Description
Book SynopsisThis book presents new research results in English historical linguistics. Section I deals with sounds and spellings, e.g. the role of writing in language change, Pre-Old English sound changes and their reflection in runic inscriptions – plus the first complete list of OE runic inscriptions – and with velar fricatives in Middle English. Section II contains studies on words and phrases (e.g. the OE terms for the chain-mail coat), shell nouns, and secondary agent constructions. Section III highlights the developments of
because, relative clauses, impersonal and passive constructions. Section IV analyzes the role of dialects in literature (e.g. 16th and 18th centuries). Section V sheds light on the use of early literature by later authors (e.g. J.R.R. Tolkien) and on Chinese translations of
Beowulf.
Table of ContentsContents: Trinidad Guzmán-González:
Homo loquens, homo scribens: On the role of writing in language change, with special reference to English – Gaby Waxenberger: The reflection of pre-Old English sound changes in pre-Old English runic inscriptions – Jerzy Wełna: Middle English evidence of the elimination of velar fricatives: A prose corpus study – Carla Morini: The chain-mail coat terminology in Old-English and the dating of
Beowulf – Kousuke Kaita: Old English
geweald habban/āgan as a stylistic set phrase, compared with Old High German and Old Saxon cognates – Annette Mantlik: An etymological analysis of shell nouns – Nadĕžda Kudrnáčová: Secondary agent constructions from a diachronic perspective – Mary Blockley: Connectives before Chaucer: Conjunctive
for and its competition in Early Middle English – Yuko Higashiizumi: A history of
Because-clauses and the coordination-subordination dichotomy – Christina Suárez Gómez: The replacement of
ϸe by
ϸat in the history of English – Fuyo Osawa: Impersonal and passive constructions from a view-point of functional category emergence – Maria F. Garcia-Bermejo Giner: The southern dialect in Thomas Churchyard´s
The Contention bettwixte Churchyearde and Camell (1552) – Julia Fernández Cuesta/Christopher Langmuir: Scoto-Cumbrian? The representation of dialect in the works of Josiah Relph and Susanna Blamire –
John Insley: J. R: R: Tolkien and the historical study of English –
Stella Wang:
Cinese translations of
Beowulf.
