Bibliography

Patricia
Ronan
s. xx–xxi

12 publications between 2002 and 2017 indexed
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Works authored

Ronan, Patricia, Make peace and take victory: support verb constructions in Old English in comparison with Old Irish, NOWELE Supplement Series, 24, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012.  
abstract:
This corpus-based study examines the use of support verb constructions in Old English and Old Irish. It determines in how far these constructions can be seen as a means to offer semantic specification of existing verbal expressions. The study further investigates whether support verb constructions may be employed to create periphrastic verbal expressions to denote concepts for which no simple verb exists in the language at that stage. This latter situation may particularly arise as a consequence of contact with new cultural concepts. The approach of the study is both qualitative and quantitative. It compares the use of the Old English constructions to corresponding Old Irish structures as well as to other language varieties, especially Present Day English, which has a considerably more analytic morphological structure than either of the two medieval languages.
abstract:
This corpus-based study examines the use of support verb constructions in Old English and Old Irish. It determines in how far these constructions can be seen as a means to offer semantic specification of existing verbal expressions. The study further investigates whether support verb constructions may be employed to create periphrastic verbal expressions to denote concepts for which no simple verb exists in the language at that stage. This latter situation may particularly arise as a consequence of contact with new cultural concepts. The approach of the study is both qualitative and quantitative. It compares the use of the Old English constructions to corresponding Old Irish structures as well as to other language varieties, especially Present Day English, which has a considerably more analytic morphological structure than either of the two medieval languages.

Theses

Ronan, Patricia, “Aspects of verbal noun constructions in Medieval Irish and Welsh, with reference to similar constructions in Basque”, PhD thesis, NUI Maynooth, 2006.  
abstract:
This study provides a survey of the constructions of verbal nouns with prepositions that are used in a significant way, such as creating syntactic and semantic contexts not found with ordinary nouns. Particular emphasis is placed on constructions serving to denote tense, mood and aspect. Also some syntactic contexts involving verbal nouns as objects are examined. This material has been collected primarily from Old and Middle Irish texts, but some reference is made to Modern Irish where this seems helpful in order to illustrate developments. The observations made are compared to findings on the use of verbal nouns in a closely related language, Middle Welsh, and an unrelated, non-Indo-European language, Basque. The discussion of the Medieval Irish material is followed by the evaluation of an illustrative corpus of Middle Welsh data and available descriptions of Welsh verbal nouns. Parallel constructions in these Insular Celtic languages are then brought together in order to assess which prepositional verbal noun constructions might have been a feature of Insular Celtic. Data from Basque is compared to the findings for Insular Celtic. The results seek to identify the language specific features of Old Irish verbal nouns and a common core of verbal noun usage in Insular Celtic as opposed to other usages adopted by a non-Indo-European sample language.
Eprints.nuim.ie: <link>
abstract:
This study provides a survey of the constructions of verbal nouns with prepositions that are used in a significant way, such as creating syntactic and semantic contexts not found with ordinary nouns. Particular emphasis is placed on constructions serving to denote tense, mood and aspect. Also some syntactic contexts involving verbal nouns as objects are examined. This material has been collected primarily from Old and Middle Irish texts, but some reference is made to Modern Irish where this seems helpful in order to illustrate developments. The observations made are compared to findings on the use of verbal nouns in a closely related language, Middle Welsh, and an unrelated, non-Indo-European language, Basque. The discussion of the Medieval Irish material is followed by the evaluation of an illustrative corpus of Middle Welsh data and available descriptions of Welsh verbal nouns. Parallel constructions in these Insular Celtic languages are then brought together in order to assess which prepositional verbal noun constructions might have been a feature of Insular Celtic. Data from Basque is compared to the findings for Insular Celtic. The results seek to identify the language specific features of Old Irish verbal nouns and a common core of verbal noun usage in Insular Celtic as opposed to other usages adopted by a non-Indo-European sample language.

Works edited

Ronan, Patricia (ed.), Ireland and its contacts / L'Irlande et ses contacts, Cahiers du CLSL, 38, Lausanne: Centre de linguistique et des sciences du langage, 2013.  
abstract:
This volume traces various foreign influences on the languages and culture of Ireland during the centuries of its documented history.

The legacy of the Celts on the continent is described and the linguistic implications of the term Celtic, as well as of its relatives, are discussed in relation to the people to whom they have been applied in the remote and more recent past. Further, the linguistic and societal outcomes of cultural contacts on the island of Ireland are traced. The influence of Latin and Greek learning on early Ireland is shown and the rise of the English language in Ireland is described in its socio-cultural context. Linguistic and cultural contacts in the modern area are also considered in the discussions of how the Irish and Irish variety of English are perceived in American popular culture, and how multilinguality made use of in James Joyce’s work. Finally, the question is asked how similar or dissimilar Irish English in fact is compared to other international varieties of English.

These studies show that the cultural and linguistic influences are not only unidirectional, they form a network of influences which are largely determined by issues of prestige of the languages concerned.
abstract:
This volume traces various foreign influences on the languages and culture of Ireland during the centuries of its documented history.

