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 5 34 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. 555 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- J ane 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 536 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 [p h ] 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 537 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. 538 Glossary of linguistic terms compensatory lengthening The phonological process by which one phonetic segment (normally a vowel) is lengthened to 'compensate' for the loss of a following segment in the same syllable. complement A clause functioning as a noun phrase, e.g. 1 believe thatyou are right. Hence 'complementizer', a grammatical marker introducing a com- plement, e.g. that in the above example. concord See agreement conjugation See paradigm connotation The emotional associations which are suggested by any part of the meaning of a particular word. contracted verbs A set of verbs in which the stem and inflexion have become fused as a result of the loss of a stem-final consonant, e.g. OE seon 'see' < seohan. copula A linking verb, typically a verb of being, e.g. This is a glossary. correlative A construction in which the relationship between two or more units is marked on each unit, e.g. either or. creole A pidgin language which is the mother-tongue of a group of speakers. declension See paradigm denotation The meaning relationship between a word and the non-linguistic entity to which that word refers. Contrast connotation. determiner The cover term for articles (a, the), demonstratives (this, that) and quantifiers (Jew, three). diglossia The state where two radically different varieties of a language co- exist in a single speech-community. A clear example occurs in German- speaking Switzerland. In Britain there may be a diglossic situation in parts of Scotland (Scots vs. Scottish English). digraph A combination of two graphs to represent a single graphic unit, as in PDE <th> in <the> (to be distinguished from the sequence of two separate graphs in < hotheaded >). Similarly a trigraph is a combination of three graphs. diphthong A vowel in which there is a noticeable change in quality during the duration of its articulation in any given syllable. The diphthong is usually transcribed by means of the starting- and finishing-points of the articulation, as in fine /fain/. Diphthongs may have prominence either on the first element (' falling diphthongs') or the second element (' rising diphthongs'). The former 539 Glossary of linguistic terms is the more usual in all periods of English. The term ' diphthongisation' refers to the process by which a monophthong becomes a diphthong. dissimilation A phonological process by which two (nearly) adjacent and similar or identical sounds are made less similar, cf. L peregrinus and PDE pilgrim, where the first /r/ is dissimilated to /I/. distribution There are two important types of distribution: (a) com- plementary distribution, where the environment in which two elements may occur consists of two disjoint sets, each associated with only one element; (b) contrastive distribution, where the environment consists of two overlapping sets. Thus in PDE /p/ and /b/ contrast for they can occur in the same environment, whilst [1] and [I] are in complementary distribution. ditransitive A property of verbs whereby they can have two objects, cf. They gave Jones tie book. dummy A term referring to a formal element which is semantically empty but required syntactically, e.g. do in Do you like Cointreau? dynamic See stative enclitic See clitic endocentric A construction in which one of the elements is functionally equivalent to the construction as a whole, i.e. act as a head. Thus in a noun phrase such as the tall man the head of the construction is man. Contrast exocentric. epenthesis A phonological process by which a segment is inserted between two other segments, e.g. PDE empty contains an epenthetic /p/, cf. OE semtig. epistemic A term referring to the semantics of probability, possibility and belief, as in They must be married in the sense {From what is known to me) I conclude that they are married. existential A copula construction which refers to being in existence (e.g. There is a plant on my window) rather than to definition (e.g. The plant is sickly). exocentric A type of construction where none of the elements is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, i.e. there is no head. Typically basic sentences are exocentric, e.g. in The man fell neither the man not fell can act as a sentence itself. Contrast endocentric. experiencer The semantic role of the noun phrase referring to an entity or person affected by the activity or state of the verb, e.g. Jane in Jane knew the answer, Jane heard the music. extraposition The process of moving a clause from its normal position to one 540 Glossary of linguistic terms near the end or beginning of another clause, as in It was obvious that she had taken the book, cf. That she had taken the book was obvious. finite A term