Zeitschrift für Wortbildung / Journal of Word Formation (ZWJW)
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Historical Continuity in the Morphological Marking of Subjectivity? Textual Perspectives on the Origin of English Adverbial "-ly" in Late Old and Early Middle English
Get PDFIn spite of the fact that the Present-Day English “adverbial signature” – the suffix ‑ly – is peculiar to English among the Germanic languages and that its emergence seems to conflict with general tendencies of language change in English – the loss of inflectional endings and the fact that English is otherwise happy to allow zero-derivation – neither the early history of ‑ly in Old and Middle English nor the exact date and reasons for its remarkable spread have been fully understood. Recently, the subjective semantics of adverbs in ‑ly have received considerable attention, in both synchronic and diachronic studies. This claim for a particular subjective (abstract or figurative) meaning of adverbs in ‑ly, however, rests almost exclusively one study, Donner’s lexicographical examination of MED material (1991). This chapter inspects the potential of comprehensive textual studies for the suggested subjective semantics in the early use of ‑ly, focussing on two late Old English translations of the Theodulfi Capitula and the early Middle English poem The Owl and the Nightingale, one of the earliest idiomatic and colloquial English texts.In spite of the fact that the Present-Day English “adverbial signature” – the suffix ‑ly – is peculiar to English among the Germanic languages and that its emergence seems to conflict with general tendencies of language change in English – the loss of inflectional endings and the fact that English is otherwise happy to allow zero-derivation – neither the early history of ‑ly in Old and Middle English nor the exact date and reasons for its remarkable spread have been fully understood. Recently, the subjective semantics of adverbs in ‑ly have received considerable attention, in both synchronic and diachronic studies. This claim for a particular subjective (abstract or figurative) meaning of adverbs in ‑ly, however, rests almost exclusively one study, Donner’s lexicographical examination of MED material (1991). This chapter inspects the potential of comprehensive textual studies for the suggested subjective semantics in the early use of ‑ly, focussing on two late Old English translations of the Theodulfi Capitula and the early Middle English poem The Owl and the Nightingale, one of the earliest idiomatic and colloquial English texts
Initialisms in Scientific Writing in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries
Get PDFThis paper focusses on the role of initialisms in scientific English articles in the Royal Society Corpus (Fischer et al. 2020; Kermes et al. 2016). The development of scientific initialisms is illustrated with frequency data, a discussion of the evolution of the text topics obtained from topic modelling and an analysis of the development of information-theoretic surprisal values of initialisms in three time spans between 1830 and 1919. The overall frequency and diversity of initialisms for scientific concepts has risen considerably between 1830 and 1919 in the context of the ongoing specialisation of the sciences. Particularly from the 1860s onwards scientific initialisms increasingly become shortcuts for multiword units with wordhood and term status. The surprisal values of scientific initialisms decrease over time as such forms more regularly occur in conventionalised textual contexts and fixed expressions. Overall, the analysis of the RSC texts shows that key developments towards the conventionalisation of scientific initialisms as term formation patterns took place in the transitional period from Late Modern to Present-day English
Framework Proposal: A Semantic Feature Analysis of Kennings to Support Their Role in Aiding Word Retrieval in Oral Old English Poetry
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to explore the role of kennings’ use in Old English (OE) poetry beyond their rhetorical power, more specifically, their role as mnemonic devices. Generally, kennings are used to refer to a certain entity using a more complex and descriptive way, more than one individual tag. This way of encoding referents seems to carry more than aesthetic value for poets and bards. Seeing as Old English poetry is oral in nature, I believe there is an argument to be made for the use of specific structures that can aid word and context retrieval, especially in longer-form content. As such, kennings would function as anchors, and I argue that they function this way because they contain semantic information that supports word retrieval. The framework for analysing this type of word formation is based on semantic feature analysis, which is a protocol used in the therapy of aphasia and anomia to improve word retrieval in post-stroke patients. Beyond this analysis, this paper will argue for the importance of considering alternate, novel techniques and methodologies for the study of Old English and for the diachronic study of language altogether, hoping to help bridge the gap between different areas of research
Compounds with the relational second elements "Gatte" and "Gattin" – a corpus-based study from a gender-linguistic perspective
