Don Chapman

Analogical Modeling and morphological change: the case of the adjectival negative prefix in English

This article examines the usefulness of Skousens Analogical Modeling (AM) for explaining morphological change. In contrast to previous accounts of analogy, AM constitutes a general unified model of language that accounts for both sporadic and systematic changes. AM also provides explicit constraints on analogy that allow explanation of how morphological changes begin, which forms most likely serve as patterns for analogy, and which forms are most likely to change. AM is then tested on the case of the adjectival negative prefix in English ( in -, un -, dis -, etc.), using the Middle and Early Modern English portions of the Helsinki corpus as a basis for prediction. AM was given the task of using forms containing negative prefixes for one time period to predict the prefixes that adjectives would take in the subsequent time period. For each of the roughly seventy-year periods in the corpus, AM was able to predict valid prefixes about 90 percent of the time.

Uterque Lingua / Ægðer Gereord: Ælfric's Grammatical Vocabulary and the Winchester Tradition

At least since D. A. Bullough’s seminal essay, scholars have recognized the bilingual tradition of education in Anglo-Saxon England that began with Alfred and was amplified by the scholars of the Benedictine revival, particularly AEthelwold at Winchester.1 Increasingly, Anglo-Saxon students studied in both languages, Latin and English—uterque lingua, in Asser’s terms.2 While Latin continued to be taught and used as the primary language of scholarship, English became an important second language, and scholars like AEthelwold devoted increasing attention to the creation and maintenance of English as a language of education.3 Within this tradition, AElfric, a student of AEthelwold and the most prolific English writer of the Anglo-Saxon period, occupies a central place, and among AElfric’s works, his grammar constitutes a prime exemplar of the bilingual educational tradition. AElfric wrote his grammar around 995 A.D., and it was apparently a best seller, since it has survived in fifteen manuscripts.4 As a translation and redaction of a Latin grammar called Excerptiones de Prisciano,5 AElfric’s grammar embodies the tradition of uterque lingua, since the language that it treats is Latin, but the language it is written in is English. AElfric himself used the term uterque lingua in justifying his translation, as he tells his students that he hopes that it will help them implant both languages into their tender minds: