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The Analysis of the Genitive Case in Old English Within a Cognitive Grammar Framework, Based on the Data from .!Elfric's Catholic Homilies First Series

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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The analysis of the genitive case in Old English within a Cognitive Grammar framework, based on the data from .!Elfric's Catholic Homilies First Series. Takeshi Koike Ph.D (English Language) The University of Edinburgh 2004 ,, ' .. -~ \ -.. ....... _...... - "' ·. THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH (Regulation ABSTRACT OF THESIS 3.9.14) Name of Candidate: T AKESHI KOIKE Address: Postal Code: Degree: ---~-~:-~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Title ofThesis: The analysis of the genitive case in Old English within a Cognitive Grammar framework, based on the data from JElfric' s Catholic Homilies First series No. of words in the main text of Thesis: I 00,000 The primary aim of the present study is to glv_e_a_s_e_i-;-ian-tlc/c-once-p-tuafan-aiysrs-io-ti1-e-gen_i_trv-e-cas-e--li-i ___ _ Old English(= OE) within a Cognitive Grammar (=CG) framework (specifically Langacker's version; Langacker 1987, 1991) and explain the diversity of its use (adnominal, adverbal, adjectival, prepositional, and adverbial), as constituting a coherent network, wherein all variants share a unified semantic structure. My analysis is partly based on Roman Jakobson's (1936/1971) study on the Russian case system, which is recast and updated within a CG framework. Pivotal to my analysis of the semantic structure of the genitive case is the notion of"deprofile", whereby an already profiled (i.e. most prominent) entity in a given predicate becomes unprofiled, to reduce the amount of attention drawn onto the designatum, making it conceptually less prominent. Specifically, the function of the genitive case in OE is to deprofile the profile of the nominal predicate to which the genitive inflection is attached. The crucial claim is that a genitive nominal is a nominal predicate, in that it still profiles a region in some domain, in accordance with the schematic characterisation of the semantic structure of a noun in CG. The nominal character of a genitive nominal means that it can occur in various syntactic contexts where any other nominal expression can occur, namely in a position for a verbal, adverbial, and prepositional complement, as well as in a modifier/complement position for a noun. This account ties in with the subsequent history of the genitive case after the end of the OE period, in which some of its uses became obsolete, especially the partitive function of adnominal genitive, and all functions of the adverbal, adjectival, prepositional genitives. The cumulative effect of this is that a genitive nominal ceased to be a nominal predicate, and its determinative character which had already existed in OE side by side with its nominal character, became grammaticalised during the ME period as a general function of a genitive nominal. Chapter l outlines the history of the genitive case from OE to early ME, to introduce the problems to be dealt with in this dissertation, particularly the diversity of the genitive functions. Reviews of some previous studies relevant to the problems are also provided. Chapter 2 and 3 introduce the framework of CG. Chapter 2 summarises some basic assumptions about grammar, and Chapter 3 focuses on how syntactic issues are dealt with in CG, based on the assumptions summarised in Chapter 2. Here I also introduce Langacker' s (I 991) and Taylor' s ( 1996) account of a Present Day English possessive construction, using Langacker's reference point analysis, and examine its applicability to the OE genitive. As an alternative, the notion of deprofile will be introduced. Chapters 4 and 5 are the application to the actual examples of genitive nominals, taken from !Elfric's Catholic Homilies first series; Chapter 4 deals with adnominal genitive, and chapter 5 covers all the non-adnominal genitives. Finally, Chapter 6 discusses how the diversity of the genitive functions in OE and its subsequent history may be accounted for in the light of the findings in this study. 11:\Fy nhracsawd\Abslract ofThcsis.doc Use tlzis side only Preface The study of the genitive case in Old English has been an exciting subject to me for over ten years, and the simple question of how this case was used both adnominally and adverbally (among other uses of the case) has always been bewildering. There have been several steps made forward to a solution of this question. Firstly, it was through Prof. Kodama Hitoshi at Dokkyo University, who introduced to me this subject and suggested that there might be some relationship between the use of the genitive case and the degree of transitivity. Secondly, it was through Prof. Shun Shirota at Dokkyo University, who recommended me to read Roman Jakobson's Beitrag zur algemeinen Kasuslehre, which suggested a possibility of explaining the ad nominal and ad verbal uses of the genitive case in a coherent way. I wrote my MSc dissertation at University of Edinburgh based on Jakobson's theory of case. But I found many problems in explaining what exactly Jakobson meant, and I needed a theoretical framework in which his theory can be formulated. The third step was through Langacker's Cognitive Grammar, which I found capable of recasting Jakobson' s theory and also incorporating the notion of transitivity in a persuasive way. So I finally formulated what I have thought and found about the genitive case in Old English in this dissertation. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Graeme Trousdale, who gave me a lot of encouragement to study Cognitive Grammar, and indeed studied with me, and shared all my interests in the genitive case. Without his supervision, especially in keeping me write it up, I would never have been able to complete this work practically. I would also like to thank Dr Caroline Heycock in Linguistic Department. She gave me a lot of valuable comments and advice from the point of view of more "general" or "generativist's" point of view. Indeed my criticism of Thomas's study (in Chapter 1) was dramatically improved due to her comments on my first draft. Also it was through my discussion with her that I realised that within an adnominal genitive phrase, when the genitive nominal precedes the head noun, the head noun is never accompanied by any determiner of its own, which is an extremely significant fact in the history of the genitive in English. I also want to thank Dr. Fran Colman and Prof. John Anderson, who supervised me in 11 my first three years in Edinburgh, and encouraged me to explore the originality of ideas. The main point of this thesis is, I think, inspired by John's persistent query: "a genitive nominal (in OE) determines", when I insisted it did not. It turned out that both were right, it seems to me, and that the categories of a determiner class and a nominal class were not so distinct in OE as in PDE. I would also like to thank Pro Kodama Hitoshi, who has introduced me to this inspiring subject, and also Prof. Shirota Shun, who recommended me to read Roman Jakobson' s paper. I would like to express my deepest thanks to my parents, who have supported my long studies financially and mentally, and have been so patient in waiting to see the completion of this degree. Finally, I want to thank my wife Zuzana, who has been so patient and encouraging to me, and took a great care of me when I was so concentrated on my work that I could not think of other things, through prayers and supports. She listened to my "genitive stories" both days and nights, and showed a lot of interest in them. Without her support I would not have survived (at least) the last stage of my Ph.D. I would like to dedicate this thesis to Zuzana. 2004.3.26 Takeshi Koike University of Edinburgh Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is of my own composition, and that it contains no material previously submitted. 2004.3.25 Takeshi Koike lll Table of contents Abstract i Preface .... ii Table of contents .... vi Abbreviation .... vii Introduction ..... 1 Chapter 1 A history of the genitive case from OE to ME and a review of relevant previous studies .... 5 § 1.1 A summary of the history of the genitive case in OE and ME ... 5 §1.1.1 Classification of the genitive in OE ..... 5 § 1.1.2 A summary of the situation of the adnominal genitive in OE and its subsequent history from OE to ME ..... I 0 § 1.1.3 A summary ofthe situation of the adverbal genitive (a) and (b) in OE and its subsequent history from OE to ME .... I 7 § 1.1.3.1 The ad verbal genitive proper: the situation in OE ..... 18 § 1.1.3.2 The ad verbal genitive involving a preposition; the situation in OE..... 25 § 1.1.3.3 The adverbal genitive involving idiomatic expressions; the situation in OE ....
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