| Description |
1 online resource (374 pages). |
|
text file PDF |
| Series |
Topics in English Linguistics ; Volume 99
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Topics in English linguistics ; 99.
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| Contents |
Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Tables -- Figures -- List of Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Nominal determination and the articles in Present Day English -- 3. Article emergence in Old English -- 4. Diachronic Construction Grammar -- 5. Nominal determination in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle -- 6. Nominal determination in Old English prose -- 7. Article emergence: a constructional scenario -- 8. Conclusion -- 9. Appendix: manuscript and corpus information -- References -- Index. |
| Summary |
This book investigates nominal determination in Old English and the emergence of the definite and the indefinite article. Analyzing Old English prose texts, it discusses the nature of linguistic categorization and argues that a usage-based, cognitive, constructionalist approach best explains when, how and why the article category developed. It is shown that the development of the OE demonstrative 'se' (that) and the OE numeral 'an' (one) should not be told as a story of two individual, grammaticalizing morphemes, but must be reconceptualized in constructional terms. The emergence of the morphological category 'article' follows from constructional changes in the linguistic networks of OE speakers and especially from 'grammatical constructionalization' (i.e. the emergence of a new, schematic, mostly procedural form-meaning pairing which previously did not exist in the constructicon). Next to other functional-cognitive reasons, the book especially highlights analogy and frequency effects as driving forces of linguistic change. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Language |
In English. |
| Subject |
English language -- Article.
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English language -- Article. |
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English language -- Old English, ca. 450-1100 -- Article.
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| Chronological Term |
450-1100 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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Dictionaries.
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Dictionaries.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: 9783110539417 |
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Print version: 9783110539370 |
| ISBN |
9783110541052 |
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311054105X |
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9783110539417 (electronic book) |
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3110539411 (electronic book) |
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9783110539370 |
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3110539373 |
| Standard No. |
10.1515/9783110541052 |
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