Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Frank Whigham. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The main objective of the present thesis is to characterize lexical and word-formation differences in the New Testament translation by John Purvey (also known as the second version of the Wycliffite Bible, 1388) and the translators of the Douay-Rheims Bible (1582), with the focus on the differences which are believed to be influenced by the objective changes in the language. For this reason, the very analysis is preceded by two chapters, the first one identifying the subjective strategies of the translators and the second one describing the objective changes that occurred in the language during the two hundred years that separate the two Bibles. The comparison of the Wycliffite and Douay-Rheims Bible, which is also a contribution to a word-formation and lexical-semantic development from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, is based on four books of the New Testament, namely the Gospel of Mark, Acts of the Apostles, the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and the Book of Revelation. The thesis also aims to assess the attitude of the translators towards their common source, the Latin Vulgate, but leaves aside the circumstances of religious controversy and its impact on the motivation and strategy of the translators. Another objective is to assess both translations as certain milestones in the...

The aim of the present study has been to investigate how titles of social rank used in Tudor and Stuart England are modified by attributive adjectives in pre-adjacent position and the implications that become possible to observe. Using the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS) the present work set out to examine adjectival modification, gender perspectives and MI (Mutual Information) scores in order to gain a deeper understanding of how and why titles were modified in certain ways. The titles under scrutiny are Lord, Lady, Sir, Dame, Madam, Master and Mistress and these have been analysed following theories and frameworks pertaining to the scientific discipline of sociohistorical linguistics.    The findings of the present study suggest that male titles were modified more frequently than, and differently from, female titles. The adjectives used as pre-modifiers, in turn, stem from different semantic domains which reveals differences in attitudes from the language producers towards the referents and in what traits are described regarding the holders of the titles. Additionally, a type/token ratio investigation reveals that the language producers were keener on using a more varied vocabulary when modifying female titles and less so when modifying male titles. The male terms proved to be used more formulaically than the female terms, as well. Lastly, an analysis of MI scores concludes that the most frequent collocations are not necessarily the most relevant ones.    A discussion regarding similarities and differences to other studies is carried out, as well, which, further, is accompanied by suggestions for future research.