Problems in History of English
spring 2008, seminar, two units per week, Thu 10.50-12.25/105
instructor: Jan Čermák (jan.cermak@ff.cuni.cz)
office hours: Tue 11-12/219a, Thu 12.30-13.30/219a
Programme:
Week 1 (21 February)
Ondřej Tichý
Expressing Possessivity – The diachronic survey of analytic, synthetic and adjectival means of
expressing possession and their synchronic comparison in English and Czech
Week 2 (28 February)
Ondřej Tichý
Expressing Possessivity (cont.)
Week 3 (6 March)
Verbal obsolescence
Texts:
Prins, A. A. (1941, 1942): “On the Loss and Substitution of Words in Middle English”.
Neophilologus 26, pp. 280-298; Neophilologus 27, pp. 49-59
Visser, F.T., Some Causes of Verbal Obsolescence, Nijmegen 1946
Dekyeser, X. – Pauwels, L., “The Demise of the Old English Heritage and lexical innovation in
Middle English: two intertwined developments”, Dutch Working Papers in English Language
and Linguistics 15, 1989, 1-21
Week 4 (13 March)
Corrie, Marilyn, “Middle English – Dialects and Diversity”, in: Mugglestone, pp. 86-120
Week 5 (20 March)
Smith, Jeremy J., “From Middle to Early Modern English”, in: Mugglestone, pp. 120-147
Week 6 (27 March)
Nevalainen, Terttu, “Mapping Change in Tudor English”, in: Mugglestone, pp. 178-212
Week 7 (3 April)
Ondřej Tichý
Pronominal System of Early Modern English: a sociolinguistic perspective on the major changes in
the English pronominal system with special attention to the loss of number distinction in the 2nd
person sg. of the personal pronouns
Week 8 (10 April)
Blank, Paula, “The Babel of Renaissance English”, in: Mugglestone, pp. 212-240
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Week 9 (17 April)
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid, “English at the Onset of the Normative Tradition”, in: Mugglestone,
pp. 240-274
Week 10 (24 April)
Mugglestone, L., “English in the Nineteenth Century”, in: Mugglestone, pp. 274-305
Week 11 (1 May)
No class.
Week 12 (8 May)
No class.
Week 13 (14 May)
Lexical change in Present-day English
texts:
Bauer, Laurie, “Lexical Change”, in: Bauer, L. (1994) Watching English Change, Longman, pp. 29-49
Hickey, Raymond, “Tracking lexical change in present-day English”, in: Wilson, A., Rayson, P. and
McEnery, T. (eds.) (2003), Corpus Linguistics by the Lune. A Festschrift for Geoffrey Leech, Frankfurt:
Peter Lang, pp. 93-105.
Each presentation will be complemented by analysis of linguistic material.
Extra term
Concluding test.
Material:
Source book for weeks 4-6 and 8-10: Mugglestone, Linda (2006), The Oxford History of English, OUP
copies of relevant texts and topic-related worksheets
Assessment:
Credit on the basis of attendance (three absences maximum), course work including one presentation
and a concluding test
Important: For all relevant resources and other links, see http://web.ff.cuni.cz/~ticho1af/
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