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  DOI Prefix   10.20431


 

International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature
Volume 5, Issue 5, 2017, Page No: 43-56
doi:dx.doi.org/10.20431/2347-3134.0505005

New Description of an Interrogative as a Noun: The Case of A/The Why(S)

Ai Inoue

National Defense Academy, JAPAN

Copyright :Ai Inoue, New Description of an Interrogative as a Noun: The Case of A/The Why(S) International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature

Abstract


This study reveals how the interrogative why became established as a noun, as used in phrases such as a why or the why(s), adopting a descriptive approach.
Dictionaries and previous studies widely acknowledge why as an interrogative. Further, why is often used as a noun in phrases like the why(s) and (the) wherefore(s) and the how(s) and (the) why(s). Most dictionaries pay little attention to why used as a noun. However, the independently used nouns (i.e. a why and the why(s)) occur frequently in present-day English, as shown by my corpus investigation.
This study includes a quantitative investigation of how a/the why(s) became widespread in contemporary English. In addition, as a qualitative investigation, characteristics of a/the why(s) are revealed through an analysis of their syntactic features, using corpus data. The quantitative results show that why is independently used in the phrases a why, the why and the whys and that each pattern has been frequently used since the 1920s. The qualitative results indicate that the meaning of a/the why(s) reflects the lexical meaning of why and there is a semantic difference between a why and the why(s). Syntactically, the noun forms of other interrogatives are positioned close to a/the why(s).


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