| Corpus-Based Study of Proper Names in Present-Day English: Aspects of Gradience and Article Usage Contributor(s): Tse, Grace (Author), Kohnen, Thomas (Author), Mukherjee, Joybrato (Author) |
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ISBN: 0820476668 ISBN-13: 9780820476667 Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing OUR PRICE: $48.40 Product Type: Paperback Published: January 2005 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - Etymology |
| Dewey: 422 |
| LCCN: 2005044319 |
| Series: English Corpus Linguistics |
| Physical Information: 253 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Based on a large sample of press data extracted from the British National Corpus (BNC), the book undertakes a detailed investigation of present-day English proper names, an important but under-researched area in English linguistics. Employing the statistical technique of binary logistic regression, this book presents a new method of analysing non-discrete categories in linguistics with reference to the grammatical notion of gradience and the principle of parsimony. The focus is particularly on the grammatical factors influencing the choice between use and non-use of the definite article a well-known issues of uncertainty in modern English. The study also concentrates on multiword organisation names, which have been little studied, although they occur frequently in newspaper language and have special characteristics of their own. By making precise predictive statements about the conditions under which the definite article is preferred or dispreferred, the book is also able to shed light on the theory of linguistic performance. |