1)Word Structure
According
to the morphological structure Old English words fell into three
main
types:
a)
simple words (“root-words”) or words with a simple stem,
containing a
root-morpheme
and no derivational affixes, e. g. land,
singan, god (Mod.
E land,
sing,
good);
b)
derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more
affixes,
e.
g.
be-ginnan,
weorþ-ung, un-scyld-ig, ge-met-ing (Mod.
E begin,
˝worthiness˝,
˝innocent˝,
meeting).
c)
compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one
rootmorpheme,
e.
g.
mann-cynn, fēower-tīene,
weall-geat (Mod.
E mankind,
fourteen,
wall gate).
2. Ways of Word-Formation
Old
English employed two ways of word-formation: derivation
and
wordcomposition.
Derived
words
in Old English were built with the help affixes: prefixes
and
suffixes;
sound
interchanges and
word
stress.
Prefixation
was
a productive way of building new words in Old English.
Prefixes
were widely used with verbs but were far less productive with other
parts
of
speech. The most frequent, and probably the most productive, Old
English
15
prefixes
were:
ā-,
be-,
for-, fore-, ge-, ofer-, un-. Of
these only un- was common
with
nouns and adjectives, the rest were mainly verb prefixes, e.g.
gān—“go”
faran—“travel”
a-gān—“go
away” ā-faran—“travel”
be-gān—“go
round” tō-faran—“disperse”
fore-gān—“precede”
for-faran—“intercept”
ofer-gān—“traverse”
forþ-faran—“die”
ge-gān—„go“,
„go away“ ge-faran—
„attack“,etc(
Rastorguyeva1983:142).
Suffixation
was
by far the most productive means of word derivation in Old
English.
Suffixes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives, seldom—
in
forming verbs. In Old English there were two large groups of
suffixes: suffixes
of
nouns and suffixes of adjectives. Noun suffixes are divided into
suffixes of
“agent
nouns” (“nomina agentis”) and those of abstract nouns.
Among
the suffixes of “agent nouns” there were some dead, unproductive
suffixes:
-a,
as
in the Masc. a-stem hunta
(NE
hunter),
—end,
originally the suffix
of
the Present Participle, e.g. OE frēond,
fiend (NE
friend,
fiend); -end in
wordbuilding
was
later replaced by –ere,
a suffix of IE descent, whose productivity
grew
after the adoption of Latin words with the same suffix, e.g.
scōlere,
sutere
(NE
scholar,
“shoemaker”).
Productive
suffixes which formed abstract nouns were as follows:-nes/-nis,
-ung/-ing,
-oþ, -aþ, -uþ, -þu,
e.g.
huntoþ, fiscaþ, geoguþ (NE
“hunting”,
“fishing”,
“youth”).
In
the derivation of adjectives the most productive suffixes were: -ig,
and
–
isc:
e.g. hālig
(NE
holy),
Englisc,
Denisc (NE
English,
Danish).
Sound
Interchanges distinguish
between words built from the same root. The
sources
of sound interchanges:
√-ablaut
or vowel gradation;
e.g.
rīdan
v—rād
n
[ī~ā]
(NE ride,
raid);
singan
v—song
n
[i~a]
(NE sing—song);
√ palatal
mutation;
e.g.
dōm—dēman
(NE doom—deem);
full—fyllan
(NE full—fill);
long—lengþu
(NE long—length);
√ OE
breaking;
e.g.
beran—bearn (NE bear).
Word
Stress helped
to differentiate between some parts of speech. 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,
16
e.g.
ond-’ُswarian
v—’ُond-swaru
n
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.
Compound
nouns contained various first components—stems of nouns,
adjectives
and verbs; their second components were nouns. The pattern “noun
plus
noun”
was probably the most productive type of all: e.g. hēaford-mann
“leader”
(lit.
“head-man”), mann-cynn,
stān-brycg,
bōc-cræft
(NE
mankind,
stone bridge,
literature).
The
remarkable capacity of OE for derivation and word-composition is
manifested
in numerous words formed with the help of several methods: un-wīsdōm
“folly”—un-—negative
prefix, wīs—adjective-stem
(NE wise),
dōm—nounstem
turning
into a suffix.
