Word-building in Old English

Apart from taking words from other languages, there were internal ways of enriching the vocabulary - word-building techniques. These were:

morphological - creating new words by adding new morphemes; syntactic - building new words from syntactic groups semantic - developing new meanings of the existing words Morphological word-building is the way of adding morphemes to make new words, know as affixation. Here we distinguish two major group of affixes - prefixes and suffixes, infixes being non-characteristic for the English language.

Affixation

Suffix is a morpheme that is added to the root-morpheme and which modifies its lexical meaning. Additionally, they may (and in the majority of cases do) refer the word to another part of speech. In this treatment they will be classified according to the principle of what part of speech is formed by means of this or that suffix. Hence, In Old English there were: Noun-suffixes

- ere was used to form masculine nouns from stems of nouns and verbs, denoted the profession or the doer of the action (it is related to Gothic -areis, Lat.-агш^):

fiscere (fisherman), wntere (writer), bocere (bookman),

fugelere (fowler, bird-catcher), drowere (sufferer),

The corresponding feminine suffix was

- estre:

baecestre (woman baker), spinnestre (spinner),

- end was used to form masculine nouns from verb stems (originally the suffix of Participle II):

freond (friend), demend (judge),

ing - masculine; was used to derive patronymics; may also form emotionally coloured diminutives: cyning (king), aedeling (son of a nobleman),

-ling- variant of -ing; forms prevalently emotionally marked nouns from adjectives:

deorling (darling), lytling (baby). - en formed feminine nouns from noun stems: gyden (goddess),fyxen (female fox, vixen), maegden (mayden)

- nis, -nes formed feminine abstract nouns from adjectives: godnis(goodness), beorhtnes (brightness), hereness (praise), swetnis (sweetness), unstilness (disturbance), nyttnes (usefulness)

A group of derivational morphemes used in Old English may be called semi- or half-suffixes: they originated from nouns and still preserve to some extent their original meaning (compare the status of -man in policeman, spokesman, sportsman etc.)

- dom (the noun dom meant 'doom')freodom (freedom), wisdom wisdom)

- lac (the noun lac meant 'gift, game') formed abstract nouns: reoflac (robbery), wedlac (wedlock)

- scipe/scype (the verb scieppan meant 'to shape, create') formed abstract and collective nouns from noun stems:

hlafordscipe (lordship), freondscipe (friendship), folcscipe

(people),

- had (the original noun had meant 'title, rank') formed abstract nouns from noun stems:

cildhad (childhood), maegdhad (maidenhood, virginity),weoruldhod (secular life)

While noun-forming suffixes might retain the stem within its former category simply adding some meaning to it, adjective-forming suffixes invariably change the part of speech appurtenance of the stem. They are very rarely if ever added to adjective-stems but form adjectives that represent some quality in relation to some notion which is expressed in a noun or a verb:

- ede (is related to Participle II suffix -d): hocede (hooked),

- en gylden (golden), wyllen (woolen)

- feald: manigfeald (manyfold),

- full: sorhfull (sorrowful), carfull (careful), sinnfull (sinful)

- ig: halig (holy), mistig (misty), busig (busy),

- ihte: dyrnihte (thorny), stsenihte (stony)

- isc: englisc (English), Bryttisc (British), folcisc (popular),mennisc (human)

-leas:, slaepleas (sleepless),

lic (friendly), luflic (full of love),

- sum: sibbsum (peaceful), hiersum (obedient)

Adverb-forming suffix -e was usually added to adjective stems; this was a productive way of word-building: wid- wide (wide - widely), lang-lange (long - for a long time.

Verbs were formed by adding the suffix -an/ian, -ettan to noun, adjective and adverb stems, sometimes this process was accompanied by adding prefixes: wyrse (worse) - wyrsian (worsen), yfel (bad) -yfelian (worsen).

Prefixes

The use of prefixes in Old English was a productive way of forming new words, and their number exceeds that of prefixes in modern times. They were especially frequent with the verbs

gon - go

be- gon - go round

fore- gon - precede

ofer- gon - traverse

je- gon - go, go away

settan - to place

be- settan - to appoint

for- settan - to obstruct

fore- settan - to place before

of- settan - to afflict

on- settan - to oppress

to- settan - to dispose

un- settan - to put down

wid- settan - to resist

a- a-drincan (to drown),

be- becuman (happen to), bestri(e)pan (bestrip, plunder),

ge- (perfective) jewritan (write), jesettan (populate),

ofer- (over) oferseon (oversee), ofercuman (overcome),

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