Prosody in Medieval English and Norse

How can we reconstruct the rhythms and cadences – the prosody – of past languages? Prosody in Medieval English and Norse approaches this problem by comparing two closely related languages with a long written history in the Middle Ages. Through a series of case studies on vowel reductions and alliterative verse forms, Kaster identifies important continuities in the internal rhythmic structure of words and explores the enduring role of the bimoraic trochee. The main rhythmic building block of thes