Concord Patterns with Collective Nouns in Hong Kong English. With Illustrative Material from the International Corpus of English (Hong Kong Component).docVIP

Concord Patterns with Collective Nouns in Hong Kong English. With Illustrative Material from the International Corpus of English (Hong Kong Component) May Lai-Yin Wong (Hong Kong) Abstract This corpus-based study reports on both a quantitative and qualitative account of the use of collective nouns in Hong Kong English, with particular reference to subject-verb agreement/concord patterns. Singular concord was found to be the preferred pattern among thirty-five collective nouns under interrogation in the ICE-HK corpus. It is argued that the preference for singular concord serves as a signal that Hong Kong English might be less conservative than British English in converging towards the norm of using singular concord with collective nouns across the globe. 1 Introduction In Tom McArthurs (2003) Oxford Guide to World English, Hong Kong English is included as a separate entry under East Asia heading (ibid.: 358–362), although it is non-existent in 1 other handbooks and international English guides. Hong Kong English is not widely recognized and accepted to be a localised variety on a par with other Asian Englishes (such as Indian English, Malaysian English, Philippine English and Singapore English) partly because the description of Hong Kong English has been relatively under-researched, notably the grammar of this variety. Previously quite a number of analyses shed light on the 2 phonetic/phonological aspects of this variety of English (e.g. Hung 2000; Peng/Ann 2004; Stibbard 2004; Setter 2006), as well as its vocabulary (e.g. Benson 1994, 2000; Carless 1995). In terms of grammar, a few studies have emerged: Budges (1989) variable marking of plurals; Lees (2001; 2004) usage and functions of auxiliary verbs; Gisbornes (2000) distinctive patterning of relative clauses; Wongs (2007) tag questions; to name but a few. Loca