On the position of some adjectival object complements: synchronic and diachronic quantitative approaches
2020
Abstract
In order to pay homage to Professor Dušková's lifelong interest in the study of word order in English, the question of the extent of variation in ordering of the postverbal elements in the complex-transitive pattern SVOCo (Quirk et al. 1985: 1196, Type C1, where the Co is realized by an adjective) is addressed in this sketch. Such reordering has been described by Professor Dušková in her account of "deviations from grammatical word order traceable to the operation of FSP" as one subtype (an object complement precedes the object) among other instances where rearrangement is also observable: with a prepositional object, an adverbial before a direct object, or an adverbial before the subject complement.