19.2721, Diss: Syntax: Hoffmann: 'Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in ...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-19-2721. Mon Sep 08 2008. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 19.2721, Diss: Syntax: Hoffmann: 'Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in ...'

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1)
Date: 08-Sep-2008
From: Thomas Hoffmann < thomas.hoffmann at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de >
Subject: Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in British and Kenyan English: An experimental- and corpus-based construction grammar analysis

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:53:39
From: Thomas Hoffmann [thomas.hoffmann at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de]
Subject: Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in British and Kenyan English: An experimental- and corpus-based construction grammar analysis
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Institution: Universität Regensburg 
Program: English Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2007 

Author: Thomas Hoffmann

Dissertation Title: Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in British and Kenyan 
English: An experimental- and corpus-based construction
grammar analysis 

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Herbert Brekle
Roswitha Fischer
Edgar W. Schneider

Dissertation Abstract:

Preposition placement in English has attracted a great deal of attention in
the linguistic literature since many syntactic contexts license two
competing structural variants (cf. Pullum and Huddleston 2002.
'Prepositions and prepositional phrases'. In: Geoffrey K. Pullum and Rodney
Huddleston, eds. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 627.): in preposed, interrogative, exclamative
and wh-relative clauses the preposition can either be 'stranded', i.e.
appear without an adjacent NP complement (3.1) or occur 'pied piped', i.e.
in clause-initial position (3.2):  

(3.1)
a. [Stranding] I've heard of.
b. [What] is he talking about?
c. [What a great topic] he talked about!
d. the structure [[which] he talked about].

(3.2)
a. [Of stranding] I've heard.
b. [About what] is he talking?
c. [About what a great topic] he talked!
d. the structure [[about which] he talked].

Non-wh-relative clauses (3.3a), comparative (3.3b), hollow (3.3c) and
passive clauses (3.3d), however, only permit stranding:

(3.3)
a. the structure [(that) he talked about].
b. the same stuff as [I talked about].
c. His thesis was easy [to find fault with].
d. Stranding has been talked about enough.

The present thesis attempts to investigate the distribution of preposition
pied piping and stranding in all clause types. In order to distinguish
language-specific form general linguistic constraints it does so by drawing
on empirical corpus and experimental data for L1 British English BE as well
as L2 Kenyan English KenE. Finally, it attempts to provide a full account
of preposition placement in both varieties within the framework of
construction grammar. 






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