Recent scholarship
‘Cynthia L. Allen, Dative External Possessors in Early English'
Rodrigo Pérez Lorido, rev.
English Language and Linguistics 10, 2021
This monograph is the first large-scale corpus-based diachronic study of external possession (EP) constructions in the English language in which an NP in the dative case (dem Kind / them, possessor), which behaves as an external argument of the clause, establishes some semantic relationship of possession with another NP in that clause (die Haare / el dedo, the possesum). This structure was available in the Old and Middle English periods but preserved in Present-day English only in a few set phrases and expressions like look someone in the eye, having overall been replaced by internal possession (IP) structures...
‘Lability in Old english Verbs'
Luisa García
& Esaúl Narbona
Anglia 139/2, 2021
Present-Day English has an unusually high number of labile verbs, such as melt or burn, both cross-linguistically and with respect to genetically related languages. Comparison among early Germanic languages has allowed researchers to detect an incipient favouring of labile coding already in OE, where it is more frequent than in any other language of this group (Hermodsson 1952) and replaces causative coding in a considerable proportion of former causative verb pairs (van Gelderen 2011; García García 2020). This article attempts to map the chronological and textual distribution of labile verbs between the 7th and the 11th centuries CE in order to explore how lability develops throughout the OE period.
‘Beowulf 501b and the authority of OE poetical mss'
Rafael J. Pascual
Neophilologus 105, 2021
A. J. Bliss tacitly rejected Campbell’s theory of OE accentuation when he postulated the existence of metrical type 3B2. He based his analysis on the evidence afforded by four readings from Beowulf: ll. 501b, 932b, 949b, and 1830b. Non-metrical arguments in support of the emendation of 1830b had been advanced well before. This article offers new linguistic reasons for the emendation of l. 501b. It concludes that Bliss was unnecessarily cautious in his treatment of these verses and that, as Sisam memorably stated, conjectural emendation is a useful tool for the study of OE poetical manuscripts.
‘Hrothgar’s warhorse and the audience of Beowulf'
Rafael J. Pascual
Medium Aevum 90.1, 2021
Before his defeat at the hands of Beowulf, Grendel harassed the Danish court at Heorot, ceaselessly and with impunity, for a period of twelve long years. During that time, the Scyldings’ misfortune at the mercy of the monster became so notorious that it even made its way into song and story. It made sense then that the Scylding king repaid Beowulf's unexpected and much longed-for victory over Grendel with gifts of extraordinary generosity. Thus, Hrothgar does not content himself with bestowing on the hero four splendid pieces of battle-gear. He also provides Beowulf with a team of eight horses, among which is Hrothgar's own warhorse.
‘A pandemonium of Borges: Introduction’
Miguel A. Gomes Gargamala
OEN 47/1, 2021
Atlas (1984) was one of Jorge Luis Borges' last projects, the result of the many journeys on which he embarked towards the end of his life in the company of his collaborator and later wife María Kodama. In the prologue Borges defines each entry in the volume as ‘a unit made of words and images.’ The short texts written by Borges alongside a selection of photographs taken by Kodama constitute neither an atlas nor a travel book, but a gateway to the geography and landscape of the Borgesian imagination. The reader is taken on a voyage around the globe, from the author’s much loved patrias of Buenos Aires and Geneva to the Cretan labyrinth, from crepuscular Venice to the streets of Istanbul where once ‘Scandinavians served as the guard of the Byzantine emperor, who were joined by the Saxons who fled England after Hastings’ ...
‘Beowulf 1889b, Andreas 1221b and OE poetic style'
Studia Neophilologica 93/1, 2021
In a short paragraph of his ‘Die Metrik des Beowulf’ (1885), Eduard Sievers proposed emendation of preterite plural bǣron to infinitival beran at l. 1889b. This emendation has much to commend it, but it has not been accepted by the majority of editors of the poem. This article adduces new palaeographical, metrical and stylistic evidence in support of Sievers’s proposal, and it also argues that the preterite plural forms bǣron and mǣton at Andreas 1221b and Beowulf 1633b should likewise be emended to infinitival beran and metan.
‘Sir Orfeo as the Source for the Topoi of Abduction and Otherworld inThe Hobbit'
Andoni Cossío
ANQ 2021
Among the medieval literature that Tolkien taught and studied, the pervasive prominence of ME works is steadily being recognized. Many literary pieces could fall under this category, but there is a clear example which remains understudied: Sir Orfeo (c. 1330). It underwent intensive scrutiny and appears to have left a deep imprint on Tolkien’s imagination which led to the inclusion of some reworked elements of this poem in The Hobbit.
