. Looking at the spoken texts, one can see a clear overuse of (HAVE) got to in the most informal genre private dialogues in British and Singaporean English: in ICE-GB, (HAVE) got to is used 38.5% more frequently than expected if the distribution were equal across all genres, in ICE-SIN 30.5% (cf. Table 5.38). These results are in line with the informality associated with the semi-modal. Jamaican English, by contrast, exhibits the most extreme positive value for unscripted monologues, with an overuse of 17.4%. A detailed look at the individual tokens reveals that while forms with omitted auxiliary are on the whole more frequent in Jamaican English than uses in which the auxiliary is realised, the overuse of (HAVE) got to in unscripted monologues is mainly due to the overuse of forms with realised auxiliary. This means that although the semimodal is overused in a quite formal genre of speech in Jamaican English, this

240 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

“inappropriate” overuse is compensated for by the use of forms with realised auxiliary, which is a minority variant in Jamaican English in general and probably perceived as more formal than the variant with omitted auxiliary. Note that exactly the same phenomenon can be found in Singaporean English: while got to and gotta are more frequent than HAVE got to in the corpus overall, in unscripted monologues, it is forms with realised auxiliary that represent the majority of uses. A differentiation between the variants of (HAVE) got to also occurs in British English, but in the opposite direction: of the relatively few tokens of got to that occur in British English, the great majority are found in the most informal spoken category of private dialogues. For ICE written, three categories have been created for Table 5.38 because a corollary of the avoidance of (HAVE) got to in written language is that statements about more fine-grained text type differences are not possible. One can see that all written categories, as well as the most formal spoken category, unscripted monologues, display an underuse of (HAVE) got to, the only exception being non-printed writing in ICE-JA. The overuse there, however, is mild with 5.7%, and low token numbers in written Jamaican English mean that no far-reaching conclusions should be drawn from this result. It is certainly justified to state that the varieties are in line in their strong underuse of (HAVE) got to in informational writing, on average by around 25%, while the most informal written category fiction exhibits only a slight underuse of about 2%.109 Apparently thus, (HAVE) got to is avoided in formal written texts to a similar extent in all three varieties of English studied here. The vast majority of tokens that occur in written language, viz. 27 of 41, occur in letters: 26 of them come up in social letters and only 1 in a business letter. This means that the more informal written texts (e.g. letters and fiction) exhibit for the most part mild underuses of (HAVE) got to similar to those in the most formal spoken texts (e.g. scripted monologues), so that the gap between written and spoken language might indeed be narrowing.

|| 109 This slight underuse would of course correspond to an overuse if the reference value were only the written tokens. Thus, the results are in fact in line with the overuse in LOB and FLOB.

16.0

160,000 252,000 1,000,000

Academic writing (J)

Fiction (K, L, M, N, P, R)

TOTAL 100

25.2

41.2

412,000

General prose (popular writing, biography, instructional writing) (D, E, F, G, H)

17.6

176,000

WRITTEN

(HAVE) got to expected %

Press (A, B, C)

number of words

100

71.4

0.0

7.1

21.4

3.2 58.1

-16.0 46.2

100

9.7

-34.1

0

29.0

3.8

0

32.9

-12.8

-31.5

11.4

LOB LOB FLOB FLOB observed difference observed difference % % % %

Table 5.37: Expected and observed distribution of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in LOB (N=42) and FLOB (N=31)

0

39.5

-14.4

-32.8

7.6

mean difference %

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 241

160,000 140,000 100,000

Public dialogues (S1B)

Unscripted monologues (S2A)

Scripted monologues (S2B) 100,000 260,000 40,000 1,000,000

Non-printed (W1)

Informational writing (W2A–W2E)

Fiction (W2F)

TOTAL

WRITTEN

200,000

Private dialogues (S1A)

SPOKEN

number of words

100

4.0

26.0

10.0

10.0

14.0

16.0

20.0

100

0.8

2.5

2.1

3.0

8.5

24.6

58.5

100

3.9

-3.2 0

0.0

7.8

-7.0 15.7

31.4

-5.5

-7.9

13.7

8.6

-23.5

27.5

38.5

0

-0.1

-26.0

5.7

-2.2

17.4

-2.3

7.5

100

1.0

1.0

6.7

2.9

23.1

14.9

50.5

0

-3.0

-25.0

-3.3

-7.1

9.1

-1.1

30.5

0

-2.1

-24.8

-1.8

-5.4

7.0

1.7

25.5

(HAVE) ICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean got to observed difference observed difference observed difference difference expected % % % % % % % %

Table 5.38: Expected and observed distribution of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=236), ICE-JA (N=51), and ICE-SIN (N=208)

242 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 243

To sum up, while there seems to be sensitivity in the New Englishes in the use of more informal and more formal versions of the semi-modal (have) got to, viz. by omitting or realising the auxiliary, the hypothesis of its more homogeneous distribution across genres in New Englishes and a greater heterogeneity and genre sensitivity in British English (hypothesis 3) can be fully confirmed. The use of (have) got to is stratified in terms of genre in all varieties and reflects its informality. British and Singaporean English exhibit quite similar distributions, with a strong overuse in private dialogues and a strong underuse in informational writing, while Jamaican English is at variance more frequently, but this might well be an effect of low overall token numbers in that variety.

5.9.4 Results: meaning For the analysis of the meaning of (HAVE) got to, forms with realised and omitted auxiliary as well as continuous and discontinuous tokens were coded for deontic, dynamic, or epistemic meaning. Table 5.39 and Table 5.40 show that deontic meaning is the core meaning of (HAVE) got to. More than two thirds of the tokens in all corpora carry this meaning, as in So you’ve got to be very careful in the way you protray the mosque (). Epistemic meaning, as in And he said well obviously this girl it’s gotta be silicon chips (), is a minor meaning in all corpora, with only up to 3 tokens per corpus. In between lies the dynamic meaning, as in Have you got to fall below the poverty line to be considered? (). Although token numbers are altogether low in written language, from LOB to FLOB and ICE-GB written, one finds signs of a decrease in deontic meaning and an increase in dynamic meaning (cf. Table 5.39). The hypothesis of a change towards fewer face-threatening deontic uses of (HAVE) got to in written British English can only be tentatively be confirmed at this point because the differences are statistically not significant. The synchronic ICE data (cf. Table 5.40) also yield tentative evidence of fewer overtly authoritative uses in British English than in the New Englishes. While in Singaporean English, (HAVE) got to is significantly more frequently used to express deontic meaning and less frequently to express dynamic meaning than in British English (p=0.015, χ2=5.94, df=1), ICE-JA has fewer deontic uses than ICE-GB, but the difference is not significant and the low general use of (HAVE) got to in ICE-JA means that the comparison of ICE-GB with ICE-JA is less conclusive than that with ICE-SIN.

244 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.39: Meaning of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in LOB (N=42), FLOB (N=31), and ICE-GB written (N=13) (per cent)

non-epistemic deontic

epistemic

%

dynamic

LOB

81.0

14.3

4.8

100

FLOB

77.4

19.4

3.2

100

ICE-GB written

69.2

23.1

7.7

100

Table 5.40: Meaning of semi-modal (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=236), ICE-JA (N=51), and ICE-SIN (N=208) (per cent)

non-epistemic deontic

epistemic

%

dynamic

ICE-GB110

72.5

26.3

1.3

100

ICE-JA

68.6

25.5

5.9

100

ICE-SIN

82.2

17.8

0.0

100

In order to shed more light on the presumed change in meaning in British English as well as on the differences between British English and the New Englishes, I will use the person of the subject as a formal index of the strength of obligation expressed by deontic (HAVE) got to. This is because the degree of obligation that modals and semi-modals can express is constrained by the choice of subject, as Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007: 64–66) explain: 2nd persons

|| 110 For a comparison with other studies, note Collins’ (2009a: 68) analysis, which reports 82.3% deontic tokens of (HAVE) got to in ICE-GB, 15.0% dynamic tokens, 0.6% epistemic tokens, and 2.1% indeterminate tokens. It should be recalled at this point “that comparing the results of semantic analyses across studies is difficult, due to the challenging nature of the task of semantic coding” (Close and Aarts 2010: 169), but besides the necessarily subjective interpretation of meaning, the differences in the results Collins obtained for ICE-GB and I obtain for ICEGB can be explained by two factors. First, Collins apparently subsumed tokens such as I’ve got to ask you this (2009a: 70), where HAVE got to expresses self-compulsion or self-obligation, under deontic meaning, whereas I subsumed such tokens under dynamic meaning because they express a certain disposition or internal need on the part of the speaker. Second, Collins probably did not consider discontinuous tokens in his count.

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 245

encode the strongest obligation, while 3rd persons encode the weakest obligation, with 1st persons in between. Subjects with generic reference, e.g. generic you or they, the pronoun somebody, or generic use of the NP people, must be analysed separately and encode the weakest degree of obligation. This means that the subject can be used as an objective correlate of the degree of obligation on the following scale: 2nd-person subject > 1st-person subject > 3rd-person subject > generic subject. For the presentation of the results, the four categories have been merged to two, expressing stronger and weaker obligation of (HAVE) got to, respectively. First, consider the percentages for the change from LOB to FLOB111 in Table 5.41: Table 5.41: Strength of obligation of deontic (HAVE) got to in LOB (N=34) and FLOB (N=24) (per cent)

strong obligation (2nd and 1st person)

weak obligation (3rd person and generic)

%

LOB

67.6

32.4

100

FLOB

54.2

45.8

100

decreasing strength of obligation

The data suggest that there has been a change in the semantics of deontic (HAVE) got to in written British English from stronger to weaker obligation. Use with 1stperson subjects, which is connected to strong obligation, accounts for almost half of all uses in the 1960s’ data (47.1%), while the uses are almost evenly distributed across the four categories in the 1990s’ data and thus suggest decreasing strength of obligation over time. The categories increasing in relative use are mainly generic subjects, such as in See, for passengers you’ve got to provide trains, but for customers you’ve only got to sell tickets (FLOB, B08 154–155). This is in line with the results above and suggests a decrease of authoritative and face-threatening uses. For ICE, too, the results of the semantic analysis are corroborated: while ICE-GB exhibits a similar amount of deontic tokens expressing strong and weak obligation, respectively, ICE-SIN has a surplus of deontic tokens expressing strong obligation and ICE-JA has a surplus of deontic tokens expressing weak obligation (cf. Table 5.42). However, the differences do not reach statistical

|| 111 Token numbers in ICE-GB written are too low to be included in the comparison here.

246 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

significance. The surplus of tokens expressing strong obligation in ICE-SIN is mainly due to constructions with 1st-person subjects (40.4%), such as Alright because I’ve got to be able to see my script otherwise I’ll won’t be able to say what I’m supposed to say (), while the surplus of tokens expressing weak obligation in ICE-JA is mainly due to constructions with 3rdperson subjects (34.3%), such as This society has got to come to terms with itself (). Table 5.42: Strength of obligation of deontic (H AVE) got to in ICE-GB (N=171), ICE-JA (N=25), and ICE-SIN (N=171) (per cent)

strong obligation (2nd and 1st person)

weak obligation (3rd person and generic)

%

ICE-GB

53.8

46.2

100

ICE-JA

45.7

54.3

100

ICE-SIN

60.2

39.8

100

decreasing strength of obligation

To summarise, deontic meaning is the core meaning of (HAVE) got to in all varieties, but the use of deontic (HAVE) got to as well as its strength of obligation seem to be decreasing in written British English. Strongly authoritative uses are most frequent in Singaporean English and least frequent in Jamaican English. This is because deontic (HAVE) got to is most frequent in Singaporean English and, when it is used, expresses a stronger degree of obligation than in the other varieties. Deontic (HAVE) got to is least frequent in Jamaican English and, when it is used, expresses a weaker degree of obligation than in the other varieties. British English lies in between. While a regional differentiation of meaning in the use of (HAVE) got to has been demonstrated, influence from epicentres, such as American English influence on the use of fewer face-threatening uses of (HAVE) got to in Jamaican English, might be more important than any assumed British English-New English or inner circle-outer circle divide. Epistemic meaning constitutes only a small proportion of all uses of (HAVE) got to. Because of the complexity inherent in the meaning of (HAVE) got to and its variable use across varieties of English, hypothesis 4 can only be partially confirmed. For all calculations of modals and semi-modals in the semantic field of obligation and necessity, only positive forms were considered. Since the only negative forms of (HAVE) got to are 2 items in ICE-GB and 2 in ICE-JA, this changes the numbers for (HAVE) got to only slightly compared to the other

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 247

analyses.112 Figure 5.38 shows that within the semantic field, drastic changes have occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s in written British English. All assumptions about the fall of central modals, here must (from 1,089 to 790 tokens), the rise of semi-modals, here HAVE to (from 668 to 748) and NEED to (from 58 to 201), and the complex situation of (HAVE) got to (from 42 to 31) can be confirmed by LOB and FLOB. Although the frequency of must has fallen, it is still the top element of the group. Hypothesis 5 can therefore be fully confirmed. The ratio modal : semi-modals is 1 : 0.7 in LOB but 1 : 1.2 in FLOB. This change clearly indicates that the importance of the semi-modals in the semantic field of obligation and necessity has grown greatly over time, while the modal must has decreased in importance. One can also add the ratio of ICE-GB written here, which is 1 : 1.4, and adduce this as conclusive evidence for the development argued for, viz. a colloquialisation of the written language.

1,200 1,089 1,000 800 600

790 748 668

must must have HAVEto to need NEED to to

400

(have) (HAVE)got gotto to 200 0

201 58 42 LOB

31 FLOB

Figure 5.38: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in LOB and FLOB (absolute token numbers)

|| 112 The search strings used in AntConc to retrieve the individual modals and semi-modals, as well as information on what tokens needed to be eliminated, are provided in the following, except for (HAVE) got to, for which token numbers were obtained by manually analysing all tokens of GET: “must” (minus “must@not”; mustn’t has not been retrieved in the first place), “need* to” (minus “*n’t@need to”, minus “not@need* to”, minus “needless to”, minus nominal uses, minus adjectival uses), “have to”, “has to”, “had to”, “having to” (minus “have to do with”, minus “has to do with”, minus “had to do with”, minus “having to do with”, minus “*n’t@have to”, minus “not@have to”, minus “not@having to”).

248 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Compared to LOB and FLOB, the order of the two most frequent members of the group of modals and semi-modals is different in ICE (cf. Figure 5.39): in all ICE corpora, HAVE to is in the top position and clearly surpasses must. Moreover, NEED to and (HAVE) got to are both much more present in ICE than in LOB and FLOB, due to the difference in mode between the corpora. Across ICE, one can further note that Jamaican English has more extreme values than either British or Singaporean English. The difference between the most and the least frequent member of the group is 1,510 tokens in ICE-JA and thus much larger than in ICESIN (1,094 tokens) or ICE-GB (922 tokens).

1,800 1,600

1,559 1,302

1,400 1,200

1,156 ICE-GB

903

1,000 800

654

ICE-JA

704

600

ICE-SIN

445

400

270

349

200

234

208 49

0 have to HAVE to

must must

need NEED to to

(have) (HAVE) got to

Figure 5.39: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE (absolute token numbers)

The pie charts in Figure 5.40, Figure 5.41, and Figure 5.42 provide more information on the relative use of each of the modals and semi-modals. They show that the distribution in Singaporean English is very similar to that in British English, except for must, which accounts for a third of all uses in the semantic field in ICE-SIN, which is a statistically highly significant difference (ICE-SIN and ICE-GB: p=0.0007, χ2=11.63, df=1). It is noteworthy that ICE-SIN is the only corpus in which must is more frequently used in speech than in writing. While must is 39.7% less popular in speech than in writing in ICE-GB and 29.3% less popular in speech than in writing in ICE-JA, it is 5.2% more popular in speech than in writing in ICE-SIN. Two explanations are possible: either must

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 249

retains vitality because it has simply not yet joined in the general fall of central modals in spoken Singaporean English, so that one witnesses a case of time lag or delay (cf. Collins and Yao 2012), or must is developing into a Singaporean idiosyncrasy.

10%

(have) (HAVE)got gottoto 28%

50%

must must need NEEDto to have HAVEtoto

12%

Figure 5.40: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE-GB (per cent)

2%

25%

(have) (HAVEgot ) gottoto must must need NEEDtoto

57% 16%

have toto HAVE

Figure 5.41: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE-JA (per cent)

250 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

7%

(have) (HAVEgot ) gottoto 47%

33%

must must need NEEDto to have HAVEtoto

13%

Figure 5.42: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in ICE-SIN (per cent)

For all other elements in the semantic field of obligation and necessity, i.e. the semi-modals HAVE to, NEED to, and (HAVE) got to, it is Jamaican English that is strongly differentiated from the other two varieties: twice because of a more frequent use of the semi-modal in question, once because of a less frequent use. In all cases, the differences between ICE-JA and the other two corpora are statistically highly significant. The higher frequencies of HAVE to as well as NEED to in ICE-JA than in ICE-SIN and ICE-GB and the lower frequencies of must point to influence from American English (cf. Collins 2009a: 67), which is most advanced in the rise of semi-modals and thus acts as a factor promoting the exceptionally frequent use of semi-modals in Jamaican English. The ratio modal : semi-modals is 1 : 2.9 in ICE-JA and surpasses that of ICE-GB (1 : 2.5). Processes known to apply in SLA could have reinforced the distribution because an already frequent and possibly simpler member of a group of alternative expressions, viz. HAVE to, is even more frequently used (lexical teddy bear effect), and a peripheral member, viz. (HAVE) got to, is even less frequently used than in the other varieties (also cf. the extreme values of ICE-JA in Figure 5.39). HAVE to can be considered a simple semi-modal because of its full range of forms and its quasi-full verb status. Americanisation and effects from SLA thus seem to concur to produce the situation in Jamaican English. While still the same members are in use as in British English, HAVE to carries the major work-load in the system and (HAVE) got to is marginalised. Hypothesis 6, the emulation of British English standards in Singaporean English and the emulation of the American English distribution in Jamaican English, can be confirmed.

