Distribution of Word Classes in Old English and Old High German: A Preliminary Contrastive Study Based onThe Battle of Maldon, HildebrandsliedandLudwigslied

• Authors: Anna Kamińska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper presents an example of a historical study based on comparable corpora. It aims to analyse and compare the distribution of different parts of speech in Old English and Old High German, thus providing a quantitative basis for further conclusions concerning different patterns of the development of those two West-Germanic languages. A particular attention has been devoted to the frequencies of prepositions and pronouns, as there are considerable differences between the languages in this respect. In addition, the article is a an attempt to show the importance and relevance of computational data for contrastive historical linguistics and their role in supporting or disproving traditional theories.

Keywords

EN

word classes distribution; Old English; Old High German; West-Germanic; contrastive analysis; distribution of pronouns; distribution of prepositions; subject omission; inflectional vs. analytic

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Research in Language
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 5
• Pages: 135-146

Dates

published

2007-01-01

online

2007-12-18

Contributors

author

Anna Kamińska

• University of Łódź

References

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• Hildebrandslied. 1996. Bibliotheca Augustana.
• Kamińska, A. 2005. A Contrastive Study of Old English and Old High German Grammar: a Corpus-based Analysis of a Fragment of ‘The Battle of Maldon’, ‘Hildebrandslied’ and ‘Ludwigslied’ łódź: Uniwersytet Łódzki (unpublished MA dissertation).
• König, E. and J. van der Auwera (eds). 1994. The Germanic Languages. London and New York: Routledge.
• Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (ed.) 2004. Practical Applications in Language and Computers (PALC 2003). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
• Ludwigslied. 1996. Bibliotheca Augustana.
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• Schmidt, W. 1984. Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Volk und Wissen.
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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10015-007-0005-3