scholarly journals The Rise of Standard I (< Me Ich): A Contribution to the Study of Functional Change in English

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Jerzy Wełna
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Functional Change ◽  
Short Vowel ◽  
First Person ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Capital Letter ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Germanic Languages

Abstract In its post-Norman Conquest development the Old English first person personal pronoun ic underwent transformations which, following the loss of the consonant, finally yielded the contemporary capitalised form I, contrasting with other Germanic languages, which retain a velar sound in the corresponding pronoun. The rather complex change of ich to I involves a loss of the final velar/palatal consonant, lengthening of the original short vowel, and capitalisation of the pronoun. It is argued here that the use of the capital letter was a consequence of vowel lengthening subsequent to the loss of the consonant. This seems to be confirmed by the observation that forms retaining a consonant are extremely rarely capitalised. The data adduced in the present paper will help verify as precisely as possible the distribution of the forms of that pronoun in Middle English dialects in order to determine to what extent the changes were functionally interdependent. The evidence comes from the Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English Prose.

scholarly journals A native origin for Present-Day English they, their, them

Diachronica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelle Cole
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
The North ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Germanic Languages

Abstract It is commonly held that Present-Day English they, their, them are not descended from Old English but derive from the Old Norse third-person plural pronouns þeir, þeira, þeim. This paper argues that the early northern English orthographic and distributional textual evidence agrees with an internal trajectory for the ‘þ-’ type personal pronouns in the North and indicates an origin in the Old English demonstratives þā, þāra, þām. The Northern Middle English third-person plural pronominal system was the result of the reanalysis from demonstrative to personal pronoun that is common cross-linguistically in Germanic and non-Germanic languages alike.

New Light on Early Middle English Borrowing from Anglo-Norman: Investigating Kinship Terms in grand‑

2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-277
Author(s):  
Philip Durkin
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Germanic Languages

Abstract It is well known that the set of kinship terms in Middle English showed considerable influence from French. In the case of aunt and uncle, this accompanied major restructuring of the system of kinship terms, as the Old English set of four distinct terms for paternal and maternal uncles and aunts were replaced by just two terms for ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’, regardless of whether paternal or maternal. In comparison, the words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ have attracted little attention, as their story has appeared simpler: Old English had words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’, irrespective of whether paternal or maternal, and so did Middle English. The terms are also similar in structure, with native terms in which words for ‘father’ or ‘mother’ are the head and eald ‘old’ is the modifier (whether in a compound or a phrasal structure) being replaced by borrowed terms (grandsire, granddame) or hybrid terms (grandfather, grandmother) in which French grand ‘big’ is the modifier. This paper shows that behind this apparently simple story there lurk some significant complications which point to considerable disruption and instability in the terms for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ in both Middle English and French (with interesting and perhaps significant parallels also in other West Germanic languages). Consideration of these complications also casts new light on early lexical borrowing into Middle English from Anglo-Norman.

XIX.—Rhythm and Rime Before the Norman Conquest

PMLA ◽  
1921 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. Rankin
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
English Verse ◽  
Foreign Influence ◽  
Latin Verse ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Orthodox View

The orthodox view regarding the introduction of end rime into English verse is succinctly set forth in the following quotations : “ Endrime, being a stranger to the early Germanic languages, its appearance in any of them may commonly be taken as a sign of foreign influence. In general, of course, rime and the stanza were introduced together into English verse, under the influence of Latin hymns and French lyrics.” “ Die alliterierende Langzeile war die einzige in der ags. Poesie bekannte Versart und blieb in derselben bis zu ende der ersten ags. oder altenglischen Sprachperiode in Gebrauch.” “ The transformation of the O. E. alliterative line into rhyme verse did not take place before the Middle English period. It was due to the influence of the rhymed French and Latin verse.” “ Alliterative verse was remodelled on Latin and French verse—or foreign verses were directly imitated.” The implication is that there never existed in Anglo-Saxon any verse of a form different from that of the five-type alliterative verse which prevails in the corpus of extant Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Why English is not dead: A rejoinder to Emonds and Faarlund

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gjertrud Flermoen Stenbrenden
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old English ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Counter Argument

