Infinitival Complementation in Old and Middle English

Infinitival Complementation in Old and Middle English PDF Author: Bettelou Los
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Infinitival Complementation in Old and Middle English

Infinitival Complementation in Old and Middle English PDF Author: Bettelou Los
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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The Rise of the To-Infinitive

The Rise of the To-Infinitive PDF Author: Bettelou Los
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199274762
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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This book describes the historical emergence and spread of the to-infinitive in English. It shows that to + infinitive emerged from a reanalysis of the preposition to plus a deverbal nominalization, which spread first to purpose clauses, then to other nonfinite environments. The book challenges the traditional reasoning that infinitives must have been nouns in Old English because they inflected for dative case and can follow prepositions. Dr Los shows that as earlyas Old English the to-infinitive was established in most of the environments in which it is found today. She argues that its spread was largely due to competition with subjunctive that-clauses, which it gradually replaced.Later chapters consider Middle English developments. The author provides a measured evaluation of the evidence that to undergoes a period of degrammaticalization. She concludes that the extent to which to gains syntactic freedom in Middle English is due to the fact that speakers began to equate it with the modal verbs and therefore to treat it syntactically as a modal verb.The exposition is clear and does not assume an up-to-date knowledge of generative theory. The book will appeal to the wide spectrum of scholars interested in the transformation of Old to Middle English as well as those studying the processes and causes of syntactic change more generally.

English Historical Syntax and Morphology

English Historical Syntax and Morphology PDF Author: Teresa Fanego
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027247315
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This volume offers a selection of papers from the Eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics held at the University of Santiago de Compostela. From the rich programme (over 130 papers were given during the conference), the present twelve papers were carefully selected to reflect the state of current research in the fields of English historical syntax and morphology. Some of the issues discussed are the emergence of viewpoint adverbials in English and German, changes in noun phrase structure from 1650 to the present, the development of the progressive in Scots, the passivization of composite predicates, the loss of V2 and its effects on the information structure of English, the acquisition of modal syntax and semantics by the English verb WANT, or the use of temporal adverbs as attributive adjectives in the Early Modern period. Many of the articles tackle questions of change through the use of methodological tools like computerized corpora. The theoretical frameworks adopted include, among others, grammaticalization theory, Dik's model of functional grammar, construction grammar and Government & Binding Theory.

The syntax of early English

The syntax of early English PDF Author: Olga Fischer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521556262
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This book is a guide to the development of English syntax between the Old and Modern periods. Beginning with an overview of the main features of early English syntax, it gives a unified account of the significant grammatical changes that occurred during this period. Four leading experts demonstrate how these changes can be explained in terms of grammatical theory and the theory of language acquisition. Drawing on a wealth of empirical data, the book covers a wide range of topics including changes in word order, infinitival constructions and grammaticalization processes.

Connectives in the History of English

Connectives in the History of English PDF Author: Ursula Lenker
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027292345
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Clausal connection is one of the key building blocks of language and thus a field where a wide range of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive phenomena meet. The availability of large databases as well as considerable advances in corpus-linguistic methods have strengthened the interest in the history of features linking clauses or larger chunks of text. The papers in this volume combine a thorough corpus-based analysis of the history of individual connectives, their co-occurrence patterns, and patterns of variation and change from both intra- and inter-systemic perspectives with a variety of methodological tools, ranging from sophisticated methods of grammatical analysis to pragmatics, text linguistics and discourse analysis. Drawing on quantitatively and qualitatively improved data, the studies reconstruct the history of a wide range of connectives in English from various new theoretical perspectives.

The Development of Old English

The Development of Old English PDF Author: Don Ringe
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191019429
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 629

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Book Description
This book, the second volume in A Linguistic History of English, describes the development of Old English from Proto-Germanic. Like Volume I, it is an internal history of the structure of English that combines traditional historical linguistics, modern syntactic theory, the study of languages in contact, and the variationist approach to language change. The first part of the book considers the development of Northwest and West Germanic, and the northern dialects of the latter, with particular reference to phonological and morphological phenomena. Later chapters present a detailed account of changes in the Old English sound system, inflectional system, and syntax. The book aims to make the findings of traditional historical linguistics accessible to scholars and students in other subdisciplines, and also to adopt approaches from contemporary theoretical linguistics in such a way that they are accessible to a wide range of historical linguists.

The Verb Phrase in English

The Verb Phrase in English PDF Author: Bas Aarts
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107016355
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
This volume features new and groundbreaking research on recent changes in the English verb phrase.

Aspects of the History of English Language and Literature

Aspects of the History of English Language and Literature PDF Author: Osamu Imahayashi
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783631609668
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
"The first international conference was held at Chiba University in 1-3 September 2005, the second one at Nagoya University in 7-9 September 2007, and the third one at Hiroshima University in 28-30 August 2009"--P. [v].

Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax

Developments in English Historical Morpho-Syntax PDF Author: Claudia Claridge
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027262470
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Spanning the time from Old English to modern American English, this volume provides fresh perspectives on core issues and theories in the morphosyntactic history of English nominal, verbal and adverbial constructions. The contributions discuss the loss, rise and restructuring of morphonological marking, periphrastic verbal constructions, auxiliary variation and evolution, as well as changing word order options. Favouring corpus-linguistic, frequency-based and statistical approaches, the studies are firmly empirically grounded. The book is aimed at scholars interested in the history of the English language and in language variation and change.

The North Germanic Morphosyntax of Modern English

The North Germanic Morphosyntax of Modern English PDF Author: Joseph Emonds
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031641671
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description