scholarly journals The Chequered History of the Prodigal ‘you’ Pronoun

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Dennis Michael Bryant
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Second Person ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Single Form ◽  
English Usage ◽  
History Of

This paper pursues the proposition that today’s English can be likened to a spectacularly-coloured butterfly that is always prepared to flutter forward undaunted by its dazzling change over time. In order to exemplify change as a long-term characteristic of English, this paper charts the progress of the second person ‘you’ pronoun, from Old English days, through to Middle English times, arriving into Modern English where the ‘you’ pronoun displays seemingly prodigal behaviour having abandoned its richness of case forms, resulting in a single form now representing all cases while also indicating both a multiple person audience while equally interpreted to indicate a singular person audience. However, it is clear that the latter behaviour is at odds with ‘you’ requiring a grammatically plural verbal particle. Such a paradox may leave ESL, and even native speakers, with an unfavourable impression that ‘you’ has to be accepted as an un-analysable concept. Given existing claims of lethargy in correctly informing the Academy on a range of English Grammar topics, this paper seeks to follow a Critical Theory methodology of evidence-based analysis of the ‘you’ situation; that is, this analysis consults Old English texts through to Middle English texts to today’s English usage, always providing supporting examples along the way.

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 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.

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.

The Northumbrian Old English glosses

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-133
Author(s):  
Elly van Gelderen
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Verbal Inflection ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Early Use ◽  
Third Person

Abstract The articles in this volume contribute to our understanding of Northumbrian Old English of the 10th century, of the nature of external influence, and of the authorship of the glosses. This introduction provides a background to these three areas. Most of the introduction and contributions examine the Lindisfarne Glosses with some discussion of the Rushworth and Durham Glosses. Section 2 shows that the Lindisfarne glossator often adds a (first and second person) pronoun where the Latin has none but allows third person null subjects. Therefore, although the Latin original has obvious influence, Old English grammar comes through. Section 3 reviews the loss of third person -th verbal inflection in favor of -s, especially in Matthew. This reduction may be relevant to the role of external (Scandinavian and British Celtic) influence and is also interesting when the language of the Lindisfarne and Durham Glosses is compared. In Section 4, the use of overt pronouns, relatives, and demonstratives shows an early use of th-pronouns, casting doubt on a Norse origin of they. Section 5 looks at negation mainly from a northern versus southern perspective and Section 6 sums up. Section 7 previews the other contributions and their major themes, namely possible external (Latin, Norse, or British Celtic) influence, the linguistic differences among glossators, the spacing of ‘prefixes’ as evidence for grammaticalization, and the role of doublets.

Phonemically contrastive fricatives in Old English?

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
DONKA MINKOVA
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Relative Strength ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interdental Fricatives

The article addresses two recent hypotheses regarding the history of the English fricatives /f/–/v/, /s/–/z/, /θ/–/ð/: the hypothesis that phonemicization of the voicing contrast occurred in Old English, and the related claim that the reanalysis of the contrast was due to Celtic substratum influence. A re-examination of the arguments for early phonemicization leads to alternative interpretations of the observed voicing ‘irregularities’ in Old English. The empirical core of the article presents the patterns of alliteration in Old and Middle English; this kind of evidence has not been previously considered in evaluating the progress of the change. The analytical core of the article is dedicated to the dynamics of categorization based on edge vs domain-internal contrasts, the relative strength of the voicing environments, and the distinction among fricatives depending on place of articulation. A comprehensive LAEME and MED database of all relevant forms reaffirms the traditional position regarding French influence for the phonemicization of voicing for the labial fricatives. The categorization of the contrast for the interdental fricatives is a language-internal prosodic process, and the history of the sibilants requires reference to both external and internal factors. The shift from a predominantly complementary to a predominantly contrastive distribution of the voiced–voiceless fricative pairs has been occurring at different rates for a whole millennium. The claim that phonemicization is attributable to Celtic influence in Old English is empirically and theoretically unsubstantiated.

