Aarts, Bas;
(2023)
Oblique predicative constructions in English with for and as: qua vs qualitate qua.
English Language & Linguistics
pp. 1-16.
10.1017/s1360674323000199.
(In press).
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Abstract
English has an OBLIQUE PREDICATIVE CONSTRUCTION in which the prepositions for and as license an OBLIQUE PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT that is predicated of a noun phrase, as in We took her for a friend and I regarded her as a genius. The construction with for is the oldest, and is found in many other languages. This article traces the history of oblique predicative constructions involving for and as, and a number of other prepositions, from Old English to Present-Day English (PDE). Visser (1963–73) has suggested that predicative for and as were rivals, and that in PDE as is now dominant at the expense of for. I will argue instead that since around 1900 predicative for and as can clearly be distinguished semantically as expressing the meanings qua (‘as being’) and qualitate qua (‘in the capacity of’), respectively, and that the existence of these distinct meanings explains why constructions with both prepositions still survive in PDE.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Oblique predicative constructions in English with for and as: qua vs qualitate qua |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1017/s1360674323000199 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674323000199 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | For; as; predicative construction; predicative complement |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of English Lang and Literature |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176756 |
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