The Even Yearbook 5 (2002)
#43
volume 5 (2002)
pages 31–48
author Tamás Eitler
title An Old Norse–Old English contact phenomenon: the retention of the dative plural inflection -um in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English
abstract The elements of the oppositions stasis and change, retention and loss, insularity and openness, close-knit community and loose-knit community all seem to represent the two poles conservativeness and innovativeness, respectively. It will be shown that when a linguistic system is given an external stimulus via language contact, the conservative and innovative elements of the oppositions can mix, resulting in seemingly conservative elements pairing up with innovative ones. Under these circumstances retention can no longer be regarded a necessarily conservative feature and change can appear to take the shape of stasis.
PDF full text
refs ⟨BibTeX⟩
⟨RIS⟩
⟨txt⟩