Papers by María José López Couso
Selim Journal of the Spanish Society For Medieval English Language and Literature Revista De La Sociedad Espanola De Lengua Y Literatura Inglesa Medieval, 1994
SOME EDITIONS OF THE BRUCE. A COMPARATIVE ACCOUNT 1 The Bruce by John Barbour has been traditiona... more SOME EDITIONS OF THE BRUCE. A COMPARATIVE ACCOUNT 1 The Bruce by John Barbour has been traditionally regarded as the landmark of Scottish literature. Several editions of the work have been made since the earliest printed version of the late 16th or the first years of the 17th century. Such editions are based on, at least, two different manuscripts. In what follows, it is our intention to make a review of the most representative printed versions of The Bruce in the course of time and their use of the extant manuscripts. The literary type to which the poem can be ascribed is that of romance, one of the most widespread and popular genres in medieval Western Europe. The Bruce contains about 13550 lines in octosyllabic rimed couplets composed after the French metrical tradition, whilst by its theme it can be classified as belonging to the so-called 'matter of Britain'. As usually happens with romances of this kind, real historical events appear mixed with fiction. Although there are various opinions as to the degree of fidelity to historical events, it could be maintained that The Bruce deals basically with real persons and real situations. The poem recounts the life and deeds of Robert Bruce (1274-1329), nationalist hero of Scotland who would later become the first Stuart king. One of the best known episodes of his life is that dealing with the battle of Bannockburn (1314). As regards the author, 1 his exact date of birth is not known, 2 though it can be affirmed that he was Archdeacon of Aberdeen in the times of Chaucer. 1 This research has been funded by the Consellería de Educación e Ordenación Universitaria da Xunta de Galicia. This grant is hereby gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank the Department of English Language of the University of Edinburgh, especially Dr. John Anderson and Dr. Fran Colman, for their help and research facilities.
Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 2016
The article shows that significant benefits can be gained from the integration of corpus linguist... more The article shows that significant benefits can be gained from the integration of corpus linguistics and grammaticalization theory, two subfields which, despite sharing considerable common ground, tended to remain as separate areas of linguistic analysis until quite recently. Making use of diachronic and contemporary corpora of English, such as the
Language Sciences, 2015
In this article we look at a case of secondary grammaticalization in English which entails the de... more In this article we look at a case of secondary grammaticalization in English which entails the development of originally adverbial subordinators into complement-clause connectives. The study systematizes our earlier findings regarding the adverbial links but, if, though, lest, as if, as though, and like, which over time have come to realize a subsidiary function as equivalents (or near-equivalents) of the major declarative complementizers that and zero in certain specific contexts. We show that minor declarative complementizers are typically associated with the expression of subjectivity and irreality. As such, they are usually attested in complementation structures in which subjectivity is also at hand (e.g. they are complements to specific predicate-types occurring in non-assertive environments). The development discussed here illustrates grammaticalization both at the level of clause links and at the level of clause-combining.
Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English, 2012
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Papers by María José López Couso