One Language, Two Grammars? - part 4 pptx

In the mid nineteenth century, AmE starts out with an almostinvariable placement of quite in pre-determiner position 96 per cent averagedacross both types of adjectives shown inFigure5.7

ascertained I therefore concentrate on two sets of corpora which providecomparable datasets, one diachronic and one exemplifying different registers

of present-day usage.Figure5.7contrasts the situation before initially andnon-initially stressed adjectives in BrE and AmE from the mid nineteenthcentury to the early twentieth century

The stretch of time considered in this figure coincides with the slightreversal in the establishment of the pre-determiner variant of quite, which isvisible in both national varieties The time course of the change is highlyintricate In the mid nineteenth century, AmE starts out with an almostinvariable placement of quite in pre-determiner position (96 per cent averagedacross both types of adjectives shown inFigure5.7), closely resembling BrE(94 per cent) Later in the same century, the share drops to 81 per cent in BrEand78 per cent in AmE Thus far, the trend in both varieties is fairly paralleland none of the contrasts reaches statistically reliable levels In the earlytwentieth century, BrE ends up with a somewhat lower share of pre-determiner quite than AmE (76 per cent as opposed to 84 per cent for thetotal).17So far, not much can be made of the general cross-varietal differences,which appear to be relatively minor

169/176 = 96% 475/539=88%

108/131 = 82% 51/53 = 96%

*1870–*1894 (ETC)

before initially stressed Adjs (BrE)

before noninitially stressed

Adjs (BrE)

before initially stressed Adjs (AmE) before noninitially stressed Adjs (AmE)

Figure5.7 The distribution of a quite and quite a(n) before attributiveadjectives in a series of British and American prose corpora (MNC,LNC, ETC)

17 This contrast fails to reach statistical significance ( 2 ¼ 2.77, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.096 (n.s.)), but if combinations with initially stressed attributive adjectives are considered in isolation, the difference becomes significant:  2 ¼ 5.47, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.019 (*).

Much more stable contrasts emerge between the two groups of attributiveadjectives premodified by quite In both varieties, initially stressed adjectiveshardly give up the rhythmically convenient pre-determiner position of quiteonce it has become quasi ubiquitous in the mid nineteenth century Thispositional variant never falls below the80 per cent mark and does not seem to

be in danger of being given up again In contrast, to the extent that thetraditional post-determiner use becomes available again in the late nine-teenth and early twentieth centuries, non-initially stressed adjectives return

to the canonical order ‘determinerþ adverb þ attribute þ noun’ They areclearly in the lead of the development and differ significantly from the moreconservative majority of initially stressed adjectives as soon as the databecome statistically sufficient.18 Thus, a word order contrast can be dis-cerned that is largely accounted for by the rhythmic difference betweeninitial and non-initial stress in attributive adjectives In view of these robustresults, the semantic motivations that have been adduced in the secondaryliterature appear to be backgrounded and partly offset by a powerful phono-logical determinant that has hitherto been neglected This is all the more true

if the claim that the maximizer meaning has become rare in Present-DayEnglish is correct (cf OED 2 1994: s v quite, Allerton2001:188) In thatcase, the variation between the competing word orders can with a consid-erable degree of certainty be largely attributed to the effect of rhythmicpreferences

While this result is hardly in need of further corroboration, the ential development of the variation in BrE and AmE can be elucidated by alook at some Present-Day English data Besides samples of newspaperlanguage from both sides of the Atlantic,Figure5.8includes spoken datafrom the BNC and the (as yet relatively restricted) second release ofthe ANC

differ-A first important conclusion that suggests itself is that the rhythmicallymotivated difference remains in place in BrE as well as AmE and in spokenand written usage (with the possible exception of the spoken AmE corpus, inwhich non-initially stressed adjectives are simply too infrequent).19A corre-lation between the relative availability of the two positional variants and theextent of the rhythmically conditioned variability manifests itself: the betterestablished the canonical post-determiner position of quite as an alternative

to the pre-determiner position in a particular variety and register, the greaterthe rhythmic flexibility of the construction Within the limits afforded by a

18 In the British LNC, 2 ¼ 93.30, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 4.5010 –22(***); in the American LNC, 2 ¼ 11.96, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.00054 (***); in the British ETC,  2 ¼ 15.86, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 6.8210 –5(***);

in the American ETC,  2 ¼ 19.80, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 8.5910 –6(***).

19 The data for spoken BrE narrowly fail the statistical test since the difference of4 per cent is too marginal:  2 ¼ 3.47, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.062 (n.s.) However, the contrasts in the newspaper corpora are both very highly significant: BrE:  2 ¼ 291.25, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 2.6610 –65(***);AmE:  2 ¼ 36.48, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 1.5510 –9(***).

particular synchronic state of a grammar, the Principle of RhythmicAlternation thus reasserts its role as a linguistic universal in both varietiesand registers under study.

In comparison, there is no evidence for a difference in semantic tion of the kind suggested by Algeo (2006:156): if AmE really tended moretowards the maximizer meaning of quite, this should become manifest in ahigher proportion of post-determiner placements Obviously, the contrary isthe case As in the early twentieth-century data in Figure 5.7, a quite isgenerally more frequent in BrE than in AmE While the sparse spoken data

orienta-do not warrant any statistical comparison, the difference is very highlysignificant in the newspaper data.20Pending a closer semantic analysis ofthe corpus data, the alleged semantic difference thus does not seem toaccount for the observed intervarietal difference in word order

Another interesting finding that emerges from Figure 5.8 is the factthat the non-canonical pre-determiner use of quite is appreciably betterentrenched in the spoken registers of both national varieties.21This suggeststhat this feature is characteristic of informal, conversational language use.Incidentally, this result parallels the difference between prototypical written

British English American English

before initially stressed adjectives before noninitially stressed adjectives

Figure5.8 The distribution of a quite and quite a(n) before attributiveadjectives according to mode in present-day BrE and AmE (BNCspoken sections; g94–97, m93–95; ANC 2nd release spoken sections;D92–95, L92–95)

20  2 ¼ 60.42, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 7.6610 –15(***).

21 BrE: 2 ¼ 201.54, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 9.6510 –46(***); AmE: 2 ¼ 2.43, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.12 (n.s.).

registers and speech-related registers described for the eighteenth century inSchlu¨ter (2005:119–20) Intriguingly, both before and after the nineteenthcentury (in which pre-determiner quite peaked), written styles haveexhibited a remarkable attachment to the canonical post-determiner use ofquite This state of affairs provides a possible clue to the question, looming

in the background of the present discussion, of what factors led to theapparent U-turn observed in Figure 5.6 It looks as if nineteenth-centuryprose had adopted the syntax typical of spoken usage, only to revert to a moreconservative usage around the turn of the twentieth century This interpreta-tion ties in with Biber and Finegan’s (1989:498–512) findings concerning theevolution of literary styles in seventeenth- to nineteenth-century fiction: theauthors demonstrate that, while texts up to the eighteenth century tended to

be literate in style, the nineteenth century saw a transition towards more oralstyles in literary prose To substantiate this hunch, an extension of the study

of quite to text types that have remained extremely formal in character would

be in order, but this is clearly beyond the scope of the present chapter.Eventually, the peak and subsequent reversal may turn out to be a side-effect

of the colloquialization of nineteenth-century fictional prose

This brings me to an evaluation of my British–American data with regard

to the three generalizations set out in the introduction In the first place, the

‘colonial lag’ hypothesis seems to have been confirmed: The apparentre-establishment of the post-determiner order occurs more rapidly in BrEthan in AmE However, this reversal takes off only in the nineteenth centuryand should therefore better be described as a ‘postcolonial lag’, which has nobearing on the hypothesis under scrutiny In addition, some doubts havebeen raised as to the authenticity of this U-turn, which might merely be due

to stylistic shifts in one of the genres under consideration In the absence ofconclusive evidence, the generalization cannot be buttressed Quite to thecontrary, assuming that the nineteenth-century peak in (British) fictionalprose is an artefact, AmE even seems more advanced in the transition of quitefrom post- to pre-determiner position

With regard to the alleged greater regularity of AmE, it is debatablewhether this measure is applicable to the variable placement of quite.Assuming that it is, the canonical word order ‘determiner þ adverb þattribute þ noun’ could tentatively be considered to be more regular thanthe highly marked variant ‘adverbþ determiner þ attribute þ noun’ Andsince BrE boasts the higher proportion of canonical structures, it shouldaccordingly be considered the more regular variety of the two In thisrespect, the findings fail to fulfil our expectations On the other hand, theAmerican data, both written and spoken, are less subject to word-ordervariability dependent on extragrammatical factors such as rhythm (andsemantics) The syntax of AmE has thus been cutting a grammatical option,

as a result of which the order of attributive structures involving quite hasbecome fixed to a greater extent This syntactic consistency may represent a

kind of regularity on a different level, which is not present to the same degree

in BrE

Finally, the most interesting issue (already alluded to in the above cussion) is the generalization according to which AmE is more prone tocolloquialization than BrE Since the anteposition of quite seems to have beencirculated by spoken (or speech-related) registers in the eighteenth century,the variety with a higher percentage of pre-determiner quite can be consid-ered more colloquial (cf also Allerton2001:188) In line with this, in thesynchronic data ofFigure5.8, for both varieties, the spoken corpora are ofcourse more colloquial than the journalistic corpora Interestingly, there is ahighly significant contrast between the broadsheet the Guardian and thetabloid the Mail, with totals of 70 and 81 per cent of quite a(n), respec-tively.22Crucially, if the respective data are compared across the two nationalvarieties, the generalization about the relative colloquialization of AmE isclearly confirmed: it proves to exhibit stronger colloquial traits than BrE inspoken usage as well as in newspaper language More precisely, measured interms of the placement of quite, American journalistic styles are situatedbetween the British tabloid the Mail and spoken BrE, and spoken AmE iseven more informal The positional alternation of quite and the indefinitearticle thus seem to represent a novel piece of evidence in favour of thecolloquialization hypothesis

dis-3 Conclusion

The conclusions that emanate from the empirical findings described in thepreceding sections fall into two sets: one concerning the effects of a func-tional phonological universal on grammatical variation, and another oneconcerning the general characterization of British and American grammar

in contrast Each set will be discussed in turn

As far as the phonological universal is concerned, evidence in its favourhas been unequivocal: in both varieties, the preference for alternatingstressed and unstressed syllables has been demonstrated to exert a constantinfluence on grammatical variation and change Synchronically, the varia-tion between lit and lighted, knit and knitted and the pre- and post-determiner positions of quite are clearly subject to the avoidance of stressclashes and lapses The scope of variation is limited by the availability of thegrammatical variants as well as by other, conflicting factors (e.g semanticdistinctions)

