Main types of word-formation in OE

OE employed 2 ways of word-formation:

1)word-derivation

Derived words in OE were built with the help of affixes: prefixes & suffixes; in addition to these principal means of derivation, words were distinguished with the help of sound interchanges & word stress.

Sound interchanges in the roots of related words were fre­quent, and nevertheless they were used merely as an additional feature which helped to distinguish between words built from the same root. Sound interchanges were never used alone; they were combined with suffixation as the main word-building means and in many cases arose as a result of suffixation.

The role of word accentuation in OE word-building was not great. Like sound interchanges, the shifting of word stress helped to differentiate between some parts of speech being used together with other means. The verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding nouns had stressed prefixes, so that the position of stress served as an additional distinctive feature between them, e.g. ond-'swarian v - 'ond­swaru n

- Prefixation was a productive way of building new words in OE. Prefixes were widely used with verbs but were far less productive with other parts of speech. We can cite long lists of verbs derive from a single root with the help of different prefixes: 3an - 'go' faran - 'travel'

a-3an - 'go away' a-faran - 'travel'

be-3an - 'go round' to-faran - 'disperse'

fore-3an - 'precede' for-faran - 'intercept'

ofer-3an - 'traverse' forp-faran - 'die'

3e~3an - 'go', 'go away' 3e-faran - 'attack', etc.

The most frequent, and probably the most productive, OE prefixes were: ii-, be-, for-, fore-, 3e-, ofer-, uno. Of these only un- was common with nouns and adjectives, the rest were mainly verb prefixes.

The prefix modified the lexical meaning of the word, usually without changing its reference to a part of speech.

Some prefixes, both verbal and nominal, gave a more special sense to the word and changed its meaning very considerably: gytan – on-gytan (NE get)

- Suffixation was by far the most productive means of word derivation in OE. Suffixes not only modified the lexical meaning of the word but could refer it to another part of speech. Suffixes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives, seldom - in forming verbs.

Suffixes are usually classified according to the part of speech which they can form. In OE there were two large groups of suffixes: suffixes of nouns and suffixes of adjectives. Noun suffixes are divided into suffixes:

1)of "agent nouns" ("nomina agentis") - -a(hunta – NE hunter); -ing (centing – a man, coming from kent; cyning – head of clan or tribe)

2)and those of abstract nouns - -t (siht - sight)

--ung/ing(to build abstr. Nouns from verbs – earnian – earning(NE ear, earning))

In the derivation of adjectives we find suffixes proper such as -i3, -ise, -ede, -sum, -en (from the earlier –in)

2. Word composition was a highly productive way of developing the vocabulary in OE. This method of word-formation was common to all IE languages but in none of the groups has it become as widespread as in Germanic. An abundance of compound words, from poetic meta­phors to scientific terms, are found in OE texts.

As in other OG languages, word composition in OE was more pro­ductive in nominal parts of speech than in verbs. Compound nouns contained various first components - stems of nouns, adjectives and verbs; their second components were nouns. The pattern "noun+noun" was probably the most productive type of all: OE heafod-mann 'leader' (lit. "head-man"), mann-cynn (NE mankind). Compound nouns with adjective-stems as the first components were less productive, e.g. wid-sre 'ocean' (lit. "wide sea"). Compound adjectives were formed by joining a noun-stem to an adjective: dom-georn (lit. 'eager for glory'). The remarkable capacity of OE for derivation and word­ composition is manifested in numerous words formed with the help of several methods: un-wis-dom 'folly' - un- -- negative prefix, wis -:- ad­jective-stem (NE wise), dam - noun-stem turning into a suffix

 

French loans.

The French language was brought to England by the Norman conquerors. The Normans remained masters of England for a sufficiently long time to leave a deep impress on the language. The Norman rulers and the immigrants, who invaded the South-Westem towns after the Conquest, spoke a variety of French, known as "Anglo-Norman". This variety died out about two hundred years later, having exerted a profound influence upon English; In the 13th and 14th c. English was exposed to a new wave of French influence; this time it came from Central, Parisian French, a variety of a more cultivated, literary kind.

