The syntax of the medieval office language on the example of the Wroclaw city council minutes

Joanna Smereka

Uniwersytet Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0035-1639

Abstract

In that contribution I investigate Council Minutes of 1451 and 1501 in a syntactical way. So I analyse handwritten language material. In the next step I compare the results of the analysis with approaches of the syntax of Early New High German. My start point is the these, that in office language the syntactical developments have a special impact on the formation of the contemporary German language. I want to know what actually is the modernity of syntax in the Council Minutes of Wroclaw. But this these only in part can
validate. The syntactical formulaicity of the registration in that Minutes was – as I assert – the cause of the delayed use of the modern syntactical patterns.

Keywords:

Wroclaw, Council Minutes, City Book, chancellery, syntax