[Corpora-List] 'Standard European English' ?

[Martin Wynne]

The examples listed below from the BNC could all be paraphrased as 
"already in [some year], something was happening" or "already in [some 
year], something was the case". The example suggested by Nick (see 
bottom of this message) means "already in [some year], an event took place".

The examples from the BNC all have past progressives in the main clause, 
except for the first one, which has a stative verb ('be').

Nick's example has a simple past tense of an active verb in the main 
clause. This is the usage which occurs in non-native English, and 
strikes native speakers as, depending on point of view, either:
- charming
- just plain wrong
- an interesting interference error
- evidence of a new dialect of English

-- 
Martin Wynne
Head of the Oxford Text Archive and
AHDS Literature, Languages and Linguistics

Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road
Oxford
UK - OX2 6NN
Tel: +44 1865 283299
Fax: +44 1865 273275
martin.wynne at oucs.ox.ac.uk


Begin forwarded message:

> *From: *Costas Gabrielatos <c.gabrielatos at lancaster.ac.uk 
> <mailto:c.gabrielatos at lancaster.ac.uk>>
> *Date: *7 March 2006 21:03:29 GMT
> *To: *'Nicholas Sanders' <nick at semiotek.org 
> <mailto:nick at semiotek.org>>, corpora at lists.uib.no 
> <mailto:corpora at lists.uib.no>
> *Subject: **RE: [Corpora-List] Re: 'Standard European English' ?*
> *Reply-To: *c.gabrielatos at lancaster.ac.uk 
> <mailto:c.gabrielatos at lancaster.ac.uk>
>
> If the use of 'already' in the example is a characteristic of SEE, 
> what can
> we make of these sentences from the BNC?
>
> Already in 1610 he was one of "a select number of the Lower House" who met
> with the lord treasurer, Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury [q.v.], son
> of his father's patron, to discuss impositions. [GTE 65]
>
> Already in 1914 he was exhorting the readers of Poetry (Chicago): [A1B 
> 1208]
>
>
> Already in 1915 Pound was making this mistake about the rivers, for in 
> "Near
> Perigord", which he published in that year, he declares: [A1B 154] 
>
> Already in 1922, Wheatley was attacking the conventional view that
> internationalism held the key to ending unemployment: [CE7 909] 
>
> Already in 1926 ( The New Republic , 30 June) Tate was obliged -- 
> faced with
> the aridity in diction and imagery of "The Hollow Men" -- to concede that
> "It is possible that he has nothing more to say in poetry". [A1B 1476] 
>
> Already in 1928 he was protesting that his own pronouncements at the 
> time of
> the Imagist manifesto were tailored to the specific needs of 1914, and
> should not be taken as binding fourteen years later. [A1B 1948] 
>
> Costas Gabrielatos 
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-corpora at lists.uib.no [mailto:owner-corpora at lists.uib.no] On
> Behalf Of Nicholas Sanders
> Sent: 07 March 2006 20:27
> To: corpora at lists.uib.no <mailto:corpora at lists.uib.no>
> Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Re: 'Standard European English' ?
>
> Does the panel agree that the use of "already" in the following is an
> example of SEE?
>
> Already in 1976, UNESCO itself mentioned that this practice should
> only be used where absolutely necessary...
>
> Nick
>
>
> -- 
>
> Nicholas J A Sanders
> _____________________
> semiotek
>
> T: +44 [0]7092 153 409
> F: +44 [0]8707 059 093
>
> nick at semiotek.org <mailto:nick at semiotek.org>
> _____________________
>
>
>
>
>



-- 


Nicholas J A Sanders

_____________________

*/semiotek/*

*/
/*

T: +44 [0]7092 153 409

F: +44 [0]8707 059 093


nick at semiotek.org <mailto:nick at semiotek.org>

_____________________