Julia Fernández Cuesta

The Northern Subject Rule in first-person singular contexts in early Modern English

One of the most salient features of northern English and Scots is the Northern Subject Rule (NSR), a grammatical constraint that governs present-tense verbal morphology according to the type and position of the subject. Although most accounts of the NSR refer only to the plural, there is evidence that the constraint also affected the first-person singular, giving rise to a system in which all plural persons and the first-person singular have verbal -s unless adjacent to a personal-pronoun subject, in which case the present indicative marker is zero or the -e suffix. We aim to demonstrate that the NSR in first-person-singular contexts was operative in the North in early Modern English and is documented until the eighteenth century in northern English and Scots. As regards the origin of the NSR in this context, analysis of the LAEME data for the North shows that there were signs of the adjacency constraint in all persons of the present indicative, including the first-person singular, during this period. However, the adjacency constraint appears to have been less robust than the type of subject constraint. As the effect of subject type is relevant only in third-person plural contexts, this might explain the strength of the constraint in this context and the attention that third-person plural contexts and the NSR have received in the literature at the expense of other environments, such as the first-person singular.

The Voice of the Dead Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation in Early Modern English Wills and Testaments

This article comprises a sociolinguistic analysis of the distribution of northern features in two sixteenth-century collections of wills of urban and rural provenance (York Clergy Wills and Swaledale Wills and Inventories, respectively). It is suggested that there is a correlation between dialect features such as the Northern Subject Rule, the uninflected genitive, and the third person plural pronouns and the urban or rural provenance of the wills as well as, to some extent, the social rank of the testators. This sheds light on how social factors might condition the resilience of dialect features in sixteenth-century northern English.This article comprises a sociolinguistic analysis of the distribution of northern features in two sixteenth-century collections of wills of urban and rural provenance (York Clergy Wills and Swaledale Wills and Inventories, respectively). It is suggested that there is a correlation between dialect features such as the Northern Subject Rule, the uninflected genitive, and the third person plural pronouns and the urban or rural provenance of the wills as well as, to some extent, the social rank of the testators. This sheds light on how social factors might condition the resilience of dialect features in sixteenth-century northern English.

The Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels: Language, Author and Context

Aldred’s interlinear gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.IV) is one of the most substantial representatives of the Old English variety known as late Old Northumbrian. Although it has received a great deal of attention in the past two centuries, there are still numerous issues which remain unresolved. The papers in this collection approach the gloss from a variety of perspectives – language, cultural milieu, palaeography, glossography – in order to shed light on many of these issues, such as the authorship of the gloss, the morphosyntax and vocabulary of the dialect(s) it represents, its sources and relationship to the Rushworth Gospels, and Aldred’s cultural and religious affiliations. Because of its breadth of coverage, the collection will be of interest and great value to scholars in the fields of Anglo-Saxon studies and English historical linguistics.

Towards a History of Northern English: Early and Late Northumbrian1

This article summarizes the initial stages of a project which aims to document a history of northern varieties of British English from the earliest times to the present day based on texts of differ...