ENGLISH

The Non-Surviving Preterite-Present Verbs in English: The Demise of *dugan, munan, *-nugan, *þurfan, and unnan

By Anna Wojtys

Book information

Publisher
Peter Lang
Year
2017
ISBN
3631729502, 9783631729502
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
3 MB (2999279 bytes)
Series
Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature
Pages
258\264
Time added
2017-08-26 07:45:14
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Description

Based on four historical corpora, the book is a comprehensive study of the demise of five preterite-present verbs in English. It offers a detailed description of their distribution in Old and Middle English. The subsequent comparison of the forms and uses of the preterite-presents in the two periods allows the author to suggest the reasons for their elimination from the language. The discussion focuses on phonological and morphological changes the verbs underwent as well as on the syntactic structures they appeared in. Yet, the study does not ignore factors of extra-linguistic nature such as genres in which the verbs were frequently found and the potential rivalry with other items of native and foreign origin.

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