Adiviñas medievais do Libro de Exeter
Jorge Luis Bueno Alonso
Rinoceronte, 2021
The Exeter Riddles are short poems that invite us to identify an object, a natural phenomenon, an animal or a process described in a mysterious, enigmatic, and generally playful way, a challenge that leads us to a solution, several or none.
After Beowulf, this is the second book of Old English poetry that Jorge Luis Bueno Alonso has translated into Galician. 'Quen hai tan espelido, tan listo / que poia dicir quen me dirixe no camiño / cando, cheo de fereza, me con forza / berro con braveza e ás veces vou / por la terra toda traendo a ruina . . .'
‘Old English verbs of ‘envy’: Class membership and grammatical behaviour’
Raquel Vea Escarza
Studies in the History of the English Language VIII, 2021
This study addresses the grammatical behaviour and class membership of Old English verbs expressing 'envy', æfestian, andian, nīþan, and ofunnan, so as to determine the (in)consistency of their syntactic behaviour. It resorts to analytical criteria such as semantic and syntactic valence, morphological case of arguments, thematic relations, alternations, and nexus and juncture.
‘How Sir Gawain Shaped The Lord of the Rings’ Caras Galadhon'
Andoni Cossio
ISLE 27/4, 2020
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an anonymous 2,530-line poem with an approximate date of composition around the year 1400. The story begins in the court of King Arthur on New Year’s Day when Sir Gawain volunteers to take part in the mysterious Green Knight’s exchange-of-blows game. Despite being decapitated by Gawain, the Green Knight survives, and Gawain is forced to promise he will readily endure the Green Knight’s blow one year later at the Green Chapel...
‘Alan Lee’s illustrations of The Children of Húrin (2007) and The Fall of Gondolin (2018)'
Adriana Taboada González
Reichenberger, 2020
Two of the most recent editions of Tolkien's work, The Children of Húrin (2007) and The Fall of Gondolin (2018), include illustrations by Alan Lee. By providing a wider perspective of what the text is describing, Lee's art resembles the use of illuminations as visual translations of texts. This chapter analyses Tolkien's and Lee's work and the new readings afforded by their coalesence.
John Arderon's De judiciis urinarum
Javier Calle-Martín, ed.
U of Liverpool P, 2020
A synoptic edition of the English version of John Arderon’s De judiciis urinarum containing the commentary on Giles of Corbeil’s Carmen de urinis as preserved in Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 328, from the early 15th century, and Manchester University Library, MS Rylands Eng. 1310, from the 16th century. A semi-diplomatic transcription, accompanied by a glossary, notes and introduction, the latter containing the textual transmission of the text, a codicological/palaeographic description together with the analysis of the scribal language.
‘lofgeornost and the challenges of translating Beowulf'
Jorge Luis Bueno-Alonso
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020
A re-evaluation of how the term lofgeornost has been dealt with in standard editions of the Old English text and translations of Beowulf into Spanish, Catalan and Galician, followed by a three-step proposal for the translating process of Old English poetry: editorial, translatorial, poetic. A significant contribution both to early medieval studies and to our understanding of Beowulf’s continuing cultural impact.
‘Grammaticalisation paths in the rise and development of aside'
Pérez Lorido, Rodrigo, with Pablo Ordóñez García
Research in Corpus Linguistics 8.2, 2020
An analysis of the grammaticalisation processes involved in the rise and development of the ‘a-adverbial’ aside: from coalescence-univerbation to development of abstract senses, extension of semantic range. Special attention is paid to the variation patterns of aside that existed in the Late ME period and their correlation with the geographic provenance of the texts.
‘The nursemaid, the mother and the prostitute'
Mercedes Salvador-Bello
Manchester U P, 2020
It is firmly established that Anglo-Latin riddles were known on the Continent. The extent of their influence, however, remains unresearched. This chapter, 'The nursemaid, the mother, and the prostitute: Tracing an insular riddle topos on both sides of the English Channel', attends to the fruitful exchange of riddles on both sides of the English Channel and focuses on the metaphor of the nursemaid breastfeeding numerous children, a prostitute sharing her physical charms, as well as wine and food, with many men?
