A semantic and syntatic approach to get constructions in world englishes

Résumé

This dissertation aims to analyse get constructions in different contemporary varieties of spoken World Englishes. For this purpose, syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic and stylistic variables will be taken into account. Special emphasis is placed on the discursive, pragmatic and lexical factors which determine their use, and on the semantic and pragmatic functions these constructions have in the different registers and varieties of English. It will also study the sociolinguistic parameters that condition the variations in the use of the get constructions, and the differences between these constructions and the be-passive. The dissertation aims to provide a cross-varietal comparative analysis on the basis of data obtained from the different corpora of the International Corpus of English (ICE), namely the British, Indian, Hong Kong and Singaporean components.