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The Syntactic Origin of Old English Sentence Adverbials

Languages rely on grammatical rules, by which even such variable constituents as adverbials are affected. However, due to the many different positions in Old English sentences taken up by adverbials, it is easy to wrongfully assume that there is an absence of grammatical rules regarding adverbials in Old English. Hence, it may be possible to detect patterns of behaviour among Old English adverbs if their different position and movement within various clauses is studied systematically. This paper has been focused on examining two conjunct adverbs, and two disjunct adverbs, functioning as sentence adverbials in prose, in order to contribute information of where they are base-generated within the syntactic structure of Old English clauses, and thus hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the grammatical system of Old English. 120 sentences of prose containing sentence adverbials have been examined according to the Government and Binding Theory, as introduced in Stæfcræft: An Introduction to Old English Syntax, in order to establish where the different textual constituents of Old English are base-generated.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-42888
Date January 2009
CreatorsSundmalm, Sara Maria
PublisherStockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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