Syntactic and Semantic Rules in Old English Adjective Formation

The aim of this journal article is to offer a paradigmatic analysis of the formation of adjectives by means of affixation in Old English.  More specifically, the focus is on the change of meaning attributable to the processes of word-formation that turn out affixal adjectives. In a paradigmatic model, the formal modification of stems maps onto semantic and/or syntactic modifications, which are couched in terms of semantic and syntactic rules. After an analysis of the semantic and syntactic rules that apply in the formation of 3,365 derived adjectives, two conclusions are reached. In the first place, 19 prefixes out of 56 perform one derivational function, as opposed to 21 suffixes out of a total of 51, which means that the degree of polysemy displayed by prefixes is slightly higher than that of suffixes. Secondly, only two derivational functions are realized by one affix, which also shows that a one-to-one correspondence between affixes and derivational functions is the exception rather than the rule

La expresión léxica de la circunstancia y el grado en inglés antiguo

Este artículo explora la distribución del material afijal y el significado léxico de las categorías semánticas circunstancia y grado. El análisis comprende los predicados pertenecientes a las cuatro categorías léxicas principales, que comprenden los verbos, los nombres, los adjetivos y los adverbios, que han resultado de procesos de prefijación o sufijación. Se ha prestado especial atención a la polisemia afijal, que se aplica en los casos en los que una misma forma puede asociarse con más de una regla semántica. En este sentido, cabe destacar que ambas categorías presentan un grado considerable de solapamiento afijal, tal y como evidencia el carácter polisémico del grupo de afijos formado por for-, fore-, forð-, mid-, ofer-, on-, sin-, p- y t-. El análisis ha revelado asimismo que la categoría circunstancia se caracteriza, principalmente, por la presencia de afijos que expresan localización, mientras que la categoría grado se define, en gran medida, a través de afijos con valor intensificador. En resumen, el estudio incide en el grado de compatibilidad entre afijos, así como en los patrones de recategorización que surgen como resultado de los procesos afijalesThis paper explores the distribution of the affixal material and lexical meaning within the semantic categories CIRCUMSTANCE and DEGREE. The analysis is confined to the predicates belonging to the four major lexical categories, namely verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, that have been formed either prefixally or suffixally. Special attention has been paid to affixal polysemy, which applies when a given form can be bound to more than one semantic rule. In this regard, it must be noted that both categories present a significant degree of affixal overlapping that is confirmed in the polysemous character of a group of affixes, which include for-, fore-, forð-, mid-, ofer-, on-, sin-, p- and t-. The analysis has also revealed that CIRCUMSTANCE is mainly characterized by affixes conveying location, whereas DEGREE is mainly defined in terms of affixes expressing intensity. On the whole, the study casts lights on the degree of compatibility among affixes and functions and on the patterns of recategorization that arise as a result of affixal processe

