Predicative as in World Englishes

This paper investigates varying uses of the function word as in different World Englishes, with a special focus on its ‘predicative’ (or ‘intrusive’) use. After a short discussion of the complexities involved in the grammatical analysis and word-class assignment of as , a random sample of 1,200 tokens from six components of the International Corpus of English are categorized mainly for the frequency of their prototypical construction type per variety, with short side glimpses to the effect of voice and the behavior of different verb lemmata. While the special status of intrusive as in Indian English is confirmed once more, it is argued that this form could be viewed in association with other high-frequency short multifunctional items in English which illustrate functional innovation and exaptation and, more broadly, the operation of language emergence in the perspective of a complex dynamic system.