The primary aim of the present study is to give a semantic/conceptual analysis to the genitive case in Old English (= OE) within a Cognitive Grammar (=CG) framework (specifically Langacker's version; Langacker 1987, 1991) and explain the diversity of its use (adnominal, adverbal, adjectival, prepositional, and adverbial), as constituting a coherent network, wherein all variants share a unified semantic structure. My analysis is partly based on Roman Jakobson's (1936/1971) study on the Russian case system, which is recast and updated within a CG framework. Pivotal to my analysis of the semantic structure of the genitive case is the notion of "deprofile", whereby an already profiled (i.e. most prominent) entity in a given predicate becomes unprofiled, to reduce the amount of attention drawn onto the designatum, making it conceptually less prominent. Specifically, the function of the genitive case in OE is to deprofile the profile of the nominal predicate to which the genitive inflection is attached. The crucial claim is that a genitive nominal is a nominal predicate, in that it still profiles a region in some domain, in accordance with the schematic characterisation of the semantic structure of a noun in CG. The nominal character of a genitive nominal means that it can occur in various syntactic contexts where any other nominal expression can occur, namely in a position for a verbal, adverbial, and prepositional complement, as well as in a modifier/complement position for a noun. This account ties in with the subsequent history of the genitive case after the end of the OE period, in which some of its uses became obsolete, especially the partitive function of adnominal genitive, and all functions of the adverbal, adjectival, prepositional genitives. The cumulative effect of this is that a genitive nominal ceased to be a nominal predicate, and its determinative character which had already existed in OE side by side with its nominal character, became grammaticalised during the ME period as a general function of a genitive nominal. Chapter l outlines the history of the genitive case from OE to early ME, to introduce the problems to be dealt with in this dissertation, particularly the diversity of the genitive functions. Reviews of some previous studies relevant to the problems are also provided. Chapter 2 and 3 introduce the framework of CG. Chapter 2 summarises some basic assumptions about grammar, and Chapter 3 focuses on how syntactic issues are dealt with in CG, based on the assumptions summarised in Chapter 2. Here I also introduce Langacker's (1991) and Taylor's (1996) account of a Present Day English possessive construction, using Langacker's reference point analysis, and examine its applicability to the OE genitive. As an alternative, the notion of deprofile will be introduced. Chapters 4 and 5 are the application to the actual examples of genitive nominals, taken from Ælfric's Catholic Homilies first series; Chapter 4 deals with adnominal genitive, and chapter 5 covers all the non-adnominal genitives. Finally, Chapter 6 discusses how the diversity of the genitive functions in OE and its subsequent history may be accounted for in the light of the findings in this study.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1993. / Includes portions of British Library Manuscript Cotton Julius E VII. in the original Old English and modern English transcription. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [291]-312).

"Communities in Translation: History and Identity in Medieval England" argues that moments of identity formation in translated texts of the Middle Ages are best understood if translation is viewed as a process. Expanding on Brian Stock's idea that texts organize and define real historical communities, I argue that medieval translations--broadly considered as textual artifacts which relate received narratives--create communities within their narratives based on religious, ethnic, and proto-nationalist identities. In my first chapter, I assert that the Old English Orosius--a translation of a fifth-century Latin history--creates an audience that is forced to assume a hybrid Roman-English identity that juxtaposes a past Rome with a present Anglo-Saxon England. In chapter two, I argue that the inclusion of English saints among traditional Latin ones in Ælfric of Eynsham's Lives of the Saints stakes a claim not only for the holiness of English Christians but for the holiness of the land itself, thus including England in a trans-temporal community of Christians that depended on English practice and belief for its continued success. In my third chapter, I turn to Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale, and read it alongside its historical source by Nicholas Trevet in order to demonstrate Chaucer's investment in a multicultural English Christianity. These arguments inform my reading of Beowulf, a poem which, while not itself a translation, thematizes the issues of community raised by my first three chapters through its engagement with the problematic relationship between communities and narrative. When Beowulf's characters and narrator present an inherited narrative meant to bolster community, they more often reveal the connections to outside forces and longer histories that render its textual communities exceedingly fragile. Where previous studies of translation focus on the links of vernacular writings to their source texts and their Latin past, I suggest that these narratives envision alternative presents and futures for the communities that they create.

This dissertation examines the various ways Anglo-Saxon authors interpreted and adapted Genesis 10–11: the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel narrative. Although Genesis 10–11 offered Christians of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages a scripturally authorized understanding of the origins of ethnic and linguistic diversity of the world, its nature as an ancient Jewish text that deals with matters more suitable to its original audience than to its late antique and medieval readers allowed these later readers to transform the meaning of the text in order to give it a significance more fitting to their own times. In the first section of my dissertation, I treat the topos of the number 72, which becomes prominent when authors of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages read it into the Table of Nations as the number of descendants of Noah’s three sons. My first chapter deals with the initial development of this topos in Christian and Jewish writings of Late Antiquity; my second chapter with the topos in the Latin writings of early Anglo-Saxons, from the biblical commentaries from the School of Canterbury to Alcuin; and my third chapter with the topos in the writings of later Anglo-Saxons, from King Alfred to the Old English texts of the eleventh century. In the second section of my dissertation, I treat the interpretations of the Tower of Babel as they form and are informed in Late Antiquity and Anglo-Saxon England. As in the first section, three chapters are presented: the first on the initial developments in Late Antiquity; the second on the continual development into the Latin authors of early Anglo-Saxon England; and the third on the mainly Old English authors of the later Anglo-Saxon period.

This dissertation examines the various ways Anglo-Saxon authors interpreted and adapted Genesis 10–11: the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel narrative. Although Genesis 10–11 offered Christians of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages a scripturally authorized understanding of the origins of ethnic and linguistic diversity of the world, its nature as an ancient Jewish text that deals with matters more suitable to its original audience than to its late antique and medieval readers allowed these later readers to transform the meaning of the text in order to give it a significance more fitting to their own times. In the first section of my dissertation, I treat the topos of the number 72, which becomes prominent when authors of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages read it into the Table of Nations as the number of descendants of Noah’s three sons. My first chapter deals with the initial development of this topos in Christian and Jewish writings of Late Antiquity; my second chapter with the topos in the Latin writings of early Anglo-Saxons, from the biblical commentaries from the School of Canterbury to Alcuin; and my third chapter with the topos in the writings of later Anglo-Saxons, from King Alfred to the Old English texts of the eleventh century. In the second section of my dissertation, I treat the interpretations of the Tower of Babel as they form and are informed in Late Antiquity and Anglo-Saxon England. As in the first section, three chapters are presented: the first on the initial developments in Late Antiquity; the second on the continual development into the Latin authors of early Anglo-Saxon England; and the third on the mainly Old English authors of the later Anglo-Saxon period.

<p dir="ltr">The popularity and success of <i>A Testimonie of Antiquitie </i>is apparent in the number of printed editions between 1566-1687; as Allen Frantzen writes in his <i>Desire for Origins</i>, it was one of the most frequently printed Old English texts. However, no one has ever conducted a critical examination of every printed edition of Ælfric’s Easter Homily from its first printing in 1566/1567 to its last printed edition in the seventeenth century in 1687. Examining these editions through a book and print history lens is vastly productive. It enables us to see how printers and translators have made lasting impacts on the text and how historical events influenced the editorial decisions and production of the editions. Furthermore, comparing and contrasting the transcriptions and translations in the editions brings new understanding as to how translators and printers were utilizing these texts for editorial and formatting purposes. From this examination, we can draw important connections among the editions; these connections demonstrate which edition a translator and printer utilized for their publication of the text. Tracking the editorial and formatting changes of the editions and placing those changes within a historical context provides key information on why and how these editions were being produced. Moreover, this dissertation exemplifies the trajectory of early modern English book and print history.</p>

Medieval rhetoric, as a field and as a subject, has largely been under-developed and under-emphasized within medieval and rhetorical studies for several reasons: the disconnect between Germanic, Anglo-Saxon society and the Greco-Roman tradition that defined rhetoric as an art; the problems associated with translating the Old and Middle English vernacular in light of rhetorical and, thereby, Greco-Latin precepts; and the complexities of the medieval period itself with the lack of surviving manuscripts, often indistinct and inconsistent political and legal structure, and widespread interspersion and interpolation of Christian doctrine. However, it was Christianity and its governance of medieval culture that preserved classical rhetoric within the medieval period through reliance upon a classic epideictic platform, which, in turn, became the foundation for early medieval rhetoric. The role of epideictic rhetoric itself is often undervalued within the rhetorical tradition because it appears too basic or less essential than the judicial or deliberative branches for in-depth study and analysis. Closer inspection of this branch reveals that epideictic rhetoric contains fundamental elements of human communication with the focus upon praise and blame and upon appropriate thought and behavior. In analyzing the medieval world’s heritage and knowledge of the Greco-Roman tradition, epideictic rhetoric’s role within the writings and lives of Greek and Roman philosophers, and the popular Christian writings of the medieval period – such as Alfred’s translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Alfred’s translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, and the anonymously written Vercelli and Blickling homiles – an early medieval rhetoric begins to be revealed. This Old English rhetoric rests upon a blended epideictic structure based largely upon the encomium and vituperation formats of the ancient progymnasmata, with some additions from the chreia and commonplace exercises, to form a unique rhetoric of the soul that aimed to convert words into moral thought and action within the lives of every individual. Unlike its classical predecessors, medieval rhetoric did not argue, refute, or prove; it did not rely solely on either praise or blame; and it did not cultivate words merely for intellectual, educative, or political purposes. Instead, early medieval rhetoric placed the power of words in the hands of all humanity, inspiring every individual to greater discernment of character and reality, greater spirituality, greater morality, and greater pragmatism in daily life.