scholarly journals Identifying the Old English exponent for the semantic prime LIVE

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-107
Author(s):  
Raquel Mateo Mendaza
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
English Verb ◽  
Prime Exponent

The aim of this article is to identify the Old English exponent for the semantic prime LIVE following the principles of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory (Wierzbicka 1996, Goddard & Wierzbicka 2002, Goddard 2011). The methodology applied in the study is based on previous research in Old English semantic primes. In these terms, a search for those Old English words conveying the meaning of the semantic prime LIVE is made. This search selects the verbs (ge)buan, drohtian, (ge)eardian, (ge)libban, and wunian as candidate words for prime exponent. Then, these verbs are analysed in terms of morphological, textual, semantic, and syntactic criteria. With this purpose, relevant information on these words has been gathered from different lexicographical and textual sources in Old English, such as the Dictionary of Old English, the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, and the lexical database of Old English Nerthus. After the analysis of these verbs, the conclusion is drawn that the Old English verb (ge)libban is selected as prime exponent, as it satisfies the requirements proposed by each criterion.

scholarly journals Semantic primes in historical languages. The identification of the Old English exponent for DO

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Mateo Mendaza
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Prime Exponent ◽  
Prime Identification

This journal article follows the research line opened on the search for semantic primes’ exponents in Old English within the frame of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory (Goddard 1997, 2012; Goddard and Wierzbicka 2002). The aim of this study is to complete the line of research on prime identification opened on the category Actions, Events, Movement, Contact by establishing the Old English exponent of the prime DO. With this purpose, this paper discusses the adequacy of different OE verbs as possible prime exponent on the basis of textual frequency, morphology, semantics and syntactic complementation. Relevant data of analysis have been retrieved mainly from the lexical database of Old English Nerthus, the Dictionary of Old English (Healey et al. 2018) and the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (Healey et al. 2009).  

scholarly journals Interpretations of the Mythologeme “Tree-Cross” in Old English

2020 ◽  
pp. 316-326
Author(s):  
Sergei G. Proskurin ◽  
Anna V. Proskurina
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Subject Line ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Relevant Factors

The topicality of the appeal to the interpretation of a tree-cross mythologeme is caused by the change of the pagan worldview into Christian. The development of ideas about the Christian sign is complex, in one of the approaches to transforming the tree-cross, a part of the overcome ideas about the world as space around the world axis is preserved, i.e. the world tree. The coming era of Christianity inherits this view, and the cross itself appears as a world axis that defines the coordinates of space. The purpose of the article is to show the evolutionary semiotic row, which represents both Christian and pagan symbolism. Initially, the cross appears as a motivated view. Then the terms of the denotative plan appear, devoid of pagan connotations of the tree-cross type. In general, in the evolution of the term continuity is traced, one designation is replaced by another. For some time, the second item copies the functions and forms of the first, replacing it in the subject line. The cross as an object of worship in Christianity replaces the world tree. All new nominations of the cross are associated with the motivation of the world as the center where the altar is installed, which was initially presented in the tradition as a world tree, and then became designated by the cross. The cross, as the main Christian symbol, often appears as made of wood and is identified with the cosmic world tree growing directly into heaven. Research methods which are used in this article are as follows: philological analysis of the text and semiotic analysis of texts. The set of communicatively relevant factors that determine the statement, as well as the situational and contextual relevance of the lexical meaning, are taken into account. In turn, the necessary initial amount of communicatively relevant information is obtained on the basis of linguistic methods. In particular, data from an etymological analysis are involved. The research material was provided by the Old English written monuments accessible to the modern researcher. Texts in other Indo-European languages are occasionally referred; they act as a background showing some parallels

scholarly journals The Bases of Derivation of Old English Affixed Nouns: Status and Category

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Torres
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Single Base ◽  
Compound Nouns

The Bases of Derivation of Old English Affixed Nouns: Status and Category The aim of this journal article is to carry out a complete analysis of the category, status and patterns of the bases of derivation of Old English affixal nouns. The results of the analysis are discussed in the light of the evolution from stem-formation to word-formation. The corpus of analysis of this research is based on data retrieved from the lexical database of Old English Nerthus, which contains 30170 predicates. 16694 out of these are nouns, of which 4115 are basic and 12579 qualify as non-basic. Within non-basic nouns there are 3488 affixed nouns (351 by prefixation and 3137 by suffixation) and 9091 compound nouns. The line of argumentation is that, under certain circumstances, the existence of more than one base available for the formation of a derivative does not reinforce the explanation of invariable bases; on the contrary, it goes in the direction of variable bases produced by inflectional processes and made ready for derivation. The following conclusions are reached. In the first place, the importance is underlined of formations on stems in Old English, involving, at least, nouns. Secondly, the analysis evidences that the importance of stem-formation in Old English might be higher than has been acknowledged by previous studies. If Old English made extensive use of words as bases of derivation, a single base should be available; if, on the contrary, Old English is still dependent on stem-formation, more than one base is likely to be found for a single derivative. Such alternative bases of derivation reflect stemformation that may result from inflectional means and be eventually used for derivational purposes.