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 251

For the genre conversation, the composition of the semantic field of obligation and necessity has been claimed to be quite different from other genres, with (HAVE) got to becoming more common and even outstripping must in inner-circle varieties (cf. Collins 2008: 134; Collins 2005: 261; Krug 2000: 63). I therefore conducted a separate analysis of the category private dialogues, i.e. direct conversations and telephone calls (S1A-001–S1A-100), in ICE-GB, ICE-JA, and ICESIN, with the results displayed in Table 5.43 confirming the claim: in ICE-GB, (HAVE) got to outstrips must by a factor of 1.4 in private dialogues, while in the corpora of the New Englishes, the numbers are below 1 per instance of must. If one compares the ratios for private dialogues with the ratios for the whole corpora, one sees that the genre dependence just detected is very strong in British English. It is also extant but weak and is not leading to an ousting of must in private dialogues in Singaporean English, while it is absent in Jamaican English, where genre does not appear to make any difference to the ratio. Table 5.43: (HAVE) got to : must in ICE (absolute token numbers and ratios)

(HAVE) got to : must ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

private dialogues

138 : 102

1.4 : 1

complete corpus

234 : 654

0.4 : 1

private dialogues

14 : 128

0.1 : 1

complete corpus

49 : 704

0.1 : 1

private dialogues

105 : 187

0.6 : 1

complete corpus

208 : 903

0.2 : 1

A comparison of Figure 5.40 with Figure 5.43 and of Figure 5.42 with Figure 5.45 illustrates the much greater importance of (HAVE) got to in private dialogues than in the language in general in British and Singaporean English: in private dialogues in ICE-GB, this semi-modal makes up almost a quarter of all elements of the group and in private dialogues in ICE-SIN about 15%, which is more than double that of the figures in the complete corpora. Jamaican English makes almost no use of (HAVE) got to even in private dialogues and overuses HAVE to even more, which takes away shares from must (cf. Figure 5.41 with Figure 5.44).

252 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

24% (have) (HAVE)got gotto to must must

49% 18%

need NEEDto to have HAVEto to

9%

Figure 5.43: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in private dialogues in ICE-GB (per cent)

2% 15% 16% 67%

(have) (HAVE)got gottoto must must need NEEDto to have HAVEtoto

Figure 5.44: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in private dialogues in ICE-JA (per cent)

15% (have) (HAVE)got gottoto must must

48% 27% 10%

need NEEDto to have HAVEtoto

Figure 5.45: Modals and semi-modals of positive obligation and necessity in private dialogues in ICE-SIN (per cent)

Semi-modal (HAVE) got to | 253

5.9.5 Summary It can be concluded in terms of absolute token numbers that (HAVE) got to is most frequent in British English, followed by Singaporean English. In Jamaican English, it is hardly used. While the version with realised auxiliary, i.e. HAVE got to, is the norm in British English, omission of the auxiliary is more frequent than realisation of the auxiliary in the New Englishes. Besides simplification as an effect of SLA, for Jamaican English, American English influence has been adduced as a factor in explaining the distribution, whereas for Singaporean English, colloquialisation and substrate influence concur. Nonstandard uses of (HAVE) got to, such as past use of got to, have been shown to occur in the corpora of the New Englishes but not in British English, whereas for rare standard uses, such as negated (HAVE) got to and past had got to, the opposite seems to be the case. (HAVE) got to is typical of spoken and informal language in all varieties, but British English exhibits a more pronounced genre distribution than the New Englishes, with a strong overuse in private dialogues and a strong underuse in informational writing. The meaning of (HAVE) got to is deontic in the vast majority of cases in all varieties. However, there are indications that the meaning is changing towards fewer authoritative uses and weaker obligation in written British English. In Singaporean English, deontic meaning and the expression of strong obligation are more frequent than in British English, which could indicate that Singaporean English has not yet been affected by the presumed ongoing sociocultural change. The high frequency of must in Singaporean English would support this. For Jamaican English, token numbers of (HAVE) got to are too low to allow definite conclusions, but I suggest that influence from American English is at work. In the distribution of the elements in the onomasiological field of obligation and necessity, British and Singaporean English are similar, with small differences being a less frequent use of (HAVE) got to and a more frequent use of must in ICE-SIN. Singaporean English is the variety in which must can best hold its own vis-à-vis semi-modals. In this variety, must is also more important than (HAVE) got to in private dialogues, in contrast to British English, where (HAVE) got to clearly outstrips must in this genre. Jamaican English goes its own way with a distribution emulating the development in American English, i.e. high frequencies of HAVE to and NEED to, low frequencies of must, and a disregard of (HAVE) got to. This distribution might have been reinforced by simplification processes such as the overuse of already familiar and highly frequent items and an ousting of marginal members. It can be concluded that for the distribution and use of (HAVE)

254 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

got to and the modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity, influence from the two major standard varieties and the propensity to embrace ongoing changes are more decisive than any inner circle-outer circle divide.

5.10 Catenative GET A further pattern in which GET occurs is the catenative construction. Quirk et al. (1985: 146–147) do not give exact criteria for catenative constructions, but instead list examples, one of them being GET to do sth. It turns out that the catenative class is only loosely defined, and different verbs may or may not be regarded as belonging to it.113 Prototypical catenatives are followed by the toinfinitive, as in APPEAR to do sth, but it is possible to enlarge the class by “certain verbs which resemble the auxiliary BE in combining either with the -ing participle in progressive constructions, or with the -ed participle in passive constructions” (1985: 146), as in KEEP doing sth. This means that GET + -ing-form and the GETpassive could also be meaningfully subsumed under the heading catenative. In the present study, I subsume under catenative GET the formal structures GET (+ NP) + to-infinitive and GET (+ NP) + -ing-form,114 while the GET-passive is treated in a chapter of its own (chapter 5.4), given its relevance for grammaticalisation and its very different meaning. Many verbs, e.g. ATTEMPT or LIKE, can form chain-like structures (cf. Latin catena), but, according to Quirk et al. (1985: 146, 1171), these are main verbs and should not be subsumed under the heading catenative, the reason being that the infinitive or participle following them in a chain-like structure functions as a direct object, so that the whole construction can be related to a transitive verb construction with the same meaning. Catenatives, by contrast, cannot be related to transitive constructions, which is one feature moving them away from main verb status. The second feature is their aspectual or modal meaning. Like all catenative verbs then, catenative GET stands between auxiliaries and main

|| 113 Standop (2000) points this out as a major drawback of Quirk et al.’s (1985) description of verb complementation and pleads for the integration of Palmer’s (1988) model of catenatives. Palmer (1988) subsumes all verbs followed by an infinitive or an -ing-form under catenatives, unlike Quirk et al. (1985: 146–147), who reserve the term for a few verbs like APPEAR and SEEM. 114 The first occurrence of GET followed by a to-infinitive can be traced to the 17th century. Gronemeyer (1999: 29–32) claims that the source construction is GET to be, which had an ambiguous reading between permission (‘to receive an opportunity to be’) and ingression (‘to come to be’). The causative version seems to have occurred even earlier, in the 16th century. GET followed by an -ing-form is first found in the 18th century (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 36).

Catenative GET | 255

verbs. GET to do sth is main verb-like, for instance, in taking DO-support, in having nonfinite forms, in having an inflected 3rd-person singular form, and in showing normal present/past tense contrast. Because of these criteria, it is closer to main verbs than for instance the semi-modal HAVE got to, which neither takes DO-support nor has nonfinite forms (cf. chapter 5.9.1). Catenative GET does not qualify as a main verb, however, because of the fact that it cannot be related to a transitive construction as well as because of its meaning.115 In the following, I will attempt a unified description of the meaning of catenative GET, based on a review of the literature as well as on the corpus analysis of LOB, FLOB, and ICE. In the literature, there is great confusion when it comes to the meaning of catenative GET. Meanings are either not specified or differ greatly. Quirk et al. speak only very generally of “meanings related to aspect or modality” (1985: 146), and do not specify the meaning of GET to do sth, let alone GET doing sth or the same constructions with an intervening NP. Gronemeyer (1999: 7, 31) describes the basic meaning of catenative GET as ‘permission’, claiming that this sense is well-established in informal speech, at least in American English. In her data from Brown, it hardly occurs, however. She regards the meanings ‘to manage to do sth’ and ‘to secure an opportunity to do sth’ as contextually determined variants of the permission sense, and also states that the construction is now generally modal and can denote obligation as well, depending on context. Kimball (1973: 210) describes the meaning of catenative GET as ‘to come to have permission’, i.e. as the inchoative of modal may. Visser (1969: 1378; also cf. Dixon 2005: 357) speaks of a connotation of achievement that GET can acquire when followed by an infinitive. Givón and Yang (1994: 146) point out an ironic achievement or opportunity sense, as in I finally got to see the boss. According to Burchfield (1996: 330), GET to do sth meaning ‘to get round to doing sth’ is regarded as informal by lexicographers and has only restricted currency in British English. Kirchner (1952: 215–216) provides the meanings ‘to learn to do sth, to become able to manage sth’ and ‘to succeed in doing sth, to have an opportunity to do sth’. In general, there do seem to be certain relations between meaning and form, such as when an -ing-complement denotes ‘fulfilment’ and a to-infinitive complement denotes ‘potentiality’ with

|| 115 Thus, semantic and formal criteria interact in Quirk et al.’s auxiliary-main verb scale (1985: 136), whose structural implication is that the verbs at each end, when combined with another verb, make up one VP or two VPs, respectively. This means that the verbs in I can read constitute one single VP, while the verbs in I like reading constitute two separate VPs. In the case of catenatives combined with another verb, Quirk et al. (1985: 154–155) concede that no clear decision is possible and that both analyses would be conceivable and reasonable.

256 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

certain verbs, but there are numerous counter-examples to such relations: “it does not seem possible […] to establish a fixed meaning for a particular type of complement” (Herbst 2009: 58). What crystallises from my data analysis of all tokens of catenative GET in LOB, FLOB, and ICE is that the catenative construction with GET splits up into two main meanings: a permission or achievement meaning, and an ingressive meaning; both can be causative. This systematisation will be developed and explained in detail. For the first main meaning of catenative GET, the form is GET + to-infinitive. Only dynamic verbs are found with this sense. In the first subsense, permission or opportunity is provided by somebody, as in example (78), while in the second subsense, somebody manages or achieves something himor herself, as in example (79). (78) You get to make the mistake here so when you go out there you don’t do the same stupidness (79) There is the part that that I feel is how do I get to dance with somebody who is in a wheelchair The second main meaning of catenative GET arises when GET is combined with a stative predicate and has the form GET + to-infinitive or GET + -ing-form. GET then has an aspectual meaning and denotes the beginning of a state, i.e. it is ingressive,116 as in the following examples: (80) Although it does not […] seem as if we support the same party, we are from the same parish and who knows, we may just get to like each other. (81) And those that are people who never get going Semantically, there is no difference between the two types of ingressive constructions – the distribution depends on the kind of verb: stative verbs take the to-infinitive, and dynamic verbs take the -ing-form. This ensures that the predicate is stative in any case, which is necessary because only stative predicates allow an ingressive interpretation (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 8).

|| 116 Depending on the exact definition of the terms, inchoative could also be used (cf. Bußmann 2008: 281).

Catenative GET | 257

Gronemeyer (1999: 31) states that the ingressive use is first documented in the 18th century, is relatively rare and not mentioned in the standard works on English, with only the OED having an entry ‘to come (to be or do)’ (2009: s.v. “get, v., 32. a.”) and Brinton (1988: 116, quoted in Gronemeyer 1999: 7) calling GET one of the new ingressive aspectualisers in Present-Day English. Note, however, Kirchner (1952: 215), who calls GET in catenative function an “auxiliary of aspect” with, inter alia, inchoative meaning. With an intervening NP before the to-infinitive, there is always a causative meaning. This construction will be termed causative catenative construction in the following, as opposed to simple catenative construction. In the case of dynamic verbs, only the achievement sense is possible, as in example (82). An alternative description would be to call GET a verb of effort here (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 703). With an intervening NP and a stative predicate, i.e. GET followed by an NP and a stative infinitive, as in (83), or GET followed by an NP and an -ingform of a dynamic verb, as in (84), I suggest a reading combining ingression and achievement. (82) So far I can’t get anybody to walk all the way here to eat with me actually (83) […B]earing that in mind I was able to […] get them to understand themselves sometime get them to understand the mathematics sometime […] (84) No I was just trying to get the thing going because we’ve got uh Before the quantitative analysis of the constructions in LOB, FLOB, and ICE is presented, the overview in Table 5.44, adapted and supplemented from Gronemeyer (1999: 9), summarises the systematisation that I propose for the syntax and semantics of catenative GET and illustrates it with the help of shortened versions of the examples provided above.

258 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.44: Systematisation of catenative GET-constructions

construction

meaning

example

GET to Vdynamic

permission or achievement

get to make, get to dance

GET to Vstative

ingressive

get to like

GET [Vdynamic-ing]stative

ingressive

get going

GET NP to Vdynamic

achievement

get sb to walk

GET NP to Vstative

ingressive/achievement

get sb to understand

GET NP [Vdynamic-ing]stative

ingressive/achievement

get sth going

Figure 5.46 shows how often GET occurs in a catenative construction in LOB, FLOB, and the ICE corpora. The token numbers comprise all the types of constructions detailed above as well as possibly innovative catenative uses, such as GET followed by a bare infinitive. The latter will be explored below. Note that when catenative GET is used in the past, formal and semantic confusion with the semi-modal got to may arise. However, a contraction as for the semi-modal is impossible: I got to go, meaning ‘I was permitted to go’ or ‘I managed to go’, cannot be rendered as I gotta go, which always means ‘I have to go’. I got to go, as it stands, could, however, also mean ‘I have to go’. As far as mode is concerned, catenative GET occurs on average 64 times pmw in written language (LOB, FLOB, and ICE written) and 132 times pmw in spoken language (ICE spoken), which is quite a small mode difference compared to many other uses of GET. The speech-writing ratios are much lower for catenative GET than for all uses of GET in ICE-GB (2.0 : 1 as opposed to 3.1 : 1) and ICE-SIN (1.5 : 1 as opposed to 3.0 : 1), while catenative GET shows practically the same mode distribution as GET overall in ICE-JA (2.1 : 1 as compared to 2.2 : 1). When one looks at the percentages that catenative GET constitutes of all GETtokens in the respective (sub-) corpora, the written (sub-) corpora yield higher figures than the spoken subcorpora (p=0.015, χ2=5.97, df=1). In sum, as one of the constructions into which GET enters, the catenative use can be said to be more established in written than in spoken language. While no diachronic change from LOB to FLOB has occurred, a clearly more frequent use of catenative GET can be determined for the New Englishes in comparison to British English. Both in terms of absolute frequencies and in terms of percentages of all GET-tokens, the New Englishes set themselves apart from British English. In terms of absolute token numbers, the difference between ICEGB and ICE-SIN is statistically significant (p=0.031, χ2=4.66, df=1). In terms of

Catenative GET | 259

percentages, the differences between British English and each of the New Englishes are highly significant, while the two New Englishes are on a par.117 Not only as regards the frequency of catenative GET but also as regards the distribution of the simple and the causative versions of the construction does a gulf open up between British English and the New Englishes. While in all British English (sub-) corpora, the causative construction is more frequent than the simple construction, the New Englishes exhibit the opposite distribution (cf. Figure 5.46). The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-JA is highly significant (p=0.0008, χ2=11.19, df=1, φc=0.23), and the one between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN is significant (p=0.005, χ2=8.02, df=1, φc=0.19), while there is no significant difference between the two New Englishes.

140 115

120 97

100

47

125

56

80 60 40

50

54

26

29

24

25

LOB

FLOB

20

causative catenative

62

simple catenative 68

69

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

35

0 ICE-GB

Figure 5.46: Catenative GET (absolute token numbers)

Furthermore, British English and the New Englishes differ in that the New Englishes make less frequent use of the catenative construction with -ing than British English. While in ICE-GB, one fourth (24.7%) of the catenative constructions have an -ing-form, in ICE-JA the percentage is 13.2, and in ICE-SIN 8.5. The difference between British English and the New Englishes is significant (p=0.001, χ2=10.53, df=1), whereas the difference between the two New Englishes is not. Since the -ing-complementation after GET is only possible with dynamic verbs, a higher percentage of dynamic verbs after catenative GET could be expected in British English. It turns out, however, that in the distribution of || 117 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p=0.0003, χ2=13.15, df=1; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=15.47, df=1.

260 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

stative and dynamic verbs after catenative GET, no significant differences between any of the corpora occur. This means that dynamic verbs in the New Englishes are used more frequently than in British English with the to-infinitive after GET, which in turn suggests that the permission or achievement meaning, rather than the ingressive meaning, is characteristic of catenative GET in the New Englishes. That this is indeed the case is confirmed by a complete semantic analysis. Table 5.45 provides absolute token numbers for the three meanings differentiated here for GET followed by the to-infinitive. The permission meaning is illustrated in example (85). An achievement meaning occurs in (86), and an ingressive meaning in (87). (85) There are three different endings Yes because they sometimes the director takes a few cuts Then he he picks the best one He goes according to audience’s liking Oh I see So you get to play director sometimes (86) […] because is not easy to get to change people’s mindset about something when they’ve already convinced themselves […] (87) […] in the middle of it you might get to like that field and you end up sticking to it for later on While the ingressive use, which is the use with a stative verb, is similarly frequent in the five corpora, the permission and the achievement senses, i.e. the meanings possible with a dynamic verb, open up a gulf between British English and the New Englishes in that the latter exhibit much higher figures for both of these meanings, particularly for the permission meaning. A Fisher’s exact test indicates that the differences between the ICE corpora are significant (p=0.039), while those between the two New Englishes are not.

