Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2014
Abstract
The paper proposes a quantitative, but holistic methodology for establishing a level of morphological syntheticity. The methodology is based on a series of corpus-based probes into morphological behaviour of selected high-frequency nouns, adjectives and verbs from Old English to Present-Day English.
Reflecting on the distribution of the morphological markers in the four periods under scrutiny, levels of syntheticity are established that correspond to the textbook story of a typological re-shaping in the history of English.