Modelos estadísticos para el análisis funcional de los procesos de gramaticalización en las construcciones progresivas del inglés

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper we examine the quantitative relations between English progressive constructions and different functional patterns, measurable on the family of corpora York-Toronto-Helsinki-Penn, in order to illustrate the grammaticalization processes undergone by these constructions. We conduct a statistical analysis that demonstrates significant relationships between the increments in the standardized frequencies of progressive constructions and the changing patterns of four functional dimensions from the multidimensional model, and between the increase in the estimated index of grammaticalization and three of these dimensions, in both cases, according to textual genre. We also describe the main tendencies of the total number of progressive forms and five of its syntactic variants related to the relevant dimensions of the multidimensional model and the historical period.