Overview

Locating the subjunctive at the interface of mood and modality, this book presents a systematic description of the use of the English subjunctive in main clauses, noun clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial clauses. It explores the factors which governed its competition with other verbal expressions in texts ranging from the 9th to the beginning of the 18th century. Employing close reading alongside analysis of corpus data and the use of descriptive statistics, it offers new insights into the research landscape of English subjunctive use and into the fields of historical English linguistics and corpus linguistics.

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9781474437998

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If the recent history of the subjunctive in British and American English is the 'tip of the language-historical iceberg', then Moessner's meticulous corpus study covering the time from Old English to the beginning of the 18th century is essential reading for anyone interested in the iceberg's vast submerged base.--Professor Christian Mair, Universit�t Freiburg

Author Information

Lilo Moessner is Professor Emerita of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where she held a chair of Historical English Linguistics and Medieval Studies.

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