Lemas de verbos fuertes desde un corpus de inglés antiguo: avances y problemas

[EN] The aim of this article is to devise the method of lemmatisation of strong verbs from a corpus of Old English with a view to maximising the automatic search for the inflectional forms, with the corresponding minimisation of manual revision of the verbs under analysis. The search algorithm, which consists of query strings and filters, is launched on the lemmatiser Norna, a component of the lexical database of Old English Nerthus. The conclusions of the article insist on the limits of automatic lemmatisation as well as the paths of refinement of the lemmatisation method in order to accomodate less predictable forms.[ES] El objetivo del presente artículo es idear un método de lematización de verbos fuertes de inglés antiguo, con el propósito de maximizar la búsqueda automática de formas flexivas, con la correspondiente reducción en la revisión manual de los verbos en estudio. El algoritmo de búsqueda consiste en cadenas de búsqueda y filtros, ejecutados en el lematizador Norna, un componente de la base de datos léxica de inglés antiguo Nerthus. Las conclusiones del artículo insisten en los límites de la lematización automática, así como en las posibilidades de refinamiento del método de lematización para acomodar las formas menos predecibles.This research has been funded through the project FFI2014-59110 (MINECO), which is gratefully acknowledged.Metola Rodríguez, D. (2017). Strong verb lemmas from a corpus of old english. Advances and issues. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas. 12:65-76. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2017.7023SWORD657612Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. N. 1973 (1898). Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Brinton, L. J., & Traugott, E. C. (2005). Lexicalization and Language Change. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511615962Campbell, A. 1987 (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Clark Hall, J. R. 1996 (1896). A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.DE LA CRUZ, J. M. (1975). OLD ENGLISH PURE PREFIXES: STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION. Linguistics, 13(145). doi:10.1515/ling.1975.13.145.47García García, L. (2012). Morphological Causatives in Old English: the Quest for a Vanishing Formation1. Transactions of the Philological Society, 110(1), 122-148. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968x.2012.01287.xGarcía García, L. (2013). "Lexicalization and morphological simplification in Old English jan-causatives: some open questions". Sprachwissenschaft, 38/2: 245-264.Hogg, R. M. (2011). A Grammar of Old English. doi:10.1002/9781444341355Hogg, R. M. (Ed.). (1992). The Cambridge History of the English Language. doi:10.1017/chol9780521264747Krygier, M. (1994). The Disintegration of the English Strong Verb System. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Levin, S. R. (1964). A Reclassification of the Old English Strong Verbs. Language, 40(2), 156. doi:10.2307/411574Mailhammer, R. (2006). "On the origin of the Germanic strong verb system". Sprachwissenschaft, 31/1: 1-52.Mailhammer, R. (2007). The Germanic Strong Verbs. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]. doi:10.1515/9783110198782Mailhammer, R. (2008). The Typological Significance of Ablaut in the (Pre-)history English. In W. Rudolf, T. Honegger and A. J. Johnston (eds.), Clerks, Wives, and Historians: Essays on Medieval English Language and Literature. Bern: Peter Lang, 185-212.Arista, J. M. (2012). The Old English Prefixge-: A Panchronic Reappraisal. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 32(4), 411-433. doi:10.1080/07268602.2012.744264Arista, J. M. (2013). Recursivity, Derivational Depth and the Search for Old English Lexical Primes. Studia Neophilologica, 85(1), 1-21. doi:10.1080/00393274.2013.771829Martín Arista, J. (2014). "Noun layers in Old English. Asymmetry and mismatches in lexical derivation". Nordic Journal of English Studies, 13/3: 160-187.Martín Arista, J. "El paradigma derivativo del inglés antiguo". Onomazeín. Forthcoming-a.Martín Arista, J. "The Semantic Poles of Old English. Towards the 3D Representation of Complex Polysemy". Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. Forthcoming-b.Martín Arista, J., & Cortés Rodriguez, F. J. (2014). From directionals to telics. Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space, 229-250. doi:10.1075/sfsl.68.10marMateo Mendaza, R. (2013). The Old English Exponent for the Semantic Prime TOUCH. Descriptive and Methodological Questions. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(4), 449-466. doi:10.1080/07268602.2013.857574Mateo Mendaza, R. (2015a). "Matching productivity indexes and diachronic evolution. The Old English affixes ful-, -isc, -cund and -ful". Canadian Journal of Linguistics. 60/1: 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008413100000517Mateo Mendaza, R. (2015b). "The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN". Nordic Journal of English Studies, 15: 71-99.Mateo Mendaza, R. (2016). The Old English Exponent for the Semantic Prime MOVE*. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 36(4), 542-559. doi:10.1080/07268602.2016.1169976Novo Urraca, C. (2016). Old English Suffixation: Content and Transposition. English Studies, 97(6), 638-655. doi:10.1080/0013838x.2016.1183955Novo Urraca, C. (2016). Morphological Relatedness and the Typology of Adjectival Formations in Old English. Studia Neophilologica, 88(1), 43-55. doi:10.1080/00393274.2016.1150788Prokosch, E. (1939). A Comparative Germanic Grammar. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Sweet, H. 1976 (1896). The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Vea Escarza, R. (2012). Structural and Functional Aspects of Morphological Recursivity. NOWELE, 64-65, 155-179. doi:10.1075/nowele.64-65.09escVea Escarza, R. (2014). Split and unified functions in the formation of old English nouns and adjectives. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 9(1), 106. doi:10.4995/rlyla.2014.2086Vea Escarza, R. (2015). Recursivity and Inheritance in the Formation of Old English Nouns and Adjectives. Studia Neophilologica, 88(1), 1-23. doi:10.1080/00393274.2015.1049830Vea Escarza, R. (2016). "Old English affixation. A structural-functional analysis". Nordic Journal of English Studies. 15(1): 101-119