On the diachronic level, it has been shown that, since Early ModernEnglish times, the overall share of lighted has decreased, the share of knittedhas increased and the pre-determiner placement of quite has gainedground, at the expense of their respective competitors These historical

22 The results of the chi-squared test are: 2 ¼ 33.39, df ¼ 1, p ¼ 7.5610 –9(***s).

developments have originated in factors that remain to be investigated Whatthe above analyses have revealed, however, is that the Principle of RhythmicAlternation has affected the relative speed of these replacement processes:innovative forms have been established faster in contexts where they promoterhythmic alternation, while they have been established more slowly in contextswhere they lead to objectionable rhythmic constellations Conversely, obso-lescent forms have been given up more reluctantly in contexts where they helppreserve an alternating rhythm, and have been given up more readily wherethey violate this universal principle.

Against this background, it is impossible to argue that either BrE or AmE

is more sensitive to rhythmic alternation BrE happens to have a larger share

of lit and knitted and a lower share of pre-determiner quite In these respects,the two national varieties occupy different positions on the respectivetrajectories of change However, the rhythmically motivated contrasts inthe distribution of these variants remain stable, at least as long as bothvariants are available Nothing else would have been expected in view ofthe fact that rhythmic alternation is commonly considered to be a linguisticuniversal Incidentally, this conclusion has implications for many formaltheories of grammar which disregard functionally motivated factors asdeterminants of grammatical choices In particular, phonological influenceslike those described in this chapter are normally ignored since phonologicalstructure is assumed to be posterior to and entirely dependent on grammat-ical structure (cf in particular Schlu¨ter2003)

Turning to the conclusions that the preceding studies permit with regard

to the three descriptive generalizations, the findings yield a much moreheterogeneous picture To recapitulate, the larger share of lighted in AmEcompared to BrE can be described as a ‘colonial lag’ effect and as a con-servation of greater morphological regularity In contrast, the larger share ofknit in AmE, while constituting another case of ‘lag’, leads to greater irreg-ularity in connection with this verb The concept of colloquialization doesnot seem to be applicable to the participial variants

The positional variation involving the degree modifier quite at first glanceappears to be an instance of ‘colonial lag’ if the short-term development sincethe nineteenth century is considered If the angle is widened to include Earlyand Late Modern English, however, the widespread use of pre-determinerquite in AmE rather appears to constitute a case of ‘(post-)colonial lead’.Similarly, the inversion of determiner and degree adverb is inadequatelydescribed by the term ‘regularization’ While the inversion itself represents adeviation from canonical, regular word order, the almost complete elimina-tion of the uninverted structure leads to a new kind of regularity At any rate,the case of quite represents a showcase example of the alleged colloquializa-tion of AmE in both spoken and written usage

In sum, all three descriptive generalizations have more evidence in theirfavour than against them, but their predictive adequacy has been challenged

Therefore, the conclusion from this chapter has to be that it is indispensable

to analyse each alleged case of ‘colonial lag’, regularization or tion in considerable detail In many of the studies described in this chapter,this aim has been achieved There are, however, at least two instances wherefurther research is necessary to arrive at a well-founded evaluation of theBritish–American contrasts What is more, it may turn out that addingdiachronic depth to the description of such intervarietal differences willcall for a reassessment of frequently quoted standard examples of ‘coloniallag’, regularization and colloquialization The character of a grammar isinsufficiently described in terms of such stereotypes Rather, the choicesthe grammar of a variety makes are in principle arbitrary and unpredictable.What is predictable, however, is that, wherever there is variability, it isbound to be subject to functional universals such as the phonologicalpreference foregrounded in this chapter

colloquializa-Table5.1 Summary of the evidence with regard to the three generalizations aboutBritish–American differences

‘Colonial lag’ Regularization Colloquialization

6 Prepositions and postpositions

A case in point is the positioning of adverbs that are associated withcomplex predicates (auxiliary þ main verb) Empirical research done byJacobson (1975:155–225) on ten years of selected American newspapers in thelate1960s reveals that AmE allows for more than 20 per cent of preposedadverbial usage, as in (1) BrE, by contrast, uses the adverb in mid-position,

as illustrated in (2) in 96 per cent of all cases (see Britt Sandberg’s newspaperdata from1969 in Jacobson1981:89–93)

(1) The search already has cost Shell $9 million in the offshorearea (Jacobson1975:166)

(2) The boycott has already cost the state as much as $20 million (Guardian92)

Further research on word-order variation includes split negative tives as in (3), which again occur far more often in AmE than in BrE, wherethe standard contiguous placement, as in (4), is still the clearly preferredvariant (seeChapter19by Rohdenburg and Schlu¨ter; for the use of the splitinfinitive in AmE, see also Fitzmaurice2000, Kato2001)

infini-(3) She tends to not listen to what you’re saying (Kato2001:312)

1 This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my dear grandmother A¨ nne Berlage, who always believed in me.

2 The present study is based on work done within the Paderborn Research ProjectDeterminants of Grammatical Variation in English, directed by Gu¨nter Rohdenburg and supported by the German Research Foundation (Grant Ro 2271/1–3).

130

(4) he told party members not to listen to national radio (Guardian 92)More studies on word-order variation can be found inChapters5and7 bySchlu¨ter and Denison, respectively.

2 Post- and prepositional placement in present-day BrE and AmE

In addition to ordinary prepositions which precede their complement, Englishboasts a small number of formally related items like including/included whicheither precede or follow the complement they refer to Due to the variableplacement of these expressions, it is questionable whether they can still becalled genuine prepositions or whether we should describe them as ‘excep-tional PP constructions’ (Huddleston and Pullum2002:632) or ‘adpositions’.Other prototypical members of this group include the complementary wordpairs excepting/excepted, aside from/aside and apart from/apart While the ing-forms including and excepting and the prepositional variants aside from/apartfrom invariably occur before their complements, the original past participlesincluded and excepted and the non-prepositional aside and apart are usedpostpositively, as illustrated in examples (5)–(6)

(5) Including/Excepting/Aside from/Apart from these difficulties, life iswonderful

(6) These matters included/excepted/aside/apart, life is wonderful

To start with, a first analysis presented inFigure6.1investigates if and howBrE and AmE differ with respect to the placement of the adpositions underconsideration In each case, the columns represent the percentage of the post-positional variants not included,3excepted, apart and aside in both varieties, withthe prepositional counterparts accounting for the complementary ratios making

up100 per cent The absolute figures on top of each column give the totaloccurrences of the postpositional variant and the sum of the postpositional andprepositional uses, respectively While the BrE data are taken from the Guardian(g), AmE is represented by the Los Angeles Times (L) The size of the databasevaries with the respective construction and is indicated below the diagram.The evidence in Figure6.1reveals that each of the constructions has ahigher share of the postpositional variant in BrE than in AmE What differs

is, however, the strength of the contrast, which is significant in the cases ofnot included and apart (p<0.05), very highly significant with respect toexcepted (p<0.001) and not significant at all with aside.4Though absolutefrequencies do not seem to influence the relative frequencies of occurrence

in each variety, we may simply note that (postpositional) excepted and apart

3 The analysis is restricted to the negated forms not including and not included so as to limit thebulk of examples.

4 All the figures denoting statistical significance rely on the chi-square test.

are used clearly more frequently in BrE (at 0.89 per million words (pmw)

vs 0.12 pmw, and at 5.75 pmw vs 0 pmw, respectively) As for the otheritems, not included is evenly distributed among the varieties (0.24 pmw and0.26 pmw) and aside clearly preferred in AmE (3.40 pmw vs 5.19 pmw).The remainder of this chapter will focus on notwithstanding, which isfound to differ from the preceding elements in two important ways As will

be shown in the course of this chapter, the postpositional variant is muchmore frequent in AmE than in BrE, which results in a pronounced contrastbetween the varieties Secondly, notwithstanding has one and the samemorphological form for both post- and prepositional placement, as is illus-trated in (7) and (8)

(7) Tax liability notwithstanding, the Queen’s money is likely to remain aclosely guarded secret (The Times92)

(8) Notwithstanding fearsome ridicule, his name was cleared (Guardian 95)

It resembles the adpositions including/included and excepting/excepted in that ithas a verbal origin (see Kortmann and Ko¨nig1992:672–3) Morphologically, itconsists of two parts, i.e the present participle of the verb withstand and thenegative particle nought/not, and is modelled after the French expressionnon obstant, which itself goes back to post-classical Latin non obstante (OEDs.v notwithstanding, Rissanen2002:194) In its function as a preposition itwas first used by Wyclif in1380

BrE AmE

Figure6.1 Postpositional not included, excepted, aside and apart in a set

of present-day British and American newspapers5

5 Full references of the electronic corpora involved are found in the bibliography Notice thatthe abbreviations indicating American and British newspapers use capital and lower-case letters, respectively.

(9) And notwiþstondynge þis, Crists Chirche shulde live (John Wyclif,Selected Works III,1380, quoted from the OED)

When notwithstanding came up in Middle English times, it was basicallyconfined to law contexts and officialese, as in (10) The fact that the highdegree of formality has not been entirely lost today is obvious from Quirk

et al.’s characterization of notwithstanding as ‘formal and rather legalistic instyle’ (1985: 706) and from Hoffmann’s text-type specific analysis of theBNC, which shows that notwithstanding is much more frequent in formalcontexts than the concessive prepositions in spite of and despite, which aremore frequent elsewhere (Hoffmann2005:113–14)

(10) Notwithstondyng eny acte ordenance graunt or proviso in this presentparliament made (Act1, Henry VII, 1485, OED)

Not surprisingly, the earliest usage of notwithstanding was motivated by thegrowing importance of legal documents that called for accurate expressions(e.g Rissanen2002:196–7) It was further encouraged by the fact that theRomance phrase non obstant(e) had previously been employed in legal texts.According to Rissanen (2002:196), it was already in the early stages of itsexistence that notwithstanding underwent a process of grammaticalizationduring which it shifted from a lexical verb to the status of a preposition.This process became apparent in a change of word order: when notwithstandinglost its verbal qualities, which manifested themselves in the placement after the

NP as in absolute constructions like all things considered (cf Olofsson1990:23,Kortmann and Ko¨nig1992:674–5, Chen2000:102, Huddleston and Pullum

