University of Cambridge
New senses and formations in Old English glosses and translations, with particular reference to the psalter and the gospels
Abstract
dc:description.abstractBy analysing the innovative expressions in Old English religious glosses and translations, this thesis raises questions about the nature of the lexical items which are conventionally known as ‘semantic loans’ and ‘loan formations’. They are treated in previous studies as results of language contact and discussed as subtypes of loans. The present study will provide an alternative account for the claimed semantic loans, treating the new senses/readings of Old English glosses and translations as semantic extensions developed when the corresponding Old English lexical items were used and interpreted in new religious and linguistic contexts. The development of loan formations will be accepted as reflecting a special kind of influence from foreign language(s); nevertheless, the development of loan formations will be strictly distinguished from lexical borrowing due to the fact that it does not involve any transference of formal material. Old English lexical items discussed in this thesis are collected from the first fifty psalms of three psalter texts and Matthew I–XXV from three gospel texts. The psalter texts comprise the gloss on The Vespasian Psalter, the gloss on The Regius Psalter, and the prose translation in The Paris Psalter. The gospel texts comprise the gloss on The Lindisfarne Gospels, the gloss on The Rushworth Gospels, and the prose translation in the manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 140. 70 pre-existing lexical items which have developed new senses/readings are collected from the six texts. They are analysed according to the possible triggers for their semantic change, their distributions in the investigated Old English texts, their relationships with the corresponding Latin lemma(ta), the relationships between their original meanings and semantic extensions, and the lifespans of their semantic extensions. In addition, 62 possible loan formations attested with Christian or biblical senses are collected from the six texts, and analysed according to their distributions in the investigated Old English texts and their relationships with the corresponding Latin lemmata. The analysis of the 70 pre-existing Old English lexical items shows that the development of these lexical items’ semantic extensions was a gradual rather than an instantaneous process. The semantic extensions developed through this process often demonstrate different levels of conventionalisation. The semantic relationship between these lexical items and their Latin correspondents does not always contribute to the results of these lexical items’ semantic change. Furthermore, the glossators’/translators’ lexical choices do not always seem to have been accepted by the broader community of Old English language users. Some expressions attested in Old English glosses and translations may never have developed corresponding semantic extensions as expected. Some expressions may have developed contextual interpretations which would never become conventionalised senses. The analysis of the 62 possible loan formations shows that the glossators/translators tended to form correspondences between entire Old English and Latin word families, so that Old English formations with the same roots or bases tended to develop new senses relating to the same concepts. Some Old English loan formations seem to have been created to fill the gaps when Old English did not have appropriate matches for some Latin formations from the corresponding word families. The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the aim of this thesis and provides an overview of the theoretical and sociocultural backgrounds concerning the investigated linguistic phenomena. Chapter 2 includes a review of previous scholarship, a proposal of a new descriptive model for the investigated semantic extensions, an introduction of the Old English texts used in this study, and the general research methodology. The new semantic extensions and the new formations attested in the chosen Old English texts are analysed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, respectively. Chapter 5 concludes the thesis.
Degree
thesis:*- Name dc:type.qualificationname
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Level dc:type.qualificationlevel
- Doctoral
- Grantor dc:publisher.institution
- University of Cambridge
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2024
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Lu, Xinmeng
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Dance, Richard
Subjects
dc:subject × 5Rights
dc:rightsIdentifiers
dc:identifier.*- DOI dc:identifier.doi
- https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.119009
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/385392