Catenative GET | 261

Table 5.45: Meaning of GET + to-infinitive (absolute token numbers)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

permission

0

5

6

26

29

achievement

0

3

5

16

13

ingressive

17

14

19

22

19

total

17

22

30

64

61

For the causative version of GET + to-infinitive (cf. Table 5.46), the achievement sense is the most frequent one in all corpora. Particularly striking is the high number in ICE-SIN. The achievement sense always correlates with the use of a dynamic verb, as in (88). The meaning combining ingression and achievement occurs much less frequently in all corpora. It is illustrated twice in (89). (88) Ya I can I’ve only found that thing in the States Maybe I should get my friends to you know send it to me (89) Now to get people to understand the business of the Jamaica Public Service Company and to get them to realize that some of the the problems that do exist yes they are the fault of the company and some of them we have no control over is really a challenge Table 5.46: Meaning of GET + NP + to-infinitive (absolute token numbers)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

achievement

23

24

34

27

42

ingressive/achievement

0

0

9

8

5

total

23

24

43

35

47

GET + -ing-form, as in This was built in the nineteen fifties before even California really got going with earthquake resistant design […] (), always has an ingressive meaning. Similarly, its causative version, as in Cos we’ll get the barbecue going as well […] (),

262 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

always has a meaning of ingression and achievement, so that no further analysis is possible for these constructions. As regards catenative constructions that go beyond the four established combinations of GET (+ NP) + to-infinitive/-ing-form and are possibly innovative, in LOB and ICE-GB, no token occurs. In FLOB, there are 2 tokens: one of them consists of GET + NP + bare infinitive, possibly influenced by HAVE + NP + bare infinitive, and the other one can be explained by formal reasons. In ICE-JA, there is 1 token, and in ICE-SIN, 7 tokens can be found. The construction in ICEJA is of the type GET + to + -ing-form: (90) By the time we were sleeping together we were nearly getting to discussing his marriage to Sandy, his second wife. An intervening to before the -ing-form is mentioned by Gronemeyer (1999: 8–9) as a variation of the simple catenative use of GET, but no further information on any possible function of the preposition is given. For example (90), an explanation can be provided, however: since the meaning is ingressive and the verb is dynamic, according to the systematisation in Table 5.44 on page 258, only the ‑ing-form is possible. Because GET is used in the progressive, an unfortunate clash of -ing-forms can only be avoided by inserting the preposition to. The 7 tokens in ICE-SIN are distributed to 3 types. One of them is GET followed by the bare infinitive, as in examples (91)–(93). In all of the examples, a modal meaning similar to that of can is expressed. The meaning in example (91) comprises an opportunity seme, while in example (92), an achievement seme is present. In both cases, the catenative construction used could be replaced by GET + to-infinitive. The use of the bare infinitive after get in both (91) and (92), as well as the nonstandard use of uninflected get in (92), indicate that an influence of modal can on form is conceivable. In example (93), catenative get is even preceded by can and seems to have an intensifying modal function. That this is a performance or transcription error cannot be excluded, of course, but the fact that a similar catenative construction with go occurs in the following utterance suggests that the construction is used in a systematic way at least by this speaker. The combined evidence from three different speakers indicates that GET followed by the bare infinitive could be more than a one-off occurrence in Singaporean English. (91) Under the quota system you could also go and buy a scrap car or you could scrap your car and with the certificate you get buy a new car

Catenative GET | 263

(92) ICE-SIN:S1A-058#209:1:A> No I’m I’m sure the boy it’s the boys who are going to be out in the field to play ultimately and the and the coach get only do that much (93) They’re good technicians but they went to technical school they cannot speak properly They cannot won’t and can’t get pass an interview You want to go and get a job with IBM they won’t go pass the screening test because they can’t speak proper English The second type of innovative catenative GET occurring ICE-SIN is the bare infinitive after got. It occurs 3 times but is used by the same speaker. One example is Got go Fantasy Island before ah (), which displays clear influence from Colloquial Singapore English, where got can be used to locate an event temporally in connection with a time adverbial like before. This meaning of got in Colloquial Singapore English in turn derives from the terms in some of the substrates that are equivalent to got, viz. Hokkien u and Cantonese jau (cf. Lee et al. 2009: 296, 300–309; Hiramoto and Sato 2012: 199–202). Thus, the VP in the token from ICE-SIN corresponds to a present perfect with BE or GO, so that it could be rendered as I have been/gone to Fantasy Island before. The third type of possibly innovative catenative GET in ICE-SIN is a causative version with a bare infinitive (cf. example (94)), which occurs once in the written subcorpus. However, like example (90) from ICE-JA, this use, which carries an achievement sense, is explicable by obvious formal reasons: the omission of to after GET can be explained by the wish to avoid repeating the same preposition in short time. (94) I met up with Robert and Priscilla of Business Administration through Bun and managed to get them do a recording for me. In conclusion, British and Jamaican English show practically no deviations from the established patterns, while the Singaporean corpus exhibits two new types, consisting of a direct link between GET and the verb. In the preceding analysis, I have presented a unified description of the syntax and semantics of catenative GET in World Englishes based on corpus evidence. It is illustrated in Table 5.44 on page 258. A British English-New English

264 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

divide was found in four respects: catenative GET is overall more frequent in the New Englishes than in British English; the simple version is relatively more frequent in the New Englishes than in British English; the catenative construction with -ing is less frequent in the New Englishes than in British English; and the permission and achievement meanings are typical of catenative GET in the New Englishes, while the ingressive meaning is typical of British English. Apart from that, two innovative catenative constructions have been detected in Singaporean English, viz. GET + bare infinitive and got + bare infinitive, the latter one substrate-influenced.

5.11 GET-chunks 5.11.1 Theoretical background and hypotheses Chunks are here understood as units of memory organisation (cf. Ellis 1996: 107). Repeated chunks in language are variously called multi-word expressions,118 phraseological units, prefabricated units, formulaic sequences, or simply lexical chunks. While different subtypes might be designated by some of these terms, they have in common that they all mean combinations which “are made up of more than one word and are lexically and/or syntactically fixed to a certain degree” (Nesselhauf 2005: 1). The insight that chunks form an essential part of language was most famously spread by Sinclair (1991). The idiom principle, according to which extended multi-word lexical items are retrieved whole from the mental lexicon for sequential stringing-together, accounts for the largest portion of language use: The principle of idiom is that a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analysable into segments. (Sinclair 1991: 110)

Only a minor part of language, Sinclair claims, is produced along the openchoice principle, where words are selected from the lexicon and combined according to grammar rules (cf. McEnery and Hardie 2012: 142–147). That is to say, the normal building-blocks of fluent discourse of native speakers are memorised clauses or chunks, which are often uttered at rates faster than

|| 118 In phraseology, multi-word expressions often only include non-compositional combinations (cf. Evert 2009: 1213). As will become clear, this is too narrow a definition for chunks as used here.

GET-chunks | 265

normal rates of articulation. Native speakers do not make full use of the creative potential of language at all. Quite to the contrary, the use of familiar word sequences is what makes them sound native-like (cf. Ellis 1996: 97–98). Memorised chunks reduce the processing effort (cf. Nesselhauf 2005: 2) and accordingly the learning burden and make spoken and written language more fluent. In fact, “[l]anguage knowledge and language use can be accounted for by the storage of chunks of language in long-term memory” (Nation 2001: 318, quoted in Gass et al. 2013: 206). Chunks take on a different role in first language acquisition than when English is acquired as a second or a foreign language (cf. Götz and Schilk 2011: 83) in that the acquisition process for ESL and EFL is far more analytic than for ENL. While ENL speakers intuitively use idiomatic chunks, ESL and EFL speakers have to learn and apply rules as to which chunks are the appropriate ones to be used in a certain context. It is important to exclude highly conventionalised chunks such as routine greeting formulas, which are learned at very early stages of the language acquisition process. Research has shown that learners119 are slower in processing idioms and chunks, that they use fewer of them, and that they produce a narrower range of them than native speakers (cf. Gass et al. 2013: 206). The reason is that many chunks are infrequent and others are nontransparent, so that much time and language experience are needed to acquire them (cf. Ellis 2012: 17–18, 29–30). Moreover, learners seem to favour the use of a small number of already frequent types or expressions, which is explicable by the lexical teddy bear effect (cf. Nesselhauf 2005: 247; Nesselhauf 2009: 23), better called phrasal teddy bear effect in the context of chunks, as Ellis (2012: 29) points out. Phrasal teddy bears are defined by him as “formulaic phrases with routine functional purposes” (2012: 37). The findings and considerations just presented have implications for the study of chunks formed with GET in World Englishes. Mair calls chunks and phraseological units the “blind spot” (2007: 438) in variety identification. However, corpus-based studies on chunks used in ESL varieties are rare to date (cf. Nesselhauf 2011: 159–160), so that the following analyses are also intended to start filling that gap. For present purposes, the British ICE corpus will be used to obtain a benchmark for how GET is used in chunks in ENL. The results from ICE-GB will be compared to the corpora of the New Englishes to determine similarities and differences. The basic assumption about chunks is that they occur less frequently in varieties where English is used as a second language than

|| 119 Learners are here understood to encompass learners of ESL and learners of EFL.

266 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

where it is used as a native language because learners typically do not achieve native-like formulaicity and idiomaticity.120 It is therefore reasonable to expect GET-chunks to occur freely and widely in terms of tokens and types in British English but at lower rates in Jamaican and Singaporean English. Here, three types will be distinguished when combinations of GET and other elements crystallise into repeated chunks: lexical bundles, collocations, and idioms. They are all manifestations of the idiom principle. Note the difference between a broad use of idiom as in Sinclair’s term idiom principle, similar to chunk, designating holistic storage, and the more typical narrow use, meaning a fixed and fully idiomatic, i.e. opaque, expression, as in the section on idioms in the present study. In chapter 5.11.2, lexical bundles with GET will be analysed in greater detail. Collocational analyses are found in chapter 5.11.3 but also in the chapter on monotransitive constructions (chapter 5.2.3), and idioms are treated in chapter 5.11.4. GET-chunks, taken together, combine form and meaning. The individual subtypes, however, are either based on a formal analysis (lexical bundles, collocations) or on a semantic analysis (idioms). It goes without saying that even when doing an analysis of forms, in the qualitative interpretation of the results, meaning always comes into play.

5.11.2 Lexical bundles with GET If one wishes to draw conclusions about the use of GET in World Englishes, it is not only of interest to know in what word-forms, in what constructions, and in what meanings GET occurs, but also in what lexical environments it re-occurs, i.e. what lexical bundles, to speak in Biber et al.’s (1999: 990) terms, it forms with surrounding elements and how strong and frequent these bundles are. Lexical bundles are also called n-grams or clusters.121 In the present context, all

|| 120 While applying the term ESL to Jamaican and Singaporean English simplifies sociolinguistic realities (cf. chapters 2.1 and 2.2), it is undisputed that the typical acquisition of English in Great Britain is different from that in Jamaica and Singapore. 121 Due to the relative recency of the concept, terminology still varies. Lexical bundles, n-grams, and clusters can be used synonymously. N-grams is preferred in computational linguistics, while clusters is found, for instance, in the software AntConc. In the present study, the term lexical bundles (Biber et al. 1999) will be used to refer to the general concept because it has been coined for and become established in English corpus linguistics and is not polysemous. Because of their shortness, the terms bigrams, trigrams, fourgrams, and fivegrams, deriving from the term n-gram and corresponding to two-word, three-word, four-word, and five-word lexical bundles, respectively, will be used to refer to combinations of a specific length. The

GET-chunks | 267

these terms mean recurring sequences of two or more words (cf. McEnery and Hardie 2012: 123). Biber et al. define lexical bundles as “sequences of word forms that commonly go together in natural discourse” (1999: 990), regardless of their idiomaticity and structural status. In fact, since most lexical bundles are structurally incomplete, it is usually not possible to substitute single words for them. Lexical bundles have to occur widely across texts and may not be restricted to a single discourse in order to be considered such. In contrast to the extraction of collocations, for which various statistical measures are used, the extraction of lexical bundles relies on simple frequency. It is clear that corpora of comparable size are the prerequisite for such an analysis. There are several structural types of lexical bundles: in conversation, for instance, lexical bundles typically contain a VP, while in academic prose, NPs and PPs are more frequent. Moreover, lexical bundles have been shown to be in general more frequent in conversation than in academic prose (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 991, 993). Thus, several factors coincide in the assumption that GETclusters are more frequent in spoken than in written language: the higher overall frequency of GET in spoken language, its word class, and the larger stock of lexical bundles in spoken language in general (hypothesis 1). While in most studies, lexical bundles have been used to analyse variation in mode and text type within one variety,122 I suggest that they can be exploited more extensively. Schneider “suspect[s] that nativization, the emergence of structural characteristics of New Englishes, operates (amongst other things) through the emergence of specific co-occurrence tendencies of this type” (2001: 140n2). Despite this, only a few scholars have so far attempted to answer the question to what extent lexical bundles differentiate varieties. Among them are Götz and Schilk, who, in their study on spoken ENL (British English), EFL (English spoken by advanced German learners) and ESL (Indian English), think it likely that the different language acquisition types of the varieties are the reason for the fact that fewer trigrams are used in EFL than in ENL. Contrary to the expectation that more frequent and variable use of lexical bundles occurs in ENL than in ESL, however, Götz and Schilk (2011: 88) find no significant differences between British English and Indian English in the numbers of types and tokens. It should certainly be considered that the reasons

|| term GET-clusters will be used alternatively to the term lexical bundles with GET. By preposing GET, the otherwise vague term clusters is disambiguated. 122 Because of Biber’s studies, the concept of lexical bundles has come to be associated with describing overall characteristics of registers.

268 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

for the findings on ESL may be due to specific characteristics of the variety analysed, which means that research across more World Englishes is needed. Gries and Mukherjee attempt to correlate the evolutionary stage of varieties with their use of lexical bundles but conclude that lexical bundles are too topicdependent and volatile for this purpose since evolutionary stages are a categorisation at a very high level of abstraction, and lexis does not mirror evolutionary stages per se (2010: 542). Yet they remain optimistic that “the degree to which words tend to be used in larger (semi-)preconstructed units […] is highly varietyspecific” (2010: 544) and plead for the inclusion of this information in the description of New Englishes. From what is known about the role of chunks in language learning, I expect GET to appear more frequently in lexical bundles in British English than in Jamaican and Singaporean English because the latter two varieties are typically acquired as second languages. In contrast to that, British English as represented in ICE is used as a native language and can be assumed to show greater phraseological complexity and a better embedding of GET in lexical bundles (hypothesis 2). I suggest that this better embedding will manifest itself in two ways: first, in a larger percentage of GET-tokens organised in GET-clusters, and second, in the more frequent use of long and thus more complex GET-clusters. The hypotheses about GET-clusters have been shown to revolve around the two variables mode and acquisition type and are summed up as follows: – Hypothesis 1 (frequencies, mode): higher frequency of GET-clusters in spoken than in written language – Hypothesis 2 (embedding): better embedding of GET in lexical bundles in British English than in the New Englishes, reflected in a higher percentage of GET-tokens organised in clusters and in the use of longer and more complex GET-clusters in British English I conducted a GET-cluster analysis in LOB, FLOB, and each of the three ICE corpora with the help of the software AntConc. Only lexical bundles that contain GET, i.e. get, gets, getting, got, gotta, or gotten, were searched for. In the present study, one orthographical word that contains an apostrophe counts as two elements, so that, for instance, don’t get is listed as a trigram.123 Although don’t get and do not get are both trigrams and have the same meaning, they are listed and counted separately due to their differing form. Only uninterrupted combi-

|| 123 Biber et al. (1999: 990) treat contracted forms as single words, so that don’t get would be regarded as a bigram in their analysis.

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nations are considered, which means that no turn boundaries or punctuation marks may occur within a lexical bundle (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 993). While the minimum frequency threshold for a combination to be considered a lexical bundle is in principle arbitrarily determined and decisions are mainly driven by pragmatic considerations relating to the amount of output, Biber et al.’s (1999: 990) cut-off points of at least 10 occurrences pmw for fourgrams and 5 occurrences for the less frequent fivegrams and sixgrams have been used in previous studies (cf. Gries and Mukherjee 2010 for details). In the present study, too, the minimum token frequency was set at 10 and, in an additional search, lowered to 5 for lexical bundles of 5+ elements. Since bigrams would have yielded an unmanageable amount of relatively uninformative data, I only searched for GET-clusters that were longer than 2 elements. The resulting lists of lexical bundles had to be manually cleaned of two types of invalid combinations. The first type consists of combinations in which markup tags from corpus annotation occurred. The second type consists of combinations which were counted double in the GET-cluster analysis. It is not possible to simply subtract the numbers of the fourgrams and fivegrams from the numbers of trigrams. A manual analysis had to be done determining which higher-level lexical bundle was included in which lower-level lexical bundle and how frequently. If the resulting number of the lower-level lexical bundle fell below the threshold of 10 occurrences, the whole lower-level lexical bundle was deleted from the analysis. For a comparison of mode, Table 5.47 displays the results from LOB, FLOB, and ICE-GB.124 First, one can note that the results from LOB and FLOB are very similar, which means that no diachronic change seems to have occurred in written British English. Only trigrams occur in LOB and FLOB, and of the 26 types overall, 8 are shared by the corpora. These 8 trigrams constitute the majority of lexical bundles in the two corpora, which underscores the stable situation in LOB and FLOB also in terms of the specific forms used. The most frequent trigram in LOB is to get the, a trigram most frequently used for a monotransitive or a causative catenative construction, while in FLOB it is I’ve got, a trigram used for a possessive or a modal construction. The other 6 shared trigrams, ranked according to decreasing frequency, are you’ve got, ve got to, to get a, get rid of, get out of, and to get on.

|| 124 The methodology of testing hypothesis 1 by comparing LOB/FLOB to the complete mixed ICE-GB corpus has been chosen because equal corpus sizes are a prerequisite for an analysis of clusters. Normalising the numbers from ICE-GB spoken to 1 million words is not possible because frequency thresholds cannot be adjusted in the same way, and reducing the size of LOB/FLOB would also have constituted a drawback.

