Syllabus/achievement requirements

Books available at Akademika:

• Horobin, S. & Smith, J.J. 2002. An Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Treharne, E. (ed.). 2010 (3rd ed.). Old and Middle English c.890-c.1450: An Anthology. Wiley Blackwell.

Articles and chapters on specific topics made available in class, online and in Fronter:

1. On ME and dialectology

• McIntosh, A., Samuels, M.L., Benskin, M. et al. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, Vols. I-IV. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. [Vol. I: ‘General Introduction’, pp. 1-36.]
• LAEME Introductions (also on how to use LAEME):
• http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laeme2/laeme2_framesZ.html (> Documents)

2. On phonology

• Lass, R. 1988. ‘Vowel Shifts, great and otherwise: Remarks on Stockwell and Minkova’. In: Kastovsky, D. & Bauer, G. (eds.). Luick Revisited; 395-410. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
• Smith, J.J. 1995. ‘The Great Vowel Shift in the North of England, and some spellings in manuscripts of Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 95: 433-437.
• Stenbrenden, G.F. 2016. Long-Vowel Shifts in English, c. 1050-1700. Evidence from Spelling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Ch.1: ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-14; Ch. 9: ‘Summary and Conclusions’, pp. 298-322).
• Stockwell, R.P. & Minkova, D. 1988a. ‘The English Vowel Shift: problems of coherence and explanation’. In: Kastovsky, D. & G. Bauer (eds.). Luick Revisited; 355-394. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
• Stockwell, R.P. & Minkova, D. 1988b. ‘A rejoinder to Lass’. In: Kastovsky, D. & G. Bauer (eds.). Luick Revisited; 411-417. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

3. On syntax and morphology

• Allen, C.L. 1997a. ‘Middle English case loss and the creolization hypothesis’. English Language and Linguistics 1/1: 63-89.
• Allen, C.L. 2000. ‘Obsolescence and sudden death in syntax: The decline of verb-final order in early Middle English’. In: Bermúdez-Otero, R. et al. (eds.). Generative Theory and Corpus Studies. A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL; 3-25. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Bailey, C. J. & Maroldt, K. 1977. ‘The French lineage of English’. In: Meisel, J.M. (ed.). Langues en contact: Pidgins,Creoles; Languages in Contact; 21-53. Tübingen: Narr.
• Blake, N.F. 1998. A History of the English Language. New York: Palgrave. [Ch. 1: ‘What is a History of English?’, pp. 1-23.]
• Cuesta, J.F. 2004. ‘The (Dis)continuity between Old Northumbrian and Northern Middle English’. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 49: 233-244.  [Available online]
• Fries, C.C. 1969. ‘On the Development of the Structural Use of Word-Order in Modern English’. In: Lass, R. (ed.). Approaches to English Historical Linguistics; 303-310. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Görlach, M. 1986. ‘Middle English – a creole?’. In: Kastovsky, D. & Szwedek, A. (eds.). Linguistics across historical and geographical boundaries. In Honour of Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of His Fiftieth Birthday; 329-344. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Kitson, P. 1997. ‘When did Middle English begin? Later than you think!’ In: Fisiak, J. (ed.) Studies in Middle English Linguistics; 221-269. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Poussa, P. 1982. ‘The Evolution of Early Standard English: The Creolization Hypothesis.’ Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 14: 69-85.

4. On the rise of Standard English

• Benskin, M. 1992. ‘Some new perspectives on the origins of standard written English’. In: van Leuvensteijn, J.A. & Berns, J.B. (eds.). Dialect and Standard Language/Dialekt und Standardsprache in the English, Dutch, German and Norwegian Language Areas; 71-105. Oxford.
• Benskin, M. 2002. ‘Chancery Standard’. In: Kay, C., Hough, C. & Wotherspoon, I. (eds.). New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics. Selected papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21-26 August 2002; 1-40. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
• Dodd, G. 2011a. ‘The Rise of English, the Decline of French: Supplications to the English Crown, c. 1420-1450’. Speculum 2011/86: 117-150.
• Dodd, G. 2011b. ‘The Spread of English in the Records of Central Government, 1400-1430’. In:  Salter, E. & Wicker, H. (eds). Vernacularity in England and Wales, c. 1300-1550; 225-266. Turnhout: Brepols.
• Hogg, R. ‘The standardiz/sation of English’. URL: http://lagb-education.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SEhogg.pdf
• Samuels, M.L. 1963. ‘Some applications of Middle English dialectology’, English Studies 44: 81-94.

5. On textual and manuscript studies

• Clanchy, M. 2013 (3^rd ed.). From memory to written record. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. [Ch. 4: ‘The technology of writing’, pp. 116-146].
• Da Rold, O. 2011. ‘Materials’. In: Gillespie, A. & Wakelin, D. (eds.). The production of books in England, 1350-1500; 12-33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Driscoll, M.J. ‘The words on the page: Thoughts on philology, old and new’. http://www.driscoll.dk/docs/words.html [pp. 15]
• Greetham, D.C. 1994. Textual scholarship: An introduction. New York: Garland Publishing. [Ch. 8: ‘Criticizing the text: Textual criticism’, pp. 295-346; Ch. 9: ‘Editing the text: Scholarly editing’, pp. 347-372].
• Parkes, M.B. ‘Handwriting in English books’. In: Morgan, N.J. & Thomson, R.M. (eds.). The Cambridge history of the book in Britain, vol. II: 1100-1400; 110-135. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

An additional 100 pages of secondary literature:

For the qualifying papers, an additional 100 pages of secondary literature will be selected by each student individually.