Rodríguez Ledesma, M. Nieves

English

idUS. Depósito de Investigación Universidad de Sevilla

Distribution of Lexical Doubletsin The Complaynt of ScotlandMª Nieves Rodríguez LedesmaUNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLAVocabulary has undergone a radical transformation throughout the history of the English langua-ge: whereas Old English takes very few borrowings from other languages and makes use of its ownresources to express new concepts, either by changing the meaning of words already existing inthe language (hell “hidden place” comes to mean “home of devils and of damned souls after death” withthe arrival of Christianity) or by creating compounds from native elements (pr i¯nes “trinity”, b o¯crœft“literature”), from Middle English onwards loanwords are borrowed in an indiscriminate way, especiallyfrom French and Latin, many of which express concepts that were expressed before by means of nativevocabulary. The results are lexical doublets such as brotherhood/fraternity, cold/gelid, fatherly/paternal,foot/pedal, hearty/cordial, thin/tenuous, whose elements are now used as stylistic variants, dependingon the register and the degree of formality.This paper studies the distribution of some doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland, a literary workin prose written in 1549 by Robert Wedderburn, according to Stewart (1979), and apparently printed inFrance, probably Paris. Modelled on Chartier’s Quadrilogue Invectif, The Complaynt is full of axioms,exempla, sententiae, and proverbs taken from the Bible and from classical sources (Aristotle, Cicero,Pliny, among others), and it makes use of a plain style, according to the author, “for i thocht it nochtnecessair til hef fardit ande lardit this tracteit vitht exquisite termis, quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit, bot ratheri hef vsit domestic scottis langage, maist intelligibil for the vlgare pepil” (1979:13).The most explicit reference to the distribution of lexical doublets in Middle Scots is made by Aitken,who points out:that knaw and pas, for example, may have functioned as the literary “translations” of the vernacularken and gang or ga, that the three members of the set hound, dog and tyke had quite different over-tones, that items like cummer (female crony), gully (large knife), juggis (lees of drink), lug, bony(bonny), scunner, as well as some others which are recorded only in comic verse, such as gane (face),kyte (belly), larbar (impotent), lounge and queir, had quite restricted spheres of use at the opposi-te pole from that of many of the “exquisite termis quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit..., dreuyn or rather tosay mair formaly reuyn fra lating” (Compl. 16).(Aitken 1971:178)Three of the doublets mentioned by Aitken occur in The Complaynt: knau/ken, pas/gang, ga, andere/lug, all of which are made up of a borrowing, French in the case of pas and Scandinavian in the othertwo1, and a native word. The Scandinavian element in Scots is considerable, since not only are therequite a number of borrowings from that language, but many of them have become part of the core voca-bulary, which is not the case with those taken from French2. Thus, this is the origin of the causative verbgar and the auxiliary ma(u)n (“must”), as well as that of the prepositions till, fra, and lyik (<líkr) which,later on, will be adopted by English, although with some differences. Another feature distinguishingScandinavian and French borrowings is that whereas the former, according to Aitken, occur in moreinformal and colloquial registers than their native counterparts, the latter are typical of formal and lite-rary styles.In this paper I study the distribution of the doublets knau/ken3, pas/gang, ga, and ere/lug in TheComplaynt. My aim is to support or to refute Aitken’s suggestion that the elements of these pairs coe-xisted as stylistic variants in Middle Scots. In every case, I begin by providing a short account of the his-tory of these terms in English and, more specifically, in Scots. The information has been taken from TheOxford English Dictionary and A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue41. KNAW/KENWith regard to the first doublet, know (and its northern counterpart knaw) is a common Teutonicand Aryan verb, derived from the same root (gen-, gon-, gn-) as can and ken. With (ζe)cnawan as its OldEnglish ancestor, know is well established in all its main senses by 1200, and since then has broadenedits semantic field and has taken over the original territory of the verbs wit and can, so that this Englishverb alone corresponds to Latin n o¯visse, co-gn o¯scere and sc i¯re, and to Spanish conocer and saber. Ken,also a common Teutonic