270 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.47: Lexical bundles with GET in LOB, FLOB, and ICE-GB

written British English LOB

mixed British English

FLOB

ICE-GB

types

tokens

types

tokens

types

tokens

trigrams

12

197

14

209

91

2,533

fourgrams

0

0

0

0

24

467

fivegrams

0

0

0

0

1

10

total

12

197

14

209

116

3,010

total cleaned of double types and tokens

12

197

14

209

108

2,154

per cent of all GETtokens

14.0

15.6

60.3

Second, Table 5.47 shows that type and token numbers of GET-clusters are incomparably larger in ICE-GB than in LOB and FLOB. ICE-GB has 91 types of GET-trigrams, while LOB and FLOB have only 12 and 14 types, respectively. No lexical bundles larger than 3 elements occur 10+ times in either of the two written corpora, whereas ICE-GB has 24 different types of fourgrams occurring in total 467 times, and even 1 fivegram occurring 10 times. Confirmed by a manual inspection of the spoken subcorpus, the conclusion can be drawn that higherlevel GET-clusters only occur frequently in spoken language. Third, the few types in written British English also form only a low percentage of all GET-tokens, which means that GET is only infrequently organised in recurring clusters in written British English, viz. in only 14.0% to 15.6% of all occurrences, compared to as much as 60.3% in ICE-GB. The stability from LOB to FLOB as well as the large discrepancies between LOB and FLOB on the one hand and ICE-GB on the other hand allow one to conclude that mode is responsible for the differences in type numbers, token numbers, range of types, and percentages. Hypothesis 1, the higher frequency of GET-clusters in spoken than in written language, can be confirmed. When one compares the three ICE corpora with the help of Table 5.48, a clear picture of regional differences can be obtained. One can note a large discrepancy between British English and the New Englishes in the type as well as token numbers of GET-clusters: compare 108 different GET-clusters in 2,154

GET-chunks | 271

uses in ICE-GB with only 40 different GET-clusters in 706 uses in ICE-JA and 56 different GET-clusters in 1,011 uses in ICE-SIN. The percentages that GET-clusters constitute of all GET-tokens in a corpus take into account that ICE-GB has more GET-tokens overall, but even then, the British corpus has by far the largest figure: 60.3% of all GET-tokens in ICE-GB appear in trigrams, fourgrams or fivegrams that occur at least 10 times, but only 27.1% in ICE-JA, and 36.8% in ICESIN. These differences are statistically highly significant125 and so striking that they must be assumed to heavily influence the cognitive processing and entrenchment of GET in the varieties analysed. Table 5.48: Lexical bundles with GET in ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

types

tokens

types

tokens

types

tokens

trigrams

91

2,533

39

706

53

1,049

fourgrams

24

467

2

22

5

72

fivegrams

1

10

0

0

0

0

total

116

3,010

41

728

58

1,121

total cleaned of double types and tokens

108

2,154

40

706

56

1,011

per cent of all GET-tokens

60.3

27.1

36.8

For longer and more complex GET-clusters, too, a deep gulf separates British English from the New Englishes. In British English, 24 different GET-fourgrams occur, while only 2 types occur in ICE-JA, and 5 in ICE-SIN. There is only 1 GETfivegram in all ICE corpora that comes up 10+ times. This fivegram, viz. I’ve got to get, occurs in ICE-GB and is special in that two word-forms of GET are present. The distribution of four- and fivegrams indicates that the use of longer and therefore more complex GET-clusters is a feature of British English but not of the New Englishes. To obtain more data on long GET-clusters, a cluster search for 5+ elements was carried out with the frequency threshold set to 5. Although no lexical bundles longer than 5 elements were retrieved even with the lowered

|| 125 ICE-GB and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=667.27, df=1, φc=0.33; ICE-GB and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=342.04, df=1; ICE-JA and ICE-SIN: p≪0.001, χ2=57.91, df=1.

272 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

frequency threshold in any of the corpora, more information on fivegrams could be gathered. A further lowering of the frequency threshold would only have yielded unspecific co-occurrences. The fivegrams obtained are listed in Table 5.49, with token numbers provided in parentheses. While ICE-GB displays 63 fivegrams distributed across 11 types, ICE-JA features no tokens at all, and ICESIN shows 6 fivegrams of 1 type. The difference between British English and the New Englishes in the use of GET-fivegrams compared to all GET-tokens is statistically highly significant (p≪0.001, Fisher’s exact test). These additional data support the claim that long GET-clusters occur practically exclusively in British English and testify to its higher phraseological complexity as compared to the New Englishes. Hypothesis 2, the better embedding of GET in lexical bundles in British English than in the New Englishes can be confirmed: a much larger percentage of GET-tokens is organised in GET-clusters in British English, and ICE-GB is the only corpus in which fourgrams and fivegrams occur to a significant extent. This result for GET-clusters is thus in line with the assumption that ENL features a more frequent and variable use of chunks than ESL. Table 5.49: GET-fivegrams in ICE

ICE-GB

I’ve got to get (10 tokens), I think I’ve got (7), it’s got to be (6), and then you’ve got (5), I’ve got a few (5), I’ve got to go (5), I mean I’ve got (5), to get out of this (5), ve got to try and (5), you’ve got to be (5), you’ve got to have (5)

ICE-JA

--

ICE-SIN

to get rid of the (6)

The results from the above GET-cluster analysis have provided clear results, but the fact that GET is linked much more closely with its lexical environment in British English than in the New Englishes might be due to the use of specific word-forms and ultimately specific constructions only. As the general analysis of word-forms of GET has shown (cf. chapter 4.2) and as the GET-fivegrams in Table 5.49 indicate, the word-form that could indeed influence the distribution is got, which is most frequent in British English, much less frequent in Singaporean English, and by far least frequent in Jamaican English. Got is frequently used to express possession in conjunction with HAVE in ICE-GB. To a lesser extent, this is true for ICE-SIN, where got is also used on its own to express possession. In ICEJA, possessive (HAVE) got hardly occurs (cf. chapter 5.8). The same situation holds in a less extreme form for the semi-modal (HAVE) got to (cf. chapter 5.9).

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I therefore conducted a follow-up cluster analysis of GET omitting the wordform got. Since cluster analysis is a form-based method, the omission of got from the search means that not only possessive or modal constructions, which always require the word-form got, but all constructions in which got features, i.e. past uses in various constructions, are disregarded. However, there is no reason to assume that the past use of, for instance, monotransitive or copular GET is unevenly distributed across the corpora to such an extent as to skew the overall results. It is therefore legitimate to equate the omission of the word-form got from the cluster analysis with the exclusion of possessive and modal GETclusters, and an inspection of got-clusters in ICE confirms this. If this follow-up analysis does not yield the same results, viz. a much stronger embedding of GET in clusters in British English and a much weaker one in the New Englishes, one can conclude that the cluster effects mainly depend on the word-form got. Table 5.50: Lexical bundles with GET (except with got) in ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

types

tokens

types

tokens

types

tokens

trigrams

50

874

37

681

26

433

fourgrams

4

59

2

22

1

12

fivegrams

1

10

0

0

0

0

total

55

943

39

703

27

445

total cleaned of double types and tokens

49

819

38

681

26

428

per cent of all GET-tokens

22.9

26.2

15.6

Table 5.50, which can be taken to represent GET-clustering in ICE without taking possessive and modal uses of GET into account, compared to Table 5.48 shows that type numbers as well as the percentages of GET-clustering have more than halved for ICE-GB and ICE-SIN, while they have remained almost the same for ICE-JA. The largest difference in GET-clustering is now between British English and Singaporean English. This means that possessive and modal gotclusters play a large part in GET-clustering in British as well as in Singaporean English, but not so much in Jamaican English. The conclusion can be drawn that British English exhibits more GET-clustering than the New Englishes and

274 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

that this is mainly due to possessive and modal got-clusters. Jamaican English makes hardly any use of possessive and modal got and is on a par with British English if got-clusters are disregarded. Singaporean English, by contrast, has fewer GET-clusters than British English in any case. In order to be more specific about the lexical nature of GET-clusters apart from possessive and modal got-clusters, in the following, GET-clusters other than got-clusters that are common to all three varieties and that are unique to each of them will be presented. Nineteen types of GET-clusters other than got-clusters occur in all three ICE corpora and thus can be said to be common-core GETclusters. With a description of their type (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 1001, 1015), they are ranked according to frequency across all varieties in Table 5.51. The great majority consist of grammatical words including modal and tense elements next to GET. The only lexical elements occurring are: rid, trying, and want.126 Thus, these three elements are the top lexemes with which GET clusters in English.127 The most frequent type of GET-cluster is a VP with an active verb (11 types). The rest is shared by clusters consisting of a personal pronoun and a VP (4 types), and to-clause fragments (4 types). Although to-clause fragments are responsible for only 4 different GET-clusters, these are among the most frequent ones and constitute 359 tokens in total.

|| 126 The distinction between grammatical and lexical words is notoriously difficult. Here, elements indicating future and modality, as well as prepositions, prepositional adverbs, and conjunctions are considered to be grammatical. Certainly, a less strict analysis could, for instance, classify back as lexical but this much depends on the exact use, which cannot be determined in a form-based analysis. 127 Also compare this to the results from the collocational analysis (cf. chapter 5.11.3), where rid and trying are among the top collocates of GET in all varieties.

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Table 5.51: Common-core GET-clusters (excluding got-clusters) in ICE

cluster

type

frequency

to get a

to-clause fragment

127

to get the

to-clause fragment

124

trying to get

VP with active verb

84

you can get

personal pronoun + VP

83

don’t get

VP with active verb

80

going to get

VP with active verb

73

to get to

to-clause fragment

69

want to get

VP with active verb

67

can’t get

VP with active verb

63

have to get

VP with active verb

59

get rid of

VP with active verb

51

you get a

personal pronoun + VP

49

get out of

VP with active verb

46

you get the

personal pronoun + VP

44

get to the

VP with active verb

43

I’ll get

personal pronoun + VP

41

to get back

VP with active verb

41

able to get

to-clause fragment

39

get back to

VP with active verb

38

Besides analysing the lexical bundles shared by the varieties, it is equally interesting to determine those that are unique to each of them. They are presented in Table 5.52, separated into those including grammatical words and those including lexical words, and ranked according to frequency within each category, starting with the most frequent one. One can easily recognise the largest repertoire of variety-specific GET-clusters in British English with 22 different GET-clusters, compared to 13 in ICE-JA and 5 in ICE-SIN. Note here that only in ICE-GB do two additional types of GET-clusters occur, viz. question fragments (did you get and do you get) and a that-clause fragment (that you get). ICEJA and ICE-SIN display no types additional to those occurring among the common-core lexical bundles. This means that the better embedding of GET in clusters in British English also manifests itself in the use of a larger number of structural types.

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Table 5.52: Variety-specific GET-clusters (excluding got-clusters) in ICE

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

grammatical

I can get, to get on, when you get, that you get, to get in, get away with, get on with, did you get, do you get, and get the, get into the, can get a, I’m getting, I’ve got to get, I was getting, we can get, you’re getting

lexical

try and get, go and get, managed to get, get in touch, wanted to get

grammatical

need to get, t get any, you get to, get up and, to get into, couldn’t get, did not get, t get to, when you get, you can’t get, they get the, you’ll get

lexical

get a job

grammatical

won’t get, you will get

lexical

get hold of, get to see, to get married

To sum up, the analysis has shown that GET-clusters occur mainly in spoken language and that the word-forms of GET are linked more closely to their lexical environment in British English than in the New Englishes. Both short and long GET-clusters appear in a wider range and are used more frequently in British English than in the New Englishes. Possessive and modal got-clusters, such as I’ve got, you’ve got, or ve got to, play an important role in British and Singaporean English but hardly occur in Jamaican English. If one disregards them, the range of GET-clusters is still largest in British English, and Singaporean English is last in type number, token number, and the percentage of GET-clusters. This means that the difference between British English and Singaporean English is a straightforward quantitative and qualitative difference concerning all wordforms of GET: British English has a higher frequency of GET-clusters, a wider range, and more structural subtypes. The difference between British English and Jamaican English is more complex. Jamaican English has the lowest overall token numbers of GET, which is to a large extent due to the non-use of got. While the range of GET-clusters excluding got-clusters is still narrower in Jamaican English than in British English, in the percentage of GET-clusters excluding gotclusters, the two varieties are quite similar. Thus, while British English and Jamaican English differ much in their overall frequency and use of the wordforms of GET, in the clustering of those word-forms of GET that do actually occur in both varieties, they show little difference, which might have to do with the special status of Jamaican English as ESD (cf. Nesselhauf 2009: 23).

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5.11.3 Collocates of GET Firth, speaking of collocations, said: “You shall know a word by the company it keeps!” (1957: 11). He was thus one of the first to emphasise the importance of adjacent elements for defining a word’s meaning and even attempted a collocational analysis of GET. While Firth’s system of distributed variants of GET (1968: 20–22) is far from what one would consider a collocational analysis today, it nevertheless tries to relate definitions to generalised contexts of situation and thus captures much more of the complexity of this word than a traditional entry in a dictionary. Sinclair took up Firth’s idea of collocation and defined it more empirically as “the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a text” (1991: 170), including the whole cline from opaque to compositional combinations.128 Collocations are not only useful for determining a word’s typical meaning and use in one variety. Crystal pleads for the analysis of collocations across varieties since they are “likely to prove one of the most distinctive domains of varietal differentiation” (2003: 162). Mair adds that “idiomatic and collocational preferences are the most direct reflections of a community’s attitudes and pre-occupations in linguistic structure” (2007: 439). Below, collocates of GET in British English will be determined and compared to the results from Jamaican and Singaporean English. I expect to find more significant collocates in British English than in the New Englishes because the former variety is assumed to show greater phraseological complexity than the latter varieties, in line with the role of chunks in language acquisition.129 The mastery of collocations entails quick activation of language pairs, and speakers of ENL can be assumed to be more advanced in this. While the syntactic relationship of the elements has not been considered relevant in most studies of collocations, the practice of including syntactic information in the analysis of collocates is being more and more acknowledged (cf. McEnery and Hardie 2012: 129). To do justice to the versatility of GET, which can be used along the cline from main verb to auxiliary verb, in the present study, the syntactic relationship between GET and its collocates is deemed important. The methodological decisions will be detailed in the following. In the statistically oriented approach to collocations, which is also pursued here, various statistical measures are used to determine whether co-occurrences

|| 128 In phraseology, the term collocations comprises lexically restricted word combinations and non- or semi-compositional expressions (cf. Evert 2009: 1213). The empirical definition of collocations as used here includes all of these as well as compositional combinations. 129 Due to the nature of the hypothesis, LOB and FLOB are not considered here.

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are significant or not. They all have their advantages and drawbacks and must be chosen depending on the research question. For the present study, the MI (Mutual Information) score, a measure of effect size, was selected. The t-score, a measure of significance, is not useful here because it retrieves high-frequency but trivial pairs, e.g. combinations with function words (cf. McEnery et al. 2006: 56). An MI score of 3 or higher is often taken as evidence that two items are collocated. Here, the threshold was set to 4, which means that the word pair must occur at least 24 = 16 times more often than expected by chance (cf. Evert 2009: 1226). Since the MI score is biased towards low-frequency words and effectively filters out trivial (though statistically significant) co-occurrences with highly frequent function words (such as and and it), it is only useful in combination with frequency thresholds that are relatively high but carefully balanced against corpus size. It then highlights conspicuous collocations involving words of intermediate frequency (cf. McEnery et al. 2006: 56; Hoffmann et al. 2008: 154; Evert 2009: 1229–1230). It should be kept in mind that the null hypothesis of independence cannot actually be assumed to hold for combinations of words as they occur in language. Therefore, to counteract the drawbacks of (all kinds of) co-occurrence data as well as the effects of Zipf’s law, which is, in a nutshell, the occurrence of few very frequent types and many extremely rare types in language (cf. Evert 2009: 1244), the minimum frequency cut-off point was set to a very safe 10 in the present study and results were also evaluated qualitatively, which means that the resulting lists were carefully cross-checked against concordances. A common span within which collocations are determined is four elements to the left and right of the search word (Sinclair’s suggestion; cf. McEnery and Hardie 2012: 129), but two- to five-word spans are also used. Here, the span was set at 2L/4R, i.e. collocates were searched for up to two elements to the left of GET and up to four to the right of it. 2L was chosen in order to also retrieve verbs that are typically used in concatenation before GET and to find adverbs that are typically used before GET. Inevitably, this meant the retrieval of a number of insignificant collocations with pronouns and auxiliaries, which had to be deleted from the lists. The collocations were calculated on the basis of all wordforms of GET, and they were explored within all genres since the focus here does not lie on text type differences but on varietal similarities and differences. The resulting collocates were not lemmatised in order not to lose information on word-forms. To recapitulate, two thresholds were chosen: MI > 4 and frequency of occurrence ≥ 10. In ICE-GB, 184 elements satisfied these two criteria, in ICE-JA 124, and in ICE-SIN 170. The results were manually cleaned of certain tokens because not

GET-chunks | 279

all of them were accepted as significant collocates. First, conjunctions, pronouns, determiners, negating elements (except the adverb never), and auxiliaries were deleted in order not to retrieve collocations with function words. Because the corpora used are untagged, an automatic restriction to word classes was not possible. In a second step, object lexemes were deleted since they are analysed in the chapter on monotransitive GET (chapter 5.2.3). In a final step, the elements in the resulting lists were carefully checked against the concordances in order to eliminate further insignificant items, i.e. elements that do not stand in a direct syntactic relationship to GET. Altogether 16 such items were deleted. They are of several types: – adjectives (here free) that premodify an object NP, as in People […] will get a free test […] () (the most frequent type) – adverbs (here with) that form the beginning of an adverbial phrase, as in […] they get elected with a majority strong mandate […] () – adverbs (here anyway) that function as sentence adverbials (disjuncts and conjuncts) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 52), as in Oh she said she could get in anyway so () – verbs (here coming) that postmodify an object NP, as in […] I’ve got people coming () – verbs (here find) that follow modal (HAVE) got to, as in You’ve actually got to find out what you’re actually doing () – verbs (here looking) that are part of an adverbial phrase, as in That’s one view one sense you get from looking at Roman writings () The three cleaned lists were compared and groups of collocates were created: collocates that occurred in all three corpora, collocates that occurred in two of the three corpora, and collocates that occurred in only one of the three corpora. Table 5.53 presents, separated according to word class, the elements determined as significant collocates of GET according to the methodology presented.

