3.X. You will need to memorize Grimm's Law and Verner's Law. Make sure you understand them, because you will also be asked to discuss the rationale of these laws. Remember that with Grimm and Verner, it is primarily the manner of articulation, not the place of articulation that changes. As far as Verner goes, just know that he accounts for anomalous changes in PIE unaccented syllables (e.g. the /d/ in PGmc fader).

4.X. I've disabled the exercises in the resource section.

16.X. Due to an electrical fire in Bartlett, class was cancelled today. The quiz will be combined with next Tuesday's quiz for a "double." These ten minutes of linguistic fun will include OE pronouns (in the singular only) and everything else on the newly revised study guide (check it out if you haven't already). Happy Battle of Hastings Day.

One other note: as I will describe in class Thursday, the phonological history of OE follows from a shift in the places of articulation of various consonants due to umlaut pressure. For example, Gmc /k/ is made against the vellum. In the environment of a front vowel (/i/, for example), the place of articulation shifts forward from the vellum towards the teeth. Try making a /k/ on the alveolar ridge (near the front vowel /i/) to see what I mean--see? The velar /k/ moves towards an affricate over generations of speakers. That's why German "kind" is OE "cild" and ME "child." This is the same for /g/ and other phonemes. Changes in vowel pronunciation in England (due, perhaps, to dialect pressure from Norse, Frankish, and Frisian speakers), especially the gradual fronting of the vowel space, drag certain Gmc consonants forward. These slow changes result in Old English.

5.XI. Final Paper Topics. If you choose to do a final paper, and if you do not have a topic of your own devising, then please pick one of the following. Your paper only needs to be about 7 to 10 pages long, but it needs to burn with a gem-like flame of intensity. Grads and Independent Studies: papers 15pp. to 20pp. Also, Grads and Independent Studies may choose any topic, even though some are recommended for you.

1. Dialect Map. Collect and assess data for a dialect map. You will need at least 25 local responses. Pick a word or phrase used in the Dialect Atlas of the United States, select for Massachusetts, and use this as a gauge by which to measure variation. See me for more details.

2. Teaching Grammar. What are some of the issues involved in teaching grammar to children and adolescents? What are the arguments for and against? How do you respond? Do you have a proposal for how best to make students aware of the structure of language? If so, what is it? You can include lesson plans or course descriptions. See me for more details. (Especially recommended for M.A., Ed. students.)

3. Thinking Grammatically. How are thought and language related? What are some of the main perspectives on this topic? How do you respond? If language is thought, does thought change as language changes? How then can we access the writing of the past? How significant must language changes be before we cease to recognize a given thought as familiar. If thought is beyond language, do we lose our abilities to express thoughts as language changes? Ruminate on this. (Especially recommended for grad students and independent studies.)

4. Origins. Where does language come from? If language is an instinct, as Steven Pinker suggests, then was our species ever without language? What evidence do we have for the beginnings of language? How does this evidence support a primitivist view of the past as simple and uncomplicated? Does it imply that language is getting more complex? Where are we going? Will we develop language until it becomes debilitating, as the saber-toothed tiger's fangs grew too long to allow it to eat sufficiently? For this paper, think about language in terms of evolution.

5. Babel. For eons, humans have had stories about an originary language. Whether it's the Hebrew of the Garden of Eden or the German of the Garden of Eden, one language was considered best evocative of the Divine Mind. Discuss the story of an originary language, and consider its implications in the assumption about a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language. See me for more details. (Especially recommended for grad students and independent studies.)

6. Piers Plowman. Of the eight major manuscripts of Piers, which are from where? How can you tell? How many manuscripts in total? Consider the dialect distribution of the manuscipts and suggest ways that the various editions of the text either disguise its diverse dialect origins or reflect them.

7. Shakespeare. All Englishes are historically and geographically specific. Using the Oxford English dictionary and a dictionary of slang, outline the various ambiguities of a Shakespearean sonnet based entirely on its lexicon. Then, consider two major interpretations of the sonnet, and discuss how your research supports or contradicts these interpretations.

8. e. e. cummings. From capitalization to punctuation, e sure did mess with language good. Using one or more of his poems, describe a linguisic phenomenon that cummings plays with. Consider well how its effect as language affects your interpretation of the poem as a whole.

9. Germanic languages. Why didn't German lose its inflections? Beginning with Proto-Germanic, describe the phenomena that led to the simultaneous development of Old High German and English. What accounts for their major inflectional, syntactic, and lexical deviations from PGmc?

10. Celts and Germans. The Celtic languages have always been left out of the equation in the development of Germanic languages. But Celts and Germans were sometiems considered the same peoples by Roman ethnographers, and often inhabited the same lands. In the first few centuries of the first millennium, what were the linguistic barriers between Celts and Germans, and how do we know they existed?

6.XII. EXTRA CREDIT. The extra credit allows you either 1) to replace a quiz grade, or 2) an additional 3% on your final grade. (You still get to drop your lowest quiz.) Due 17 Dec.

In 500 to 700 words, breifly describe the printing history of Andrew Marvell's "An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland." Specifically, decide how lines 63 and 64 should be punctuated (should is a loaded word).