Grammar Competition and Word Order in a Northern Early Middle English Text
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5900677 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Truswell (0000-0001-8584-9035, University of Edinburgh, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 59 |
| Publication date | 2021-03-24 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Languages (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/languages6020059 |
| OpenAlex | W3151569697 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 18 |
The Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians manuscript of Cursor Mundi and the Northern Homilies, a northern Middle English text from the early 14th century, contains unprecedentedly high frequencies of matrix verb-third and embedded verb-second word orders with subject-verb inversion. I give a theoretical account of these word orders in terms of a grammar, the 'CM grammar', which differs minimally in its formal description from regular verb-second grammars, but captures these unusual word orders through addition of a second preverbal A′-projection. Despite its flexibility, the CM grammar did not spread through the English-speaking population. I discuss the theoretical consequences of this failure to spread for models of grammar competition where fitness is tied to parsing success, and discuss prospects for refining such models
English grammar · Grammar · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Parsing · Population · Sociology · Subject (documents · Verb · Word order · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence
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Topicalization and Stress Clash Avoidance in the History of English
The Syntax of Old Norse
Syntactic Reconstruction and Proto-Germanic
Verb seconding in Old English
Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |