The Sentence-Final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English: A Comparative Analysis Based on the TV Corpus

Jingkai Cui

doi:10.47297/wspciWSP2516-252732.20250904

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The Sentence-Final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English: A Comparative Analysis Based on the TV Corpus

Volume 9, Issue 4

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The Sentence-Final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English: A Comparative Analysis Based on the TV Corpus
The Sentence-Final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English: A Comparative Analysis Based on the TV Corpus
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518172, China
Vol. 9, Issue 4, Pages: 147-150(2025)
Published：30 August 2025
DOI：10.47297/wspciWSP2516-252732.20250904
Accepted：

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Cui Jingkai.The Sentence-Final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English: A Comparative Analysis Based on the TV Corpus[J].Creativity and Innovation,2025,09(04):147-150.
DOI：

Cui Jingkai.The Sentence-Final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English: A Comparative Analysis Based on the TV Corpus[J].Creativity and Innovation,2025,09(04):147-150. DOI： 10.47297/wspciWSP2516-252732.20250904.

摘要

Abstract

Sentence-final particles (SFPs) are a common language phenomenon. Existing studies mainly focus on SFPs in single dialects or their cross-language comparisons. This article conducts a comparative analysis of the sentence-final 'but' in American/Canadian English and Australian/New Zealand English based on the TV Corpus. It focuses on its overall frequency

semantic-pragmatic roles and values. The TV Corpus

containing 325 million words from numerous TV episodes

is used as the data source

with 30 random examples analyzed in each dialect context. Results show that the sentence-final 'but' has a higher proportion per million words in Australian/New Zealand English. Both dialects mainly use it as discourse markers but differ in semantic-pragmatic values: cataphoric value is most common in US/CA English

while contrastive value prevails in AU/NZ English. The patterns may be attributed to historical influences

dialect development

and conversational style. This study provides a new perspective for the research of intra-language dialectal contrasts in SFPs.

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references

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