Investigation on the Present Participial Construction in the Language of A Revelation of Love

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Abstract

The aims of this paper are to investigate the present participial construction in Julian ofNorwich's A Revelation of Love in form, meaning and position, comparing her with that ofher contemporary writers including Geoffrey Chaucer and Margery Kempe and with Modern English in London-Lund Corpus. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, when this prose was written, the ending -ing was common in verbal nouns, while participial endings had certain dialectal variations. In the prose of Julian of Norwich, the two suffixes, -and and -ing, are found side by side in thirty-nine verbs. It is assumed that stylistic elements such as the avoidance of confusion in modified words and verbal nouns correlate with word ending preferences. In sense Julian mainly employs temporal interpretation in the present participial construction,and most constructions are positioned in the middle or end of sentences. The paratactic structure is helpful in story progression, addition of information, summarization and enumeration. Her usage of the participial construction forms the basis of an effective means to make her preaching understood. Julian makes the most of its prototypical meaningslike `temporality' and `simultaneity' in apposite participles emerging out of Latin influence. One may be justified in conjecturing a possibility that she aimed at making her words grave and dignified by adopting a literary style that originated from Latin rhetoric.

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