--- title: "On Problem of “Relict” Phenomena in American English Grammar" description: "This matters because it replaces an inherited assumption with dated usage evidence. 9 references." authors: ["N. N. Goncharova"] year: 2019 venue: "Nauchnyi Dialog 0 (Научный диалог 0)" source: "https://www.nauka-dialog.ru/jour/article/view/1216" doi: "10.24224/2227-1295-2019-6-21-31" licence: "CC BY" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/goncharova-2019-problem-relict-phenomena-american-english/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/goncharova-2019-problem-relict-phenomena-american-english/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2019](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2019/page/7/) / On Problem of “Relict” Phenomena in American English Grammar # On Problem of “Relict” Phenomena in American English Grammar **Authors:** N. N. Goncharova · **Year:** 2019 · **Venue:** [Nauchnyi Dialog 0 (Научный диалог 0)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/nauchnyi-dialog/) ([Nauchnyi Dialog 2019](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/nauchnyi-dialog/2019/)) · **Licence:** [CC BY](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2019-6-21-31) · [PDF](https://www.nauka-dialog.ru/jour/article/download/1216/1012) · [DOI 10.24224/2227-1295-2019-6-21-31](https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2019-6-21-31) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2964946489) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary This review asks whether several American English grammatical features really are "relics" preserved from older British usage. That view goes back to Marckwardt's 1958 idea of "colonial lag" and to Shveitser's work on English in the USA. Goncharova pulls together historical and corpus findings, mainly from Hundt, Algeo, the Longman grammar (Biber et al.), Levin and Kjellmer. She examines four features: - the participles *gotten* and *proven*; - regular past forms of verbs like *burn*, *lean*, *spell*; - the synthetic (mandative) subjunctive; - singular verb agreement with collective nouns. The evidence shows that most of these forms were uncommon in 18th–19th-century America too. They spread there later, so Hundt's label "colonial revival" fits them better than "lag." Collective-noun agreement looks like parallel development in both varieties. The review also observes that British English is now adopting several of these features. This matters because it replaces an inherited assumption with dated usage evidence. It also shows that the two varieties influence each other in both directions. ## Key points - *Gotten* was very rare in 18th–19th-century American usage. Today it marks dynamic meaning: acquiring something, or getting permission. *Got* covers static possession and obligation. *Have got to* is about a third more frequent in BrE than in AmE. - *Proven* came from Scots in the 16th century. In AmE it has been attested since the 19th century as a low-frequency rival of *proved*. It now has no stylistic restrictions and is gaining ground in BrE. - AmE has led the regularization of *burn/lean/spell*-type verbs since the later 19th century. Yet 18th-century American fiction used regular forms less often than English fiction did. - Biber's register data show a split by register. *Learned* dominates fiction, news and academic prose. Conversation prefers the *-t* form (over 75% as participle). The *-t* forms also persist in adjectival collocations such as *burnt toast* and *burnt sienna*. - The mandative subjunctive (*I insist that this book be removed*) was rare in both varieties in the 18th–19th centuries. It is now the AmE norm and is common in BrE, especially in the passive. Kjellmer links its survival to proverbs and to fixed phrases from the King James Bible. ## Interesting ideas - Irregular and regular variants such as *dreamed/dreamt* can sit side by side in one passage, and Taylor found such doublets lasting four or more centuries, so a system should treat both as equally normal forms of a single lemma. - *Have got* and *have gotten* differ in meaning: the first describes a state you are in, the second an event that changed something. - Verbs like *insist* and *suggest* can be mandative (followed by a bare-form subjunctive) or simply reporting, and the subjunctive also appears after nouns like *recommendation*. - The register-based percentages show that which variant is preferred depends on register and dialect, not on how frequent the verb is overall. - The review argues for testing an inherited claim ("colonial lag") against dated corpus counts before accepting it. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (tokens): Lemma tables should map both spellings to one lemma and record the variant as a feature rather than flag it as an error. - **I2** (world): The world builder can treat *'ve got* as a current holding and *'ve gotten* as an acquisition event, which updates holdings at a specific point in the order of events. - **I3** (frames): A bare *be* in a that-clause after these words can signal a directive speech act rather than a report, helping prag separate demands from assertions. - **I4** (back): Generation can choose *learnt* or *learned*, *-t* or *-ed*, according to a chosen register and dialect profile, keeping a whole text consistent. - **I5** (learn): The same habit can apply when checking rules Mova induces for itself, by measuring them against period- or register-specific slices instead of trusting the rule's original rationale. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [Institute of Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/labs/institute-of-linguistics/) — Research institute, Moscow, Russia · 4 works · 105 citations 📚 Shelves (2): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works 🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works ## Cite Cite as: N. N. Goncharova. 2019. On Problem of “Relict” Phenomena in American English Grammar. Nauchnyi Dialog 0 (Научный диалог 0). The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{goncharova2019problem, title = {{On Problem of “Relict” Phenomena in American English Grammar}}, author = {N. N. Goncharova}, booktitle = {Nauchnyi Dialog 0 (Научный диалог 0)}, year = {2019}, doi = {10.24224/2227-1295-2019-6-21-31}, url = {https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2019-6-21-31} } ``` - [← previous Linguistic-functional Analysis of the Biblical Hebrew Lexemes ʿaṭarâ, keter and nezer](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/stornaiuolo-2019-linguistic-functional-analysis-biblical-hebrew/) - [next → On Verbal Numbers in Arabic: Preliminary Remarks](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/al-sharkawi-2026-verbal-numbers-arabic-preliminary-remarks/) - [↑ back to papers of 2019](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2019/page/7/) ## References 9 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Иванова И. П. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка : учебник / И. П. Иванова, В. В. Бурлакова, Г. Г. Почепцов. — Москва : Высшая школа, 1981. — 285 с. 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[find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Levin+M%2E+The+formation+of+the+preterite+and+the+past+participle+%2F+M%2E+Levin+%2F%2F+One+language%2C+two+grammars%3F+Differences+between+British+and+American+English%2E+%E2%80%94+New+York+%3A+Cambridge+univ%2E+press%2C+2009%2E+%E2%80%94+) *Updated 24 October 2026*