3. Oe word-formation

OE wordstock fell into three groups by word-structure: simple, derived and compound words.

a) One of the most important means of enriching OE vocabulary was derivation – building new words with the help of suffixes (suffixation) and prefixes (prefixation).

Suffixation.

There were suffixes of nouns:

- ere,	e.g. writere,	fuZelere “fowler”
- estre,	e.g. lxcestre “she-baker”,	spinnestre “she-spinner”
- nis/nes,	e.g. Zōdnis “goodness”,	þrenes “trinity”
- dōm,	e.g. frēodōm “freedom”,	wīsdom
- scipe,	e.g. frēondscipe,	Zebēorscipe “feat”
- þ,	e.g. trēowþ “truth”,	ZeoZuþ “youth”

Suffixes of adjectives:

- iZ,	e.g. hāliZ “holy”,	bysiZ “busy”
- isc,	e.g. ÆnZlisc,	Frencisc
- lic,	e.g. frēondlic “friendly”,	luflic “lovely”
- weard,	e.g. hāmweard “homeward”,	Norþweard

Verb-suffixes were not numerous.

Prefixation.

be – (Cf. preposition “by”), e.g. besettan “beset”, bewēpan “beweep”;

mis – (smth. negative or bad), e.g. mislicjan “dislike”, misdxd “mischief”;

un – “un”, e.g. uncūþ, un-rīpe, etc.

b) OE composition embraced nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs. Compounds were primary and secondary. Primary compounds were built by juxtaposition of stems: e.g. Zoldsmiþ, cwic-seolfor, midniht, nēah-būr, wīd-cūþ “wide-known”, blīþ-heort “cheery”, norþmest, norþrihte, nealxcan “to near”, etc.

Secondary compounds may be traced back to free combinations which grew morphologically and semantically isolated. The usual pattern was noun in the genitive + noun: e.g.

OE		NE
oxenaford dxZeseaZe ÆnZlaland witenaZemot SnotinZaham	“the ford of oxen” “the eye of the day” “the land of Angles” “the council of sages” “the home of the Snotings”	Oxford daisy England – Nottingham

One more word-building type was sound – alternations – a variety of derivations by which new words were formed with the root-vowel changing its quality:

OE			NE
e.g.	talu full blōd hāl sittan drincan	- tellan - fyllan - blēdan - hxlan - settan - drencan	tale full blood whole sit drink	–tell –fill – bleed – heal – set – drench

In general, OE vocabulary was enlarged principally on account of word-building and semantic means of Anglo-Saxon, borrowings being of no great importance in the OE period.

Part II

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