Variable vs. Categorical Effects

Abstract

Whereas some scholars have tried to show that preposition pied piping is virtually obligatory with WH-relativizers in standard present-day British English relative clauses (RCs), others have stressed that preposition pied piping and stranding are both viable options. Researchers who assume a choice between the two options claim that factors such as the syntactic function of the prepositional phrase (PP) or the level of formality restrict the stranding-pied piping alternation. To test the actual influence of the various proposed factors, a GOLDVARB analysis was carried out on data extracted from the British Component of the International Corpus of English. As the results show, pied piping is by far the more frequent variant in written and spoken English, but the syntactic function of the PP, the level of formality, the type of phrase in which the PP is contained, and the restrictiveness of the entire RC have significant effects on the placement of the preposition.