1. Introduction
Since mankind uses language it formed sentences to communicate. Therefore it is necessary to put words together in a meaningful way. “But although a word is a unit which is familiar in our culture, the notion that it has an internal structure is not.” (Matthews 1974 : 9). That is where morphology comes in. Being a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge Peter Matthews published his well known book ‘Morphology’. It is about his thoughts and results of research in that concern.
What is morphology? Morphology is beside syntax, semantics and phonology and phonetics one major subfield of linguistics. Its origin is in nineteenth century as the first reference for morphology in the Oxford English Dictionary was in the 1860s. It deals with the word itself. That means morphology is about forms of words in different uses and constructions. It is divided into subfields like lexical or inflectional morphology. Lexical morphology is concerned with relations among lexemes such as compounding whereas inflectional morphology deals with paradigms which show a lexeme in terms of categories like Singular and Plural.
This term paper is to regard both subfields of morphology in reference to creating new words (neologisms) in the Early Modern period. It is beside from borrowing aiming a special aspect of word structure namely word-formation because this two means represent the most significant ways out of which many neologisms arose.
But what is it that makes words and their structure or formations so interesting? Words help us to express ourselves. We produce them every day. So everybody is involved in that concern. I personally have never asked before where all these words that we use more or less every day have come from. That is one reason for writing this term paper. I have chosen the Early Modern period because this time enlarged the English lexicon extremely: “An examination of the language itself shows that the period was indeed one of great vocabulary expansion...” (Barber 1976 : 219). Moreover it is to be presented what kind of words came up and whereby they occurred in that time.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Significant historical processes
3. What is a word?
4. Shakespeare’s word usage
5. Neologisms
6. Sources of neologisms
7. Loan words
8. Loans from Latin
9. Word-formation
9.1 Affixation
9.2 Compounding
9.3 Conversion
10. Conclusion
11. Bibliography
Objectives and Topics
This academic paper examines the mechanisms behind the rapid expansion of the English lexicon during the Early Modern period. The primary research objective is to analyze how neologisms emerged through both borrowing and internal word-formation processes, while also addressing the linguistic challenges of defining what constitutes a "word."
- The influence of the Renaissance and Latin on vocabulary expansion.
- Morphological processes, specifically affixation, compounding, and conversion.
- Shakespeare's role as a representative of lexical innovation.
- The transition from orthographic definitions to linguistic morphology.
- The impact of historical events, such as the translation of the Bible and colonial expansion, on word creation.
Excerpt from the Book
8. Loans from Latin
In general you can say that in the early sixteenth century the number of loans was really low but it began to rise throughout that century. It was very high between 1590 and 1660. Additionally the following nine years after 1551 can be considered as the most productive ones in terms of creating loans. To get an imagination and impression about Latin borrowing, it was found out that between 1575 and 1675 more than 13,000 new words came up. The Latin loan words within which some were only short-lived had a rather more formal than informal or colloquial tendency. Most of them were nouns, adjectives and verbs. Nouns were often not changed morphologically and taken over in the nominative case what we see in examples like augur, circus, interior or medium. Even sometimes the Latin case form ablative was borrowed, as in folio (of folium ‘leaf’), proviso (‘it being provided’), rebus (pl. ‘by things’) or via (‘by way of’). Verbs were accepted as nouns like in caveat (‘let [him] be aware’), deficit (‘it is wanting’) or exit (‘[he] goes out’). Moreover, what also was done was using an ending like ‘-ity’ (from L –itas), ‘-ence’ or ‘-ancy’ (from –entia, -antia) that had come into Middle English by French and put it to the original Latin ending instead what lead to words like immaturity, invisibility, transcendence or relevancy.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: Outlines the definition of morphology and explains the paper's focus on word creation during the Early Modern period.
2. Significant historical processes: Discusses the major social, technological, and political changes in Britain that necessitated vocabulary expansion.
3. What is a word?: Explores the difficulties in defining "words" from both an orthographic and a linguistic, morphological perspective.
4. Shakespeare’s word usage: Analyzes Shakespeare's role as an innovator and examines his vocabulary size compared to other historical texts.
5. Neologisms: Defines neologisms and discusses the methodology of using dictionaries to track vocabulary growth.
6. Sources of neologisms: Highlights borrowing and word-formation as the primary drivers of lexical growth.
7. Loan words: Examines the influence of multiple foreign languages on English, noting the prevalence of Latin and Greek.
8. Loans from Latin: Details the specific methods of importing Latin terms, particularly in scientific and religious contexts.
9. Word-formation: Discusses internal structural processes like derivation and compounding as native alternatives to foreign borrowing.
9.1 Affixation: Describes the use of prefixes and suffixes to generate new nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.
9.2 Compounding: Explains the joining of free morphemes to create new terminology, focusing on noun-noun combinations.
9.3 Conversion: Analyzes the process of shifting a word's grammatical category without changing its form.
10. Conclusion: Summarizes the findings and reflects on the persistence of Early Modern linguistic structures in current English.
11. Bibliography: Lists the academic sources used to support the analysis.
Keywords
Early Modern English, Neologism, Morphology, Word-formation, Borrowing, Latin, Shakespeare, Affixation, Compounding, Conversion, Lexicon, Linguistics, Orthography, Vocabulary expansion, Derivation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research?
The research focuses on the rapid expansion of the English language during the Early Modern period, specifically investigating how the vocabulary grew through borrowing and word-formation.
What are the central themes of the work?
The central themes include morphological processes (affixation, compounding, conversion), the impact of Latin borrowings, and the lexical creativity demonstrated by writers like Shakespeare.
What is the main research objective?
The main objective is to understand the mechanisms of word creation and identify how new terminology was integrated into the English lexicon between 1500 and 1700.
Which scientific methods are applied?
The paper utilizes descriptive linguistic analysis, referencing historical corpus data and dictionary studies to analyze morphological patterns and patterns of language change.
What is covered in the main body of the paper?
The main body covers the historical context of Early Modern English, the definition of a "word," the role of Shakespeare, and a detailed breakdown of loan words and word-formation techniques.
Which keywords best characterize this work?
Keywords include Early Modern English, Neologism, Morphology, Word-formation, Borrowing, and Lexical creativity.
How does the author define a "word" in the context of the paper?
The author discusses the complexity of the term, contrasting orthographic definitions (based on spacing) with morphological definitions (based on internal structure and units of meaning).
Why is the Early Modern period significant for English vocabulary?
It was a period of immense lexical expansion driven by the Renaissance, the printing press, and the translation of religious and scientific texts into English.
What role does Shakespeare play in the study?
Shakespeare serves as a case study for lexical innovation, demonstrating how a prolific writer utilized both existing and newly created words to build expressive and complex language.
What are the primary ways new words were created through word-formation?
The three main methods identified are affixation (using prefixes and suffixes), compounding (joining free morphemes), and conversion (changing a word's grammatical function without modifying its form).
- Quote paper
- Tim Küpper (Author), 2007, Neologism in Early Modern English, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/173252
