Books in the Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature series

More than any other European language English has been shaped by its contacts with other languages such as Celtic, Latin, Scandinavian and French. This is true not only of the vocabulary, but also of morphology and even phonology and syntax. But also the contact between different varieties of English played an important role, especially in the shaping of the Englishes outside England. The papers contained in this volume deal with such contacts from various points of views. Major topics are: the restructuring of lexical fields by borrowing processes in Old, Middle and Early Modern English, the influence of Scandinavian on the morphology, the influence of Latin on English syntax, the development of Middle English verse meter under Italian influence, the origin of spelling conventions, the role of code-switching and language mixing for the development of the language, and the role of language contact in general in Central Europe.

The thirteen articles in this volume present a multidisciplinar approach to Old and Middle English language and literature, offering cutting-edge perspectives on different aspects of linguistic and literary developments in those periods and rendering an up-to-date overview of the work on English diachronic linguistics and literary analysis today.

Examines four Middle English narratives of the Trojan War as examples of the medieval appropriations of classical history and classical narrative traditions as a discourse related to issues of contemporary politics and morality. This title includes "Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy", "Laud Troy Book", "Seege of Troye" and "Troy Book".

A collection of essays demonstrates that much can be learned from studying features such as word-division, printer's type, and spelling conventions. It features - termed accidentals - typically receive little attention when editors discuss how a text became actualized in a particular medieval manuscript or early modern print.

Offers a statistical study of Middle English prepositions. This book demonstrates how Middle English prepositions underwent semantic erosion, either via de-lexicalisation or through collocational and idiomatic processes.

A set of Early Middle English works that composed for devout women, renowned for both their vigorous and flexible prose and their rich and distinctive language. It brings together various manuscripts of four of the five works, printing them in parallel for easy comparison.