This book **is on English historical linguistics. It deals with the history of sounds and spellings (e.g. Old English runes), words and phrases, conjunctions, relative clauses, impersonal and passive constructions. It sheds light on the use of English dialects in literature, the importance of J.R.R. Tolkien, and Chinese translations of Beowulf.

This book presents new research results in English historical linguistics. Section I deals with sounds and spellings, e.g. the role of writing in language change, Pre-Old English sound changes and their reflection in runic inscriptions plus the first complete list of OE runic inscriptions and with velar fricatives in Middle English. Section II contains studies on words and phrases (e.g. the OE terms for the chain-mail coat), shell nouns, and secondary agent constructions. Section III highlights the developments of because, relative clauses, impersonal and passive constructions. Section IV analyzes the role of dialects in literature (e.g. 16th and 18th centuries). Section V sheds light on the use of early literature by later authors (e.g. J.R.R. Tolkien) and on Chinese translations of Beowulf.

Autorentext

Hans Sauer is Professor Emeritus at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. His research interests include Medieval English texts, word-formation, lexicography, plant names, Beowulf, the history of linguistics and varieties of English. Gaby Waxenberger is Associate Professor at LMU Munich and is specialized in Old and Middle English, Old English Runology and varieties of English.

Inhalt

Contents: Trinidad Guzmán-González: Homo loquens, homo scribens: On the role of writing in language change, with special reference to English - Gaby Waxenberger: The reflection of pre-Old English sound changes in pre-Old English runic inscriptions - Jerzy Welna: Middle English evidence of the elimination of velar fricatives: A prose corpus study - Carla Morini: The chain-mail coat terminology in Old-English and the dating of Beowulf - Kousuke Kaita: Old English geweald habban/agan as a stylistic set phrase, compared with Old High German and Old Saxon cognates - Annette Mantlik: An etymological analysis of shell nouns - Nadĕzda Kudrnácová: Secondary agent constructions from a diachronic perspective - Mary Blockley: Connectives before Chaucer: Conjunctive for and its competition in Early Middle English - Yuko Higashiizumi: A history of Because-clauses and the coordination-subordination dichotomy - Christina Suárez Gómez: The replacement of e by at in the history of English - Fuyo Osawa: Impersonal and passive constructions from a view-point of functional category emergence - Maria F. Garcia-Bermejo Giner: The southern dialect in Thomas Churchyard s The Contention bettwixte Churchyearde and Camell (1552) - Julia Fernández Cuesta/Christopher Langmuir: Scoto-Cumbrian? The representation of dialect in the works of Josiah Relph and Susanna Blamire - John Insley: J. R: R: Tolkien and the historical study of English - Stella Wang: Cinese translations of Beowulf.