Punctuation and the ‘Well-formed Sentence’ in the afterlife of the King James Bible

McCumber, Vanessa Marie (2014) Punctuation and the ‘Well-formed Sentence’ in the afterlife of the King James Bible. MPhil(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

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Printed Thesis Information: https://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b3076287

Abstract

This study analyses the clause-based punctuation practices of four selected passages in the King James Bible, comparing the practices over time and correlating them to changes in the sentence structure of the text. The purpose is to examine what, if any, characteristics of the sentence can be revealed by the study of punctuation, and to use these findings to question the utility of the ‘well-formed sentence’ as the organisational unit of historical syntactic analysis. The results are encouraging of the continued exploration of punctuation as a source of evidence and support current theories that suggest that texts are organised not only according to grammatical structure, but also by rhetorical and semantic structure.

Item Type: Thesis (MPhil(R))
Qualification Level: Masters
Keywords: English language, punctuation, syntax, textual afterlives, historical linguistics, King James Bible
Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
P Language and Literature > PE English
Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Language and Linguistics
Supervisor's Name: Smith, Professor Jeremy J.
Date of Award: 2014
Depositing User: Ms Vanessa M McCumber
Unique ID: glathesis:2014-5460
Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
Date Deposited: 04 Sep 2014 08:23
Last Modified: 04 Sep 2014 08:39
URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/5460

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