Chronological homogeneity in Middle English deverbal word-formation: the evidence from the Oxford English dictionary.ABSTRACT Present-day epistemological e·pis·te·mol·o·gy n. The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity. [Greek epist possibilities of corpus methodology allow to introduce elements of experimentation into the study of the earliest attestations of word-forming families' members with regard to the scope of temporal homogeneity/heterogeneity of their constituents. Three manifestations of the diachronic di·a·chron·ic adj. Of or concerned with phenomena as they change through time. homogeneity of the OED OED abbr. Oxford English Dictionary Noun 1. OED - an unabridged dictionary constructed on historical principles O.E.D., Oxford English Dictionary textual prototypes of verbs and deverbatives are considered: same year attestation and the scope of relative chronological homogeneity in the distribution of the age differential of pairs of textual prototypes; flexible chronological homogeneity in common-root paradigmatic See paradigm. prototypical and complementary expansion as well as the contribution of same year attestations to the problem of constituents' placement in the strings of diachronic common-category synonyms and their comparison. Most attention is paid to the heuristics heu·ris·tic adj. 1. Of or relating to a usually speculative formulation serving as a guide in the investigation or solution of a problem: of the queries to the self-compiled corpus and visualization of their outcomes. 1. Introduction Deverbal de·ver·bal n. See deverbative. word-formation consists in deriving nouns and adjectives from stems of verbs. These constitute two branches of deverbal word-forming families. They are substantivization and adjectivization. Adjectivization encompasses deverbal adjectives and modal passive adjectives. Historically, more precedent deverbal adjectival ad·jec·ti·val adj. Of, relating to, or functioning as an adjective. ad  jec·ti coinages
were lexicalized present and past participles. Substantivization
contains action, agent and patient nouns. A proportion of action nouns
are lexicalized into one-word factitive fac·ti·tive adj. Of or constituting a transitive verb that renders to a thing a certain character or status and that in English can take an objective complement modifying its direct object, such as make in That makes me angry, or and/or resultative A resultative is a phrase that indicates the state of a noun resulting from the completion of the verb. In the English examples below, the affected noun is shown in bold and the resulting predicate is in italics:
As we focus on categorial types rather than suffixal models the date of the textual prototype entered into the respective categorial slot in the electronic framework was that of the older, or eventually oldest, of the variant suffixal coinages. The attested variant suffixes that produce common-root coinages were imputed Attributed vicariously. In the legal sense, the term imputed is used to describe an action, fact, or quality, the knowledge of which is charged to an individual based upon the actions of another for whom the individual is responsible rather than on the individual's to the respective sub-slots that can be considered separately within each category giving way to multiple descriptions of cross-categorial relationships within deverbalization. The analysis will be based on the running selection of textual prototypes (earliest citations) from the Second edition of the Oxford English dictionary Oxford English Dictionary (OED) great multi-volume historical dictionary of English. [Br. Hist.: Caught in the Web of Words] See : Lexicography on CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). , Version 3.0 (OED) covering 5,567 verbal stems and their common-root coinages attested from 1151 till 1500. The indication of the date following the lexeme (grammar) lexeme - A minimal lexical unit of a language. Lexical analysis converts strings in a language into a list of lexemes. For a programming language these word-like pieces would include keywords, identifiers, literals and punctutation. stands for a text sample in the language of the respective period affiliation. All the coinages taken into account in this study were checked for a positive relatedness to their verbal base. The analysis focuses on the earliest OED citations of the relevant vocabulary falling on Middle English Middle English Vernacular spoken and written in England c. 1100–1500, the descendant of Old English and the ancestor of Modern English. It can be divided into three periods: Early, Central, and Late. chronologically. Most of the dates in such a corpus are accepted as clearly given in the OED. The dating approximation marked by the OED compilers by about or circa is neglected. Century dating, e.g. 13.., is extended to the next unequivocally dated OED attestation of the respective lexeme or, failing that, to the last year of the century, e.g. 13.., 1399. In the rare cases of period dating, as in ... 