verb, originally had a causative meaning, “to cause to know”, although at anearly stage in all these languages it acquired the sense “to know”, in the case of English probably influen-ced by Norse, where both meanings were in early use.According to OED, it is this verb, ken, which is used in Scotland with the sense “to know”, afterhaving supplanted knaw. DOST, however, regards them as practically synonymous in that sense, and hasexamples of both in identical constructions: a) with a noun phrase as direct object and the sense“(re)conocer”, as in: “Bot, for that men suld nocht him ken, He suld a mantill haf, ald and bar”; “He knewhyre nocht”; b) with nominal clauses as direct object and the sense “saber”, as in: “Kennand that thai nakid ware”; “Knawand that Eufagen[e]a... Is spousit to the kinge of hewyn”; “Mycht nane ken quha hadony avantage”; “Quha hurt or haill was, nane micht knaw”.In The Complaynt, knau is the dominant verb, with forty-six examples, as against thirteen instancesof ken. These data seem to confirm Aitken’s hypothesis that knau is the literary “translation” of ken,dominant, therefore, in texts written in a formal style, such as The Complaynt.The situation in this work is, however, more complex, since eleven out of the thirteen instances of kenselect a noun phrase as direct object and have the sense “(re)conocer”. The following examples illustratethis construction: “thai vald haue clair myskend it, be rasone that it vas sa mekil altrit fra the fyrst fassone”(p.55); “to grant them grace to ken them selfis, for as lang as thai ken nocht them selfis thai sal neuyr kengod” (p.102); “i am leukand gyf i can fynd my fathers hardyn pan, amang thir dede mennis banis bot i cannocht ken it amang them” (p.121). The only exceptions to this rule are: “sen god kennis that ζour hartis areuil, and that men kennis that ζour verkis ar euyl” (p.135), where ken takes a nominal clause and means“saber”.As against the syntactic-semantic specialization of ken, knaw is not restricted in The Complaynt toMª NIEVES RODRÍGUEZ LEDESMA148any particular construction. The following examples illustrate the different nominal clauses which thisverb takes in this work in the sense “saber”: “the pepil knauis thir mutations to be of verite” (p.17); “hethat tynis ane thing, and syne knauis nocht quhair it is” (p.66); “ζe knau quhou thai and there forbearshes beene ζour ald mortal enemes” (p.68); “and sen ζe knau that god hes schauen sic fauoir” (p.71);“nocht ane of ζou knauis quhat ane vthir sais” (p.110); “be the quhilkζe may knau quha is ane vilaine”(p.114).Knau also appears in The Complaynt in those constructions which are typical of ken, that is, withnoun phrases as direct object and the sense “(re)conocer”, as the following examples illustrate: “he pos-sessis vthir pure pepil, that knauis his gudnes, vitht the samyn reches, that he hes tane fra them, that hesarrogantly miskanuen hym” (p.15); “ther is nocht mony that knauis the cause of thir mutations” (p.17);“his auful scurge of aperand exterminatione sal change in ane faderly correctione sa that ve vil knau hismageste” (p.20); “sum men that knauis the secret of scotland” (p.87).Aitken’s suggestion that knaw is the literary “translation” of ken does not apply, therefore, to TheComplaynt, wich has examples of both. On the other hand, these forms are not merely synonyms in thiswork, but there are syntactic and semantic factors governing their usage. Thus, ken is the marked form in TheComplaynt, being restricted to those collocations which know originally had, whereas knau is the unmarkedterm, used not only in these constructions, but also in those which had previously been exclusive to the verbwit.2. PAS/GANG, GAWith regard to the second doublet, go (and its northern counterpart ga) is a defective verb commonto the Teutonic languages, semantically equivalent to Latin ire, which originally was also used in thesense “to go on foot, to walk”. Gang, from Old English gangan, only survives in northern dialects. InScots this verb is chiefly used in the infinitive, present participle and present tense; from the syntactic-semantic point of view, however, it is practically synonymous with ga, both in the senses “to go” and “togo on foot, to walk”.Pas, on the other hand, is a borrowing from French passer. Originally it meant “to step, pace, walk”,but already in the 11th century in Old French it had come to denote progression or movement from oneplace to another. In English, pass has become the most general verb to express onward motion; in Scots,however, in spite of its being very common in that sense, it seems to be restricted to literary and formalregisters.In The Complaynt, pas is largely the dominant verb, with 131 occurrences, as