Exeter Book Riddle 6, Lines 7–8

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-440
Author(s):  
Elena Afros
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Main Verb

Abstract One of the very few ‘rules’ that operate (almost) without exceptions in Old English prose and poetry is that in se-relatives, se is preceded by the preposition that governs it. In the entire Old English corpus, Mitchell (1985: §2244) finds only one counterexample in the Exeter Book Riddle 6, lines 7–8. In this relative clause, the preposition on governing the demonstrative þa that functions as both antecedent and relative is postposed. The present article suggests grouping the preposition on (7b) with the adverb feorran ‘far’ (8a) that immediately follows it and analysing the main verb of the relative clause as transitive. As a result, the relative clause follows the ‘rule’: the preposition on is no longer postposed, and the pronoun þa, which functions as a direct object in the principal and relative clauses, is assigned accusative by the main verbs of both clauses.

On the syntactic differences between OE dialects: evidence from the Gospels

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
CRISTINA SUÁREZ-GÓMEZ
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
English Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
The West ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Syntactic Differences ◽  
Early English

Old English has traditionally been considered a period of linguistic homogeneity, since most available recorded texts are generally written in the West Saxon dialect. There are, however, isolated texts which have been ascribed to other varieties, in particular Northumbrian and Mercian. In fact, recent research on syntactic dialectology in early English (Kroch & Taylor 1997; Ogura 1999; Hogg 2004, 2006a; Ingham 2006) shows that linguistic variation has been present in the English language from the earliest times. This study reassesses the existence of variation in the syntax of texts belonging to different dialectal varieties in Old English, in particular in relative constructions. Based on an analysis of relative clauses in three versions of the Gospels from late Old English, representing West Saxon, Northumbrian and Mercian dialects, we will observe differences in the texts, regarding both the paradigm of relativizers and the position adopted by the relative clause within the main clause. I relate these differences to the existence of linguistic differences in northern and southern dialects.

Asymmetries in children's production of relative clauses: data from English and Korean

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 1038-1071 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHAE-EUN KIM ◽  
WILLIAM O'GRADY
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Object Relative

ABSTRACTWe report here on a series of elicited production experiments that investigate the production of indirect object and oblique relative clauses by monolingual child learners of English and Korean. Taken together, the results from the two languages point toward a pair of robust asymmetries: children manifest a preference for subject relative clauses over indirect object relative clauses, and for direct object relative clauses over oblique relative clauses. We consider various possible explanations for these preferences, of which the most promising seems to involve the requirement that the referent of the head noun be easily construed as what the relative clause is about.

On amharic Relative Clauses

1972 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailu Fulass
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Right

In what follows I would like to discuss the structure of Amharic relative clauses. In the course of the discussion, I would like to make the following three claims which I will attempt to substantiate in turn. First, I believe that relativization is a kind of pronominalization and, consequently, the particle yä- that is attached to the main verb (or its auxiliary) of the relative clause is not a relative pronoun. Second, I maintain that the ‘yä- clause’ in subject position in Amharic cleft sentences is also a relative clause with an unspecified element as its head. My third claim is that Amharic genitive phrases originate from relative clauses and that the noun (phrase) in the genitive phrase to which the particle yä- is attached in surface structure is governed by a preposition in underlying structure, and the head of a genitive phrase is the head of the under-lying relative clause. In this connexion, I also argue that there is a rule in Amharic which moves the particle yä- (to the right) over, at least, one constituent.

The text of a damaged passage in the Exeter Book: Advent (Christ I) 18–32

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
John C. Pope
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
Complete Recovery ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Slow Process ◽  
Entire Volume ◽  
I 18 ◽  
Photographic Evidence

Lines 18–32 of the Old English Advent, formerly known as Christ I, have suffered severely from the overflow of a mug of beer, or perhaps cider, that someone set down on the first extant page (8r) of the Exeter Book. Efforts to recover the readings of this passage have taxed the eyes and ingenuity of a number of scholars since 1830, when N. F. S. Grundtvig made the first transcription of the entire volume. A greatly improved text, the first and last to be based on freshly available photographic evidence in addition to renewed examination of the manuscript itself, was included by G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie in their edition of the Exeter Book in 1936; but inherited misreadings have not been entirely eliminated either from this or from the slightly improved texts that have appeared since that date. The present article was prompted by a desire to correct a small but disturbing error that was first observed by S. K. Das, whose able exposition of it, published in 1937, has been overlooked by everyone who has had occasion to edit the poem since that time. But some other improved, partly conjectural readings in the same passage, though published, have not been adequately explained, and a fresh study of the manuscript together with the best photographic evidence has revealed some small inaccuracies that have remained unnoticed in all our texts. Thus what was originally conceived as a brief note has grown into something more complicated, involving a number of readings and a sketch of the slow process by which several generations of scholars have approached, little by little, a complete recovery of the passage as it stood before it was so nearly obliterated.

scholarly journals Constructions Waxing and Waning: A Brief History of the Zero-Secondary Predicate Construction

