Work

Metre and clitics in Old English and Old Saxon

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.This article attempts to extract prosodic information from Germanic (here, Old English and Old Saxon) alliterative poetry by integrating multiple theoretical frameworks. The metrical theories of Sievers (1893), particularly in the revised version of Russom (2022), provide an initial assessment of low-stress elements in verse. The quadripartite clitic analysis of Anderson (2005) is used to provide a phonological interpretation of these distinctions. It is argued that prepositions are typically PWord enclitics, prefixes are Aﬀixal proclitics, and demonstratives show a shift from PWord clitics to Free clitics, corresponding to their development into definite articles.

Source: Glossa a journal of general linguistics

DOI: 10.16995/glossa.20156

Author: Nelson Goering

Institution: University of Oslo

Language: English

Topic: Linguistics and language evolution

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $551

Funder: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek