Written Middle English is not phonetic transcript. The sound-pattern is not directly known, but has to be reconstructed – from, among other things, written forms interpreted in the light of the particular spelling systems to which they belong. Pronunciation is an object of discovery, not a premiss: assumptions about the way (or ways) in which a written form was pronounced, ought not to be built in to the collection of the primary evidence. It does not follow that phonetic considerations are ruled out for subsequent interpretation. (Benskin 1991: 226)
The goal of this essay is to emphasise the prominence within the writing communities of late fifteenth-century London of certain highly productive, professional users of language who were immigrants from East Anglia, particularly Essex and south Suffolk. The forms used by six scribes from this area will be studied. Their spelling systems were clearly current and acceptable types of written language within the metropolis, and an analysis of them provides further useful evidence for the study of the genesis, development, adoption, and dissemination of standard written English.
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate two things: first, the methodology employed for the study of Middle English lexical dialectal material; and second, the possibility of carrying out some practical applications related to the geographical distributions of lexical items. For the methodology, we focus on the importance of undertaking a cumulative analysis, based on the collection of as much data as possible and from as many sources as we may find for any item. It is essential for the analysis of the data to be aware of the textual histories of the manuscript sources as well. As a practical application of the results obtained from our analysis, we propose to explore the possibility of redefining the localisation of a manuscript by using the lexical material. Localisation according to lexical material might not always agree with localisation according to orthographic criteria, but even if the lexical choices can be conditioned by different factors, the global study of the lexical information together with the phono-graphological features might help to localise some texts more precisely.
The purpose of this article, which is part of an ongoing research project on the history of Northern English, is to give more detailed information about these varieties in the Middle English period, which may serve to modify the somewhat simplistic and general views found in most histories of the language. Traditional accounts of the Northern dialects usually consist of a list of features, such as thir and tha(s) as the plural of the demonstratives, -s as the inflexion for 3sg. present indicative and present indicative plural, ar, er as the forms for the present indicative plural of be, etc. However, the analysis of early and late Middle English texts and the linguistic profiles in LALME reveals a much more complex picture: more variants have been found than those which have been regarded as typically Northern, and in some cases their distribution seems to depend on the geographical area and the type of text.
This paper explores the possible origins of the Northern Subject Rule (NSR). In this morphosyntactic pattern, found in Northern Middle English, present-tense verbal inflection varies according to the type of subject (pronoun or noun) and (non-)adjacency of the subject to the verb. I argue that rather than languageinternal developments in the vein of Pietsch (2005), processes of language contact between early English and the Cumbrian variety of Brythonic Celtic are a likely source for the NSR. I develop a scenario for this change, based on the parallel Brythonic pattern of anti-agreement and early English differential subject positions. The Old English Lindisfarne Glosses and several Northern Middle English texts provide initial evidence in favour of this hypothesis.
This paper examines how different structures of social networks affect linguistic selection type of change or functionally biased change, and game type of change or socially biased change, based on simulation and historical data from English. We show that the weaker the functional or social bias, the greater the effects of different network structures on diffusion processes of change. We also show that the weaker the functional or social bias, the more probabilistic the learner becomes, and the stronger the functional or social bias, the more categorical the learner becomes. Furthermore, we discuss that there is little increase in diffusion time with the increase in population size in a small-world and scale-free networks.
The majority of scholarly opinion has long held that Celtic influence on English has been minimal on all levels of language. This is usually put down to the socially and politically inferior status of the Celts vis-à-vis their Anglo-Saxon conquerors, which then explains the small number of Celtic loanwords in English. In this article, I join the voice of those scholars who have challenged the prevailing view and called for a fresh examination of the ‘Celtic Hypothesis’. I argue, first, that the nature of the contact situation was such that linguistic influences from Celtic on English were inevitable. Secondly, the paucity of Celtic loanwords in English does not constitute evidence against contact effects at other levels of language but is the expected development. Thirdly, many features of English grammar have characteristics that cannot be satisfactorily explained as independent developments. Fourthly, the modern-era ‘Celtic Englishes’ provide yet another source of indirect evidence supporting the Celtic Hypothesis.
Although William Carleton’s literary dialect is regarded as reliably accurate, early in his career, Carleton practiced ‘dialect hygiene’. Carleton began this practice between the first two stories of Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry (1830). Scots-derived features of Ulster English and speech forms widespread in (non)standard varieties beyond Ireland were excised; forms shared by Ulster English and Southern Irish English were retained, and forms restricted geographically to Southern Irish English were retained or added. The result is a levelled peasant dialect that is intended to better reflect the speech of the majority of Irish people, which is arguably part of a strategy to make the language more national. Carleton’s practice reflects contemporary native-speaker attitudes to varieties of Irish English, which stigmatised Scottishness in speech. But dialect hygiene also served the political purposes of Carleton’s writing, for his primary objectives included the creation of an Irish national literature in English.
This contribution looks at typical changes of sounds and views these as sets of changes the members of which are linked. It also considers the directions of sound changes, considering these as natural pathways (in the case of lenition) or trajectories among vowel movements in which different vocalic elements stand in a spatial relationship to each other. As data the contribution examines a number of changes in English in the capital of Ireland, Dublin, which has undergone considerable change in the past fifteen years or so. The present-day data is seen in a panchronic context and parallels are drawn to attested historical changes which show both regularities and principled exceptions to these. The latter are a particular focus in the theoretical discussion.