to describe a verb which is marked for tense and number. Hence finite clause, a clause which contains a subject and a finite verb. foregrounding A term in discourse analysis to refer to the relative prominence of an item, most often a clause. In the following, the first clause is the foreground, the second the background: John sang while Donna played the piano. gap A term used in syntax to refer to the absence of a unit at a place in the clause where one might have been expected; thus the man is not repeated in That is the man that they arrested yesterday. geminate A term in phonology to describe either a sequence of two identical segments (alternatively described as 'long', i.e. one segment which is phonologically twice as long as usual). In Old English geminate consonants are frequent intervocalically, e.g. fremman 'perform' = /fremman/ or /frem:an/. gender A term used to characterise word-class distinctions commonly known as 'masculine/feminine/neuter'. If it is a purely grammatical category not influenced by the sex of the referent it may be distinguished as 'grammatical gender', contrasting with 'natural gender', where the sex of the referent determines the gender. generic A term used to describe an expression where the whole class of referents is referred to, e.g. Cats are mammals, a cat is a mammal. glide A vocalic sound which occurs as the result of transition between one articulation and another, as for example the /a/ in PDE beery /bian/. gradation The modification of a vowel in ablaut. Hence' grade' refers to the particular ablaut form of a vowel. grapheme The minimal contrastive unit in the writing system of a language. Thus <A, a, a, a> are all non-contrastive variations, i.e. allographs, of the grapheme <a>, which contrasts with, say, <b>. hapax legomenon A word which occurs only once in the relevant body of material. harmony A term in phonology which refers to the process by which one segment in a string of segments is influenced by another segment in the same segment so that some degree of assimilation occurs between the two. head The central element in a larger unit, e.g. man in The large man. homorganic A term to describe adjacent phonological segments which have the same place of articulation, as in PDE impossible. The opposite term is heterorganic, as in OE cnih±. 541 Glossary of linguistic terms hortative A term referring to expressions of exhortation and advice, e.g. Let's hypermetric A term used in discussions of Old English poetry to define lines in which there are three, rather than the usual two, stresses in each half-line. hypotaxis A term in syntax which refers to the sequencing of constituents by means of subordinating conjunctions, e.g. He went to the cinema after he had bought a newspaper, cf. parataxis. hypocoristic A pet name, e.g. PDE Dickie. idionym. The name of an individual person, cf. anthroponym. impersonal A construction lacking a subject such as Methinks (jou are right). interlanguage A simplified or otherwise special variety of a language used between a fluent and less-fluent speaker of that language. interlinear gloss a gloss, usually word-by-word, of a text which is written between the lines of an original text in another language, the word glosses appearing above the corresponding words in the original. intensifier A word (usually an adverb) which has a heightening or lowering effect on the meaning of another element, e.g. PDE very. isogloss A line on a dialect map separating regionally distinct features, hence a dialect boundary. kenning A type of compressed metaphor frequent in Old English poetry. laryngeal Technically this refers to a sound whose place of articulation is in the larynx. In Indo-European studies, however, the term refers to (a set of) sounds which have been hypothesised for Proto-Indo-European. See further chapter 2 and also schwa. lexeme The minimal distinctive unit in the lexical system of a language and the abstract unit underlying a set of grammatical variants. Hence WALK (here this is the conventional representation of a lexeme, and does not refer to another entry in the glossary) has variants such as walk, walks, walking, walked). The head-words of dictionary entries are normally lexemes. lexicalisation A process whereby an element or construction acquires LEXEMIC status of its own. In derivational morphology it refers to the process by which a derived lexeme comes to be viewed as underived. loan (word) A word which is used in a language other than the one in which it originated. Thus biscuit is a loan word borrowed from French. metathesis A phonological process in which the order of two adjacent or nearly adjacent segments is reversed, cf. PDE wasp, wopse. 