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    Mystery2 Model Solution

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    mgomezibor
    This document contains a summary of a Middle English religious text describing Jesus's crucifixion. It analyzes several linguistic features of the text, determining that it comes from a northern English dialect based on its verb conjugations and pronouns. Key evidence includes the use of -s rather than -th for third-person singular verbs and the pronouns "thai" and "thair." The text also retains features like word order and vowel sounds that trace back to Old English. Overall, the analysis concludes the text is from the 14th century work of Richard Rolle, a mystic from Yorkshire.

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Mystery2 Model Solution

    Uploaded by

    mgomezibor
    17 views3 pages
    This document contains a summary of a Middle English religious text describing Jesus's crucifixion. It analyzes several linguistic features of the text, determining that it comes from a northern English dialect based on its verb conjugations and pronouns. Key evidence includes the use of -s rather than -th for third-person singular verbs and the pronouns "thai" and "thair." The text also retains features like word order and vowel sounds that trace back to Old English. Overall, the analysis concludes the text is from the 14th century work of Richard Rolle, a mystic from Yorkshire.

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    This document contains a summary of a Middle English religious text describing Jesus's crucifixion. It analyzes several linguistic features of the text, determining that it comes from a northern English dialect based on its verb conjugations and pronouns. Key evidence includes the use of -s rather than -th for third-person singular verbs and the pronouns "thai" and "thair." The text also retains features like word order and vowel sounds that trace back to Old English. Overall, the analysis concludes the text is from the 14th century work of Richard Rolle, a mystic from Yorkshire.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    17 views3 pages

    Mystery2 Model Solution

    Uploaded by

    mgomezibor
    This document contains a summary of a Middle English religious text describing Jesus's crucifixion. It analyzes several linguistic features of the text, determining that it comes from a northern English dialect based on its verb conjugations and pronouns. Key evidence includes the use of -s rather than -th for third-person singular verbs and the pronouns "thai" and "thair." The text also retains features like word order and vowel sounds that trace back to Old English. Overall, the analysis concludes the text is from the 14th century work of Richard Rolle, a mystic from Yorkshire.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Middle English

    Mystery Text 2: About Jesus


    Model Solution

    Read the text and answer the questions below:

    1 My keyng, that water grette grette: wept


    and blode swette;
    Sythen ful sare bette, sythen: since, as; sare: sore(ly)
    so that hys blode hym wette, bette: beat(en)
    5 When thair scowrges mette.
    Ful fast thai gan hym dyng gan: went; dyng: beat (up)
    and at the pyler swyng, pyler: pillar
    And his fayre face defowlyng with spytting.
    Þe thorne crownes þe Keyng;
    10 ful sare es þat prickyng.
    Alas, my joy and my swetyng swetyng: sweetie, sweet thing
    es demed to hyng. demed: deemed, judged; hyng: hang
    Nayled was his handes,
    nayled was hys fete,
    15 And thyrled was hys syde, thyrled: pierced
    so semely and so swete semely: lovely

    Questions:

    1. Translate the text into (comprehensible) Modern English!

    My king, that cried water


    and sweated blood,
    Since (he was) beaten very sorely
    so that his blood wetted him,
    when their scourges met.
    Very fast they went to beat him up
    and swing him at the pillar
    Defouling his fair face with spitting.
    The thorn crowns the king;
    very sore is the pricking.
    Alas, my joy and my sweetie
    is deemed to hang.
    His hands were nailed,
    his feet were nailed,
    And pierced was his side,
    so lovely and so sweet.

    2. Transcribe the first 5 lines in the IPA.


    Help: Ignore the weird spelling of King.
    Middle English

    [mi: kɪŋg ðat watər gretə


    and blo:də swetə
    sɪðən fʊl sa:rə betə
    sɔ: ðat hɪs blo:də him wetə
    hwan ðair sku:rdʒəs metə]

    3. Explain the effect the Great Vowel Shift had on the pronunciation of long vowels, using
    the examples face (8), crownes (9), syde (15), swete (16).

    In the GVS, low vowels raised to mid, mid vowels raised to high and high vowels
    diphthongised.
    Regarding diphthongisation, ME /i:/ > Modern /aɪ/, as in side (ME /si:də/),
    and ME /u:/ > /aʊ/, as in crownes.
    The low vowel raising is exemplified by face where /a:/ > /eɪ/.
    The mid vowel raising is exemplified by swete where /e:/ > /i:/.

    4. The words thair (5) and joy (11) are new in Middle English. Where do they originate?
    Explain briefly how they got into the English language.

    thair ‘their’ is a loanword from Old Norse (as are they, them), joy is a French loanword.
    Borrowing from ON is an effect of Viking settlements in the North and East of England
    which led to intensive contact between Norse and English speakers. One effect of this
    contact was that many words of Norse origin entered the English language.
    joy: Borrowing from French is an effect of Norman rule after 1066; after the Battle of
    Hastings a French-speaking nobility took control in England, and French became the
    language of the court and of government. Over time this led to massive borrowing from
    French, especially from 1200 onwards.

    5. Identify all inflectional suffixes you can find. Do they give you an indication of where
    the text is from (from which dialect area)?

    There are two verbal inflectional suffixes in this text.


    -s marks the third person singular in this text (crownes).
    -ed marks the past participle (nayled, thyrled).
    (In addition there are verbs in -te: mette, wette, grette.)
    The use of -s indicates that the text is from the North where the use of -s as a 3rd singular
    (and general present tense marker) was innovated (the rest of England had -th).
    In addition we also find the plural marker -s (handes) and an irregular umlauted plural (fete).

    6. Provide 1 or 2 additional pieces of evidence to support the suggestion that the text is
    from this specific dialect.

    Additional Northern features:


    Use of thai, thair as 3rd person plural pronouns is indicative of North until. Late ME.
    No raising of OE /a:/ to /ɔ:/, thus sare, gan ‘sore, gone’
    Bonus: Early loss of infinitive ending -en in dyng, swyng.
    Middle English

    7. Identify and cite an example of word order that is different from Modern English and
    explain briefly how it is different. Does this link in some way to what you know about
    Old English word order?

    We find several instances of verb-final word order in subordinate clauses (as opposed to
    Modern English SVO), which was typical of Old English word order (SOV in subordinate
    clauses, tendency towards V2 in main clauses, similar to Modern German).
    An example of that us in line 1 and following: that water grette and blode swette, where the
    verb follows the object.
    We find another instance with a non-finite infinitive clause: Thai gan him ding and at the
    pyler swyng where again the verb (in the infinitive) is final.

    The mystery solved:

    The text is an excerpt from the text Ego Dormio by the mystic Richard Rolle (c. 1290-1349) from
    Yorkshire, is thus an example of a Northern dialect text.

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