{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024675324675324677, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.883928571428571, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Functional constraints in syntactic change: The rise and fall of prepositional constructions in early and Late Modern English

This paper pursues two lines of inquiry. The first (and minor) task I have set myself is to show that major (and possibly the most important) prepositional changes in Modern English relate to general tendencies involving nominal and sentential complementation. The second and larger goal consists in demonstrating that grammatical change and variation—apart from being potentially motivated semantically—may be influenced by a variety of interacting extra-semantic factors. The Paderborn project ‘‘Determinants of Grammatical Variation in English’’ focuses on three kinds of extra-semantic, extra-stylistic and generally neglected constraints: