scholarly journals John Lydgate’s Use of Prepositions and Adverbs Meaning ‘Between’

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Ewa Ciszek-Kiliszewska

Abstract The aim of the present study is to thoroughly analyse the prepositions and adverbs meaning ‘between’ in the works of a Late Middle English poet John Lydgate. As regards their quality, aspects such as the etymology, syntax, dialect, temporal and textual distribution of the analysed lexemes will be presented. In terms of the quantity, the actual number of tokens of the prepositions and adverbs meaning ‘between’ employed in John Lydgate’s works will be provided and compared to the parallel statistics concerning Middle English texts collected by the Middle English Dictionary online and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. The most spectacular finding is that John Lydgate regularly uses atwēn, twēn(e) and atwix(t)(en), which are recorded in hardly any other Middle English texts. Moreover, the former two lexemes, and sporadically also atwix(t)(en), produce the highest number of tokens of all lexemes meaning ‘between’ in each analysed Lydgate’s text, which is unique in the whole history of the English language.

Author(s):  
Daniel Sawyer

This volume offers the first book-length history of reading for Middle English poetry. Drawing on evidence from more than 450 manuscripts, it examines readers’ choices of material, their movements into and through books, their physical handling of poetry, and their attitudes to rhyme. It provides new knowledge about the poems of known writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and Thomas Hoccleve by examining their transmission and reception together with a much larger mass of anonymous English poetry, including the most successful English poem before print, The Prick of Conscience. The evidence considered ranges from the weights and shapes of manuscripts to the intricate details of different stanza forms, and the chapters develop new methods which bring such seemingly disparate bodies of evidence into productive conversation with each other. Ultimately, this book shows how the reading of English verse in this period was bound up with a set of habitual but pervasive formalist concerns, which were negotiated through the layered agencies of poets, book producers, and other readers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Egi Putriana ◽  
Jufrizal Jufrizal ◽  
Fitrawati Fitrawati

The history of English language has three periods of time; Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. The linguistic forms in English development are different each period. This research aims to find out one of the changes, that is, the affix changes from Middle English to Modern English form that found in both of The Miller’s Tale Story Middle English and Modern English versions. This research also aims to find out the spelling changes in affixes. This research used descriptive qualitative method. The data, which are the collection of words that have affixes found in The Miller’s Tale, were identified based on the base of the words and its affixes and its were classified based on the type of its functions. Based on data analysis, there are seven affixes in Middle English which have been changed in Modern English form. These changes occur in the deletion of vowel, change of vowel, substitution of the affix, and elimination of the affix. The spelling change also influenced the change in suffixes. Some of the vocabularies change into the new words and some of the words change only in its vowel.


Author(s):  
Meredith Martin

This chapter sets out the book's historical and methodological framework. Despite the modernist characterization of Victorian tradition as unified and steadfast, the various approaches to Victorian meter in English histories, grammars, and metrical studies reveal ideologically charged histories of English culture, often presented as Roman or Anglo-Saxon. Gerard Manley Hopkins was himself a mediator between various metrical discourses and theories. As a Catholic priest who taught the classics and an English poet who attempted to valorize the material history of the English language in his syntax and through his use of sprung rhythm, Hopkins is a test case for the personal and national ideologies of English meter.


Author(s):  
Rajend Mesthrie

This chapter addresses how the history of English as a linguistic topic has been taught in one South African university. The author focuses on the traditional Old–Middle–Modern English trichotomy as well as colonial and postcolonial synchronic varieties. Subsequent to a curricular shift from historical to applied linguistics in English departments, students taking History of the English Language (HEL) come to the course with little or no background in Old and Middle English. The author offers practical examples of how he accommodated this change in student preparation. Additionally, he addresses how the postcolonial era and globalisation have “revitalised the story of English.” Pidgins, Creoles, and World Englishes problematise the earlier genealogy of the Standard Language, making a linear history less easy to uphold. The author’s discussion of his complementary “Pidgins, Creoles, and New Englishes” course includes helpful pointers to instructors teaching these varieties within a HEL course.


