26.3042, Review: Historical Ling; Morphology; Phonology; Socioling; Syntax: Ringe, Taylor (2014)

Thu Jun 25 18:47:28 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3042. Thu Jun 25 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.3042, Review: Historical Ling; Morphology; Phonology; Socioling; Syntax: Ringe, Taylor (2014)

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Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 14:47:05
From: Robert Millar [r.millar at abdn.ac.uk]
Subject: The Development of Old English

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-4326.html

AUTHOR: Donald A. Ringe
AUTHOR: Ann  Taylor
TITLE: The Development of Old English
SERIES TITLE: A Linguistic History of English
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Robert McColl Millar, University of Aberdeen

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

There have not been enough attempts to describe in a relatively circumscribed
space the system of Old English as it developed in a way which is relatively
accessible to an informed reader. Campbell (1959) has been employed by
generations of students as a means of making sense of Old English –
particularly West Saxon – phonology. Lexis and morphosyntax are treated in
rather less detail. The late Richard Hogg’s two volume work on essentially the
same themes (Hogg 1992 and, with Fulk, 2011) provides the student with a
welcome dose of linguistics for what has largely been a philological concern.
But what Ringe and Taylor have achieved in “The Development of Old English” is
far more dense and potent than what any of their predecessors achieved. While
there is little doubt that specialists in the various fields covered will take
issue with some of the findings presented in the book – particularly in
relation to detail – Ringe and Taylor’s achievement will stand as a beacon for
others to follow.

The book itself, while it can be said to stand alone, acts as the second part
of Ringe’s “A Linguistic History of English.” Since the first volume
considered the phonology and morphosyntax of Indo-European and proto-Germanic,
this volume begins with a discussion of North West Germanic (Chapter 2), the
following chapter giving the same attention to West Germanic. Chapter 4
provides ‘A grammatical sketch of Proto-West Germanic’, followed in Chapter 5
by a discussion of the ‘northern West Germanic dialects’ – without much
explanation, Ringe avoids terms such as Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic
(although most of the evidence presented does point to a connection between
what we now would term English, Frisian and (to some extent) Low German and
Dutch). With the conclusion of this chapter the real heart of the book is
presented to the reader.

In the centre of this ‘heart’ lies Chapter 6, ‘The separate prehistory of Old
English: sound changes’, which runs to well over 150 pages. The chapter
presents a scrupulously illustrated run through of the various sound changes
which are postulated to achieve the phonological state of Old English as it is
first attested and in the first century or so after it begins to be written.
It would be very easy to get lost in this chapter; nonetheless, great care has
been taken to provide signposting where necessary, in particular in relation
to the chronology of the phonological changes described.

Chapter 7, ‘The separate prehistory of Old English: morphological changes’ is,
naturally, a rather slim section in comparison, amounting to around fifty
pages. The main paradigms of each part of speech are covered in considerable
depth. A minor criticism might be that presenting the paradigms for the
various noun and adjective declensions and verb conjugations in tabular form
would have helped the reader to follow what is intended by particular comments
in the text (this is in line with what was done in, for instance, Campbell
1959).

The book is completed with a chapter on Old English syntax, written by Ann
Taylor. In many ways this chapter is conceptually different from the rest of
the book, using material from relatively late in the Old English period
(Ringe’s cut-off date is around 900 CE). There is also no attempt to be
all-encompassing (understandably, given the scope of Old English syntax.
Instead, following a later generative model, the chapter is concerned with
making the reader aware of some of the concerns and concentrations of present
research. This makes for a highly readable, but not entirely satisfactory,
experience. The volume ends with Addenda and Corrigenda to Volume 1,
References and an Index.

EVALUATION 

With a book of this scope and level of achievement it is dangerous to be
over-critical of what are often very minor issues; this can appear at the very
least petty or even as self serving. I hope I will avoid being either.
Nonetheless a number of issues might be raised.

In many ways it is regrettable that this work should be (fairly) rigidly
system internal in its focus. It would have been interesting, for instance, to
have a discussion of whether, as has been suggested recently by Schrijver (for
instance, 2009 and 2014), some of the rather more unexpected sound changes of
the Old English and pre-Old English periods were due to Celtic influence.
While there may not actually be anything solid in this suggestion (I admit to
being an agnostic myself), such a treatment would have added greater depth to
the findings of the book. Along the same lines, it would have been interesting
to see a discussion of the origins of the Old English dialects and whether
these can be ascribed to continental origins. This would be particularly
pleasing in a book called The Development of English.

Moreover, although it is to be welcomed that occasional reference has been
made in the book to modern changes in progress described via sociolinguistic
analysis, it would have been useful at times if the description of sound
changes were given more discussion as actual phonological events or series of
events (particularly when changes appear to be flying thick and fast in the
last few non-literate centuries); otherwise the changes remain something like
mathematical formulae (as I remember their being introduced when I was taught
these very changes by the late Michael Samuels). It is understandable that
such a desirable outcome would not have worked well with the need to keep
control of the length of the work, however.

Given that the Syntax chapter has a different author from the rest of the
book, it is understandable that it has a different ‘feel’ to it. The strongly
expressed theoretical orientation of the chapter is not necessarily of itself
a bad thing. Nevertheless, it is strange to have so little reference to Bruce
Mitchell’s monumental “Old English Syntax” (1985), even if the author strongly
disagrees with its findings and methodology (this is in marked contrast to
Ringe’s practice in the rest of the book). There is a danger otherwise that
the chapter become a conversation between a relatively circumscribed number of
scholars. That the chapter transcends these issues is entirely to the author’s
credit, however.

Finally, the book would have benefited from a conclusion, even if it had been
a highly contingent one. It would have been interesting, for instance, to
consider the early varieties of English in relation to what was to come: the
considerable morphological changes through which the language passed in the
late Old English and early Middle English periods, for instance.

Despite these minor issues, however, “The Development of Old English” is
likely to become the main scholarly resource for the study of Old English
language for the foreseeable future.

REFERENCES 

Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Hogg, Richard M. 1992. A Grammar of Old English. Volume 1: Phonology. Oxford:
Blackwell.

Hogg, Richard M. and R.D. Fulk. 2011. A Grammar of Old English. Volume 2:
Morphology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Schrijver, Peter. 2009. ‘Celtic influence on Old English and phonetic
evidence’. English Language and Linguistics 13: 193-211.

— 2014. Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages. London:
Routledge.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Robert McColl Millar is Professor in Linguistics and Scottish Language at the
University of Aberdeen, Scotland. His research interests lie in the Historical
Sociolinguistics of both English and Scots. He is presently completing
Contact: the interaction of closely related varieties and the history of
English, to be published by Edinburgh University Press in Summer 2016.

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