Affixation in OE.

· In OE the vocabulary mainly grew by means of word-formation. prefixation – was a productive way (unlike in ModE):

- IE prefixes (OE un- (negative));

- Germanic prefixes (OE mis-, be-, ofer-(over-));

- prefixes were widely used with verbs, but were far less productive with the other parts of speech (e.g. OE ζān (to go) – ā-ζān (to go away) – be-ζān (to go round) – fore-ζān (to precede), etc.);

- prefixes often modified lexical meaning (e.g. OE siþ (journey) – for-siþ (death));

- there were grammatical prefixes, e.g ζe-:

o was used to build Participle 2 of strong verbs (e.g. OE sitten (to sit) – ζesett (sat), etc.);

o turned durative verbs into terminative (e.g. OE feran (to go) – ζeferan (to reach), etc.).

· suffixation – was the most productive way, mostly applied to nouns and adjectives, seldom to verbs.

Classification of OE suffixes:

1. Suffixes of agent nouns (-end (OE frēond (friend)), -ere (OE fiscere (fisher)), -estre (feminine) (OE bæcestre (female baker)), etc.);

2. Suffixes of abstract nouns (-t (OE siht (sight)), -þu (OE lengþu (length)), -nes/nis (OE beorhtnes (brightness), blindnis (blindness)), -unζ/inζ (OE earnunζ (earning)), etc.);

3. Adjectival suffixes (-iζ (OE hāliζ (holy)), -isc (OE mannisc (human)), -ede (OE hōcede (hooked)), -sum (OE lanζsum (lasting)) etc.);

4. New suffixes derived from noun root-morphemes (-dōm (OE frēodōm (freedom)), -hād (OE cīldhād (childhood)), -lāc (OE wedlāc (wedlock)), -scipe (OE frēondscipe (frendship)), etc.);

New suffixes derived from adjective root-morphemes (-lic (OE woruldlic (worldly)), -full (OE carfull (careful)), -lēas (OE slǽplēas (sleepless)), etc.).

Borrowings from classical Ls in ME.

After the Norman Conquest the main spheres of the Latin L remained: church; law; academic activities.

The surge of interest in the classics during the Age of the Renaissance led to a new wave of borrowings from Latin and Greek (through Latin mainly).

Latin: abstract concepts (anticipate, exact, exaggerate, explain, fact, dislocate, accommodation, etc.); affixes de- (demolish, destroy, etc.),

ex- (extract, , explore, explain, etc.), re- (reread, retell, retry, etc.), -ate (locate, excavate, etc.), -ent (apparent, present, turbulent, etc.), -ct (correct, erect, etc.)

Greek: theatre (drama, episode, scene, theatre, etc.); literature (anapest, climax, epilogue, rhythm, etc.); rhetoric (dialogue, metaphor, etc.); roots for creation of new words; affixes -ism (humanism, mechanism, aphorism, etc.), -ist (protagonist, terrorist, cyclist, etc.),

anti- (antibody, antidote, antibiotic, etc.), di- (digest, diverse, etc.), neo- (neo-realism, neo-conservatism, etc.)

Greco-Latin Hybrids (words one part of which is Greek and the other one – Latin): e.g. tele-graph, socio-logy, tele-vision, etc.

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