Verb Complementation in China English—The Case of “Give”

Abstract

The present paper aims to reveal the differences across different English varieties in the use of the verb complementation patterns. To that end, a corpus-based methodology was adopted to compare the complementation profiles between China English, British English and Indian English. Through a comparative analysis of the data, it was found that there were marked differences between them in verb complementation. For the pair of China English and British English, the Type IP and Type IIIP patterns were significantly underused in China English. In addition, speakers of China English tended to use the Type III patterns less frequently than their British counterparts. For the pair of China English and Indian English, there was a significant difference in the use of Type III and Type IIIP patterns. China English speakers did not use them as frequently as their Indian counterparts. By contrast, Indian English speakers underused the Type I patterns. The paper argues that linguistic transfer and cultural influences might be the underlying reasons to lead to these differences.