Multi-word verbs in the Late Modern English period (1750-1850): a corpus-based study

This book offers a description of the development of multi-word verbs over the years 1750-1850; and specifically, it focuses on phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs in Late Modern English (LModE). The topics included in the book respond to the growing interest in research on the LModE period, which until recently had received only limited attention. Descriptive analyses of frequency and the use of multi-word verbs are complemented with a discussion of the factors and mechanisms driving language change, such as grammaticalization, lexicalization, idiomatization, direct formation, reanalysis and analogy. Adopting a corpus-based method, the book describes the transformation of multi-word verbs, the way stability intertwines with change, further corroborating the status of the LMod period as a time featuring both innovation and stable features. The interplay of internal mechanisms of change favoured the loss of instances and the coinage of new members of the class of multi-word verbs, and often stimulated phenomena of interference between all multi-word verbs and cases of membership shift between classes.