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Lexical Obsolescence and Loss: The Case of Early Modern English (1500-1700)
Volná, Veronika ; Tichý, Ondřej (advisor) ; Fernandez Alcaina, Cristina (referee) ; Černý, Miroslav (referee)
Literature dealing with the development of the English lexicon has been concerned primarily with new additions to the language's vocabulary, such as borrowings, coinages and word formation patterns, while the topic of lexical obsolescence and loss remains under-researched. In the Early Modern period, the rate at which new lexical items appeared in the English language was unprecedented, especially in the years 1590-1620, as documented in the Oxford English Dictionary's online Timelines feature. In tandem with the rapid expanding lexicon, there was a portion of the vocabulary that was undergoing obsolescence or complete disappearance. Over the course of the Early Modern period, English lost a significant portion of its word- stock, including those short-lived coinages or borrowings which had entered the language only several decades or centuries earlier. Using authentic examples from the EEBO (Early English Books Online) corpus, this dissertation provides an insight into the role of lexical obsolescence and loss in the development of Early Modern English. Based on frequency data, a list of candidates for obsolescence has been generated featuring words such as sacerdote (lat.), travalier (fr.), and breastlap (en.), all of which were common at the onset of the Early Modern period but had disappeared...
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Forensic analysis of anonymization strategies in English
Volná, Veronika ; Popelíková, Jiřina (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The objective of this thesis is to identify those specific aspects of written style which native speakers of English modify when attempting to anonymize their texts. The conclusions are based on the analysis of 20 texts by 10 authors, all of whom are native speakers of English. Two texts dealing with the same topic were produced by each participant; one was written as an official letter of complaint, and the other was written as an anonymous letter. The bulk of the results are grounded on a qualitative stylistic analysis of the individual texts, with merely a brief survey of quantitative methods.The purpose of the introductory chapter is to familiarize the reader with the subject of forensic authorship analysis, to provide a brief summary of the current state of research, and to introduce a series of empirical studies. The practical part of the thesis presents the qualitative stylistic analysis, provides a shorter summary of the quantitative analysis, and finally ventures to draw meaningful conclusions from the results. The results showed that the majority of authors manipulated with the style/register of the texts and with the specific lexical choices, whereas none of the 10 authors made alterations to spelling and only 2 authors chose to change the punctuation in the anonymous text. However,...
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