The effect of these successive and overlapping waves was seen first and foremost in a large number of lexical borrowings in ME. At the initial: the speech of the aristocracy at the king's court; the speech of the middle class, who came into contact both with the rulers and with the ruled; the speech of educated people and the population of South-Eastern towns. Eventually French loanwords spread throughout the language space and became an integral of the English vocabulary. Early borrowings were mostly made in the course of oral communication; later borrowings were first used in literature — in translations of French books. The total number of French borrowings by far exceeds the number of borrowings from any other foreign language (though sometimes it is difficult to say whether the loan came from French or Latin). The greater part of French loan-words in English date from ME.

To the 13th c. no more than one thousand words entered the English language, whereas by 1400 their number had risen to 10,000 (75% of them are still in common use). The majority of French loan-words adopted in ME were first recorded in the texts of the 14th c. Chaucer's vocabulary, which amounts to 6,000 words, contains about 4,000 words of Romance origin, i.e. French and Latin borrowings.

Among the earliest borrowings are Early ME prisun (NE prison), Early ME castel (NE castle). Early ME werre (NE war). Late OE pryio, prut (NE pride, proud). The French borrowings of the ME period are usually described according to semantic spheres. To this day nearly all the words relating to the:

1. government and administration of the country are French by origin: assembly, authority, pertaining to the

2. Feudal system and words indicating titles and ranks of the nobility: baron, count, lord, lady, king, queen, earl, knight.

3. military terms: armour, arms, army, banner,

4. law and jurisdiction,: accuse,court, crime, damage

5. Church and religion, for in the 12th and 13th c. all the important posts in the Church were occupied by the Norman clergy: abbey, altar, archangel, Bible

6. house, furniture and architecture: arch, castle, cellar, chimney, column, couch, curtain,.

7. art: art, beauty, colour, design, figure, image, ornament, paint. Another group includes names of garments: apparel, boot, coat, collar, costume, dress, fur, garment, gown, jewel, robe.

8. entertainment, are: cards, dance, dice, leisure, partner, pleasure, adventure (ME aventure),

We can also single out words relating to different aspects of the life of the upper classes and of the town life: forms of address— sir, madam, and also mister, mistress, smith.

French influence led to different kinds of changes in the vocabulary. Firstly, there were many innovations. Secondly, there were numerous replacements of native words by French

The vocabulary was also enriched by the adoption of French affixes. Derivational affixes could not be borrowed as such; they entered the language in scores of loan-words, were unconsciously or consciously separated by the speakers and used in derivation. They could become productive in English only after the loan-words with those affixes were completely assimilated by the language; that is why the use of borrowed French affixes dates largely from the Early NE period.

Anglo-Norman words must have been very hard to pronounce as they contained many sounds which did not exist in English, such as J, nasalised vowels, the sound [y] and soft, palatalised consonants. The foreign features were lost and the words were adapted to the norms of English pronunciation. French sounds were replaced by resembling English sounds.

Ex.Palatalised [1'] and ln'1 were shown as ordinary [1] and [n] or as sequences [il, in], cf. e.g. 0 Fr faillir, which contained IF], and ME fallen, NE fail.

The stress in French loan-words was shifted in conformity with the English rules of word accentuation,

People freely added English grammatical endings to the stems of the borrowed words, and used them in all grammatical forms like native words

Since the French loan-words of the ME period were completely assimilated, it is not easy to identify a French borrowing and to distinguish it from native words or borrowings from other languages.

 

Scandinavian loans.

The Scandinavian invasions had far-reaching linguistic consequences which became apparent mainly in ME; the greater part of lexical borrowings from OScand was not recorded until the 13th c.

The presence of the Scandinavians in the English population is indicated by a large number of place-names in the northern and eastern areas, most frequent are place-names with the Scandinavian components thorp "village*, Wood thorp

The fusion of the English and of the Scandinavian settlers progressed rapidly; in many districts people became bilingual, which was an easy accomplishment since many of the commonest words in the two OG languages were very much alike.

It is noteworthy that the number of Scandinavian loan-words in the Northern dialects has always been higher than in the Midlands and in the South. Probably in Early ME there were more Scandinavian words in current use than have survived today. Some words died out or were retained only in the local dialects, e.g. kirk 'church'.

