Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T02:26:42.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Booster prefixes in Old English – an alternative view of the roots of ME forsooth1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

URSULA LENKER
URSULA LENKER*
Affiliation:
Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Englische Sprachwissenschaft, Universitätsallee, 85072 Eichstätt, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Prefixes attached to adjectives/adverbs which are functionally equivalent to booster adverbs, i.e. booster prefixes, are frequent in both Present-day German and Old English. Among the Old English booster prefixes, whose inventory is here discussed in a first survey, for- is by far the most frequent, with respect to both types and tokens. In a more detailed analysis, the study investigates the Old English roots of ME forsooth(e), an emphasizer which became highly frequent at the beginning of Middle English. Forsooth is commonly considered to be a univerbated and lexicalized form of an Old English prepositional phrase for soþ ‘for truth’ (comparable to PDE indeed (< ‘in the deed’) or in fact). Yet analyses of the inventory of booster prefixes in Old English and the booster prefix for- in particular show that an alternative etymology may be suggested: Old English for soþ can also be analysed as the (endingless) accusative singular neuter of the adjective forsoþ ‘very true’.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , July 2008 , pp. 245 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Appenzeller-Gassmann, Verena. 1961. Mittelenglische Bekräftigungsformeln. Zurich: Juris Verlag.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald. 1993. On frequency, transparency, and productivity. In Booij, Geert E. & Marle, Jaap van (eds.), Yearbook of morphology, 1992 181–208. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald & Renouf, Antoinette. 1996. Chronicling The Times: Productive lexical innovations in an English newspaper. Language 72, 69–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Peter S. & Lapidge, Michael (eds.). 1995. Byrhtferth's Enchiridion. EETS, S.S. 15. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie & Huddleston, Rodney. 2002. Lexical word-formation. In Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K. et al. (eds.), The Cambridge grammar of the English language, 1621–721. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2006. The lady was al demonyak: Historical aspects of adverb all. English Language and Linguistics 10 (2), 345–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Dietz, Klaus. 2004. Die altenglischen Präfixbildungen und ihre Charakteristik. Anglia 122, 561–613.Google Scholar
Fischer, Roswitha. 1994. A hyperinflation of lexical mega-monsters? Eine korpusgestützte Analyse zum Gebrauch der Wortbildungselemente mega-, ultra-, super- und hyper- im heutigen Englisch. Anglistik und Amerikanistik 19, 83–111.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Wolfgang & Barz, Irmhild. 1995. Wortbildung der deutschen Gegenwartssprache, 2nd edn. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Godden, Malcolm. 2000. Ælfric's Catholic Homilies. Introduction, commentary and glossary. EETS, S.S. 18. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Godden, Malcolm. 2007. Did King Alfred write anything? Medium Ævum 76, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimm, Jacob & Grimm, Wilhelm et al. 1854–1971. Deutsches Wörterbuch. Berlin. (CD-ROM version (2004) Frankfurt: Zweitausendeins.)Google Scholar
Holthausen, Ferdinand. 1934. Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. 1755. A Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. New York: AMS Press (reprint 1967).Google Scholar
Kastovsky, Dieter. 1992. Semantics and vocabulary. In Hogg, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 1, 290–408. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastovsky, Dieter. 2006. Vocabulary. In Hogg, Richard & Denison, David (eds.), A history of the English language, 199–270. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenker, Ursula. 2000. Soþlice and witodlice: Discourse markers in Old English. In Fischer, Olga, Rosenbach, Anette & Stein, Dieter (eds.), Pathways of change: Grammaticalization in English, 229–49. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenker, Ursula. 2003. Forsooth, a source: Metalinguistic thought in Early English. In Kornexl, Lucia & Lenker, Ursula (eds.), Bookmarks from the past. Studies in early English language and literature in honour of Helmut Gneuss, 262–88. Frankfurt: Lang.Google Scholar
Lenker, Ursula. 2007. Soþlice, forsoothe, truly – Communicative principles and invited inferences in the history of truth-intensifying adverbs in English. In Fitzmaurice, Susan & Taavitsainen, Irma (eds.), Methods in historical pragmatics, 81–105. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lutz, Angelika. 1997. Sound change, word formation and the lexicon: The history of the English prefix verbs. English Studies 78, 258–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marchand, Hans. 1969. The categories and types of present-day English word-formation. A synchronic-diachronic approach, 2nd edn. Munich: Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Méndez-Naya, Belén. 2003. On intensifiers and grammaticalization: The case of swiþe. English Studies 84, 372–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce & Robinson, Fred C.. 2007. A guide to Old English, 7th edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Peters, Hans. 1993. Die englischen Gradadverbien der Kategorie booster. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph & Wrenn, C. L.. 1957. An Old English grammar, 2nd edn. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Sauer, Hans. 2006. Old English fræ- and frea-: Prefix or word or both? In Eitelmann, Matthias & Stritzke, Nadyne (eds.), Ex Praeteritis Praesentia. Sprach-, literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zu Wort- und Stoffgeschichten, 3–20. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Scragg, Donald (ed.). 1992. The Vercelli homilies and related texts. EETS, O.S. 300. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stotz, Peter. 2000. Handbuch zur lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters, vol. 2: Bedeutungswandel und Wortbildung. Munich: Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Swan, Toril. 1988. Sentence adverbials in English: A synchronic and diachronic investigation. Oslo: Novus.Google Scholar
Varela, Soledad & Martín García, Josefa. 1999. La prefijación. In Bosque, Ignacio & Demonte, Violeta (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, vol. 3, 4953–5040. Madrid: Espasa Calpe para la R.A.E.Google Scholar
Wülfing, Johann Ernst. 1897. Die Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Großen, 2 vols. Bonn: Hanstein.Google Scholar