ofcourse
iswithintheBrownfamilyofcorpora:thatis
thecomparisonbetweenthetwopairsofcontemporaneouscorpora
changesfromBrowntoFrownbeingcomparedwithchangesfromLOBtoF-LOB.ComparisonsoftheAmericanandBritishcorporacanbeparticularlyilluminatingwithreferencetotrendsthatwehavecalledAmericanizationinChapterï±(seesectionï±ï±.ïµ).However
leavingasidecaseswherethereisnosigniÃcantchangeineithercorpus
anumberofdistinctpatternscaninprinciplebeobservedfromthediachronicpointofview(cf.MairÃsÃtypologyofcontrastsÃ
ï²ï°ï°ï²:ï±ï°ï¹Ãï±ï±ï²):(a)RegionallyspeciÃcchange:ThereisasigniÃcantchangeinonecorpus-pair
butnotintheother.(Theoppositeofthisisregionallygeneralchange.)(b)Convergentchange:Thecomparativefrequenciesshowgreatersimilarityafterthechangethanbefore.(Theoppositeisdivergentchange.)(c)Parallelchange:ThereisasigniÃcantchangeinthesamedirectioninboththeAmEandtheBrEpair.(Theoppositeiscontrarychange:changesintheoppositedirection.)(d)Differentratesofchange:EvenifthesigniÃcantchangesareinthesamedirection
therateofchangecanbeconsiderablyhigherinonecorpus-pairthanintheother.(Theoppositeissimilarratesofchange.)(e)Differentstarting/endingpoints:SigniÃcantdifferencesshowupatthestartingpoint(ï±ï¹ï¶ï±)and/ortheendingpoint(ï±ï¹ï¹ï±/ï²)oftheperiodoftimeunderconsideration.(Theoppositeofthisisclearlysimilarstarting/endingpoints.)(f)Thefollow-my-leaderpatternisasubtypeofparallelchange.Inthis
probablythemostinterestingpattern
onecorpus-pairshowsamoveinthesamedirectionastheother
butisalreadyfurtheradvancedinthatdirectioninï±ï¹ï¶ï±
andisagainfurtheradvancedinthatdirectioninï±ï¹ï¹ï±/ï².Thispatternisillustrated
forexample
bythedeclineinmodalauxiliaryusage(seesectionï´.ï±)
wherethetrendshowsAmEinadvanceofBrE
alongthesametrack.WiththeaidofthethirdBritishcorpus(B-LOB)
itisalsopossibletotraceanotherkindofdiachronicvariability.Wecantellifthereisconsistencyofchangebetweentheoneperiodandtheother(betweenï±ï¹ï³ï±Ãï¶ï±andï±ï¹ï¶ï±Ãï¹ï±)
orwhetherchangeisobservedonlyintheearlierorthelaterperiod
orindeedwhetherthereisinconsistentchange(changeinonedirectionï±ï¹ï³ï±Ãï¶ï±
butintheoppositedirectioninï±ï¹ï¶ï±Ãï¹ï±).Wecanalsoobservewhetherthereisanacceleratingordeceleratingrateofchange.ThusitisplausiblethatsomechangesthatcanbeattributedtoAmericanization
suchasthedeclining
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