1103-23, the earlier date is accepted. It is hard to find formal arguments to resolve the dispute regarding whether the value of the historical time factor, by which it is common to understand the duration of the existence in the lexicon of an arbitrary item without its counterpart till the latter becomes attested in the textual sources as well, is a fact from the history of the language or a consequence of the incompleteness of the preserved historical sources as they are reflected in the lexicographic lex·i·cog·ra·phy n. The process or work of writing, editing, or compiling a dictionary. [lexico(n) + -graphy. or corpus compilation practice. Still it seems logical to share the opinion that the morphemic mor·pheme n. A meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word, such as man, or a word element, such as -ed in walked, that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. markedness of coinages (be they derivatives proper or ready-made penetrations into the lexicon of Middle English as a recipient language) was conducive to their being conspicuous in the textual sources. In view of the known strategy of the OED compilers to look for unusual words appearing over time (Brewer 1993: 321) the reflection of deverbatives in this monumental dictionary is assumed to have been generally timely. The difference between genuine derivatives, ready-made borrowings related to their common-root verb and back-formations is perceived as irrelevant for the purpose of this study. The values of the historical time factor in pairs of words with a word-forming relationship between them (including reconstructed motivation relationship arisen in language contact) as well as patterns of the recurrence of these values in different derivational categories related to one another by the commonness of the root testify to the rate of both structure- and content-oriented expansion of the lexicon in history. The discussed categories are mental constructs as they reflect basic onomasiological (substantivity vs. property) and propositional (active diathesis diathesis /di·ath·e·sis/ (di-ath´e-sis) an unusual constitutional susceptibility or predisposition to a particular disease.diathet´ic di·ath·e·sis n. pl. vs. passive diathesis in the finite verb A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand by their own as complete sentences. paraphrase to a deverbal coinage coinage Certification of a piece of metal or other material (such as leather or porcelain) by a mark or marks upon it as being of a specific intrinsic or exchange value. Croesus (r. c. ) oppositions. The length of the evolution of discrete entities over time is a traditional concern of a diachronic lexicological study. In this contribution, however, we try to focus on the opposite dimension of this process reflected in one-timeness or temporal homogeneity. Such diachronic evidence abides by the philosophical notion of emergentism which is an intrinsic part of evolution. In this case we can speak of momentary or almost momentary change where lexicon history seems to be lacking its crucial component--time. 2. Chronological homogeneity in the temporal differential between the OED textual prototypes The developed software juxtaposes textual prototypes of pairs of constituents from deverbal families yielding a distribution of values of the difference in their age. We will call this difference a temporal differential (A t) of the compared lexemes which form a respective cross-categorial domain. When we use the OED or a similar source, for instance the MED, the quantity is measurable and can be expressed in years. The extreme values of the temporal differential show a pair of textual prototypes the difference between which is maximally positive or negative depending on the vector of comparison. The precise values of such differences in the cross-categorial domains vary (see the initial and concluding lines in the respective tables on Figure 2 below). The nature of the chronological homogeneity, however, differs from that of heterogeneity in the sense that the former is a characteristic feature of diachronic facts with the accepted minimal age difference in the textual prototypes whereas the latter comes into light where there is a pre-set chronological dissimilarity. The scattering of all the registered values between the extreme ones is naturally uneven. The absolute chronological sameness of the two lexical items in the OED textual prototypes gives the zero value of the temporal differential. The quota of such cases can vary severalfold sev·er·al·fold adj. 1. Having several parts or members. 