RT Journal Article
T1 Exploring if/whether variation in subordinate interrogatives
A1 Lastres López, Cristina
K1 If
K1 Whether
K1 Variation
K1 Complementizers
AB This paper investigates the variation between if and whether (e.g. I don’t know if/whether you are right), on the grounds that prior studies on complementation in English have not sufficiently addressed the variation between these two complementizers. Based on data extracted from the British component of the International Corpus of English, the results from the study show that although if and whether are mostly interchangeable complementizers, there are grammatical, semantic and stylistic constraints governing the choice of conjunction. The results suggest that a number of factors can influence the choice of complementizer, such as the matrix verb or the presence of an explicit alternative in clauses introduced by the conjunction or. In addition, extralinguistic factors such as age and sex are also revealed as playing a role in the choice of complementizer.
PB Nordic Association of English Studies
PB Umeå University
YR 2018
FD 2018-12-31
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/34897
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/34897
LA eng
NO Lastres-López, C. (2018). Exploring if/whether variation in subordinate interrogatives1. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 17(2), 156–181. https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.437
NO The Spanish  Ministry  of  Education,  Culture  and  Sports  (grant  FPU15/02519),  the Spanish  Ministry  of  Economy,  Industry  and  Competitiveness  (grants  FFI2014-52188-P and FFI2017-86884-P), the European Regional Development Fund and the  Regional  Government  of  Galicia  (Directorate  General  for  Scientific  and Technological  Promotion,  grants  ED431D  2017/09  and  ED431B  2017/12). Thanks are also due to Bas Aarts, Teresa Fanego, and Sean Wallis; as well as to two anonymous reviewers, for valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026