The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 1 Part 10 ppt

Malcolm R. Godden

His sense of the inadequacy of ordinary English is perhaps partly

explained and justified by the difficulty of the subject-matter, but would

seem to stem in part from a fondness for a heightened language.

Alongside his profusion of learned Latinisms he deploys a range of rare

Old English words (amearcian, apinsian, borlice, breuan, cyrtenlice, gefxdlice,

geondscridan, msenigtyw, orped, etc.), apparently culled from glosses to

Latin texts, glosses which themselves may reflect a late Old English

fashion for arcane language (Baker 1980).

Poetic words also make an occasional appearance in Byrhtferth: thus

he refers toBede asgumena segetiddusta on Angelcynne (158/11), employing

not only the poetic word guma, which recurs later (248/8), but also a

poetic form of phrasing. The word-pairing technique familiar from

earlier prose, and also found in Wulfstan, extends in Byrhtferth to

paired synonymous phrases, further heightened by rare diction, such as

ascrutnian his fare and apinsian his sid (64/4—5; 'examine its movement and

scrutinise its journey'). Word-play too becomes in Byrhtferth, like so

much else in his use of language, mere ornament: mid scrutniendre

scrutnunge (46/35) ('with scrutinising scrutiny'). The combination of

exaggerated word-play, poetic and esoteric vocabulary, extravagant

imagery and extensive intermingling of Latin words, produces the most

extreme case of high style in Old English prose, matching the

extravagance of the same author's Latin prose.

Alfred's dream of creating a simple vernacular medium to convey the

essential wisdom of the past finds a disappointing culmination in the

mannered, esoteric and obfuscatory prose of Byrhtferth. Yet a reversion

to a more artfully simple language is evident in the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle in the eleventh century, and it is the less ornate prose which

survived into the next century. Byrhtferth's prose was uncopied and

probably unread after 1100, like the poetry, whereas the prose of Alfred,

iElfric and Wulfstan was still read and copied right through the twelfth

century and into the thirteenth. Its language must have become

increasingly difficult to comprehend, but later readers clearly recognised

individual qualities of thinking and expression that made the effort

worthwhile. Through much of the twelfth century modernisation of

spelling, grammar and vocabulary is kept to a minimum, however much

the current language had changed. In some respects, the literary

language of Old English prose remained in being for more than a

century beyond 1100. The language of poetry had a different history.

The extant poetic manuscripts were apparently unread after 1100 and

the technique of composition apparently comes to an end. Yet some of

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Literary language

the specialised diction, along with the basic technique of the alliterative

line, re-emerges in La3amon at the end of the twelfth century and again

in the alliterative revival in the middle of the fourteenth century.

FURTHER READING

The most recent and comprehensive survey of Old English literature is

Greenfield & Calder (1986). See also Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge,

The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, 1991. On metre there are

more detailed studies by Pope (1942), Bliss (1958) and Cable (1974). On poetic

diction much of the important work is specifically on Beowulf; see especially

Brodeur (1959) and Robinson (1985), as well as Klaeber's (1950) edition. More

general studies are Carr (1939) and Shippey (1972: ch. 4), and there are useful

discussions in the various separate editions of individual poems.

Most of what has been written on the language of prose is in the form of

studies of authorship or dialect, or largely phonological accounts in the

introductions to editions, and very little has been written on authors' selection

and use of language. The major studies of alliteration and rhythm are Mclntosh

(1949), Funke (1962) and Pope (1967). The most useful studies of the language

of major authors are Otten (1964) for Alfred, Pope (1967) for iElfric, Bethurum

(1957) for Wulfstan and Baker (1980) for Byrhtferth.

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GLOSSARY OF LINGUISTIC TERMS

This glossary aims only to give brief working definitions of the more important

or difficult linguistic terms used in this work, omitting such terms as phonetic

classifications, for which the reader in difficulty should consult a relevant

textbook. It is not a comprehensive dictionary of linguistic terms, and the

explanations are only intended to be sufficient to allow the reader who is

unacquainted with such terminology to gain more easily a full understanding

of what is being read. Anyone who requires a more comprehensive dictionary

should consult Crystal (1985).

ablaut A variation in the root vowel, in Germanic largely restricted to

variation in the root vowel of strong verbs according to tense and number, e.g.