Development of the Progressiv form in Germanic

PMLA ◽  
1913 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-187
Author(s):  
George O. Curme
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Brief Treatment ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
English Verb

The expressivness of the progressiv form of the English verb has attracted the attention of many foren grammarians, who briefly but with painstaking care hav endevord to analyze its force. Also more ambitious attempts hav been made to penetrate into its history and meaning. Pessels in his doctor's dissertation The Present and Past Perifrastic Tenses in Anglo-Saxon (1896) has patiently recorded the exampls of the construction in a large number of Old English works. Alfred Åkerlund in his On the History of the Definit Tenses in English (1911) has treated both the older and the modern fases of the development with considerabl penetration. Also a number of other scholars hav delt with different fases of the study or hav investigated the development in particular periods or particular sections of the English speaking territory. Several foren scholars hav studied the progressiv form in other Germanic languages and dialects. A brief treatment of the Gothic progressiv in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, vol. v, pp. 421-6, by Professor H. Gering is refreshingly suggestiv. In spite of this extensiv literature there remains much to be said, and this paper is offerd as a further contribution to the subject.

The Old English adjectival affixes ful- and -ful

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Mateo Mendaza
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Lexical Database

The aim of this article is to measure the indexes of productivity of the prefix ful- and the suffix -ful in Old English adjective formation. This analysis is based on Baayen’s framework, which comprises different measures on productivity. The major sources of the analysis are The Dictionary of Old English Corpus and the lexical database of Old English Nerthus. This study of productivity allows for a diachronic perspective on the evolution of these affixes from the Old English period to the present. The main conclusion drawn from this analysis is that the suffix -ful is more productive than its prefixal counterpart, which implies that more productive patterns are still maintained in Present-day English in contradistinction to the less productive ones.

scholarly journals The lemmatization of Old English Verbs from the second weak class on a lexical database

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Marta Tío Sáenz
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Second Person ◽  
The Past ◽  
Present Participle ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Weak Verbs

This article compiles a list of lemmas of the second class weak verbs of Old English by using the latest version of the lexical database Nerthus, which incorporates the texts of the Dictionary of Old English Corpus. Out of all the inflecional endings, the most distinctive have been selected for lemmatization: the infinitive, the inflected infinitive, the present participle, the past participle, the second person present indicative singular, the present indicative plural, the present subjunctive singular, the first and third person of preterite indicative singular, the second person of the preterite indicative singular, the preterite indicative plural and the preterite subjunctive plural. When it is necessary to regularize, normalization is restricted to correspondences based on dialectal and diachronic variation. The analysis turns out a total of 1,064 lemmas of weak verbs from the second class.

scholarly journals CLOSING SUFFIXES IN OLD ENGLISH: A STUDY BASED ON RECURSIVE AFFIXATION

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 27-54
Author(s):  
Roberto Torre Alonso ◽  
Darío Metola Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Word ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Productive Process

ABSTRACT This paper takes issue with the lexicon of Old English and, more specifically, with the existence of closing suffixes in word-formation. Closing suffixes are defined as base suffixes that prevent further suffixation by word-forming suffixes (Aronoff & Furhop 2002: 455). This is tantamount to saying that this is a study in recursivity, or the formation of derivatives from derived bases, as in anti-establish-ment, which requires the attachment of the prefix anti- to the derived input establishment. The present analysis comprises all major lexical categories, that is, nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs and concentrates on suffixes because they represent the newest and the most productive process in Old English word-formation (Kastovsky 1992, 2006), as well as the set of morphemes that has survived into Present-day English without undergoing radical changes. Given this aim, the data retrieved from the lexical database of Old English Nerthus (www.nerthusproject.com) comprise 6,073 affixed (prefixed and suffixed) derivatives, including 3,008 nouns, 1,961 adjectives, 974 adverbs and 130 verbs. All of them have been analysed in order to isolate recursive formations.

scholarly journals A corpus-based approach to the lemmatisation of Old English superlative adverbs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosra Hamdoun Bghiyel
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
English Prose ◽  
First Time

This article aims to discuss the lemmatisation process of Old English adverbs inflected for the superlative from a corpus-based perspective. This study has been conducted on the basis of a semi-automatic methodology through which the inflectional forms have been automatically extracted from The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose and The York Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry whereas the task of assigning a lemma has been completed manually. The list of adverbial lemmas amounts to 1,755 and has been provided by the lexical database of Old English Nerthus. Additionally, the resulting lemmatised list has been checked against the lemmatised forms compiled by the Dictionary of Old English and Seelig’s (1930) work on Old English comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs. Through this comparison, it has been possible to verify doubtful forms and incorporate new ones that are unattested by the YCOE. This pilot study has implemented for the first time a methodology for the lemmatisation of a non-verbal class and can be further applied to those categories that are still unlemmatised, namely nouns and adjectives.

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