[Corpora-List] Studies of YET and STILL -- summary

[Raphael Salkie]

As well as the items listed below, two recent unpublished studies came to
light:

Charlene Dee Crupi. But Still a Yet:  The Quest For a Constant Semantic
Value For English YET. Ed Doc dissertation, Graduate School of Education,
Rutgers University.  January 2004.  

This study demonstrates that yet contributes a single semantic value,
SIGNIFICANT CONTRAST, wherever it appears, regardless of syntactic function.
In a linking capacity, yet indicates that both conjuncts contribute to a
contrast that is relevant to an author's communicative purposes-a strikingly
different cue than those provided by but and still, despite their common
designation as adversative conjunctions.  Conjunctive still [CONTINUATION,
NO CHANGE] indicates that subsequent information has been mentioned earlier
in the text or is part of the reader's general knowledge.  But instructs the
reader to abandon previous assumptions in favor of subsequent information of
higher thematic relevance. For more information, contact the author at
ccrupi at att.net. 


María Oset García. English in the books vs. English in Use: The Case of Yet.
MPhil essay, University of Birmingham.

The essay examines what dictionaries, grammars and ESL textbooks say about
YET, and compares this with corpus examples from the Bank of English. For
more information, contact the author at < osetmaria at yahoo.com>.


ABRAHAM, W. (1980), The synchronic and diachronic semantics of German
temporal 'noch' and 'schon', with aspects of English 'still', 'yet' and
'already', Studies in language 4, 3-24.  [I have not yet been able to find a
copy of this paper].

CLOSS TRAUGOTT, E., WATERHOUSE, J. (1969), Already and yet : a suppletive
set of aspect-markers ?, Journal of linguistics, 5, pp.287-304. [Deals
entirely with the temporal use of YET]  

GREENBAUM, S.  (1969).  Studies in English Adverbial Usage.  London:
Longman.  pp. 59-69.  [Brief discussions on YET and STILL as discourse
markers, but useful because he compares them with NEVERTHELESS, ANYHOW, etc,
using authentic examples]. 

HIRTLE, W. H. (1977),  Already, still and yet, Archivum Linguisticum, VII,
Glasgow, N.S., n°1, pp.28-45. [Almost entirely on the temporal uses, but has
a page near the end on the discourse marker uses.  Uses the Guillaume
theoretical framework, which has its own terminology, but fairly easy to
read] 

KÖNIG, E. (1991), The meaning of focus particles. A comparative perspective,
London, New York, Routledge. (Chapter 7, in particular pp. 153-7) [A few
words on STILL and YET, mostly as a companion to the main discussion of
German NOCH and SCHON]. 

LENK, U. (1998). Marking discourse coherence: Functions of discourse markers
in spoken English (Language in performance, Vol. 15). Tübingen: Gunter Narr
Verlag. [I have not yet been able to find a copy of this book].

MICHAELIS, L. (1993), 'Continuity' across three scalar domains : the
polysemy of adverbial 'still', Journal of semantics 10, 193-237.  [Almost
entirely about the temporal use, but some discussion near the end of the
discourse marker use.  Heavy use of logical formalism].

TRAUGOTT,E.C. AND KÖNIG, E. (1982), Divergence and apparent convergence in
the development of 'yet' and 'still', In M. Macaulay et al (eds.),
Proceedings of the eighth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics
Society, 170-179.  [Historical development of these words, mostly the
temporal uses: they argue that "the original meanings of YET and STILL
account for all the temporal and even the concessive uses of these
particles"]. 

VAN DER AUWERA, J. (1993), Already and still : Beyond Duality, Linguistics
and Philosophy, 16, pp. 613 - 653.  [Almost entirely on the temporal uses.
In the tradition of Traugott & Waterhouse above].

VAN BAAR, T. (1997) Continuation and change in FG. In C. Butler, J.
Connolly, R. Gatward and R. Vismans (eds.) A Fund of ideas: Recent
Developments in Functional Grammar. (Studies in Language and Language use
31), Amsterdam: IFOTT, 42-59. (IFOTT is (or rather, was) the Institute for
Functional Research into Language and Language Use at the Unviersity of
Amsterdam).  [Examines the temporal uses of ALREADY, STILL, YET and NO
LONGER and their equivalents in a wide range of languages.  In the tradition
of Traugott & Waterhouse above]. 


Thanks to the following people for their help:

Joel Walters
Lisa Ferro
Chris Butler
Tim van Baar
Jlsperanza at aol.com
Larry Horn
Alan Huffman
Galina Bolden
Mike Matloff
Wolfgang Teubert
Bruce Fraser
Charlene Crupi
Sandrine Deloor
María Oset