Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Medieval Studies
- Creators: Bjork, Robert
Description
ABSTRACT There are many parts of speech and morphological items in a linguistic lexicon that may be optional in order to have a cohesive language with a complete range of expression. Negation is not one of them. Negation appears to be absolutely essential from a linguistic (and indeed, a psychological) point of view within any human language. Humans need to be able to say in some fashion "No" and to express our not doing things in various ways. During the discussions that appear in this thesis, I expound upon the historical changes that can be seen within three different language branches - North Germanic (with Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Norse, Swedish, and Icelandic), West Germanic (with English), and Celtic (with Welsh) - focusing on negation particles in particular and their position within these languages. I also examine how each of these chosen languages has seen negation shift over time in relation to Jespersen's negation cycle. Finally, I compare and contrast the results I see from these languages, demonstrating that they all three do follow a distinct negation cycle. I also explain how these three negation cycles are chronologically not in sync with one another and obviously all changed at different rates. This appears to be the case even within the different branches of the Germanic family.
ContributorsLoewenhagen, Angela C (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Bjork, Robert (Committee member) / Gillon, Carrie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Scholars have long debated whether Old and Middle English (ME) are different diachronic stages of one language, or whether they are two closely related languages that have different historical roots. A general assumption is that Middle and Modern English descend from Old English (OE), similar to the way Middle and Modern German descend from Old High German. Traditional scholarship places English into the West-Germanic language subgroup (which includes Old English, and continental Germanic languages) Historically, criteria used by linguists to establish genealogy of languages involve sound change from parent to daughter languages and the sharing of core vocabulary. Until recently, consideration of the influence of contact-induced change, except in the lexical domain, has been minimized, favoring generative language-internal factors. While it is generally accepted that internal motivation shapes the outcome of language change, contact may provide the catalyst for the change. The syntax of ME emerged with linguistic variation that distanced it from its Germanic relatives. In order to understand how the grammar of ME evolved and differs from its West-Germanic cousins, the syntax and morphosyntactic properties of ME, evident in The Orrmulum, an early ME work written in the Danelaw region of England, are analyzed in comparison to Old English (OE), Old Norse (ON), and Celtic, and in relation to formal grammaticalization theory, social factors and historical events. An analysis of the grammar in The Orrmulum supports current research regarding Scandinavian influence on the syntax of OE and ME, because there is extensive historic evidence regarding effects of language tangency of the relevant cultures; the properties of a grammatical lexicon influence retention of syntactic patterns, despite additions/changes in lexical categories; and The Orrmulum is a revealing source of the transition of OE to ME regional dialect variations.
ContributorsHornung, Annette (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Bjork, Robert (Committee member) / Renaud, Claire (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This thesis investigates the description of sensation in the scenes immediately before, during, and following the death of Tristan in variations in the Tristan cycle from the 12th through the 15th centuries. Using a sensory studies approach, the project considers these scenes as they are translated and transmitted from Thomas de Bretagne’s Tristan to the Old Norse Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar and Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd and into Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the last, great medieval treatment of the Tristan story. The scenes are understood in the context of the texts’ sensoria as defined by their cultural and historical contexts and the texts’ underpinning in philosophical and theological thought on the senses. The thesis project argues that the specific cultural preferences and usages of the senses can be made apparent through the comparison of Thomas’s Tristan, the Norse translations, and Malory’s text. Taken together, they show the importance of considering medieval translation when comparing the appearance of the senses in written artefacts from the Middle Ages. The sensory engagement with texts is deeply tied to the making of meaning and ethics in medieval literary works. The differences in how the senses are prioritized and framed suggest a larger variance within European Christian philosophical and theological thought on the senses and provide a potential framework for exploring this phenomenon in other medieval literary cycles.
ContributorsRebe, Tristan J (Author) / Newhauser, Richard G (Thesis advisor) / Bjork, Robert (Committee member) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021