2002:631), the adposition began to transfer from a postpositional to a sitional position, as in (11), which accorded with its new syntactic function.(11) Notwithstanding his poor form, Dean Jones brought hope of entertain-ment (The Times 92)

prepo-This chapter aims to complement the picture of word-order variation in BrEand AmE through a study of the adposition notwithstanding The structure of thechapter is as follows:section3concentrates on word-order differences betweenBrE and AmE from both a synchronic and a diachronic angle, whilesection4

focuses on universal patterns of distribution in present-day usage, thus lighting the correspondences between the varieties In this connection, thestudy poses the question of how the distribution of the two variants ismotivated and suggests that cognitive complexity plays a major part

high-3 British–American differences in the use of notwithstandingThe following section explores word-order differences between the BrE andAmE usage of notwithstanding In order to account for the situation in Present-Day English, synchronic analyses will be complemented by diachronic research

3.1 Notwithstanding in present-day BrE and AmE usage

Due to its morphological complexity, phonological prominence and cessive semantics (cf Rissanen 2002: 193–7), the use of notwithstanding ishighly restricted in Present-Day English On the basis of two years each

con-of British and American newspaper corpora a frequency rate has beencalculated which amounts to5.87 instances pmw in BrE and an average of4.56 pmw in AmE The ratios suggest that the overall occurrence of theadposition is very similar in both varieties

Figure6.2, like all of the ensuing synchronic analyses presented in thischapter, is based on the two British newspaper corpora The Times1992 (t92)and the Guardian1995 (g95); present-day AmE on the other hand is repre-sented by The Washington Times1992 (W92) and the Los Angeles Times 1995(L95) The diagram surveys the distribution of post- and prepositionalnotwithstanding in present-day BrE and AmE

The results show a clear-cut difference between the relative ratios ofpostpositional notwithstanding in BrE and AmE While it clearly representsthe minority option in present-day BrE with only34.8 per cent of all uses, theratio rises to double that figure (70.4 per cent) in AmE, resulting in a veryhighly significant contrast between the varieties (p<0.001) In contrast to thedistribution of the adpositions discussed above, it is therefore not BrE butAmE which favours postpositional placement As the near-identical fre-quency rates indicate, the gap between the varieties has nothing to do withdifferences in the overall usage of the adposition (as might be expected on thebasis ofChapter18by Tottie) but is motivated by factors still to be discussed.Distributional differences as prominent as these cannot be explained bymeans of synchronic analyses alone.Section3.2therefore adds a diachronicperspective The question is whether the use of postpositional notwithstand-ing as a majority option in present-day AmE can be characterized as aninstance of colonial lag (cf Marckwardt1958: 80, Go¨rlach1987, Ko¨vecses

2000:25) In other words, the ensuing analyses serve to find out whether the

tendency for AmE to place notwithstanding after the NP may suggest that it islagging behind a development which is spearheaded by BrE They will alsodiscuss to what extent Rissanen’s hypothesis concerning the early gramma-ticalization of notwithstanding is valid.

3.2 The historical development of postpositional notwithstanding

Figures 6.3–6.5 provide a survey of the development of postpositionalnotwithstanding in earlier centuries.6The data for a first diachronic overview

inFigure6.3span the late fourteenth to eighteenth centuries and are drawnfrom the electronic Oxford English Dictionary (OED) The analysis is based

on all adpositional occurrences of notwithstanding and in the main representsBrE The black columns illustrate the ratios of postpositional notwithstand-ing; the missing segments of the columns, adding up to100 per cent, againrepresent the prepositional counterpart

Figure 6.3 clearly illustrates that postpositional notwithstanding is stillused in26.5 per cent of all cases in the earliest period from 1380 to 1599 but

is then lost almost entirely in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Itsstriking increase to34.8 per cent in present-day BrE and to even 70.4 per cent

in AmE (as shown inFigure6.2) indicates that the development of positional notwithstanding is no linear downwards movement In order toarrive at a clearer understanding of the situation, we still need to look at thedevelopment during the nineteenth century

post-Figure6.4is based on fictional texts from the mid and late nineteenth andthe early twentieth centuries (MNC, LNC, ETC).7In contrast toFigure6.3,

it is possible to differentiate between BrE and AmE usage in the respectivetime spans

The data reveal that the nineteenth century sees a continuation of theoverall low proportions of the postpositional variant observed in the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries Yet there is a slow increase of6–8 per centfrom the mid nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries While postposi-tional notwithstanding hardly exists in BrE in the mid nineteenth century, itreaches a ratio of8.2 per cent in the early twentieth century In AmE, theratio rises from5.6 per cent to 11.6 per cent, respectively With a maximaldifference of5.2 per cent, the contrast that exists between BrE and AmEtoday is not yet anticipated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,during which the varieties behaved very much alike.8

Despite some isolated examples in the early twentieth century, the majorincrease of postpositional notwithstanding seems to have started much later,

6 A more refined description is given in Berlage (2007 ).

7 The historical corpora of the mid and late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries havebeen compiled for research by members of the Paderborn Research Project Determinants of Grammatical Variation in English.

8 None of the differences between BrE and AmE is significant according to the chi-square test.

presumably after the Second World War More precise evidence with respect

to AmE comes from a set of historical newspapers that cover the time from

1895 to 1955.10Due to the time-consuming search procedures, the analysisincludes only NPs of up to ten words, omitting any type of clausal post-modification Additionally, it is confined to a total of134 examples For thisreason it is the rates of increase rather than the specific percentages thatshould be compared

Figure 6.5 shows that the postpositional variant rises by 58.5 per centfrom1895 to 1955 It is particularly in the 1950s that postpositional notwith-standing becomes firmly entrenched in AmE From1951 to 1955, that is, in

LNC (*1830–*1869)

ETC (*1870–*1894)

Figure6.4 Postpositional notwithstanding during the nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries (MNC, LNC, ETC)9

only five years, its use soars by22.9 per cent compared to the precedingfifteen years.

