LFU:online

Institut für Anglistik Institut für Anglistik

Univ.-Prof. i. R. Dr. Gabriella Mazzon Univ.-Prof. i. R. Dr. Gabriella Mazzon

609243

Morphological Variation in the History of English

PS 2

5

wöch.

semestral

Englisch

The morphological markers of English have often been characterised, over history, by a high degree of instability, as revealed by evidence from early texts, especially from times prior to standardization. In the course of time, plurality markers and case markers, as well as verb endings and paradigms, have shown considerable variability, and changes in class membership have been quite frequent. Even in modern times, in spite of the levelling influence of standardization, such variability is revealed by differences in the use of adjective gradation markers and verb class attribution. Some of this variation is linked to geography (e.g. differences in regular-irregular verb paradigm between different varieties), while some (e.g. commoner vs. more common) seems impossible to correlate to non linguistic variables. Students joining this course will be expected to contribute actively to the sessions (also in conference format) through collecting and analysing their own evidence, and to write short papers (10 to 15 pages) about their results. Selected readings lists will be provided at the beginning of the PS.

Anmeldevoraussetzung/en: für Bachelor-Studierende: keine Entspricht im Lehramtsstudium (344): PS2: Linguistics and Culture Entspricht im Diplomstudium (343): PS2: Linguistics and Culture
Beginn: Jänner 2011