Northern Middle English: Towards telling the full story
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Julia Fernández Cuesta
Abstract
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.
Abstract
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.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction ix
- The early Middle English scribe: Sprach er wie er schrieb? 1
- Essex/Suffolk scribes and their language in fifteenth-century London 45
- Middle English word geography: Methodology and applications illustrated 67
- Northern Middle English: Towards telling the full story 91
- The origins of the Northern Subject Rule 111
- Dynamic dialectology and social networks 131
- The Celtic hypothesis hasn't gone away: New perspectives on old debates 153
- On the trail of "intolerable Scoto-Hibernic jargon": Ulster English, Irish English and dialect hygiene in William Carleton's Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry (First Series, 1830) 171
- Exceptions to sound change and external motivation 185
- Index of subjects 195
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction ix
- The early Middle English scribe: Sprach er wie er schrieb? 1
- Essex/Suffolk scribes and their language in fifteenth-century London 45
- Middle English word geography: Methodology and applications illustrated 67
- Northern Middle English: Towards telling the full story 91
- The origins of the Northern Subject Rule 111
- Dynamic dialectology and social networks 131
- The Celtic hypothesis hasn't gone away: New perspectives on old debates 153
- On the trail of "intolerable Scoto-Hibernic jargon": Ulster English, Irish English and dialect hygiene in William Carleton's Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry (First Series, 1830) 171
- Exceptions to sound change and external motivation 185
- Index of subjects 195
