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WORD-FORMATION IN OLD ENGLISH

Word Structure

§ 248.The bulk of the OE vocabulary were native words. In the course of the OE period the vocabulary grew; it was mainly replenished from native sources, by means of word-formation.

According to their morphological structure OE words (like modern 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, sinʒan, ʒōd (NE land, sing, good);

b) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes, e.g. be-ʒinnan, weorp-unʒ, un-scyld-iʒ, ʒe-met-inʒ (NE begin, 'worthiness', 'innocent', meeting).

c) compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme, e.g. mann-cynn, norpe-weard, fēower-tiene, weall-ʒeat, scir-ʒe-refa (NEmankind, northward, fourteen, wall gate, sheriff).

As stated above (§ 66), in Late PG the morphological structure of the word was simplified. By the age of writing many derived words had lost their stem-forming suffixes and had turned into simple words. The loss of stem-suffixes as means of word derivation stimulated the growth of other means of word-formation, especially the growth of suffixation.

Ways of Word-Formation

§ 249.In OE there existed a system of word-formation of a com­plexity similar to that of Mod E. One of the most striking examples of the potentials of OE word-formation was the ability of a single root to appear in an abundant store of simple, derived and compound words. For instance, OE mōd (NE mood)yielded about fifty words: derived words, such as mōdiʒ, ʒemōded, ofermōd ('proud', 'disposed', 'arrogance'), compound words mōd-caru, mōd-leof, mōd-ʒepōht, ʒlædmōdnis ('care', 'beloved', 'thought', 'kindness'). Scores of words contained the roots of OE dæʒ, ʒōd, monn, weorp, lonʒ(NE day, good, man, worth, long). Many derivational affixes appear to have been very productive as they occurred in numerous words: wip- a prefix in more than fifty words, ofer- in over a hundred words.

It is not always possible for the present-day linguist to assess cor­rectly the productivity of OE word-building means. It is difficult to distinguish processes which were active from those that had ceased to be productive but whose products were still in use. Due to the scarcity of written evidence sometimes we cannot say whether the word was in common use or it was created by the author of a certain text for one occasion — these kinds of words "said once" are termed "hapax legomena".

OE employed two ways of word-formation: derivation and word-composition.

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