scholarly journals Linguistic Complexity across Two Early Modern English Scientific Text Types

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-71
Author(s):  
Jesús Romero-Barranco
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Scientific Text ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Early English

In linguistics the concept of complexity has been analysed from various perspectives, among them language typology and the speech/writing distinction. Within intralinguistic studies, certain key linguistic features associated with reduced or increased complexity have been identified. These features occur in different patterns across various registers and their frequency is an indicator of the level of complexity of different kinds of texts. The concept of complexity has not, to date, been evaluated in early English medical writing, especiallyin terms of different text types. Thus, the present article analyses linguistic complexity in two Early Modern English medical texts, a surgical treatise (ff. 34r-73v) and a collection of medical recipes (ff. 74r-121v) housed as MS Hunter 135 in Glasgow University Library. Since they represent two different types of medical text, they can be productively compared in terms of linguistic complexity. The results obtained confirm that the surgical treatise is more complex than the collection of medical recipes owing to the higher presence of linguistic features denoting increased complexity in the former and of those indicating reduced linguistic complexity in the latter.

scholarly journals Punctuation in Early Modern English Scientific Writing: The Case of Two Scientific Text Types in Gul, Ms Hunter 135

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Jesús Romero Barranco
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Medical Writing ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Scientific Text ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractAmong the different topics studied by palaeography, punctuation has traditionally been disregarded by scholars for being considered arbitrary and unsystematic (Salmon 1988: 285). However, some studies carried out over the last few decades have demonstrated that the English punctuation system underwent a process of standardisation which started in the Middle English period, from a purely rhetorical to a grammatical function. Moreover, it was towards the sixteenth century when a set of punctuation marks was introduced (i.e. the semicolon), a fact that restricted the functions of major punctuation marks up to that time, such as the period and the comma (Salmon 1999: 40). The present paper analyses the punctuation system in Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 135 (ff. 34r–121v), a volume that is most suitable for such a study as it contains two different text types belonging to the genre of medical writing: a surgical treatise and a collection of medical recipes. The results confirm that the different punctuation marks are unevenly distributed in the texts under study and, more importantly, their main functions are found at different levels within the text.

Subjectivity and the English progressive

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
KRISTIN KILLIE
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Second Person ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Activity Verb ◽  
Present Tense

According to Wright (1994a), subjectivity in the English progressive is typically associated with specific linguistic features. In particular, subjective progressives are said normally to occur in main clauses and to involve an adverb(ial) of the type always, a first- or second-person pronominal subject and a private or cognitive verb in the present tense. This study tests Wright's claim against a corpus of Early Modern English prose. The focus is on the kind of subjective progressives that are claimed by Wright to be most subjective of all, namely collocations of the progressive with adverbs such as always. It is shown that the ‘always progressives’ in the corpus are typically found in a subclause, in collocation with an activity verb, and that they commonly occur with different types of subjects and tense/mood combinations. The conclusion is therefore that Wright's predictions concerning typical linguistic contexts for subjective progressives are not borne out.

scholarly journals A corpus-based study of abbreviations in early English medical writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-130
Author(s):  
Javier Calle-Martín
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Medical Writing ◽  
Handwritten Documents ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Early English

The Early Middle English period witnessed the massive borrowing and adoption of the Latin system of abbreviations in England. Mediaeval writers appropriated those symbols that were directly transferable from Latin exemplars, especially suspensions and brevigraphs, while contractions and superior letters were incorporated somewhat later. The existing accounts of abbreviations in handwritten documents are fragmentary as they offer the picture of the literary compositions of the period, which have been traditionally taken as the source of evidence for handbooks on palaeography. In addition to this, most of these accounts are limited to the description of their use and typology in independent witnesses, being in many cases impossible to extrapolate the results beyond the practice of individual scribes. The present paper takes that step beyond individuality and pursues the study of abbreviations from a variationist perspective with the following objectives: a) to analyse the use and distribution of abbreviations in Late Middle English and Early Modern English (1350–1700), and b) to evaluate the relevance of these abbreviations across different text types of medical writing. The data used as source of evidence come from The Málaga Corpus of Early English Scientific Prose, both the Late Middle English and the Early Modern English components (1350–1500 and 1500–1700, respectively).

scholarly journals THE STYLISTIC FUNCTIONING OF SCRIPTURAL ALLUSIONS IN AN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH PLAY “JOHAN BAPTYSTES PREACHYNGE” BY J. BALE