No full textIn diesem Beitrag werden Komposita mit den relationalen Zweitgliedern Gatte und Gattin aus genderlinguistischer Perspektive untersucht, basierend auf manuell annotiertem zeitungssprachlichen Korpusmaterial. Frauen werden im analysierten Korpus ca. 12-mal häufiger in ihrer ehelichen Rolle versprachlicht als Männer. Statistische Analysen zeigen, dass sie dabei systematisch in ein possessives Verhältnis zum Ehemann gesetzt werden (Arztgattin = Gattin eines Arztes), während Ehemänner in den untersuchten Komposita tendenziell doppelt individualisiert werden (Arztgatte = Gatte, der Arzt ist). Neben den Zweitgliedern geben auch die Genera der beiden Konstituenten Aufschluss über die kodierte Bedeutungsrelation: Genusgleichheit (Kanzlergatte) führt zu einer qualifizierenden, Genusdivergenz (Kanzleringatte) zu einer possessiven Lesart. Die Analyse belegt außerdem die Existenz movierter Kompositumserstglieder – diese sind sogar die häufigste Form zur Benennung weiblicher Personen im Erstglied. Trotzdem herrscht bei der Bezugnahme auf Frauen eine größere Formenvarianz als bei Männern, welche fast ausschließlich mit maskulinen Erstgliedern versprachlicht werden. Damit zeigt die Studie, wie genderlinguistische Perspektiven auch im Bereich der Wortbildung einen neuen Analysezugang bilden.This study examines compounds with the relational second elements Gatte (husband) and Gattin (wife) from a gender-linguistic perspective, based on manual annotations of material from a press corpus. In the analysed corpus, women are referred to in their marital roles 12 times more often than men. Statistical analyses show that they are systematically put into a possessive relation to their husband (Arztgattin = ‘a doctor’s wife’), while husbands tend to be individualised twice within the analysed compounds (Arztgatte = ‘a husband who is also a doctor’). Besides the second elements, the grammatical gender of the two constituents provides information about the meaning relations within the compounds: if both have the same grammatical gender (Kanzlergatte), a qualifying meaning is encoded; if they have differing grammatical genders (Kanzleringatte), a possessive reading is triggered. The analysis also provides evidence for the existence of feminised first elements – they are even the most common form to refer to women with the first element. However, reference to women is subject to a high degree of formal variance compared to men, who are almost exclusively referred to with masculine forms. Thus, the study shows how gender-linguistic perspectives can contribute new analytical approaches to word formation processes
Conference Report: Challenging Construction Grammar: New Insights from Morphology (8–12 April 2024; Monte Verità, Switzerland)
Get PDFAs reflected in its title, this workshop, which took place from the eighth to the twelfth of April 2024 at Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, focused on constructional perspectives in their application to morphology (Hoffmann & Trousdale 2013). As Construction Grammar has become an important theoretical framework within linguistics, it has been applied in morphological studies from both synchronic (e.g., Booij 2010; Jackendoff & Audring 2020) and diachronic perspectives (Hartmann 2019; Van Goethem & Norde 2020). Nevertheless, Construction Morphology is a comparatively young branch of Construction Grammar that poses many open questions and challenges. The questions that were asked within this workshop relate to the connection between morphology and Construction Grammar as a framework, the handling of phenomena situated at the interface of morphology and syntax, and how phenomena that are specific for the scope of morphology can be captured from a constructional point of view.
To address this issue, young and early career researchers were invited to present their current work. These contributions were complemented by the contributions of the invited plenary speakers Muriel Norde (Humboldt University of Berlin), Francesca Masini (University of Bologna), Livio Gaeta (University of Turin), Kristel Van Goethem (University of Louvain) and Steffen Höder (University of Kiel).
The workshop was organised by Elena Smirnova (University of Neuchâtel), Martin Hilpert (University of Neuchâtel) and Jenny Audring (University of Leiden), and made possible with the generous support of SCF (Congressi Stefano Franscini, https://csf.ethz.ch), the SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation, Programm Scientific Exchanges, Grant Nr IZSEZ0_221843) and the FLSH (Faculty of Arts and Humanities) of the University of Neuchâtel.As reflected in its title, this workshop, which took place from the eighth to the twelfth of April 2024 at Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, focused on constructional perspectives in their application to morphology (Hoffmann & Trousdale 2013). As Construction Grammar has become an important theoretical framework within linguistics, it has been applied in morphological studies from both synchronic (e.g., Booij 2010; Jackendoff & Audring 2020) and diachronic perspectives (Hartmann 2019; Van Goethem & Norde 2020). Nevertheless, Construction Morphology is a comparatively young branch of Construction Grammar that poses many open questions and challenges. The questions that were asked within this workshop relate to the connection between morphology and Construction Grammar as a framework, the handling of phenomena situated at the interface of morphology and syntax, and how phenomena that are specific for the scope of morphology can be captured from a constructional point of view.
