Download Free The English Language Volume 1 Essays By English And American Men Of Letters 1490 1839 Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The English Language Volume 1 Essays By English And American Men Of Letters 1490 1839 and write the review.

This is a collection of essays about the English language by English and American men of letters, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; that is, until the rise of formal linguistic studies. The writers represented are concerned with the history, the use, the reform or the changing nature of English. Topics discussed include the defence of English as a literary language; the relationship with other languages; propriety in literary style; the psychological bases of speech; the relationship between words and things; usage; the need for academies and standards of correctness; the rise of lexicography; spelling reform; prescriptive grammar. These essays are the most important serious attempts to consider the language from various standpoints. Students of English in university departments will find this a convenient and comprehensive collection. It is also in itself an illustration of the development of the literary language.
These substantial volumes present the fullest account yet published of the lexicography of English from its origins in medieval glosses, through its rapid development in the eighteenth century, to a fully-established high-tech industry that is as reliant as ever on learning and scholarship. The history covers dictionaries of English and its national varieties, including American English, with numerous references to developments in Europe and elsewhere which have influenced the course of English lexicography. Part one of Volume I explores the early development of glosses and bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and examines their influence on lexicographical methods and ideas. Part two presents a systematic history of monolingual dictionaries of English and includes extensive chapters on Johnson, Webster and his successors in the USA, and the OED. It also contains descriptions of the development of dictionaries of national and regional varieties, and of Old and Middle English, and concludes with an account of the computerization of the OED. The specialized dictionaries described in Volume II include dictionaries of science, dialects, synonyms, etymology, pronunciation, slang and cant, quotations, phraseology, and personal and place names. This volume also includes an account of the inception and development of dictionaries developed for particular users, especially foreign learners of English. The Oxford History of English Lexicography unites scholarship with readability. It provides a unique and accessible reference for scholars and professional lexicographers and offers a series of fascinating encounters with the men and women involved over the centuries in the making of works of profound national and linguistic importance.
The teaching of Latin remained important after the Conquest but Anglo-Norman now became a language of instruction and, from the thirteenth century onwards, a language to be learned. During this period English lexicographers were more numerous, more identifiable and their works more varied, for example: the tremulous hand of Worcester created an Old English-Latin glossary, and Walter de Bibbesworth wrote a popular contextualized verse vocabulary of Anglo-Norman country life and activities. The works and techniques of Latin scholars such as Adam of Petit Point, Alexander Nequam, and John of Garland were influential throughout the period. In addition, grammarians' and schoolmasters' books preserve material which in some cases seems to have been written by them. The material discussed ranges from a twelfth-century glossary written at a minor monastic house to four large alphabetical fifteenth-century dictionaries, some of which were widely available. Some material seems to connect with the much earlier Old English glossaries in ways not yet fully understood.
The present work contributes to a better understanding of the English system of degree by means of a study of a number of aspects in the evolution of adjective comparison that have so far either been considered controversial or not been ccounted for at all. As will be shown, the diachronic aspects analysed will also have synchronic implications. Furthermore, unlike previous synchronic as well as diachronic accounts of adjective comparison, this monograph does not concentrate on the 'standard' comparative strategies (i.e. inflectional and periphrastic forms) only, but also deals with double periphrastic comparatives, thus providing an analysis of the whole range of comparative structures in English.
Frederik Theodor Visser's An Historical Syntax of the English Language, published in four massive volumes between 1963 and 1973, is certainly one of the cornerstones of research in English linguistics. Visser's achievements can hardly be overestimated. Before the advent of modern corpus linguistics, he compiled a remarkable wealth of detailed philological data from all periods of English and combined this with current grammatical analyses of his time. This has made this publications an indispensable resource for anyone investigating the history of English syntax. This reproduction of Visser's volumes is more than welcome, and timely, as the volumes have been out of print for quite some time and were sometimes a little bit difficult to navigate. Having a searchable and easy-to- use online version, although maybe not perfect, available now means a revival for scholarship that celebrates its fiftieth birthday without losing any of its relevance.
Provides a rich and varied reference resource, illuminating the different contexts for Chaucer and his work.
This book argues that the sixteenth-century preoccupation with rehabilitating English tells the larger story of an anxious nation redirecting attention away from its own marginal, minority status by racially scapegoating the 'barbarous' African.
Looks at the evolution of the English language.