History of the English Language

Proseminar: History of the English Language (4-stündig)
Do. 11.00-13.00 und Fr. 11.00-13.00
Geb. 23.21 Raum U1.68 Beginn: 19.10.2000
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Why are though and tough pronounced so differently despite their nearly identical spelling?
When did the syntactic pattern the man I saw ... first appear in the English language?
How have pairs of quasi-synonyms like span - period or language - speech developed in the course of time?

These are questions typical of the investigation of the history of the English language. In a wider sense the possibility to answer such questions requires a certain insight into the theory of linguistic change.

Specific models of description have been developed for investigating the different dimensions of linguistic change, i.e. sound change, grammatical change and semantic change. Thus the student of historical linguistics needs at least a basic knowledge of and a certain familiarity with the traditional branches of grammatical theory, i.e. phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Moreover, the historical interpretation of linguistic data is in most cases only possible in correlation to the results of social history.

In order to provide the students with the basic methodological and theoretical knowledge necessary for the practical analysis of historical linguistics, we have planned the seminar as a course of five successive units:

0 Introduction
1 Historical Outline
2 Exemplary Analyses
3 Theoretical Discussion
4 Results

The seminar will be held twice a week (4-stündig). We expect the students to prepare each unit very carefully. Each unit is based on a specific homework, a number of ‘Referate' are planned, and teamwork will be necessary.

The course will be accompanied by an online version created by the HELO-Team at: helo.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/index.html
We will provide additional materials and a news forum on the university's BSCW-Server to which you can be invited, if you send your name and a valid email-address to
holteir@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de

Preparatory reading:

Any of the standard monographs on the history of the English language., e.g.:
Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language.
4th ed., London 1993.
McCrum, Robert. The Story of English. London 1987.

For further reading or for purchase of these books via amazon, have a look at our homepage:
http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/anglist1/Bookstore/books.html

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Voraussetzungen: Einführung in die Linguistik
Leistungsnachweis: Referat/Hausarbeit und Klausuren
Veranstaltungstyp: Wahlpflicht M.A./Prom.; SII: A 1,2,4

Der Inhalt der Lehrveranstaltung ist geeignet für die Zwischenprüfung
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