Diachronic analyses have confirmed Rissanen’s hypothesis concerning theearly grammaticalization of notwithstanding: postpositional notwithstandingstill existed as a minority option during the period of its earliest occurrencesuntil the sixteenth century, but literally vanished in the course of thefollowing centuries Comparing BrE and AmE, we have seen that it is infact AmE that takes up the older form again in the twentieth century andpresumably contributes to its reintroduction into BrE In sum, empiricalresearch has demonstrated that the development of adpositional notwith-standing cannot be characterized in straightforward terms as a colonial lagphenomenon but is better described in terms of a ‘U-turn’ With regard toHundt’s classification (Chapter 1), I would suggest interpreting postposi-tional notwithstanding as an example of post-colonial revival, in which theolder form is ‘resurrected’

4 British–American correspondences in the use

ofnotwithstanding: The Complexity Principle

Up to this point, the main emphasis of the chapter has been on the tion of distributional differences between BrE and AmE in diachronic terms

descrip-Section4will now focus on similarities between the varieties and at the sametime aim at providing an explanation for the distribution of post- andprepositional notwithstanding in Present-Day English This will be alongthe lines of universal complexity factors

4.1 Theoretical assumptions

The present chapter supports a functionalist approach to language in thesense that it rejects the idea of a random distribution of grammatical variantsand assumes instead that the choice of competing variants is motivated in such

a way as to be advantageous and convenient for the speaker and/or hearer

In the present case the argument draws on presumably universal complexityfactors that can account for similarities in BrE and AmE Throughout thischapter they will be subsumed under the so-called Complexity Principle.The Complexity Principle as formulated by Rohdenburg states that in thecase of more or less explicit grammatical variants the more explicit ones tend

to be preferred in cognitively more complex environments (Rohdenburg

1996a:151,1998,2002,2003a) In other words, there is a correlation between

an increasing degree of cognitive complexity on the one hand and ical explicitness on the other Accordingly, I assume that, different thoughBrE and AmE may be regarding their placement of notwithstanding, bothvarieties show a strong correlation between the prepositional use of the formnotwithstandingþ NP and cognitively complex environments Three reasonscan be adduced for the premise that the prepositional word order is moreexplicit than the postpositional variant

grammat-* As far as processing complexity is concerned, preposed notwithstandingfunctions as a structural signal that helps to speed up the comprehension

of an expression that is very long or structurally complex (see Hawkins

1990, 1992, 2000, Arnold et al 2000, Wasow and Arnold 2003).According to Hawkins, parsing is facilitated if short elements precedelong ones because the domain in which constituents have to be recog-nized is considerably reduced While nine words are necessary to analysethe phrase structure in (12), the processing domain can be reduced tofour words where the word order is changed to (13)

(12) But the ovation from a very receptive opening-night crowd ing (L95)

notwithstand-(13) But notwithstanding the ovation from a very receptive opening nightcrowd

* From a semantic point of view, too, prepositional placement is moreexplicit than its postpositional alternative Since notwithstanding implies

a concessive meaning in the sense that something happens in spite ofsomething else (cf Rissanen2002: 192–3), it is in all probability moredifficult to process than other semantic concepts such as causality orpurpose Support comes from Kortmann (1997:167–75), who establishes

a hierarchy of conjunctions according to their degree of complexity Hestates that concessive relations represent the most complex type of modalconcepts due to their high degree of conceptual discreteness (in the sense

of distinct semantic concepts) What he says about concessive tions might likewise apply to prepositional markers of concession:11

conjunc-if notwithstanding occurs at the end of a phrase, as in ( 14 a), the listener(or reader) has to process everything up to the postposition befores/he realizes that the action described by the matrix sentence suggestssomething unexpected If the structural signal precedes the expression,however, as in (14b), accessibility is increased

(14) a (?) I hold this view the Commission’s attempt to promote furthereconomic and political unity notwithstanding

b I hold this view notwithstanding the Commission’s attempt to promotefurther economic and political unity (g95)

* The increased explicitness of prepositional notwithstanding can also beexplained in terms of an iconic motivation, more precisely by theso-called Distance Principle (Haiman1983:782) If notwithstanding pre-cedes the nominal expression it is related to, structural signal (notwith-standing) and phrasal head form a coherent syntactic unit whichcorresponds to the close semantic relation between adposition andnoun If it follows, however, notwithstanding and the phrasal head ofthe NP may be separated by a longer syntactic distance simply becausepostmodifications are in general longer (and hence more complex) thanpremodifications In (15), for example, the prepositional postmodifica-tion to her maturity and resolve disturbs the close semantic unity betweentestimonials and notwithstanding While the relation between adpositionand phrasal head remains easily recoverable in (15), (16) would certainly

be far less accessible with postpositional notwithstanding

(15) But all the testimonials to her maturity and resolve notwithstanding, sheoddly conveys vulnerability (L95)

(16) notwithstanding the absurdity of the cultural clashes to which this couldgive rise (t92)

Convincing as each of these explanations may sound on their own, they aremuch more forceful when we see them as interrelated: processing complex-ity, concessive semantics and iconic motivations combine to make preposi-tional notwithstanding the more explicit syntactic variant

On the basis of these theoretical assumptions, the ensuing sections in turnadopt three methods of measuring different degrees of cognitive complexityand their influence on the placement of notwithstanding For practical rea-sons, the notion of complexity is restricted to the NPs dependent onnotwithstanding Thus,sections4.2and4.4 both concentrate on the structure

11 Note that Huddleston and Pullum (2002 ) have entirely given up the distinction between prepositions and conjunctions and refer to the whole group as prepositions.

of the dependent NPs While 4.2 only distinguishes between simple andcomplex NPs,4.4employs more subtle classifications.Section4.3uses wordcounts to gauge the complexity involved.

