Towards a linguistic interpretation of Kuhn's Laws:With special reference to Old English Beowulf Part 2

概要

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Kuhn's (1933) two Laws concern clause-initial clustering of what he calls `satzpartikel' such aspronouns, short adverbs, and light finite verbs in Germanic alliterative verse. The Laws areformulated in metrical terms and are claimed by the proponent to reflect archaic linguisticfeatures preserved in poetry. This paper critically evaluates Kuhn's Laws from a linguisticperspective based on examination of Old English Beowulf.Part I (Volume 95) first discussed cliticization phenomenon of pronouns, adverbs, and lightfinite verbs in early Germanic, especially Beowulf (section 2). With this as background, it thenexamined Kuhn's definition of clause particles (section 3) and the first type of violations of theFirst Law (section 4), showing, contrary to what Kuhn intends, that only part of Kuhn's clauseparticles are clitics and that only part of the First Law violations reflects the innovative wordorder. Part II (this volume) begins with the second type of violations of the First Law anddiscusses the issue of Kuhn's Laws as metrical conventions in Section 4. Section 5 examines theSecond Law and shows that it reflects linguistic archaism only in an indirect way. The paperthen takes up the issue that affects application of the Laws: the distinction between clause andphrase particles in section 6. This section continues through Part III (Volume 97), which alsodiscusses metrical analyses in relation to the Laws.