Long-Vowel Shifts in English, c. 1050-1700

Long-Vowel Shifts in English, c. 1050-1700

Author: Gjertrud Flermoen Stenbrenden

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-03-11

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 110705575X

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This thorough analysis of documented Middle English spelling establishes when and where long-vowel change took place.


Long-Vowel Shifts in English, c.1050–1700

Long-Vowel Shifts in English, c.1050–1700

Author: Gjertrud Flermoen Stenbrenden

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-03-11

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1316495337

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The English language has undergone many sound changes in its long history. Some of these changes had a profound effect on the pronunciation of the language. A number of these significant instances of language evolution are generally grouped together and termed the 'Great Vowel Shift'. These changes are generally considered to be unrelated to other, similar long-vowel changes taking place a little earlier. This book assesses an extensive range of irregular Middle English spellings for all these changes, with a view to identifying the real course of events: the dates, the chronology, and the dialects that stand out as being innovative. Using empirical evidence to offer a fresh perspective and drawing new, convincing conclusions, Stenbrenden offers an interpretation of the history of the English language which may change our view of sound change completely.


Early Modern English

Early Modern English

Author: Alexander Bergs

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-10-23

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 3110525062

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This volume provides a comprehensive account of Early Modern English, organized by linguistic level. The volume not only presents detailed outlines of the traditional language levels, it also explores key questions and debates, such as do-periphrasis, the Great Vowel Shift, pronouns and relativization, literary language (including the language of Shakespeare), and sociolinguistics, including contact and standardization.


A history of English

A history of English

Author: Míša Hejná

Publisher: Language Science Press

Published: 2022-06-25

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 3961103461

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Where does today’s English language come from? This book takes its readers on a journey back in time, from present-day varieties to the Old English of Beowulf and beyond. Written for students with little or no background in linguistics, and reflecting the latest scholarship, it showcases the variation and change present throughout the history of English, and includes numerous exercises and sample texts for every period. The reverse-chronological approach taken by this book sets it apart from all existing textbooks of the last fifty years. Innovative features also include its focus on variation, multilingualism and language contact, its use of texts from outside the literary canon, and its inclusion of case studies from syntax, sociophonetics and historical pragmatics.


A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century

A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century

Author: Mark Faulkner

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-07-28

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1009033093

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A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century offers a new narrative of what happened to English language writing in the long twelfth century, the period that saw the end of the Old English tradition and the beginning of Middle English writing. It discusses numerous neglected or unknown texts, focusing particularly on documents, chronicles and sermons. To tell the story of this pivotal period, it adopts approaches from both literary criticism and historical linguistics, finding a synthesis for them in a twenty-first century philology. It develops new methodologies for addressing major questions about twelfth-century texts, including when they were written, how they were read and their relationship to earlier works. Essential reading for anyone interested in what happened to English after the Norman Conquest, this study lays the groundwork for the coming decade's work on transitional English.


Consonantal Sound Change in American English

Consonantal Sound Change in American English

Author: Wiebke H. Ahlers

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-07-31

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1009080431

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Research on sound change often focuses on vowels, yet consonantal sound change also offers fascinating insights into language development and variation. This pioneering book provides a detailed investigation of consonantal sound change in English, by analyzing a large corpus of specifically designed field recordings from Austin, Texas. It offers one of the most in-depth analyses of /str/-retraction to date, drawing comparisons with studies of change in the distinguishing phonetic features of other varieties of English, and with studies of /str/-retraction in other Germanic languages. It further deepens our understanding of sound change by including qualitative data to position the sound change in the social reality of Austin, showing that specific sound changes are universally driven by age, gender and ethnicity. The results provide a testing ground for models of sociolinguistic and sound change, and highlight the importance of the social fabric of language in modeling language change.


Syntactic Change in Late Modern English

Syntactic Change in Late Modern English

Author: Erik Smitterberg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-11-25

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1108637078

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Syntactic Change in Late Modern English presents a stability paradox to linguists; despite the many social changes that took place between 1700 and 1900, the language appeared to be structurally stable during this period. This book resolves this paradox by presenting a new, idiolect-centred perspective on language change, and shows how this framework is applicable to change in any language. It then demonstrates how an idiolect-centred framework can be reconciled with corpus-linguistic methodology through four original case studies. These concern colloquialization (the process by which oral features spread to writing) and densification (the process by which meaning is condensed into shorter linguistic units), two types of change that characterize Modern English. The case studies also shed light on the role of genre and gender in language change and contribute to the discussion of how to operationalize frequency in corpus linguistics. This study will be essential reading for researchers in historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics.


Standardising English Spelling

Standardising English Spelling

Author: Marco Condorelli

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-04-07

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1009098144

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With a particular focus on the Early Modern English period, this book explores the standardisation of English spelling.