“Please tilt me-ward by return of post”
-
Reijirou Shibasaki
Abstract
This study is aimed to probe into one type of pronominal word formation such as me-ward, us-ward, you-ward, thee-ward, him-ward, her-ward and them-ward, including all of their variant forms. Although having been used for a prolonged period of time from the early 13th century, they have gone unnoticed in English historical linguistics. The ward(s) construction started with locative adverbs as the head of the construction, expanding the range of the headwords to prepositions, proper and identifiable nouns, pronouns, and nonce words. While all the constructional examples except the pronoun-ward(s) construction are relatively productive and stable albeit being jocular and ad hoc at times, the pronoun-ward(s) construction with any grammatical person has been fairly infrequent throughout history. As a consequence, the infrequent occurrence of the pronoun-ward(s) construction impeded the global constructional expansion, failing in establishing the solid constructional stability and falling into disuse in the 20th century.
Abstract
This study is aimed to probe into one type of pronominal word formation such as me-ward, us-ward, you-ward, thee-ward, him-ward, her-ward and them-ward, including all of their variant forms. Although having been used for a prolonged period of time from the early 13th century, they have gone unnoticed in English historical linguistics. The ward(s) construction started with locative adverbs as the head of the construction, expanding the range of the headwords to prepositions, proper and identifiable nouns, pronouns, and nonce words. While all the constructional examples except the pronoun-ward(s) construction are relatively productive and stable albeit being jocular and ad hoc at times, the pronoun-ward(s) construction with any grammatical person has been fairly infrequent throughout history. As a consequence, the infrequent occurrence of the pronoun-ward(s) construction impeded the global constructional expansion, failing in establishing the solid constructional stability and falling into disuse in the 20th century.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- Norse influence on English in the light of general contact linguistics 15
- The Germanic roots of the Old English sound system 43
- Monetary policy and Old English dialects 73
- The order and schedule of nominal plural formation transfer in three Southern dialects of Early Middle English 95
- The temporal and regional contexts of the numeral ‘two’ in Middle English 115
- Grammaticalisation, contact and corpora 131
- Discourse organization and the rise of final then in the history of English 153
- The origins of how come and what…for 177
- “Providing/provided that” 197
- Prefer 215
- The 400 million word Corpus of Historical American English (1810–2009) 231
- Gender change from Old to Middle English 263
- “Please tilt me-ward by return of post” 289
- Multilingualism in the vocabulary of dress and textiles in late medieval Britain 313
- “No man entreth in or out” 327
- Beyond questions and answers 349
- The demise of gog and cock and their phraseologies in dramatic discourse 369
- Index 383
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- Norse influence on English in the light of general contact linguistics 15
- The Germanic roots of the Old English sound system 43
- Monetary policy and Old English dialects 73
- The order and schedule of nominal plural formation transfer in three Southern dialects of Early Middle English 95
- The temporal and regional contexts of the numeral ‘two’ in Middle English 115
- Grammaticalisation, contact and corpora 131
- Discourse organization and the rise of final then in the history of English 153
- The origins of how come and what…for 177
- “Providing/provided that” 197
- Prefer 215
- The 400 million word Corpus of Historical American English (1810–2009) 231
- Gender change from Old to Middle English 263
- “Please tilt me-ward by return of post” 289
- Multilingualism in the vocabulary of dress and textiles in late medieval Britain 313
- “No man entreth in or out” 327
- Beyond questions and answers 349
- The demise of gog and cock and their phraseologies in dramatic discourse 369
- Index 383
