Leena Kahlas-Tarkka

PhD, University Lecturer, Researcher, Domain Three Co-ordinator
Room C625, Metsätalo
Phone: +358 (0)9 191 22532 (office),
Phone: +358 (0)9 191 24980 (research)
E-mail: leena.kahlas-tarkka(at)helsinki.fi

Research Interests

My research is mainly focused on diachronic study of English, particularly on Old and Middle English syntax. Medieval studies in a wider sense are also in the centre of my teaching and research interests. I have recently finished a chapter on Old and Middle English language for a handbook for Finnish mediaevalists. Indefinite pronouns have been a long-time area of my research, and I am currently working on universal compound pronouns, as well as on reciprocal expressions, in the earliest phases of English. I am also interested in the grammaticalisation processes within pronominal paradigms.

I am a member of the Early English Text and Corpus Studies (EETACS) project. Since 2002 I have also been involved in the international Salem Witchcraft Trials project, transcribing documents for the new scholarly edition of the trial papers.

Publications

(2011) with Matti Rissanen, “Attitudes of the accused in the Salem Witchcraft Trials.” Communicating Early English Manuscripts, ed. by Päivi Pahta & Andreas H. Jucker. (Studies in English Language.) Cambridge: CUP. 241-258.

(2011) “William Lambard and Thomas Milles in search of the golden past.”  Words in Dictionaries and History: Essays in Honour of R.W. McConchie. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 233-248.

(2010) “Preposition + TIME (+THAT): Exploring Temporal Connectives in Early English.” Aspects of the History of English Language and Literature, Selected Papers Read at SHELL 2009, Hiroshima. (Studies in English Medieval Lanaguage and Literature 25). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 309-319.

(2009) chapter on Old and Middle English ('Muinais- ja keskienglanti') in Keskiajan avain ('Key to the Middle Ages', in Finnish). (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia 1203). Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. 458-476.

(2009) Rosenthal, Bernard (General Editor, et al.), Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press.

(2009) Kilpiö, Matti, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, Jane Roberts, and Olga Timofeeva (eds.), Anglo-Saxons and the North: Essays Reflecting the Theme of the 10th Meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists in Helsinki, August 2001. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 364). Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

(2007) ‘Verging on totality? On 'minority indefinites' conveying totality in Old English.’ In Matti Rissanen, Marianna Hintikka, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka & Roderick McConchie (eds.) Change in Meaning and the Meaning of Change: Studies in Semantics and Grammar from Old to Present-Day English. (Mémoires de la Société Neophilologique de Helsinki 72.) Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. 253-277.

(2007) with Matti Rissanen. ‘The sullen and the talkative: Discourse strategies in the Salem examinations.’ Historical Courtroom Discourse. II. (ed.) Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 8: 1-24.

(2004) 'A "Two-way reflexive relationship" revisited: on reciprocal expressions in early English, with a digression into Modern English Uses.' Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 40, 121-134.

(2002) with Lyudmila Chakhoyan (St. Petersburg). ‘Old English writing in an early 17th century book.’ In Lyudmila Chakhoyan and Matti Kilpiö (eds.) Semantic, Pragmatic, Lexical and Cultural Studies of Old English and Anglo-Saxon England: Essays by Finnish and Russian Scholars Published in the Wake of the Post-conference Symposium of ISAS 2001, the 13th of August 2001. Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

(2002) with Matti Kilpiö ‘The Preposition anent ‘concerning’: Development and grammaticalisation.’ In Helena Raumolin-Brunberg, Minna Nevala, Arja Nurmi and Matti Rissanen (eds.) Variation Past and Present. VARIENG Studies on English for Terttu Nevalainen. (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 61). Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. 33–58.

(2001) with Matti Kilpiö 'Early English Text and Corpus Studies (EETACS),' 18-24, in Matti Kilpiö and Leena Kahlas-Tarkka (eds.), Ex Insula Lux.

(2000) 'A note on non-standard uses in Middle English: Weak preterites of strong Old English verbs.' Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 101(2): 217-23.

(1997) with Helena Raumolin-Brunberg 'Indefinite pronouns with singular human reference,' in Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö and Kirsi Heikkonen (eds.), Grammaticalization at Work, 17-85. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

(1994) 'What does the jungle of Middle English manuscripts tell us? On Middle English 'every' and 'each' with special reference to their many variants', in: Francisco Fernández, Miguel Fuster and Juan José Calvo (eds.), 305-315.

(1993) 'Toward the Modern English dichotomy between 'every' and 'each',' in Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö and Minna Palander-Collin (eds.), Early English in the Computer Age: Explorations through the Helsinki Corpus. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 201-8.

(1987) The Uses and Shades of Meaning for 'every' and 'each' in Old English, with an Addendum on Early Middle English Developments (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 46) Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.