The uses of 'some' as determiner in BSAfE

<p class="Abstract">The determiner <em>some</em> is used primarily as an indication of an unspecified, but particular quantity. The question of whether this core meaning of <em>some</em> is extended in BSAfE is addressed in this paper. In an intercorpus comparison, it is found (unexpectedly) that the determiner <em>some</em> occurs significantly less frequently in the BSAfE corpus than in the Indian English corpus. However, it is also found that the determiner <em>some</em> precedes plural nouns significantly more frequently in BSAfE than in Indian English. Similar differences are not observed in a comparison of BSAfE with a Kenyan English corpus. In the BSAfE intracorpus investigation, a collexeme analysis indicates a strong collocational attraction between the determiner <em>some</em> and a number of plural nouns. A co-varying collexeme analysis amongst all possible determiners and five frequently occurring non-singular nouns provides further confirmation of the strong association between <em>some</em> and plural nouns.</p>

Abstract licence: CC BY

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