A Corpus-based Study of Proper Names in Present-day English: Aspects of Gradience and Article Usage

by Grace Y. W. Tse

Overview

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 issue of uncertainty in modern English. The study also concentrates on multi-word 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783631534533
Publisher:	Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Publication date:	05/11/2005
Series:	English Corpus Linguistics , #2
Pages:	253
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

The Author: Grace Y. W. Tse is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at the Open University of Hong Kong. She teaches English linguistics and translation (English and Chinese). She received her M.A. in Linguistics for English Language Teaching and Ph.D. in Linguistics from Lancaster University.

Table of Contents

Contents: Major approaches to the study of proper names: philosophical approach, linguistic approach and onomastic approach – A semantic study of English proper names: classical approach vs. prototype model – A grammatical study of personal names, place names and organisation names – Article usage preceding multi-word organisation names: an experimental study and model validation – Predictive analysis.