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University of Essex homepage Events English prepositional wh questions Variation change and social media
Event

English Prepositional wh-questions: Variation, Change and Social Media

This seminar looks at the dialect distribution, structure and diachrony of three English constructions involving wh-questions.

  • Thu 14 Mar 24

    12:00 - 13:00

  • Colchester Campus

    CTC.1.01

  • Event speaker

    Professor David Willis from the University of Oxford

  • Event type

    Lectures, talks and seminars

  • Event organiser

    Language and Linguistics, Department of

  • Contact details

    Dr Charles Redmon

Abstract:

This paper looks at the dialect distribution, structure and diachrony of three English constructions involving wh-questions:

(i) locative where to (Where to’s that? or Where’s that to? for standard English Where’s that?);

(ii) locative where about (Where’s that about? for standard English Where’s that?); and

(iii) reason/purpose why for (Why are you doing that for? for standard English Why are you doing that?).

It will map the geospatial distribution of these structures using a large social-media corpus. The distributions established using this approach allow new insight into how current patterns arose and therefore the syntactic basis for their innovation, involving questions in the study of ellipsis and the directionality of reanalysis.

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