This paper explores the variability between finite and non‐finite complement clauses (CCs) after remember meaning ‘recall,’ looking at three postcolonial Englishes (PCEs), Indian, English and Sri Lankan Englishes, and British English as represented in the Corpus of Global Web‐based English (GloWbE). Taking a holistic approach, it examines the distribution and the potential language‐external and internal factors which may cause divergence between L1 and L2 varieties. Language‐external factors, such as innovation, language contact and second‐language (SLA) acquisition processes (Schneider, 2007: 88), appear to prompt the greater proportion of finite complement clauses found in the postcolonial Englishes, as expected based on the alleged tendency towards simplification of these varieties (Williams, 1987). However, the binary logistic regression analyses of language‐internal variables, largely related to the complexity principle (Rohdenburg, 1996, 2006), reveal that common language‐internal factors, apart from variety of English, also condition the choice of complement clause in the four varieties.

The emergence of gerund-participial complement clauses (CCs) is considered to be one of the major developments of the Great Complement Shift (Rohdenburg 1996: 2006) and has contributed to the alleged long-term trend for the growth of non-finite CCs in the English language (Denison 1999: 256). The verb remember saw its complementation profile altered by the introduction of gerundparticipial CCs, which entered into free competition with finite declarative CCs when the meaning of the verb is ‘recall’. This envelope of variation is studied here in terms of frequency distribution and the language-internal factors that influence the choice in Present-day British English (BrE). Results are compared to Cuyckens et al. (2014) findings for the Late Modern English period. The data show that the distribution of finite and non-finite CCs stabilised in the last century: the trend in English towards growth in the proportion of nonfinite CCs is not observed in this study. As for factors conditioning CC variation, non-structural factors (e.g. CC meaning) are key variables disfavouring non-finite CCs in Present-day BrE, while structural factors appear not to influence the choice today, unlike in Late Modern English, where both structural and non-structural factors conditioned the variation observed (Cuyckens et al. 2014).

Structural nativization, that is, 'the emergence of locally characteristic linguistic patterns and thus the genesis of a new variety of English' (Schneider 2007: 5-6), is said to be especially prone to occur in the complementation profile of verbs (and adjectives) in Postcolonial Englishes (PCEs) (Schneider 2007: 86). However, recent research on complementation across PCEs using large corpora has focused mainly on the frequency distribution of standard patterns. This study aims to broaden the scope by conducting a corpus-based analysis using 12,000-token dataset drawn from The Corpus of Global Webbased English (GloWbE; Davies 2013) to identify possible innovative patterns in the complementation profile of REMEMBER. The varieties selected are the PCEs Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan Englishes, and British English as a reference variety. Following a holistic approach, the objective is not only to pinpoint possible instances of innovation but also explore the potential explanations of these. To do so, the complementation profile of the verb REMEMBER is considered from a diachronic perspective, mapping obsolete and regional complementation patterns and meanings (Visser 1963-1973; OED). Furthermore, the factors said to condition the linguistic evolution of PCEs are also discussed (Schneider 2007: 88-90, 99-10). The results show that there seem to be incipient traces, although very low in number, of non-standard complementation patterns in the varieties explored, both first and second language varieties. Moreover, the diachronic complementation profile of REMEMBER, plus the factors said to influence the development of PCEs, can be seen as potential explanations for most of the patterns found.

This paper explores the prevalent simplification of morphosyntactic features occurring in Postcolonial Englishes (cf. e.g. Williams 1987) by addressing the hypothesis that finite complement clauses (CCs) should be more common in these varieties than a non-finite counterpart due to their higher explicitness. The hypothesis is tested in two varieties of English, British English as a reference variety and Indian English, exploring the complementation profile of REMEMBER by means of a corpus-based approach. In addition, a variable analysis aims at shedding light on the language-internal features potentially conditioning the choice between CCs in competition. The results partially confirm the hypothesis; there is a larger proportion of finite CCs in Indian English than in British English but non-finite CCs are the most common option in the two varieties. Furthermore, not only simplification, but also other factors such as substrate influence or second-language acquisition processes may be responsible for the distribution found in Indian English. As for language-internal features, while some factors condition the choice across varieties, others are variety-specific.