Ways of Word-Formation

Word-Derivation:

· sound interchange –was employed frequently, but never alone (usually was accompanied by suffixation). Sources of sound-interchange:

- ablaut (OE rīdan (V) – rād (N) = NE ride (V) – raid (N); OE sinζan (V) – sonζ (N) = NE sing (V) – song (N), etc.);

- palatal mutation:

o verbs from nouns (doom à deem; food à feed, etc.);

o verbs from adjectives (full à fill; healthy à heal, etc.);

o nouns from adjectives (long à length; strong à strength, etc.);

- consonantal interchanges (death – dead; rise – rear, etc.).

· word stress –wasnot frequent; it helped to differentiate between parts of speech and was used together with other means (e.g. OE ‘andswaru (N answer) – and’swarian (V answer);

· prefixation –was a productive way (unlike in ModE):

- IE prefixes (OE un-(negative));

- Germanic prefixes (OE mis-, be-, ofer-(over-));

- prefixes were widely used with verbs, but were far less productive with the other parts of speech (e.g. OE ζān (to go) – ā-ζān (to go away) – be-ζān (to go round) – fore-ζān (to precede), etc.);

- prefixes often modified lexical meaning (e.g. OE siþ (journey) – for-siþ (death));

- there were grammatical prefixes, e.g ζe-:

o was used to build Participle 2 of strong verbs (e.g. OE sitten (to sit) – ζesett (sat), etc.);

o turned durative verbs into terminative (e.g. OE feran (to go) – ζeferan (to reach), etc.).

· suffixation –was the most productive way, mostly applied to nouns and adjectives, seldom to verbs.

Classificationof OE suffixes:

1. Suffixes of agent nouns (-end(OE frēond (friend)), -ere(OE fiscere (fisher)), -estre(feminine) (OE bæcestre (female baker)), etc.);

2. Suffixes of abstract nouns (-t(OE siht (sight)), -þu(OE lengþu (length)), -nes/nis(OE beorhtnes (brightness), blindnis (blindness)), -unζ/inζ (OE earnunζ (earning)), etc.);

3. Adjectival suffixes(-iζ(OE hāliζ (holy)), -isc(OE mannisc (human)), -ede(OE hōcede (hooked)), -sum(OE lanζsum (lasting)) etc.);

4. New suffixes derived from noun root-morphemes (-dōm(OE frēodōm (freedom)), -hād(OE cīldhād (childhood)), -lāc(OE wedlāc (wedlock)), -scipe (OE frēondscipe (frendship)), etc.);

5. New suffixes derived from adjective root-morphemes (-lic(OE woruldlic (worldly)), -full(OE carfull (careful)), -lēas(OE slǽplēas (sleepless)), etc.).