Continuidad de discontinuidades

A study on particle verb variation was conducted by Schneider (2004). This study investigates both incidence and frequency of particle verbs as well as some other topics regarding particle verbs among six varieties of English, namely British,

Singaporean, Philippine, Indian, and East-African (the ICE East-Africa subcomponent

18 To find out more on EFL/ESL studies conducted in non-East African varieties, see Kao 2001 and Liao and Fukuya 2004.

19 The details of the ICE corpus will be explained in the section of corpus linguistics (5.1)

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consists of both Kenyan and Tanzanian parts). The study is a pilot study, utilizing the possibilities of the recently conducted ICE- corpus. Being a pilot study, it presents some methodological weaknesses, e.g. the reasoning for the choice of particle verbs and creation of semantic frames. Despite this, it is the only variationist study on particle verbs so far, and, as already mentioned, it is based on the data retrieved from the ICE.

The starting point for Schneider’s study was an interest towards variation of English in general, and especially on its current stage among world Englishes. The title of the study, “How to trace nativization: particle verbs in world Englishes”, reveals Schneider’s claim that

…these new world Englishes…ultimately can be accounted for by a uniform underlying process of mutual identity adjustments and linguistic

accommodation between the parties involved in the colonisation process. At the heart of this process there is the stage of nativization when varieties of English develop and adopt distinctive linguistic features of their own on all levels of language organization.

The reason for choosing particle verbs for the study is justified by the fact that it is widely acknowledged to be one of the most complex features of the English grammar.

Thus, the likelihood for variation is great. Moreover, it is suitable for corpus research due to its frequent appearance. Even in a corpus of merely one million words, as is the case with the subcomponents of ICE, it occurs frequently enough enabling some relevant observations. In addition, Schneider notes an interesting phenomenon on the characteristics of varying linguistic items, and mentions that ‘distinctive phenomena tend to concentrate at the interface between grammar and the lexicon’ (2004, 229).

Thus, particle verb constructions are also likely to undergo some changes or modifications.

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The study concentrates on both phrasal and prepositional verbs, which in this study are called particle verbs (or shortly, PVs). All of the ICE subcomponents were

searched separately for PVs, also treating their spoken and written components separately. The study questions were as follows:

1) Incidence and frequency of use: Are PVs in general or certain PVs in particular, preferred in certain world Englishes?

2) Structural behaviour: Is there any evidence for particular PVs being used and categorized grammatically differently in different varieties?

3) Productivity range: Is the propensity to coin new PVs stronger in some varieties than in others, or are certain new PV uses characteristic of any specific WE?

The method for selecting the verbs in Schneider’s study was a rather peculiar one.

Basically, the selection of verbs was based both on a random choice using the Longman Phrasal Verb Dictionary (Summers 2000 in Schneider 2004) and on remarks or suggestions given in grammars. The main intention was to acquire both high and low frequency PVs keeping the criterion of representativeness in mind.

However, this method was not really successful, as many of the chosen PVs did not exist in (almost) any of the corpora at all (including ICE-GB). Thus, Schneider had to re-choose some of the verbs afterwards while already collecting the data.

The results show that there truly is variation between world Englishes concerning particle verbs. The biggest frequencies for PVs were found in Singaporean English. It also showed highest numbers for PV productivity. In many respects, the number of tokens exceeded even those of British English. However, with all other non-British varieties this was quite the opposite. This was especially clear with Tanzanian English and with the East African varieties generally. The differences of frequencies between spoken and written data also revealed some interesting results. In Singapore

particularly, PVs seem to appear more in spoken than in written texts. With other varieties this could not be concluded so clearly. Some varieties, e.g. India and East

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Africa, appeared to be using PVs more in written texts, and thus marking a more official style.

