A Corpus-based Investigation of NEED in Written American English

As one of the most frequent words in the English language,the study of NEED has attracted the attention of linguists in the late decades.Nonetheless,none of the previous research had ever examined the diachronic variation of NEED in American English from 1810s to 2000s as this study did,thus not in a position to make a comprehensive observation of NEED variation.The present study is based on a well-balanced corpora-Corpus of Historical American English(COHAE)1 to investigate the diachronic change of NEED in written American English.Moreover,intra-linguistic and extra-linguistic factors were analyzed to provide reasonable explanations for the differences in frequency.The aim was to improve the understanding of the development and variation of NEED usage in American English.The study suggests that before the 1900s,NEED as a model and verb in American English shows a distinct and complex picture different from that in the British English,but it shows similar development since then.It also finds that need to is undergoing grammaticalization.Another finding worth noting is that NEED undertakes degrammaticalization on the one hand and experiences regrammaticalization on the other hand.