On the Variation between That and Zero Connective as Object Clause Links in Modern British English

In order to investigate the distribution of the two connectives with reference to factors known to affect their choice, a computerized corpus of British English called LOB has been searched for instances of the object clause governed by four high-frequency verbs-say, tell, know, think-and an analysis based on a statistical method has been carried out. It reveals that the factors differ in the amount of influence they exercise, a fact which no one seems to have taken note of until now. Our investigation also shows that it is extremely important to pay attention to traits of individual verbs: they not only react differently to a given factor but have separate patterns of occurrence which, mixed together, could sometimes lead us to a false generalization.言語編≪論文