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Independent Wh-Exclamative Constructions in the History of English book cover

1st Edition

Independent Wh-Exclamative Constructions in the History of English

By Daniela Schröder Copyright 2024
252 Pages 17 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

252 Pages 17 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

252 Pages 17 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This book offers the first book-length treatment of the diachronic study of English exclamatives, tracing their development from 1500 through to the twenty-first century. The volume shines a light on independent wh-exclamatives in the history of English. In particular, Schröder calls attention to the development of three prototypical wh-exclamatives as observed in three newly created... Read more

1. Introduction

1.1 The syntax and semantics of exclamatives

1.2 How-exclamatives

1.3 What a-exclamatives

1.4 Independent wh-exclamatives

1.5 Structure of the work

 

2. Exclamatives as constructions

2.1 Construction Grammar

2.2 Diachronic Construction Grammar

2.3 Chapter Summary

 

3. Exclamatives in diachrony

3.1. What a-exclamatives

3.2. How-exclamatives

3.3 Independent wh-exclamatives in diachrony

3.4 Independent Wh-Exclamatives – A constructional proposal

3.5 Chapter summary

 

4. Methodology

4.1 Genre

4.2 Data basis

4.3 Operationalization of Independent Wh-Exclamatives

4.4 Corpus search

4.5 Semantic classification: Roget’s Thesaurus of English words and phrases

4.6 Measuring productivity

4.7 Chapter Summary

 

5. Results: Changes in Productivity

5.1 General overview

5.2 Genre

5.3 Productivity

5.4 Chapter Summary

 

6. Theoretical implications

6.1 The indexical meaning of Independent Wh-Exclamatives and genre specifics

6.2 The relationship between the slots

6.3 The role of skewed frequencies

6.4 Is there an Abstract Exclamative construction?

6.5 Chapter Summary

 

7. Conclusion and Outlook

7.1. Summary of the main results

7.2 Outlook

 

Appendices

Index

Biography

Daniela Schröder received her PhD in English linguistics in 2020 after gaining her MA in American Studies, Sociology, and German Linguistics in 2013. She worked as a research associate at the University of Hamburg from 2013 to 2020 and as an English language instructor at the English Seminar of the University of Münster from 2021 to 2023. She is currently a fellow manager at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study.

"The empirical value of [this book] in the History of English cannot be denied. It showcases the author’s success in providing the linguistic community with a new resource on English exclamative constructions and attention to detail in doing so. The reader will definitely appreciate the clear and thorough theoretical background on (Diachronic) CxG and the notion and measures of productivity…and the deep engagement with the existing literature." -- Joanna Nykiel, University of California, Davis, English Language and Linguistics

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