Relativization in Early English (950-1250): The Position of Relative Clauses

ISBN-13: 9783039112036 / Angielski / Miękka / 2006 / 158 str.

Gotti, Maurizio

Opis

This book is concerned with the position which relative clauses occupy with respect to the main clause in the history of English. Relative clauses have evolved from adjoined clauses placed outside the main clause to clauses closely attached to the noun they modify inside the main clause. This process of incorporation took place through a stage of topicalization in which relative clauses were dislocated to the left of the main clause, leaving a trace behind in the place where they are generated. This study is empirically founded, with data from The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Diachronic and Dialectal corresponding to late Old English and early Middle English. Several variables, of a linguistic and extralinguistic nature, are analyzed in order to describe the variation in the position of relative clauses in Early English.

O autorze

The Author: Cristina Suárez-Gómez is Lecturer in English in the Department of Spanish, Modern Languages and Latin at the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain), and a member of the research project on Variation and Linguistic Change, directed by Prof. Teresa Fanego. In 2004 she received her Ph.D. in English Historical Linguistics from the University of Santiago de Compostela. Her main areas of specialization are English historical syntax and pragmatics, and grammaticalization theory. Her most relevant publications are about relativization in early English. Other research interests include dialectal variation in English, both in a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.