2. Being several times as much or as many. sev for the cross-categorial domains of deverbalization (see Table 1). Apart from cases of absolute chronological homogeneity a proportion of age comparisons in a cross-categorial domain reveals relative chronological homogeneity. The latter falls on the scale stretch on either side of the point of absolute chronological homogeneity (zero age differential) on condition that the adopted discreteness of the scale of age differential sometimes motivated by breaches in the actual values (cf. the tables beside the diagrams on Figure 2) splits the whole selection into segments with obligatorily unequal although established arbitrarily numeric power (Figure 2). It is typical for the area of relative chronological homogeneity to cover the number of cases exceeding that characterized by any of the varied extents of chronological heterogeneity. However, exceptions from this general tendency are possible. The productivity of the area of relative chronological homogeneity may be absolutely predominant in the cross-categorial domain (cf. the case of factitive nouns and their action nouns counterparts). Conversely, cases of relative chronological homogeneity may be numerically insignificant in the entire cross-categorial selection. This is already apparent in the comparison of verbs and agent nouns and even much more so in that of verbs and modal adjectives. The area of relative chronological homogeneity, similarly to the entire distribution of the temporal differential values, reveals (a)symmetry concerning the number of instances on either side of the point of zero temporal differential (cf. the respective peaks on the charts with the relevant lines in the tables on Figure 1). 3. Temporal homogeneity in paradigmatic prototypicality and complementation Complementation (genetics) The complementary action of different genetic factors. The term usually implies two homologous chromosomes or chromosome sets, each defective because of mutation and unable by itself to promote the normal development or metabolism of Single and multiple constituents' pre-emption PRE-EMPTION, intern. law. The right of preemption is the right of a nation to detain the merchandise of strangers passing through her territories or seas, in order to afford to her subjects the preference of purchase. 1 Chit. Com. Law, 103; 1 Bl. Com. 287. 2. and complementation are distinguished. A slot within the word-forming family can be followed/preceded by two (or more) chronologically homogeneous common-root lexemes. The homogeneity is set arbitrarily. It allows multiple factual verification in terms of decades, generations, centuries and, eventually, periods (cf. pairs of charts and respective curves characterizing a distribution of the temporal differential values on Figures 2 and 3). Varied presentations of the same corpus of diachronic examples tagged chronologically based on the understanding of which of them are homogeneous and which should rather be taken as heterogeneous exceeds the heuristics of diagram manipulation. It can be viewed as an instrument of the optimization of the procedures of rediscovering common-root paradigms at different stages of the evolution of deverbal word-forming families as well as of the prospective/retrospective modelling of diachronic combinability of deverbatives. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] 4. Temporal homogeneity in the historical thesaurus of verbs and deverbatives At the compiling of diachronic thesaurus of English verbs Verbs in the English language are a lexically and morphologically distinct part of speech which describes an action, an event, or a state. While English has many irregular verbs (see ), for the regular ones the conjugation rules are quite straightforward. and deverbatives the constituents within the present-day strings are rearranged historically according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the earliest OED attestations of their textual prototypes. A similar approach can be seen in the compiling of the English historical thesaurus (cf. Kay et al. 2001; Kay and Wotherspoon 2002; Hullen 1996). The contemporary verbal strings put to test in the present experiment were taken from Webster's dictionary Webster's Dictionary - Hypertext interface. of synonyms (Laird 1985) although this database can be exchanged for that from an arbitrary lexicographical lex·i·cog·ra·phy n. The process or work of writing, editing, or compiling a dictionary. [lexico(n) + -graphy. source of the kind. The deverbal strings that served for the starting point Noun 1. starting point - earliest limiting point terminus a quo commencement, get-go, offset, outset, showtime, starting time, beginning, start, kickoff, first - the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the of the constituents' chronological placement were construed within the current framework on the basis of the OED evidence. However, the clarity of this experiment is potentially marred by the fact that there are same year OED attestations of constituents within the strings (Figure 4). [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] In order to determine the role of literal one-timeness in establishing the similarity of the sequential expansion of strings in the historical derivational thesaurus we ascribe as·cribe tr.v. as·cribed, as·crib·ing, as·cribes 1. To attribute to a specified cause, source, or origin: "Other people ascribe his exclusion from the canon to an unsubtle form of racism" the value of zero to the squares of chronotropism matrices in cases of same year datings of the constituents of the column string alongside of the values of plus one and minus one ascribed to the preservation and breach of sequential ordering in the compared strings, respectively (cf. the matrices on Figure 5). More on the application of this method in the diachronic thesaurus analysis is available in (Bilynsky 2006). The comparisons of the sequential expansion of strings in the diachronic thesaurus of verbs and deverbatives raises at least two kinds of problems: explaining the diachronic logic of the constituents' sequence within the compared strings and revealing the extent of imitation that strings of varied categorial affiliation and length admit of one another. As the obtained mean values of sequential imitation take into account the length of the strings put in the matrices' rows we can expect higher values when we place the verbs' strings in the position of matrices' columns. It appears that the obtained corrections of the curves shown on Figure 7 in comparison with those on Figure 6 are bound to both specific row string lengths and categorial domains of deverbalization. In substantivization more receptive categories to such a correction appear to be action and factitive nouns rather than agent nouns whereas in adjectivization strings of adjectives in comparison with strings of participles. The curves of the mean values of sequential similarity for different lengths of the matrix row strings testify to the fact that same year attestations of lexemes over the Middle English period introduce generally negligible corrections into the Middle English historical thesaurus of verbs and deverbatives. Thus the temptation to undermine diachronic modelling by the challenge of the fact that there are cases when textual prototypes of words are dated in the same year fails to bear the fruit of sufficient heuristics. [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] [FIGURE 7 OMITTED] 4. Concluding remarks The analysis was based on a complete selection of ME verbs and deverbal coinages drawn from the entire OED first quotations and their datings. The amplitude of the electronic queries to the framework requires a sifting of relevant and irrelevant outcomes. Basically, the changing patterns of temporal homogeneity/heterogeneity offer a better insight into the factors expanding the lexicon over time. Hopefully, this framework is heedful heed·ful adj. Paying close attention; mindful. See Synonyms at careful. heed  ful·ly adv. of a plea "for the flexible use of
dictionaries, such as the OED or the MED, in addition to, and
complementation of, special corpora corporaplural form of corpus. corpora albicantia see corpus albicans. corpora arenacea sandy or gritty bodies, found in the pineal body; appear to be of glial or stromal origin; have the structure of , whether these are self-compiled or not" (Markus 2007: 2). REFERENCES Bilynsky, Michael 2006 "Getting a diachronic view on synonymy syn·on·y·my n. pl. syn·on·y·mies 1. The quality of being synonymous; equivalence of meaning. 2. Study and classification of synonyms. 3. A list, book, or system of synonyms. 4. : Verbs and deverbatives", in: Nikolaus Ritt--Christiane Dalton-Puffer--Dieter Kastovsky (eds.), 77-104. Brewer, Charlotte 1993 "The second edition of the Oxford English dictionary", The Review of English Studies English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S., Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, India, South Africa, and the Middle East, among other XLIV/175: 313-342. Diaz Vera, Javier E. (ed.) 2002 A changing world of words. Studies in English historical lexicography lexicography, the applied study of the meaning, evolution, and function of the vocabulary units of a language for the purpose of compilation in book form—in short, the process of dictionary making. Early lexicography, practiced from the 7th cent. B.C. , lexicology lex·i·col·o·gy n. The branch of linguistics that deals with the lexical component of language. [lexico(n) + -logy. and semantics. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Hullen, Werner 1996 "An onomasiological version of the OED?", Henry Sweet Society Newsletter 27:15-16. Kay Christian J.--Irene A. W. Wotherspoon--Louise Sylvester 2001 "One thesaurus leads to another: TOE, HTE HTE Hírközlési És Informatikai Tudományos Egyesület (Hungary) HTE High Temperature Electronics HTE HazMat Trucking Enforcer (software) HTE HighTech Engineering HTE High Tension Electrode HTE High Turnover of Employees , TME See Tivoli Systems Management Software. ", in: Christian Kay--Louise Sylvester (eds.), 173-186. Kay, Christian J.