Let us begin with a preliminary classification of all nominal complementsalong the following lines: if an NP does not contain any type of postmodi-fication or coordination, as in example (17), it is called structurally simple; if,

on the other hand, it is postmodified and/or coordinated, as in (18), orinvolves an independent clause, it is considered structurally complex.12Premodification is optional for both types

(17) He is 27 and, good opponents notwithstanding, his hardest fights havebeen with lawyers (g95)

(18) Notwithstanding the occasional stretch and yawn at the 6 a.m roll call,officers said they welcomed the four days off (L95)

In order to compare simple and complex NPs in BrE and AmE, theoverall length of the structures under consideration has to be reasonablysimilar in both datasets Evidence that this requirement is met is provided

inFigure6.6

AsFigure6.6illustrates, the variance between BrE and AmE with regard tothe average numbers of words associated with the nominal complements ofpost- and prepositional notwithstanding is not so large as to make the twovarieties incomparable in terms of complexity The different ratios of pre- andpostposed notwithstanding in BrE and AmE are therefore variety-specific

On the basis of these results we can proceed to compare the influencethat the binary distinction between simple and complex NPs has on thedistribution of the variants In contrast to the diachronic analyses, whichdelineated the evolution of postpositional notwithstanding, the synchronicanalyses illustrate the relative frequencies of prepositional notwithstanding

As in the previous diagrams, the competing variant accounts for allremaining cases

12 The category of complex NPs contains six coordinations which are part of a premodification,

as is illustrated in (i) technical and political difficulties Since coordinations such as these may be interpreted as shortened versions of cases in which the NP is repeated as in (ii) technical difficulties and political difficulties, they have been included in the category of complex NPs For a more specific description of different NP-structures, see section 4.4 and Berlage ( 2007 ).

Before interpreting the results displayed in Figure 6.7, let us brieflyreview the overall distribution of prepositional notwithstanding as presented

inFigure6.2 There we saw that the preposed variant accounts for65.2 percent of all uses in BrE but for only29.6 per cent in AmE.Figure6.7nowdemonstrates that both varieties prefer the more explicit variant where thedependent NP is complex Thus, BrE uses it in46.3 per cent of all cases withsimple NPs; where complex NPs are concerned, however, the ratio rises to78.1 per cent A similar tendency, albeit on a lower level of relative frequen-cies, can be observed in AmE Here notwithstanding precedes simple NPs in

2

11.5

2.6 5.8

11.1

2.9 6.5

only13.0 per cent, but complex NPs in more than half, of all uses As a result,the differences in placement associated with simple and complex NPs arevery highly significant in BrE and AmE (p<0.001).

4.3 Cognitive complexity in terms of word counts

The classification of the relevant NPs into simple and complex ones in

Figure 6.7 has provided some basic insights concerning the correlationbetween cognitive complexity and grammatical explicitness An even moreaccurate means of gauging the degree of complexity involved would consist indrawing finer distinctions within the groups of simple and complex NPs Thisnecessity is suggested by examples (19) and (20), both of which are classified ascomplex NPs and yet differ with respect to word-order preferences

(19) Pots and kettles notwithstanding, the real irony was that Southampton’sphysical excesses were mild by their standards (t92)

(20) The royal palace is still a forbiddingly dark, loveless place, standing the incense and monkish chant that drift across its enormousacres (t92)

notwith-In examples (19) and (20), the classification as complex NPs is notsufficient to make correct predictions as to which variant should be pre-ferred This is simply because more subtle contrasts between different types

of complex (or simple) NPs are neglected One way to account for suchdifferences consists in analysing the length of the respective NP The factthat (20) contains eight words more than (19) makes it more complex andtherefore more likely to take prepositional placement As regards processingcomplexity, this is perfectly plausible since longer NPs are more difficult toprocess than shorter ones (see above) Word counts are therefore employed

as a first instrument to account for different degrees of cognitive complexitywithin the boundaries of simple and complex NPs

Figure6.8classifies all simple NPs into three groups which differ withrespect to the numbers of words they contain (NPs of one to two words,three to four words and five to eight words)

The data presented inFigure6.8support the correlation delineated by theComplexity Principle: in general, longer NPs are more likely to trigger themore explicit prepositional placement of notwithstanding than shorterphrases.13Although both varieties obey the same trend, they again differ intheir affinities with prepositional placement.14While BrE already uses36.0per cent of all one-to-two-word NPs with the prepositional variant, AmE

13 According to the chi-square test, the difference between NPs of one to two and three to fourwords is very highly significant in BrE (p <0.001) and significant in AmE (p<0.05).

14 The British–American differences in the categories of NPs containing one to two and three

to four words are very highly significant (p <0.001).

does not reach more than20 per cent with the most complex class of five toeight words.

