Examines whether the evolution of the English stress system involves a change or a set of related changes that may be described as "exaptation." Three specific features of the English stress system are examined. (Author/VWL)

The difference between frogs and toads can be determined scientifically but is based in the historic use of the terms frog and toad. These are Old English words for the common frog, "Rana temporaria," and the common toad, "Bufo bufo," both inhabitants of the British Isles. In the process of describing a new anuran species,…

This study examined the referential properties of a class of complex pronouns labelled M-Pronouns, exemplified by Old English "himself," French "lui-meme," and English "his own." It is shown that M-Pronouns exhibit some properties commonly taken as characterizing reflexive anaphors, and that they also occur as…

Examines the proposal of a simultaneous lengthening and lowering rule for Middle English short high vowels that undergo open syllable lengthening. Argues there are obstacles to reconstructing [I] [u] for Old English. (Author/VWL)

Looks at two languages, one well known and the other less so, that have undergone changes in word order. Data for the two languages in question--English and Irish--are compared. Parallels in the internal mechanisms suggested for the attested word order changes in both Old English and Old Irish are examined critically. (Author/VWL)

Tracing the effects of the "laissez-faire" postcolonial politics of language in the United States, which in fact enabled English to become the dominant language through cultural rather than institutional means, the essay then suggests how the linguistic memory that emerges from decolonization and nation building continues, often in…

Examines the effects of morphological case on the position of objects in Old English in terms of both formal syntactic accounts and functional explanations. Quantitative analysis of Old English clauses with non-finite main verbs and noun phrase objects demonstrates that overt case-marking, whether ambiguous or unambiguous, has no effect on the…

Intended for college teachers and students of Anglo-Saxon literature, this paper provides an overview of the poetic devices available to poets of the fourteenth century. The paper examines how the "Pearl" poet made use of numerical symbolism and the principles of formal logic as structural devices, giving examples of these devices from…

Seventeen reprinted essays and an unpublished one are contained in this collection and organized under five headings: History of Ideas, Approaches to Medieval Literature, Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century English Literature, Language and Linguistics, and Essay-Reviews. Topics discussed include the origin of the concept of the Seven Cardinal Sins;…

An alternative scansion of Old English alliterative poetry is proposed. The approach uses a binary branching template and focuses on the importance of secondary stress and unstressed syllables. Examples are drawn from the poem "Beowulf." It is argued that the alternative scansion has two advantages over both traditional and more recent…

An analysis of stress patterns in Old English, from the perspective of a framework based on lexicalist metrical phonology, indicates that there was a central Old English stress rule that operated from left-to-right, in contrast to to the central rule for present day English. (46 references) (Author/CB)

Presents theoretical discussion of the emergence of linguistic features of documents that indicate society is moving toward a view of writing as a form of constitutive social action and of written documents as autonomous material objects having a life of their own. Linguistic features of Anglo-Saxon wills are shown to differ from those of modern…

Develops a model of language change characterizing the dynamic interaction between internal universal grammar and external linguistic evidence, as mediated by language acquisition. Borrows insights from the study of biological evolution, where internal and external forces interact in similar fashion. Applies the model to explore the loss of the…