The types and categories of old english recursive compounding

[EN] This article deals with the recursive compounding of Old English nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. It addresses the question of the textual occurrences of the compounds of Old English by means of a corpus analysis based on the Dictionary of Old English Corpus. The data of qualitative analysis have been retrieved from the lexical database of Old English Nerthus. The analysis shows that the nominal, adjectival and adverbial compounds of Old English can be recursive. Nominal compounding allows double recursivity, whereas adjectival and adverbial compounding do not. The conclusion is reached that both the type and token frequencies of recursive compounds are very low; and recursive compounds from the adjectival class are more exocentric as regards categorisationThis research has been funded through the grant FFI2014-59110 (MINECO), which is gratefully acknowledged.Novo Urraca, C. (2017). The types and categories of old english recursive compounding. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas. 12. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2017.7161SWORD8612BAAYEN, H., & LIEBER, R. (1991). Productivity and English derivation: a corpus-based study. Linguistics, 29(5). doi:10.1515/ling.1991.29.5.801Bauer, L. (2008). A Glossary of Morphology. Edimburgh: Edimburgh University Press.Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. N. 1973 (1898). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Brinton, L. J., & Traugott, E. C. (2005). Lexicalization and Language Change. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511615962Campbell, A. (1972). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Enlarged addenda and corrigenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Carr, C.T. (1939). Nominal Compounds in Germanic. St. Andrews: St. Andrews University Publication.García García, L. (2012). Morphological Causatives in Old English: the Quest for a Vanishing Formation1. Transactions of the Philological Society, 110(1), 122-148. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968x.2012.01287.xGarcía García, L. (2013). "Lexicalization and morphological simplification in Old English jan-causatives: some open questions". Sprachwissenschaft, 38/2: 245-264.González Torres, E. (2010a). "The Continuum Inflection-Derivation and the Old English suffixes -a, -e, -o, -u". Atlantis, 32/1: 103-122.González Torres, E. (2010b). "The bases of derivation of Old English affixed nouns: status and category". Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, 46/2: 21-43.González Torres, E. (2011). "Morphological complexity, recursiveness and templates in the formation of Old English nouns". Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, 19: 45-70.Kastovsky, D. (s. f.). SEMANTICS AND VOCABULARY. The Cambridge History of the English Language, 290-408. doi:10.1017/chol9780521264747.006Martín Arista, J. (2012a). "Lexical database, derivational map and 3D representation". RESLA-Revista Espa-ola de Lingüística Aplicada, Extra 1: 119-144.Arista, J. M. (2012). The Old English Prefixge-: A Panchronic Reappraisal. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 32(4), 411-433. doi:10.1080/07268602.2012.744264Arista, J. M. (2013). Recursivity, Derivational Depth and the Search for Old English Lexical Primes. Studia Neophilologica, 85(1), 1-21. doi:10.1080/00393274.2013.771829Martín Arista, J. (2014). "Noun layers in Old English. Asymmetry and mismatches in lexical derivation". Nordic Journal of English Studies, 13/3: 160-187.Martín Arista, J. "El paradigma derivativo del inglés antiguo". Onomazeín. Forthcoming-a.Martín Arista, J. "The Semantic Poles of Old English. Towards the 3D Representation of Complex Polysemy". Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. Forthcoming-b.Martín Arista, J., & Cortés Rodriguez, F. J. (2014). From directionals to telics. Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space, 229-250. doi:10.1075/sfsl.68.10marMateo Mendaza, R. (2013). The Old English Exponent for the Semantic Prime TOUCH. Descriptive and Methodological Questions. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(4), 449-466. doi:10.1080/07268602.2013.857574Mateo Mendaza, R. (2015a). "Matching productivity indexes and diachronic evolution. The Old English affixes ful-, -isc, -cund and -ful". Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 60/1: 1-24.Mateo Mendaza, R. (2015b). "The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN". Nordic Journal of English Studies, 15: 71-99.Mateo Mendaza, R. (2016). The Old English Exponent for the Semantic Prime MOVE*. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 36(4), 542-559. doi:10.1080/07268602.2016.1169976Novo Urraca, C. (2016). Old English Suffixation: Content and Transposition. English Studies, 97(6), 638-655. doi:10.1080/0013838x.2016.1183955Novo Urraca, C. (2016). Morphological Relatedness and the Typology of Adjectival Formations in Old English. Studia Neophilologica, 88(1), 43-55. doi:10.1080/00393274.2016.1150788Plag, I. (1999). Morphological Productivity. doi:10.1515/9783110802863Sweet, H. 1976 (1896). The student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Toller, T. N. (1921). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Torre Alonso, R. (2011a). "The Morphological Structure of Old English Complex Nouns". Atlantis, 33/1: 127-146.Torre Alonso, R. (2011b). "Affix Combination in Old English Noun Formation: Distribution and Constraints". RESLARevista Espa-ola de Linguística Aplicada, 24: 257-278.Vea Escarza, R. (2012). Structural and Functional Aspects of Morphological Recursivity. NOWELE, 64-65, 155-179. doi:10.1075/nowele.64-65.09escVea Escarza, R. (2013). OLD ENGLISH ADJECTIVAL AFFIXATION: STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, 48(2-3), 5-25. doi:10.2478/stap-2013-0005Vea Escarza, R. (2014). Split and unified functions in the formation of old English nouns and adjectives. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 9(1), 106. doi:10.4995/rlyla.2014.2086Vea Escarza, R. (2015). Recursivity and Inheritance in the Formation of Old English Nouns and Adjectives. Studia Neophilologica, 88(1), 1-23. doi:10.1080/00393274.2015.1049830Vea Escarza, R. (2016b). "Old English affixation. A structural-functional analysis". Nordic Journal of English Studies, 15/1: 101-119

Meaning definitions through lexical (macro) functions: Old English quantity, size and rank

The aim of this article is to complete and systematize affixal meaning definitions by examining the Old English derived nominal and adjectival lexicon from a structural-functional framework. The main dictionaries of reference in this language have proven to contribute limited affixal information; besides, one and the same dictionary organizes its affixal entries quite dissimilarly both formally and content-wise. Given this background, the present work offers an insight into the derived lexicon and suggests more accurate definitions based on an approach that explains form and meaning associations in terms of lexical functions and macrofunctions. The data of analysis have been retrieved from the lexical database of Old English Nerthus, which has supplied the inventory of affixes and of affixed nouns and adjectives performing a lexical function belonging to the semantic categories quantity, size or rank, which apply whenever an entity or a property experience an increase or a decrease in quantity, quality or status respectively. Each affix is defined conforming to the different meanings it conveys, the source and target categories involved in the derivation process and the predicates that fit the rule in each case. An approach based on form and meaning associations in the definition of affixal meaning has demonstrated to have major implications not only in the field of lexicology but also of lexicography inasmuch as it permits to revise, complete and enhance dictionary entries and gain systematicity in the manner the information is rendered.This work was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant FFI2017-83360P and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under Grant PID2020-119200GB-100 (MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033)

Recategorization in the recursive formation of old english nouns and adjectives

The aim of this paper is to identify the types of recategorization that arise in the recursive formation of Old English nouns and adjectives by means of prefixation and suffixation. The first step of this analysis is to isolate the recursive adjectival and nominal formations, for which the lexical database of Old English Nerthus (www.nerthusproject.com) is used. Out of a total of nearly 7,500 affixed nouns and adjectives, there are 388 recursive formations. The main conclusion of this article is that recursivity in the formation of adjectives and nouns crucially depends on the noun as source category and the adjective as path category. As a general rule, the derivation proceeds as follows: noun > adjective > noun / adjective

