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Although ‐constructions in varieties of English
Author(s) -
Schützler Ole
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/weng.12484
Subject(s) - linguistics , varieties of english , computer science , variation (astronomy) , iconicity , robustness (evolution) , british english , preference , indian english , history , mathematics , philosophy , statistics , physics , biochemistry , chemistry , astrophysics , gene
Focusing on subordinate clauses of concession introduced by although , this paper investigates the systematic variation of clause position by inspecting three language‐internal factors (or constraints) and their stability across different varieties of the language. The three constraints are based on production (with speech making final placement more likely, due to reduced planning load), processing (with a general preference of final position), and semantics (with certain intra‐constructional relations favouring initial placement due to the iconicity principle). The strength and robustness of the constraints outlined above are tested based on spoken and written corpus data from British, Canadian, New Zealand, Nigerian, Indian, and Philippine English.