08/06/2026
Feel very warmly invited to join the OESS for an online meeting this Friday!
Hwaet!
We would like to extend a very warm invitation to an online meeting, which will give us the opportunity to listen to a paper delivered by mgr Maryna Andrusevich (University of Warsaw):
"The historical development of the perfect aspect from Proto-Indo-European to Late Old English: Auxiliary selection in periphrastic perfect constructions in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies and the Peterborough Chronicle"
The paper examines the historical development of the perfect aspect in a broad diachronic perspective. It discusses the origins of the category in Proto-Indo-European and the emergence of periphrastic perfect constructions in Vulgar Latin, then turning to the earliest manifestations of perfect in early Germanic languages (Gothic). Subsequently, the study discusses the rise, meaning and formation of periphrastic perfect constructions in late Old English, focusing on the means employed for the expression of perfective meaning, the two-auxiliary system attested in the period, and the issue of auxiliary selection.
The analysis is based on two representative prose texts: Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies (included in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus), representing Classical Late Old English, and the Peterborough Chronicle (Innsbruck Corpus), a transitional text spanning the late Old English and early Middle English periods.
This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the Old English perfect by examining its development both prior to and during the Old English period and outlining the main tendencies that shaped its later evolution.