280 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Table 5.53: Collocates of GET in ICE

collocates to the left of GET verb

adverb

in all three corpora

try, trying, want

actually, first, just, never, probably, really

in two of three corpora

go, let

only in ICE-GB

managed, wanted

other

always, ever

only in ICE-JA

only in ICE-SIN

already, also, even

difficult, hard

collocates to the right of GET adverb or preposition

adjective or past participle

verb

other

away, back, down, into, off, out, over, through, together, up

better, married, rid, right, used

going

about, around

done, involved, ready, started

home, touch

at, on, round

clear, left, worse

closer, far

along

caught, drunk, pregnant know

As significant verbal collocates to the left of GET, the three items try, trying, and want could be determined to occur in all three corpora. This means that in all three varieties considered here, GET is closely and frequently linked to these catenative verb forms, as in We’re trying to get information (). Note that try and trying are among the top collocates130 in all three corpora, with MI scores of over 5 and 6, respectively. In ICE-GB, two further elements could be determined, viz. managed and wanted, as in So she managed to get hold of his Dad […] (). In ICE-GB as well as in ICE-SIN, go and let are further significant verbal collocates to the left of GET. However, in contrast to the other verbal collocates, these are not directly concatenated with GET. Go is linked to GET with the help of the conjunction and, as

|| 130 Here, the elements occurring among the top 40 in all three original lists of collocates are called top collocates. They all have MI scores of over 5, most over 6.

GET-chunks | 281

in You can go and get a copy (), while between let and GET, usually the personal pronoun us is inserted, as in Let’s get one thing straight to start with (). In sum, British English emerges as the variety with the largest number of significant verbal collocates to the left of GET, and Singaporean English is second. Adverbs that appear immediately before GET are numerous: actually, first, just, never, probably, and really emerged as significant collocates. Unsurprisingly, none of them is among the top collocates. They are a diverse group and often also used with verbs other than GET. The regional distribution is similar to that of premodifying verbs. British and Singaporean English appear as the varieties that have collocates restricted to the region, while Jamaican English has none. Singaporean English is peculiar in showing one combination particularly often, viz. difficult/hard to get. Difficult occurs in it BE difficult to get, as in It’s difficult to get by […] (). Hard occurs in the same structure but also in others, as in Singapore fighting very very hard to get into the uh quarter finals […] (). The collocates difficult and hard to the left of GET seem to be unique to Singaporean English. As regards collocates to the right of GET, all of the adverbs and prepositions listed in Table 5.53 can form GET-PVs. The high frequency of 10 significant collocates shared by all varieties underlines the importance and productivity of GETPVs in English. British English again emerges as the variety with the largest number of significant collocates, while no conspicuous differences between the two New Englishes can be determined. This is because British and Singaporean English share about and around as collocates but ICE-SIN has no exclusive collocate, in contrast to ICE-JA. Among the adverbs and prepositions, away, back, into, and together are top collocates. While together is the top particle collocate in all corpora, with MI scores of over 6, note that the other three particles are also frequently used in non-idiomatic combinations with GET to express movement. The collocates in the class “adjective or past participle” form copular or complex-transitive constructions with GET. They form the second most numerous group of collocates. Moreover, they are elements closest to prototypical lexical morphemes and can be said to capture “facts of life” (Evert 2009: 1219), i.e. situations that often arise in the real world. This becomes particularly visible in the results for ICE-JA, where the very concrete elements caught, drunk, and pregnant arise as significant and unique collocates, as in […] people get pregnant in school (). In this category, the top collocate of GET in all corpora, viz. rid, which has an MI score of over 9 in all corpora, can be found, as in Everybody must help to get rid of this fear (). The combination GET + rid occurs 68 times in all corpora and is of course

282 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

surpassed by other combinations in terms of pure frequency. However, rid hardly ever occurs without GET, which makes it its top collocate. Better and married are also among the most significant collocates in all the corpora, attaining MI scores of around 6 and 8, respectively. As a catenative verb after GET, going occurs in all three corpora, as in just get going leave this area (), or with an inserted object, as in I think I need to polish up that side of the area and get it going smooth again (), while know is a significant collocate in ICE-SIN only, as in I am sure we will get to know some people (). The elements in the category “other” are used for concrete or metaphorical motion constructions and consist mainly of adverbs: closer and far are collocates in ICE-GB, while home is a collocate in both ICE-GB and ICE-JA. Touch only occurs in combination with the preposition in, significantly frequently in ICE-GB and ICE-JA, as in And I’m going to promise you ma’am that I’ll get in touch with the Transport Authority […] (). Neither Jamaican nor Singaporean English has unique collocates in the motion construction. Again, GET forms the closest bonds with neighbouring elements in British English. In the above analysis, significant adverbial and verbal collocates to the left of GET were identified, such as actually, try, and want. Collocates characteristic of each variety were pointed out, such as difficult and hard in Singaporean English. Only for Jamaican English did no collocates to the left of GET occur that were unique to this variety and satisfied the criteria determined beforehand. As collocates to the right of GET, particles as well as adjectives and adjectival participles emerged as the most frequent type. It is in these classes that most top collocates of GET across all varieties can be found. Catenative combinations to the right of GET do occur, e.g. with going, but are on the whole less significant than those to the left of GET. Finally, collocates in motion constructions were pointed out. As top collocates of GET across all varieties, away, back, better, into, married, rid, together, try, and trying could be determined, with married and rid the most typical company of GET. Across all categories, ICE-GB is clearly the corpus which yields the largest number of significant collocates for GET. In 5 of the 7 categories set up for this analysis, British English exhibits unique collocates, while Jamaican English displays them in only 2, and Singaporean English in 3 categories. The MI scores are also highest in ICE-GB and the analysis yielded most collocate types and tokens for this corpus. No major differences between the New Englishes could be determined in the bonding of GET with adjacent elements. The hypothesis set up at the beginning of the chapter can be fully confirmed.

GET-chunks | 283

5.11.4 GET-idioms Idioms are the third type of chunks analysed in the present study. Givón and Yang call the occurrence of GET in idioms in 19th-century colloquial writing a sign of “the semantic-cultural maturation of ‘get’” (1994: 135). To find out whether idioms play a role in the variation of GET in World Englishes, every combination into which GET enters in any of the corpora was coded as an idiom if it was either listed in at least one of the two dictionaries of idioms adduced for the present study, viz. the Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Idioms (1995) and the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms (1998), or if it otherwise fulfilled the criteria for idiom status as explained below. The classification as a certain type of construction, e.g. a monotransitive construction, was not affected by this additional coding. This means that the classification as an idiom is an additional one: diverse syntactic patterns constitute this category. An idiom is an extreme form of a prefabricated unit because its degree of idiomaticity is very high and the elements involved are collocationally closely linked and fixed in their position. According to the Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Idioms, an idiom “is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word were taken individually” (1995: iv). That is, the combination usually has a metaphorical meaning that goes beyond the sum of the meanings of the individual parts and this combination is somewhat fixed or fossilised. Because even comprehensive dictionaries cannot document the complete range of idioms used in a language, for the present study the decision was taken that a combination with GET that does not occur in one of the two dictionaries but has a fixed NP and an opaque meaning, as verified, for instance, in the OED, also receives the additional classification as an idiom.131 This applied to the following combinations found in the data: GET on one’s bike, GET off one’s butt, GET one’s feet under the desk, GET off the hook, GET sb off the hook, GET it on, GET a stick, GET the wrong end of the stick, GET into full swing, GET sth into the swing, GET sb in touch with sb, GET back on track, GET weaving.132 || 131 The classification could be criticised for being British English-centred because of the British English-centredness of the dictionaries of idioms and the OED. However, since a semantic analysis was carried out on all tokens of GET, any peculiarities in the use of GET did surface. 132 Note that in the present study, idioms which show only minor variations from the dictionary entry, such as GET one’s way (dictionary entry: get your own way), are regarded as belonging to the respective idiom listed in the dictionary. This is because usually the key content words in idioms are invariable, while the morphological forms of verbs and NP determiners are variable (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 1025), so that dictionaries do not list these slight variations of idioms separately.

284 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

Idioms containing HAVE got were also subsumed under the count but have been found to be very rare overall. Here, the dictionary entry for the lexeme occurring after HAVE got had to be used to identify the idiom. In most cases, the example in the dictionary was formed with HAVE, e.g. have a foot in both camps, which occurs in the data as […] I’ve got a foot in both camps (), or not have the foggiest, which occurs in the data as I don’t think he’d got the foggiest who the lady in the wheelchair was (FLOB, K10 48–49). Occurrences in the data classified as idioms but not listed in either of the two dictionaries of idioms are HAVE got sb on the end of a string and HAVE got sth in mind. A combination not classified as an idiom can still be idiomatic. In fact, a certain degree of idiomaticity is a prerequisite for classification as a PV in the present study (e.g. GET sth through) (cf. chapter 5.6), and also many combinations of GET and an adverbial whose meaning goes beyond the meaning of the constituting elements but where the origin in a meaning of concrete motion is still obvious (e.g. GET on top of sth) are idiomatic (cf. chapter 5.7). However, there is certainly a difference in the degree of idiomaticity between those combinations and fully idiomatic and fossilised combinations. This is why I suggest that a distinction between an intermediate and a high degree of idiomaticity, as contrasted with non-idiomaticity, will do better justice to the data than the traditionally applied distinction between idiomatic and nonidiomatic. Thus, to obtain a more fine-grained picture of the idiomaticity of GET, three levels of idiomaticity will be distinguished in the present study. The first one is filled by fully compositional expressions, in which the core meanings of the component parts are retained (= non-idiomaticity), e.g. compositional combinations of GET and an NP or copular constructions. The second level contains semi-compositional or relatively idiomatic expressions, in which the meanings of the component parts are retained to some extent, but where the entire expression also takes on a more idiomatic meaning (= intermediate degree of idiomaticity), i.e. GET-PVs and expressions of simple or causative metaphorical motion. The third level contains completely idiomatic expressions (= high degree of idiomaticity), i.e. those classified as idioms according to the methodology explained above. In line with the basic hypothesis about the use of chunks, I assume that the frequency of idioms is higher and their range wider in British English than in the New Englishes. I take the use of idioms, which are the most extreme form of fixed and formulaic language, as a sign of advanced mastery of a language, only possible after years of exposure to and active use of the language and therefore more widespread in English used as as native language (British English) than in English used as a second language by the majority of speakers (Jamaican and

GET-chunks | 285

Singaporean English). Accordingly, the level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses is also expected to be higher in British English than in the New Englishes (hypothesis 1). One should be reminded of the fact that idioms “are not necessarily common expressions at all” (Biber et al. 1999: 989). They are surprisingly rare in actual conversation but quite frequent in fiction, where they represent stereotyped dialogue. Apart from that, they are occasionally used in news reportage to add a more informal, less serious tone to the genre (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 1025–1026). This means that a lower share of idioms of all GET-tokens is expected in spoken than in written language because of the widespread use of GET in general in spoken language but the general rarity of idioms in conversation. On the other hand, GET is less frequent in general in written language but idioms are more widespread in fiction and possibly news reportage, which will lead to a large share of idioms among GET-tokens in written language. A particularly large number of GET-idioms is expected to occur in LOB and FLOB because of their many fictional texts, as well as in the text categories fiction and news reportage in ICE (hypothesis 2). The hypotheses are summarised as follows: – Hypothesis 1 (frequencies, range, degree): higher frequency and wider range of GET-idioms as well as higher level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses in British English than in the New Englishes – Hypothesis 2 (mode, genre): lower share of idioms of all GET-tokens in spoken than in written language; overuse of GET-idioms in fiction and news reportage Table 5.54 provides the results for GET-idioms in the five corpora. Note that because the selection criteria for idiom status in the present study are strict, absolute token numbers are relatively low. Idioms containing HAVE got occurred only rarely and not at all in ICE-JA. No diachronic change in the use of GET-idioms was expected and no significant developments have occurred from LOB to FLOB, neither in terms of absolute token numbers of GET-idioms nor in terms of the percentages that these constitute of all GET-tokens, as Fisher’s exact tests confirm. Yet the results from ICE show that GET-idioms are more frequent in British English than in the New Englishes. Both in terms of absolute token numbers and in percentages, ICE-GB is in front, followed by ICE-JA and ICE-SIN. The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-JA in absolute token numbers is significant (p=0.021, Fisher’s exact test) and that between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN is highly significant (p=0.0002, Fisher’s exact test), while that between the two New Englishes is insignificant. As far as

286 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

the percentages of all GET-tokens are concerned, only the difference between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN turns out to be significant (p=0.006, Fisher’s exact test). In sum, however, the hypothesis about the higher frequency of GET-idioms in British English than in the New Englishes can be confirmed. Table 5.54: GET-idioms in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (absolute token numbers and per cent of all GETtokens)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

absolute token number

31

40

57

34

22

per cent of all GET-tokens

2.2

3.0

1.6

1.3

0.8

In regard to the range of GET-idioms (cf. Table 5.55), all three British English corpora are at the top. Across ICE, ICE-GB clearly emerges as the corpus with the largest range (31 different types), followed at a great distance by ICE-JA (16) and ICE-SIN (14). If the range is compared with the absolute token number of GETidioms, LOB and FLOB are the corpora in which every single GET-idiom occurs least often, viz. on average only 1.6 and 1.3 times, respectively, which is in line with the ideally expected varied style in written language. In all ICE corpora, the type-token ratios are higher than in LOB or FLOB, with the highest ratio occurring in ICE-JA. In this corpus, every GET-idiom occurs on average more than twice. The phrasal teddy bear effect might resurface here: a small number of familiar items are overused, in contrast to the other corpora, which show a broader inventory (ICE-GB) and/or a lower ratio (ICE-GB and ICE-SIN). Table 5.55: GET-idioms in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (numbers of types and type-token ratios)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

number of types

20

30

31

16

14

type-token ratio

1 : 1.6

1 : 1.3

1 : 1.8

1 : 2.1

1 : 1.6

GET-chunks | 287

Idioms based on constructions of metaphorical motion133 are the most frequent kind of GET-idioms, which is why some examples are provided here: (95) Sir Leon, speaking on BBC TV’s On the Record, argued that the way to get Mrs Thatcher off the hook was for Britain to take part actively in the negotiations […] (96) That if this group of people are allowed to be paying less for their electricity than other people then everybody will want to get on that band waggon (97) NUS Theatre hopes that as these projects get off the ground, more funding and sponsorship will also be given. In terms of frequency, ICE-GB is clearly in the lead with 38 tokens of GET-idioms based on constructions of metaphorical motion, while ICE-SIN is last (10 tokens) and ICE-JA in between (23 tokens). LOB and FLOB yield 16 and 19 tokens, respectively. Many tokens in ICE occur in written language, particularly in the category letters: 9 in ICE-GB, 7 in ICE-JA, and 2 in ICE-SIN. In all three ICE corpora, the percentages that the idioms constitute of all GET-tokens are higher in the written subcorpora. It can therefore be claimed that the use of idioms based on GET as a verb of motion is more a feature of British English and written English than of the New Englishes and spoken English. As regards the level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses (cf. Table 5.56), again, from LOB to FLOB no changes were to be expected and chi-square tests applied to absolute token numbers confirm that no significant developments have occurred over time. However, GET-clauses in LOB and FLOB have a higher level of idiomaticity than those in the ICE corpora. Not only clauses of high idiomaticity, i.e. idioms, as shown above, but also clauses of intermediate idiomaticity seem to be more frequent in written than in spoken language. Across the ICE corpora, Singaporean English is highly significantly different from the other two varieties in its lower level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses (ICESIN and ICE-GB: p≪0.001, χ2=40.15, df=2; ICE-SIN and ICE-JA: p≪0.001, χ2=42.55, df=2). British and Jamaican English have a similar distribution. This is

|| 133 Idioms in which the connection of GET to motion is less obvious, such as GET to grips with sth, are not numerous but also treated here because of their formal similarity to the other examples (also cf. the decision to subsume them under “motion” in the overview in chapter 5.1).

288 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

because the intermediate degree of idiomaticity, viz. the use of GET in PVs and with meanings of metaphorical motion, is quite pronounced in Jamaican English in relative, though not in absolute terms, with overuse of a small number of types characteristic of the variety. Table 5.56: Level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses in LOB (N=1,403), FLOB (N=1,342), ICE-GB (N=3,571), ICE-JA (N=2,603), and ICE-SIN (N=2,744) (per cent of all GET-clauses)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

non-idiomatic

78.0

75.3

84.9

84.2

90.2

intermediate degree

19.8

21.8

13.6

14.5

9.0

high degree

2.2

3.0

1.6

1.3

0.8

total

100

100

100

100

100

In summary, in line with the differences assumed to exist between ENL and ESL in terms of chunking and formulaic phrases, British English is ahead of the New Englishes in the use of GET-idioms in three respects: first, in terms of absolute frequencies of GET-idioms; second, in terms of the percentages that GETidioms constitute of all GET-tokens in the respective corpus; and third, in the range of GET-idioms. More specific differences between British English and each of the New Englishes are of different kinds: in the case of Jamaican English, the teddy bear effect can be observed, but the largest statistical gulf in the use of GET-idioms opens up between British English and Singaporean English. Hypothesis 1 cannot be completely confirmed, however, because only Singaporean English exhibits a lower level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses than British English, while British and Jamaican English are almost on a par. If the numbers of GET-idioms are related to the numbers of GET-tokens, the expected mode differences emerge. The percentages that GET-idioms constitute of all GET-tokens are higher in the written than in the spoken (sub-) corpora throughout (cf. Table 5.57). The hypothesis about the lower share of GET-idioms of all GET-tokens in spoken than in written language can be confirmed with high significance (p≪0.001, χ2=37.85, df=1) and explained by, on the one hand, the high frequency of GET in spoken language but the rarity of idioms in general in conversation, and, on the other hand, the lower frequency of GET in written language but the more widespread use of idioms in written language, particularly in fiction and news reportage.