Written Middle English is not phonetic transcript. The sound-pattern is not directly known, but has to be reconstructed – from, among other things, written forms interpreted in the light of the particular spelling systems to which they belong. Pronunciation is an object of discovery, not a premiss: assumptions about the way (or ways) in which a written form was pronounced, ought not to be built in to the collection of the primary evidence. It does not follow that phonetic considerations are ruled out for subsequent interpretation. (Benskin 1991: 226)
The goal of this essay is to emphasise the prominence within the writing communities of late fifteenth-century London of certain highly productive, professional users of language who were immigrants from East Anglia, particularly Essex and south Suffolk. The forms used by six scribes from this area will be studied. Their spelling systems were clearly current and acceptable types of written language within the metropolis, and an analysis of them provides further useful evidence for the study of the genesis, development, adoption, and dissemination of standard written English.
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate two things: first, the methodology employed for the study of Middle English lexical dialectal material; and second, the possibility of carrying out some practical applications related to the geographical distributions of lexical items. For the methodology, we focus on the importance of undertaking a cumulative analysis, based on the collection of as much data as possible and from as many sources as we may find for any item. It is essential for the analysis of the data to be aware of the textual histories of the manuscript sources as well. As a practical application of the results obtained from our analysis, we propose to explore the possibility of redefining the localisation of a manuscript by using the lexical material. Localisation according to lexical material might not always agree with localisation according to orthographic criteria, but even if the lexical choices can be conditioned by different factors, the global study of the lexical information together with the phono-graphological features might help to localise some texts more precisely.
The purpose of this article, which is part of an ongoing research project on the history of Northern English, is to give more detailed information about these varieties in the Middle English period, which may serve to modify the somewhat simplistic and general views found in most histories of the language. Traditional accounts of the Northern dialects usually consist of a list of features, such as thir and tha(s) as the plural of the demonstratives, -s as the inflexion for 3sg. present indicative and present indicative plural, ar, er as the forms for the present indicative plural of be, etc. However, the analysis of early and late Middle English texts and the linguistic profiles in LALME reveals a much more complex picture: more variants have been found than those which have been regarded as typically Northern, and in some cases their distribution seems to depend on the geographical area and the type of text.
This paper explores the possible origins of the Northern Subject Rule (NSR). In this morphosyntactic pattern, found in Northern Middle English, present-tense verbal inflection varies according to the type of subject (pronoun or noun) and (non-)adjacency of the subject to the verb. I argue that rather than languageinternal developments in the vein of Pietsch (2005), processes of language contact between early English and the Cumbrian variety of Brythonic Celtic are a likely source for the NSR. I develop a scenario for this change, based on the parallel Brythonic pattern of anti-agreement and early English differential subject positions. The Old English Lindisfarne Glosses and several Northern Middle English texts provide initial evidence in favour of this hypothesis.
This paper examines how different structures of social networks affect linguistic selection type of change or functionally biased change, and game type of change or socially biased change, based on simulation and historical data from English. We show that the weaker the functional or social bias, the greater the effects of different network structures on diffusion processes of change. We also show that the weaker the functional or social bias, the more probabilistic the learner becomes, and the stronger the functional or social bias, the more categorical the learner becomes. Furthermore, we discuss that there is little increase in diffusion time with the increase in population size in a small-world and scale-free networks.
The majority of scholarly opinion has long held that Celtic influence on English has been minimal on all levels of language. This is usually put down to the socially and politically inferior status of the Celts vis-à-vis their Anglo-Saxon conquerors, which then explains the small number of Celtic loanwords in English. In this article, I join the voice of those scholars who have challenged the prevailing view and called for a fresh examination of the ‘Celtic Hypothesis’. I argue, first, that the nature of the contact situation was such that linguistic influences from Celtic on English were inevitable. Secondly, the paucity of Celtic loanwords in English does not constitute evidence against contact effects at other levels of language but is the expected development. Thirdly, many features of English grammar have characteristics that cannot be satisfactorily explained as independent developments. Fourthly, the modern-era ‘Celtic Englishes’ provide yet another source of indirect evidence supporting the Celtic Hypothesis.
Although William Carleton’s literary dialect is regarded as reliably accurate, early in his career, Carleton practiced ‘dialect hygiene’. Carleton began this practice between the first two stories of Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry (1830). Scots-derived features of Ulster English and speech forms widespread in (non)standard varieties beyond Ireland were excised; forms shared by Ulster English and Southern Irish English were retained, and forms restricted geographically to Southern Irish English were retained or added. The result is a levelled peasant dialect that is intended to better reflect the speech of the majority of Irish people, which is arguably part of a strategy to make the language more national. Carleton’s practice reflects contemporary native-speaker attitudes to varieties of Irish English, which stigmatised Scottishness in speech. But dialect hygiene also served the political purposes of Carleton’s writing, for his primary objectives included the creation of an Irish national literature in English.
This contribution looks at typical changes of sounds and views these as sets of changes the members of which are linked. It also considers the directions of sound changes, considering these as natural pathways (in the case of lenition) or trajectories among vowel movements in which different vocalic elements stand in a spatial relationship to each other. As data the contribution examines a number of changes in English in the capital of Ireland, Dublin, which has undergone considerable change in the past fifteen years or so. The present-day data is seen in a panchronic context and parallels are drawn to attested historical changes which show both regularities and principled exceptions to these. The latter are a particular focus in the theoretical discussion.