The French influence on the Middle English expression of possession

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charlotte Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Expression

Semantic determinism and the grammaticalisation of have to in English

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra Ziegeler
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
English Expression ◽  
Induced Path ◽  
Area Of Study

The traditionally held view that grammaticalisation should be a semantically-motivated process (as discussed, for example, in Hopper and Traugott 2003: 75, summarising Bybee 1985; Bybee and Dahl 1989; Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991; Heine et al. 1993; and Heine and Kuteva 2002) has not been without its critics. One particular area of study, so far for the most part unchallenged, is Fi­scher’s (1994, 1997, 2007) treatment of the grammaticalising periphrastic modal of obligation, have to, in English. She provides a syntactically-led grammaticalisation account in which it is believed that the present-day, developing modal form had links with an earlier, Middle English expression in which the transitive object of the infinitive was located in pre-infinitival position, shared by both the infinitive and have. The syntactically-determined explanation for the grammaticalisation of this modal expression also takes account of the fact that many of the visible grammaticalisation effects are demonstrated to have taken place following the general shift in word order during the Middle English period, from an SOV to an SVO order. In the present study, the alternative viewpoint (first proposed by Brinton 1991) in which the syntactic word order shift is seen to be most frequently associated with transitive objects that referred to entities incapable of acting as possessors is expanded to suggest a context-induced path of grammaticalisation (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991; Heine 2002). In addition, the shift of the object to post-infinitival position is seen to be unavoidably linked to the prior development of obligation senses in the older construction, so necessitating a semantically-motivated explanation of the grammaticalisation route for have to.

Two Candidate Approaches o Text Sequencing: An Addendum to “The Diachrony Debate: A Tutorial on Methods”

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean A. Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Computational Biology ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Diagnostic Tool ◽  
Reliable Method ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Quantitative Comparison ◽  
Curve Analysis ◽  
Single Feature ◽  
S Curve ◽  
Temporal Ordering

In a recent essay published in this journal, I illustrated the limitations one may encounter when sequencing texts temporally using s-curve analysis. I also introduced seriation, a more reliable method for temporal ordering much used in both archaeology and computational biology. Lacking independently ordered Biblical Hebrew (BH) data to assess the potential power of seriation in the context of diachronic studies, I used classic Middle English data originally compiled by Ellegård. In this addendum, I reintroduce and extend s-curve analysis, applying it to one rather noisy feature of Middle English. My results support Holmstedt’s assertion that s-curve analysis can be a useful diagnostic tool in diachronic studies. Upon quantitative comparison, however, the five-feature seriation results derived in my former paper are found to be seven times more accurate than the single-feature s-curve results presented here. 

INFLUENCE OF MIDDLE ENGLISH NORTHERN DIALECTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-45
Author(s):  
O. Hyryn
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
North Eastern

The article deals with the phonetic, grammatic and lexical features which penetrated into the London Dialect from the Middle English Northern and North-Eastern dialects and evenyually were fixed in the literary language. The article claims that the penetration of the Northern features took place as the result of the London dialect base shift which took place due to the extralinguistic reasons, namely by social and demographic reasons. The article describes both direct influence (lexical) and indirect (partially phonetic and partially grammatic). The article claims that systemic changes in English, such as reduction of unstressed syllables and concequent simplification of grammatical paradigms were greatly fascilitated by the influence of Northern dialects on the London dialect in Late Middle English period

Janet Cowen (ed. and trans.), On Famous Women. The Middle English Translation of Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris. Edited from London, British Library, MS Additional 10304. Middle English Texts, 52. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2015, 131 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 459-461
Author(s):  
Garry W. Trompf
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
British Library ◽  
De Mulieribus Claris

G. Matteo Roccati (ed. and trans.), Moralité de Fortune, Maleur, Eur, Povreté, Franc Arbitre et Destinee [sic]. Biblioteca di Studi Francesi [6], Toronto: Rosenberg & Sellier, 2018, 240 pp.

Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts: Essays in Honour of Ralph Hanna. Ed. Simon Horobin and Aditi Nafde. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, xxiv, 262 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 272-272
Author(s):  
Andrew Breeze
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Literary Export

Ralph Hanna is, like Henry James and T. S. Eliot, a successful American literary export. Born in Los Angeles in 1942, he rose to be Oxford’s Professor of Palaeography. His phenomenal industry as editor and critic is now saluted by fellow-medievalists in a volume as distinguished as its honorand. Its contents are as follows.

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