scholarly journals Syntax and discourse in Old and Middle English word order

Author(s):  
Ans van Kemenade ◽  
Tanja Melićev
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Ana Purwitasari

This research aims to describe the development of syntax in English and German diachronically and involves a broader inquiry into English and German as sister languages rooted from Germanic language. In this research, the author gathered data from manuscripts written in both the English and German languages produced at particular times. This research used descriptive-qualitative method. The results showed that: 1) Diachronically, English and German have gone through four periods in their syntax patterns development; 2) Old English and Old High German sentence patterns are apparently the same, adopting SVO-structure; 3) The existence of conjunction separates the verb and object in German, but it does not change anything in the English word-order, from Middle English to Modern English; 3) Early Modern English verbs should be put in the second position. However, Early New High German verb is placed in agreement with the conjunction since conjunction influences the position of the verb and object.Keywords: Syntax; Germanic languages; historical linguistics; Indo-Germanic languagesPenelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan perkembangan sintaksis dalam bahasa Inggris dan bahasa Jerman secara diakronik dan merupakan penelitian yang diperluas terkait bahasa Inggris dan bahasa Jerman sebagai rumpunbahasa yang berasal dari bahasa Jermanik. Dalam penelitian ini, penulis mengumpulkan data dari manuskrip yang ditulis dalam keduabahasa tersebut, bahasa Inggris danJerman,pada waktu tertentu. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: 1) Secara diakronik, bahasaInggris dan Jerman telah melalui empat periode dalam pengembangan pola sintaksisnya; 2) Pola kalimat bahasaInggris lama dan Jerman lama tampaknya sama, yaitu memilikistruktur SVO; 3) Adanya konjungsi yang memisahkan kata kerja dan benda dalam bahasa Jerman, tidak mengubah apapun dalam ketentuankata perintah padabahasa InggrisdaribahasaInggrisAbad Pertengahan ke bahasa Inggris Modern; 3) Kata kerja bahasa Inggris di awalmasabahasaInggrisModern harus diletakkan di posisi kedua. Namundemikian, kata kerja bahasaJermanditempatkan bersama konjungsi sejakkonjungsimempengaruhi posisi kata kerja dan objek.Kata kunci: Sintaksis; bahasa Jerman; linguistik historis; bahasa Indo-JermanKata kunci: Sintaksis; bahasa Jerman; linguistik historis; bahasa Indo-Jerman


1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 600-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope B. Odom ◽  
Richard L. Blanton

Two groups each containing 24 deaf subjects were compared with 24 fifth graders and 24 twelfth graders with normal hearing on the learning of segments of written English. Eight subjects from each group learned phrasally defined segments such as “paid the tall lady,” eight more learned the same words in nonphrases having acceptable English word order such as “lady paid the tall,” and the remaining eight in each group learned the same words scrambled, “lady tall the paid.” The task consisted of 12 study-test trials. Analyses of the mean number of words recalled correctly and the probability of recalling the whole phrase correctly, given that one word of it was recalled, indicated that both ages of hearing subjects showed facilitation on the phrasally defined segments, interference on the scrambled segments. The deaf groups showed no differential recall as a function of phrasal structure. It was concluded that the deaf do not possess the same perceptual or memory processes with regard to English as do the hearing subjects.


Diachronica ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard

In the history of English one finds a mixture of V2 and non-V2 word order in declaratives for several hundred years, with frequencies suggesting a relatively gradual development in the direction of non-V2. Within an extended version of a cue-based approach to acquisition and change, this paper argues that there are many possible V2 grammars, differing from each other with respect to clause types, information structure, and the behavior of specific lexical elements. This variation may be formulated in terms of micro-cues. Child language data from present-day mixed systems show that such grammars are acquired early. The apparent optionality of V2 in the history of English may thus be considered to represent several different V2 grammars in succession, and it is not necessary to refer to competition between two major parameter settings. Diachronic language development can thus be argued to occur in small steps, reflecting the loss of micro-cues, and giving the impression that change is gradual.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrey Tik-Sze Siu ◽  
Connie Suk-Han Ho

2021 ◽  
pp. 681-692
Author(s):  
Elena Novozhenina ◽  
Oleg Sychev ◽  
Olga Toporkova ◽  
Oksana Evtushenko

1998 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 595-613E ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Whissell

This article describes a new data base for English word-usage patterns. It improves on older efforts by including television and personal commentaries as sources for the main corpus studied. More than a third of a million words were sampled from media and nonmedia sources and analyzed to produce a parsimonious listing of 6505 words (types) and their frequencies. The reliability and validity of this list were established in a variety of ways, and a computer program based on the list was used to analyze two different sets of data (an exploratory set and one representing an a priori hypothesis about word usage). A mere 206 different words were seen to account for 57% of all the words in the corpus, and 95% of this small set had its roots in Middle English or some older form of English.


Author(s):  
Javier Pérez-Guerra

AbstractThis paper examines the design of verb phrases and noun phrases, focusing on the diachronic tendencies observed in the data in Middle English, Early Modern, and Late Modern English. The approach is corpus-based and the data, representing different periods and text types, is taken from the


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