This article gauges the plausibility of Nicolay Yakovlev’s theory of Old English meter. Although he accepts the four-position principle of Eduard Sievers, Yakovlev dissents from the Sieversian tradition by arguing that morphology determines the invariable metrical behavior of every element, that there are no intermediate levels of ictus, and that alliteration is not a structural feature of Old English versification. Yakovlev’s innovations are intended to simplify the Sieversian tradition, but we demonstrate that they actually result in a metrical system that is excessively complex, theoretically incoherent, and empirically inadequate.

中文翻译：

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Nicolay Yakovlev 的古英语节律理论：重新评估

本文评估了 Nicolay Yakovlev 的古英语计量表理论的合理性。尽管雅科夫列夫接受了 Eduard Sievers 的四位原则，但他反对 Sieversian 的传统，认为形态决定了每一个元素的不变的韵律行为，没有中间层次的 ictus，头韵不是 Old英文对照。Yakovlev 的创新旨在简化 Sieversian 传统，但我们证明它们实际上导致了一个过于复杂、理论上不连贯且经验不足的度量系统。