‘La visión de Tundal (Visio Tnugdalis)'
José Antonio Alonso Navarro
Revista Ñemityra 2/1, 2020
The Middle English Visio Tnugdalis, preserved in two copies of a 1483 London imprint, begins when Tundal is invited to dinner by a neighbour of his. Tundal suffers a seizure and apparently dies or temporarily looses consciousness. The soul leaves his body and travels to a bleak and dark place. ' Mientras el alma de Tundal se hallaba confusa, este vio aproximarse a un grupo de horribles demonios de aspecto aterrador que venían saltando y mostrando los dientes como lobos salvajes. . . .'
‘the deflexion and grammaticalization of the OE past participle with habban'
Javier Martín Arista
IJES 20/1, 2020
This article deals with the transitive construction involving habban and the past participle in OE, and focuses on the loss of the adjectival segment of the participial inflection. Inflectional morphology and constituent order, including the relative and the absolute position of the past participle, are considered. The data indicate that the reanalysis the habban+past participle construction is nearly over by the end of the period.
Of ye Olde Englisch Langage and Textes
Rodrigo Pérez Lorido et al.
Peter Lang, 2020
This edited collection tackles different aspects of Old and Middle English language and literature: English diachronic linguistics, OE metrics, corpus research with paleography in focus, the interplay language-register, and the periodology of Older Scots; literary and translatorial issues (the impact of Latin ‘quis’ on ME, translating Beowulf into Galician, a reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, and the structure of medieval miscellaneae) are addressed in the last part. Edited by Rodrigo Pérez Lorido, Carlos Prado Alonso and Paula Rodríguez-Puente.
The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf
Francis Leneghan
D S Brewer, 2020
A strikingly original approach to Beowulf, linking its structure to the dynastic fortunes of the royal houses of the Scyldings, Scylfings and Hrethlings. It highlights the work's often-overlooked originality, by inserting the monster-slaying Beowulf into royal legend and providing explanations for features of the poem that have never been satisfactorily explained. It also brings into focus the poet's debt to biblical paradigms of kingship and considers how the Anglo-Saxons came to read Beowulf as their own Book of Kings.
‘The basic valency orientation of OE and the causative ja-formation’
Luisa García García
English Language & Linguistics, 24/1, 2020
This paper takes a preliminary approach to the colonial element of Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (1896-1905). Drawing on the electronic version of the dictionary that has recently been launched, it examines the entries which refer to the colonial usage of words documented in British dialects, considering the links that Wright made with Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, and New Zealand, as well as the isolated evidence recorded on items used in South Africa and the West Indies.
‘La dama priora (The LAdy Prioress)'
José Antonio Alonso Navarro
Hermeneus 21, 2020
The Lady Prioress, an anonymous 15th-c poem preserved in London BL, MS Harley 78, fols. 74 r-77 v, tells the story of a beautiful prioress, who due to her great beuty, attracts the attention of three suitors: a young knight, a parish priest and a merchant. The three will insist the lady grants them her love and favours. She, a chaste and pure woman, will resort to her cunning and wit to defend her chastity at all costs. '¡Oh, Dios todopoderoso, que a nosotros todos gobernáis! Regocijaos con esta historia . . .'
‘Spelling focusing and proto-standardisation'
Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre
Studia Neophil. 91/1, 2019
The analytical construct known as community of practice is used in sociolinguistic research into variation in connection with the construction of identity and social meaning. It is also crucial in the diffusion of standard as well as non-standard practices. 'Spelling Focusing and Proto-Standardisation in a Fifteenth-century English Community of Practice' intends to reconstruct a 15th-c community of practice on the evidence afforded by the Stonor Letters, paying particular attention to the reduced frequency of spelling variants in them. This perspective can help view historical proto-standardisation in a new light, one which associates it with processes of identity construction.
British Battles, 493-937
Andrew Breeze
Anthem, 2020
One of the most revolutionary books on war in Britain. It deals with 13 conflicts, either locating them correctly or explaining some of the aspects which have puzzled historians: Mount Badon (493) at Braydon, Wiltshire; battles of the legendary 'King Arthur' (536-7) in southern Scotland or the borders; 'Degsastan' (603) at Dawyck, on the River Tweed, Scotland; Maserfelth (642) at Forden, on the Welsh border; the Viking victory of 'Alluthèlia' (844) at Bishop Auckland, near Durham; and the English triumph of Brunanburh (937) at Lanchester, also near Durham.
