Chaucer's Language

234 Pages·2012·2.038 MB·

by  Simon Horobin

Chaucer’s Language
Simon Horobin
2nd edition
Chaucer’sLanguage
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Chaucer’s Language
2nd edition
Simon Horobin
UniversityofOxford,UK
©SimonHorobin2013
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Contents
ListofTables ix
Abbreviations x
Preface xi
1 WhystudyChaucer’slanguage? 1
2 WritinginEnglish 13
Furtherreading 26
3 WhatwasMiddleEnglish? 28
MiddleEnglishdialects 28
Standardization 35
CharacteristicsofMiddleEnglish 41
Chaucer’sdialect 44
Evidence 47
Furtherreading 50
4 Spellingandpronunciation 52
Spellingevidence 52
Rhymingevidence 54
Comparativeevidence 55
Chaucer’ssoundsystem 56
Variation 62
Furtherreading 67
5 Vocabulary 69
Chaucer’slexicon 73
Furtherreading 95
6 Grammar 96
Determiners 96
Nouns 98
Pronouns 101
Adjectives 107
Verbs 109
vii
viii Contents
Negation 121
Adverbs 123
Relativepronouns 124
Sentencestructure 125
Furtherreading 127
7 Languageandstyle 128
Chaucer’sprosestyle 144
Furtherreading 151
8 Discourseandpragmatics 152
Formsofaddress 152
Politeness 156
Swearing 161
Discoursemarkers 167
Stylesofspeech 170
Furtherreading 179
9 UsingtheMiddleEnglishDictionary 180
Conclusion 185
Appendix:sampletexts 189
FromtheMiller’sTale 189
FromtheWifeofBath’sPrologue 191
FromtheSecondNun’sTale 193
FromTroilusandCriseydeBook5 196
FromthePrologueoftheMonk’sTale 199
FromtheSquire’sTale 201
Glossaries 204
Glossaryoflinguisticterms 204
Glossaryofcommonwords 205
Glossaryof‘falsefriends’ 212
Bibliography 215
Index 220
Tables
4.1 ComparisonofMEandPDEvowels 59
6.1 Basicnoundeclension 99
6.2 Personalpronounparadigms 102
6.3 Weak/strongparadigms 107
6.4 Presenttenseforms 110
6.5 Preteriteforms 111
6.6 Theirregularverbbe 114
6.7 Subjunctiveverbforms 117
ix