The grammar of names in Anglo-Saxon England : the linguistics and culture of the Old English onomasticon

323 Pages·2014·1.74 MB·English

by  Colman

The Grammar of Names in Anglo-Saxon England

The Grammar of Names
in Anglo-Saxon England
The Linguistics and Culture
of the Old English Onomasticon
FRAN COLMAN
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,ox26dp,
UnitedKingdom
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An Onomasticonfor Γιωάννη

Contents
Preface ix
ConventionsandAbbreviations xi
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Ontheonomasticon 1
1.2 Notesonthesources 9
1.3 Genderandthenamedata 10
Part I. On names
2. Namesaswords 21
2.1 Onthe(non-)distinctivenessofOldEnglishpersonalnames 21
2.2 Namesasnouns? 28
2.3 Onfunctionsofnames 30
3. Namesarenotnouns 50
3.1 Namesasdeterminerphrases? 50
3.2 Namesandnotionalgrammar 52
3.3 Lexicalversusfunctionalcategories 56
3.4 Prototypicalityandsecondarycategories 62
3.5 Referentialityandsecondarycategories 69
3.6 Conversion 74
3.7 Ellipsis 78
4. Anameisaname 80
4.1 Namesandfixedreference/identification 80
4.2 Theonomasticonandthegenerallexicon 83
4.3 Namesanddictionaries 90
4.4 ConclusiontoPartI 94
Part II. Towards the Old English onomasticon
5. OldEnglishpersonalnameformation 101
5.1 Selectionofnameelements 101
5.2 Combinationofnameelements 105
5.3 On‘intelligibility’ofOldEnglish‘compound’names 118
5.4 OriginsofOldEnglishmonothematicnameformation 125
viii Contents
6. Generallexicalformation 151
6.1 Lexicalformationandidioms 151
6.2 Lexicalformation:derivationalmorphology 158
6.3 Morphologyandthegrammar 169
6.4 ‘Complex’versus‘compound’commonwords 175
6.5 OldEnglishlexicalstressassignment 183
6.6 Conclusiontogenerallexicalformation 189
7. StructuresofOldEnglishpersonalnames 190
7.1 ‘Complex’versus‘compound’OldEnglishnames? 190
7.2 DithematicnamesandtheOldEnglishonomasticon 196
7.3 Reductionofdithematicnames 198
7.4 Neutralization 208
7.5 ConclusiontoChapter7 219
8. Ontheroleoftheparadigmasamarkeroflexical-itemformation 220
8.1 Introduction:theOldEnglishweaksuffix<a> 220
8.2 The‘weakending’anditsorigins 223
8.3 Germanicweakadjectivedeclension 235
8.4 OldEnglishn-stemmonothematicpersonalnames
(or:the<a>suffixonnames) 247
8.5 Onso-called‘proprialeMarkierung’asderivationalmorphology 262
8.6 Conclusion 268
9. AnOldEnglishonomasticon 270
9.1 Elementsindithematicnames 270
9.2 Monothematicnames 270
9.3 Othernicknames 271
9.4 Conclusion 273
9.5 Asampleonomasticonanditsactivation 274
References 277
IndexofAuthors 293
IndexofPersonalNames 297
IndexofSubjects 302
Preface
In the mid 1970s, in Oxford, I treated myself to a pair of sheepskin slippers. Partly
because I was freezing. But also because they came in a shoe box of proportions
appropriate to store the annotated index cards of coin spellings brought in elastic-
banded bundles from Sydney, where, in the Department of English Language and
Mediaeval Literature, Professor H. L. Rogers had instigated my research for a post-
graduate thesis on philological analyses of the spellings on the eighth- and ninth-
centurycoinsinthesecondSyllogeofCoinsoftheBritishIslescontainingAnglo-Saxon
coins. The acquisition of somewhat more enticing shoes continued, as data were
expanded,andmyattentionwasturnedtothelateAnglo-Saxonperiod.
During thesubsequentdecades,myresearch,publications,andlectures—bothas
partofajob,andasinvitedturnsthroughoutEuropeandbeyond—onallaspectsof
English grammar and its history, served to inform my linguistic analyses of coin
spellingsandothernamedata,andtoconfirmtheconvictiononwhichthisbookis
grounded. That is, that the linguistic study of names is not isolated: not from the
grammarasawhole,nor,evenless controversially,fromwhatcanbeknownabout
thehistoryofthepeoplewhouseorusedthatgrammar.Ahistoricalstudyofnames
dependsalsoonstudiesofthematerialsonwhich,methodsbywhich,andreasonsfor
which,linguisticmaterialofthepastwasrecorded.
If the following observation of Stenton (1970 [1924]: 168) refers to grammatical
classification,thenforonceImustdisagreewithitsauthor.‘Noattempttointroduce
classification into a subject so intimately connected with human life as personal
nomenclature can be other than arbitrary.’ Names and naming are central to
language. Language is ‘intimately connected with human life’, yet it is subject to
non-arbitrary classification. Naming is anthropocentric. People name first people,
thenplacesandotherthingsandeventsofsignificancetopeople.Andthishierarchy
pervadeslanguageingeneral.Notionalgrammar,especially,embodiesananthropo-
centricviewoflanguage.Thelinguisticstudyofnamesrespondstonotionalanalysis,
which confirms the status of names as a grammatical category, specifying in what
ways names, as even more ‘intimately connected with human life’ than the rest of
language, differ from common words. The Grammar of Names in Anglo-Saxon
Englandputsnotionalgrammartoworkonabodyofhistoricalmaterial,providing
precise descriptions, in dependency formulations, of, for instance, several hitherto
vaguelydelineatedpuzzlesofIndo-EuropeanandGermanicphilology.
Thisbookisapartialproductofmyreturntospecificallyearlycoinmaterial,onthe
award of a Senior Research Fellowship from the British Academy and Leverhulme
Trust,duringtheacademicyearof2001–2.Mygratitudeforthis,andtoDrKenEmond