The Old English origins of the Northern Subject Rule
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Marcelle Cole
Abstract
It has generally been assumed that the Northern Subject Rule (NSR), a grammatical constraint which conditioned present verbal morphology in northern Middle English according to the type and position of the subject, did not exist in Old Northumbrian (Pietsch 2005; de Haas 2008). Using data from the tenth-century Northumbrian gloss to the Latin Gospelbook the LindisfarneGospels, this paper aims to show that the distribution of present verbal morphology in Lindisfarne indicates that the syntactic configuration at the crux of the NSR was already a feature of Old Northumbrian. The OE dating for the NSR suggested by these findings may consequentially strengthen the argument for a Brittonic derivation of the NSR (Klemola 2000; Vennemann 2001; de Haas 2008; Benskin 2011).
Abstract
It has generally been assumed that the Northern Subject Rule (NSR), a grammatical constraint which conditioned present verbal morphology in northern Middle English according to the type and position of the subject, did not exist in Old Northumbrian (Pietsch 2005; de Haas 2008). Using data from the tenth-century Northumbrian gloss to the Latin Gospelbook the LindisfarneGospels, this paper aims to show that the distribution of present verbal morphology in Lindisfarne indicates that the syntactic configuration at the crux of the NSR was already a feature of Old Northumbrian. The OE dating for the NSR suggested by these findings may consequentially strengthen the argument for a Brittonic derivation of the NSR (Klemola 2000; Vennemann 2001; de Haas 2008; Benskin 2011).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface & Acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
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Part I. The evidence of place-names
- Celts in Scandinavian Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England 3
- The colonisation of England by Germanic tribes on the basis of place-names 23
- Ancient toponyms in south-west Norway 53
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Part II. Code selection in written texts
- On vernacular literacy in late medieval Norway 69
- Four languages, one text type 81
- On variation and change in London medieval mixed-language business documents 99
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Part III. Linguistic developments and contact situations
- Old English–Late British language contact and the English progressive 119
- The Old English origins of the Northern Subject Rule 141
- For Heaven’s sake 169
- North Sea timber trade terminology in the Early Modern period 193
- ‘Nornomania’ in the research on language in the Northern Isles 213
- Index of subjects, terms & languages 231
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface & Acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. The evidence of place-names
- Celts in Scandinavian Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England 3
- The colonisation of England by Germanic tribes on the basis of place-names 23
- Ancient toponyms in south-west Norway 53
-
Part II. Code selection in written texts
- On vernacular literacy in late medieval Norway 69
- Four languages, one text type 81
- On variation and change in London medieval mixed-language business documents 99
-
Part III. Linguistic developments and contact situations
- Old English–Late British language contact and the English progressive 119
- The Old English origins of the Northern Subject Rule 141
- For Heaven’s sake 169
- North Sea timber trade terminology in the Early Modern period 193
- ‘Nornomania’ in the research on language in the Northern Isles 213
- Index of subjects, terms & languages 231
