Word-Composition

§ 269. Word composition was a hignly 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.

§ 279. Compaunds in OG languages are usually divided into two types: morphological or primary compounds and syntactic or secondary. Morphological compounds — which must have bean the earlier type — were formed by combining two stems, with or without a linking element, e. g.: OE mid-niht and midd-e-niht (NE midnight). Syntactic compounds were a later development; they reproduced the pattern of a syntactic group, usually an attributive phrase consisting of a noun in the Gen. case and a head noun: OE Sunnan-dæʒ — Sunnan — Gen. sg of sunne (Fem. n-stem); dæʒ — the head word, 'Sun's day' (NE Sunday); Enʒlaland 'land of the Angles' (NE England) — Enʒla Gin. pl of Enʒle; Oxena-ford 'oxen's ford' (NE Oxford). The distinction between the two types can help to determine the origin of the linking element, which may be a remnant of the stem-suffix in a morphological compound or a grammatical inflection — in a syntactical compound. In OE, however, syntactical compounds are rare and the linking vowels in morphological compounds are either reduced and generalised under -e or lacking.

§ 271. Compound nouns contained various first components — stems of nouns, adjectives and verbs; their second components were nouns.

'Originally -e was the. ending of the Instr. case of adjectives used in an ad.' verbial function. The loss of -e has produced homonymous pairs in Mod E; hard adj — hard adv; the suffixes -tic and -lice were reduced to -ly, which is now both an adverb and an adjective suffix, cf.: deadly adj and meekly adv.

The pattern "noun plus noun" was probably the most productive type of all: OE hēafod-mann 'leader' (lit, "head-man"), mann-cynn (NE mankind), hēafod-weard 'leader' (weard 'guard'), stān-brycʒ (NE stone bridge), ʒimm-stān (NE gem, lit. "gem stone"), bōc-cræft 'literature' (lit. "book craft"), lēop-cræft, sonʒ-cræft 'poetry' (lit. "song craft, art of singing"), eorp-cræft 'geography' (OE eorpe, NE earth).

Among compound nouns there were some syntactical compounds: OE witena-ʒemōt 'assembly of Elders', dæʒes-ēaʒe 'day's eye' (simplified to NE daisy; see also the names for the days of the week in § 245).

Compound nouns with adjective-stems as the first components were less productive, e.g. wid-sæ 'ocean' (lit. "wide sea"), cwic-seolfor (NE quicksilver), ʒōd-dǣd (lit. "good deed"). Compound nouns with verb and adverb-stems were rare; bæc-hūs 'baking house', inn-ʒanʒ 'entrance'.

§ 272. Compound adjectives were formed by joining a noun-stem to an adjective: dōm-ʒeorn (lit. 'eager for glory'), mōd-ceariʒ 'sorrowful'. The following adjectives are compounded of two adjective stems: wid-cūp 'widely known', fela-mōdiʒ 'very brave'.

The most peculiar pattern of compound adjectives was the so-called "bahuvrihi type" — adjective plus noun-stem as the second component of an adjective. This type is exemplified by mild-heort 'merciful', stip-mōd 'brave', an-ēaʒe 'one-eyed'; soon, however, the second component acquired an adjective suffix -ede, thus combining two methods of word-formation: composition and suffixation; cf. ān-ēaʒe lit. "one eye" and ān-hyrnede 'one-horned, with one horn'.

§ 273. The remarkable capacity of OE for derivation and word-composition is manifested in numerous words formed with the help of several methods: un-wis-dōm 'folly' — un — negative prefix, wis — adjective-stem (NE wise), dōm — noun-stem turning into a suffix; pēaw-fæst-nes 'discipline' — pēaw n 'custom', fæst adj 'firm' (NE fast), -nes — suffix.

§ 274. Table 3 gives a summary of the principal means of word-formation employed in OE and the main spheres of their usage.

Table 3

Word-Formation in Old English

Derivation	Word Composition
Prefixation	Suffixation
Verbs (Nouns, Adjectives)	Nouns, Adjectives	Nouns, Adjectives
for-ʒietan (un-riht n, a)	ʒōd-nis (NE goodness)	hām-cyme, cild-ʒeonʒ
(NE forget, 'wrong' (lit. "not right"))	ʒrǣd-iʒ (NE greedy)	(NE home-coming, young as a child)
	wis-dōm, frēond-lēas
	(NE wisdom, friendliness)
	(suffixation ← composition)

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Suffixation	\|	Stylistic Stratification of the Old English Vocabulary

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