against six examplesof gang and nine of ga/go. In this work, however, the vernacular forms have not merely been supplan-ted by their supposed literary “translation” pas, but they have specialized semantically. Thus, gang is onlyused in the infinitive and in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”, as the following examples illustrate:“quhen ve ar tirit to gang on oure feit, ve ar solist to seik horse to ryde” (p.27); “quha cam at his com-mand, in ane charriot be cause he mytht nothir ryde nor gang be cause he vas decrepit for aige” (p.79);“he gart the bruit gang that thai presoneris hed eschaipit”5 (p.91); “the ζong partan vald nocht gang euynfurtht bot rather sche ζeid crukit bakuart and on syd.... quod sche mother, i can nocht gang of my auennatur as thou biddis me bot nochtheles, vald thou gang furtht rycht befor me, than i sal leyrn to follouthy futsteppis” (p.126). To express this meaning (“to go on foot, to walk”) in other tenses, the forms ofDISTRIBUTION OF LEXICAL DOUBLETS IN THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND 149the verb ga/go are used, as in: “none of them suld tak ther refectione quhil thai hed gone ande run thetyme of fife or sex houris” (p.7); “sche ζeid crukit bakuart and on syd”6 (p.126).Apart from replacing gang in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”, ga/go is used once in the constructionSV with the meaning “to go away” [“than quhen he gois, al the leaue rynnis & follouis hym” (p.110)], and onanother occasion it functions as an attributive verb and takes a subject complement [“al musing of meruellisamys hef i gone” (p.51)]. In the remaining examples, ga/go takes an adverbial and has the sense “go”, beingsynonymous, therefore, with pas: “ther is ane vthir circle in the spere callit meridian the quhilk gais betuixthe tua polis rycht abufe our hede” (p.39); “the sune circuitis and gais about the eird” (p.40); “sal i go vithtζou to rumbelo fayr” (p.51); “O ignorant abusit ande dissaitful pepil, gone by the path vaye of verteouseknaulage” (p.56).As against the semantic specialization of the vernacular forms gang and ga/go, pas is the most generalverb in The Complaynt to express motion, being equivalent to Spanish “ir” and “pasar”. The followingexamples illustrate the different constructions in which this verb occurs: a) SVA: “the sourde of vengeancesal nocht pas throucht ζour cuntre” (p.21); “quhen the sune castis oure grite heyt: ve pas vndir the vmbreor the schaddou” (p.27); “Iudas machabeus past athort the montanis and desertis” (p.60); “ther vas tua pas-sagis to pas betuix the romans camp and lucere” (p.78); b) SV + infinitive: “vsit oft to visye the feildis totak ther recreatione, ande to pas til hounting” (p.10); “left the glorius stait of athenes, & past to remane inane litil village” (p.35); “sche vald pas to mak veyre contrar ethiope” (p.63); c) SV: “he past and perturbit algreice” (p.63); “than i past and i sleu hym” (p.94); d) SVO, with the noun phrase which functions as objectexpressing either place7 or time: “the iugement of gode... is ane profound onknauen deipnes, the quhilkpassis humaine ingyne” (p.17); “thou passis the limitis of baytht thir documentis” (p.102); “to pas the tymequhil euyn” (p.49).As it happened in the previous case, therefore, both the vernacular forms gang, ga and their suppo-sed literary “translation” pas occur in The Complaynt, and their distribution depends on syntactic andsemantic criteria. The French term, pas, is the most general verb to express motion in this work, beingused in a wide range of constructions with the meanings “ir”, “pasar”, whereas the vernacular forms, andespecially gang, have specialized in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”.3. ERE/LUGWith regard to the last doublet, lug as a synonym of ere is first used early in the 16th century, and incolloquial Scots it has supplanted the vernacular form, which is now restricted to a few collocations. Theprimary meaning of the Scandinavian noun was “something that can be pulled or laid hold of, an appen-dage”, and it is possible that it was first used to refer to the flap of a cap or a bonnet, since this is thesense of the earliest attested examples, and that, by a later colloquial sense-transference, it came to deno-te “ear”. Alternatively, and according to DOST, the sense “ear” “may have existed earlier but remainedunrecorded as a purely colloquial use”. In any case, lug is normally used in Scots in the sense “the exter-nal ear” (Spanish “oreja”), whereas in the sense “the ear as organ of hearing” (Spanish “oído”) it isuncommon and late; ere, however, is used in both senses throughout Older and Middle Scots.With regard to the usage of this doublet in The