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The Old English language provides many ways to produce new words from old, either by compounding existing words together or by altering the meaning of existing words with prefixes or suffixes, some of which will be familiar to you from their Modern English forms.
Nouns formed with suffixes[edit | edit source]
—aþ forms nouns such as folgaþ, «retinue», from folgian, «to follow»; or huntaþ, «hunting», from huntian, «to hunt». These nouns are always masculine.
—dōm (= MnE «-dom», as in «wisdom», «kingdom») forms nouns such as hlāforddōm, «dominion, lordship», from hlāford, «lord»; or hāliġdōm, «holiness», from hāliġ, «holy». Nouns ending in —dōm are all masculine.
—end forms nouns from verbs; an X-end is one who does X: for example feohtend, «fighter, warrior», from feohtan, «to fight»; or lufiend, «lover», from lufian, «to love». Such nouns are masculine.
—ere (= MnE «-er») forms nouns from verbs in the same way as —end, e.g. dēmere, «judge» from dēman, «to judge»; or lēogere, «liar», from lēogan, «to lie». Such nouns are always masculine.
—estre is the female equivalent of ere; for example lufestre, «(female) lover»; or hearpestre, «(female) harpist». Such nouns are grammatically feminine as they are in meaning.
—hād (= MnE «-hood» as in «childhood»). X-hād is the state or condition of being X: for example prēosthād, «priesthood», from prēost, «priest»; or druncenhād, «drunkenness», from druncen, «drunk». Nouns ending in —hād are all masculine.
—nes (= MnE «-ness») forms nouns from adjectives, e.g. beorhtnes, «brightness», from beorht, «bright»; or glædnes, «gladness», from glæd, «glad». Nouns ending in —nes are always feminine.
—oþ is similar to —aþ, for example fiscoþ, «fishing», from fiscian, «to fish». Nouns ending in —oþ are masculine.
—scipe (= MnE «ship», as in «friendship») is similar to —dōm and —hād; for example ƿinescipe, «friendship», from ƿine, «friend»; or snotorscipe, «prudence, sagacity», from snotor, «wise». Nouns ending in —scipe are all masculine.
—ung (= MnE «-ing») forms nouns from verbs, e.g. huntung, «hunting», from huntian, «to hunt»; or cēapung, «business, trade», from cēapian, «to buy, to trade». Nouns ending in —ung are always feminine.
Nouns formed with prefixes[edit | edit source]
mis— (= MnE «mis-«, as in «misdeed») gives a pejorative sense to a noun, as in misƿeorc, «evil deed», from ƿeorc, «deed».
un— (= MnE «un-«) can either give a negative sense to a noun, as in unfriþ, «hostility», from friþ, «peace»; or it can give a pejorative sense to a noun, as in ungild, «an unjust or excessive tax» from gild, «tax, payment»; or unrǣd, «bad advice, folly», from rǣd, «advice».
Adjectives formed with suffixes[edit | edit source]
—en (= MnE «-en» as in «golden») together with i-mutation of the stem, forms an adjective from a noun denoting a material, for example the adjective ǣcen, «made of oak», from the noun āc, «oak».
—feald (= MnE «-fold») creates an adjective from a quantity, e.g. seofonfeald, «sevenfold»; maniġfeald, «manifold».
—full (= MnE «-ful») e.g. foreþancfull, «prudent», from foreþanc, «forethought»; or eġefull, «terrifying» from eġe, «fear».
—iġ (= MnE «-y») forms adjectives from nouns, as in grǣdiġ, «greedy, from grǣd, «greed»; or ƿlitiġ, «beautiful», from ƿlit, «appearance, shape, form».
—iht, applied to a noun X produces an adjective meaning «having the quality of X», for example sandiht, «sandy», from sand; or þorniht, «thorny», from þorn.
—isc (= MnE «-ish») produces an adjective from a location or nationality , for example Rōmānisc, «Roman»; or Fresisc, «Fresian».
—lēas (= MnE «-less») forms a privative adjective from a noun, e.g. drēamlēas, «sad», from drēam, «joy»; or ellenlēas, «cowardly, courageless», from ellen, «courage».
