Magdalena Bator
WSB University in Poznań, Poland
Texts in the following books published by Æsh
Mostly Medieval: In Memory of Jacek Fisiak
Check bookArticles in Æsh publications:
Radosław Dylewski, Joanna Rabęda (2020) ““I remain(s)” and “but remain(s)”: Variation in the use of the 3rd person singular marker in American private letters from the mid-19th century.” [In:] Hans Sauer, Piotr P. Chruszczewski (eds.) Mostly Medieval: In Memory of Jacek Fisiak. San Diego, CA: Æ Academic Publishing; 417‒444.
The present paper focuses on the analysis of the formulaic expressions with the verb remain, which were used as letter closing formulae in private correspondence during the American Civil War. Sequences comprising one of the phrases: I/we remain(s) and but/only/so/still/etc. remain(s) were scrutinized in order to verify whether Dylewski’s claim (2018) that the origin of the two types of formulae took different paths of development holds true as regards highly homogenous material produced by uneducated writers. The study was based on over four thousand letters written by soldiers and their relatives, compiled and digitized in Private Voices on-line repository.