A historical and sociolinguistic Study of 18th-century English

这个为期三年的研究项目（2003-2005）的目的是从历史和社会语言学的角度分析和阐明18世纪英语的各种特征（语法、词法、词源学、文体学等），并根据从小说、戏剧、传记、日记、期刊等收集的大量数据。到目前为止，这项研究的主要结果如下：收集了500多本有关18世纪英语的书籍和文章，并附有一些批评意见。在上述材料的基础上，对18世纪英语的历史和社会语言学研究进行了综述，并强调了18世纪英语研究对现代英语的重要性。说明在18世纪，不带do的否定结构仍然存在。特别是像know、doubt和have这样的动词更倾向于do-less结构。Do-less结构在疑问句和由if引入的条件从句中也很常用。论证了18世纪英语中形容词比较的总体趋势与现代英语没有明显的不同，并且表明了18世纪和今天的用法在屈折和迂回形式的频率分布上有所不同。还对不及物动词的运动、强化副词的完成形式进行了详细的描述性研究，这两种形式都已出版。关于复合动名词、动名词的主语、双宾语结构、称呼词、咒骂等方面的文章已接近完成。

The purpose of this three-year research project (2003-2005) was to analyze and clarify various features (syntax, morphology, lexicology, stylistics and others) of Eighteenth-Century English from a historical and sociolinguistic point of view, on the basis of abundant data collected from novels, plays, biographies, diaries, periodicals, and so on. The chief results of the study so far done are as follows :1.Collected some 500 relevant books and articles on Eighteenth-Centtury English, which were compiled with some critical comments.2.Made a survey of historical and sociolinguistic studies on Eighteenth-Century English, based upon the above materials, and emaphasized the importance of the study of Eighteenth-Century English in reference to Present-day English.3.Showed that negative constructions without do are still existent in the eighteenth century. Especially, verbs like know, doubt, and have are in favour of do-less constructions. Do-less constructions are also favoured in interrogative sentences and conditional clauses introduced by if.4.Demonstrated that the overall tendency of adjective comparison in 18th-century English did not significantly differ from that of Present-day English and that the frequency distribution of the inflectional and periphrastic forms differentiated the 18th century usage from that of today.5.Also made a detailed descriptive study of perfect forms of intransitive verbs of motion, intensive adverbs, both of which were published)6.Articles on the compound gerund, the subject of the gerund, the double-object construction, terms of address, swearing, and others are nearly completed.