This corpus study discusses the subjunctive construction in mandative sentences in East African and Indian English. Data taken from the East African ICE-EA corpus and the Indian Kolhapur corpus are compared to previous studies about American English and British English, mainly by Hundt (1998) and Johansson & Norheim (1988). Subjunctive, indicative and modal periphrastic constructions are identified and examined. The conclusion of this study is that the subjunctive construction in mandative sentences is more common in Indian and East African English than in British English.

A central area of research in linguistics is the study of changes in vocabulary over time, be it over historical time periods or faster changes within generations. One contributing factor driving such fast changes could be “fashion cycles”, as this is a very general cultural phenomenon. Here, results are reported from a corpus study investigating trends over time in the use of cyber as the first part of compound nouns, and of alternatives which carry a similar meaning, such as e- as short for electronic. It is found that cyber was commonly used in the time period 1995-2004. Usage then strongly declined, but there was a new peak in popularity in the last year of available data (2012). Interestingly, cyber was initially used in positively charged or neutral contexts (e.g. cyberspace), but in recent years mostly in negatively charged words such as cyberbullying or cyber warfare. The hypothesis that cyber has been replaced with e- was partially supported (in particular in the case of e-mail, but e-books is another prominent example of a recent rising trend in vocabulary). However, in most other contexts usage of e- actually peaked a few years before the last years of the available corpus data. In general, results were consistent with “fashion cycles” in that the popularity of using cyber or e-, and in particular of specific words including these compound noun parts, seems to come and go rapidly over time. Interestingly use of cyber was seen mostly in negative contexts during later time periods. No such change was apparent in the use of e-. An emerging hypothesis partially supported by the data is that words in commercial contexts (e.g. cyber-business, e-business) rapidly lose their positive charge as they become common and are replaced by other, more novel and more fashionable words. Corpus linguistics is a very powerful tool for investigating such patterns of change in the popularity of words, and the processes behind them.

According to earlier research, first-person pronouns are used in academic writing for a multitude of reasons. In this paper, the aim is to investigate if first-person pronouns are used to different extents or with different functions in articles from highly ranked scientific journals and articles from less highly ranked scientific journals. The investigation is based on a corpus study of 20 highly ranked sociological articles and 20 less highly ranked sociological articles. The corpus data provide statistics for frequencies of first-person pronouns and frequencies of so-called genre roles, in accordance with Tang and John’s (1999) model. The results reveal that the recounter genre role and first-person pronouns of all types combined are significantly more frequent in highly ranked articles in comparison to less highly ranked articles. / Enligt tidigare forskning finns ett flertal anledningar till att förstapersonspronomen används i akademiskt skrivande. I denna uppsats är målsättning att undersöka om förstapersonspronomen används olika ofta eller med olika funktioner i artiklar från högt rankade vetenskapliga tidsskrifter och artiklar från mindre högt rankade vetenskapliga tidsskrifter. Undersökningen baseras på en korpusstudie av 20 högt rankade artiklar i sociologi och 20 mindre högt rankade artiklar i sociologi. Korpusdatan tillhandahåller statistik över förstapersons-pronomen och så kallade genreroller, vilka definieras i Tangs och Johns (1999) modell. Resultatet visar att genrerollen återberättaren och en sammanvägning av alla förstapersonspronomena har signifikant högre förekomst i högt rankade artiklar än i mindre högt rankade artiklar.

The term existential construction has been argued to be a misnomer, as the primary function of these constructions is not to predicate existence. In this study, I compare these constructions with ones whose primary function is to predicate existence using a stratified sample of European languages. This comparison is done both in terms of structure and formality. I find that, while the constructions differ within a given language, similar structural characteristics to those common in existential constructions are also found in constructions predicating existence, in particular, the use of a special predicate. The latter are also found to be noticeably more restricted to formal registers than existential constructions are, based on corpus data from German and Russian corpora. / Termen existenskonstruktion har argumenterats vara missvisande, då den huvudsakliga funktionen hos dessa konstruktioner ej är att predicera existens. I den här studien jämför jag dessa konstruktioner med sådana vars huvudsakliga funktion är att predicera existens utifrån ett stratifierat sampel med europeiska språk. Jämförelsen görs dels baserat på deras strukturella egenskaper, och dels baserat på deras respektive formalitetsgrad. Det visar sig att, medan konstruktionerna skiljer sig språkinternt, så förekommer det strukturella drag liknande de i existenskonstruktioner även i konstruktioner som predicerar existens, då främst genom användandet av ett för uppgiften speciellt predikat. De sistnämnda visar sig även vara märkbart mer begrnsade till formella register än existenskonstruktioner, baserat på korpusdata från tyska och ryska korpora.

<p>This study examines how the meanings of onomatopoeic phrasal verbs are created and in which register these verbs are most frequently used. Through the study of previous research on the subject qualities of onomatopoeia and phrasal verbs are identified. Based on this a framework for identifying phrasal verbs and categorizing the meanings of onomatopoeic verbs and particles was created. Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), a study of concordance lines and frequency in different registers was carried out on 50 onomatopoeic phrasal verbs. These verbs were constructed from ten mono-syllabic onomatopoeic verbs and three opposite pairs of spatial adverbs. The study found that several metaphorical meanings of the onomatopoeic verbs examined were not listed in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The meanings of the particles were strongly linked to metaphorical structures.The conclusion of this study was that onomatopoeic verbs possess a flexibility that allows them to create a variety of different meanings. Furthermore, the types of meaning can be categorized after a pattern, although this pattern is often not found in the dictionary. The onomatopoeic phrasal verbs studied were most frequent in the fiction register, more so than other phrasal verbs. Understanding of the metaphorical nature of particles such as up and down is imperative to understand how the meaning of a phrasal verb is created. This should be taken into consideration when teaching English as a second language or creating a dictionary.</p>

