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Article published In: The Northumbrian Old English glosses
Edited by Elly van Gelderen
[NOWELE 72:2] 2019
► pp. 134–164

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Verbal morphology in the Old English gloss to the Durham Collectar

 | Universidad de Sevilla
 | Universidad de Sevilla
Published online: 10 December 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nowele.00025.fer
Abstract
This article examines the verbal morphology of the Old English interlinear gloss to the Durham Collectar, attributed by almost universal consensus to Aldred of Chester-le-Street, whose earlier gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels has recently been the object of scholarly attention (Cole, M. 2014. Old Northumbrian verbal morphosyntax and the (Northern) Subject Rule. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Fernández Cuesta, J. & S. Pons-Sanz (eds.). 2016. The Old English glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels: Language, author and context. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 2017. The Lindisfarne Gospels: New perspectives (Library of the Written Word, vol. 57/The Manuscript World, vol. 9). Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This article analyses -s/-th variation in the present indicative and imperative forms in relation to their syntactic context, in particular subject type and subject-verb adjacency, in order to assess whether the Northern Subject Rule detected by Cole, M. 2014. Old Northumbrian verbal morphosyntax and the (Northern) Subject Rule. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar in Lindisfarne was also operative in Aldred’s later gloss. By means of a quantitative analysis, we find that the first constraint does not significantly affect -s/-ð variation in the gloss and that there is insufficient context for the second. Additionally, it is argued that adjacency is a problematic variable in this text-type. We also demonstrate that there is a higher percentage of second person singular -st and -ð in the Collectar than in Lindisfarne and discuss the possible influence of standard West Saxon on the later gloss.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1-s/ -ð variation
  • 2.Results
    • 2.1Third-person singular present indicative
    • 2.2First-person plural present indicative
    • 2.3Second person plural indicative
    • 2.4Third-person plural present indicative
    • 2.5Second person singular present indicative
  • 3.Adjacency effects
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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