Abstract
This paper investigates the variation between if and whether (e.g. I don’t know if / whether you are right ), since prior studies on complementation in English have not sufficiently addressed the variation between these two complementizers, and those examining if -clauses have centred the analysis around conditionality. Based on data extracted from the British component of the International Corpus of English , the results from the study show that although if and whether are mostly interchangeable complementizers, there are grammatical, semantic and stylistic constraints regarding the choice of conjunction. The results suggest that a number of factors can influence the choice of complementizer, such as the matrix verb or the presence of an explicit alternative in clause introduced by the conjunction or . In addition, extralinguistic factors such as age and gender are also revealed as playing a role in the choice of complementizer.
Highlights
This paper intends to tackle the issue of if/whether variation in subordinate interrogatives, as illustrated in (1) and (2) below, since this type of clausal complementation has received very little attention in the study of the grammar of English.(1) I don’t know if they are any good though Lastres-López, Cristina. 2018
This study has aimed to elucidate some of the factors that trigger the choice of subordinate interrogative complementizers, if and whether, by speakers; a topic which has received comparatively little attention in the literature on complementation in English
The corpus-based analysis on ICE-GB has revealed a number of factors that may influence the choice of complementizer by the speakers
Summary
This paper intends to tackle the issue of if/whether variation in subordinate interrogatives, as illustrated in (1) and (2) below, since this type of clausal complementation has received very little attention in the study of the grammar of English.(1) I don’t know if they are any good though Lastres-López, Cristina. 2018. This paper intends to tackle the issue of if/whether variation in subordinate interrogatives, as illustrated in (1) and (2) below, since this type of clausal complementation has received very little attention in the study of the grammar of English. (1) I don’t know if they are any good though . Exploring if/whether variation in subordinate interrogatives (2) I don’t know whether he was giving it or taking it . The aim of this paper is to examine their distribution by means of a corpus-based study, analysing data extracted from the British component of the International Corpus of English ( ICE-GB) (Nelson, Wallis and Aarts 2002)
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