“I Regret Lying" vs. “I Regret that I Lied": Variation in the Clausal Complementation Profile of REGRET in American and British English

Abstract

The historical development and change of the English complementation system has received a great deal of attention in recent years, but work remains to be done on Present-day English. Previous studies on the complement-taking predicate regret have shown that in British English the choice between a that-clause and the gerundial -ing is non-categorical or probabilistic, with the speaker being able to choose between them. This non-categorical variation is the focus of the present article, which aims to identify any existing differences in the clausal complementation profile of regret in British and American English, as well as any linguistic variables that might determine speaker choice.

Keywords

• complementation
• present-day english
• cognitive complexity
• british english
• american english