A Synchronic Analysis of Transition from the Impersonal to Personal Construction.
- Author/Editor
- Ohno, Hideshi.
- Title
- A Synchronic Analysis of Transition from the Impersonal to Personal Construction.
- Published
- Ohno, Hideshi. "A Synchronic Analysis of Transition from the Impersonal to Personal Construction." The Rising Generation, 153/2 (2007): 110-13.
- Review
- N.B.: This study is in Japanese: "Hi'ninshō yōhō no shūsoku katei ni okeru ichi danmen." Eigo Seinen. It surveys the use of verbs of dreaming "meten" and "dremen" in the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Langland. The verbs appeared with both dative (impersonal construction) and nominative (personal construction) subjects in the late fourteenth century, although the impersonal construction had started to disappear. First, the survey shows that Chaucer and Langland use both constructions, and Gower uses only the personal construction. Syntactically, the verbs tend to be used impersonally with a clausal complement (Type 1) or with no complement in a parenthetical expression like "as me mette" (Type 2), while used personally with a nominal one (Type 3). Next, dealing with Chaucer's examples, the study surveys the use of the two constructions in context. Sometimes co-occurring with the impersonal "thinken," Types 1 and 2 are used when a dream is described even though the speaker is uncertain about its veracity: the impersonal construction shows the speaker's uncertainty. In contrast, Type 2 is used when the focus of utterance is placed on the act of dreaming. Thus, the paper concludes that even in the midst of the transition, each construction functions differently. [English summary provided by Professor Ohno. Copyright. eJGN 39.2]
- Date
- 2007
- Gower Subjects
- Language and Word Studies