Middle English and New English Vocabulary
MIDDLE ENGLISH AND NEW ENGLISH VOCABULARY
The vocabulary in the ME period shows great instability and constant and rapid changes. Many words became obsolete; a lot of them reflected the ever-changing life of the speakers and were under the influence of contacts with other nations.
1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary. Internal sources of vocabulary growth became less important in ME. It might have been due to great expansion of foreign words (especially French). Beginning with the 15 century up the 17 c. the role of internal sources became more important though the stream of words from other languages continued.
As before, the word formation fell into two types: word derivation and word composition.
Word derivation
Under word derivation we mean affixation which could be of two types: suffixation and prefixation.
The majority of OE suffixes was still preserved in ME but they were becoming less productive.
The development of prefixes was uneven. In ME many of them fell into disuse ( such as a-, ӡe-, tō ), in the 15th. And 16th c. the use of native prefixes grew again (such as negative mis-, un- : e.g. ME mislayen- NE mislay; especially with foreign stems e.g. NE misjudge, mispronounce). Some prefixes developed from OE adverbs and prepositions: – ūt >out NE outcome, outlook
– ofer>over overload, overlook
– under>under underfeed, undermine
Early NE prefixes could come from foreign sources, French Latin, Greek.
French words with re- came into E: ME redressen, reformen. Since the 16th c. re- was applied as a means of word derivation: regret, refill, readjust reopen, reattack.
Among other borrowed prefixes there were
– de-, dis-en/in (im-, il, ir,, non-) of the Franco-Roman origin: ME destructuctive, dischargen, discomforten, enablen,enclosen, NE enlist, enrich, inhuman, non-Germanic. Among OE noun suffixes there were some new items, which had developed from root-morphemes: -dom, hād (NE hood) scipe: churchdom, brotherhood,
The vocabulary in the ME period shows great instability and constant and rapid changes. Many words became obsolete; a lot of them reflected the ever-changing life of the speakers and were under the influence of contacts with other nations.
1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary. Internal sources of vocabulary growth became less important in ME. It might have been due to great expansion of foreign words (especially French). Beginning with the 15 century up the 17 c. the role of internal sources became more important though the stream of words from other languages continued.
As before, the word formation fell into two types: word derivation and word composition.
Word derivation
Under word derivation we mean affixation which could be of two types: suffixation and prefixation.
The majority of OE suffixes was still preserved in ME but they were becoming less productive.
The development of prefixes was uneven. In ME many of them fell into disuse ( such as a-, ӡe-, tō ), in the 15th. And 16th c. the use of native prefixes grew again (such as negative mis-, un- : e.g. ME mislayen- NE mislay; especially with foreign stems e.g. NE misjudge, mispronounce). Some prefixes developed from OE adverbs and prepositions: – ūt >out NE outcome, outlook
– ofer>over overload, overlook
– under>under underfeed, undermine
Early NE prefixes could come from foreign sources, French Latin, Greek.
French words with re- came into E: ME redressen, reformen. Since the 16th c. re- was applied as a means of word derivation: regret, refill, readjust reopen, reattack.
Among other borrowed prefixes there were
– de-, dis-en/in (im-, il, ir,, non-) of the Franco-Roman origin: ME destructuctive, dischargen, discomforten, enablen,enclosen, NE enlist, enrich, inhuman, non-Germanic. Among OE noun suffixes there were some new items, which had developed from root-morphemes: -dom, hād (NE hood) scipe: churchdom, brotherhood,