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Frauke D’hoedt ◽  
Hendrik De Smet ◽  
Hubert Cuyckens
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Semantic Classification ◽  
English Prose ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Shed Light

In the English Secondary Predicate Construction (SPC), a predicative relation between a noun phrase (NP) and a “secondary predicate” (XP) is established by a main verb ( He finds Verb her NP attractive XP). While the syntactic nature of this construction has received ample attention from a synchronic perspective, this study aims to shed light on the diachronic developments of the SPC. First, using data from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) and the Penn corpora, a classification is proposed of the verbs occurring in the SPC. Based on this semantic classification, the development of the SPC is then traced from Old English to Late Modern English in terms of frequency and productivity. It is argued that, while the various classes of SPC-taking verbs often show opposite developments, these lower-level incongruities are resolved at a higher schematic level, as the SPC as a whole underwent a process of internalization. These findings underscore the importance of lower-level developments in the diachronic behavior of schematic constructions and consequently contribute to the literature on constructional change.

scholarly journals Syntactic complexity and language contact: A corpus-based study of relative clauses in British English and Indian English

2017 ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Iván Tamaredo
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
British English ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
L1 And L2

The aim of the present paper is to test the claim that contact simplifies language (cf. Kusters, 2008) by comparing the domain of relative clause formation in British English, a L1 variety, and Indian English, a L2 variety. According to Hawkins (1999), the processing cost of relativizing a noun phrase increases down the Accessibility Hierarchy (Subject > Direct Object> Indirect Object > Oblique > Genitive> Object of Comparison) proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977). Subject relative clauses are thus easier to process than direct object relatives, and so on. The results of a corpus study of the British and Indian components of the International Corpus of English show that the Accessibility Hierarchy has an indirect effect on the production of relative clauses in British English and Indian English: whereas the distribution of relative clauses with respect to the hierarchy is very similar in both varieties, the number of complex relatives, i.e., with coordination or further embedding, decreases in the lower positions in Indian English. These results thus suggest that language contact plays a significant role in relative clause use and accounts for certain differences between L1 and L2 varieties of English in this grammatical domain.

The Generalization of Instruction on Genitive Relative Clause in the Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language

2006 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 99-113
Author(s):  
Akihiro Ito
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
Special Instruction ◽  
Japanese Learners

This study examines the generalization of instruction in foreign language learning. A group of Japanese learners of English served as participants and received special instruction in the structure of genitive relative clauses. The participants were given a pre-test on combining two sentences into one containing a genitive relative clause wherein the relativized noun phrase following the genitive marker "whose" is either the subject, direct object, or object of preposition. Based on the TOEFL and the pre-test results, four equal groups were formed; three of these served as experimental groups, and one as the control group. Each experimental group was given instruction on the formation of only one type of genitive relative clause. The participants were then given two post-tests. The results indicated that the generalization of learning begins from structures that are typologically more marked genitive relative clauses to those structures that are typologically less marked, and not vice versa.

scholarly journals Revisiting obligatory relatives in German

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Andreas Blümel ◽  
Mingya Liu
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Intuitive Appeal ◽  
Compositional Semantic ◽  
The One

AbstractIn the literature on relative clauses (e. g. Alexiadou et al.2000: 4), it is occasionally observed that the German complex definite determiner d-jenige (roughly ‘the one’) must share company with a restrictive relative clause, in contrast to bare determiners der/die/das (Roehrs2006: 213–215; Gunkel2006; Gunkel2007). Previous works such as Sternefeld (2008: 378–379) and Blümel (2011) treat the relative clause as a complement of D to account for its mandatory occurrence. While such syntactic analyses have intuitive appeal, they pose problems for a compositional semantic analysis.The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we report on two rating studies providing empirical evidence for the obligatoriness of relative clauses in German DPs introduced by the complex determiner d-jenige. Secondly, following Simonenko (2014, 2015), we provide an analysis of the phenomenon at the syntax-semantics interface that captures familiar (Blümel2011) as well as novel related observations. Particularly, the analysis accounts for the facts that postnominal modifiers can figure in d-jenige-DPs and that the element can have anaphoric demonstrative pronominal uses.

Women Saints' Lives in Old English Prose (review)

Parergon ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-179
Author(s):  
Antonina Harbus
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Women Saints ◽  
English Prose

The Exeter Book Riddles: authorship and transmission

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 131-162
Author(s):  
Peter Orton
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
English Verse

AbstractThe Exeter Book Riddles are anonymous, and the generally formulaic character of all Old English verse discourages attempts to establish unity or diversity of authorship for them; but correlations between the sequence of Riddles in the manuscript and the recurrence from poem to poem of aspects of form, content (including solutions), presentation and style sometimes suggest common authorship for particular runs of texts, or reveal shaping episodes in the collection's transmission. Investigation along these lines throws up clear differences between the two main blocks of Riddles (1–59 and 61–95), and evidence emerges that the composition of many (at least) of Riddles 61–95 was influenced by a reading of Riddles 1–59.

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