It is difficult to define the semantic spheres of Scandinavian borrowings: they mostly pertain to everyday life and do not differ from native words. Only the earliest loan-words deal with military and legal matters and reflect the relations of the people during the Danish raids and Danish rule. Cnif (NE knife) similarly fellow which stemmed from OScand felagi, indicated one who lays down a fee, as a partner or shareholder. In the subsequent centuries many Scandinavian military and legal terms disappeared or were displaced by French terms.

Examples of everyday wordsof Scandinavian origin. Nouns — bag, band, cake, crook, dirt, egg, wing; adjectives — ill, low, ugly, weak, wrong; verbs — call, cast, crawl, cut, die,

It must be mentioned that form-words are rarely borrowed from a foreign language. The Scandinavian pronoun pegg (3rd p. pl) Gradually they, together with the forms them, their, themselves displaced OE hie.

It is believed that the final selection of they (instead of hie) was favoured, if not caused, by the resemblance of ME descendants of several pronouns of the 3rd p.: hie, he, and heo, ("they¹, 'he*, 'she'). It was at that ti me that OE heo was replaced by she.

Other form-words borrowed from Scandinavian are: both, though, fro (which was used interchangeably with the native parallel from and has been preserved in the phrase to and fro).

Vocabulary changes due to Scandinavian influence proceeded in different ways: 1. a Scandinavian word could enter the language as an innovation, without replacing any other lexical item; such was probably the case of law, fellow, outlaw. 2. More often, however, the loan-word was a synonym of a native English word and their rivalry led to different results: the loan-word could eventually disappear or could be restricted to dialectal use (e.g. Late OE barda 'ship*, lip 'fleet'); it could take the place of the native word (e.g. they, take, call, which replaced OE hie, niman, clipian)', both the borrowed and the native words could survive as synonyms with a slight difference in meaning sky (from 0 Scand sky 'cloud') and heaven

Scandinavian words were very much like native words. The only criteria that can be applied are some phonetic features of borrowed words:the consonant cluster tsk ] is a frequent mark of Scandinavian loan-words, e.g. sky^ skill (see the lists above); [sk] does not occur in native words, as OTE [sk] had been palatalised and modified to [ƒ] cf. ME fish, ship (from OE fisc, scip, see §403).¹ The sounds l|] and [sk] are sometimes found in related words in the two languages: native shirt and the Scandinavian loan-word skirt are etymological doublets (which means that they go back to the same Germanic root but have been subjected to different phonetic and semantic changes;

Other criteria of the same type are the sounds [k] and [g] before front vowels, which in native words normally became [t ƒ] and [dзl. Cf. kid (from 0 Scand) and chin (native, from OE cin).

The intimate relations of the languages, among other things, could result in phonetic modification of native words. Words like give, get, gift are included by some scholars in the list of Scandinavian loan-words on the basis of this criterion, but are also regarded as instances of phonetic influence upon native words; we may say that ME gyven, geten and gift were Northern variants of the words whose pronunciation was influenced by Scandinavian; nevertheless, they are native words. The same is true of the word sister, which goes back to native OE sweostor and to 0 Scand systir.

 

Latin loans.

I. period. The role of the Latin language in Medieval Britain is clearly manifest; it was determined by such historical events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the influence of the Roman civilization and the introduction of Christianity. It is no wonder that the Latin language exerted considerable influence on different aspects of English: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. The impact of Latin on the OE vocabulary enables us to see the spheres of Roman influence on the life in Britain.

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into several layers. The earliest layer comprises words which the WG tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilization began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years

1. Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and concepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and-home life.

Words connected with trade: OE ceapman ‘trader, came from the Latin names for 'merchant* — caupo and mango.

Units of measurement and containers were adopted with their Latin names: OE pund (NE pound), from L pondo OE ynce (NE inch) from L uncia.

The following words denote articles of trade and agricultural products, introduced by the Romans: OE win (from L vinum) - wine OE butere (from L biityrum)- butter

Roman contribution to building can & a group of words relating to domestic life is exemplified by OE cytel, cuppe, (NE kettle, cup, etc).