Elegías anglosajonas
Miguel Ángel Gomes Gargamala
La Oficina, 2019
Las elegías, copiadas por un escriba desconocido en la Inglaterra anglosajona a finales del siglo X, constituyen un legado lleno de luz que contradice el retrato renacentista sobre el vacío cultural que siguió a la caída de Roma. Esta antología nos traslada a un mundo de señores y guerreros, de aves marinas y mares nórdicos, de hombres errantes y mujeres solas, junto con recuerdos de viejos mitos.
Cruce y fusión entre el mundo heroico germánico y las esperanzas trascendentes o los temores milenaristas del cristianismo medieval, estas elegías tan melancólicas como esplendorosas son un monumento literario de la poesía universal.
‘The intertextuality of Beowulf, Cynewulf and Andreas'
Francis Leneghan
SELIM Journal 24, 2019
This article identifies a new OE poetic motif, ‘The Departure of the Hero in a Ship’, and discusses the implications of its presence in Beowulf, the signed poems of Cynewulf and Andreas, a group of texts already linked by shared lexis, imagery and themes. It argues that the Beowulf-poet used this motif to frame his work, foregrounding the question of royal succession. Cynewulf and the Andreas-poet then adapted this Beowulfian motif in a knowing and allusive manner for a new purpose: to glorify the church and to condemn its enemies. Investigation of this motif provides further evidence for the intertextuality of these works.
‘Two possible emendations of Beowulf 2088A'
Rafael J Pascual
Notes & Queries 66/1, 2019
It has long been recognized that there are two different levels of theological knowledge in Beowulf. While the narrator and his 8th-c Anglo-Saxon audience are aware of Christian eschatology and scriptural history, these are unknown to the 5th- and 6th-century pre-Christian Scandinavian characters in the poem. To be sure, certain characters, like Hrothgar and Beowulf, evince the natural theistic wisdom that is universally accessible to pagans, but revealed knowledge is beyond their understanding. At the beginning of the poem, for example, the poet affirms to the audience outside the story that Scyld Scefing went after his death ‘into the Lord’s keeping’ (on Frēan wǣre, l. 27b), ...
Coordinación y elipsis en Inglés Antiguo
Rodrigo Pérez Lorido
Universidad de Oviedo, 2019
Ellipsis is one of the most complex linguistic phenomena, since not only syntactic and semantic phenomena intervene in its genesis, but also pragmatic, prosodic and psycholinguistic factors. It is precisely for that reason that ellipsis constitutes an excelent element of diagnosis on the nature of languages and its either syntactic or pragmatic nature. In this work ellipsis has been used as a method to evaluate a series of hypotheses about Old English language (850-1100 AD), about whose grammatical nature there is still no absolute consensus and around whose linguistic status there are still heated debates.
‘Another look at OE zero derivation and alternations'
Javier Martín Arista
ATLANTIS 41/1, 2019
This article offers an overview of zero derivation in Old English, a description of the vocalic alternations that hold between zero derived nouns, adjectives and weak verbs and their bases of derivation as well as an account of the significance of alternations in the wider context of the evolution of the lexicon of English. Alternations are quantified and related to i-mutation and word-formation processes by distinguishing direct from reverse alternations and alternations with a strong verb source from alternations with a weak verb target.
Variation in english Legal discourse
Teresa Fanego and Paula Rodríguez-Puente, eds.
John Benjamins, 2019
A comprehensive overview of the research carried out over the past 30 years in the field of legal discourse, how it has been shaped by developments in corpus linguistics and register analysis, and by the emergence of historical pragmatics. Part I (together with the introduction) offers a wide spectrum of the latest approaches to the synchronic analysis of cross-genre and cross-linguistic variation in legal discourse. Part II addresses diachronic variation, illustrating how multi-dimensional analysis, move analysis, collocation analysis, and Darwinian models of language evolution can uncover new understandings of diachronic linguistic phenomena.
‘On the colonial element in Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary'
Javier Ruano-García
International Journal of Lexicography 32/1, 2019
This paper takes a preliminary approach to the colonial element of Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (1896-1905). Drawing on the electronic version of the dictionary that has recently been launched, it examines the entries which refer to the colonial usage of words documented in British dialects, considering the links that Wright made with Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, and New Zealand, as well as the isolated evidence recorded on items used in South Africa and the West Indies.
