On UVA library day 2, I collected all of my resources for the year. I’m excited to not have to get anything more for my resources and to be able to focus on taking notes. I read Analysing Sntax Through Texts: Old, Middle and Early MOdern English by Elly Van Gelderen, here are my notes:
Resource: Van Gelderen, Elly. (2018). Analyzing Syntax Through Texts: Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press.
Access to manuscripts is easier than in the past. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 1)
Studying Old and Middle English is easiest through manuscripts. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 1)
Using edited text can cause issues because editors make changes to unify and correct the text. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 1)
Analytic languages use prepositions frequently where synthetic languages use endings. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 2)
Analytic languages use word order frequently where synthetic languages use case markings. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 2)
Analytic languages use auxiliaries where synthetic languages use verb markings. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 2)
Analytic languages use pronouns frequently where synthetic languages use verb markings. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 2)
Word order becomes increasingly similar to modern English throughout development. (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 18)
“Old English verbs have endings marking the person and number of the subject (agreement) and the tense, aspect, and mood.” (Van Gelderen 2018) (page 23)
Resource: Horobin, Simon and Smith, Jeremy. (2002). An Introduction to Middle English. Oxford University Press.
Literary use of Middle English between 1100 and 1250 contains some literary influence from Old English styles, but additional influence from continental elements. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 30)
After Latin and French overtook Old English recordkeeping tasks, English writing became much more localised. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 32)
Reconstructing Middle English sounds can use comparative reconstruction, where English is compared to other languages. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 43)
Reconstructing Middle English sounds can use internal reconstruction, where small remaining clues in current pronunciation are used to find the older state of the language. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 43)
Reconstructing Middle English can be done through analysing verses to find regularity of stress patterns. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 44)
Analysing spelling can be used to reconstruct sounds. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 44)
Modern spelling systems are very prescriptive. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 45)
Most of the expansion of English occurred during the Middle English period. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 71)
Borrowings from Old Norse frequently did not appear in Old English records due to standardisation, but appeared in Middle English. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 72)
French borrowings occurred almost exclusively after the Norman Conquest. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 74)
Phrasal verbs, or verbs with participles, such as give up, first appear in Middle English records. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 75)
Celtic influence in words is rather limited. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 75)
Old English inflections allowed a much more flexible word order than Middle English or Modern English. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 90)
Early middle English shows increase in number of grammatical words. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 105)
Possessive construction did not use -s in early MIddle English. (Horobin & Smith 2002) (page 105)
Note for further research: the Appendix of Horobin & Smith 2002 has a list of Middle English texts that could be useful for computational comparisons.