542 Glossary of linguistic terms minimal pair A pair of word which are differentiated only by one sound, e.g. PDE bat and pat. modal verbs A set of verbs which have a common primary meaning of the expression of modality, e.g. PDE shall, will, may, can. modality A term referring to attitudes of obligation, necessity, truth and belief, in PDE usually restricted to auxiliary verbs can, may, must, shall, will and to sentence adverbs such as apparently. See epistemic and contrast mood. monophthong A vowel in which there is no distinctive change in quality for the duration of its articulation in any given syllable. The term contrasts with diphthong. Hence ' monophthongisation' refers to the process by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong. mood The cover term for indicative and subjunctive. The choice may be controlled by specific syntactic constructions or the semantic function of expressing doubt, hypothesis or unreality. mora A phonological unit of length. Thus short vowels and consonants contain a single mora (are 'monomoric'), long vowels, long consonants and (usually) diphthongs contain two morae (are 'bimoric'). morpheme The minimal distinctive unit in grammar (as opposed to phonology). Morphemes may be either lexical or syntactic, as in the two morphemes of PDE bqy + s. Words containing only one morpheme, e.g. boy, are said to be monomorphemic. 'Free' morphemes can stand alone as words, e.g. boy, whilst 'bound' morphemes must be attached to another morpheme, whether they are used in inflexion, e.g. plural -J, or derivation, e.g. the prefix morphology The structure and form of words, either in terms of inflexions (inflexional morphology) or word formation (derivational morphology). morphophonemics The study of the phonological factors which affect the appearance of morphemes, as in, for example, PDE cats with plural /s/ but dogs with plural /z/. Also known as morphophonology. morphosyntactic A term referring to a grammatical category or property which is defined by both morphological and syntactic criteria, e.g. number, which affects both syntax (as in subject-verb agreement) and morphology (as in the plural inflexion). Neogrammarians A group of German linguists who came to prominence in the 1870s, best known for their slogan that 'sound laws admit of no exception' (such a characterisation is a gross oversimplification of their views). neutralisation A term used in phonology to describe a situation where a 543 [...]... applique'e Nancy, 17 5- 210 Cowgill, W 19 59 'The inflection of the Germanic o presents' Language 35 .1- 15 Cox, B 19 72 'The significance of the distribution of English place-names in -ham in the Midlands and East Anglia' Journal of the English Place-Name Society 5 .15 -73 19 75 'The place-names of the earliest English records' Journal of the English Place-Name Society 8 .12 -66 19 80 'Aspects of place-name evidence... dissertation Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina 19 86 'The study of Old English dialects' English Studies 67.97 -11 2 Crystal, D 19 85 A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics 2nd edition Oxford: Basil Blackwell Curme, G O 19 11 'A history of the English relative construction' Journal of English and Germanic Philology 11 .10 -29, 18 0-204, 355-80 19 14 'The development of verbal compounds in Germanic' Beitrage... phonology of Old English' Lingua 28.48-69 19 76 'The status of rule reordering' Journal of Linguistics 12 .10 3-23 19 77 'Old English r-metathesis and generative phonology' Journal of Linguistics 13 .16 5-75 19 79a 'Analogy and phonology' Journal of Linguistics 15 .55-85 19 79b 'Old English palatalization' Transactions of the Philological Society 19 79.89 -11 3 19 82a 'Two geminate consonants in Old English? ' In Language. .. English' Word 14 .244-36 Christophersen, P 19 39 The Articles: A Study of their Theory and Use in English Copenhagen: Munksgaard Clark, C 19 52/3 'Studies in the vocabulary of the Peterborough Chronicle, 10 70 -11 54' English & Germanic Studies 5.67-89 19 71. ' The narrative mode of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the conquest' In Clemoes & Hughes (19 71: 215 -35) 19 79 a 'Clark's first three laws of applied anthroponymics'... 15 .9 -19 Brooks, N 19 74 'Anglo-Saxon charters: the work of the last twenty years' Anglo-Saxon England 3. 211 - 31 1979 'England in the ninth century: the crucible of defeat' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser 29 .1- 20 19 84 The Early History of the Church at Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 10 66 Leicester: Leicester University Press Brown, W H 19 69.' Method and style in the Old English. .. 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'"Weapons" in Beowulf: an analysis of the nominal compounds and an evaluation of the poet's use of them' Anglo-Saxon England 8.79 -14 1 19 83 ' " W a r r i o r s " in Beowulf: an analysis of the nominal compounds and an evaluation of the poet's use of them' Anglo-Saxon England 11 .19 9-246 553 Bibliography Brandon, P F., ed 19 78 The South Saxons Chichester: Phillimore Brasch, C 19 10 Die Namen der Werk^euge im . selection and use of language. The major studies of alliteration and rhythm are Mclntosh (19 49), Funke (19 62) and Pope (19 67). The most useful studies of the language of major authors are Otten (19 64). 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 11 00. The language of poetry . 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