Genitives in Early English: Typology and EvidenceThis book examines the evidence for the development of adnominal genitives (the knight's sword, the nun's priest's tale, etc.) in English. During the Middle English period the genitive inflection -es developed into the more clitic-like 's, but how, when, why, and over how long a time are unclear, and have been subject to considerable research and discussion. Cynthia L. Allen draws together her own and others' findings in areas such as case marking, the nature of syntactic and morphological change, and the role of processing and pragmatics in the construction of grammars and grammatical change. Using evidence derived from a systematic examination of a wide range of texts, Dr Allen reviews the evidence for the nature of the possessive inflection in earlier stages of English and the relationship of the -es possessive to the 'his genitive. In doing so she shows that Middle English texts are more reliable witnesses to the grammar of Middle English than has sometimes been assumed. The texts may have been conservative, but their language, the author argues, is reasonable reflection of the spoken language, and where the written evidence runs counter to typological generalization about syntactic change it may be the latter, not the former, which is in need of qualification. While the book focuses on Middle English it also contains discussions of linguistic change before and since, and draws on comparative evidence from other languages, particularly Germanic languages such as Swedish and Dutch. This ground-breaking book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Middle English in particular and the history of English in general. |
Contents
1 Genitive case and the typology of case marking | 1 |
Overview | 37 |
3 Genitive case in Old English | 60 |
4 Genitive case in Middle English | 121 |
5 The possessor doubling constructions in the Germanic languages | 186 |
6 The separated genitive in English | 223 |
7 Determiners and possessives | 274 |
8 Conclusions | 306 |
Primary texts and electronic corpora used | 319 |
| 325 | |
| 345 | |
Other editions - View all
Genitives in Early English : Typology and Evidence: Typology and Evidence Cynthia L. Allen No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
accusative adjective Afrikaans agreeing agreement analysis appear appositives assume attached genitive century Chapter clitic co-occurrence complements corpus dative definite article deflexion demonstrative determiner dialects disappearance discussed in section distinction Dutch earlier EME texts EModE English evidence examples explained fact feminine frequently function gender genitive form genitive inflection genitive objects Germanic languages glosses grammar group genitives head Latin lexical linguists linker linker pronoun loss Low Saxon manuscript marking masculine Middle English modifiers morphological nominal NomP Norde noun objective genitives OE texts Old Norse Ormulum particular partitive genitives PCEEC period phrasal plural poss construction poss det construction possessive form possessive marker possessive pronoun possessor doubling construction possessor phrase possessum possible postnominal genitives PPCME2 prenominal position preposition reanalysis refer restricted Saxon genitive scribe semantic separated genitive similar sort speakers structure Strunk suffix suggests Swedish syntactic syntax treated types typological variation verbs West Flemish YCOE þæs