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Volume 77, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0108-8416
  • E-ISSN: 2212-9715
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Abstract

Abstract

Research on adverbs of degree in Old and Middle English has been largely self-contained and has paid little attention to developments that were happening in the neighbouring West Germanic languages. While research on these other languages is less extensive, “Middle” Germanic has been identified as a period of convergence for the usage of adverbs of degree (Visser 2023). The present study analyses the usage patterns of seven adverbs in both Old and Middle English using data from different corpora: /////, and /. It is found that their development differs strikingly from their Continental West Germanic counterparts, and they appear to preserve more primary usage patterns.

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2024-12-03
2025-01-20

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Old and Middle English adverbs of degree in their wider West Germanic context
NOWELE. North-Western European Language Evolution 77, 110 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1075/nowele.00087.vis
/content/journals/10.1075/nowele.00087.vis
/content/journals/10.1075/nowele.00087.vis
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): comparative linguistics; corpus linguistics; debonding; degree modification; English linguistics; Germanic linguistics; historical linguistics; historical semantics; historical syntax; intensifier

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