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- Volume 13, Issue, 2012
Journal of Historical Pragmatics - Volume 13, Issue 2, 2012
Volume 13, Issue 2, 2012
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Functions of epistolary formulae in Dutch letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Author(s): Gijsbert Rutten and Marijke J. van der Walpp.: 173–201 (29)More LessWray (2002) distinguishes three main functions of formulaic language relating to processing, interaction and discourse marking. In this paper, we show that Wray’s analysis of the functions of formulaic language also applies to historical letter-writing in a corpus of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch letters. Discourse is marked with formulae indicating the text type or the text structure. Interaction is covered by intersubjective formulae communicating health, greetings, wishes for renewed contact, as well as Christian-ritual formulae. The processing function is operationalised in terms of literacy and writing experience, assuming that the use of prefabricated formulae reduces the writing effort. Therefore, we expect less-experienced letter-writers to use more formulae than more-experienced writers. We will show that less-experienced writers are indeed more likely to use epistolary formulae, and conclude that Wray’s “reduction of the speaker’s processing effort” in online speech production, also applies to written seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch.
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The establishment of quantifier constructions for size nouns: A diachronic case study of heap(s) and lot(s)
Author(s): Lieselotte Bremspp.: 202–231 (30)More LessBased on exhaustive diachronic corpus data, this paper determines the relative chronology in which the size nouns heap(s) and lot(s) have developed quantifier uses within NP of NP-syntagms, as in heaps / a lot of people. Using a constructional approach, it is claimed that size nouns occur in three distinct constructions or form–meaning pairings identified on the basis of systematic syntactic, semantico-pragmatic and collocational features. I argue that in order to establish which size noun was first to develop a quantifier use, we have to analyse diachronic data sets in terms of three constructions, viz. lexical head, partitive and quantifier constructions. In doing so, I will argue against the claim that heap developed its quantifier use first, around 1300, while lot developed one only around 1800. I will show that heap and lot(s) appear in an early partitive construction, c1300 and c1200, respectively, in which they are head nouns and have a collective sense. The quantifier construction in which heap(s) and lot(s) have modifier status and assess quantity similar to canonical quantifier many/much appears around the same time for both, viz. c1780.
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On the relationship between subjectification, grammaticalisation and constructions: Evidence from the history of English
Author(s): Lucía Loureiro-Portopp.: 232–258 (27)More LessThe terms subjectification, intersubjectification and construction are very often used in relation to grammaticalisation, although the relationship between them is not always clear. Subjectification is said to occur both within grammaticalisation and out of it. Constructions, in turn, have recently been found to play a key role in grammaticalisation, to the point that it is now generally accepted that before an item is grammaticalised the construction in which it appears will first develop a grammatical function. The relationship between construction and subjectification has not been addressed directly, even though an important number of the examples of subjectification found in the literature are explained in terms of constructions in which the subjectifying element occurs. This paper aims to shed more light on how subjectification, grammaticalisation and constructions are related in the history of English, by paying special attention to verbs and verbo-nominal expressions of necessity from Old to Early Modern English. The findings will show that, in these items, the interrelationship between subjectification and grammaticalisation is not direct; that subjectification need not be unidirectional; and that constructions involving necessity items are the source of subjectification.
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Lexico-grammatical portraits of vulnerable women in war: The 1641 Depositions
Author(s): Nicci MacLeod and Barbara A. Fennellpp.: 259–290 (32)More LessThe 1641 Depositions are testimonies collected from (mainly Protestant) witnesses documenting their experiences of the Irish uprising that began in October 1641. As news spread across Europe of the events unfolding in Ireland, reports of violence against women became central to the ideological construction of the barbarism of the Catholic rebels. Against a backdrop of women’s subordination and firmly defined gender roles, this article investigates the representation of women in the Depositions, creating what we have termed “lexico-grammatical portraits” of particular categories of woman. In line with other research dealing with discursive constructions in seventeenth-century texts, a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach is taken. Adopting the assumptions of Critical Discourse Analysis, the discussion is extended to what the findings reveal about representations of the roles of women, both in the reported events and in relation to the dehumanisation of the enemy in atrocity propaganda more generally.
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A critical and historical investigation into semantic prosody
Author(s): K. Aaron Smith and Dawn Nordquistpp.: 291–312 (22)More LessWhile existing literature on cause frequently cites the negative meaning associated with that lexeme, i.e. the fact that cause tends to appear with a negative outcome, e.g. cause an accident, really no scholar has studied in any detail the historical development of the phenomenon. In order to address this missing line of scholarship concerning the diachronic development of, what we refer to here as, a semantic prosody, this paper presents a fine-grained historical study of the development of the negative semantic associations of cause by comparing tokens from the Early Modern English period to those from Present-day English. We are able to conclude that the semantic prosody involved with cause is an emergent diachronic phenomenon. In addition, we are also able to argue that it is at the level of construction that such a prosodic pattern operates. Following from the notion that the semantic prosody is a construction-level phenomenon, we offer an exemplar-based model to motivate certain of the diachronic and synchronic facts.
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So ADJ/ADV that clause patterns in Early Modern English medical writing
Author(s): Turo Hiltunenpp.: 313–335 (23)More LessThis paper investigates how an intensifying phraseological pattern involving the adverb so followed by a delayed declarative content clause is used in medical English in the early modern period (1500–1700). So may occur with adjectival, nominal or adverbial heads, and the pattern is used for indicating degree, extent or manner. The analysis employs the recently published Early Modern English Medical Texts corpus to show (i) that the pattern was in use throughout the entire period, (ii) that it tends to be more frequently used in learned rather than popular texts, and (iii) that it is typically used for giving descriptions and less often in instructions.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 26 (2025)
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Volume 25 (2024)
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Volume 24 (2023)
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Volume 23 (2022)
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Volume 22 (2021)
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Volume 21 (2020)
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Volume 20 (2019)
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Volume 19 (2018)
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Volume 18 (2017)
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Volume 17 (2016)
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Volume 16 (2015)
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Volume 15 (2014)
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Volume 14 (2013)
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Volume 13 (2012)
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Volume 12 (2011)
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Volume 11 (2010)
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Volume 10 (2009)
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Volume 9 (2008)
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Volume 8 (2007)
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Volume 7 (2006)
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Volume 6 (2005)
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Volume 5 (2004)
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Volume 4 (2003)
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Volume 3 (2002)
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Volume 2 (2001)
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Volume 1 (2000)
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