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EN
The present paper aims at contributing to the study of passivization of ditransitive complementation from the FSP point of view. English ditransitive verbs generally allow two passive constructions, i.e. the subject of a passive can in the active correspond either to Oi (Jack was sent a copy of the letter) or to Od (A copy of the letter was sent (to) Jack). As the passive usually serves as one of the means used to achieve the basic distribution of communicative dynamism, the choice of the subject and the object of the passive can be supposed to be motivated, respectively, by their thematic and rhematic function. Thus, the sentence is perspectived away from the subject and constitutes the quality scale. The aim of the paper is to verify this assumption and to find out whether a passive sentence with a ditransitive verb can also implement the presentation scale, i.e. whether the sentence can be perspectived towards the subject and introduce a phenomenon into discourse. Attention is paid to other potential factors that might play a role in the selection of the passive, namely the semantics of the verb and of the indirect object (whether the recipient is actual or intended), object deletion (i.e. omission of an object) and the expression of the by-agent. The analysis is based on examples obtained from the British National Corpus.
EN
The paper investigates the double object constructions, viz. SVOi Od and SVOOprep clause patterns, of the ditransitive verbs envy and forgive. The syntactic and semantic specificity of the two verbs in question may indicate a possible future extinction of their ditransitive use. The present study aims to provide an extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of the double object construction preference from both the diachronic and synchronic perspectives. Using a corpus sample of American English (COHA), the data reveal a complex situation. While the double object constructions with envy prefer the indirect object clause pattern, there is a notable tendency of such constructions to gradually decline in frequency and give rise to the prepositional pattern. Forgive shows preference for the SVOOprep pattern. Nevertheless, it is the form of the objects that seems to play a significant role in the double object construction preference.
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EN
The paper explores the potential of English sentences with the verb have to constitute the Presentation Scale. Have-presentative sentences, in which the verb is devoid of its possessive meaning, can be viewed as an alternative to the “full presentative” there-constructions. Both constructions contain an indefinite noun phrase presenting new information, and they share the communicative function of introducing a new referent into discourse, cf. We have a long trip ahead of us vs. There’s a long trip ahead of us. Presentative sentences with have are described and classified with respect to the animacy, semantics and reference of the subject, the presence of a locative adverbial, and the semantics of the object.
EN
The present study is concerned with non-standard functions of the word like in spoken American English. The aim was to gather all the non-standard functions that have been described in the past 30 years, to create a comprehensive overview serving as the basis for the analysis of a sample of 100 instances of non-standard like excerpted from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The sample was analysed and sorted according to the function of like (focus marker, hedge, quotative marker, and discourse marker), while also examining the position and collocations of each instance. The conclusions of the study were validation of the proposed overview and its extension by an additional quotative construction, a more detailed description of the „hedge“ and the focus marker like and also the confirmation that the non-standard like is not an empty intrusive word but a multifunctional, ever-developing device which allows speakers to modify the pragmatic meaning of their utterances.
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