NOWELE. North-Western European Language Evolution - Volume 72, Issue 2, 2019

The articles in this volume contribute to our understanding of Northumbrian Old English of the 10th century, of the nature of external influence, and of the authorship of the glosses. This introduction provides a background to these three areas. Most of the introduction and contributions examine the Lindisfarne Glosses with some discussion of the Rushworth and Durham Glosses. Section 2 shows that the Lindisfarne glossator often adds a (first and second person) pronoun where the Latin has none but allows third person null subjects. Therefore, although the Latin original has obvious influence, Old English grammar comes through. Section 3 reviews the loss of third person -th verbal inflection in favor of -s, especially in Matthew. This reduction may be relevant to the role of external (Scandinavian and British Celtic) influence and is also interesting when the language of the Lindisfarne and Durham Glosses is compared. In Section 4, the use of overt pronouns, relatives, and demonstratives shows an early use of th-pronouns, casting doubt on a Norse origin of they.Section 5 looks at negation mainly from a northern versus southern perspective and Section 6 sums up. Section 7 previews the other contributions and their major themes, namely possible external (Latin, Norse, or British Celtic) influence, the linguistic differences among glossators, the spacing of ‘prefixes’ as evidence for grammaticalization, and the role of doublets.

This article examines the verbal morphology of the Old English interlinear gloss to the Durham Collectar, attributed by almost universal consensus to Aldred of Chester-le-Street, whose earlier gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels has recently been the object of scholarly attention (Cole 2014; Fernández Cuesta & Pons-Sanz 2016, Gameson et al. 2017). This article analyses -s/-th variation in the present indicative and imperative forms in relation to their syntactic context, in particular subject type and subject-verb adjacency, in order to assess whether the Northern Subject Rule detected by Cole (2014) in Lindisfarne was also operative in Aldred’s later gloss. By means of a quantitative analysis, we find that the first constraint does not significantly affect -s/-ð variation in the gloss and that there is insufficient context for the second. Additionally, it is argued that adjacency is a problematic variable in this text-type. We also demonstrate that there is a higher percentage of second person singular -st and -ð in the Collectar than in Lindisfarne and discuss the possible influence of standard West Saxon on the later gloss.

The use of the subjunctive mood in the Old English gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels is investigated. All the examples of the Latin third person singular imperfect subjunctive, esset, are examined. There are three aims: to contribute to understanding the use of the subjunctive in the gloss of the Lindisfarne Gospels; to add to the authorship debate; to explore the question of how much Latin influences the glosses. Although, generally, indicative mood is expected in Old English adverbial temporal clauses, this clause type is often found in the subjunctive. The tendency is strongest in the Gospel of Luke. A few doublets of subjunctive and indicative occur, but only in the Gospels of Luke and John.

In late Old English dialects, adverbial elements are frequently morphologically ambiguous (independent words, clitics, verbal prefixes, etc.), and an important facet of the proper treatment of these items is the quality of source-data in different texts. This paper examines the usage of three adverbial/prepositional elements in the Northumbrian Lindisfarne Glosses: eft ‘again, after’, ymb ‘around’, and ofer ‘over’. Skeat (1871–87), whose transcription of the original manuscript is the primary reference for research on the Glosses, frequently transcribes these items as prefixes, alongside other OE prefixes like ge-, a-, for-, and be-. However, Skeat also deviates from this pattern in many cases, leaving their proper analysis uncertain. Nevertheless, various works (e.g., Cook 1894; Bosworth 2011), have indeed taken these items to be prefixes. I follow Fernández-Cuesta (2016) in revisiting the original Lindisfarne manuscript to determine the correct treatment of these items, concluding that eft and ofer should not be analyzed as prefixes in the manuscript, while ymb should have prefix status.

Old English uses personal pronouns, demonstratives, and limited null subject for reference to previously mentioned nouns. It uses personal pronouns reflexively and pronouns modified by ‘self’ identical in form with an intensive. This use of a pronoun modified by self has been attributed to British Celtic influence. Other changes in the pronominal system have been attributed to Scandinavian influence, e.g. the introduction of the third person plural pronoun they. This paper looks at the use of the specially marked reflexives in the glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels, a northern text where both British Celtic and Scandinavian influence may be relevant. It provides lists of all of the self-marked forms and shows, for instance, that Matthew and Mark have reflexives based on an accusative/dative pronoun followed by self and they don’t have this form as an intensifier. British Celtic of this period has an intensifier but has no special reflexives and has lost case endings, so the Lindisfarne language is unlike British Celtic. Luke and John have intensives and reflexives, with ‘self’ modifying case-marked pronouns, again unlike British Celtic. In addition to contributing to the debate on external origins, the paper adds to the authorship debate by comparing the use of reflexives in the different gospels.

Aldred’s interlinear glosses added to the Latin text of the Lindisfarne Gospels have undoubtedly an inestimable value as one of the most substantial representatives of late Old Northumbrian. Therefore, they have been an object of study both as a source of information on this Old English variety and on the typological changes affecting Middle English. Starting from the assumption that glosses have an ancillary function with respect to the Latin text they accompany, I have argued in the present paper that they can make a significant contribution to delineating the history and meaning of a word inasmuch as glossators could have chosen vernacular words according to their core meaning. The particular case of the verbs of possession āgan and the forms derived from it, including the past participle āgen, will be used in the following discussion of the role of glosses: the investigation of their meaning in the Lindisfarne Gospels will help us understand the development of āgen into the PDE attributive intensifier own.