Surprised at/by?: 감정동사 수동태의 전치사 선택에 관한 통시적 연구

Abstract

This study deals with synchronic variation and diachronic change with respect to the selection of prepositions in the passives of the emotion verbs meaning ‘surprise’, eg. surprise, amaze, shock, alarm, astonish, astound. As a result of the examination of the corpora COCA and BNC, it was found that there were no great synchronic differences in preposition selection between American and British English. The prepositions by and at were overwhelmingly preferred in both varieties, and with and about were used at considerably low frequency. In order to know these preferences are true in all historical periods, this study examined COHA(1820s-present, ie. LModE), EEBO(1470s-1690s, ie. EModE), and found out that (i) in LModE as well as in PDE, the frequencies of at and by were by far higher than those of with and about, (ii) during LModE, at consistently decreased and by increased over time, thus the use of at and by being inversely proportional to each other, (iii) in LModE the use of with was concentrated in the early period, and it was used more frequently in EModE than LModE. (iv) in EModE the frequencies of at and with were higher than that of by, (v) about was rarely used in EModE and mostly used in the late period of LModE. All these findings are against Osmond’s(1997) and Kim’s(2017) accounts and reveal that at and by are not always preferred with the meaning ‘surprise’ in all historical periods.