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The Semantic Predecessors of Need in the History of English (c750-1710)
Contributor(s): Loureiro-Porto, Lucía (Author)
ISBN: 1405192704     ISBN-13: 9781405192705
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
OUR PRICE:   $41.56  
Product Type: Paperback
Published: September 2009
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - Semantics
Series: Publications of the Philological Society
Physical Information: 0.5" H x 5.8" W x 8.9" (0.92 lbs) 292 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
In the history of English at least five verbs have been found to mean 'need' urfan, be urfan, need, behove and mister. By adopting a corpus-based approach, this book studies all of them diachronically, from the origins of the language (c.750) to the end of the early Modern English period (1710).
  • Offers a detailed analysis of the meaning of these five verbs which have been found to mean 'need', filling a gap in the literature on modality and shedding new light on grammaticalization theory
  • Spans the period c.750 to 1710, adopting a corpus-based approach to study the verbs diachronically
  • Explores the evolution of necessity meanings in English, identifying regular semantic changes and challenging some well-established statements
  • Provides a detailed grammaticalization analysis, paying attention to the different Present-Day-English modal classes, including marginal and emerging modals