The order of adverbials of time and place in Old English
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Susanne Chrambach
Abstract
Syntactic analyses of adverbials in Present Day English describe a tendency for adverbials of place to precede adverbials of time in clusters. This paper investigates whether this preferred order of the adverbials of place and time was already established in Old English. Based on an analysis of the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, it first of all shows that Old English adverbials indeed display a preferred order of occurrence in clusters. This order is the reverse of the one found in Present Day English, namely time-before-place. In a second step, the paper investigates which factors might motivate that order. Potentially influential factors are investigated individually as well as in a multifactorial analysis with the help of a binary logistic regression.
Abstract
Syntactic analyses of adverbials in Present Day English describe a tendency for adverbials of place to precede adverbials of time in clusters. This paper investigates whether this preferred order of the adverbials of place and time was already established in Old English. Based on an analysis of the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, it first of all shows that Old English adverbials indeed display a preferred order of occurrence in clusters. This order is the reverse of the one found in Present Day English, namely time-before-place. In a second step, the paper investigates which factors might motivate that order. Potentially influential factors are investigated individually as well as in a multifactorial analysis with the help of a binary logistic regression.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- At the crossroads of language change, variation, and contact 1
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PART I: Language change
- Knitting and splitting information 11
- The order of adverbials of time and place in Old English 39
- The demise of a preterite-present verb 61
- Gradience in an abrupt change 83
- Vowels before /r/ in the history of English 95
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PART II: Language variation
- “Pained the eye and stunned the ear” 113
- Watching as -clauses in Late Modern English 137
- Colloquialization and “decolloquialization” 163
- Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c . 1750–1835) 187
- New-dialect formation in medieval Ireland 213
- Tracing uses of will and would in Late Modern British and Irish English 239
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PART III: Variation and change in contact situations
- The subjunctive mood in Philippine English 259
- Revisiting a millennium of migrations 281
- <U> or <o>: A dilemma of the Middle English scribal practice 305
- Index 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- At the crossroads of language change, variation, and contact 1
-
PART I: Language change
- Knitting and splitting information 11
- The order of adverbials of time and place in Old English 39
- The demise of a preterite-present verb 61
- Gradience in an abrupt change 83
- Vowels before /r/ in the history of English 95
-
PART II: Language variation
- “Pained the eye and stunned the ear” 113
- Watching as -clauses in Late Modern English 137
- Colloquialization and “decolloquialization” 163
- Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c . 1750–1835) 187
- New-dialect formation in medieval Ireland 213
- Tracing uses of will and would in Late Modern British and Irish English 239
-
PART III: Variation and change in contact situations
- The subjunctive mood in Philippine English 259
- Revisiting a millennium of migrations 281
- <U> or <o>: A dilemma of the Middle English scribal practice 305
- Index 325
