Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, 2014 vol. 49.3
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Middle English preposition "twēn(e)"(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2014) Ciszek-Kiliszewska, EwaThe present paper focuses on the Middle English preposition twēn(e) ‘between, among, in between’. The aim of the study is to review the acknowledged etymology of twēn(e) as well as to provide its semantics, dialect distribution, complete textual distribution (record of texts employing twēn(e)), and absolute token frequency. Moreover, all texts including the preposition twēn(e) are subject to an analysis of the whole variety of prepositions meaning ‘between’ and their token frequency in order to establish the proportions of the use of twēn(e) and other discussed prepositions, especially the better established preposition betwēn(e) in texts employing twēn(e). The study is based on such extensive electronic databases as the Middle English Dictionary online, the Oxford English Dictionary online and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse as well as on a number of complete Middle English texts. The study of the corpus demonstrates the presence of twēn(e) and other prepositions meaning ‘between’ also in texts not listed by the Middle English Dictionary online or the Oxford English Dictionary online under appropriate entries, and thus helps to provide a more complete record of texts and authors utilizing twēn(e) and the extent of use of twēn(e) as compared to other prepositions meaning ‘between’. Moreover, the study demonstrates that also the other discussed prepositions are often not recorded in particular texts by the MED online or the OED online. In more general terms, the paper points out the need for the use of complete texts for the study of historical prepositions.Item The dialectal provenance of London, Wellcome Library, MS 5262(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2014) Esteban-Segura, LauraThis paper takes into consideration the language found in London, Wellcome Library, MS 5262, a one-volume codex from the early fifteenth century which holds a medical recipe collection. The manuscript, written in Middle English (and with a few fragments in Latin), represents a fine exemplar of a remedybook, a type of writing that has been traditionally considered to be popular. The main aim is to study the dialect of the text contained in folios 3v-61v in order to localise it geographically. The methodology followed for the purpose is grounded on the model supplied by the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME) (McIntosh et al. 1986), which consists of several stages including the completion of a survey questionnaire, the creation of the linguistic profile of the text and the application of the ‘fit’-technique (McIntosh et al. 1986, vol. 1: 10-12; Benskin 1991). Extralinguistic features of the manuscript may also be taken into consideration. This comprehensive analysis will help us to circumscribe the dialectal provenance and/or local origin of the text accurately.Item On the auxiliary status of "dare" in Old English(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2014) Tomaszewska, MagdalenaOE *durran ‘dare’ belongs to a group of the so-called preterite-present verbs which developed weak past tense forms replacing the originally strong forms throughout the paradigm. The present study hypothesizes that the potential sources of this development are related to the decay of the subjunctive mood in Old English. Further, this corpus-based study analyses the status of DARE in Old English, with the findings showing that the verb displayed both lexical and auxiliary verb characteristics. These results are juxtaposed and compared with the verb's developments in Middle English. The databases examined are the corpus of The Dictionary of Old English in Electronic Form (A-G) and the Innsbruck Computer Archive of Machine-Readable English Texts. In both cases, a search of potential forms was performed on all the files of the corpora, the raw results were then analysed in order to eliminate irrelevant instances (adjectives, nouns, foreign words, etc.). The relevant forms were examined with the aim to check the properties of DARE as a lexical and an auxiliary verb, and compare the findings with Molencki’s (2002, 2005) observations.Item Participial perception verb complements in Old English(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2014) Lowrey, BrianIn this paper, I shall examine the complements of perception verbs in Old English involving a noun phrase and a present participle. What kind of perception is described by these structures? Do they evoke the perception of an event, or that of an entity? It will be shown here that there are good reasons to believe that an NP + present participle sequence could function as the equivalent of the traditional “AcI” construction when used with perception verbs. I shall also attempt to determine to what extent the syntax of this construction matches the semantics: is the internal argument of the perception verb the NP alone, or some kind of combination of the NP and the participle? This question is particularly interesting in the light of Declerck’s (1982) remarks on participle perception verb complements in modern English. Finally, I shall take a look at morphological parametres: sometimes the participle inflects to agree with the NP, whereas on other occasions it does not. What might the implications of this kind of variation be?Item The rise of standard I (< ME ich): A contribution to the study of functional change in English(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2014) Wełna, JerzyIn its post-Norman Conquest development the Old English first person personal pronoun ic underwent transformations which, following the loss of the consonant, finally yielded the contemporary capitalised form I, contrasting with other Germanic languages, which retain a velar sound in the corresponding pronoun. The rather complex change of ich to I involves a loss of the final velar/palatal consonant, lengthening of the original short vowel, and capitalisation of the pronoun. It is argued here that the use of the capital letter was a consequence of vowel lengthening subsequent to the loss of the consonant. This seems to be confirmed by the observation that forms retaining a consonant are extremely rarely capitalised. The data adduced in the present paper will help verify as precisely as possible the distribution of the forms of that pronoun in Middle English dialects in order to determine to what extent the changes were functionally interdependent. The evidence comes from the Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English Prose.Item Courtesy and politeness in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2014) Jucker, Andreas H.A close reading of three selected passages of the Middle English alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provides a detailed picture of fictional and fairy-tale manifestations of courtly and polite behaviour in Middle English, a period that imported many new terms of courtesy and politeness from French. In the three passages Sir Gawain is visited in his bedchamber by the lady of the house, who tries to seduce him and thus puts him in a severe dilemma of having to be courteous to the lady and at the same time loyal to his host and to the code of chivalry. The analysis shows how Sir Gawain and the lady of the house engage in a discursive struggle of the true implications of courteous behaviour. It also shows how the two characters use nominal and pronominal terms of address to negotiate their respective positions of power, dominance and submission towards each other. And, finally, an analysis of requests reveals how the lady carefully selects appropriate strategies to reflect the severity of the imposition of her requests and her momentary standing in their discursive struggle.