Abstrakt
The paper proposes to explore several structural tendencies at work in the English word-formation as reflected in the texts of the copies of homilies by Ælfric as well as of some of the anonymous Old English homilies preserved between 1066 and 1220 and catalogued and analysed now, along with other texts, as the so-called Updated Old English. In particular, these copies allow us to follow micro-processes through which 1) the introflectional typological principle as a structural strategy in the word-formation (Sgall 1995) was being given up, and 2) changes in suffixes implemented by the copyists reflected a competition along the typological cline of fusionality.
Proceeding by the method of manual collation of the Old English originals and their copies, the analysis will attempt to show several structural tendencies at work in the demise of the English vocabulary between 1066 and 1220, illustrating the devastating effect exercised by changes in word-formation patterns and their productivity on a vocabulary organized on the etymological (Mathesius 1939-40) or associative principle (Kastovsky 1992). Comparing the evidence provided by electronic The Dictionary of Old English (A-H) and The Middle English Dictionary with textual material of updated copies of Old English homiletic prose, attention will be paid to the interaction between incipient lexical losses (in nouns, adjectives and verbs) and the marginalisation of some of the word-formation patterns employing typological introflection (mainly ablaut and mutations) and of the suffixes that displayed a high degree of fusion with their respective stems (which resulted in greater transparency of the boundaries between morphemes).
The processes described will be shown to testify to small, slow, gradual but perceptible beginnings in the intertwined domains of lexis and word-formation of the well-known large-scale typological reshaping of English, at a time when much of the estimated 65-85% loss of Old English lexis (Minkova - Stockwell 2006:472) was taking place. Though this approach may appear, by objective necessity, methodologically antiquarian, it allows us to open up useful new perspectives on one of the decisive periods in the typological transformation of English over time, when so much happened offstage, and on the subtle quasi-synchronic mechanics of language change generally.