Analyzing Syntax through Texts: Old, Middle, and Early Modern English

222 Pages·2018·53.07 MB·English

by  Elly van Gelderen

EDINBURGH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
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EDINBURGH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS N
Series Editors: Joseph Salmons and David Willis A
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ANALYZING SYNTAX
Edinburgh Historical Linguistics is a series of advanced textbooks, where individual G
volumes cover key subfields within Historical Linguistics in depth. The series provides Y
a comprehensive introduction to this broad and increasingly complex field. A
N THROUGH TEXTS
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ANALOGY AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGE
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P Old, Middle, and Early Modern English
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‘Fertig’s valuable and insightful book on analogy and morphological change
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is an extremely welcome contribution to the field.’ L
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Lyle Campbell, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
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This advanced textbook provides a thorough, critical examination of traditional
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approaches to analogical change and an in-depth introduction to important recent work L
in a variety of frameworks. Key topics include the relationship between covert reanalysis C
and overt innovation, the relative importance of acquisition, repetition, and speaker H
creativity in grammatical change, the status of several supposedly less important types A
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of change including folk etymology, blending, and back formation, and various aspects
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of the relationship between analogical change and sound change. It also takes a close E
look at the value of concepts such as ‘naturalness’ for explaining and predicting directions
of change.
Although the focus is on morphological change, the book also examines the role of
analogy in syntactic, semantic, and phonological change. Numerous examples are
provided from English and a wide variety of other languages, making this an absorbing
and illuminating read for advanced students in linguistics.
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David Fertigis Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University i
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at Buffalo (SUNY). He is the author of Morphological Change Up Close(2000). F
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Cover design: www.hayesdesign.co.uk
ELLY VAN GELDEREN
ISBN 978-0-7486-4621-0
Series Editors:
Joseph Salmons and David Willis
www.euppublishing.com
Analyzing Syntax through Texts
e
Edinburgh Historical Linguistics Series
Series Editors: Joseph Salmons and David Willis
The series provides a comprehensive introduction to this broad and increasingly
complex field. Aimed at advanced undergraduates in linguistics, as well as begin-
ning postgraduates who are looking for an entry point, volumes are discursive,
accessible and responsive to critical developments in the field.
Individual volumes show historical linguistics as a field anchored in two centu-
ries of research, with a rich empirical base and theoretical perspectives, and one
tied tightly to all areas of linguistics. Fundamentally, though, the series shows
how historical linguists approach language change. Every volume contains
pedagogical features such as recommendations for further reading, but the tone
of each volume is discursive, explanatory and critically engaged, rather than
‘activity-based’.
Series Editors
Joseph Salmons is Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of
Wisconsin
David Willis is Reader in Historical Linguistics at the University of Cambridge
Titles available in the series:
Analogy and Morphological Change
David Fertig
Analyzing Syntax through Texts: Old, Middle, and Early Modern English
Elly van Gelderen
Analyzing Syntax through Texts
Old, Middle, and Early Modern English
e
Elly van Gelderen
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in
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© Elly van Gelderen, 2018
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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The right of Elly van Gelderen to be identified as the author of this
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2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
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List of Figures and Tables viii
Series Editors’ Preface xi
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xv
List of Abbreviations xviii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The History of English in a Nutshell 2
1.2 Functions and Case 4
1.3 Verbal Inflection and Clause Structure 6
1.4 Change: How and Why 8
1.5 Sources and Resources 11
1.6 Conclusion 12
2 The Syntax of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English 14
2.1 Major Changes in the Syntax of English 14
2.2 Word Order 17
2.2.1 The subject and the verb 18
2.2.2 The position of other elements 19
2.2.3 After Old English 20
2.3 Case on Nouns and Pronouns and Agreement and Tense/
Aspect/Mood on the Verb 21
2.3.1 Nouns 21
2.3.2 Verbs 23
2.4 Demonstratives, Pronouns, and Articles 28
2.4.1 Pronominals in Old and Middle English 28
2.4.2 Some paradigms and change 30
2.5 Clause Boundaries: Punctuation, Word Order, and
Conjunctions 32
2.6 Dialectal Variation in the Time Period 37
2.7 Conclusion 42
vi Analyzing Syntax through Texts
3 Old English before 1100 45
3.1 The Script 45
3.2 Historical Prose Narrative: Orosius 47
3.2.1 The text 47
3.2.2 Analysis 47
3.2.3 Stage of the language and dialect 55
3.3 Sermon: Wulfstan on the Antichrist 56
3.3.1 The text 56
3.3.2 Analysis 56
3.3.3 Stage of the language 64
3.4 The Old English Gospels 65
3.4.1 The texts 65
3.4.2 Analysis 69
3.4.3 Broader view and dialectal differences 79
3.5 Poetry from the Exeter Book 80
3.5.1 The texts 80
3.5.2 Analysis 82
3.5.3 Status and dialect 92
3.6 Conclusion 93
4 Early Middle English 1100–1300 96
4.1 The Peterborough Chronicle 97
4.1.1 The text 97
4.1.2 Analysis: from the beginning to the end of the
Peterborough Chronicle 100
4.1.3 Status and dialect 106
4.2 Seinte Katerine 107
4.2.1 The texts 107
4.2.2 Analysis 107
4.2.3 Status and dialect 112
4.3 The Owl and the Nightingale 113
4.3.1 The text 113
4.3.2 Analysis 113
4.3.3 Status and dialect 118
4.4 The Lion 119
4.4.1 The text 119
4.4.2 Analysis 119
4.4.3 Status and dialect 124
4.5 Richard Rolle’s Psalter Preface 125
4.5.1 The text 125
4.5.2 Analysis 126
4.5.3 Status and dialect 132
4.6 Conclusion 133
5 Late Middle and Early Modern English 1300–1600 141
5.1 Cleanness 142
5.1.1 The text 142
Contents vii
5.1.2 Analysis 142
5.1.3 Status and dialect 147
5.2 Chaucer’s Astrolabe 148
5.2.1 The text 148
5.2.2 Analysis 151
5.2.3 Status and dialect 153
5.3 Margery of Kempe 154
5.3.1 The text 154
5.3.2 Analysis 155
5.3.3 Status and dialect 159
5.4 Caxton’s Morte d’Arthur 159
5.4.1 The text 160
5.4.2 Analysis 161
5.4.3 Status and dialect 165
5.5 Henry Machyn and Queen Elizabeth 166
5.5.1 The texts 166
5.5.2 Analysis, status, and dialect 169
5.6 Conclusion 171
Appendix I Summary of All Grammatical Information 175
I.1 Syntax in General; Dialect 175
I.2 Nominal, Adjectival, and Pronominal Inflections 176
I.3 Verbal Inflections 178
Appendix II Background on the Old English Texts That Are
Discussed, Alphabetically 180
II.1 Old English 180
II.2 Early Middle English 181
II.3 Later Middle English and Early Modern 181
Appendix III Keys to the Exercises 183
Glossary 187
References 194
Index 199
Figures and Tables
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Figures
Figure 1.1 Changes in the analytic/synthetic nature of English 3
Figure 1.2 Universal Grammar and the acquisition of grammars 9
Figure 2.1 Caedmon’s Hymn, from the ‘Moore Bede’ 15
Figure 2.2 Periods/points in the beginning of Beowulf 33
Figure 2.3 The Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1066 34
Figure 2.4 The beginning of Layamon’s Caligula version of Brut 35
Figure 2.5 Hamlet’s Soliloquy by Shakespeare 36
Figure 2.6 Old English dialects 38
Figure 2.7 Middle English dialects 39
Figure 3.1 Insular and Carolingian script 46
Figure 3.2 Orosius, Tollemache MS 48
Figure 3.3 Wulfstan, first page 57
Figure 3.4 Wulfstan, second page 58
Figure 3.5 Wulfstan, third page 59
Figure 3.6 From the beginning of the Lindisfarne Matthew, leaf 30r 66
Figure 3.7 Rushworth Glosses 67
Figure 3.8 West Saxon Gospels 68
Figure 3.9 The Wife’s Lament from the Exeter Book, f. 115r and v 81
Figure 3.10 The Wife’s Lament and a transcription 82
Figure 3.11 The first lines of The Wanderer from the Exeter Book, f. 76v 84
Figure 3.12 The Wanderer and a transcription 84
Figure 3.13 The Pastoral Care 94
Figure 4.1 The Gothic script 96
Figure 4.2 The Introduction to the Peterborough Chronicle, Laud
Misc. 636, f. 1r 98
Figure 4.3 Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1130, Laud Misc.
636, f. 87v 99
Figure 4.4 Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1137, Laud Misc.
636, f. 89r 100
Figure 4.5 Seinte Katerine, Bodley 34, f. 3v and f. 4r 108
Figures and Tables ix
Figure 4.6 Seinte Katerine and transcription, Bodley 34, the last part
of f. 3v and first part of f. 4r 108
Figure 4.7 The Owl and the Nightingale, Cotton Caligula A IX, f. 233 114
Figure 4.8 The Lion in The Physiologus or Bestiary 120
Figure 4.9 Richard Rolle’s Psalter, HM 148, f. 23 126
Figure 4.10 Last entry in the Parker Chronicle for the year 1070, f.
31v and f. 32r 134
Figure 4.11 The Owl and the Nightingale, MS 29, f. 156r 136
Figure 4.12 Havelok, Laud Misc. 108, f. 208r, lines 722–811 137
Figure 5.1 The secretary hand 141
Figure 5.2 The italic hand 141
Figure 5.3 Cleanness 143
Figure 5.4 Chaucer’s Astrolabe, MS Eng 920, f. 5v 149
Figure 5.5 Chaucer’s Astrolabe, MS Eng 920, f. 6 150
Figure 5.6 The first page of The Book of Margery of Kempe 154
Figure 5.7 The first page of the first chapter of Malory’s
Morte d’Arthur 160
Figure 5.8 The second part of the first chapter of Malory’s Morte d’
Arthur 161
Figure 5.9 Machyn, 1 May 1559 166
Figure 5.10 Machyn, 1 May 1559 transcription and translation 166
Figure 5.11 Letter from Elizabeth to Queen Mary 167
Figure 5.12 Letter 13, seemingly written by Agnes Paston, 1440 171
Figure 5.13 Caxton’s rendering of Cicero’s De senectute 172
Tables
Table 1.1 Characteristics of analytic and synthetic languages 2
Table 1.2 Cases and their main functions 6
Table 1.3 Some instances of grammaticalization 10
Table 2.1 Changes in the syntax and morphology of English 17
Table 2.2 Word order in Old English 20
Table 2.3 Some Old English (strong) noun endings 22
Table 2.4 An Old English strong verb 24
Table 2.5 An Old English weak verb 24
Table 2.6 The Old English forms of the verb beon ‘to be’ 26
Table 2.7 Late Middle English verbal inflection 26
Table 2.8 The modal paradigm for sculan ‘be obliged to’ 28
Table 2.9 Old English personal pronouns 31
Table 2.10 Late Middle English pronouns 31
Table 2.11 Demonstratives in Old English 32
Table 2.12 The Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1066 34
Table 2.13 Middle English dialect characteristics 40
Table 3.1 Orosius transcription 49
Table 3.2 A fragment from Orosius in Old English, word-by-word
in Modern English, and in a translation 50