A Corpus-based Study of go get and go & get Constructions
218M013 H. H.
The goal of this study is to cast some useful light on the constructions of go get and go & get through corpus-based approaches. These constructions are normally used in American English as, "Go get the paper" and "go & get the paper". It is said that go get is used only in a fixed expression in British English. This thesis researches the two constructions in American English with BYU-COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), and make a comparison with British English so as to clarify how similar or different these constructions are.
This thesis presents discussions based on three research questions below:
(RQ1) What verbs occur in the V2 slot of go get and go & get, and how often?
(RQ2) What sentence types are go get and go & get used in?
(RQ3) How are go get and go & get used in declarative sentences?
Since come can take come get and come & get generally, this thesis also researches the two constructions, and partially compares these constructions with go get and go & get.
This thesis has found that go get construction can take more types of verbs than go & get in American English, but get and see make up the majority among them. The rate of imperative sentences of go/come get is about twice as high as that of go/come & get in American English. go get and go & get often occur with modal verbs meaning obligation and necessity (e.g. have to, should, and need to) in declarative sentences. On the other hand, come get and come & get are often used with the lexical verbs meaning command, advice, request, wish, etc. (e.g. have/make O do, ask/tell O to do, say/tell (that) imperative form, etc.)