<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This paper attempts to provide the first systematic analysis of the modals SHALL and WILL in Chaucer's language from pragmatic viewpoints. In addition to speech acts and alternation in discourse, this study examined modality in detail, which has a close relationship to pragmatic factors.Whereas SHALL is distributed across all kind of modalities, WILL has a limited variety, with a strong preference to dynamic modality. The inventory of speech acts suggests a strong connection to relevant modality, although some cases are not related to any particular modality. WILL again has a more limited variety than SHALL. Incorporating these results into analysis, the scope of examination is extended to the alternation in discourse, i.e., discourse markers, successive employments of the same modal, and alternative uses of both modals. The findings here which other studies would ascribe simply to a matter of variation are in fact well-motivated and controlled by various factors such as modality, speaker-based vs. hearer-based speech acts, and social role.It is suggested that further analysis of discourse and modals in other periods will shed more light on the pragmatic development of the modal and temporal systems in English.</abstract>

Towards a pragmatic analysis of modals <italic>shall</italic> and <italic>will</italic> in Chaucer's language

<italic>Change in meaning and the meaning of change</italic>. Matti Rissanen - Marianna Hintikka - Leena Kahlas-Tarkka - Rod McConchie (eds.)

<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The symbols, colours and slogans on vehicle registration plates are part and parcel of the United States iconography. While not everybody relates readily to Ohio's license plate motto "Birthplace of Aviation", everybody seems to know North Carolina's motto "First in Flight". (Although the Wright brothers came from Ohio they chose North Carolina as the site for their 1903 groundbreaking experiment.) With the open horizon as the obligatory conceit of the U.S. landscape, North Carolina's license plate projects a homonymic mis-association with the dominant motif of American popular cultural discourse recognized emblematically by Leslie Fiedler (1960: 318) as the razzle-dazzle of escape.</abstract>

Dubious American license: The first in flight

<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The history of English contains numerous examples of "improved" spellings. English scribes frequently modified spelling to make English words and some popular borrowings look like words of Latin or Greek origin. The typical examples are Eng. <italic>island</italic>, containing mute &lt;s> taken from Lat. <italic>insula</italic> or Eng. <italic>anchor</italic> ‘mooring device’ (&lt; Fr. <italic>ancre</italic>), with non-etymological &lt;h>. Although such "reformed spellings" became particularly fashionable during the Renaissance, when the influence of the classical languages was at its peak, "classicised" spellings are also found earlier, e.g. in texts from the 14th century. In the present contribution which concentrates on identifying such earliest influences on spellings in Middle English attention is focussed on the regional distribution of reformed spellings, with a sociolinguistic focus on the type of the text. The data for the study come from standard sources like the <italic>Middle English Dictionary</italic> (2001) and <italic>Oxford English Dictionary</italic> (2009).</abstract>

On early pseudo-learned orthographic forms: A contribution to the history of English spelling and pronunciation

<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The essay, in the process of making its meta-critical point, reviews the collection Co-memorative essays on Herman Melville's ‘Bartleby the scriverner’ edited by Janusz Semrau (2009). The collection was published almost simultaneously with the new Polish translation of Melville's story, published as a companion volume with Gilles Deleuze's and Giorgio Agamben's pertinent essays (Melville 2009). There follows a wave of interest among Polish critics, which amounts to a new, local Bartleby industry (Czaplińki 2009; Jankowicz 2009; Kapela 2010). This review is inspired by one important example, a lecture delivered on March 24th, at the Department of Polish Studies of Poznań's Adam Mickiewicz University, in which one of the preeminent Polish literary critics presented the ‘melancholic vampire’, the predatory writer, the walking death that lingers, does not want to go, stalks, and sucks out the life of his friends and admirers. Although the speech was primarily about Arthur Miller, Bartleby loomed (stalked) behind, until he surfaced, with a reference to the new Polish translation.</abstract>

The B-effect, or: How to do literary criticism with a nuclear power-plant

<italic>Allen Tate. A study in Southern modernism and the religious imagination</italic>. By Joseph Kuhn

<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The framework of this paper is Natural Syntax initiated by the author in the tradition of (morphological) naturalness as established by Wolfgang U. Dressler and †Willi Mayerthaler.Natural Syntax is a developing deductive theory. The naturalness judgements are couched in naturalness scales, which follow from the basic parameters (or "axioms") listed at the beginning of the paper. The predictions of the theory are calculated in what are known as deductions, the chief components of each being a pair of naturalness scales and the rules governing the alignment of corresponding naturalness values.Natural Syntax is here exemplified with selected language data bearing on the use of the English indefinite article.Some recent work related to Natural Syntax: Orešnik 2007a-e; 2008a-c; 2009a, b; 2009 (with Varja Cvetko-Orešnik). (Only work published in English is mentioned).</abstract>

Natural Syntax: The English indefinite article

<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Many instances of plural number marking in Old English disyllabic neuter <italic>a</italic>-stem nouns appear uncertain. This is due partly to a want of additional empirical evidence regarding what appears to have been a tension between a high vowel deletion process, by which some disyllabic neuters containing a long root vowel failed to attach the nominative/accusative plural number marker -<italic>u</italic>, and several analogical extension processes which resulted in irregular attachments of the plural markers -<italic>u</italic>, -ø, and others. This apparent unpredictability, however, is also due to a lack of agreement about how best to subclassify many disyllabic <italic>a</italic>-neuters. Various scholars have addressed the problem of the allomorphy at issue here, but their grouping criteria have differed and no one scheme has proven truly satisfactory (cf. Brunner - Sievers 1965; Dahl 1938; Campbell 1959; Wełna 1996). Consequently, determining which disyllabic <italic>a</italic>-neuters attached the <italic>u</italic>-plural allomorph regularly and which attached it by analogy as well as which of these neuters suffixed the ø-allomorph regularly and which did so analogically is trouble-some. In an attempt to augment our understanding of allomorphy in the plural morpheme of the Old English disyllabic neuter <italic>a</italic>-stems, this paper analyzes more than 300 plurals culled from both Early and Late Old English texts, and it proposes, unlike previous treatments, that token frequency was crucial to the analogical processes which so often determined plural marker selection in these nouns.</abstract>

Allomorphy in the plural morpheme of Old English disyllabic neuter <italic>a</italic>-stem nouns: Analogy and token frequency

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 58 (2023): Issue 1 (January 2023)

Volume 57 (2022): Issue 1 (January 2022)

Volume 56 (2021): Issue s1 (December 2021)

Volume 56 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021)

Volume 55 (2020): Issue s2 (December 2020) Special issue: Dialogues, reinterpretations, critical repositionings in literary and cultural discourses of 21st century Canada

Volume 55 (2020): Issue s1 (December 2020) Special Issue: Multimodal Patterns in Cognition and Communication

Volume 55 (2020): Issue 1 (March 2020)

Volume 54 (2019): Issue s1 (December 2019) Special issue on Change from above in the history of English. Edited by Nikolaos Lavidas

Volume 54 (2019): Issue 1 (March 2019)

Volume 53 (2018): Issue s1 (December 2018) Special issue on Native American indigenous studies

Volume 53 (2018): Issue 1 (March 2018)

Volume 52 (2017): Issue 4 (December 2017)

Volume 52 (2017): Issue 3 (December 2017)

Volume 52 (2017): Issue 2 (December 2017)

Volume 52 (2017): Issue 1 (March 2017)

Volume 51 (2016): Issue 4 (December 2016)

Volume 51 (2016): Issue 3 (December 2016)

Volume 51 (2016): Issue 2 (December 2016)

Volume 51 (2016): Issue 1 (March 2016)

Volume 50 (2015): Issue 4 (December 2015)

Volume 50 (2015): Issue 2-3 (December 2015)

Volume 50 (2015): Issue 1 (March 2015)

Volume 49 (2014): Issue 4 (December 2014)

Volume 49 (2014): Issue 3 (December 2014)

Volume 49 (2014): Issue 2 (June 2014)

Volume 49 (2014): Issue 1 (March 2014)

Volume 48 (2013): Issue 4 (December 2013)

Volume 48 (2013): Issue 2-3 (December 2013)

Volume 48 (2013): Issue 1 (June 2013)

Volume 47 (2012): Issue 4 (December 2012)

Volume 47 (2012): Issue 2-3 (June 2012)

Volume 47 (2012): Issue 1 (April 2012)

Volume 46 (2011): Issue 4 (December 2011)

Volume 46 (2011): Issue 3 (June 2011)

Volume 46 (2010): Issue 2 (December 2010)

Volume 46 (2010): Issue 1 (June 2010)

Volume 45 (2009): Issue 2 (December 2009)

Volume 45 (2009): Issue 1 (June 2009)

Studia Anglica Posnaniensia

 Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: An international Review of English Studies, was established in 1968 by the eminent Polish anglicist Jacek Fisiak and has been published continuously ever since by Adam Mickiewicz University Poznañ (Faculty of English). It is devoted to publishing high-quality research in English linguistics, literatures in English, and broadly understood culture of anglophone countries. It carries original studies in all the above areas, both devoted solely to English and those of a comparative natures, as well as book reviews and thematic issues. New contributions appear continuously throughout the year on the online-first basis, while the yearbook is closed and printed in late December. The primary mode of publication is on-line, with printed copies reserved in principle for the authors alone. The journal welcomes contributions on all aspects on English studies as defined above, theoretical as well as applied. The language of the journal is English. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia is a Gold Open Access journal and as such it does not have any article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges. Rejection Rate   65%   Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 

Studia Anglica Posnaniensia

Volume 46 (2011): Issue 4 (December 2011)

Towards a pragmatic analysis of modals shall and will in Chaucer's language

Change in meaning and the meaning of change. Matti Rissanen - Marianna Hintikka - Leena Kahlas-Tarkka - Rod McConchie (eds.)

Dubious American license: The first in flight

On early pseudo-learned orthographic forms: A contribution to the history of English spelling and pronunciation

The B-effect, or: How to do literary criticism with a nuclear power-plant

Allen Tate. A study in Southern modernism and the religious imagination. By Joseph Kuhn

Natural Syntax: The English indefinite article

Allomorphy in the plural morpheme of Old English disyllabic neuter a-stem nouns: Analogy and token frequency

Search

All Volumes and Issues in this Journal