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1001-1007
Author(s):  
A.A. Khavronich
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Semantic Expansion ◽  
Early English ◽  
The Given ◽  
Selection Of

The given article analyzes the peculiarities of the stylistic functioning of allusions to the Holy Scripture within one religious play belonging to the modern early English period, namely “Johan Baptystes Preachynge” produced by a dramatist J. Bale. The analysis is performed from the standpoint of linguopoetics. We consider stylistic features via the correlation of form and meaning, dissection of the conceptual component, juxtaposition with medieval plays representing adaptations of the same scriptural plot. Within the framework of this analysis we identify and assess elements performing the function of impact incorporated into the scriptural allusions and estimate their role in the selection of other lexical units, construction of extended metaphors, syntactic shaping of particular fragments of the play. We draw a conclusion that via the extension of scriptural metaphorical complexes the author brings about a meaningful focus shift to ensure a protestant reinterpretation of the included biblical theses. A substantial share of stylistically marked elements undergoes semantic expansion and develops adherent connotations since they relate to the pivotal elements of the allusions.

Explorations through Early Modern English Medical Texts

2010 ◽  
pp. 151-166
Author(s):  
Anu Lehto ◽  
Raisa Oinonen ◽  
Päivi Pahta
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Early Modern English

scholarly journals Affirmatives in Early Modern English

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-264
Author(s):  
Jonathan Culpeper
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Negative Questions

Abstract This study examines the affirmatives yes, yea and ay in Early Modern English, more specifically in the period 1560 to 1760. Affirmatives have an obvious role as responses to yes/no questions in dialogues, and so this study demanded the kind of dialogical material provided by the Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760. I examine the meanings and contexts of usage of each affirmative: their distribution across time and text-types, their collocates and their occurrence after positive and negative questions. The results challenge a number of issues and claims in the literature, including when the “Germanic pattern” (involving yes and yea after positive or negative questions) dissolved, whether yea or ay were dialectal, and the timing of the rise of ay and the fall of yea.

Complexity in national legislation of the Early Modern English period

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anu Lehto
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Systematic Method ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Early English

This paper concentrates on Early Modern English statutes printed in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The study considers the development of complexity and the rise of modern writing conventions by following the diachronic pragmatic view. The analysis also draws on genre studies and underlines the sociohistorical impact on linguistic changes. Complexity is assessed by a systematic method that observes the textual structure and syntax. The material consists of legislative documents in Early English Books Online; six of the documents were transcribed and compiled into a small-scale corpus. The results indicate that complexity was a common feature in the Early Modern English period: coordination and subordination are frequently used, and the sixteenth-century documents have an increasing tendency to favour subordination. During the sixteenth century, legislative sentences and text type structure become more regular and correspond to present-day practices.

scholarly journals Transparently Hierarchical

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Jacob Thaisen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Principal Function ◽  
Structural Hierarchy ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Text Types ◽  
English Manuscript

The three scribes of a mid-seventeenth-century collection of medical recipes resemble each other in how they have punctuated the recipes, although they did not work simultaneously. They draw on similar repertoires of marks and they mark similar functions, but they do not use the same marks for the same functions. The principal function is the global one of indicating where the constitutive elements of the recipes begin and end. This function of indicating a text’s structural hierarchy goes back centuries and can seem old-fashioned for an Early Modern English manuscript produced when grammarians had started to discuss whether punctuation should mark syntactic units. A key observation is that recipes stand out among text-types by having a fixed, transparently hierarchical structure. This feature of them facilitates the researcher’s appreciation of how the punctuation functions and dismisses any impression of the scribes having deployed the marks haphazardly.

scholarly journals Suffixes in Competition

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-183
Author(s):  
Marta Pacheco-Franco ◽  
Javier Calle-Martín
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
American English ◽  
Quantitative Distribution ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Early English

This paper presents a corpus-driven analysis of the linguistic competition between the suffixes -our/-or in Early Modern English. It is conceived as a state of the art to provide an explanation of the development and distribution of these competing suffixes in Early Modern English. The study is based on the distribution of the most common set of words with alternative spellings in the period to investigate the development and the standardisation of the -our and -or groups. The study offers the quantitative distribution of the suffixes in the period corroborating the participation of phenomena such as linguistic extinction, specialisation, blocking and lexicalisation in the configuration of the contemporary morphological paradigm. The source of evidence comes from the corpus of Early English Books Online (Davies, 2017) for the period 1470–1690. In addition to this, the study also relies on sources such as the Evans Corpus (2011), the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies, 2010) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies, 2008).

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