—liċ (= MnE -«ly») forms adjectives either from nouns, e.g. fēondliċ, «hostile», from fēond, «enemy»; or from adjectives, as in cūþliċ, «certain, evident», from cūþ, «known».
—ol forms adjectives from verbs, e.g. sƿicol, «deceitful», from sƿician, «to deceive»; or hatol, «odious, hated, hateful» from hatian, «to hate».
—sum (= MnE «-some» as in «troublesome») forms adjectives from nouns, as in friþsum, «peaceful», from friþ, «peace»; or ƿynsum, «pleasant, delightful», from ƿyn, «joy».
—ƿeardes (= MnE «-ward», as in «downward») forms an adjective from a direction, as in norþƿeard, «northward».
Adjectives formed with prefixes[edit | edit source]
æl— (= MnE «al(l)-«) intensifies an adjective: for example ælcræftiġ, «omnipotent, almighty», from cræftiġ, «powerful, skillful».
or— forms privative adjectives from nouns, for example: ordǣle, «having no part in a thing», from dǣl, «share or part»; or orgilde, «unpaid for», from gild, «payment».
un— (= MnE «un-«) reverses the meaning of an adjective, as in undēop, «shallow» from dēop, «deep»; or unmōdiġ, «cowardly», from mōdiġ, «brave, noble».
Adverbs formed with suffixes[edit | edit source]
—e forms adverbs from adjectives, as in balde, «boldly», from bald, «bold»; or frōde, «wisely, prudently», from frōd, «wise».
—līċe forms adverbs from adjectives, as in blīþelīċe, «gladly», from blīþe, «happy»; or from nouns, as in ȝēarlíce, «yearly», from ȝēar, «year».
—unga also forms adverbs from adjectives, as in nīƿunga, «anew», from nīƿe, «new».
Verbs formed with prefixes[edit | edit source]
ā— somtimes has the sense of «forth, away», as in ā-drīfan, «to drive away», from drīfan, to drive; or ā-faran, «to depart» from faran, «to go». Very often, however, this prefix seems to have no particular meaning, and does not change the meaning of the verb it’s attached to.
be— often seems to have no particular meaning. Sometimes it can imply removal or deprivation, as in beceorfan, «to cut off», from ceorfan, «to cut», or bedǣlan, «deprive», from dǣlan, «to divide». Sometimes it has the sense of «around, about», as in befaran, «to go around, to surround» from faran, «to go»; or beflēogan, «to fly about».
for— prefixed to a verb often gives it the sense of «to destruction», as in fordōn, «to destroy», from dōn, «to do»; or forfaran, «to perish», from faran, «to go». Where the verb already has this sense, it intensifies it, as in forbeornan, «to be destroyed by burning», from beornan, «to burn up». Sometimes it can give a verb a general bad sense, as in forhycgan, «despise», from hycgan, «to think».
on— can have a negative sense, as in ondōn, «to undo, open», from dōn, «to do»; or onbindan, «to untie», from bindan, «to tie». Often, however, it seems to do nothing to the verb at all.
ȝe— can give a verb the sense of success or completion: for example ȝeƿinnan, «to win, to achieve victory over» from ƿinnan, «to fight»; or ȝeacsian, «to find out by asking», from acsian, «to ask». It is because of this perfective sense that ȝe— is so often prefixed to past participles. However, sometimes when it is prefixed to a verb it hardly makes any difference to its meaning.
tō— as a prefix to a verb usually gives it a sense of separation, as in tōdōn, «to separate, divide», from dōn, «to do»; or tōfaran, «to go off in different directions», from faran, «to go».
ƿiþ— has the sense of «against», and so forms verbs such as ƿiþdrīfan, «to repel», from drīfan, «to drive»; or ƿiþsprecan, «to speak against, denounce, revile», from sprecan, «to speak».
ymb— has the sense of «around»; so we get verbs such as ymbscīnan, «to surround with light», from scīnan, «to shine»; or ymbbindan, «to bind around», from bindan, «to bind».
Compound nouns[edit | edit source]
Compound nouns can be formed:
- By compounding two nouns, as in gūþdēaþ, «death in battle», literally «war-death».
- By compounding an adjective and a noun, as in nēahbūend, «neighbour», from nēah, «nigh», and būend, «dweller».