To address this issue, young and early career researchers were invited to present their current work. These contributions were complemented by the contributions of the invited plenary speakers Muriel Norde (Humboldt University of Berlin), Francesca Masini (University of Bologna), Livio Gaeta (University of Turin), Kristel Van Goethem (University of Louvain) and Steffen Höder (University of Kiel).
The workshop was organised by Elena Smirnova (University of Neuchâtel), Martin Hilpert (University of Neuchâtel) and Jenny Audring (University of Leiden), and made possible with the generous support of SCF (Congressi Stefano Franscini, https://csf.ethz.ch), the SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation, Programm Scientific Exchanges, Grant Nr IZSEZ0_221843) and the FLSH (Faculty of Arts and Humanities) of the University of Neuchâtel
Digging into Old English Legal Compounds
Get PDFWord-formation in Old English has long been subject to several important studies, both from a theoretical and textual. Special attention has been given to compounding especially as a means to cope with the new concepts and notions present in Latin texts. Although often quoted, compounds in the Anglo-Saxon laws has been so far neglected. The present paper aims to partially fill the gap. Focussing on the early legal codes, from Æthelberht to Ine, we will categorise compounds in laws in a sort of typology and analyse them according their formal features. The difficulty in the determination of the semantic relationship between their constituents lead us to the hypothesis that, due to the close intertwining between law and its society, compounds are a mirror either backwards previous stages of the language (e.g. drihtinbeag ‘fine for slaying a freeman’ where drihtin retains its pre-Christian meaning) or forwards to future changes (e.g. the loss of grammatical gender, as in liblac ‘witchcraft’), but are also the results of a long process to develop a legal terminology. Therefore, to understand them one has to dig into each individual law
Introduction to the Proceedings of the 2023 Symposium ‘Historical English Word-Formation’
Get PDFIt has not yet been ten years since Klaus Dietz (2015: 1915) prophesised that
"[f]uture research work [on historical word-formation in English] will profit by two kinds of new instruments: firstly, by the Dictionary of Old English (DOE) and its Web Corpus, by the Middle English Dictionary (MED) and by the nascent third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and secondly, by new corpora of historical English."
The proceedings of the 2023 symposium respond to those predictions in manifold ways. Under the heading ‘Historical English Word-Formation’, the organisers of the symposium intended to “bring together researchers studying diachronic English word-formation and to showcase current research in this area” (Majewski 2023: 287). Although no particular temporal, thematic, or methodological focus was asked for, the five essays provide answers to some of the general questions that the symposium had initially raised, namely: How have large-scale corpus analyses and respective computational tools helped us study diachronic changes in the formation of new words? Which recent insights are there into the frequency and productivity as well as the rules and restrictions of word-formation units and patterns in the history of English? Further, which roles do regional, social, medial, and other factors as well as text types and (non‑)literary genres play for the creation of new words? The five contributions to this special issue of ZWJW illustrate that, as Dietz had anticipated, the study of word formations in past stages of English has profited extremely from the advances made in computational research and Artificial Intelligence, yet they also delineate both their advantages and limitations.It has not yet been ten years since Klaus Dietz (2015: 1915) prophesised that
"[f]uture research work [on historical word-formation in English] will profit by two kinds of new instruments: firstly, by the Dictionary of Old English (DOE) and its Web Corpus, by the Middle English Dictionary (MED) and by the nascent third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and secondly, by new corpora of historical English."
The proceedings of the 2023 symposium respond to those predictions in manifold ways. Under the heading ‘Historical English Word-Formation’, the organisers of the symposium intended to “bring together researchers studying diachronic English word-formation and to showcase current research in this area” (Majewski 2023: 287). Although no particular temporal, thematic, or methodological focus was asked for, the five essays provide answers to some of the general questions that the symposium had initially raised, namely: How have large-scale corpus analyses and respective computational tools helped us study diachronic changes in the formation of new words? Which recent insights are there into the frequency and productivity as well as the rules and restrictions of word-formation units and patterns in the history of English? Further, which roles do regional, social, medial, and other factors as well as text types and (non‑)literary genres play for the creation of new words? The five contributions to this special issue of ZWJW illustrate that, as Dietz had anticipated, the study of word formations in past stages of English has profited extremely from the advances made in computational research and Artificial Intelligence, yet they also delineate both their advantages and limitations
Lexical Affix Productivity in the History of English: A Quantitative Approach
Get PDFThis paper addresses the development of lexical affixation throughout the last 700 years of the English language. More specifically, it pursues two objectives. First, a short outline of the methodological approaches will be devised reaching from stand-alone applications (Peukert 2014) and shared-work solutions (Peukert 2018) to requesting the OED RESTful API. Second, two sets of results will be presented. The first set includes overall aggregations of all productive affixes as well as their shares on the total number of each affix type. The second set of results elaborates on two interesting cases chosen from highly productive prefixes and suffixes. The contribution closes with a short discussion on alternative explanations and limitations of the chosen approach. Although the affix token frequencies by and large replicate the findings in Peukert (2016), which are based on type frequencies, the presented data substantiate the idea that, in terms of lexical morpheme usage, English reveals more and more characteristics of a prefixing language
Factors of frequency and productivity of diminution in early German dialect surveys
No full textThis paper examines the productivity of diminution – mainly on the noun – in two large-scale surveys of German dialects of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The starting point is the basic question whether German dialects use differently dimintutive suffixes and which dialect uses diminutives more frequently than others. In addition to morphological and semantic aspects, this question is linked to numerous sociolinguistic, methodological, and phonotactic factors. This leads for example to the general problem, to what extent dialect stereotypes influence classical dialect surveys.
The approach is strictly empirical: The data discussed first are translations of the „Parable of the Prodigal Son“ (Luke 15:11–32) into German dialects from the early 19th century are examined (Radlof 1817; Stalder 1819). Subsequently an abbreviated sample of dialect translations of the 40 Wenker sentences from the late 19th and early 20th century is analyzed. Based on these datasets, different influencing factors are discussed that guide the use (and non-use) of diminutives.This paper examines the productivity of diminution – mainly on the noun – in two large-scale surveys of German dialects of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The starting point is the basic question whether German dialects use differently dimintutive suffixes and which dialect uses diminutives more frequently than others. In addition to morphological and semantic aspects, this question is linked to numerous sociolinguistic, methodological, and phonotactic factors. This leads for example to the general problem, to what extent dialect stereotypes influence classical dialect surveys.
The approach is strictly empirical: The data discussed first are translations of the „Parable of the Prodigal Son“ (Luke 15:11–32) into German dialects from the early 19th century are examined (Radlof 1817; Stalder 1819). Subsequently an abbreviated sample of dialect translations of the 40 Wenker sentences from the late 19th and early 20th century is analyzed. Based on these datasets, different influencing factors are discussed that guide the use (and non-use) of diminutives
Can suffixal augmentation express approximation? The case of denominal evaluative nouns
Get PDFThe paper focuses on the relationships between so-called diminutive/augmentative morphology and approximation. As this topic is very broad, only the denominal nouns are studied in this article. Our study, based on data from French and Serbian, has a twofold aim: to answer the question asked in the title of this article and, the answer being negative, try to understand why only diminutive suffixes, and not augmentative ones, can express approximation. This should also allow us to understand the specificity of diminutive approximation. Firstly, we show that even though both types of evaluatives express non-conformity with respect to a norm, in the case of diminution the norm is not reached, whereas augmentation entails that the norm is not only reached but is exceeded. This suggests that approximation is fundamentally associated with a certain degree of deficiency, which is consistent with the literature on this topic. Secondly, we demonstrate that the main peculiarity of diminutive approximation is that it is measurative in nature as it is underlined by the orientational metaphor up/down and based on a set of gradable semantic dimensions such as small/big, few/much. This is not the case of other morphological devices that trigger approximative meanings (e.g., pseudo-, -oïde), whose role is to provide a global evaluation of the matching between a given referent and core members of the category expressed by the base.The paper focuses on the relationships between so-called diminutive/augmentative morphology and approximation. As this topic is very broad, only the denominal nouns are studied in this article. Our study, based on data from French and Serbian, has a twofold aim: to answer the question asked in the title of this article and, the answer being negative, try to understand why only diminutive suffixes, and not augmentative ones, can express approximation. This should also allow us to understand the specificity of diminutive approximation. Firstly, we show that even though both types of evaluatives express non-conformity with respect to a norm, in the case of diminution the norm is not reached, whereas augmentation entails that the norm is not only reached but is exceeded. This suggests that approximation is fundamentally associated with a certain degree of deficiency, which is consistent with the literature on this topic. Secondly, we demonstrate that the main peculiarity of diminutive approximation is that it is measurative in nature as it is underlined by the orientational metaphor up/down and based on a set of gradable semantic dimensions such as small/big, few/much. This is not the case of other morphological devices that trigger approximative meanings (e.g., pseudo-, -oïde), whose role is to provide a global evaluation of the matching between a given referent and core members of the category expressed by the base