Brunner, Thomas (2014) Structural nativization, typology and complexity: noun phrase structures in British, Kenyan and Singaporean English. ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS, 18 (1). pp. 23-48. ISSN 1360-6743, 1469-4379
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Two much-cited explanations for linguistic innovations in varieties of New Englishes are cross-linguistic influence (see Gut 2011) and simplification (see Schneider 2007: 82). Using these two notions as starting points, the present study seeks to detect effects of structural nativization in noun phrase (NP) modification in two varieties of English whose substrate languages differ strongly from a typological point of view: Singaporean and Kenyan English. The results yielded by the comparison of random samples extracted from the relevant components of the International Corpus of English in the first part of the study show striking correspondences between the preferred NP structures in the varieties at hand and NP structures in the local languages concerned, which, in the light of Mufwene's (2001, 2008) ecological theory of language change, can be interpreted as effects of language contact. The second part of the study shows that the NPs from the three varieties also differ in terms of variables which can be viewed as measures of NP complexity. What is more, the different degrees of complexity found in the samples correspond closely to predictions about the evolutionary status of the varieties at hand made by Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY; |
| Subjects: | 400 Language > 420 English |
| Divisions: | Languages and Literatures > Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Nov 2019 08:10 |
| Last Modified: | 21 Nov 2019 08:10 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/10575 |
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