Analysing affixal entries in Old English lexicographical sources: problems and solutions

This paper seeks to examine how affixal entries are organized in the main Old Englishdictionaries, inlcuding An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by Bosworth and Toller (1973), A ConciseAnglo-Saxon Dictionary by Clark-Hall (1996), The Students Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon by Sweet(1976) and the Dictionary of Old English (Cameron et al., eds. 2018) to identify possibleweaknesses and unsystematic patterns in these entries and to offer a proposal of improvedaffixal entries that represents a solution to inconsistency and meaning coverage limitations.Considerable differences have been found in the sources consulted regarding the numberand type of word formation elements attested or the degree of accuracy in the informationprovided by each entry. In addition, one and the same source may address affixal meaningdiversely. In light of this situation, this paper suggests a solution to the aforementionedshortcomings by resorting to a framework of lexical functions (Author 2013, 2016, 2018)that capture the form and meaning relations found in the lexicon of a language in a consistentway. The lexical database of Old English Nerthus (Martín Arista, ed., et al. 2016) hascontributed the main morphological information and has enabled data relations and theconstruction and description of meaning. The example below illustrates a suggested entryfor the suffix fra-:fra-. As a nominal affix, it attaches to nouns to designate a higher position both inan organizational or in an intensity hierarchy: fra-bregd mighty device, -drihten, -meaht, -miht, -reccere, -wine, -wrsn. As an adjectival prefix, it derives adjectives with agreater intensity: fra-beorht glorious, -fætt, -glaw, -hræd, -mre, -micel, -torht, -wlitig.The model presented has thus permitted both a closer approximation to the affixalassortment of meanings and also a greater descriptive systematization

Old english adjectival affixation: Structure and function

The aim of this article is to carry out a structural-functional analysis of the formation of Old English adjectives by means of affixation. By analysing the rules and operations that produce the 3,356 adjectives which the lexical database of Old English Nerthus (www.nerthusproject.com) turns out as affixal derivatives, a total of fourteen derivational functions have been identified. Additionally, the analysis yields conclusions concerning the relationship between affixes and derivational functions, the patterns of recategorization present in adjective formation and recursive word-formation

Las funciones y categorías de los nombres y adjetivos afijados del inglés antiguo

The aim of this article is to develop a frame of lexical functions and semantic categories that gives account of the change of meaning caused by the processes of prefixation and suffixation in Old English that produce nouns and adjectives. Lexical functions are inspired by structural-functional theories. Paradigmatic morphology provides the structural basis, whereas Functional Grammar (Dik, 1997a [1989], 1997b), Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld & Mackenzie, 2008) and Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005) contribute the functional foundations of this proposal based on lexical functions. The inventory of lexical functions is classified according to a hierarchy of semantic categories and is applied to the analysis of the formation of Old English nouns and adjectives through affixation. The conclusions, on the theoretical side, insist on the compatibility of functional models that allow to create a whole and coherent proposal; on the descriptive side, they focus on the compatibility of semantic categories in the derivative processes.El objetivo de este artículo es desarrollar un marco de funciones léxicas y categorías semánticas que permita explicar el cambio de significado causado por los procesos de prefijación y sufijación que forman nombres y adjetivos en inglés antiguo1 . Las funciones léxicas están inspiradas en teorías de orientación estructural-funcionalista. Así, mientras que la morfología paradigmática proporciona la base estructuralista, la Gramática Funcional (Dik, 1997a [1989], 1997b), la Gramática Funcional del Discurso (Hengeveld y Mackenzie, 2008) y la Gramática del Papel y la Referencia (Van Valin y LaPolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005) aportan los fundamentos funcionalistas de esta propuesta de funciones léxicas. El repertorio de funciones léxicas se clasifica de acuerdo con una jerarquía de categorías semánticas y se aplica al análisis de la formación de nombres y adjetivos en inglés antiguo por afijación2 . Las conclusiones, en el plano teórico, insisten en la compatibilidad de los modelos funcionalistas, que permiten hacer una propuesta completa y coherente; y, en el plano descriptivo, en la compatibilidad de las categorías semánticas en los procesos derivativos