Modal Auxiliaries from Late Old to Early Middle English


Book Description

Why do Modern English modal auxiliaries ought to, should, and must, meaning OBLIGATION, occur in the present tense, yet their forms are in the preterite? Why does to accompany ought? One of the solutions to these questions is to look at the history of the English language. This monograph deals with the history of ought to, should, and must, which are of different syntactic and semantic origins: ought to stems from a main verb of Old English āgan ‘to have’ (POSSESSION) along with to; should derives from sculan ‘must’ with its ‘deviation’ to shall, and mōtan originates in ‘to be allowed to’ (PERMISSION). The work concentrates on the transition from Old English (700-1100) to Middle English (1100-1500), which is a crucial period in the history of the English language. Topics addressed include the linguistic review of modality, the philological reading of primary texts, and the occasional reference to the other Germanic languages.




Early English Modals


Book Description




Focus on the USA


Book Description

This volume presents 15 original research papers by renowned specialists in their respective fields. A variety of research traditions are included, such as dialect geography and sociolinguistics, but also smaller sub-fields such as the study of slang and perceptual dialectology. Varieties studied include the South, the Eastern Seaboard, the Middle West, African American English, Cuban English, and others. A growing sense of unity in the discipline is reflected by recurring topics and methods across earlier boundaries between sub-disciplines. For instance, computerized data and statistical analyses are standard tools nowadays, and a few papers explicitly address the possibilities and limitations of these methods. The study of variation and change of linguistic varieties has largely replaced earlier, monolithic notions of dialect, and the question of change in dialects, the erosion of traditional speech forms under the impact of modern communication patterns and socio-economic developments, is investigated in several contributions. In general, a recent orientation towards the history and development of nonstandard varieties is reflected in the book several papers study diffusion patterns of linguistic forms, or discuss the emergence of individual dialects or dialectal forms in a language contact framework. Altogether, the papers provide a lively illustration of and a fairly representative selection from ongoing high-quality linguistic research into American English.




The Cambridge History of the English Language


Book Description

Volume II of The Cambridge History of the English Language covers the Middle English Period, describing and analyzing developments in the languge from the Norman Conquest to the introduction of printing.




Comparative-historical Linguistics


Book Description

This volume offers an important contribution to the comparative historical study of languages. Most of the articles deal with topics concerning the Indo-European proto-language as well as the individual languages descended from it. Essays in Finno-Ugric philology complete the volume. The book is divided in 8 sections: I. Indo-European, II. Anatolian, III. Indic, IV. Iranian and Armenian, V. Celtic, VI. Germanic Languages, VII. Slavic and Albanian, VIII. Fennougrica and Altaica.




The English Language


Book Description

The English Language: A Historical Introduction covers the history of the English language from its prehistoric Indo-European origins to the present day. Assuming no previous knowledge of the subject, Charles Barber describes the nature of language and language change, and presents a history of the English language at different periods, dealing with key topics such as grammar, pronunciation and semantics. Where necessary, he introduces and explains the main theoretical and technical concepts of historical linguistics. There are also chapters on English in the scientific age, English as a world language and the future of the language. Charles Barber uses dozens of familiar texts, including the English of King Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Addison, to illustrate the state of the English language through time in a range of contexts. This is a fascinating book for anyone with an interest in language.




The Changing Face of Corpus Linguistics


Book Description

Preliminary Material /Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe -- The corpus-user's chorus: (Based on The Major General's Song from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance) /Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe -- Introduction: The changing face of corpus linguistics /Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe -- Oh Canada! Towards the Corpus of Early Ontario English /Stefan Dollinger -- Favoring Americanisms? vs. before and in Early English in Australia: A corpus-based approach /Clemens Fritz -- Computing the Lexicons of Early Modern English /Ian Lancashire -- EFL dictionaries, grammars and language guides from 1700 to 1850: testing a new corpus on points of spokenness /Manfred Markus -- The Old English Apollonius of Tyre in the light of the Old English Concordancer /Antonio Miranda García , Javier Calle Martín , David Moreno Olalla and Gustavo Muñoz González -- Prediction with SHALL and WILL: a diachronic perspective /Maurizio Gotti -- Circumstantial adverbials in discourse: a synchronic and a diachronic perspective /Anneli Meurman-Solin and Päivi Pahta -- Changes in textual structures of book advertisements in the ZEN Corpus /Caren auf dem Keller -- “Curtains like these are selling right in the city of Chicago for USD 1.50” - The mediopassive in American 20th-century advertising language /Marianne Hundt -- Recent grammatical change in written English 1961-1992: some preliminary findings of a comparison of American with British English /Geoffrey Leech and Nicholas Smith -- Social variation in the use of apology formulae in the British National Corpus /Mats Deutschmann -- How recent is recent? On overcoming interpretational difficulties /Göran Kjellmer -- Looking at looking: Functions and contexts of progressives in spoken English and 'school' English /Ute Römer -- Ditransitives, the Given Before New principle, and textual retrievability: a corpus-based study using ICECUP /Gabriel Ozón -- The Spanish pragmatic marker pues and its English equivalents /Anna-Brita Stenström -- WebCorp: A tool for online linguistic information retrieval and analysis /Barry Morley -- Diachronic linguistic analysis on the web with WebCorp /Andrew Kehoe -- New ways of analysing ESL on the WWW with WebCorp and WebPhraseCount /Josef Schmied -- I'm like, “Hey, it works!”: Using GlossaNet to find attestations of the quotative (be) like in English-language newspapers /Cédrick Fairon and John V. Singler -- Corpus linguistics and English reference grammars /Joybrato Mukherjee -- Tracking ongoing grammatical change and recent diversification in present-day standard English: the complementary role of small and large corpora /Christian Mair -- but it will take time...points of view on a lexical grammar of English /Michaela Mahlberg -- Corpus linguistics, grammar and theory: Report on a panel discussion at the 24th ICAME conference /Jan Aarts.




The Linguistic Cycle


Book Description

Elly van Gelderen examines the linguistic cycle and describes how it offers a unique perspective on the language faculty.




The Germanic Languages


Book Description

Provides a unique, up-to-date survey of twelve Germanic languages from English and German to Faroese and Yiddish.




Advances in English Historical Linguistics


Book Description

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.




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