A Corpus-based Analysis of Clause Ordering in English Complex Sentences

Abstract

This study is a corpus-based analysis of ordering patterns of adverbial and main clauses in written and spoken English. The previous studies indicated that conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause more frequently than temporal clauses, and that temporal clauses are more frequently in the sentence-initial position than causal clauses. This study aims to present a more comprehensive picture for the usages of 13 adverbial clauses. The data are from LOB representing written English and parts of BNC representing spoken English. The corpus analysis shows that till-, until-, and before-clauses representing Time before follow the main clause most frequently among temporal clauses, but that as-clauses representing Same time precede the main clause frequently. Because- clauses show a strong tendency to occur sentence-finally, and causal as-clauses follow the main verb much more frequently particularly in spoken English. If-clauses tend to occur in the sentence-initial position, whereas unless- and though-clauses tend to be in the final position. Considered an informal variant of although-clauses, though-clauses are used frequently in written English, showing a preference for the final position in both written and spoken English. The ordering patterns are explained in terms of the principles of iconicity, processing, and information structure. Pedagogically, this study suggests that teaching materials should be developed for Korean learners of English based on these objective results of the corpus data in order to enhance the correct use of adverbial and main clauses in complex sentences.