- By compounding an adverb and a noun, as in ūtgang, «exit», from ūt, «out», and gang, «going, journey».
Note that it is important to remove declensional suffixes before using them non-finally in a compound noun. For example, if used alone, the word «nama» — «name», ends in the «-a» declensional suffix. However, compounds such as «nambōc» — «name book», must strip the declensional suffix before using that component.
Compound nouns ‘could not’ be formed using merely a naked verb stem. Verb stems must have productive suffixes, such as -ung, applied to them, to convert them into a noun, before they could be incorporated in nouns. Incidentally, agent nouns formed productively from verbs using the «-a» suffix (same meaning as Modern English «-er» suffix), would then be stripped of the «-a» when used in non-final compound components, for example «cumlīðness» — «hospitality, comer-kindness». This stripped form looked exactly like the naked verb stem, but it has the meaning of an agent, rather than merely the meaning of the verb stem.
Compound adjectives[edit | edit source]
Compound adjectives can be formed:
- By compounding a noun and an adjective, as in lofȝeorn, «eager for praise», literally «praise-eager».
- By compounding an adjective with another adjective, as in ƿīdbrād, «widespread, ample», from ƿīd, «wide» and brād, «broad».
- By compounding an adverb with an adjective, for example forþġeorn, «eager to go forth», literally «forth-eager».
- By compounding an adjective with a noun, as in forhtmōd, «frightened», from forht, «fearful» and mōd, «mind, spirit».
New words were formed in a variety of ways on OE. Below are listed some common suffixes, prefixes, and useful guidelines to being creative with your OE vocabulary in ways that can commonly be understood by other OE speakers.
Prefixes[]
- ā-: gives a sense of away (from) our out (of); sometimes does nothing to the meaning of a word
- ǣġ-: generalizes pronouns: ǣġ-hƿā — anyone
- be-: often equals a sense of around or about: be-gān — surround; sometimes is a derivative: be-dǣlan — to deprive; sometimes makes intransitive verbs transitive or makes a transitive verb out of an adjective/noun: be-ƿēpan — to bewail
- ġe-: often gives a sense of togetherness or a group of things: ġe-brōþor — brothers, ġe-fēran — to accompany; often does nothing to the meanings or sense of a word
Suffixes[]
Verbs[]
- -an: forms either strong verbs or verbs of weak verb classes 1 or 3
- -ettan: forms class 1 weak verbs from nouns and adjectives: mūþettan — to speak about, to declare (secrets)
- -ian: forms verbs from class 2
- -lǣċan: forms class 1 weak verbs from adjectives and nouns: cūþ-lǣċan — to get to know (someone), to make friends with
- -rian: usually forms a subclass of class 1 weak verbs
- -sian: forms class 2 weak verbs from nouns and pronouns and usually means «to make like» or «to make»: clǣn-sian — to cleanse, to clean
Nouns[]
- -cund: betokens strong neuter nouns which mean an entire kind of thing: hrefne-cund — raven-kind
- -ling: betokens strong masculine nouns from nouns or adjective which speak about someone or some creature of which the adjective (if it is an adjective from whence the noun is formed) could be said about or which is associated with the noun (if it is a noun from whence the word is formed): ierþ-ling — tender of fields (lit. «earthling»)
- -nis: makes nouns from adjectives or verbs, sometimes from other wordkinds, though.
Adjectives[]
- -cund: makes adjectives usually formed from nouns and betokens a sense of being within the same kind as the word from whence it is formed: god-cund — divine («god-kind»)
- -iġ: is equivalent to Modern English -y: blōd-iġ — bloody
- -liċ: is equivalent to Modern English -like: god-liċ — divine, god-like
More Noun Forming Strategies[]
More Verb Forming Strategies[]
How to Make an Adverb of an Adjective[]
1.
Old English Word formation and syntax
Выполнили:
Студентки группы 04.3-919
Нигматуллина Карина
Хисамеева Лилия
2.
