Interpreting the Old English Nominal Group from a Parsed Corpus

Abstract

The object of this study is to derive a systemic functional interpretation of the experiential structure of the Old English nominal group from a parsed database. The database is the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE), a parsed structuralist corpus. The methodology uses the CorpusSearch search engine to isolate nominal group tree-structures in two separate inventories. The first search results in an inventory of the nominal groups having the most extended experiential structures without postmodifiers. A functional interpretation of the experiential structures revealed shows that the categories of experiential elements in the modern English nominal group are enough to explain the Old English structures. The second search results in a much larger inventory of the nominal groups having the next most extended experiential structures without postmodifiers. Structural and functional interpretations of these groups confirm the variety of experiential elements in the first inventory, and show numerous types of variation in element sequence and realizations. They also show the need for an additional element category, Pre-deictic. Variations in sequence include Epithet before Numerative, and Epithet or Numerative before Deictic. Realizational variations include Classifiers realized by embedded nominal groups.

Keywords:

• nominal group
• systemic functional linguistics
• Old English
• parsed corpus
• experiential structure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term “homophoric” is widely used in systemic functional linguistics for the type of reference which is “self-specifying”, i.e., to entities which are cultural or contextual donnés as in “the sun”, “the moon”, “the Prime Minister”, “the cat”, etc. (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, 630–631).

2 “SUPL” = “superlative”.

3 Despite the YCOE interpretation of þon as a dative case form, it is conventionally a form in the instrumental case, which is also possible after preposition mid.