GET-chunks | 289

Table 5.57: Mode differences in the use of GET-idioms in LOB, FLOB, and ICE (per cent of all GETtokens)

LOB

FLOB

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

spoken

--

--

1.3

1.1

0.6

written

2.2

3.0

3.0

2.2

1.6

An analysis of the genre distribution of GET-idioms was conducted within the spoken and the written mode in ICE as well as in LOB and FLOB in order to test the claims about the genre dependence of idioms. Absolute token numbers are low, but genre preferences emerge as very similar across the varieties, so that this fine-grained analysis seems justified even so. Within the spoken texts of ICE, over- and underuses are mild. Overuses can be found for the less prepared genres private dialogues (on average 5.1%) and unscripted monologues (6.1%), while underuses can be determined for the more prepared genres public dialogues (-6.9%) and scripted monologues (-4.3%). Apparently, within spoken language, GET-idioms are avoided in more carefully planned discourse. Within the written texts of ICE, much clearer over- and underuses of GETidioms in certain text types emerge, but again no intervarietal differences (cf. Table 5.58). The category letters has the highest overuse of all text types in ICE, ranging from 22.5% in ICE-SIN over 42.9% in ICE-GB to 46.5% in ICE-JA. Overuse can also be found for press reportage in all corpora (7.1% on average), in line with the presumed aim to add an informal note to otherwise dry news reportage, as in The work has also failed to get off the ground […] (). Finally, the overuse expected for fiction cannot be confirmed for ICE-JA (no tokens) and is only mild for ICE-GB and ICE-SIN. However, that the category fiction in ICE behaves differently to expectations has been found before in the present study. Compare this to LOB and FLOB (Table 5.59), where expectations are clearly fulfilled: one can see a very pronounced overuse in fiction (on average 25.4%) and also a clear overuse in press reportage (11.2%). Examples from fiction are: (98) She’s stone cold and determined. She thinks she’s got me on the end of a string. (LOB, K11 159–160)

290 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

(99) These wouldn’t be enticing calls. They were sneers from men who, having been rejected by or not daring to offer themselves to those they fancied on the street, could get their own back on a female too low in spirits to lift a haughty head and stare at them with contempt. (FLOB, K18 164–168) Thus, with reservations as regards fiction in ICE, the expected overuse of GETidioms in news reportage and fiction has been proved, and hypothesis 2 can in sum be confirmed. Mode and genre differences have been shown to be similar across regional varieties, with GET-idioms in general more typical of written language.

20.0

80,000 80,000 40,000 40,000 20,000 40,000 400,000

Academic writing (W2A)

Popular writing, non-academic writing (W2B)

Press reportage (W2C)

Instructional writing (W2D)

Press editorials (W2E)

Fiction (W2F)

TOTAL 100

10.0

5.0

10.0

10.0

20.0

15.0

60,000

Letters (W1B)

10.0

40,000

Student essays and exams (W1A)

WRITTEN

100

15.8

0.0

0.0

15.8

10.5

0.0

57.9

0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

-10.0 -5.0 5.8

100

23.1

5.8

0

0.0 15.4

-9.5

42.9 -20.0

0.0 61.5

-10.0

0

-10.0

-5.0

-10.0

13.1

-4.6

-20.0

46.5

-10.0

100

12.5

0.0

0.0

12.5

37.5

0.0

37.5

0.0

0

2.5

-5.0

-10.0

2.5

17.5

-20.0

22.5

-10.0

0

-0.6

-5.0

-10.0

7.1

1.1

-20.0

37.3

-10.0

number GETICE-GB ICE-GB ICE-JA ICE-JA ICE-SIN ICE-SIN mean of idioms observed difference observed difference observed difference difference words expected % % % % % % % %

Table 5.58: Expected and observed distribution of GET-idioms in ICE-GB written (N=19), ICE-JA written (N=13), and ICE-SIN written (N=8)

GET-chunks | 291

3.4 19.8 15.4

34,000 198,000 154,000 60,000 160,000 252,000 1,000,000

Press reviews (C)

Popular writing (religion, skills, popular lore) (D, E, F)

Belles lettres, biographies, essays (G)

Instructional writing (Miscellaneous) (H)

Academic writing (Learned and scientific writing) (J)

Fiction (K, L, M, N, P, R)

TOTAL 100

25.2

16.0

6.0

5.4

88,000 54,000

Press editorials (B)

8.8

GETidioms expected %

Press reportage (A)

WRITTEN

number of words

100

61.3

0.0

0.0

3.2

3.2

6.5

3.2

22.6

LOB observed %

40.0

-16.0 36.1

100

2.5

-6.0

0

5.0 0.0

-12.2

7.5 17.5

3.1 -16.6

17.5 10.0

-2.2

FLOB observed %

13.8

LOB difference %

Table 5.59: Expected and observed distribution of GET-idioms in LOB (N=31) and FLOB (N=40)

0

14.8

-13.5

-6.0

-10.4

-2.3

4.1

4.6

8.7

FLOB difference %

0

25.4

-14.8

-6.0

-11.3

-9.4

3.6

1.2

11.2

mean difference %

292 | Semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET in World Englishes

GET-chunks | 293

5.11.5 Summary The analysis of GET-chunks has attempted to start filling the gap of corpus-based studies on chunk use in ENL as compared to ESL. For GET-chunks and the varieties analysed here, the claim that chunks occur less frequently and variably in New Englishes than in British English because learners typically do not achieve native-like idiomaticity and phraseological complexity can be fully confirmed. A British English-New English divide has been determined for all three types of chunks, i.e. GET-clusters, collocates of GET, and GET-idioms. For instance, British English shows a higher absolute and relative frequency of GET-idioms and a wider range of them than the New Englishes. For both GET-clusters and GETidioms, Jamaican English, possibly due to its status as ESD rather than ESL, displays some similarities to British English in certain subdomains, while the largest quantitative differences are always between British English and Singaporean English. The similarities between British and Jamaican English arise in the level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses and in the percentage that GET-clusters (excluding got-clusters) constitute of all GET-tokens. Singaporean English, by contrast, exhibits significantly lower values than British English in all domains of GET-clusters and GET-idioms, i.e. an overall lower degree of chunking. In the domain of collocations, no difference between the New Englishes could be found, with both Jamaican and Singaporean English displaying lower frequencies of significant collocates and fewer structural types than British English.

6 Discussion and summary 6.1 The position of GET on the lexis-grammar continuum Received theories require lexis and grammar to be separated, with the lexicon consisting of specific lexical items and grammar consisting of abstract rules. But since the central notion of a phrase entails coselection, the simultaneous selection from both grammar and lexis, there is no place for phrases in descriptions that rely for their architecture on the received theories. (Sinclair 2008: 407)

This is why many phenomena situated at the interface of lexis and grammar were not given the attention they deserve. Pattern Grammar (cf. Hunston and Francis 2000) takes lexis as the starting-point, but assumes that lexis and grammar are not distinguishable, that sense and syntax are associated. This notion of a lexis-grammar continuum is found in various functional and cognitive linguistic theories today. For instance, in Functional Grammar, vocabulary and grammar are seen as “merely different ends of the same continuum” (Halliday 1994: 15), with the focus of description always on the construal of meaning. Using the idea of constructions as form-meaning pairings occurring on all levels of schematicity, in Construction Grammar, too, the linguistic system is viewed as a continuum which covers the whole range from fully lexically specified constructions over partially specified or lexically filled constructions to abstract constructions or general phrasal patterns (cf. Wulff et al. 2007: 266; Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003: 211–212; also cf. Hoffmann and Trousdale 2013). Examples of phenomena situated at the interface of lexis and grammar are structural preferences of words (e.g. verb complementation patterns), cooccurrence and collocational tendencies of words in phrases (e.g. lexical bundles and collocations), or PVs (cf. Schneider 2004: 229; Schneider 2007: 86–88; Mukherjee 2009: 131). All of these phenomena have been the subject of the present study, besides phenomena that can be more clearly assigned to either lexis or grammar, e.g. idioms on the one hand and semi-modals on the other hand. The lexis-grammar interface has particular relevance for the description of the structural nativisation of New Englishes because it is here that the chaotic meets the regular and that innovations typically begin (cf. Schneider 2007: 86). Gries and Mukherjee point out:

The position of GET on the lexis-grammar continuum | 295

In spite of a growing interest amongst a number of linguists, the lexis-grammar interface is still largely a blind spot in research into many postcolonial varieties of English. This has to do with the fact that at the lexicogrammatical level, e.g. with regard to collocations and verb-complementational patterns, differences between varieties of English are usually not categorial but quantitative in nature, so that large and representative corpora are needed to identify different trends and preferences across varieties of English. (2010: 525–526)

In the present study, a corpus-based approach has been chosen in order to identify differences that are too subtle to strike the eye of an anecdotal observer. While the analysis of certain lexico-grammatical phenomena, e.g. of collostructional preferences, poses special requirements to the data – they have to be parsed and ideally several million words large – the present investigation has demonstrated that the focus on one particular verb does allow meaningful statements about variety-specific lexico-grammatical choices with data that do not exceed the 1 million-word threshold per variety. It has been shown that GET allows both lexical and grammatical uses, with some more typical of their category, e.g. monotransitive GET, which has a lexical meaning and functions as a main verb, or semi-modal HAVE got to, which has a grammatical meaning and functions as an auxiliary, and other less clear examples, e.g. catenative GET, which functions much like a main verb but has a relatively grammatical meaning. The term verb of intermediate function (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 136–137) captures the fact that in its different uses, GET can be situated at different points on the auxiliary verb-main verb scale. In the following, by adding and summing up the individual results obtained in the preceding chapters, the variety-specific position of GET on the lexis-grammar continuum, and thus also its varietyspecific stage of grammaticalisation, will be determined. For that purpose, a categorisation into lexical and grammatical uses of GET has been devised (cf. Table 6.1), always bearing in mind that the division of lexis and grammar is an artificial one, introduced here for the sake of data analysis. All the constructions occurring in each corpus are represented in Table 6.1. This means that the categories formed here are to be understood in their broadest possible sense. For instance, “possessive” not only includes possessive (HAVE) got but also existential (HAVE) got, and “obtaining” not only includes monotransitive constructions with the meaning ‘to obtain’ or ‘to receive’ or with an existential meaning, but also ditransitive constructions, where ‘to obtain’ is supplemented by a transfer seme. Causative versions are included among the respective simple constructions, i.e. for instance “passive” includes simple as well as causative GET-passives.

296 | Discussion and summary

Table 6.1: Lexical and grammatical uses of GET

lexical GET

grammatical GET

PVs possessive obtaining motion idioms

linking catenative passive semi-modal

The percentages for LOB and FLOB in Table 6.2 indicate that approximately three quarters of all occurrences of GET in written British English are lexical and only one quarter are grammatical.134 The difference between LOB and FLOB is statistically insignificant, so that no diachronic change seems to have occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s in written British English. This corresponds to what has been found in the individual analyses, for instance for the GET-passive, where one could also note a rise in absolute token numbers, but a rise that was not statistically significant. Table 6.2: Lexical vs. grammatical uses of GET in LOB (N=1,403) and FLOB (N=1,342) (per cent)

LOB

FLOB

lexical GET

75.4

73.1

grammatical GET

24.6

26.9

total

100

100

As far as the relation between grammaticalisation and the lexical use of an item is concerned, it has been suggested that an increase in grammatical uses will ultimately lead to a decrease in the lexical use of an item. On the other hand, it has been shown that the frequent lexical use of an item can continue for a long time after the grammaticalisation of certain uses of it (cf. Hundt 2001:

|| 134 Note that for the written American English Brown corpus from 1961, Gronemeyer (1999: 10) gives a figure of 76% lexical uses and 25% grammatical uses (due to rounding, her figures do not add up to 100%), which is a result very similar to that for LOB and FLOB and suggests that there is no dialectal differentiation between British and American English, at least in the written mode.

The position of GET on the lexis-grammar continuum | 297

57). In the 19th and 20th centuries, as Hundt demonstrates with data from ARCHER (2001: 77), the overall number of GET-constructions increased significantly and grammaticalised GET-constructions became entrenched. However, the use of GET as a lexical verb has not decreased in the history of English despite the grammaticalisation of certain GET-constructions, such as the GETpassive or the semi-modal (HAVE) got to. With the data from LOB to FLOB, no definitive statements can be made. There is only an insignificant decrease in absolute token numbers of GET from LOB to FLOB and an insignificant rise in grammatical uses, so that a decrease in lexical uses is conceivable for the future development of GET, but can by no means be securely predicted on the basis of the present data. Any hypotheses about a further grammaticalisation of GET in recent written British English cannot be confirmed. Table 6.3: Lexical vs. grammatical uses of GET in ICE-GB (N=3,571), ICE-JA (N=2,603), and ICESIN (N=2,744) (per cent)

ICE-GB

ICE-JA

ICE-SIN

lexical GET

78.1

74.2

72.0

grammatical GET

21.9

25.8

28.0

total

100

100

100

When comparing the three ICE corpora (cf. Table 6.3 above), one finds statistically highly significant differences between the varieties. There are the least grammatical uses in ICE-GB (21.9%) and the most in ICE-SIN (28.0%), with ICEJA in between (25.8%). The difference between ICE-GB and ICE-JA (p=0.0004, χ2=12.4, df=1) as well as that between ICE-GB and ICE-SIN (p≪0.001, χ2=30.77, df=1) is highly significant, while that between the two New Englishes is insignificant. This means that one can assume a divide between British English and the New Englishes, with GET in more grammatical functions in the latter than in the former. The analyses of the individual patterns have suggested this distribution. The linking use of GET in written language, and catenative GET, for instance, have been shown to be more widespread in both New Englishes, while GET-passives are particularly frequent in Jamaican English. Among the uses listed as grammatical here, British English exhibits higher frequencies than the New Englishes only for the semi-modal. This means that on the lexis-grammar continuum of GET, British English is situated closer to the lexical end than the

298 | Discussion and summary

New Englishes, with Singaporean English even further from British English than Jamaican English. Table 6.4 illustrates. Table 6.4: Position of the varieties on the lexis-grammar continuum of GET

lexical GET

grammatical GET

PVs possessive obtaining motion idioms

linking catenative passive semi-modal

BrE JamE/SingE

The results here tie in with what Kortmann and Schneider found in their analysis of more than 50 non-standard and contact varieties of English. Contact apparently promotes grammaticalisation, but even instances of internal grammaticalisation seem to be further advanced in contact varieties: What is innovative of the outcomes of many internal grammaticalization processes in nonstandard and contact varieties is that the relevant grammaticalized forms are taken further along a cross-linguistically widely attested grammaticalization path, thus yielding an even higher degree of grammaticalization than in (spoken or written) Standard English. (2011: 278)

In ICE-GB, grammatical uses are least frequent of all ICE corpora in relative terms, but overall token numbers are highest. In the New Englishes, by contrast, overall token numbers are lower than in British English, but grammatical uses are more frequent in relative terms. Thus, the high token number in British English seems to be due to lexical uses of GET. There could also have been an increase in grammatical uses at the expense of lexical uses in the New Englishes, but diachronic data are necessary to make any claims. Under these circumstances, how grammaticalised is GET in sum? Johansson and Oksefjell state that although GET is not as grammaticalised as BE and HAVE, in terms of meaning, “it is hard to escape the conclusion that it deserves a place at the centre of grammar” (1996: 74–75). However, lexical uses of GET are still firmly established and, in fact, form the vast majority of its uses. The notion of a semi-grammaticalised GET can be quite handy here:

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 299

As for degree of grammaticalization, get lies in between lexical verbs and genuine auxiliaries. It is far more syntactic than most lexical verbs, both in meaning and distribution, while it is less grammatical than functional verbs, for instance the modals, as get has not lost its lexical uses. Thus get is only ‘semi-grammaticalized’ […]. (Gronemeyer 1999: 2)

This notion takes into account that at the beginning of a grammaticalisation process, there is a phase of increased syntacticisation. This means that many lexical uses remain in use, and the distribution of an item is broadened. Consequently, an item becomes polysemous and its meaning can only be determined in context. This is exactly the case with GET (cf. Gronemeyer 1999: 17–19). However, that GET will grammaticalise further in the near future and that its polysemy will be curtailed in favour of a specific meaning, along the lines of HAVE, for instance, is not suggested by the present data. In any case, the above discussion strongly suggests that if one is considering enlarging the group of what are traditionally called primary verbs (cf. chapter 1.2), viz. BE, DO, and HAVE, the most eligible candidate would certainly be GET.

6.2 Summary: issues and factors revisited Both changes in the use of GET over time and variation across different regional varieties have been the subject of the present study, which has looked at the whole continuum from lexis to grammar, including its endpoints. This section provides a summary of the results by reconsidering and discussing each of the factors that have been suggested as relevant in the diachronic and synchronic variation of GET in chapter 3, viz. prescriptivism, the colloquial style of GET, substrate effects, effects of SLA, and the influence of British and American English. Prescriptivism and the colloquial style of GET will be discussed beforehand for both diachronic and synchronic variation. Subsequently, the overall results of the diachronic analysis will be considered. Finally, a summary will present how substrate effects, effects of SLA, and the two major standard varieties determine synchronic regional variation in the use of GET. In discussing prescriptivism, it is important to be specific about what is understood by “being prescriptive” and by “prescriptive success”. Anderwald (2013: 171), for instance, regards a mention or an acknowledgment of a certain form in grammars as an act of prescriptivism, with a rise in the use of that form a logical or expectable consequence. However, what the grammars, at least in the realm of verb morphology in the 19th century, did not do was to encourage the use of one form at the expense of another or to actively proscribe a certain form. A careful quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of so-called prescrip-

300 | Discussion and summary

tive comments is necessary because it is as yet unclear what conditions or features make them successful in the sense of having an influence on actual language use (cf. Anderwald 2014: 14–15). Institutional support seems to be fundamental, which means that newspapers and their in-house style norms are a more likely source of language change led by prescriptivism than 19th-century grammar books. Similarly to Auer and González-Díaz (2005), Anderwald warns against using prescriptive influence as “a catch-all explanation for unexpected phenomena, without any further substantiation” (2014: 15). GET in particular did not receive much attention in the prescriptive 19th century, and the 20th century has seen a turn towards descriptivism, so that GET seems to have escaped the prescriptivists’ attention. Denison (1998: 320) supposes that there has been a general crumbling of prescriptive resistance against GET in English, which has led to its spread. It is clear that with synchronic data no statements about the influence of prescriptive dicta on language over time can be made. Thus, while the effect of comments such as Burchfield’s (cf. chapter 3.1) on the use of GET could not be directly measured in the World Englishes data at hand, discussing them has still been relevant because it has pointed out that it is the vagueness and the consequential flexibility as well as the informality of GET which cause offence to prescriptivists. This, in turn, has stressed the need to pay special attention to matters of style and mode in the analysis of this verb. If prescriptivists condemn the use of GET, it is because of its colloquial and informal character, which is in turn connected with its functional versatility and semantic flexibility. Arguably, the two factors are diametrically opposed, with prescriptive influence leading to fewer uses, and colloquialisation, i.e. the shift that makes written genres more like spoken genres, leading to more uses of GET. Bohmann and Schultz conclude that “presciptivism is far from being a unified and isolated influence, and writers are not slaves to a set of style rules. Rather, they are sensitive to a number of general, genre-specific and discourse-related stylistic conventions and make their choices accordingly” (2011: 98). As regards colloquialisation, the analysis of LOB and FLOB has provided indications that GET has been participating in this development. While overall token frequencies have stayed the same in written British English from LOB to FLOB,135 there has been an increase in the informal written genre fiction (categories K–R) from 711 to 761 tokens. A decrease has been observed in very formal written genres, viz. in the categories J (academic writing) and H (miscellaneous, including instructional and informa-

|| 135 Recall that the decrease in Figure 4.1 is statistically insignificant.

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 301

tional writing), from 77 to 28 tokens and 32 to 19 tokens, respectively. Prescriptive rules to avoid GET in formal language here counteract increasing colloquialisation. In press language (categories A–C), however, a genre claimed to be at the forefront of colloquialisation (cf. Leech et al. 2009: 239), no increase can be detected (LOB: 227 tokens, FLOB: 224 tokens). Thus, while colloquialisation is an observable trend, the present study can confirm what Leech et al. (2009: 240) have found, viz. that it is not without exceptions. It cannot be denied, however, that GET is a colloquialism, and the analysis of all five corpora has shown that the use of GET is very much dependent on mode and genre. This applies to a different extent to the various constructions. In most cases, the mode and genre dependence has been striking. With the help of speech-writing ratios, the general preference of GET for spoken language has been compared to the mode dependence of specific constructions. For instance, GET-existentials practically only occur in spoken language. Possessive (HAVE) got and semi-modal (HAVE) got to are strongly overused in spoken language, while the motion use of GET is relatively frequent also in written language. British English displays the strongest genre dependence in the majority of cases, and there are some differences between the regional varieties in mode and genre, which have been detailed in the individual chapters, for instance a particular preference for monotransitive GET in spoken Singaporean English. Overall, however, these regional differences can be said to be small, which supports the claim that the stratifications of register are relatively uniform across varieties of English (cf. Zipp and Bernaisch 2012: 169) and that the regional factor is secondary to style (cf. Mair 2009: 274). Moreover, in many cases, style not only concerns the use of the verb GET itself, but also the construction in which it is used. For instance, whereas one cannot assume that the monotransitive construction is colloquial in itself, semi-modals are inherently colloquial, independent of the occurrence of GET. The omission of HAVE in the possessive and semi-modal uses of GET is of course only possible because GET follows, but the omission of redundant material is informal in itself and thus expected to be more frequent in spoken than in written language. In the case of GET-PVs, colloquialism and complexity concur, which leads to the situation that they are less overused in spoken language than other constructions in which GET is used, for instance the very simple monotransitive construction. Lexical bundles, too, are in general more frequent in the spoken mode, and lexical bundles with GET all the more so, while the general preference of idioms for written language leads to the fact that GET-idioms are relatively overused in written language. Before synchronic variation is discussed in detail, the following will address the results on diachronic change in British English. For some constructions,

302 | Discussion and summary

such as GET as a linking verb, there were no reasons to assume any changes from LOB to FLOB. In these cases, the data from LOB and FLOB were not considered in detail, but adduced as an additional source of information on written British English. In the case of GET-passives and GET-PVs, I had expected diachronic changes, and developments in the hypothesised direction could be traced, but the data were only partially conclusive or statistically significant. It can be assumed that spoken diachronic data can confirm the presumed changes more clearly. GET-existentials turned out to be non-existent in written language, so that the data could be used to document their continuing avoidance in that mode, while for possessive HAVE got, an increase could be determined. In the case of semi-modal use, LOB and FLOB proved conclusive in tracing a change towards fewer authoritative uses and towards a higher share of the expression of weak obligation among the deontic uses. Overall, no further grammaticalisation of GET in recent written English has been found, and the present-day status of GET can best be described as semi-grammaticalised. Although lexical uses still form the majority of its uses, viz. approximately three quarters, GET is firmly established not only as a main verb with lexical meaning, but also in grammatical uses. Moreover, it also qualifies as a verb of intermediate function. The factors substrate effects, effects of SLA, and influence of British and American English are only relevant in the synchronic variation of Jamaican and Singaporean English. The results from the present study concerning these factors are set out in detail in Table 6.5, with “yes” and “no” in the boxes indicating whether or not an influence of the respective factor on a specific construction or phenomenon has been found and further information provided. In the case of a blank box, the factor was not considered relevant for the phenomenon in the first place. For instance, an effect of SLA that would favour the use of a certain word-form of GET cannot be assumed, at least not for the standard varieties as represented in ICE. Similarly, there is no reason to claim that the monotransitive use of GET is more typical of either British or American English. For the filled boxes, however, hypotheses have been proposed and tested, and the results will be summed up in the following. Table 6.5 also contains a column answering the question of whether a British English-New English divide could be determined for a specific construction or phenomenon in terms of frequencies, and summarising these results will allow one to state whether there is a general divide between British English and the two New Englishes in the use of GET. As far as the analysis of surface forms of GET is concerned, only an extreme influence of the substrates on all individual GET-constructions in the standard varieties would lead to a noticeable influence on the overall token numbers and

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 303

the individual word-forms of GET. The existential you get-chunk in Jamaican English and the zero-subject-got-existential in Singaporean English are cases in point: they are substrate-influenced, but the intervarietal frequency differences to which they lead are too small to warrant the claim that the substrates influence the overall token frequencies or the distribution of the word-forms of GET. However, the present study has shown that as soon as one turns to individual constructions, a considerable amount of variation in the use of GET across World Englishes can be traced to substrate effects. When these effects lead to quantitative differences in the use of common-core GET-constructions, they can affect both spoken and written language. Innovative usages, however, such as the zero-subject-got-existential or got + bare infinitive, are restricted to spoken language. Substrate effects certainly contribute to the frequent omission of the object after monotransitive GET in Singaporean English as well as to nonstandard inflection and time reference in connection with this construction in Jamaican English. Copular GET (SVC) might be more frequent in the New Englishes, particularly in written language, than in British English because it acts as a substitute for the zero copula in the substrates and is overused in this function. Apart from that, there are not only more GET-passives in Jamaican English than in British English, but they are also used in a less restricted way. I have claimed this to be due to influence from Jamaican Creole. As indicated above, I have also argued that substrate effects are responsible for the existential you get-chunk characteristic of Jamaican English and the zero-subject-got-existential unique to Singaporean English. The fact that no PV structure occurs in Chinese languages can be one of the reasons for the low frequency of GET-PVs in Singaporean English. However, effects of SLA, such as simplification, are more likely to play the main role in the use of GET-PVs in the New Englishes. In the case of possessive and semi-modal use, substrate influence is apparent in Singaporean English because in Colloquial Singapore English, got is used in many functions, and it can be assumed that this also influences the frequent use of possessive got and semi-modal got to in the standard variety. For Jamaican English, by contrast, no substrate influence could be determined in these cases. Finally, Colloquial Singapore English got can also be considered responsible for an innovative catenative construction that has been shown to occur in Singaporean English, viz. got + bare infinitive.

no

yes: frequent and

GET-PVs

GET-existentials

no

simpler types, especially in spoken language, fewer highly metaphorical meanings)

frequencies, smaller range, simpler types, especially in spoken language, fewer highly metaphorical meanings); teddy bear effect

frequency (no use of PVs

in Chinese)

frequencies, smaller range,

yes: simplification (lower

variability)

variability) yes: simplification (lower

complements and less

to a certain extent: low

simplification (lesser use of

no

to a certain extent:

complements and less

existentials

simplification (lesser use of

yes: zero-subject-got-

existential you get-chunk

to a certain extent:

no

got

yes: use of HAVE

object construction

object construction

frequency

the more iconic prepositional

the more iconic prepositional

especially in SingE

yes: fewer in the NEs,

no: SingE similar to BrE

no: SingE similar to BrE

especially in JamE

yes: more in the NEs,

especially in SingE

(weak spot); preference for

(weak spot); preference for

especially in JamE

yes: more in the NEs,

yes: fewer in the NEs,

yes: similar use

gotta and gotten

no: SingE similar to BrE

ditransitive construction

yes: high

of got

identical mode

occurrence of

extent:

especially in JamE

yes: fewer in the NEs,

BrE-NE divide

ditransitive construction

no

gotten; avoidance

the word-forms; distribution

of gotta and

distribution of

to a certain

SingE

AmE influence JamE

yes: occurrence

SingE

yes: identical

BrE model

yes: avoidance of the basic

yes: simplification

no

JamE

yes: avoidance of the basic

bear effect

yes: simplification; teddy

SingE no: contrary to expectations

Effects of SLA

no: contrary to expectations

JamE

to a certain extent:

unrestricted use

in the substrate)

in the substrate)

GET-passives

frequency (zero copula

frequency (zero copula

verb

substrate)

to a certain extent: high

(pro-drop in the

substrate)

to a certain extent: high

yes: object omission

(base form in the

no

no

SingE

yes: nonstandard uses

no

no

Substrate effects

GET as a linking

Ditransitive GET

Monotransitive GET

of GET

Word-forms

of GET

Token frequencies

JamE

Table 6.5: Factors relevant in the variation of GET in Jamaican and Singaporean English

304 | Discussion and summary

no

Semi-modal overgeneralisation (past time reference of got to)

the whole system of modality (frequent use of HAVE to,

substrate)

(preference for simple versions)

construction with got

(flexible use of got in the

fewer types

yes: fewer significant collocates yes: lower frequencies; fewer types

types

yes: fewer significant collocates yes: lower frequencies; fewer types; teddy bear effect

Collocates of GET

GET-idioms

yes: lower frequencies;

yes: lower frequencies; fewer

versions)

(preference for simple

yes: simplification

with GET

substrate)

yes: simplification

yes: innovative

time reference of got to)

to); overgeneralisation (past

marginalisation of (HAVE) got

omission); simplification of

use of got in the

(auxiliary omission);

yes: simplification (auxiliary

yes: use of got to (flexible yes: simplification

(auxiliary omission)

yes: simplification

Lexical bundles

Catenative GET

(HAVE) got to

(frequent use of HAVE, ousting

substrate) of (HAVE) got)

whole system of possession

use of got in the

expectations

(HAVE) got

yes: simplification of the

yes: use of got (flexible

no: contrary to

Possessive

and isomorphism (more PPs)

isomorphism (more PPs)

SingE yes: salience and

Effects of SLA

version avoided); salience

JamE yes: simplification (causative

SingE

of motion

Substrate effects

GET as a verb

JamE

percentage of GET-

icity of GET-clauses

level of idiomat-

to a certain extent:

no

tokens

clusters of all GET-

SingE

no

no

no

logical field

the onomasio-

distribution in

got to; similar

yes: use of HAVE

got

yes: use of HAVE

BrE model

to a certain extent:

no

no

JamE

Table 6.5: Factors relevant in the variation of GET in Jamaican and Singaporean English (continued)

got to;

field

onomasiological

distribution in the

similar

HAVE

yes: avoidance of

omission

extent: auxiliary

to a certain

to/gotta

yes: use of got

omission

extent: auxiliary

to a certain

SingE

AmE influence JamE

especially in SingE

yes: fewer in the NEs,

yes: fewer in the NEs

especially in SingE

yes: fewer in the NEs,

especially in SingE

yes: more in the NEs,

no: SingE similar to BrE

no: SingE similar to BrE

especially in SingE

yes: fewer in the NEs,

BrE-NE divide

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 305

306 | Discussion and summary

Contrary to expectations, GET is not generally used more frequently in second-language varieties than in British English. This could have been assumed because GET is a highly frequent and versatile verb, can be used in many meanings and functions, and, in lexical use, remains vague enough to fit in many contexts. As such, it would be predestined to be used more frequently in ESL, but the data have shown that GET is highly frequently used in British English and less frequently in all of the six New Englishes studied for this purpose. While at first glance, this British English-New English divide is counter-intuitive, the comprehensive analysis of GET has indicated that possessive, semi-modal, and existential uses of GET in combination with HAVE, and thus the word-form got, contribute strongly to the high token frequencies in British English, and that the assumed effects of SLA do in fact surface very often in Jamaican and Singaporean English in the use of individual GET-constructions and phenomena, as will be summarised in the following. An analysis that does not take individual constructions and word-forms as well as their interplay into account would not have detected these details. The effects of SLA have turned out to play a major role in the variation of GET in Jamaican and Singaporean English in the form of simplification, the avoidance of complex forms or versions of certain constructions, overgeneralisation, little variability, low ranges of types, few metaphorical meanings, many salient and iconic constructions, and the frequent use of a few wellestablished and familiar patterns or types, the so-called teddy bear effect. Simplification occurs in various forms and particularly frequently. A case in the point is the prominent use of the monotransitive construction in the two New Englishes. The basic ditransitive construction, by contrast, a more complex construction than the alternative and more iconic prepositional object construction, is less frequently used in the New Englishes than in British English and can be considered to constitute a weak spot in the grammars of ESL. In the use of GET-existentials, effects of SLA surface in the form of less variability and the lesser use of complements in Jamaican and Singaporean English than in British English. Simplification is also apparent in lower frequencies of GET-PVs in the New Englishes, in their smaller range, and in the preference for simpler types and fewer metaphorical meanings, particularly in spoken language, where processing time is limited. Where there are simple and causative versions of one construction, the causative versions are frequently avoided in the New Englishes, for instance in the case of the motion construction in Jamaican English and in the case of the catenative construction in both Jamaican and Singaporean English. Salience and isomorphism can be held responsible for the preferred occurrence of PPs

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 307

instead of adverbs after GET as a verb of motion in both New Englishes. Auxiliary omission in the possessive and semi-modal use of GET is typical of the New Englishes and has its roots, besides other factors, in simplification. Simplification on a larger scale, viz. in the form of a simplification of a whole group or system, occurs twice in Jamaican English. More specifically, in the group of verbs of possession, the most marginal member, viz. (HAVE) got, is ousted, while the most frequent member, viz. HAVE, is used even more frequently. Similarly, in the system of modality, (HAVE) got to is marginalised, while the most frequent item HAVE to is used even more frequently than in the other varieties. In the use of nonstandard versions of possessive and semi-modal (HAVE) got (to), the two New Englishes behave in the same way, just as they do too in the past time reference of semi-modal got to, which is indicative of overgeneralisation. The present study, as well as many previous studies (cf. e.g. Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi 2009), has shown that (adult) language contact and (adult) language learning lead to simplification,136 so that it appears that the linguistic equi-complexity axiom, according to which all languages are equally complex because simplicity in a certain domain of a language is compensated by complexity in another domain, must be rejected (cf. Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann 2012: 7). The issue to be resolved in this context is what requires less cognitive effort when putting a certain notion into words: is it simpler for a language user to use little language material (“little is cognitively less complex”) or is it simpler to render a notion in a maximally explicit and transparent way, which usually involves using more language material (“more is cognitively less complex”)? Mesthrie (2012), who speaks of deleting varieties and anti-deleting varieties, as well as Steger and Schneider (2012), who regard complexity as a function of iconicity, opt for the latter answer, while in most studies of World Englishes, reduction and deletion are regarded as simplifying. In the present study on GET, I have found evidence of both, so that both ways of arguing can be correct. It depends on the specific language feature and construction whether simplicity manifests itself as more or as less language material. As far as GET-chunks are concerned, the lower numbers for types and tokens in the New Englishes as compared to British English have also been explained

|| 136 Intensive language contact does not necessarily lead to simplification processes, but morphosyntactic simplification clearly correlates with much language contact (cf. Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann 2012: 18–19). Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann (2009: 76–77) have shown that variety type, i.e. the question whether a variety is a first language, a second language, or a pidgin or creole, is the factor that best predicts a variety’s complexity in terms of morphosyntactic variance.

