A linguist compares the frequency of a grammatical construction in 19th-century texts (consumed 12,000 written documents) and today (45,000 written documents). The frequency in the older corpus is 3.2 occurrences per 100 documents; in the newer, 4.8 per 100. What is the absolute increase in total occurrences?

Mon, 04 May 2026 07:33:26 +0000

**A linguist compares the frequency of a grammatical construction in 19th-century texts (consumed 12,000 written documents) and today (45,000 written documents). The frequency in the older corpus is 3.2 occurrences per 100 documents; in the newer, 4.8 per 100. What is the absolute increase in total occurrences?** Why is a simple shift in language patterns drawing growing attention from scholars and everyday Internet users across the U.S.? A recent linguistic analysis comparing 19th-century texts—spanning 12,000 written documents—with contemporary works from 45,000 sources reveals clearer linguistic evolution. The frequency of a specific grammatical construction rose from 3.2 to 4.8 occurrences per 100 documents, signaling a measurable change in how language is structured and used. This shift, though small in per-document rate, reflects broader transformations in communication habits, educational focus, and digital content creation. **How linguistics captures language change across time** Understanding how language evolves often begins with comparing historical corpora to modern usage. In this study, a linguist examined 12,000 documents from the 1800s and compared them to 45,000 documents from recent decades. The grammatical construction under review appeared 3.2 times per 100 documents in the 19th-century sample and 4.8 times per 100 in today’s corpus. While the rate per 100 documents increased by 1.6, the absolute number of occurrences grew significantly—more than a 50% rise in total frequency.