Borrowings pertaining to military affairs are OE mil (NE mile) from L millia passuum, which meant a thousand steps made to measure the distance;

2.Among the Latin loan-words adopted in Britain were some place-names or components of place-names used by the Celts. L castra in the shape caster, coaster 'camp* formed OE place-names which survive today as Chester, Dorchester, Lancaster

3. The third period of Latin influence on the OE vocabulary began with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6th c. and lasted to the end of OE. Numerous Latin words which found their way into the English language during these five hundred years clearly fall into two main groups:

(1) words pertaining to religion, (2) words connected with learning. The rest are miscellaneous words denoting various objects and concepts which the English learned from Latin books and from closer acquaintance with Roman culture. The total number of Latin loan-words in OE exceeds five hundred, this third layer accounting for over four hundred words.

1).OE apostol NE apostle from L apostolus from Gr apostolos

After the introduction of Christianity many monastic schools were set up in Britain. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was conducted in Latin, or consisted of learning Latin. "'

OE scol NE school L schola (Gr skhole)

A great variety of miscellaneous borrowings came from Latin probably because they indicated new objects and new ideas.They belong to different semantic spheres: names of trees and plants — lily, plant; names of illnesses and words pertaining to medical treatment — cancer, fever; names of animals — camel, elephant, tiger, names of clothes and household articles — cap, mat, sack, sock; names of foods — beet, caul, oyster, radish;

The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of them is the appearance of the so-called "translation-loans" — words and phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations. The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the week found not only in OE but also in other Old (and modern) Germanic languages:

OE Monan-dss (Monday) 'day of the moon', L Lunae dies;

Another question which arises in considering borrowings from a foreign language is the extent of their assimilation. Most Latin loan- words were treated in OE texts like native words, which means that they were already completely assimilated.

II. period. The Latin -language continued to be used in Englandallthrough the OE and ME periods in religious rituals, in legal documents and in texts of a scientific and philosophical character. After the Norman Conquest it was partly replaced by official Anglo-Norman. The main spheres of the Latin language were the Church, the law courts and academic activities.

Latin words were borrowed in all historical periods. In ME they were certainly less numerous than borrowings from French; their proportion was high only in religious texts translated from Latin. John Wyclif (late 14th c.), one of the most prolific borrowers from classical languages, introduced about a thousand Latin words in his translation of the Bible.

The extraordinary surge of interest in the classics in the age of the Renaissance opened the gates to a new wave of borrowings from Latin. Latin was the main language of philosophy and science, its use in the sphere of religion became more restricted after the Reformation and the publication of the English versions of the Bible.

In some cases it has been possible to specify the date of the borrowings and the authors who used them initially. Numerous Latin and Greek words were first used by Thomas More (early 16th c.), who wrote in Latin and in English; among his innovations were, explain, fact, monopoly. Many classical borrowings first appeared in Shakespeare's works: accommodation.

Some borrowings have a more specialized meaning and belong to scientific terminology (for the most part, they go back to Greek prototypes and may have been taken either from Greek or from Latin and French in a Latinized form), e.g. acid, antenna, apparatus, appendix, atom, formula.

The vast body of international terms continued to grow in the 18^th -19^th c. A new impetus for their creation was given by the great technical progress of the 20th c., which is reflected in hundreds of newly coined terms or Latin and Greek words applied in new meanings, e.g. examples of new application of Latin terms are — facsimile, introvert, quantum, radioactive, relativity;

In addition to words and roots, Latin and Greek have supplied English (as well as other modern languages) with a profusion of derivational affixes which have become productive in the English language of the recent centuries. These suffixes can be seen in the following classical loan-words: humanism (-ism from theGr -ismos, L -ismus);protagonist (from theGr -istes, L –ista) prefixes de-, ex-, re- and others occur in numerous modern words combined with other components of diverse origin (see below).

One of the effects of the classical borrowings on the English language was the further increase of the number of synonyms

Early NE borrowings from classical languages have been assimilated by the language: they do not contain any foreign, un-English, sounds and receive primary and secondary stresses like other English words; the grammatical forms of borrowed words are usually built in accordance with the regular rules of English grammar.