Article published In:
NOWELEVol. 77:2 (2024) ► pp.110–144
Old and Middle English adverbs of degree in their wider West Germanic context
Research on adverbs of degree in Old and Middle English has been largely self-contained and has paid little
attention to developments that were happening in the neighbouring West Germanic languages. While research on these other languages
is less extensive, “Middle” Germanic has been identified as a period of convergence for the usage of adverbs of degree (
Visser 2023). The present study analyses the usage patterns of seven adverbs in both Old
and Middle English using data from different corpora:
swīðe/
swīthe, ful, miċle/
muchel,
sāre/
sǭre, ġearwe/
yāre, fela/
fę̄le, and
hearde/
harde. It is found that their development differs strikingly from their Continental
West Germanic counterparts, and they appear to preserve more primary usage patterns.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Adverbs of degree
- 2.2English adverbs in their West Germanic context
- 2.3Degree prefixes
- 3.Method
- 4.Results
- 4.1
Swīðe/swīthe
- 4.2
Ful
- 4.3
Miċle/muchel
- 4.4
Sāre/sǭre
- 4.5
Ġearwe/yāre, fela/fę̄le, and
hearde/harde
- 5.Discussion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
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