When dealing with the history of a language, it does not suffice to merely describe its development and thus to treat history as a story. If we wish to understand why and under which circumstances English developed the way it did, we will have to understand how human languages change in general.
As we will see, the mechanisms underlying the historical development of English do not only vary considerably with respect to the different levels of linguistic description – phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics – but individual processes can also conflict with each other and / or mutually reinforce each other. A closer look at all historical periods of English will reveal how subtle digressions from an established grammatical system, in the long run, cause completely new structures to emerge.
Accompanied by the lecture on the History of English, we will focus on individual processes and problems in the description and analysis of the language’s history. The participants of this seminar will thus profit from an introduction into the methods and aims of Historical Linguistics as a central branch of linguistics and at the same time extend and intensify their knowledge on the history of English provided in the lecture.
Schein requirements are a short term paper, an oral presentation in class and regular and active participation. The seminar starts in the first week of term. Students who are interested in the class but cannot come in the first week, are kindly asked to notify me via email before the start of the lecture period. close