--Irene A. W. Wotherspoon 2002 "Turning the dictionary inside out: Some issues in the compilation of a historical thesaurus", in: Javier E. Diaz Vera (ed.), 109-135. Kay Christian J.--Louise Sylvester (eds.) 2001 Lexis and texts in Early English Early English Noun a style of architecture used in England in the 12th and 13th centuries, characterized by narrow pointed arches and ornamental intersecting stonework in windows ; Papers in Honour of Jane Roberts Jane Roberts (1929 – 1984) was an American author, psychic and trance medium or spirit medium who "channelled" a personality named Seth. The publication of the Seth texts established her as one of the pre-eminent figures in the world of paranormal phenomena. . Amsterdam: Rodopi. Laird, Charlton 1985 Webster's new world thesaurus. (Prepared by Cherlton Laird, updated by W. D. Lutz.) New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Prentice Hall Prentice Hall is a leading educational publisher. It is an imprint of Pearson Education, Inc., based in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6-12 and higher education market. History In 1913, law professor Dr. Press. Markus, Manfred 2007 "Joseph's Wrights English dialect dictionary English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) is a dictionary of English language dialects, compiled by Joseph Wright. The English dialect dictionary, being the complete vocabulary of all dialect words still in use, or known to have been in use during the last computerized: Architecture and retrieval routine", Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings 06491. Digital Historical Corpora. Architecture, Annotation 1. (programming, compiler) annotation - Extra information associated with a particular point in a document or program. Annotations may be added either by a compiler or by the programmer. and Retrieval, available at http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2007/1052/ (date of access: 9.07.2007). Murray, James Murray, James, 1721?–94, British general, first civil governor of Canada, b. Scotland. He went to Canada as an army officer in 1757 and was prominent at the siege of Louisburg (1758) and in the crucial battle on the Plains of Abraham. A. H.--Henry Bradley--William A. Craigie--Charles Talbut Onions (eds.) 1928 The Oxford English dictionary (OED). (2nd edition.) Oxford: Clarendon Press. [1989] Ritt, Nikolaus--Herbert Schendl--Christiane Dalton-Puffer--Dieter Kastovsky (eds.) 2006 Medieval English and its heritage. Structure, meaning and mechanisms of change. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. MICHAEL BILINSKY Ivan Franko Ivan Yakovych Franko (Ukrainian: Івáн Якович Франкó) (August 27 O.S. August 15] 1856 – May 28 O.S. National University Lviv, Ukraine
Table 1. Quotas of absolute chronological homogeneity (upper triangle)
in the age differential values (lower triangle) at deverbalization (the
last row and column bring together the categories from those under 2, 3
and 10 on the principle of the inclusion of the earliest counterpart)
Verb [N.sub.action] [N.sub.action/...]
s
Verb x 400 100
[N.sub.action] 1506 x 12
[N.sub.action/...] 713 139 x
[N.sub.agent] 746 493 347
[N.sub.patient] -- -- 1
Adj 144 63 97
[P.sub.present] 392 272 167
[A.sub.modal] 175 101 116
[P.sub.past] 776 304 261
[N.sub..../factitive] 649 136 752
[N.sub.action/ 2203 -- --
(factitive)]
[N.sub.agent] [N.sub.patient] Adj
Verb 67 -- 13
[N.sub.action] 73 -- 4
[N.sub.action/...] 32 1 8
[N.sub.agent] x 2 11
[N.sub.patient] 2 x --
Adj 73 -- x
[P.sub.present] 224 1 43
[A.sub.modal] 114 -- 40
[P.sub.past] 231 -- 30
[N.sub..../factitive] 296 -- 93
[N.sub.action/ 797 1 143
(factitive)]
[P.sub.present] [A.sub.modal] [P.sub.past]
Verb 80 4 144
[N.sub.action] 61 2 32
[N.sub.action/...] 17 9 23
[N.sub.agent] 24 12 18
[N.sub.patient] -- -- --
Adj 6 6 1
[P.sub.present] x 6 11
[A.sub.modal] 68 x
[P.sub.past] 117 84 x
[N.sub..../factitive] 136 108 221
[N.sub.action/ 421 196 544
(factitive)]
[N.sub.action/
[N.sub..../factitive] (factitive)]
Verb 84 512
[N.sub.action] 12 --
[N.sub.action/...] 456 --
[N.sub.agent] 15 97
[N.sub.patient] -- --
Adj 10 13
[P.sub.present] 14 75
[A.sub.modal] 3 9
[P.sub.past] 13 50
[N.sub..../factitive] x --
[N.sub.action/ -- x
(factitive)]
Figure 5. Exemplification of the cross-categorial domain of strings
forming a matrix of sequential similarity of the expansion of
column string constituents (here verbs) and constituents of the row
string (here agent nouns). The asterisk following the lexeme testifies
to its being archaic by the OED estimates.
CREATOR 1290 CREATE X----- X -1 -1 -1
FOUNDER 1303 FOUND -X-+-+ -1 X -1 1
(build a (build a
firm ground) firm
ground)
UNDERTAKER 1382 UNDERTAKE --X+++ -1 -1 X 1
CAUSER 1386 CAUSE -++X-+ -1 1 1 X
RAISER (set 1388 RAISE(set --+-X+ -1 -1 0 -1
upright, get upright,
up) get up)
MOUNTANT * 1400 MOUNT -++++X -1 1 1 1
CREATOR -1 -1 1386
FOUNDER -1 1 1290
(build a
firm ground)
UNDERTAKER 0 1 1200
CAUSER -1 1 1340
RAISER (set X 1
upright, get
up)
MOUNTANT * 1 X 1362
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion