The Influence of Verse Form on the Relative Order of the Name and the Title King within an Appositive Phrase in Laȝamon’s Brut
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Seiji Shinkawa
Abstract
This article is an attempt to determine possible factors that affect the arrangement of a name and the title king in apposition in the transitional period from Old English to Middle English from a prosodic perspective as a first step to explain how preferred patterns have shifted from the types represented by Alfred King, the King Alfred and Alfred the King in Old English to almost exclusively the type represented by King Alfred in Present-Day English. Contrary to the common and generally sensible judgment of avoiding poetic texts in a syntactic investigation such as this, the present study analyzes the two extant versions of Laȝamon’s Brut, an Early Middle English metrical chronicle, on the grounds that verse may serve a better purpose than prose when intonation and rhythm are centrally involved, as is the case with this study. Use of searchable large-scale electronic corpora may at first glance seem more suitable for research of this kind, but such studies involving multiple texts of different periods, places and types are prone to oversimplification, and crucial details may be missed or glossed over. For a more detailed and coherent account of the development of appositive constructions, this study provides an in-depth analysis of the linguistic situation in a single body of closely related texts.
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Old English Poetic Superlatives
- Dublin, Trinity College, MS 492: A New Witness to the Old English Bede and its Twelfth-Century Context
- The Influence of Verse Form on the Relative Order of the Name and the Title King within an Appositive Phrase in Laȝamon’s Brut
- Norse Loans in Middle English and their Influence on Late Medieval London English
- Reviews
- Birte Bös and Lucia Kornexl (eds.). Changing Genre Conventions in Historical English News Discourse. Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 5. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins, 2015, xv + 254 pp., € 99.00/$ 149.00.
- Haruko Momma. From Philology to English Studies: Language and Culture in the Nineteenth Century. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, 224 pp., £ 25.99 (pb) [hb 2013].
- Rebecca Stephenson. The Politics of Language: Byrhtferth, Ælfric, and the Multilingual Identity of the Benedictine Reform. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 18. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015, x + 218 pp., $ 55.00.
- A. J. Ford. Marvel and Artefact: The “Wonders of the East” in its Manuscript Contexts. Library of the Written Word – The Manuscript World 45. Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill, 2016, xvi + 178 pp., 38 figures, 1 table, € 109.00/$ 141.00.
- Karl Reichl (ed.). Medieval Oral Literature. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2016, 743 pp., 27 illustr., € 34.95/$ 40.99/£ 28.99 (pb) [hb 2011].
- Natasha Moore. Victorian Poetry and Modern Life: The Unpoetical Age. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vi + 239 pp., £ 58.00.
- Beatrix Hesse. The English Crime Play in the Twentieth Century. Crime Files. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vi + 290 pp., 1 illustr., $ 69.99.
- Jean-Michel Ganteau. The Ethics and Aesthetics of Vulnerability in Contemporary British Fiction. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature. New York/London: Routledge, 2015, 179 pp., £ 95.00.
- Jean-Michel Rabaté. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and Psychoanalysis. Cambridge Introductions to Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 255 pp., € 24.96.
- J. M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz. The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy. New York: Viking, 2015, 198 pp., $ 27.95. David Attwell. J. M. Coetzee and The Life of Writing: Face to Face with Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 272 pp., numerous illustr., £ 19.99.
- Maria Löschnigg. The Contemporary Canadian Short Story in English: Continuity and Change. CAT 7. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2014, 381 pp., 5 figures, € 42.50.
- Alfred Bendixen and Stephen Burt (eds.). The Cambridge History of American Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, xx + 1306 pp., $ 170.00.
- Reingard M. Nischik (ed.). The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative North American Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 417 pp., $ 195.00 (hb)/$ 54.99 (pb [2016]).
- Johanna Hartmann. Literary Visuality in Siri Hustvedt’s Works: Phenomenological Perspectives. text & theorie 16. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2016, 320 pp., € 49.80.
- Books Received
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Old English Poetic Superlatives
- Dublin, Trinity College, MS 492: A New Witness to the Old English Bede and its Twelfth-Century Context
- The Influence of Verse Form on the Relative Order of the Name and the Title King within an Appositive Phrase in Laȝamon’s Brut
- Norse Loans in Middle English and their Influence on Late Medieval London English
- Reviews
- Birte Bös and Lucia Kornexl (eds.). Changing Genre Conventions in Historical English News Discourse. Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 5. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins, 2015, xv + 254 pp., € 99.00/$ 149.00.
- Haruko Momma. From Philology to English Studies: Language and Culture in the Nineteenth Century. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, 224 pp., £ 25.99 (pb) [hb 2013].
- Rebecca Stephenson. The Politics of Language: Byrhtferth, Ælfric, and the Multilingual Identity of the Benedictine Reform. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 18. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015, x + 218 pp., $ 55.00.
- A. J. Ford. Marvel and Artefact: The “Wonders of the East” in its Manuscript Contexts. Library of the Written Word – The Manuscript World 45. Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill, 2016, xvi + 178 pp., 38 figures, 1 table, € 109.00/$ 141.00.
- Karl Reichl (ed.). Medieval Oral Literature. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2016, 743 pp., 27 illustr., € 34.95/$ 40.99/£ 28.99 (pb) [hb 2011].
- Natasha Moore. Victorian Poetry and Modern Life: The Unpoetical Age. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vi + 239 pp., £ 58.00.
- Beatrix Hesse. The English Crime Play in the Twentieth Century. Crime Files. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vi + 290 pp., 1 illustr., $ 69.99.
- Jean-Michel Ganteau. The Ethics and Aesthetics of Vulnerability in Contemporary British Fiction. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature. New York/London: Routledge, 2015, 179 pp., £ 95.00.
- Jean-Michel Rabaté. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and Psychoanalysis. Cambridge Introductions to Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 255 pp., € 24.96.
- J. M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz. The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy. New York: Viking, 2015, 198 pp., $ 27.95. David Attwell. J. M. Coetzee and The Life of Writing: Face to Face with Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 272 pp., numerous illustr., £ 19.99.
- Maria Löschnigg. The Contemporary Canadian Short Story in English: Continuity and Change. CAT 7. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2014, 381 pp., 5 figures, € 42.50.
- Alfred Bendixen and Stephen Burt (eds.). The Cambridge History of American Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, xx + 1306 pp., $ 170.00.
- Reingard M. Nischik (ed.). The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative North American Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 417 pp., $ 195.00 (hb)/$ 54.99 (pb [2016]).
- Johanna Hartmann. Literary Visuality in Siri Hustvedt’s Works: Phenomenological Perspectives. text & theorie 16. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2016, 320 pp., € 49.80.
- Books Received
