Usage of but in general
The following facts and deductions are taken from the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. This book is a corpus-based grammatical study whose authors used the British National Corpus and the Longman Spoken American Corpus as their main sources. (1) I think he will have salad but he doesn’t like tomatoes. (CONV) (2) A: The golden rule is if you’re reversing you must look behind you! B: Yeah, but she said she did. (CONV) (3) A: If perhaps you were to spread erm – a wire netting over the pond Mollie? B: Well yes I know, but I’m not having that! But erm – what I am going to do but I can’t do it until – the spring. (CONV)1 The registers in the Longman Spoken and Written Corpus are conversation (CONV), fiction (FICT), news (NEWS) and academic prose (ACAD). This selection of the above sentences supports the theory that the word but is most frequent in conversation (and fiction), and least frequent in academic prose. The high frequency of but can be explained by the high frequency of negatives in conversation. Negation and contrast are closely related topics. Moreover, conversation is interactive. The high frequency in both cases results from this interactivity. “The speaker can use but to modify a statement (1), and the addressee can use it to express a contrary opinion, refute a statement by the interlocutor, reject a suggestion, etc. (2, 3)”. 2
The distribution of but in the other registers is more difficult to explain: One answer to the question of low frequency in academic prose may be that contrast is more often expressed by other words in that register. “Forms such as although, however, nevertheless, and on the other hand are more frequent in academic prose than in the other registers.”3 Another interesting finding is that of but as a sentence/turn- initial coordinator. Although it is said that placing a coordinator at the beginning of an orthographic sentence is not right on the level of style, coordinators are quite frequent in this position in actual texts. But, for example, is very likely to be found in sentence/turn- initial position. But the frequencies are higher in fiction and news reportage than in academic writing. This probably shows that especially dialogue in fiction and quoted speech in news include more spontaneous reactions. Furthermore, in written texts, sentence-initial coordinators often occur at paragraph boundaries...
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 USAGE OF BUT IN GENERAL
1.2 FUNCTIONS OF BUT
2 MATERIAL AND METHOD
3 RESULTS
4 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
Research Objectives and Themes
The research paper investigates the linguistic behavior, semantic range, and functional distribution of the word "but" across various registers of the English language. By utilizing the ICE-GB sample corpus, the study aims to quantify the frequency of "but" as a conjunction, preposition, adverb, and connector, while examining differences between spoken and written English.
- Corpus-based analysis of the word "but"
- Functional categorization (conjunction, preposition, adverb, complex structures)
- Comparison of "but" usage in spoken versus written registers
- Analysis of sentence-initial and turn-initial positions
- Evaluation of "but" as a discourse marker and turn-opener
Excerpt from the Book
1.1 Usage of but in general
The following facts and deductions are taken from the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. This book is a corpus-based grammatical study whose authors used the British National Corpus and the Longman Spoken American Corpus as their main sources.
(1) I think he will have salad but he doesn’t like tomatoes. (CONV)
(2) A: The golden rule is if you’re reversing you must look behind you!
B: Yeah, but she said she did. (CONV)
(3) A: If perhaps you were to spread erm – a wire netting over the pond Mollie?
B: Well yes I know, but I’m not having that! But erm – what I am going to do but I can’t do it until – the spring. (CONV)1
The registers in the Longman Spoken and Written Corpus are conversation (CONV), fiction (FICT), news (NEWS) and academic prose (ACAD).
This selection of the above sentences supports the theory that the word but is most frequent in conversation (and fiction), and least frequent in academic prose. The high frequency of but can be explained by the high frequency of negatives in conversation. Negation and contrast are closely related topics. Moreover, conversation is interactive. The high frequency in both cases results from this interactivity. “The speaker can use but to modify a statement (1), and the addressee can use it to express a contrary opinion, refute a statement by the interlocutor, reject a suggestion, etc. (2, 3)”. 2
Summary of Chapters
1 INTRODUCTION: This chapter introduces the theoretical background regarding the general usage and various functions of the word "but" based on the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English.
2 MATERIAL AND METHOD: This section details the methodology, specifically the use of the ICE-GB sample corpus and the TOSCA tagger for the linguistic search and analysis.
3 RESULTS: This chapter presents the quantitative findings, illustrating the frequency and functional distribution of "but" in the studied corpus with comparative tables.
4 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION: This final section compares the results obtained from the ICE-GB corpus with the findings from the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English and discusses potential discrepancies.
Keywords
Corpus Linguistics, ICE-GB, but, coordinating conjunction, discourse marker, spoken English, written English, register analysis, syntax, semantics, turn-opener, word frequency, grammatical functions, contrast, negation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research?
The research focuses on analyzing the various meanings and syntactic functions of the word "but" using a corpus-based approach.
What are the central themes discussed in the paper?
The themes include the functional classification of "but" (e.g., as a conjunction or preposition), its frequency across different registers, and its specific usage in spoken dialogues.
What is the main research question or objective?
The objective is to investigate how the word "but" behaves in actual usage, specifically comparing its distribution in spoken versus written English corpora.
Which scientific method was used for this study?
The author utilized the ICE-GB sample corpus (21,809 words) and employed the 'Variable Query' function along with the TOSCA tagger for systematic data extraction.
What does the main body of the text cover?
The main body covers the theoretical definitions of "but", the methodology for corpus investigation, the empirical results derived from the ICE-GB corpus, and a final summary comparing these results to established linguistic grammars.
What are the defining keywords of this work?
Key terms include Corpus Linguistics, ICE-GB, discourse markers, register analysis, and functional syntax.
Why is "but" more frequent in conversation than in academic prose?
The research suggests that conversation is highly interactive and frequently uses negation, whereas academic prose often expresses contrast through alternative forms like "however" or "nevertheless".
What is the significance of the "sentence/turn-initial" position for "but"?
The paper identifies this as a preferred position for speakers, often serving as a turn-opener in dialogue, which contributes to its high frequency in spoken corpora compared to formal written texts.
- Quote paper
- Susanne Busch (Author), 2002, Meanings and Functions of But, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/37411