Word-Formation
in Old English
Word Structure
According to the morphological structure Old English words fell into three
Main types:
1) Simple words (“root-words”) or words with a simple stem, containing a
root-morpheme and no derivational afxes, e. g. land, singan, god (Mod. E
land,
sing, good);
2) Derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more afxes,
e. g.
be-ginnan, weorþ-ung, un-scyld-ig, ge-met-ing (Mod. E begin, ˝worthiness˝,
˝innocent˝, meeting).
3) Compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one
rootmorpheme,
e. g. mann-cynn, fēower-tīene, weall-geat (Mod. E mankind,
fourteen, wall gate).
3.
Ways of WordFormation
Old English employed two ways of word-formation: derivation and
wordcomposition.
Derived words in Old English were built with the help afxes:
prefxes and
sufxes; sound interchanges and word stress.
Prefxation was a productive way of building new words in Old
English.
Prefxes were widely used with verbs but were far less productive
with other parts
of speech. The most frequent, and probably the most productive,
Old English 15
gān—“go” faran—“travel”
prefxes were: ā-, be-, for-, fore-, ge-, ofer-, un-. Of these only una-gān—“go away” ā-faran—“travel”
was common
be-gān—“go
round”
tō-faran—“disperse”
with nouns and adjectives, the rest were
mainly verb
prefxes,
e.g.
fore-gān—“precede” for-faran—“intercept”
ofer-gān—“traverse” forþ-faran—“die”
ge-gān—„go“, „go away“ ge-faran—
„attack“,etc
4.
Sufxation was by far the most productive means of word derivation in Old
English. Sufxes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives, seldom—
in forming verbs. In Old English there were two large groups of sufxes: sufxes
of nouns and sufxes of adjectives. Noun sufxes are divided into sufxes of
“agent nouns” (“nomina agentis”) and those of abstract nouns.
Among the sufxes of “agent nouns” there were some dead, unproductive
sufxes: -a, as in the Masc. a-stem hunta (NE hunter), -end, originally the sufx
of the Present Participle, e.g. OE frēond, fend (NE friend, fend); -end in
wordbuilding
was later replaced by –ere, a sufx of IE descent, whose productivity
grew after the adoption of Latin words with the same sufx, e.g. scōlere, sutere
(NE scholar, “shoemaker”).
5.
Productive sufxes which formed abstract nouns were as follows:-nes/-nis,
-ung/-ing, -oþ, -aþ, -uþ, -þu, e.g. huntoþ, fscaþ, geoguþ (NE “hunting”,
“fshing”, “youth”).
In the derivation of adjectives the most productive sufxes were: -ig,
and – isc: e.g. hālig (NE holy), Englisc, Denisc (NE English, Danish).
Sound Interchanges distinguish between words built from the same root.
The sources of sound interchanges:
ablaut or vowel gradation;
e.g. rīdan v—rād n [ī~ā] (NE ride, raid);
singan v—song n [i~a] (NE sing—song);
palatal mutation;
e.g. dōm—dēman (NE doom—deem);
full—fyllan (NE full—fll);
long—lengþu (NE long—length);
OE breaking;
e.g. beran—bearn (NE bear).
6.
The syntactic structure of a language is usually closely connected with
its morphology.
In a highly infected language a word mostly carries with it indications
of its class, of its function in the sentence, of its relations with other
words. With the loss of infections the dependence of the word grows.
Much of the diference vetween the OE and the MnE syntax is of that
nature.
1) The order of words in a sentence was comparatively free in OE as
contrasted with the rigid WO of MnE.
2) In OE the infections played a much greater role in the indication of
syntactical relations between words in a sentence or group than in
MnE. Thus, in the OE sentence Ohthere saede his … the ending –e of
hlaforde showed that the noun was in the dative case and that it
fulflled the function of the inderect object. In the MnE translation
“Ohthere said to his lord” the relations formely expressed by the dative
case ending are indicated with the help of the preposition to.
7.
3) The subject of a sentence or clause was frequentely unexpressed in OE. E.g. Bugon to
bence = (They) bent to the bench.
4) In OE there were some types of ‘impersonal’ sentences not found in MnE, but close to
the Russian мне хочется, меня знобит.
E.g. Nu pincp me (Cf. E. methinks, R. мне думается)
5) In OE multiple negation was perfectly normal. E.g. He ne mihte nan ping geseon ~ He
could see nothing.
8.
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