|
|
Article: Graphotactics of the Old English 'Alexander's Letter to Aristotle'.(Linguistics)
- Article from:
- Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Adam Mickiewicz University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Abstract
This paper describes empirical evidence in the Old English MS text of 'Alexander's Letter to Aristotle' for study of syntactic, morphotactic, and phonotactic aspects of a text representative of late West Saxon Old English--the same linguistic system in which Beowulf is preserved. If is written by the same scribe who copied more than hall of that superb poem. That evidence lies in graphotactic features, where spacings occur within letter-strings, and how wide they are in linear measure; these features are obliterated in printed editions on which nearly all historical linguistics of English has been based. The person who penned these texts was following ...