Point for Discussion. Lecture 7

1. MIDDLE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

2. aims:

to
discuss the types and sources of ME lexical
changes;
to explore the Latin influence up to the end
of the Middle English period;
to
present
evidence
for
extensive
Scandinavian influence during Middle English;
to discuss the influence of French loans after
1066;
to examine new types of word formation.

3. Lecture 7. Point for Discussion

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The Origins of ME Lexicon
Types and Sources of Changes
Scandinavian
Influence
on
the
Vocabulary
French Influence on the Vocabulary in
Middle English
Borrowings from Latin in the Middle
English period
New Word Formation

4. RECOMMENDED LITERATURE:

David Crystal. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
the English Language— Holyheard. — 1994.—P.
46-49.
Simon
Horobin and Jeremy Smith. An
Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh
University Press.—2002.—P. 69-88.
Valery V. Mykhailenko. Paradigmatics in the
Evolution of English.— Chernivtsi.—1999.—P. 116118; 122-123; 127-130.
T.A.
Rastorguyeva. A History orang/isb.—
Moscow.— 1983.— P. 296-306.
L.Verba. History of the English Language.— Nova
KNYHA.— 2004.— P. 144-151.
Elly van Gelderen. A History of the English
Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia.—2006. P. 95106; 132-133.

5. Introduction

According
to the estimates made by modern
philologists, in the course of the thousand
years — from OE to modern times — the
English vocabulary has multiplied tenfold.
Perhaps, if it were possible to count all the
meanings expressed by lexical items in
different historical periods, the figure would
be much higher.
Borrowings played a much greater role in
Middle English than in Old English. They
came from two sources: Scandinavian and
French.

6. 1. The Origins of ME Lexicon

7. Inheritance and borrowing

The core lexicon of ME – that is, the set of words
which have the most widespread currency –
derives from OE and the bulk of the OE lexicon
was, in turn, inherited from Proto-Germanic.
This last component included words which have
no cognate in the other Indo-European
languages, and which presumably either entered
Germanic through early contact with non-IndoEuropean languages now extinct, or are forms
whose cognates have simply not survived in
those languages, for example
wīf WOMAN, drincan DRINK
(cf. Present-Day French la femme WOMAN, boire
DRINK).

8.

Reasons of hospitality of loan-words are as
follows:
1) a large-scale contact between Englishspeakers and users of other languages,
notably varieties of Norse and French;
2) the ‘Latin renaissance’ of the 12th c.
meant widespread use of Latin for
documentary purposes, and thus the
potential for greater ‘leakage from Latin
into ME;
3) Since ME was a much less inflected
language than OE, it was easier to adopt
words from foreign languages.

9. 2. Types and Sources of Changes

10. the changes in the vocabulary

Losses of words or
their meanings
Replacements
Additions

11. Losses of words or their meanings

Some regulations and institutions of OE kingdoms
were cancelled or forgotten in the ME period.
e.g. OE witenaʒemot 'assembly of the elders'
ceased to exist under the Norman rule
Some rituals of the religion were abandoned
after the introduction of Christianity.
e.g. OE tiber, blōt which meant ‘sacrifice’
In OE there were many groups of synonyms whose
differentiation became irrelevant in ME;
therefore some of the synonyms fell out of use.
e.g. OE here, fierd, werod indicated an armed
force, an army. They were all replaced by the ME
borrowings from French army, troop

12. Losses of words or their meanings

The
specific OE poetic vocabulary, went out
of use together with the genre of OE poetry.
Losses could also affect the plane of content.
Though the words survived, some of its
meanings became obsolete.
e.g. OE ʒift had the meaning ‘price of a wife'
connected with one of the early meanings of
the verb ʒyfan (NE give) 'give in marriage’
From
80 to 85% of the OE words went out of
use in the succeeding periods. Most of them
were replaced by other words of the same or
similar meanings.

13. Replacements

could also occur in the sphere
of content: the word was retained but its
meaning was changed or was replaced by a
new meaning
e.g. OE cniht ‘boy, servant’ changed its
meaning to ME and NE knight
Sometimes the meanings of the word changed
when its referent (the thing it denoted)
underwent some kind of changes
e.g. ME carre ‘wheeled vehicle’ now indicates
a motor car or part of a train (sleeping car), NE
car, Early ME carriage

14. Additions

Most replacements belonged to
the “split”-type: one item was
replaced by two or more, or one
meaning
differentiated
into
several meanings.
These changes should be classified
as additions to the vocabulary.

