Inside Old English

JOHN WALMSLEY, Professor emeritus of Englische Sprache und Literatur und ihre Didaktik at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, read English Language and Literature at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, and General Linguistics and Education at Edinburgh and Durham Universities respectively. He held teaching posts at Hamburg University and St. Mary's College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, before being appointed to his chair at Bielefeld. From 1993 to 1994 he was Visiting Fellow at the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics (RCEAL) Cambridge, England. His publications cover topics in linguistics, applied linguistics and foreign-language teaching, and the history of linguistics. Current interests include the role of linguistics in education, linguistic terminology and its history, and late medieval English grammar.

• Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgements xiiiList of Abbreviations xivForeword xviBruce Mitchell xviiiFred C. RobinsonIntroduction 1John Walmsley1 Eight Notes on the Beowulf Text 19Alfred Bammesberger2 A Point Well Taken: Manuscript Punctuation and Old English Poems 38Daniel Donoghue3 The Incomparable Wryness of Old English Poetry 59Roberta Frank4 Straining Words and Striving Voices: Polysemy and Ambiguity and the Importance of Context in the Disclosure of Meaning 74Antonette diPaolo Healey5 “Eala, geferan and gode wyrhtan”: On Interjections in Old English 91Risto Hiltunen6 Speaking One’s Mind in The Wanderer 117Susan Irvine7 Wulfstan’s Scandinavian Loanword Usage: An Aspect of the Linguistic Situation in the Late Old English Danelaw 134Tadao Kubouchi8 An Aspect of Old English Poetic Diction: The Postpositioning of Prepositions 153Michael Lapidge9 Issues for Editors of Anglo-Saxon Poetry in Manuscript Form 181Bernard J. Muir10 Language and Style in Two Anonymous Old English Easter Homilies 203Hiroshi Ogawa11 Latin Influence on an Old English Idiom: “To Wit” 222Matti Rissanen12 Germanic *uargaz (OE wearh) and the Finnish Evidence 242Fred C. Robinson13 How the Leopard Got His Spots: English Grammatical Categories, Latin Terms 248John WalmsleyA Bibliography of Writings by Bruce Mitchell 1956–2004 268Select Bibliography 279List of Editions Used 282Index of Names 287Index of Old English Words and Phrases 290Index of Subjects 291