AbstractThis article argues against the claim by Emonds and Faarlund (2014,English: The language of the vikings. Palacký University: Olomouc) that English died out after the Norman Conquest, and was replaced by a North Germanic variety referred to as “Anglicised Norse”, which had been formed in the Danelaw area in a concerted effort by the Norse and Anglo-Saxon populations, presumably to overthrow the ruling French elite. Emonds and Faarlund base their claim on the existence of some 20–25 linguistic features which are said to have been absent from Old English, but which are present in Present-Day English and in Scandinavian languages. This article argues that genetic affiliation cannot be inferred from shared syntactic, morphological or lexical features, which may easily result from independent convergence in historically related languages. The main counter-argument, however, is chronological: the majority of the features adduced are indeed attested in Old English and often in other West Germanic languages also, and hence may not be attributed to Old Norse; nor can features which are not attested in English until late Middle English or early Modern English come from Old Norse. The continuity of English in the written record likewise renders the suggested scenario highly unlikely.

scholarly journals Preverbal ge- in Old and Middle English

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 15-48
Author(s):  
Thomas McFadden
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Cursory Examination ◽  
Diachronic Development

This paper aims to work toward a proper understanding of the role of preverbal ge- in Old English (henceforth OE) and its disappearance in the course of Middle English. This prefix is reminiscent of its cognates in Modern German and Dutch (also written ge-) in its distribution, but even a cursory examination of the details reveals it to be quite distinct, as we will see. The proper characterization of that distribution, and of its diachronic development, has proven to be extremely difficult. I have thus carried out a large-scale corpus study using the York-Toronto-Helsinki parsed corpus of Old English prose (Taylor et al. 2003) and the Penn-Helsinki parsed corpus of Middle English, 2nd ed. (Kroch & Taylor 1999). This paper will report the results of the first phase of the project, involving patterns in the data that could be identified primarily on the basis of automatic searches in the corpora.  

scholarly journals Degree of Grammaticalisation of Behind, Beneath, Between and Betwixt in Middle English

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-222
Author(s):  
Ewa Ciszek-Kiliszewska
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Changes ◽  
Respective Function

The present paper traces the history of four selected adverbs with the prefix be- in Middle English. Already in Old English behind, beneath, between and betwixt are attested to function as both adverbs and prepositions, which demonstrates that the process of grammaticalisation accounting for the development of prepositions from adverbs started before that period. The focus of the study are the diachronic changes of the degree of grammaticalisation of the examined lexemes in the Middle English period as demonstrated by the ratio of their use with a respective function in the most natural context. Hence, specially selected Middle English prose texts are analysed. The analysis shows that while behind and beneath are still frequently used as adverbs in the whole Middle English period, between and betwixt are predominantly used as prepositions already in Early Middle English. This clearly demonstrates that the degree of grammaticalisation of the latter two Middle English words was much higher than that of behind and beneath.

2. Origins

2018 ◽  
pp. 12-32
Author(s):  
Simon Horobin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Language ◽  
French Language ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Language Origins ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Late Modern

Where does the English language come from? While English is distantly related to both Latin and French, it is principally a Germanic language. ‘Origins’ provides a brief history of the English language, highlighting a number of substantial changes, which have radically altered its structure, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. It begins with Old English (AD 650–1100), then moves on to Middle English (1100–1500), which saw the impact of the French language after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Early Modern English period (1500–1750) witnessed the biggest impact of Latin upon English, while Late Modern English (1750–1900) resulted in an expansion of specialist vocabulary using Latin and Greek.

Scandinavian Influence on English Syntax

PMLA ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 74 (5) ◽  
pp. 503-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max S. Kirch
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Other ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
The Subject ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
Germanic Languages

The Influence of Scandinavian on English vocabulary as a result of the settlement of the Northmen in England before the Norman Conquest was well established over fifty years ago by Bjôrkman. Claims have been made by some scholars about Scandinavian influence on English syntax, but these have been the subject of much controversy. As early as 1908 Logeman noted the tendency of both Danish and English to stress the preposition and usages such as “he has someone to work for,” which are not found in the other Germanic languages. Jespersen cited several correspondences between Modern English and Modern Danish, which he felt might possibly date back to the Viking settlements. Specifically he enumerated (1) relative clauses without pronouns, (2) the omission of the conjunction 'that,' (3) the use of 'shall' and ‘will’ in Middle English, (4) the genitive before nouns. Later students have followed Jespersen's lead; e.g. Marckwardt in his Introduction to English (Toronto & New York, 1942) and Pei in his Story of English (Philadelphia and New York, 1952).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document