The Middle English Grammar Project
Contents
Introduction
The Middle English Grammar Project is an international
research programme under way at the University of Glasgow, Scotland,
and Stavanger University College, Norway. The aim of the Project Team
is to provide students of English historical linguistics with linked,
up-to-date discussions of aspects of Middle English grammar broadly
conceived: writing-systems, phonology, grammar (morphology and syntax),
lexicology.
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Research Context
It is generally acknowledged that Middle English studies
suffer from a lack of thorough grammatical description on up-to-date
lines. Works regarded hitherto as authoritative, such as Jordan's
Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik: Lautlehre (1925 and subsequent
editions), are not only partial but have become seriously outdated.
The publication of the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English
(LALME) (1986), and other important surveys of Middle English dialectology
such as Kristensson's Survey of Middle English Dialects, has
meant a massive increase in the available information, and there have
also been major developments of a theoretical nature.
However, there remains a continuing need to harness
this material or theoretical orientation to an overall programme of
grammatical description linked to interpretative study. The Middle English
Grammar Project is designed to address part of this gap, with a pattern
of steady publication of monographs, surveys and associated textbooks.
Of course, the Glasgow-Stavanger Project is only one
initiative in a very active area of research, undertaken in many centres
of excellence throughout the world. The Project Team has developed,
and is developing, close relationships with colleagues in these centres,
notably in the UK with the Institute for Historical Dialectology, University
of Edinburgh, and with other initiatives in medieval English studies
and English historical linguistics. The Project has hosted, and will
continue to host, a series of collogues whereby its objectives, and
those of the scholarly network of which it is part, may be furthered
in a collaborative and cooperative atmosphere.
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Objectives
Given the expertise of scholars currently working on the Project, the
following desiderata have been identified as priorities:
(1) A machine-readable and diatopically-ordered corpus
of texts from the late Middle English period, consisting of some 3.5
million words directly transcribed from either the original manuscripts
or good-quality microfilms. This corpus is currently nearing completion,
and is scheduled for release in 2005-2006. This corpus, which is conceived
of as the basis for further transcriptions for further purposes at a
future date, uses the same conventions for transcription as have been
adopted for Edinburgh’s Corpus of Early Middle English,
and is designed to be compatible with that resource. Together, the two
corpora will form the most extensive machine-readable resource of diatopically-ordered
materials from the Middle English period yet made available to scholars.
(2) A diachronic and diatopic interpretative survey
of Middle English orthography and phonology based on published and unpublished
material, with the initial aim of producing a replacement of Jordan's
Handbuch. This publication, scheduled for 2007-2008 and building
upon the corpus in (1) above, will supply the coherent, up-to-date history
of medieval English transmission (writing- and sound-systems) currently
lacking.
(3) Various associated articles, monographs and textbooks
stemming from research undertaken as part of (1) and (2). For up-to-date
details, see the links from the names of the Project Team below.
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Significance
It is considered that the Project will have major significance
for Middle English linguistic studies in particular, and English historical
linguistics in general. Moreover, there are wider implications for other
branches of medieval English studies, such as textual and literary investigation.
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Project Team
Dr Simon Horobin
is Lecturer in English Language at the University of Glasgow, Scotland,
where he was previously an AHRB Institutional Research Fellow. He wrote
his doctoral thesis on early texts of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, and he has published extensively on English historical linguistics
and the textual criticism of medieval English texts.
Dr Merja Stenroos is Associate Professor in English
Linguistics at Stavanger College, Norway. She wrote her doctoral thesis
on the dialect materials of medieval Herefordshire, and has written
numerous articles on a range of topics within English historical linguistics,
with a focus on the Middle English period.
Professor Jeremy
Smith is Professor of English Philology at the University of Glasgow,
Scotland. His doctoral thesis was on the language of manuscripts of
Gower’s Confessio Amantis. Since then he has published
widely on topics in medieval English and English historical linguistics.
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News
This section will be updated every four months.
-- The Project is affiliated to the new Medieval Manuscripts Research
Hub - http://www.medievalmanuscripts.net/
-- New M.A. in Literacy Studies at Stavanger - http://worm.his.no/master/
-- Plenary paper at ICEHL, Vienna, August 2004 - http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/icehl13/
-- Publication of The Language of the Chaucer Tradition (2003) - http://www.boydell.co.uk/4301.HTM
Postal Address: Department of English Language, 12 University Gardens,
University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ
P: + (0)141-330 5684 (direct line), + (0)141-330 6340 (secretary)
F: + (0)141 330 3531
E: J.Smith@englang.arts.gla.ac.uk
IHSL projects page
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/ihsl/project.htm
February 2004
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