Finite and non‐finite complement clauses in postcolonial Englishes

This paper explores the variability between finite and non‐finite complement clauses (CCs) after remember meaning ‘recall,’ looking at three postcolonial Englishes (PCEs), Indian, English and Sri Lankan Englishes, and British English as represented in the Corpus of Global Web‐based English (GloWbE)....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWorld Englishes Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 411 - 426
Main Author García‐Castro, Laura
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2020
Subjects
British English
Clauses
English as a second language learning
English as an international language
English language
Language contact
Language varieties
Postcolonialism
World Englishes
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Summary:This paper explores the variability between finite and non‐finite complement clauses (CCs) after remember meaning ‘recall,’ looking at three postcolonial Englishes (PCEs), Indian, English and Sri Lankan Englishes, and British English as represented in the Corpus of Global Web‐based English (GloWbE). Taking a holistic approach, it examines the distribution and the potential language‐external and internal factors which may cause divergence between L1 and L2 varieties. Language‐external factors, such as innovation, language contact and second‐language (SLA) acquisition processes (Schneider, 2007: 88), appear to prompt the greater proportion of finite complement clauses found in the postcolonial Englishes, as expected based on the alleged tendency towards simplification of these varieties (Williams, 1987). However, the binary logistic regression analyses of language‐internal variables, largely related to the complexity principle (Rohdenburg, 1996, 2006), reveal that common language‐internal factors, apart from variety of English, also condition the choice of complement clause in the four varieties.
ISSN:0883-2919
1467-971X
DOI:10.1111/weng.12481