Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Feb 25, 1994 - Foreign Language Study - 300 pages
Old English is a companion to Old English studies and to historical studies of early English in general. It is also an introduction to Indo-European studies in the particular sense in which they underpin the history of English. Professor Roger Lass makes accessible in a linguistically up-to-date and readable form the Indo-European and Germanic background to Old English, as well as what can be reconstructed about the resulting state of Old English itself. His book is a bridge between the more elementary Old English grammars and the major philological grammars and recent interpretations of the Old English data.Old English assumes a basic knowledge of phonetics and phonology, the elements of syntactic and morphological theory, and an introduction to historical linguistics. An extensive glossary gives definitions of the major technical terms used.

From inside the book

Contents

1 Background and origins
9
12 IndoEuropean and Germanic
10
13 The attestation of Germanic
12
14 Classification of the Germanic languages
13
IndoEuropean to ProtoGermanic to West Germanic1
17
22 Formation of the PGmc vowel system
18
Grimms Law
19
24 The Accent Shift and Verners Law
21
613 The major noun classes9
129
614 A note in retrospect
138
Pronouns and determiners
139
622 Definite articledemonstrative
142
623 Interrogative pronouns
145
63 The adjective
146
632 Comparison
149
Inflectional morphology II The verb
151

PGmc phonological systems
24
27 Features of Northwest Germanic
25
28 West Germanic
27
Old English phonology
31
the major early sound changes1
33
32 West Germanic Gemination2
34
33 Prenasal vowels in Ingvaeonic and AngloFrisian
38
and cti in Ingvaeonic
39
lol opposition9
41
Breaking and related processes13
45
362 Breaking Retraction and Diphthong Height Harmony
48
363 Back umlaut1
51
364 Morphophonemic effects of diphthongization
52
37 Palatalization19
53
38 umlaut22
59
382 Iumlaut in detail
64
383 Iumlaut and Old English morphology
70
voicing devoicing hardening and deletion 391 OElf 6 s
71
392 The velars
74
393 Fricative hardening and its consequences
76
Palatal Diphthongization
78
Suprasegmentals
83
42 Germanic stress and Old English stress
84
422 The Germanic Stress Rule4
87
423 Old English stress
91
43 Major developments in weak syllables19
95
432 High vowel deletion and medial syncope22
98
Morphophonemic intermezzo
103
Ablaut the laryngeals and the IE root
105
52 The conditioning of ablaut
107
irregular ablaut regularized and a new look for IE rootstructure
109
54 Roots and extensions13
114
55 Zerograde revisited
116
consonantal alternations
118
Morphology lexis and syntax
121
Inflectional morphology I Nouns pronouns determiners and adjectives
123
gender number case
126
72 The strong verb
153
722 The strong verb classes VIVII
158
723 The strong past participle
161
724 Infinitive and present participle strong and weak
162
73 The weak verb
164
732 The weak verb classes
166
742 Athematic root verbs and to be24
170
75 Personnumbermood inflection25
172
present system
174
preterite
176
Vocabulary and wordformation
178
82 Loans in Old English
183
822 Scandinavian
186
823 Celtic and French
189
83 Wordformation
190
832 Compounding
194
833 Derivation
198
84 Names adverbs and numerals
205
842 Adverbs
207
843 Numerals
208
Topics in OE historical syntax wordorder and case
216
92 Basic constituent order
217
93 The clausal brace and verbsecond order
224
942 Historical persistence or natural semantics? IE remains in OE case syntax
234
Historical postlude
241
The dissolution of Old English
243
102 Monophthongization and merger
246
103 The new diphthongs
247
104 Quantity adjustment
249
105 Weak vowel collapse and the new morphology10
250
Glossary
253
References
272
Index of names
281
Subject index
283
Index of Old English words and affixes
290
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