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UID:16770-4b3150a2d4adea866dcf134f2117563b@events.la.psu.edu
DTSTAMP:20260416T180821Z
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241004T090000
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SUMMARY:James Stratton
DESCRIPTION:“Where did wer go? From wer to man to guy.\nLexical variatio
n and change in the semantic field of ‘man’ in the history of English”\n
\nTo refer to a male adult\, speakers of Present Day English have severa
l lexical items to choose from (e.g.\, man\, guy\, dude\, fella\, bloke\
, gentleman). However\, variation within this semantic field is not new.
According to The Thesaurus of Old English\, there were at least 25 lexi
cal items which denoted ‘male adult’ in Old English (e.g.\, guma\, man\,
wer) which could occur in referentially comparable contexts. This talk
summarizes two studies that use variationist quantitative methods to exa
mine the evolution of this semantic field throughout the history of the
English language. The first study traces changes within this semantic fi
eld in the early history of English (from Old English to Middle English)
and the second study examines more recent changes in Present Day Britis
h English using two British National spoken corpora.\n\nBoth studies pre
sent evidence of lexical replacement. In the early history of English we
r\, the most frequent lexical item for ‘man’\, is gradually replaced by
the gender-specific use of man\, a change that is almost complete by Ear
ly Middle English. As wer decreases in frequency\, man takes on the form
er function of wer\, with the diachronic shift in frequency following a
prototypical s-curve distribution. Language-internal (e.g.\, alliteratio
n) and language-external factors (e.g.\, text type\, text origin) are fo
und to significantly affect variation. The results from Present Day Engl
ish point to another example of lexical replacement within this system\,
with man being replaced by guy. Some correlates and potential causes of
the replacement are proposed for both changes.\n\nFor more details: htt
ps://events.la.psu.edu/event/james-stratton/
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:“Where did wer go? From wer to man to guy.
Lexical variation and change in the semantic field of ‘man’ in the hist
ory of English”
To refer to a male adult, speakers of Present Day
English have several lexical items to choose from (e.g., man,
guy, dude, fella, bloke, gentlem
an). However, variation within this semantic field is not new. Acco
rding to The Thesaurus of Old English, there were at least 25 l
exical items which denoted ‘male adult’ in Old English (e.g., guma, man, wer) which could occur in referentially comp
arable contexts. This talk summarizes two studies that use variationist
quantitative methods to examine the evolution of this semantic field thr
oughout the history of the English language. The first study traces chan
ges within this semantic field in the early history of English (from Old
English to Middle English) and the second study examines more recent ch
anges in Present Day British English using two British National spoken c
orpora.
Both studies present evidence of lexical replacement. In t
he early history of English wer, the most frequent lexical item
for ‘man’, is gradually replaced by the gender-specific use of man<
/em>, a change that is almost complete by Early Middle English. As w
er decreases in frequency, man takes on the former functio
n of wer, with the diachronic shift in frequency following a pr
ototypical s-curve distribution. Language-internal (e.g., alliteration)
and language-external factors (e.g., text type, text origin) are found t
o significantly affect variation. The results from Present Day English p
oint to another example of lexical replacement within this system, with
man being replaced by guy. Some correlates and potenti
al causes of the replacement are proposed for both changes.
For mo
re details: ht
tps://events.la.psu.edu/event/james-stratton/
LOCATION:102 Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library
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