Regarding the question of preference of either a PV or its simple verb equivalent, Singaporean English seems to prefer PVs over simple verbs in many instances, exceeding again the number of tokens found in British English. In East Africa

(especially in Tanzania), India, and the Philippines, the figures are much lower. With regard to East Africa, Schneider interestingly suggests that there seems to be ‘no awareness of any stylistic value of these complex verbs’ (2004, 238). Moreover, there appeared to be some variation-related differences concerning the preferred use of some single PV - simple verb pairs. For instance, in East Africa, the use of the PV help out is extremely rare, while the corresponding simple verb form assist is extremely frequent.

The token numbers for different patterns were rather low, and those that resulted in some cases were not worth mentioning in detail. Regarding the patterns of phrasal verbs, they seem to be in line with the syntactic tendencies of British English. This means that the particle follows their object (either a noun or a pronoun). With prepositional verbs no coherent patterns could be found. However, Schneider

concludes that the evidence found in the East Africa corpus could imply an innovative tendency. He gives the particle verb read through as an example of this. This is commonly taken to represent a phrasal verb, as it allows the insertion of the particle both before and after the object noun phrase. In East African English, however, this PV could rather be interpreted as a prepositional verb.

Investigation of the preference between pre- or post-nominal placement of the particle partly failed due to the fact that many of the chosen PVs allow only the other of these patterns. This was compensated by re-analysing an additional five PVs used

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for investigating the PV versus simple verb preference earlier on (through test 1b), The results showed a clear preference of the pre-nominal pattern, all except for one instance of find-NP(lex)-out. This contradicting case was found both in the British and Kenyan data. Schneider notes that according to the results, there seems to be a clear tendency for East African English to place the particle immediately after the verb whenever this is possible. Concerning this he then suggests that this tendency might be true for ESL in general. However, as he also points out, one should not draw on any definite conclusions regarding this since the number of PVs investigated is so limited. Thus, this could be a subject of some further studies.

The study on particle omission revealed that at least with those PVs used in the study, the results varied from one PV and one variety to another. Some verbs were extremely rare while with others the inclusion of the particle was merely a theoretical option. However, there were three verbs with which the particle addition was

generally clearly preferred. These verbs were pick up, sort out, and wake up. In regard with the results found in the East African corpus, however, the use of the verb pick without the particle up seems to be the convention. Moreover, this use is especially visible in the data drawn from the Kenyan spoken sub corpus. Another particle verb found fairly frequently in Tanzanian English, namely wake up appears to prefer the form deleting the particle up. Generally speaking, the tendency in Singaporean English seems to be to use particles with particle verbs, whereas in India, the Philippines, and East Africa (Tanzania) the exact opposite is preferred. Schneider mentions that this tendency might be explained through the fact that ESL/EFL speakers generally seem to want to avoid complex structures. Thus, the phenomenon of particle omission might draw on the explanation of trying to avoid separation of the

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particle from its verb, which would be the case in many instances. Thus, omission works as a means for simplifying language use (and understanding).

Finally, concerning the last study questions, the tokens found for each single verb-particle combination were relatively low. However, the results reveal some tendencies regarding the productivity of the three chosen verbs. The figures were quite naturally highest for British data but the Singaporean and Philippine varieties came only slightly behind. With regard to India and East Africa the productivity levels were considerably lower. However, regarding these results, one must remember that only a limited set of particles were searched combining with the three verbs count, help and sign. Moreover, the results on innovative use reveal that the Singaporean data yields the highest number of tokens again, exceeding those of British corpus. Moreover, the productivity concentrates on the spoken texts. Indian English was close to British both quantitatively and qualitatively speaking, whereas East Africa gave the lowest

numbers. Concerning the different meanings of a certain PV, Schneider states that some of the meanings seem to be slightly more prevalent than others in some varieties. He gives the use of put up in different varieties as an example of this nativisation tendency. Thus, in Kenya, this word combination is used to signify

‘physical building’ whereas in Singapore it means ‘fixing for display’ or ‘getting onto a stage’, and ‘raising an issue’ in both Singapore and India. However, he notes that one must be aware of the limited data here, and thus not draw on any drastic conclusions concerning the evidence for nativisation taking place.