Hyeree Kim. 2016. A Corpus-Based Study in the Diachronic Change of the Adjective/Participle+V-ing Construction. Studies in Modern Grammar 90, 1-30. In the Present-Day English adjectives and participles are often followed by a preposition plus V-ing (hereafter called PG construction). However, some adjectives and participles can be immediately followed by V-ing without an intermediate preposition (hereafter NG). Therefore, such adjectives/participles can have both NG and PG constructions. This article investigates 13 such predicates (happy, comfortable, bored, tired, fed up; busy, engaged, occupied; late, quick, slow, done, finished) in the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) and examines the frequency changes of their NG vs PG structures in American English from 1820 to 2009. The findings of this study are as follows: (i) NG is a more recent structure than PG, (ii) the frequency of NG has gradually increased over time with most predicates, (iii) except engaged, the percentage of NG to PG was higher in the late 1900 than the early 1800, and with some predicates NG is more preferred than PG in the Present-Day English, (iv) as shown by the fact that some predicates were more resistant to the change, a linguistic innovation does not apply simultaneously but spread gradually across the relevant lexical items/structures.

In the Present-Day English adjectives and participles are often followed by a preposition plus V-ing (hereafter called PG construction). However, some adjectives and participles can be immediately followed by V-ing without an intermediate preposition (hereafter NG). Therefore, such adjectives/participles can have both NG and PG constructions. This article investigates 13 such predicates (happy, comfortable, bored, tired, fed up; busy, engaged, occupied; late, quick, slow, done, finished) in the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) and examines the frequency changes of their NG vs PG structures in American English from 1820 to 2009. The findings of this study are as follows: (i) NG is a more recent structure than PG, (ii) the frequency of NG has gradually increased over time with most predicates, (iii) except engaged, the percentage of NG to PG was higher in the late 1900 than the early 1800, and with some predicates NG is more preferred than PG in the Present-Day English, (iv) as shown by the fact that some predicates were more resistant to the change, a linguistic innovation does not apply simultaneously but spread gradually across the relevant lexical items/structures.

In the OE absolute participial clause, its subject was usually realized as inherent dative case in the CP‐oriented and focalized element‐prominent structure. During between LME and EModE, dative absolutes were changed into nominative absolutes, which was derived by the reanalysis of SOV as SVO and the change from the OE structure into the TPoriented and subject‐prominent structure. But nominative absolutes were substituted with accusative absolutes from LModE. Such a change as this was triggered by analogy and assimilation with verbal gerunds that became grammaticalized as C-fin-T+def in their internal structures. Nominal gerunds in OE and EME began to acquire verbal properties from LME and onwards. Verbal gerunds in PDE are composed of mixed projections [＋N,＋V] with functional category Gerund Phrase. The [＋N]‐feature selects a gerund's logical subject and the [＋V]‐feature licenses its verbal complement. The Gerund as functional head bears both an uninterpretable verbal feature [uV] that is checked against the interpretable feature of a verbal complement and an interpretable nominal feature [iN] that guarantees a gerund's logical subject. As for the case identification of a gerund's logical subject, it is spelled out either as genitive at the DP level when it is selected as the genitive form morphologically or as accusative when EPP attracts a nominal element as a clausal gerund's logical subject onto the CP-fin-TP+def level where the [FinP nonfiniteness] renders a default case feature to be accusative.

The objective of this article is to account for the late Modern English changes of BE to V from a more extensive diachronic perspective. This study examines frequency changes of various constructions involving BE to in COHA, a corpus of American English covering 1800 to 2009. It has been found that BE to V constructions are on the constant decline while the retroactive infinitive BE to blame is not. In order to know a fundamental motivation behind this decline, this study explores historical changes of BE to V from Old English to early Modern English and explains the whole span of changes as the results of reanalysis and grammaticalization.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the base-generated position of the negative element not in English negation and the movement of verbs across not. The theoretical background of the study is based on Rizzi`s Relativized Minimality and the range of researches is spanned from Old English(OE) to Modern English(ModE). The results obtained from the analysis are summarized as follows: 1. In the surface structure of OE negation, the negative element preceded the finite verb in both main and subordinate clauses. The surface word order of main clauses in OE negation was derived from the movement of the negative element from the specifier position of VP to that of CP and the raising of the finite verb to the verb-second position. The surface word order of subordinate clauses in OE negation manifested the underlying word order itself : the finite verb projected a preverbal negative element as its specifier. 2. Owing to the levelling of morphological inflections, the underlying word order of Middle English(=SIVO) wa reanalyzed from that of OE(=SIVO) through syntactic operations such as verb-raising, extraposition, decliticization, the establishment of the subject position in IP and the loss of the verb-second phenomenon. The grammatical category of the negative element was still analyzed as the specifier of VP. 3. In the early ModE period, do and auxiliaries underwent a diachronic reanalysis of the grammatical function and the base-generated position of the negative element not was reanalyzed as the head position of NEGP. Consequently the raising of a lexical verb to I, the head position of IP or C, the head position of CP comes to be impossible in a ModE negation construction. In that case, an inserted-do or a base-generated auxiliary in the head position of ModP raises to I or C in order to satisfy the morphological conditions in PF and LF. But aspectual be and have still shows the syntactic properties of OE.