The Elements of Old English: Consisting of Elementary Grammar (With Selections for Reading), Reference Grammar (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Elements of Old English: Consisting of Elementary Grammar (With Selections for Reading), Reference GrammarInasmuch as this book is intended for use in three distinct courses of the English curriculum - Chaucer, Middle English, and the history of the English language I hope I may be permitted a few words of explanation as to the purpose its various parts are intended to serve in relation to these courses.The elementary course in Chaucer is usually the student's introduction both to the study of medieval literature and to the study of Middle English. There will always, probably, be difference of opinion as to the relative emphasis that should be placed on these two aspects of the course, but its content must always be to. some extent linguistic. Alt teachers desire that their students shall learn to read Chaucer aloud with a facility comparable to that with which they read a modern poet and with a fair degree of approximation to Chaucer's own pronunciation,, and most teachers desire that they shall acquire some notion of the organic value of finale in Chaucer's language. The purpose of Part II of this book is to enable the elementary student to acquire a sound and accurate knowledge of Chaucer's language without the expenditure of an inordinate amount of time, and to arouse the students interest in this part of his work by emphasising the principles that are illustrated in the study of Chaucer's language. The treatment of the subject is intended to be thoroly clear to students who have not studied Old English, and yet to give such students some degree of real understanding of the relation of Chaucer's language to Old English on the one hand and to Modern English on the other.Of all the languages taught in our universities Middle English furnishes the best material for the study of language in the making, for the direct observation of linguistic change; yet the pedagogical difficulties involved in emphasising adequately this aspect of the study of Middle English are such that our courses in Middle English have tended on the whole to become mere translation courses.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.