Complaynt, Aitken’s suggestion that lug, togetherwith other terms, “had quite restricted spheres of use at the opposite pole from that of many of the“exquisite termis quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit..., dreuyn or rather to say mair formaly reuyn fra lating”(1971:178) is not true for this work, which has two instances of this noun.Mª NIEVES RODRÍGUEZ LEDESMA150As with the previous doublets, however, lug and ere are not synonyms in The Complaynt, but eachhas specialized semantically. Lug is used in the sense “earflap”, as in the example “euyrie scheiphird hedane horne spune in the lug of there bonet” (p.34), and in the sense “the external ear” (Spanish “oreja”),as in “the tail quhou kyng midas gat tua asse luggis on his hede be cause of his auereis” (p.50).Ere, on the other hand, means “the ear as organ of hearing” (Spanish “oído”), as the following exam-ples illustrate: “nor his eyris ar nocht stoppit, bot he maye heir ζou” (p.59); “the damysele that heris andgiffis eyris to the amourus persuasions of desolut ζong men” (p.85); “i vil nocht gyf eyris to thy excusationsnor to thy purgations” (p.108); “i refuse to gyf eyris or audiens to thy accusations contrar thy tua brethir”(p.109).CONCLUSIONSThe results obtained from the study of the distribution of these lexical doublets in The Complaynt ofScotland do not support Aitken’s suggestion that knau and pas functioned in Middle Scots as the lite-rary “translations” of the vernacular ken and gang, ga respectively, since both sets of forms occur in thiswork. The former, nevertheless, are dominant in The Complaynt, which proves that they are typical ofliterary and formal registers. The elements of these doublets are not, however, merely synonyms in thiswork, but there are syntactic and semantic factors governing their usage.On the other hand, the occurrence in The Complaynt of the term lug which, according to Aitken, isrestricted to colloquial registers, is a proof of the plain and intelligible language which the author statesin the prologue to have used throughout his work, and turns, thus, his excuse for his “barbir agrest ter-mis” into something other than a mere literary device.NOTES1 Ken has been regarded as a Scandinavian borrowing since, although the verb cennan exists in Old English. it didnot have the sense “to know”, which it seems to have taken from Norse.2 Scandinavian influence is also apparent in the preference of Scots and northern dialects for the velar plosives /k, g/in contrast with the palatal affricates /t, dζ/ of Standard English, which results in doublets such as Kirk/church,Kist/chest, breeks/breeches, sic/such, ilk/each, quhilk/which, brig/bridge, rig/ridge, etc.3 The compounds mysknaw/mysken have also been taken into account.4 Throughout the rest of this paper, these dictionaries will be refered to as OED and DOST respectively.5 In this collocation, Spanish does not use the verbs “andar” or “caminar”, but “correr”: “hizo correr el rumor de queestos prisioneros habían escapado”.6 Ga/go being a defective verb, its past tense was supplied in OE by eode, which became in ME ζede, yede, yode.These forms died out in the south in the fifteenth century, and were superseded by went, the past tense of wend.In Scots went and ζede /or ζeid) were used in this function down to the latter part of the sixteenth century, whenthey were replaced by gaed, a new formation on the present-stem, which first appeared in the Bannatyne MS. of1568.7 In this case it is translated into Spanish as “sobrepasar, exceder”.DISTRIBUTION OF LEXICAL DOUBLETS IN THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND 151WORKS CITED Aitken, A.J. 1971: “Variation and Variety in Written Middle Scots.” In Aitken, A.J., McIntosh, A. & Pálsson, H. eds.Edinburgh Studies in English and Scots. London, Longman. 177-209.Craigie, William & Aitken, A.J. eds. 1931- : A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue from the Twelfth Century tothe End of the Seventeenth, Founded on the Collections of Sir William A. Craigie. 7 vols. to date. Chicago, U ofChicago P; London, Oxford UP.Simpson, J.A. & Weiner, E.S.C. eds. 1989: The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, Clarendon.Stewart, A.M. ed. 1979: The Complaynt of Scotland. Edinburgh, The Scottish Text Society.Mª NIEVES RODRÍGUEZ LEDESMA152

Distribution of Lexical Doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland

https://idus.us.es/bitstream/handle/11441/88005/Nieves%20Distribution%20of%20Lexical%20Doublets%20in%20The%20Complaynt%20of%20Scotland.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Distribution of Lexical Doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

idUS. Depósito de Investigación Universidad de Sevilla