Figure6.9shows the respective ratios with NPs classified as complex in

section4.2 Again, we find the Complexity Principle confirmed: the longerthe expression, the more frequent the prepositional variant Here too BrEand AmE differ with respect to the relative proportions of pre- and postposi-tional placement The diagram thus illustrates that a less pronounced incli-nation towards the prepositional use of notwithstanding in AmE requireslonger and hence more complex structures to trigger the more explicitvariant than in BrE.15 While prepositional notwithstanding in BrE thusincreases its range of application from 32.3 per cent with NPs of two tofour words to73.8 per cent with NPs that consist of five to eight words, acomparable rise of more than40 per cent in AmE only occurs between NPs

of five to eight and nine to sixteen words.16Consequently, the two varietiesdiffer as to the point at which prepositional notwithstanding turns from theminority into the majority option

By contrast, distributional differences between the two varieties arediminished where the NPs are very long Thus, BrE and AmE differ by

up to37.8 per cent with NPs of five to eight words; where the NPs containbetween seventeen and thirty-one words, however, word-order differences

to eight and nine to sixteen words (p <0.001).

are almost neutralized Here, notwithstanding precedes the NP in 90.9per cent of all cases in AmE and in95.5 per cent in BrE.

4.4 Cognitive complexity in terms of structure

It is certainly uncontroversial that word counts are a good instrument forpredicting word-order variation Even so, we have to reckon with the possi-bility that length on its own cannot fully account for the different degrees ofcognitive complexity involved It is for this reason that the ensuing discussionwill focus on structural differences as a second parameter of word-ordervariation involving notwithstanding The examples cited as support for acategorization along the lines of word counts will now encourage an argument

in terms of finer-grained structural distinctions For convenience, the tive sentences are reproduced below

respec-(19) Pots and kettles notwithstanding, the real irony was that Southampton’sphysical excesses were mild by their standards (t92)

(20) The royal palace is still a forbiddingly dark, loveless place, standing the incense and monkish chant that drift across its enormousacres (t92)

Comparing these sentences once again, we see that the NP governed bynotwithstanding in (20) not only contains more words than that in (19) but isalso more complex as far as its structure is concerned While (19) consists oftwo coordinated NPs, (20) comprises a finite clause.

What has been illustrated by means of these examples, i.e that NPs whichcontain a clause seem to be more complex than coordinated NPs and thereforerequire a higher degree of explicitness, will be confirmed on the basis of alarge-scale analysis Sentences (21)–(24) introduce a range of different types ofcomplex NPs underlying the structural analysis illustrated inFigure6.10 Theanalysis thus distinguishes between coordinated NPs as in (21), NPs involvingPPs as in (22), NPs containing non-finite clauses as in (23) and NPs involvingfinite clauses as in (24) If more than one structural category occurs at a time, as

in (25), the examples are classified according to the most complex structuraltype they contain (compare Rickford et al.1995:110) In the present case, this

is the finite clause

(21) It unlocks a fascinating, secret world which, Terror and incompetencenotwithstanding, enabled the Soviet Union to produce enough steel toresist Hitler’s assault (g95)

(22) When Wales lost to South Africa last November, notwithstanding amagnificent performance by their forwards, there was (g95)

(23) His wait, notwithstanding Caribbean reluctance to ring the changes,seemed unduly prolonged (g95)

(24) and in almost like manner he despised William Pitt, notwithstandingthe similar views they both held on social and political reform (t92)(25) Notwithstanding the claims by some lawyers in the South-East that theycannot afford to take on the work, the200,000 divorces in Britain lastyear cost Pounds140 million in legal aid (t92)

Figure6.10shows that simple NPs and coordinated NPs, as in (19) and(21), still prefer postpositional notwithstanding in BrE and AmE, whereasNPs involving prepositional phrases such as (22) in BrE clearly call for thepreposed variant With all NPs that contain clauses, as in (23) to (25), bothvarieties choose the more explicit word order in at least82.4 per cent of allcases NPs comprising non-finite complements, which for a variety ofreasons (see Rohdenburg2002,2003a) are less complex than NPs involvingfinite structures, still display British–American differences By contrast,word-order differences are almost neutralized with NPs containing finiteclauses.17In BrE, all kinds of NPs involving finite complements represent a

17 The category of NPs involving finite clauses comprises eight cases in which the NP eithercontains an independent clause or represents one itself as in the case of a free wh-clause.

‘knock-out’ context (i.e.100 per cent of preposed notwithstanding) and evenAmE uses postposition in only one out of30 examples This explains whyBritish–American differences are down to as low as 3.3 per cent.18 Theanalysis in Figure 6.10complements the study of the length of complexNPs inFigure6.9,since it shows that neutralization effects do not only occurwith very long, but likewise with structurally complex, NPs.

For the time being, the question of which parameter, length or structure,makes the more reliable predictions with respect to word-order variation has

fin clauses

Figure 6.10 Prepositional notwithstanding associated with NPs ofdifferent structural types in a set of present-day British and Americannewspapers

18 As regards the rates of increase in BrE and AmE, highly significant differences (p<0.01) can be attested for the comparisons between coordinated NPs and NPs involving PPs, and for the contrast between NPs involving PPs and NPs containing non-finite clauses With respect to the differences between BrE and AmE, all but NPs containing clauses yield significant or very highly significant results.