<p>This quantitative corpus study discusses and compares the distribution of the inflected genitive (’s- or zero-genitive) with that of the of-construction in East African, Indian, American and British English using data collected from the ICE-EA, ICE-IND, Frown and FLOB corpora. This study also discusses the semantic categories of the inflected genitive in the varieties mentioned.</p><p>The first conclusion of the study is that the distribution of tokens according to semantic categories is similar in all varieties examined. Furthermore, it is concluded for the modifier classes that animateness-biased classes are more common with the inflected genitive, while inanimateness-biased classes are more common with the of-construction; this distribution is similar in all varieties.</p>

Spanish, as a V(erb)-framed language (Talmy 1985), is expected to lexicalize the path of motion in the verb and manner in some satellite when it comes to the description of motion events. Nonetheless, it shows mixed properties (e.g. Aske 1989, Berman & Slobin 1994). All manner of motion verbs can take a path satellite introduced by the prepositions "hacia" and "hasta", and yet only some can take a path satellite introduced by the preposition "a." I claim that goal XPs introduced by "hasta" and "hacia" are adjuncts, whereas "a" is an argument marker. In order to capture the intermediacy of a verb’s ability to take a goal XP, I classify manner of motion verbs according to a three-way distinction that takes into account whether they encode path categorically, overwhelmingly, or only sometimes, and whether they lexically reject the notion of a goal. Finally, I posit verb coercion—under certain semantic and pragmatic conditions—of manner of motion verbs that strongly or categorically favor displacement in order to express a goal. These semantic/pragmatic influential factors are reduced to (i) degree of manner and (ii) degree of goal-orientedness. / text

Denna uppsats undersöker de metaforer som används i svenska för att benämna känslan sorg. Den metafordefinition som tillämpas är den konceptuella, myntad av Lakoff &amp; Johnson (1980), där metaforer ses som språklig evidens för kognitiva mappningar och består av en så kallas måldomän och källdomän. Uppsatsens syfte är att beskriva och kartlägga de olika sorgemetaforernas källdomäner och att anknyta dessa till tre metaforer på övergripande nivå, som i tidigare studier visat vara viktiga för figurativt känslospråk; PSYKET SOM KROPP-METAFOREN (Sweetser 1990), METAFOREN FÖR HÄNDELSESTRUKTUR (Lakoff &amp; Johnson 1999 och Kövecses 2000) och KRAFTMETAFOREN (Kövecses 2000), varav den sistnämnda i tidigare studier av Kövecses (2000) lyfts fram som en för känslospråk dominerande metafor. Metoderna som tillämpas utgörs av en textanalys och en korpusstudie, där metaforer först manuellt extraheras och analyseras från böcker och hemsidor med sorgetema för att sedan uppsökas i korpora. Resultatet uppvisar en stor variation i de metaforer som används och 21 metaforer noteras, med 14 undergrupper. Alla tre tidigare metaforer förekommer. KRAFTMETAFOREN utgör dock inte en dominerande övergrupp, vilket tros kunna bero på att forskning kring metaforen främst skett inom engelska, men även det faktum att sorgen som definierad i studien inte utgör en prototypisk känsla. / This study examines metaphors used in Swedish for the emotion grief. The definition of metaphor applied is the one of the conceptual metaphor, as presented by Lakoff &amp; Johnson (1980), where metaphors are considered to be linguistic evidence of cognitive mappings and consist of a target and source domain. The aim of the study is to describe and map the different source domains, as well as to relate them to three basic level metaphors, that earlier research has shown to be of importance to emotional language; THE BODY AS MIND METAPHOR (Sweetser 1990), THE EVENT STRUCTURE METAPHOR (Lakoff &amp; Johnson 1999 and Kövecses 2000) and THE FORCE METAPHOR (Kövecses 2000). Previous studies by Kövecses (2000) have treated the latter one as a dominating metaphor for more specific level emotion metaphors. The adopted methods consist of a text analysis and a corpus study, where metaphors are extracted from grief themed books and webpages and analyzed manually to later be sought up in corpora. The results show diversity in source domain and a total of 21 superordinate metaphors and 14 subordinate ones are observed. All three basic level metaphors feature. THE FORCE METAPHOR does however not qualify as a dominating metaphor which can function as a superordinate metaphor for all others. This is believed to be due to the fact that most earlier research has focused on English, as well as that the definition of grief used throughout the study does not constitute a prototypical emotion.

This study examines how the meanings of onomatopoeic phrasal verbs are created and in which register these verbs are most frequently used. Through the study of previous research on the subject qualities of onomatopoeia and phrasal verbs are identified. Based on this a framework for identifying phrasal verbs and categorizing the meanings of onomatopoeic verbs and particles was created. Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), a study of concordance lines and frequency in different registers was carried out on 50 onomatopoeic phrasal verbs. These verbs were constructed from ten mono-syllabic onomatopoeic verbs and three opposite pairs of spatial adverbs. The study found that several metaphorical meanings of the onomatopoeic verbs examined were not listed in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The meanings of the particles were strongly linked to metaphorical structures.The conclusion of this study was that onomatopoeic verbs possess a flexibility that allows them to create a variety of different meanings. Furthermore, the types of meaning can be categorized after a pattern, although this pattern is often not found in the dictionary. The onomatopoeic phrasal verbs studied were most frequent in the fiction register, more so than other phrasal verbs. Understanding of the metaphorical nature of particles such as up and down is imperative to understand how the meaning of a phrasal verb is created. This should be taken into consideration when teaching English as a second language or creating a dictionary.

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