Linguistic Data Science and the English Passive : Modelling Diachronic Developments and Regional Variation

The choice between BE and GET as auxiliary verbs, as in “She was promoted” vs “She got promoted”, is a central, grammatical feature, yet the many proposed nuances conditioning this phenomenon have escaped large-scale empirical validation to date.This book fills this gap, using multivariate statistical analyses of several large corpora to explore different factors determining the choice of English passive auxiliary. Addressing both diachronic developments (using the Corpus of Historical American English) and synchronic regional variation (using the Corpus of Global Web-based English), the book employs methods that combine traditional corpus linguistics with newer machine-learning tools in an innovative and intricate manner.To circumscribe the variable context, the authors train a statistical model to distinguish central from peripheral passives.The study tests the influence of various predictors, derived from the previous literature on the passive, with the use of automated sentiment an