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Adjective Positions in Old English and Middle English Homilies and Sermons
ILIĆOVÁ, Alexandra
The thesis is focused on the variability of adjectival position in noun phrases in the Old English and Middle English periods, which is analyzed on the textual samples of six Old English and Middle English homilies and sermons. It describes these texts with regards to their general characteristics and focuses on the grammatical changes that occurred in the Old English and Middle English periods, especially with regards to leveling of inflectional endings and the gradual loss of strong and weak inflection. Subsequently, it focuses on the interplay of the factors of adjective position, strong or weak inflection (particularly in Old English), definiteness or indefiniteness of the noun phrase, and meaning. It also explores the connection of adjective position and information structure of the texts. It devotes brief attention to two cases of similarity between adjective placement nowadays, and in the past.
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Corpus based analysis of the competition of linguistic expressions of Old Norse and Old English origin in the Late Old English and Middle English periods
Schlindenbuchová, Magdalena ; Tichý, Ondřej (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
This paper seeks to illustrate the influence of Old Norse on the English lexicon. The theoretical part deals mainly with the socio-historical background and with the invasions of the Old Norse speakers, which brought about the changes in the English language. Furthermore, it discusses the idea of mutual intelligibility of the two languages concerned and it describes the characteristics of the language contact situation, which lasted for about 200 years, during which speakers of Old Norse invaded the British Isles. The aim then is to relate these events and factors to the linguistic changes in historical English caused by the influence of Old Norse. The changes shall be illustrated on the competition of concrete linguistic expressions of Old Norse origin and Old English origin. The research itself focuses on the examination of the competition during the periods of Late Old English and Middle English, and it is carried out in the Old English and Middle English corpora (YCOE, PPCME2). The analysis comprises four words of Old Norse origin and their four Old English equivalents. Key words: historical linguistics, borrowing, language contact, corpus linguistics, Old English, Middle English, Old Norse
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Corpus based description of attitudes to native language in the Middle English period
Puršová, Alena ; Tichý, Ondřej (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
Middle English is a form of English that was spoken between the late 12th and the late 15th century, which corresponds to the historical High Middle Ages in England. The term 'Middle' reflects its position between two very different stages of English development, the earlier Old English period, and the later Early Modern English period. At the beginning of the Middle English period English is an almost impenetrable West Germanic language that must be learned, whereas at the end the language used is very close to Modern English. Even though later stages of English development are very thoroughly described by the contemporary speakers, it is harder to find any textual reference about the language of the Middle English period. Therefore, the focus of this work was to find such references that would reveal additional information about the state and attitudes towards the English language at that time. Using previous studies done by historical linguists as the main resource, the theoretical part introduces Middle English, its structure and external historical context. It serves as an informative background for the practical part that follows. The research was conducted by examining a corpus of Middle English texts using a corpus management software. The program enables keyword-based search in the corpus...
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