scholarly journals The Development of Old English ǣ: Middle English Spelling Evidence

2019 ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
Gjertrud F. Stenbrenden
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Variation ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Systematic Fashion ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Vowel Shift ◽  
English Spelling

This chapter presents the range of spellings for the reflexes of ǣ1 and ǣ2 in ME dialects, as found in SED, LAEME and LALME. Old English ǣ appears to have raised early in Middle English, as the dominant spelling is <e(e)>; this is further supported by the fact that <a/ǣ/ea> spellings are more frequent in the early LAEME texts than in the later ones. The spelling variants show geographic variation in Old English, with ǣ1 and ǣ2 appearing to have merged in some dialects but kept apart in others. Their reflexes are not kept apart in spelling in any systematic fashion in any ME dialects, but their distribution is certainly are not random. As the sound-changes affecting the two ǣ’s took some time to reach completion, they overlapped in time with the early stages of the Great Vowel Shift; the author argues that they must be seen as part of that shift, rather than as similar but unrelated changes.

The Development of Old English eo/ēo and the Systematicity of Middle English Spelling

2019 ◽  
pp. 133-155
Author(s):  
Merja Stenroos
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Core Area ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Spelling Variation ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Almost All ◽  
English Spelling

This chapter uses a new resource, the Middle English Grammar Corpus (MEG-C), a corpus of 14th and 15th Century English texts, to answer an old question: it is possible to find traces of a systematic distinction between the reflexes of Old English e/ē and eo/ēo in Middle English? An investigation into the spelling variation found in 27 lexical items that contain a vowel representing Old English eo/ēo as well as the equivalent Old Norse element jó throws up a wide range of spellings, the vast majority of which show <e>/<ee>. Spellings that might suggest a rounded pronunciation are also fairly robustly present, however, particularly <eo>, with the Southwest Midlands as its core area. The second part of the investigation retrieves all words that were spelled with the digraph <eo>. The vast majority of these turn out to be reflexes of Old English eo/ēo, and almost all of them are localized to the Southwest Midlands. They occur either as reflexes of OE y/ȳ, or in unstressed syllables, or in words where <eo> follows <w> – three groups for which a rounded pronunciation would be plausible.

Talking about MOTION in Middle English

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Huber
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Other ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Analysis Of Motion

Chapter 6 begins with an overview of the language contact situation with (Anglo-) French and Latin, resulting in large-scale borrowing in the Middle English period. The analysis of 465 Middle English verbs used to express intransitive motion shows that there are far more French/Latin loans in the path verbs than in the other motion verbs. The range of (new) manner of motion verbs testifies to the manner salience of Middle English: caused motion verbs are also found in intransitive motion meanings, as are French loans which do not have motion uses in continental French. Their motion uses in Anglo-Norman are discussed in terms of contact influence of Middle English. The analysis of motion expression in different texts yields a picture similar to the situation in Old English, with path typically expressed in satellites, and neutral as well as manner of motion verbs being most frequent, depending on text type.

scholarly journals Norse against Old English: 20-0

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Holmberg
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
West Germanic

The conclusion seems inescapable, if the facts in Emonds & Faarlund are more or less right: Middle English would be the outcome of a shift from West Germanic grammar to an eccentric form of North Germanic grammar.

Positive and negative face as descriptive categories in the history of English

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 178-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas H. Jucker
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Negative Face

Studies in the history of politeness in English have generally relied on the notions of positive and negative face. While earlier work argued that a general trend from positive politeness to negative politeness can be observed, more recent work has shown that in Old English and in Middle English face concerns were not as important as in Modern English and that, in certain contexts, there are also opposing tendencies from negative to positive politeness. In this paper, I focus in more detail on the notions of positive and negative face and follow up earlier suggestions that for negative face a clear distinction must be made between deference politeness and non-imposition politeness. On this basis, I assess the usefulness of the notions of positive and negative face for the development of politeness in the history of English.

scholarly journals Northern dialect evidence for the chronology of the Great Vowel Shift

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-102
Author(s):  
Hilary Prichard
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Chain Analysis ◽  
Vowel Shift ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Dialect Geography

This paper demonstrates how the tools of dialect geography may fruitfully lend a new perspective to historical data in order to address the lingering questions left by previous analyses. A geographic examination ofSurvey of English Dialectsdata provides evidence in favor of a push-chain analysis of the Great Vowel Shift, in which the Middle English high-mid long vowels raised before the high long vowels were diphthongized. It is also demonstrated that the so-called “irregular” dialect outcomes, which have previously been cited as evidence for a lack of unity of the Great Vowel Shift, are no longer problematic when viewed in the light of a theory of dialect contact, and can in fact refine our understanding of the chronology and geographic extent of the shift itself.

scholarly journals The Affix Changes from Middle English to Modern English Found In The Miller's Tale Written by Geoffrey Chaucer and Its Modern English Version

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Egi Putriana ◽  
Jufrizal Jufrizal ◽  
Fitrawati Fitrawati
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Geoffrey Chaucer ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Version ◽  
New Words ◽  
History Of ◽  
Vowel Change

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.

On the Issue of Performativity of Hymns

2021 ◽  
Vol 2020 i ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
Anna Proskurina
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Smooth Transition ◽  
Speech Activity ◽  
The Cross

The article indicates that the study of the semantic-communicative component of hymns makes it possible to identify performative frameworks - “pillows”, on which the foundation of speech activity rests. Thus, the obligatory semantic-communicative component of the hymns is informing the deity about his/her qualities, in other words, it is praising. The article reviewed three hymns written in Old English (“The Kentish Hymn”, “The Cædmon’s Hymn”) and Early Middle English (“The Godric’s Hymn”). The author focuses on paganism in Old English hymns. Thus, the work emphasizes that at the dawn of Christianity, for a smooth transition from paganism to Christianity, the image of Jesus Christ was presented as the image of a leader (Cyning - Leader), while believers were represented as His warriors. The cross as the main Christian symbol often appears made of wood and is identified with the cosmic world tree growing right into heaven.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Lilo Moessner
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Computational Analysis ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Present Book ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Periods

This chapter sets the present book off against previous studies about the English subjunctive in the historical periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). The aim of the book is described as the first comprehensive and consistent description of the history of the present English subjunctive. The key term subjunctive is defined as a realisation of the grammatical category mood and an expression of the semantic/pragmatic category root modality. The corpus used in the book is part of The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, comprising nearly half a million words in 91 files. The research method adopted is a combination of close reading and computational analysis.

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