15. Additions

They have several forms:
pure innovations, which were created to name new
things
e.g. ME citee ‘town with a cathedral’, duke, duchesse,
prynce — new ranks and titles;
NE bourgeois, potato, nylon
differentiation of synonyms
e.g. OE neah, near, neara
> ME neer, its ME synonyms were cloos and adjacent,
NE near, close, adjacent, neighbouring
polysemy and homonymy
e.g. OE craeft meant ‘science’, ‘skill’, 'strength';
> in ME and NE craft lost the meaning ‘science’ but
acquired new meanings ‘group of skilled workers, guild’

16. The sources of new words

are usually
divided into internal (productive) and
external.
The language of later periods absorbed
foreign words by the hundred and even made
use of foreign word components in word
formation.

17. The ratio between Germanic words and foreign word is: 30 % : 70 %

Germanic
words
Foreign Words

18. The importance of the surviving native words

The surviving native words belong to the most
frequent layer of words, and native components
are widely used in word-building, in word phrases
and phraseological units.
When the loan-words were assimilated by the
language they could yield other words through
word-formation or develop new meanings on British
soil.
e.g. the foreign root pass (from French passer) is
used in numerous composite verbs like pass away,
pass by, pass for, pass through, etc.; in
phraseological units like pass by the name of, pass a
remark, pass the ball; in derived and compound
words, e.g. passer-by, passing, pass-book.
All these words and phrases originated in the English
language and cannot be treated as borrowings,
though they contain the foreign component pass.

19. BORROWINGS IN THE ME PERIOD

Scandinavian
French
Latin

20. 3. Scandinavian Influence on the Vocabulary

21.

Scandinavian loans cause a meaning shift in
the original:
e.g., gift originally meant ‘payment for a wife’
but the ON had shifted and caused the change;
dream means ‘joy’ in OE, but becomes ‘vision in
sleep’ in ME;
Other shifts:
N die-E starve;
N skill-E craft;
N skin-E hide;
N ill-E sick.

22.

Norse
has supplied English with
the third person pronoun,
THEY/ THEM / THEIR.
The Present-Day English pronoun
SHE seems to derive from a blend
of OE hēo with a Norse-type
pronunciation
*hjō,
which
subsequently developed into ME
scho
(Northern)
and
sche
(Southern).

23.

24. 4. French Influence on the Vocabulary in Middle English

25. The French borrowings of the ME period

26. the words relating to the government and administration

27. Military, food, drink, fashion

28. Leisure, the arts, science, house

29. miscellaneous

30. different kinds of changes in the vocabulary

Firstly, there were many innovations, i.e. names of
new objects and concepts, which enlarged the
vocabulary by adding new items.
Secondly, there were numerous replacements of
native words by French equivalents, which resulted
in a shift in the ratio of Germanic and Romance roots
in the language.
The influx of French words is one of the main
historical reasons for the abundance of synonyms in
Mod E. The difference often lies in their stylistic
connotations: French loan-words preserve a more
bookish, literary character
French commence — native begin, conceal — hide,
prevent — hinder, search — look for, odour — smell,
desire — wish.
The vocabulary was also enriched by the adoption of
French affixes.

31.

32. 5. Borrowings from Latin in the Middle English period

33. Borrowings from Latin

The
Latin language continued to
be used in England all through
the OE and ME.
The main spheres of the Latin
language were the Church, the
law
courts
and
academic
activities.

34.

35. 6. New Word Formation

36. New Word Formation

New compounds in -er were especially frequent in
the 14th c.:
e.g. bricklayer, housekeeper, moneymaker, soothsayer.
Compounds of the type he-lamb date from c.1300.
Adjectives examples include:
e.g. luke-warm, moth-eaten, new-born, red-hot.
Phrasal verbs: go out, (alongside outgo), fall bybefallen.
Affixation: Only a few prefixes of OE continued into
ME. But new affixes appeared instead. The suffix able from such French borrowings as admirable,
tolerable, came to be used with native Germanic
roots as well: eatable, readable, bearable. Similarly,
the Romance prefixes re-, en- in the words rewrite,
endear.
Conversely, the native affixes were used with foreign
roots: beautiful, charming, unfaithful.

37. New Word Formation

The
development of conversion as a new type
of derivation. Owing to the levelling of endings
and the loss of -n in unstressed syllables
e.g. OE ende and endian > ME ende ['endə]. OE
lufu and lufian > ME love ['luvə].
Such cases of homonymy served as models for
the creation of new nouns from verbs (smile v.—
smile n.) and vice versa (chance n. chance v.).
Words which came into the language through
prefixation can be seen in dis- items found in
Chaucer:
e.g., disceyven — deceive; discorden — disagree;
discuren — discover; disgysen —disguise.

38. SEMANTIC CHANGES IN THE LEXIS

39. Conclusion

Scandinavian,
French, and Latin have a
unique relationship with English, noticeable
in all the kinds of borrowings.
French
has an enormous influence on
different
spheres
of
Middle
English
vocabulary, which makes Middle English look
very different from Old English.
Scandinavian
influences
the
grammar,
especially personal pronouns.
Latin went on influencing the religious and
educational life of Middle English.