A Study on Genre-based Differences in the Complementation Patterns of the Verb “agree”

This study explores the genre-based variations in the complementation patterns of the verb ‘agree’ in contemporary English. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), over 10,000 instances from five genres (news, fiction, academic writing, spoken discourse, and magazines) were analyzed across three decades (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). The research examines four key patterns: ‘agree to V-inf’, ‘agree that S V’, ‘agree with NP’, and ‘agree on NP’. Results reveal distinct genre-specific preferences―’agree to V-inf’ is most common in news and magazines, ‘agree that S V’ in fiction, ‘agree with NP’ in academic texts, and ‘agree on NP’ in consensus contexts. The study concludes that genre significantly influences syntactic choices, and these insights have practical implications for teaching advanced ESL learners by aligning instruction with genre-specific usagThe syntactic structurese. Future research could extend these findings by exploring regional and psycholinguistic factors.