A Corpus-based Study On The Change Of The English Word Classes

The present thesis is a corpus-based study, which investigates the change of word classes from macroscopic view to microcosmic view. Based on tagged LOB, FLOB, Brown and Frown corpora, this study aims at analyzing the change of word classes from 1960s to 1990s by comparing the frequencies of word classes across those corpora. With the help of Visual FoxPro and SPSS, the frequencies of different levels of word classes are obtained, processed and analyzed. The results of the present study show as follows:(1) On the general survey of individual word class, the foreign words, common nouns and verbs increase significantly. Determiners and prepositions also grow obviously. Common nouns and proper nouns increase dramatically in register J of Frown, while present participles of verbs keep constant.(2) In the analysis of pos-sequence change, frequently used bigrams and trigrams almost keep stable in British and American English. The tendency of NN+ to-infinitive clauses depends on various registers. Be passive is declining in both British and American English.(3) In the study of word-sequence change, it is focused on semi-modal verbs, which results that most of semi-modal verbs have a growing tendency.