Assessing the semantic transparency of Old English affixation: adjective and noun formation

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to assess the semantic transparency of Old English nominal and adjectival affixation. Three principles of semantic transparency are defined, requiring that (i) the attachment of an affix significantly modifies the meaning of the base of derivation; (ii) an affix performs one and the same lexical function in all the derivatives to which it is attached; (iii) a lexical function is performed by one and the same affix in all the derivatives where it applies. The discussion shows that the relation affix-function is overall more transparent than function-affix. The conclusion is drawn that the formation of Old English nouns and adjectives by affixal means is relatively transparent. Considering that approximately one fourth of the total vocabulary of Old English and one half of the derived lexicon have been analyzed, this conclusion clearly points to the relative transparency of Old English word-formation.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Programme for Basic Research (Spanish Government, MINECO) under Grant FFI2011-29532.

Notes

1 Kastovsky, 294.

2 Ibid.

3 The term word-family is used here as in the original, but see Javier Martín Arista (“Morphological Relatedness”; “The Old English Prefix Ge-”; “Recursivity, Derivational Depth”; and “Noun Layers”) on a paradigmatic analysis of word-formation in which the morphological and semantic relations holding between the lexemic root and the derivatives are explicit and motivated.

4 Lass, 198.

5 Kastovsky; Lass; Quirk and Wrenn.

6 Torre Alonso, “The Morphological Structure” and “Nominal Affix Combinations.”

7 Baugh and Cable, 65.

8 Kastovsky, 294.

9 See Hiltunen on the origin of the phrasal verb in the semantic weakening of the verbal prefixes. See also Brinton and Brinton and Traugott for an explanation of the rise of a new set of prefixes based on the classes of the preposition and the adverb as a grammaticalization of a locative meaning resulting in a telic meaning. See also Martín Arista and Cortés Rodríguez.

10 Zwitserlood, 344; Fabb, 68; Plag, 34.

11 Fischer, 336. See Martín Arista, “The Old English Prefix Ge-,” 416, for a discussion of the Old English prefix ge- and the semantic transparency held in pairs of a simplex and a complex word with this prefix when there is meaning contrast between them, as in lang “long” ∼ gelang “dependent.”

12 Lieber, 10.

13 Ibid., 2.

14 Healey; Healey, ed.

15 University of La Rioja.

16 Bosworth and Toller; Sweet; Clark Hall.

17 Kastovsky; Lass; Quirk and Wrenn.

18 Mel'čuk, “Semantic Primitives”; Mel’čuk, “Lexical Functions”; Mel’čuk, Aspects of the Theory.

19 Pounder, 110–21.

20 Lyons, 325. See Dik, The Structure of the Clause; Dik, Complex and Derived Constructions.

21 Dik, The Structure of the Clause, 55.

22 Dik, Complex and Derived Constructions, 93.

23 Hengeveld and Mackenzie.

24 Foley and Van Valin; Van Valin and LaPolla; Van Valin.

25 Martín Arista, “Lexical Negation,” 104.

26 See Beard; and Beard and Volpe.

27 Lieber, 161.

28 Kastovsky, 397.