Verb Agreement and Disagreement

Verb Agreement and Disagreement: A Corpus Investigation of Concord Variation in Existential There + Be Constructionsby William J. Crawford : 

Verb Agreement and Disagreement: A Corpus Investigation of Concord Variation in Existential There + Be Constructionsby William J. Crawford Presented by Carlos Sarmiento All the quotations taken from the Verb Agreement and Disagreement article by William J. Crawford

What is ETB? : 

What is ETB? ETB refers to existential there + be i.e., There is, There are, There’s and There’re This study focuses on the construction of ETB in present day English. Previous work in this area linked the variations of ETB with informal and conversational situations.

Ask yourself, which is the correct way to say the following sentence? : 

Ask yourself, which is the correct way to say the following sentence? 1) There is a lot of people in here. 2) There are a lot of people in here. If you chose “2” then how would you use the ETB in the contraction form? There’re a lot of people in here. There’s a lot of people in here.

Overview and Motivation of the Study : 

Overview and Motivation of the Study “This study investigates the social factors affecting concord variation in the ETB construction in Present-day American English.” “I will argue that, in opposition to the position that agreement mismatch is due to informal, conversational situations of use, a multiregister analysis finds that agreement mismatch is also prevalent in more formal registers of spoken language.”

Command over the Intricacies of Concord in English : 

Command over the Intricacies of Concord in English The inability to correctly utilize concord in English is often related to lack of formal education. There are cases where the application of subject verb concord does vary. Such is the case with Latin based words such as data and media. “Similar to the other cases of variable concord, however, ETB concord variation is gaining prominence and acceptability (Cheshire 1999, 138)”

Survey of Previous Research : 

Survey of Previous Research According to Mecham and Foley, the most significant linguistic indicator of noncord is the contraction of a singular verb (there’s). The vast majority of variations occurs when using a plural notion subject and a singular verb. This is further supported by Martinez and Palacio who found that this was the case 95.3 percent of the time.

Methodology : 

Methodology Five different registers were used to illustrate the ETB variables Register Level of Formality Conversation Informal Spoken Lecture Formal Spoken Textbooks Formal Written Fiction Formal/Informal Written Chat Informal Written Tokens from each register were separated into four categories, all containing present tense be as a main verb (There is, There are, There’re and There’s)

Results and Discussion : 

Results and Discussion The study shows that the variations are seen significantly more in the spoken register and much less in the written registers. The one with the most cases of nonconcord is Chat language. This also happen to be the least formal of the three written registers. “Academic texts (a register that is subject to careful editing by both the author and by publishing agencies) show very few instances of nonconcord”. It should be noted that this leans towards spoken situation as the main cause of noncord instead of formal or informal situations as previously reported.

Results and Discussion : 

Results and Discussion Most cases of disagreement are found when using singular forms of be (is) but as previous research shows, the contracted singular form (there’s) is much more likely to result in noncord. “Figure 2 illustrates that there’s comprised the majority of nonconcord in all five registers.”

Results and Discussion : 

Results and Discussion Biber (1999, 1129) points out that contractions are used less often in written language than in spoken. This also indicates that nonconcord in ETB is linked more towards spoken language than the concept of formality.

Functions of ETB : 

Functions of ETB ETBs have many different functions, some of which are discussed here. <2> Well I think there’s two things. “The ETB serves to frame the answer by indicating a two-part answer is to follow” In this case, the ETB is functioning as a “listing” tool. It states the existence of more than one idea or topic. Further on each one can be explained with more detail.

Function of ETB : 

Function of ETB The following is part of an academic lecture. Notice the different uses in ETB. (6) so there’s no (creosote) up to the North. By using an ETB and adding so, the speaker concludes the discussion of a location. so there’s dramatically different influences on the landscape and you go from grassland to (creosote) ETB is used to introduce specific features.

Functions of ETB : 

Functions of ETB There’s a lot less ground cover here as compared to the grassland area By using an ETB preceded by the adverb so, the speaker summarizes the list of features. The general agreement is that ETB construction is used to introduce new information (Biber et al. 1999; Givón 1993;

Functions of ETB Preeceded by so : 

Functions of ETB Preeceded by so ETBs preceded by so show a range of different functions. Introducing a new topic 1: Uh, let me go try and call her one more time. 2: So there’s no answering machine or anything. Summarizing or concluding So there’s the um, the basic introduction to this. (lecture)

Conclusion : 

Conclusion Concord variation in ETB constructions suggests that the cognitive burden of spoken language outweighs the formality aspect of academic lectures. This article suggests that the discourse function of ETBs as topic managers, the tendency of spoken language to use less elaboration and more contraction combined with the processing constraints of spoken language, results in the formulaic use of contracted existential there + be (there’s) without conscious reference to the prescriptive rule of agreement.