Sifting through the evidence: Principles and pitfalls

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    Abstract

    The diachronic linguist views language change as changes to the internalized system of speakers. However, the linguist never has direct access to this hypothesized system. We only have access to the “external” language or linguistic output. All linguists face the problem of how to get at internalized linguistic systems, but diachronic linguists face special challenges here. The problems involved with reconstructing sound systems from writing and especially in detecting changes to those systems and the forms of morphemes are obvious. In all subsystems, the extent of our knowledge is restricted by the nature of the corpus, which is the result of luck rather than planning, and cannot be added to. In the area of lexicon, the corpus serves us pretty well, as we have plenty of glosses and translations of Latin words as well as the techniques of reconstruction to give us a good picture of what the vocabulary of early English was like. Even here, however, the uneven nature of the records leaves us with gaps in our knowledge that can never be filled. This chapter will focus on the problems we must face in trying to analyze the syntax of medieval varieties of English, especially Old English. One challenge is the question of how well the written language reflects the spoken language. Written language is never simply spoken language transcribed. Some literature, for example, much of the English literature of the eighteenth century, is highly artificial. However, even the most artificial English literature of a period must follow the “core grammar” of the writer, even though the writer may have grafted on some Latin-inspired constructions at the periphery of this core. Of course, formal writings will surely avoid certain constructions that are widely used in everyday speech but are considered unsuitable for writing. We cannot therefore assume that the first appearance of a construction in writing can be taken as the date when the construction started to be used in speech. However, we are usually more interested in the relative timing of a construction compared with the appearance of other constructions, and the texts probably represent this relative timing, for example between the loss of case marking and the fixing of particular word orders, pretty well. I distrust explanations which are made on the basis of speculation about what might have been happening in the speech of a particular period.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationImagining Medieval English
    Subtitle of host publicationLanguage Structures and Theories, 500-1500
    PublisherCambridge University Press
    Pages166-187
    Number of pages22
    ISBN (Electronic)9781107415836
    ISBN (Print)9781107058590
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2016

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