Abstract
This article argues that a usage-based construction (a conventional pairing of form and function) is required to account for a certain pattern of English exemplified by e.g., it’s nice of you to read this. Contemporary corpus and survey data reveal that the construction is strongly associated with certain adjectives (e.g., nice, good) over others, while diachronic data demonstrate that the construction’s overall frequency has systematically waxed and waned over the past century. The construction’s unique function – namely to concisely convey a judgment regarding how an action reflects on the agent of the action – enables us to predict many observations about its distribution without stipulation. These include restrictions on the interpretation of adjectives that occur in the construction, its infinitive complement, the modal verbs that may appear in it and its ability to be embedded. We further observe that certain conventional fragments of the construction evoke the semantics of the entire construction. Finally, we situate the construction within a network of related constructions, as part of a speaker’s “construct-i-con”.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Barbara Gabel-Cunningham for help with the formatting.
Appendix I: COCA-570 searches for the canonical form of the nice-of-you construction
| search command | hits | rejected | results |
|---|---|---|---|
| it BE _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 346 | 0 | 346 |
| it BE _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 43 | −2 | 41 |
| it BE _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 60 | −14 | 46 |
| it BE * _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 188 | −1 | 187 |
| it BE * _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 19 | −4 | 15 |
| it BE * _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 51 | −30 | 21 |
| it * * BE _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 83 | −1 | 82 |
| it * BE _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| it * BE _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 5 | −1 | 4 |
| it * have been _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| it * have been _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it * have been _j* of * _n* to | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| it * have been * _j* of _pp* to | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| it * have been * _j* of _n* to | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it * have been * _j* of * _n* | 2 | −2 | 0 |
| BE it _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 18 | 0 | 18 |
| BE it _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| BE it _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| would it be _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| would it be _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| would it be _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it been _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it been _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it been _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BE it * _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| BE it * _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BE it * _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 1 | −1 | 0 |
| would it be * _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| would it be * _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| would it be * _j* of * _n* to | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it been * _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it been * _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| it been * _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 838 | −56 | 782 |
Appendix II: COCA-570 searches for fragments of the nice-of-you construction with an infinitival complement and premodifying how
| search command | hits | rejected | results |
|---|---|---|---|
| how _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 102 | 0 | 102 |
| how _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| how _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 13 | −1 | 12 |
| how * _j* of _pp* to _v?I* | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| how * _j* of _n* to _v?I* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| how * _j* of * _n* to _v?I* | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 136 | −1 | 135 |
Appendix III: COCA-570 searches for fragments of the nice-of-you construction with premodifying how without infinitive
| search command | hits | rejected | results |
|---|---|---|---|
| _y how _j* of _pp* _y* | 116 | −2 | 114 |
| _y how _j* of _n* _y* | 9 | −5 | 4 |
| _y how _j* of * _n* _y* | 15 | −12 | 3 |
| _y how * _j* of _pp* _y* | 18 | 0 | 18 |
| _y how * _j* of _n* _y* | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| _y how * _j* of * _n* _y* | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 159 | −19 | 0 |
Appendix IV: COCA-570 searches for fragments of the nice-of-you construction with an infinitival complement excluding introductory how
| search command | hits | rejected | results |
|---|---|---|---|
| _y* _j* of _pp* to _v?i* | 188 | 0 | 188 |
| _y* _j* of _n* to _v?i* | 17 | −15 | 2 |
| _y* _j* of * _n* to _v?i* | 47 | −43 | 4 |
| 252 | −58 | 194 |
Appendix V: COCA-570 searches for fragments of the nice-of-you construction with no infinitival complement excluding introductory how
| search command | hits | rejected | results |
|---|---|---|---|
| . _j of _pp* _y* | 68 | −48 | 20 |
| . _j of _n* _y* | 251 | −251 | 0 |
| . _j of * _n* _y* | 306 | −306 | 0 |
| 625 | −605 | 20 |
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