PDE sing, sang, sung; was, were.

active A construction which typically involves a subject identified as actor,

contrasted with passive, in which the subject is typically not an actor.

activity verb See dynamic

affix A type of morpheme which is used in the derivation of new words. In

English, affixes are attached either as prefixes to the beginning of words, e.g. un￾like, or as suffixes to the ends of words, e.g. like-ly. The use of affixes internally

in words, as infixes, is at best a rare feature of English, cf. perhaps, AustrE abso￾blooming- lately.

agent The semantic role of the noun phrase referring to the doer of an action, e

-g- Jane ran the marathon.

agreement (also concord) The formal relationship between one or more

units whereby the form of one word requires a corresponding form in another,

thus in PDE the verb agrees with the subject in number.

allograph See grapheme

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Glossary of linguistic terms

allomorph Different realisations of the same morpheme, e.g. /z / in dogs and

/ s/ in cats are allomorphs of the PDE plural morpheme.

allophone The particular individual sounds or phones which are all members

of the same phoneme, e.g. in PDE [p] and [ph

] are allophones of the phoneme

analogy An historical process whereby irregular forms are replaced by

regular ones. In morphophonology the process usually involves either the

extension of a change, which permits it to occur where it should not occur,

phonologically-speaking, or the 'levelling' of a change, so that it does not

occur where it might be expected. A typical analogical form is PDE roofs with

final /fs/, alongside rooves with final /vz/ showing allomorphic variation of

the root.

anaphora A term used for the process of referring (usually with pronouns)

to a preceding grammatical unit. Thus, in Bill claimed that he had won and so_ he has,

he refers back to Bill and so back to won. Contrast cataphora.

anthroponym The name of a person, cf. idionym.

aorist One of the past tense forms of the Greek verb, usually represented in

English by the simple past. In linguistic discussions the issue is most often the

phonological shape of the aorist, and the semantic questions are less frequently

relevant.

apocope Deletion of vowels word-finally, as in OE word ' words' < *wordu.

apposition A syntactic construction in which there is a sequence of two

constituents with the same grammatical role and semantic reference, e.g. 7,

Henry Smith, do declare...

aspect A category which refers to the manner in which the grammar of a

language refers to the duration or type of temporal activity denoted by the

verb. The clearest aspectual contrast in English is perfective vs. imperfective

(7 have read the book vs. I read the book).

assibilation A sound change in Old English whereby palatal or alveolar stops

became palato-alveolar affricates.

assimilation A phonological process by which two sounds become closer in

pronunciation. The assimilation may be either full, cf. PDE immaterial, or

partial, cf. impossible, for both compare inorganic.

asyndetic See parataxis

athematic See theme

augment A vowel or diphthong which in early Indo-European dialects is

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Glossary of linguistic terms

prefixed to the root in the formation of a past tense, e.g. *e-sta-m 'I stood' with

root *sta-.

auxiliary verb A 'helping' verb such a PDE may, can, have, be, do. It typically

carries information about tense, aspect, or modality.

back-derivation The morphological process by which a shorter word is

formed by the deletion of an imaginary affix, e.g. peddle < pedlar.

bahuvrihi A compound in which, semantically, the reference of the com￾pound is to an entity to which neither of the elements of the compound refer,

e.g. PDE highbrow. Structurally the bahuvrihi compounds are exocentric.

bilingual The property of being proficient in two languages. Contrast

diglossia.

cataphora A term used for the pocess of referring forward, usually with a

pronoun, to a grammatical unit, e.g. this in Bill wants us to do this: pick up the car

and drive down to LA. Contrast anaphora.

causative Most frequently used to refer to verbs which have as part of their

meaning the sense 'cause to', e.g. kill'cause to die'.

chain shift A sequence of changes where one change is claimed to be

dependent upon another. In the history of English the best known example of

a chain shift is alleged to be the Great Vowel Shift (see volume II of this

History). But chain shifts may occur outside phonology, as in the replacement

of ME pen ' though' by pogh because of the replacement of hi ' they' by pei.

Chain shifts are of two types: ' drag' chains where Y > Z ' causes' X > Y, as

in parts of the Great Vowel Shift;' push' chains where A > B ' causes' B > C,

as in the Middle English example above.

cleft construction A construction in which a clause is divided into two parts,

each with its own verb, e.g. It's John who left, cf. John left.

clitic In phonology or morphophonology a form which becomes attached to

another unit. If the clitic is attached at the front it is a proclitic, e.g. OE ne + is

> nys 'not is'; if attached to the end of a unit it is an enclitic, e.g. PDE is+)fiot

> isn't. More generally, a form which is dependent upon the existence of a

neighbouring word, as for example the, which requires the existence of a

neighbouring noun.

cognate A language or form which has the same source as another language

or form, e.g. English and German are cognate languages, both having the same

source, namely (proto-)Germanic.

collocation The habitual co-occurrence of lexical items. Thus in PDE good

frequently collocates with morning.

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