2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 741-744
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Gordon

This is the sixth and presumably final volume in an ambitious series. The first four volumes were distinguished chronologically according to the traditional paradigm for the history of English: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Present Day English. The other two volumes are organized geographically. Volume 5 examined English outside England in most of the expected places (e.g., Scotland, Ireland, Australia), with the exception of North America, to which the present volume is devoted. As the general editor, Richard Hogg, writes (p. xi), the series is designed to offer “a solid discussion of the full range of the history of English” to anglicists and general linguists alike. Readers of the latter category will certainly find this volume accessible. In fact, the inclusion of a glossary of terms extends that accessibility to readers outside linguistics as well. Specialists, however, are likely to be disappointed by the unevenness of the collection.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-222
Author(s):  
Ewa Ciszek-Kiliszewska

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.


Linguaculture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Olga Migorian

The article addresses the formation of the prefixal and onomasiological category of Negation in Old English, Middle English, Early New English and New English. The work represents basic lexico-semantic groups of verb and noun bases, which actively participate in the formation of the onomasiological category of Negation across different periods in the history of the English. It includes a complex diachronical study of the English prefixal derivatives from the point of view of their word-formation potential within the onomasiological category of Negation. It presents an analysis of the considerable changes in the semantic and onomasiological structures within the frame of the onomasiological category of Negation in the history of the English language.


Author(s):  
Oksana Dobrovolska ◽  

Background: The article deals with the scientific problem of the reconstruction of language evolution in the aspect of historical dynamics of linguistic processes in the semantic system of the English language. The topicality of the research is determined by the need to study the issues of the theories of language development, language changes, modern systemic linguistics and language interference in the parameters of the complex dynamic adaptive system on the basis of the numerical empirical material within the long chronological period in different functions. Purpose: It is relevant to study the development of a particular series of synonyms as a sub-system within the lexical-semantic group in the aspect of determinant analysis. The research methodology is the combination of the traditional linguistic methods together with new systemic functional techniques of the reconstruction of the evolution of semantic system. The aim of the article is to reconstruct the development of the semantic subsystem of the names of potters in Middle English by establishing the specifics of the support of the internal determinant of the semantic group of occupational terms in Middle English at the level of the series of synonyms. The tasks of the research are the following: to make analyses of the etymological composition of the word-stems, functional differentiation and chronological stratification of the first written attestations of the Middle English names of potters. The subject of the study is the etymological composition, functional differentiation and chronological stratification of the Middle English occupational terms. The object of the study is the series of synonyms – the names of potters as a subsystem of the semantic group of Middle English occupational terms. Results: There 8 names of potters in Middle English, forming 0.33% of the total number of Middle English occupational terms. The formation of the series of synonyms under study predominantly belongs to the 12th – 15th centuries, only one word being neologism of the Modern English period. The ratio of English words, loan-blends and borrowings is 55 %:15.5 %:12.5 %. Discussion: The scientific novelty of the research lies in the new functional approach to the history of vocabulary study, as well as the usage of new techniques of linguistic investigation applied to the new object of the study, esp. a particular series of synonyms as a constituent part of the larger systems of language. The results indicate the strict subordination of functioning and development of the series of synonyms of the Middle English names of potters to the language determinant of the semantic group of occupational terms and the English language as a whole. The article draws the prospective of further studies in the field of language evolution of the semantic system in the aspect of determinant analysis of its subsystems.


Author(s):  
Salikoko S. Mufwene

What follows is a contact-based account of the emergence of English. Though the role of language contact in the development of World Englishes is often addressed as a coda within History of the English Language (HEL) courses, this chapter presents an alternative story, highlighting contact situations in Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. The creolist perspective offered here suggests that History of English instructors should look closer at the received doctrine of HEL and consider whether an ecological model should not be used to make sense of the story of Englishes. A periodized history of colonization and of the ensuing population structures that influence language contact appears to explain a great deal about the differential evolution of English in various parts of the world, including what distinguishes colonial English dialects from their creole counterparts.


Author(s):  
Simon Horobin

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.


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