Semantics and Word Formation: The Semantic Development of Five French Suffixes in Middle English (Studies in Historical Linguistics) - Softcover

Lloyd, Cynthia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3039119109 ISBN 13: 9783039119103

Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2011

Synopsis

This book is about the integration into English of the five nominal suffixes -ment, -ance, -ation, -age and -al, which entered Middle English via borrowings from French, and which now form abstract nouns by attaching themselves to various base categories, as in cord/cordage or adjust/adjustment. The possibility is considered that each suffix might individually affect the general semantic profile of nouns which it forms. A sample of first attributions from the Middle English Dictionary is analysed for each suffix, in order to examine biases in suffixes towards certain semantic areas. It is argued that such biases exist both in real-world semantics, such as the choice of bases with moral or practical meanings, and in distinct aspects of the shared core meaning of action or collectivity expressed by the derived deverbal or denominal nouns. The results for the ME database are then compared with the use of words in the same suffixes across a selection of works from Shakespeare. In this way it can be shown how such tendencies may persist or change over time.

About this title

About the Author

Cynthia Lloyd graduated in English from the University of Bristol and gained a research MA by thesis on connections between language and literature in early modern English. In 1991 she read for an MA in linguistics at the University of York, and in 2005 completed a PhD in the field of word formation at the University of Leeds. She has taught Middle English for the MA programme at Bristol University, humanities courses for the Open University in Bristol and Manchester, and English language at the Universities of Benghazi and Kuwait. She has previously published articles in the field of French suffixes in English.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3039119109
• ISBN 13: 9783039119103
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 313