The OE vocabulary and its etymological characteristics Native words Borrowings Common IE Common Germanic West Germanic Specifically OE Celtic Latin Norse
Common IE Nouns: fæder, mōdor, dohtor, sweostar, sunu heorte, nosu, tōð, fōt Adjectives: - rea:d, mycel, nīwe Numerals Pronouns: ic, þū, wē, sē, hwā Verbs: standan, sittan, etan, bēōn
Common Germanic: hēāfod, hand, finger cealf gear, wicu, tīma, dæg, sumor hūs, rum grēn, bleo lŷtel, hēāh hīēran, sēōn, sprecan
Specifically OE: wimman (wīf + mann) hlāford (hlāf +weard) ealne weg (eal + weg)
Word-formation simple words derived words compound words
Ways of word formation Derivation Word composition Prefixation Suffixation Verbs (Nouns, adjectives) Nouns adjectives
Prefixes ā-, be-, for-, fore-, ge-, ofer-, un- gān – go ā-gān – go away be- gān – go round fore- gān – precede ofergān – pass over
Noun suffixes -end (frēond) (dead suffix) –ere: fiscere, bōcere (fisher, baker) Feminine of –ere - –ester webbestre dōm, scipe, hād
Noun suffixes þ: lang- lengþu –ing: cyning, Centing strong – strengþu Ung/-ing wilnian – wilnung
Suffixes to form adjectives ig (hālig) -isc (English) -ede (hōcede- hooked) -sum -en - lic - lic + -e turned the adjective into an adverb frēondlic- frēondlice.
Adjectives used as suffixes: full lēas – “deprived of” (less): sāwollēas (lifeless)
Word composition eorþcræft – geometry hūsbonda hāligdæg – gōdspel – gospel (spel – tidings –news), sunnandæg – sun’s +day
1. What are the three etymological layers that compose the OE vocabulary? 1. Point out 3 levels of Latin borrowing into OE.
2. What was the most productive way of word derivation in OE? 2. What are the means of enriching vocabulary in any language?
Loan words (borrowings) Latin borrowings – 2 layers: before the migration of the Germanic tribes to the British Isles and then through Celtic religious vocabulary Celtic borrowings
OE in Modern English 24, 000 different lexical items in OE corpus About 85 per cent of OE words are no longer in use now 3 per cent of the words in OE are loan words Today 70 per cent are loan words
50% of loan words are Latin and French influx
Anglo-Saxon vocabulary today grammatical words lexical words affixes (mis-, un-, -ness, -less) million-word Brown University corpus Scandinavian: they are Romance: 105 (just) and 107 (people).