The History of the Present English Subjunctive

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilo Moessner
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
History Of ◽  
Statistical Program ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Definition Of

Based on the definition of the subjunctive as a realisation of the grammatical category mood and an expression of the semantic/pragmatic category modality the book presents the first comprehensive and consistent description of the history of the present English subjunctive. It covers the periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE), and it considers all contruction types in which the subjunctive is attested, namely main clauses, noun clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial clauses. Besides numerically substantiating the well-known hypothesis that the simplification of the verbal syntagm led to a long-term frequency decrease of the subjunctive, it explores the factors which governed its competition with other verbal expressions. The data used for the analysis come from The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts; they comprise nearly half a million words in 91 files. Their analysis was carried out by close reading, and the results of the analysis were processed with the statistical program SPSS. This combined quantitative-qualitative method offers new insights into the research landscape of English subjunctive use and into the fields of historical English linguistics and corpus linguistics.

Directional Out Of in the History of English: Grammaticalization and Reanalysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-126
Author(s):  
Marion Elenbaas
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Structural Reanalysis ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Particle Verb ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
English I

In Present-Day English, the particle out is obligatorily adjacent to the following of PP, as in He pulled the plugs out of his ears / *He pulled out the plugs of his ears, even though particles can normally precede or follow the object of the particle verb, as in Hepulled out the plugs / Hepulled the plugs out. Interestingly, in Old English and Middle English, the particle out could occur either adjacent or nonadjacent to the of PP. Based on corpus data covering the period from Old English to Late Modern English, I show that the change in the syntax of directional out of involves grammaticalization: The bleaching of the directional meaning of the preposition of led to a structural reanalysis by which the of PP became included in the particle's phrasal projection and could no longer be separated from the particle out. This in turn led to phono-logical reduction of the preposition of. The loss of the nonadjacent option is argued to be connected to the status of particles as optionally projecting elements.*

A comparative approach to syntactic change in the history of English

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAN-WOUTER ZWART
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Collective Movement ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Verb Placement ◽  
Germanic Languages

This programmatic article suggests that crucial aspects of syntactic change in the history of English derive from the resetting of a single parameter, the pied piping parameter. Whereas Old English (and the Modern Continental West Germanic languages) treats VP material individually, yielding characteristic patterns of object, particle, and verb placement, Modern English treats the VP as a collective, moving it to a position to the left of certain ‘low’ adverbs and adverbials. The shift from individual to collective movement is described in detail, with its repercussions on the position of the verb, its object(s), and the verbal particle. The emergence of a zero reflexive and the development of have as the exclusive perfect auxiliary are suggested to be long-term effects of the shift from individual to collective movement.

scholarly journals LEXICAL NOMINATION AS A REFLECTION OF CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE IN OLD ENGLISH SEAFARING

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 16-20
Author(s):  
Natalia Atnabayeva ◽  
Vladimir Baltachev ◽  
Yekaterina Troynikova ◽  
Lilia Khasanova
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Language Representation ◽  
Mode Of Operation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Degree Of Participation ◽  
Content Design

The theory that nominative processes extended through centuries to systematic formations of special terminological meanings of professional Old and Middle English marine terminological vocabulary had already been explained in different ways based on an evidential linguistic material. There is no doubt of the historical and philosophical approaches employed to describe the ancient language representation of the native speakers’ world, as well as of the role and degree of their participation in the formation of nominations inclusive of those of ancient seafaring vehicles. Having been referenced repeatedly, both conceptually and through documents, they had confirmed their right to exist.  In several topical articles, terminological units have already been represented by a synonymous series of proper nominations for the seafaring vessels (boats/ships) of various types by respective lexically-organized terms according to their word-formation, structural and content design in the Old and the Middle English. Despite the apparent decline of interest towards the subject of historical nominations in general, and the history of the English Marine language in particular,thereare unsettled challenges in the field. Specifically, more clarity is required regarding the incentives, degree of participation and the role of extralinguistic (human) factor in the history of a vessel-name formation, as well as in the mode of operation of the nominative apparatus for the above marine terms with respect to the of intralinguistic (language) factors involved.

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.

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