14. Oe vocabulary (borrowings, word formation)

~ 30.000-100.000 words. OE vocabulary is mainly homogeneous. It is purely Germanic with the exception for a small number of borrowed words. Native words:

• common IE words inherited from the IE parent language constitute the oldest part of the vocabulary: names of natural phenomenon (mere, mora); pPlants and animals (treow); agriculture (sawan); human body’s parts (beard); terms of kindship (brothor, sunu); verbs (beon, don); adjectives (niwe, lang).

• common Germanic words which are shared by most Germanic languages but don’t occur outside the group: nature (eorte); sea and everyday life (sand, earm, singan).

• specifically OE words which cannot occur in other Germanic and non-Germanic languages (few of them): clipan, brid.

• compound and derived from Germanic roots: wifman; hlaford.

Borrowings:

• Celtic (few in number):

  • place names: Kent, Bernicia (names of kingdoms which derived from names of Celtic tribes); York (city); London (крепость у реки); water’s and river’s names were understood by the Germanic invaders as proper names (Esk, Osk, Avon).

  • miscellaneous: cradol; dun; cress.

  • Celtic place names which have survived (comb=deep valley; Batcomb, Winchcomb; pill=creak; Huntspill).

  • place names with Celtic elements which are hybrids. (Celtic + Latin [Manchester, Winchester, Lancaster]; Celtic + Germanic [Cornwall, Yorkshire, Canterbury]).

• Latin borrowings:

• First wave:

  • trade (ceapian, ceapman);

  • units of mergement and containers (pund, flasce);

  • fruit and vegetables (plume, pore, cieres);

  • articles of trade/agricultural products (win, ciese);

  • cookery (cyccen, cuppe, disc).

• Second wave:

  • military affairs (mil, weall, straet);

  • place names (chester, caster, port).

• Third wave:

  • religion and church/learning (biscop, munuc, cleric, scol, fers, candel).

Word formation:

• Word derivation:

  • sound interchange accompanied by suffixation: singan-song,

    • accompanied by palatal mutation: don – deman – domjan,

    • accompanied by breaking: beran, bearn;

  • word stress to differentiate some parts of speech;

  • prefixation – a very productive way: a3an; be3an; fore3an;

  • suffixation is the most productive way with nouns and adjectives: freedom; cildhad.

• Word composition (highly productive). Compound nouns and adjectives. Nouns may contain n + n: 3oldmith; adj. + n: cwicseoflor. Adjectives n + adj.: winsaed; adj. + adj.: widcup; adj. + n.: blithheort.