308 | Discussion and summary

as the effects of SLA. This is because the use of chunks indicates the mastery of language as attained in ENL, whereas chunks occur less frequently and less variably in ESL. British English displays a strong embedding of GET in lexical bundles: they are frequent, appear in a wide range, and occur in many structural subtypes. In the New Englishes, by contrast, the embedding of GET in lexical bundles is much less pronounced. Moreover, the highest frequency of significant collocates of GET as well as most types and tokens of GET-idioms occur in British English, and the New Englishes are again less prone to chunking. Although two similarities between British and Jamaican English have been found in the use of GET-chunks, viz. the percentage of GET-clusters of all GETtokens and the level of idiomaticity of GET-clauses, the effects of SLA seem to override all other factors in the case of GET-chunks in both New Englishes. Finally, the teddy bear effect could be determined several times for Jamaican English: in the preferred meaning of monotransitive GET, in the use of GET-PVs, in the preference for HAVE to as opposed to other modals and semi-modals of necessity and obligation, and in the use of GET-idioms. As a last factor, the influence of the two major standard varieties of English, viz. British and American English, on the use of GET will be summarised. Although only diachronic data can safely distinguish between influence and independent regional developments, synchronic corpus data can be used to model the closeness or distance of varieties (cf. Hundt 2013: 202). Since (some form of) British English is the parent variety of both Jamaican and Singaporean English (cf. chapter 2.4), it can be assumed that a similarity between one of the New Englishes and American English is due to Americanisation. The present analysis of GET has concluded that there is a strong American English influence on Jamaican English and it is likely that the geographical proximity of Jamaica to the US and, consequently, face-to-face contact have played their part. While there are indications that American English influence on Singaporean English is increasing, Singaporean English still seems to be more strongly oriented towards British English. In the use of the word-forms of GET, for instance, the non-British forms gotta and gotten occur in both Jamaican and Singaporean English, but to a greater extent in Jamaican English. For Jamaican English, the avoidance of got is striking, which can be ultimately traced to low frequencies of (HAVE) got and (HAVE) got to, and particularly to the avoidance of the forms with realised HAVE, which are highly characteristic of British English. Apart from the occurrence of gotta and gotten in Singaporean English, the distribution of the individual word-forms of GET is practically identical in British and Singaporean English. Moreover, the mode distribution is modelled on British English despite overall lower token numbers in Singaporean English.

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 309

Exonormative British English influence can also be claimed for GET-passive use in Singaporean English, whereas in Jamaican English, high frequencies indicate American English influence. In the few cases in which GET is used in Jamaican English to express an existential proposition, only the word-form get is an option, while the range and frequency of GET-existentials in Singaporean English is similar to that in British English. The British English model is also firmly in place in Singaporean English in the use of possessive and existential HAVE got as well as semi-modal HAVE got to. There are only very low numbers for these uses in Jamaican English, and the prescriptive American English rule to avoid HAVE got seems to be adhered to. While in Singaporean English, the use of possessive got is still appreciably less frequent than that of British English possessive HAVE got, increasing American English influence, as well as colloquialisation, can be assumed to be responsible for a relatively high number of the semi-modal got to/gotta in this variety. The frequent deontic meaning of (HAVE) got to and its use to express strong obligation in Singaporean English indicates that this variety has not yet been affected by the general ongoing change in meaning of this semi-modal. This change is said to have originated in American English, which means that American English does not function as an epicentre for Singaporean English in this case. The same is true of the whole onomasiological field of obligation and necessity, where Singaporean English is similar to British English, while Jamaican English follows American English trends. Halford (2008: 27) points out that an American English feature may lose its link to America and receive a new local meaning in a speech community, a phenomenon known as a change of the second order indexicality of linguistic variants and which can also be interpreted as an instance of “glocalization” (Halford 2008: 29; also cf. Leech et al. 2009: 258). She further states that research into Americanisation should also be interested in probing for possible constraints on the use of the originally American English features, such as stylistic stratification. Thus, there is scope for further research, linking the topics Americanisation and style, but corpora and linguistic phenomena must be chosen in such a way that token numbers remain large enough to warrant quantitative analysis. Summarising the results and simplifying to what extent the varieties align in terms of frequencies of constructions and phenomena with GET, there are a number of cases where a British English-New English divide has been found, i.e. where both Jamaican and Singaporean English differ from the parent variety in a higher or lower number of tokens. This is true of overall token frequencies, monotransitive GET, ditransitive GET, GET as a linking verb, GET-PVs, GET as a verb of motion, catenative GET, and GET-chunks. In the case of overall token frequen-

310 | Discussion and summary

cies, monotransitive GET, and GET as a linking verb, Jamaican English is even more different from British English than Singaporean English is. In all other cases, Singaporean English exhibits a larger difference. Higher frequencies in the New Englishes than in British English have been determined for monotransitive GET, GET as a linking verb, and catenative GET, while the New Englishes display lower frequencies than British English for GET-tokens overall, ditransitive GET, GET-PVs, GET as a verb of motion, and GET-chunks. A divide between British English and the New Englishes has also been found for the position of the varieties on the lexis-grammar continuum: GET in grammatical function is more frequent in the New Englishes than in British English. No British EnglishNew English divide, by contrast, can be seen in the distribution of the wordforms of GET, and in the use of GET-passives, GET-existentials, possessive (HAVE) got, and semi-modal (HAVE) got to. In all these cases, British and Singaporean English align, and it is Jamaican English that behaves differently. It should be noted that, except for GET-passives, these are all phenomena that are at least partially linked to the use of the distinctly British English surface form HAVE got. Moreover, it is striking that there is no GET-construction where Jamaican English is similar to British English and Singaporean English is at variance. In sum, a divide in the use of GET can be claimed to hold between British English and the two New Englishes studied here, the reasons being substrate influence, effects of SLA, and American English influence, but with the exception of the various uses of (HAVE) got (to), for which Singaporean English follows the British English model. The divide ties in with Schneider’s Dynamic Model (2007, cf. chapter 2.1), according to which Jamaican and Singaporean English are both in stage 4 and thus differentiated from British English. As indicated above, the different colony types can account for the distinctions that have been found between the two New Englishes. Although only a comprehensive analysis of all GET-constructions in many New Englishes can provide a definite answer, I expect the British English-New English divide to hold for other New Englishes as well, all the more since the analysis of overall token frequencies in several ICE corpora has suggested such a division. In order to be able to also describe the ongoing dynamism of global Englishes, Schneider (2014) proposes the notion of Transnational Attraction. This notion can be summed up as “the appropriation of (components of) English(es) for whatever communicative purposes at hand, unbounded by distinctions of norms, nations or varieties” (Schneider 2014: 28). Since it considers the forces of globalisation, it can be used, for instance, to explain Americanisation, a process certainly relevant for the variation of GET but not integrated into the original Dynamic Model.

Summary: issues and factors revisited | 311

Overall, a picture emerges in which effects of SLA are more decisive for the variation of GET than substrate effects, which come into play mainly in the occurrence of idiosyncrasies and in spoken language. The influence of secondlanguage learning as a determinant of the nativisation of New Englishes should thus not be underrated. The regional factor has turned out to be secondary to style. The strength of the latter as a determinant of the variation of GET has also arisen from prescriptive concerns. Finally, despite there being a general British English-New English divide, different degrees of orientation towards the two major standard varieties have formed Jamaican and Singaporean English, with globalisation adding new dynamism to the development.

7 Conclusion and outlook The aim of this study has been to provide a unified and comprehensive semasiological-syntactic analysis of GET by investigating the formal and semantic variation of this verb across time, region, and style. The analysis has added to previous research by exhaustively considering all usages of GET in five corpora – all in all 11,663 tokens – and providing quantitative as well as qualitative information. Several factors relevant in the variation of GET have been suggested, assessed, and weighted. After British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English were situated in a theoretical and sociolinguistic context, the methodological approach was detailed. A look at the frequencies of GET and its individual word-forms introduced the data analysis. GET is highly frequent and occurs between 1,342 times (FLOB) and 3,571 times (ICE-GB) per corpus. While no diachronic change has been found in overall token numbers, it has been shown that Jamaican and Singaporean English, as well as several other New Englishes, feature lower token numbers of GET than British English. In the frequencies of the individual word-forms of GET, a very similar distribution in British and Singaporean English was detected, suggesting that Singaporean English is in many respects almost identical to British English, which has been confirmed by the study of individual GETconstructions. Jamaican English, by contrast, differentiates itself mainly due to a much lower frequency of got, reflecting the avoidance of the distinctly British English form (HAVE) got (to). In both the Jamaican and the Singaporean corpora, the word-forms gotta and gotten occur, which is only one piece of evidence pointing to American English influence. This analysis of surface forms was followed by an analysis of what I have proposed as the ten constructions necessary for the description of GET in British, Jamaican, and Singaporean English: monotransitive GET, ditransitive GET, GET as a linking verb, GET-passives, GET-existentials, GET-PVs, GET as a verb of motion, possessive (HAVE) got, semi-modal (HAVE) got to, and catenative GET. Their frequency distributions in all five corpora examined in the present study were presented in an overview in Figure 5.1 and Figure 5.2. The subsequent detailed investigation of the ten constructions and of GET-chunks has shown that one can witness many structures in the use of GET where the two New Englishes analysed in this study differ from British English as a consequence of varying or innovative use due to substrate effects or the effects of SLA, or because the influence of the two major standard varieties applies to a different extent. The differences have been shown to be both quantitative and qualitative in nature. It has also been demonstrated that there are a number of phenomena where Singaporean

Conclusion and outlook | 313

English stands close to British English, and Jamaican English is at variance, often because of the influence of American English norms. This unity and diversity of World Englishes is only natural if one keeps in mind the wealth of forces working towards and against each other in shaping the varieties. Diachronic changes in British English have been identified for GET-passives, GET-PVs, possessive (HAVE) got, and semi-modal (HAVE) got to. For all phenomena considered, a strong dependence of GET on mode and genre has been determined, influenced by prescriptive resistance against the use of this verb in more formal text types. The finding that GET is colloquial and highly characteristic of spoken language holds for all varieties considered, but British English displays more extreme values than the New Englishes. It also holds for all GETconstructions, but to different degrees, and the individual differences have been indicated. At some points, I have mentioned limitations of the present study, which also suggest possible avenues for further research. While overall token frequencies of GET are large even in the 1 million-word corpora of ICE, in the case of some individual phenomena, for instance ditransitive GET or innovative GET-PVs, token numbers in ICE were low. Here, I used additional corpora or native speaker evaluations to arrive at conclusions. American English data would be called for to give more details about the American English influence on other varieties. Unfortunately, an American English ICE corpus is not available to date. It should be mentioned that sociolinguistic and attitudinal data would be helpful in substantiating claims about exonormative influence, such as Americanisation, and could provide qualitative information on prescriptive tendencies today. The information gained on features that set varieties apart could also be enriched by studying in detail the significance of these features within the speech community. Apart from that, some open questions can only be answered by a study of more diachronic data. While for British English, I used LOB and FLOB to trace changes, these corpora are restricted to written English, and comparable spoken diachronic data would be much needed. Furthermore, it would be especially interesting to analyse GET in diachronic data from Jamaican and Singaporean English. It is clear that in a study focussed on one verb, the onomasiological perspective is neglected. From the perspective of language production, it is improbable that the use of GET is set and the speaker then chooses a certain construction compatible with it. The question in this context is how the relation between the verb GET and the constructions in which it occurs can be conceptualised. A speaker certainly first wishes to express a notion, for instance ‘receiving praise’, and in a second step chooses between different language options,

314 | Conclusion and outlook

such as GET and object, RECEIVE and object, the BE-passive, or the GET-passive. Where possible, e.g. in the discussion on monotransitive and ditransitive GET and in the analysis of semi-modal (HAVE) got to, the onomasiological perspective has been addressed. One needs to accept, however, that in the majority of cases, the speaker’s considerations and options when he or she translates a notion into language cannot be integrated into a semasiological analysis like the present one. GET certainly also merits closer examination across more and varied types of New Englishes as represented in ICE. First, only an extension of the analysis could safely confirm the assumption that the British English-New English divide that has been shown to hold for Jamaican and Singaporean English also holds for other New Englishes. Second, the present study has indicated that Jamaican English, the only variety represented in ICE so far with a creole substrate, shares features with “more typical” second-language standards such as Singaporean English. This might be due to the fact that Jamaican and Singaporean English are similarly advanced in their evolution. Although they differ much in the sociolinguistic setting, these two varieties are both claimed to be in phase 4 of the Dynamic Model. It would now be fruitful to widen the scope to New Englishes that are situated at different points in the evolutionary cycle because comparing much less advanced and stabilised varieties with such Englishes promises to yield additional insights. For instance, it is reasonable to contend that vulnerable subsystems or weak links of the English grammar are even more relevant to language use in less advanced varieties. Finally, the gap to SLA has been bridged several times in the present study, but integrating data from EFL would allow more conclusions about which language acquisition issues play a role in the use of GET, and whether there are differences in the use of GET between speakers of ESL and EFL. In any case, it is hoped that the present study has demonstrated how valuable it is to get at GET.

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Index Americanisation 25f., 31f., 46ff., 50, 95ff., 113, 132, 206, 209ff., 219, 225, 229, 231f., 234, 246, 250, 253, 308ff., 312 AntConc 16, 34, 76, 124, 247, 266, 268 APiCS 119f., 205 ARCHER 33f., 60, 94, 297 argument structures 52 BNCweb 16, 36, 155, 175ff., 182 Brown corpora 12, 34, 94, 209, 229, 255, 296 Cantonese 11, 122, 205, 263 Chinese 10, 121f., 139, 160, 303 chi-square test 20 cliticisation 48, 200, 209f., 219, 221, 235 cognitive ~ principles 61 ~ processing 30, 159, 162f., 168f., 186, 190, 265, 271, 307 ~ representation 53, 56, 58, 61, 93, 313 collocation 2, 18, 30, 62, 77ff., 153, 267, 274, 277ff., 294f., 308 Colloquial Singapore English 8, 11, 27, 303 collostruction 57f., 66, 295 common core 18f., 274f., 303 complexity 29, 61, 117, 153ff., 158, 160, 168, 183, 186, 191, 193, 197, 246, 268, 272, 277, 293, 301, 307 complex-transitive construction 86 Construction Grammar – continuum 294 – ditransitivity 58 copular construction 85, 303 corpus-based 2, 4, 16f., 19, 62, 78f., 265, 293, 295 corpus-driven 16f., 44, 172 creole continuum 4, 9 diachronic development 1, 3, 6, 17f., 31, 313 – colloquialisation 26, 300f., 309 – prescriptivism 24f., 299ff. diglossia 11 Dynamic Model 7, 27, 310

EFL 6f., 265, 267 endonormative 8, 31, 51 ENL 6f., 265, 267, 272, 277, 288, 293, 308 ESD 9, 276, 293 ESL 6f., 28, 31, 160, 182, 265ff., 272, 288, 293, 306, 308, 311 eWAVE 49 exonormative 9f., 31, 101, 110, 309 expanding circle 6 expletive subject 118 extra-corpus material 15, 33, 106 Fisher’s exact test 20 follow-my-leader pattern 31, 229 functional nativeness 6 genetic nativeness 6 genre analysis 38, 301, 313 glocalisation 309 GloWbE 16, 35f., 66f., 169ff. grammaticalisation 1, 17, 48, 56, 98ff., 107ff., 113, 200f., 221f., 226, 230, 254, 295f., 298f., 302 high-frequency ~ constructions 61f., 65, 72, 172, 278 ~ verbs 30, 35, 52, 58, 146 Hokkien 11, 97, 110, 121f., 205, 263 ICE corpora 13ff., 33ff., 63, 135, 204 iconicity 30, 61f., 68, 84, 306f. idiom principle 264, 266 idiomaticity 147f., 152f., 266f., 283, 293, 308 idioms 1, 3, 24, 27, 59, 146, 150, 152, 169f., 174, 196, 199, 265f., 283, 293f., 301, 308 information structure 126, 155, 183 inner circle 6f., 23, 26, 42 innovative uses 7, 18, 28, 32, 58, 122, 128, 153, 155, 172, 174, 178, 182, 191, 205, 258, 262ff., 298, 303 input variety 17, 27, 31 intransitive construction 57 isomorphism 30, 193, 306

328 | Index

Jamaican Creole 8f., 27, 303 language contact 7f., 29, 61, 307 layering 220, 227 lemma 21, 44, 278 lexis-grammar ~ continuum 5, 274, 294, 297, 310 ~ interface 154f., 182, 294f. local norms 8, 31, 51, 277, 309 low-information verbs 52, 63 LSWE 3, 34, 91 Malay 10f., 27, 97, 110, 122, 205 Mandarin 10f., 121, 181 MI score 77, 278 middle meaning 93, 99, 107, 110 nativisation 7, 18f., 27f., 31, 51, 155, 175, 182, 207, 232, 267, 294, 311 New Englishes 4, 7, 18f., 28, 294, 298, 309f., 312, 314 OED 1, 56, 93, 200, 221, 257, 283 Old Norse 1 onomasiology 220, 225, 227, 230, 253, 309, 313 open-choice principle 264 outer circle 6f., 23, 26, 42 overuse 29f., 38

Pattern Grammar 17, 294 post-hoc test 20, 45f., 127 prepositional object 57f., 61, 149 pro-drop language 62, 70 questionnaire 175, 178, 180 reanalysis 201, 221 salience 2, 29, 56, 193, 195, 198, 206, 306 semi-grammaticalised 298f., 302 simplification 29f., 60f., 64, 66, 84, 122, 155, 206, 209, 219, 229, 232, 234, 237f., 253, 303, 306f. standard deviation 38 Standard English 8ff., 13, 17, 33, 298 Tamil 10f. teddy bear effect 30f., 35, 65, 84, 155, 163f., 191, 229, 250, 265, 286, 288, 306, 308 underuse 29, 38 usage guides 22f., 25, 202, 209, 224 valency 2, 19 verb complementation 19, 51, 254, 294f. weight principle 68 Zipf’s law 278

passive gradient 89