Abstract
In the ICE-HK corpus, Wong examines collective nouns used in Hong Kong English, with particular reference to subject-verb agreement/concord patterns. The chapter discusses singular collective nouns as subjects and how the following verb or pronoun agrees with them in number as well as assessing previous claims that concord variations with collective nouns are semantically or pragmatically motivated by the traditional ‘collectivity vs individuality’ principle and the semantics of the following verb phrase. Wong reveals that singular concord is the preferred choice in the majority of the corpus data, and that convention rather than semantic/pragmatic motivation plays a crucial role in concord patterns with collective nouns, with individual collective nouns showing their own preferences for a singular or plural form.
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Notes
- 1.
No example of a plural verb in combination with a typically plural bodily noun phrase can be found in ICE-HK. Consequently, one of Depraetere’s (2003, p. 118) examples is reproduced for illustrative purposes. Note also that the abbreviation ukspok stands for ‘UK spoken’.
- 2.
In Kachru’s (1985, 1992) concentric-circles model for English as a global language, the inner-circle of English is made up of countries where English is a native language (e.g. UK) ; the outer-circle of English contains those countries (e.g. India, Nigeria, Malaysia ) where English is a post-colonial second language; the expanding circle is made up of those countries (e.g. China, Indonesia, Nepal) where English is a foreign language . As Melchers and Shaw (2003, p. 169) remark, ‘Hong Kong English is somewhat closer to a foreign-language variety than the Malaysian /Singapore variety.’
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Wong, M. (2017). Collective Nouns. In: Hong Kong English. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51964-1_3
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