Determinants of verb number agreement with complex collective subjectsa corpus-based analysis in english

Zusammenfassung

This dissertation analyses the morpho-syntactic and lexico-semantic determinants of verb number agreement with complex collective subjects (i.e. collective noun + of-dependent) in Modern and Present-Day British and American English from a descriptive, multifaceted and variationist perspective. This investigation is based on data extracted from The British National Corpus (BNC, 1960-1993), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA, 1990-2012) and The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA, 1810-2009). The dissertation provides a usage-based account of the phenomenon, grounded mainly in the results from the multivariable analysis of the diachronic and synchronic morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic factors surveyed, all of the subjected to statistical testing and modelling. Chapter 1 introduces the object of research and describes the scope and the goals of the study. Chapter 2 provides a theoretical background on the operation of agreement and on complex noun phrases in English, with a focus on verb agreement with collective and (pseudo)partitive subjects. The comprehensive review of the literature on the concepts and the treatment of agreement focuses on historical and Present-Day grammars, usage guides and the theoretical accounts proposed by Corbett (2006) in his canonical model, by Generative Grammar and Cognitive Grammar. The chapter also revolves around complex noun phrases in English, particularly, around three types of complex (binominal) NPs: partitive, pseudopartitive and complex collective subjects, which are thoroughly described and characterised. Chapter 3 reports the synchronic case study carried out with data from the BNC and COCA aimed at examining the determinants of verb number agreement variation with complex collective subjects in Present-Day English. This chapter provides a detailed explanation of the aims pursued, the methodology and the set of 23 collective nouns analysed, as well as a brief theoretical background on the variables coded and inspected. The analysis of the data describes the explanatory power of the morpho-syntactic and lexico-semantic variables, and also reports the effect of the non-explanatory (i.e. discarded by the statistical modelling) but still potential predicting factors. Chapter 4 elaborates on the findings attested in the synchronic research in an attempt to obtain further insights from a diachronic analysis with data from COHA. In particular, based on prior literature on grammaticalisation, this chapter presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 'a number of', 'a group of', 'a majority of', 'a bunch of', 'a couple of', 'a host of' and 'a minority of' with a view to assess their potential idiomatisation and the emergence of the quantifying usages of complex collective structures. Chapter 5 rounds off the dissertation with an overview of the main findings and conclusions and suggests areas for future research.