The legacy of the Celts on the continent is described and the linguistic implications of the term Celtic, as well as of its relatives, are discussed in relation to the people to whom they have been applied in the remote and more recent past. Further, the linguistic and societal outcomes of cultural contacts on the island of Ireland are traced. The influence of Latin and Greek learning on early Ireland is shown and the rise of the English language in Ireland is described in its socio-cultural context. Linguistic and cultural contacts in the modern area are also considered in the discussions of how the Irish and Irish variety of English are perceived in American popular culture, and how multilinguality made use of in James Joyce’s work. Finally, the question is asked how similar or dissimilar Irish English in fact is compared to other international varieties of English.

These studies show that the cultural and linguistic influences are not only unidirectional, they form a network of influences which are largely determined by issues of prestige of the languages concerned.

Contributions to journals

Patricia Ronan, Shane Walshe, “Middeleeuws Ierse helden in nieuwe contexten: hun bewerking in Amerikaanse strips”, in: Kelten: Jaarboek van de Stichting A. G. van Hamel voor Keltische Studies 1 (2017): 3–11.
Patricia Ronan, “Language contact and the origin of the Germanic languages [Review of: Peter Schrijver, Language contact and the origins of the Germanic languages (2014)]”, in: Kelten: Mededelingen van de Stichting A. G. van Hamel voor Keltische Studies 68 (2015): 12.
Ronan, Patricia, “Snow in the Ulster Cycle of tales: a sign of icy times or else?”, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 56 (2008): 106–115.
Ronan, Patricia, “Old Irish co n-accae in fer and functional grammar”, Journal of Celtic Linguistics 8 (2004): 133–147.  
abstract:

Among Celticists it is well known that suddenly encountered new characters in a story/sagatext in Old Irish can be introduced using the definite article, as in: Ba dorchae ind adaig. [...]. Co n-accae ara chind in fer, 7 leth a chind fair [...]. 'Dark was the night. He sees a man before him, and half his head on him.' (LU 4932). Thurneysen explains the usage as denoting a participant already known to the storyteller, but not to the listener/reader (c. f. GOI § 470). This is rather unsatisfactory as it is too general and this state of affairs could be said to hold for all the items of a story told. Cross-linguistically this use of the article is unusual as the article is normally only used for known entities. Thus in the grammatical framework of Functional Grammar, the definite article is defined as being used for nouns with continued reference in narrative; it therefore can be referred to as a 'topicality marker' (c. f. Givón 1995: 379ff.). In this paper the usage of the article in Old Irish with newly introduced nouns will be examined. We will first deal with how the Old Irish article is traditionally analysed. Secondly Functional Grammar approaches to definiteness will be examined in different languages. Finally we will evaluate how Old Irish can be seen in this context. It will be argued that in(d) serves as a cataphoric deictic element used as an attention marker.

abstract:

Among Celticists it is well known that suddenly encountered new characters in a story/sagatext in Old Irish can be introduced using the definite article, as in: Ba dorchae ind adaig. [...]. Co n-accae ara chind in fer, 7 leth a chind fair [...]. 'Dark was the night. He sees a man before him, and half his head on him.' (LU 4932). Thurneysen explains the usage as denoting a participant already known to the storyteller, but not to the listener/reader (c. f. GOI § 470). This is rather unsatisfactory as it is too general and this state of affairs could be said to hold for all the items of a story told. Cross-linguistically this use of the article is unusual as the article is normally only used for known entities. Thus in the grammatical framework of Functional Grammar, the definite article is defined as being used for nouns with continued reference in narrative; it therefore can be referred to as a 'topicality marker' (c. f. Givón 1995: 379ff.). In this paper the usage of the article in Old Irish with newly introduced nouns will be examined. We will first deal with how the Old Irish article is traditionally analysed. Secondly Functional Grammar approaches to definiteness will be examined in different languages. Finally we will evaluate how Old Irish can be seen in this context. It will be argued that in(d) serves as a cataphoric deictic element used as an attention marker.

Contributions to edited collections or authored works

Ronan, Patricia, “L’évolution de la langue anglaise en Irlande”, in: Patricia Ronan (ed.), Ireland and its contacts / L'Irlande et ses contacts, 38, Lausanne: Centre de linguistique et des sciences du langage, 2013. 71–90.
Ronan, Patricia, “Funktionsverbgefüge im Altirischen”, in: Karin Stüber, Thomas Zehnder, and Dieter Bachmann (eds), Akten des 5. Deutschsprachigen Keltologensymposiums, Zürich, 7. - 10. September 2009, 1, Vienna: Praesens, 2010. 335–348.
Ronan, Patricia, “Ingressive periphrasis in some manuscript versions of Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 275–284.
Ronan, Patricia, “Do-periphrasis in early Irish?”, in: Mícheál Ó Flaithearta (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica, Studia Celtica Upsaliensia, Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 2007. 145–162.
Urn.kb.se: <link>
Ronan, Patricia, “Subordinating ocus ‘and’ in Old Irish”, in: Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Pitkänen (eds), The Celtic roots of English, 37, Joensuu: University of Joensuu, 2002. 213–236.