The Verb Forms of the South English Legendary [Reprint 2020 ed.] 311230165X, 9783112301654, 9783112312797

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgment
Table Of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Phonology
3. The Verbs Of The Ablaut Classes
4. The Weak Verbs
5. The Verbs Of Minor Groups
6. Conclusions
Bibliography

Citation preview

T H E VERB F O R M S OF T H E SOUTH

ENGLISH

LEGENDARY

JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE N I C O L A I VAN WIJK D E D I C A T A edenda curai

C O R N E L I S H. VAN S C H O O N E Y E L D STANFORD UNIVERSITY

SERIES

PRACTICA XV

1964 M O U T O N & CO. LONDON • T H E H A G U E • PARIS

THE VERB FORMS OF THE SOUTH ENGLISH LEGENDARY by

E I C H I KOBAYASHI INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN

UNIVERSITY

Ü 1964 MOUTON & CO. LONDON •

THE HAGUE

• PARIS

© Copyright 1964 Mouton & Co., Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

PREFACE

Dr. Eichi Kobayashi's monograph on the morphology of the verb in the South English Legendary (MS. Harley 2277, British Museum) is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Middle English Grammar. This rather uniform Southwest Midland text of ca. 1300, running to approximately 4000 lines, yields rather full evidence for nearly all of the more common verbs current in this dialect of Middle English. In order to be in a position to separate instances of analogical remodeling within the paradigm of each verb and to deal with cross influences between the different classes of ablaut verbs, the author very wisely first establishes the system of vowel phonemes and its history on the basis of etymologically clear nouns and adjectives. This enables him to deal safely with the vocalism of the verb forms by distinguishing the normal phonemic reflexes from analogical deviations from the phonemic norm. Every single verb form occurring in the 4000 lines is carefully inspected and dealt with. Scholarly opinion is regularly considered and critically evaluated. Before a comprehensive treatment of the forms of Middle English verbs in the several regional dialects can be undertaken and the lines of development adequately traced, we shall need a whole series of investigations of this type. The author is to be congratulated on making such an excellent contribution to this rather neglected field. University of Michigan August 12, 1963

H A N S KURATH

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I am especially grateful to Professors Hans Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn without whose devoted help and encouragement it would not have been possible to complete this work. I am also deeply indebted to Professor John Reidy for his kind advice and pertinent comments. This monograph is a somewhat revised version of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of English of the University of Michigan in 1961. Division of Languages, International Christian University, Tokyo September 29, 1963

EICHI KOBAYASHI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

by Hans Kurath

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

7

1. INTRODUCTION

11

1.1. The Purpose of the Study 1.2. The Source Material 1.3. The Method of Study and Presentation 2 . PHONOLOGY

3 . THE VERBS OF THE ABLAUT CLASSES

Verbs Verbs Verbs Verbs Verbs Verbs Verbs

of of of of of of of

11 11 11 13

2.1. A Phonemic System for the Dialect of British Museum MS. Harley 2277 2.2. Phonemic Symbols 2.3. The Vowel Phonemes 2.4. The Consonant Phonemes 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7.

5

the the the the the the the

First Ablaut Class Second Ablaut Class Third Ablaut Class Fourth Ablaut Class Fifth Ablaut Class Sixth Ablaut Class Seventh Ablaut Class

4 . THE WEAK VERBS

4.0. Introductory Remarks 4.1. The First Group 4.2. The Second Group 5. THE VERBS OF MINOR GROUPS

5.1. Preteritive-Present Verbs 5.2. Anomalous Verbs 5.3. Verb forms with -inge

13 13 13 17 20

20 22 24 32 34 40 45 53

53 53 63 74

74 77 81

6 . CONCLUSIONS

82

BIBLIOGRAPHY

86

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

1.1. THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

A comprehensive study of verb forms in Middle English will not be possible until all of the regional dialects have been investigated in detail. As to the development of ablaut in the strong verbs, some work has been done. Karl D. Bulbring, for example, examined Southern English represented in a fair number of texts which were available to him at the time of his investigation.1 It is the purpose of this investigation to discover and present the development of all verb forms in those portions of the manuscript which have not been edited until recently.

1.2. THE SOURCE MATERIAL

The source material for this study is British Museum MS. Harley 2277, which occupies roughly 135 pages, approximately 30 lines to a page, in the recent edition of the South English Legendary . 2 The importance of Harley 22773 as the earliest orderly text of the South English Legendary has long been recognized. "About 1300" is the date generally accepted for the MS., which is now localized; Serjeantson's study of West-Midland dialects assigns it to "somewhere just over the Gloucestershire border between Chipping Sodbury and the Bristol Avon". 4 It is written by an author or authors who were familiar with Southwestern dialects.

1.3. THE METHOD OF STUDY A N D PRESENTATION

This study has been done according to the following procedures: (a) To set up a phonemic system for the dialect in which the SEL was written. 1 Karl D. Bülbring, Geschichte des Ablauts der starken Zeitwörter innerhalb des Südenglischen (Strassburg, 1889). 2 C. D'Evelyn and A. J. Mill, eds., The South English Legendary, E.E.T.S. 236 (Oxford, 1956), pp. 456-581. 3 Hereafter abbreviated as "the SEL". 4 Mary S. Serjeantson, "The Dialects of the West Midlands in Middle English", R.E.S., III (1927), 322.

12

INTRODUCTION

This part has been based mainly upon nouns and adjectives occurring in the MS. Its purpose was to find out the correlation between phonemes and their orthographic representation. All sources for individual vowel phonemes were listed. (b) To collect all verb forms occurring in the MS. They were divided into three conventional groups; the strong verbs, the weak verbs, and the verbs of minor groups. (c) First, paradigms of the strong verbs of seven classes were separately made in such a way that any divergences from the normal development of ablaut patterns are made apparent; secondly, the development of the divergent forms was separately traced. (d) The weak verbs and verbs of minor groups were dealt with in the same fashion.

2. P H O N O L O G Y

2.1. A PHONEMIC SYSTEM FOR THE DIALECT OF BRITISH MUSEUM MS.HARLEY 2277

In general the ME phonemes are derived from OE phonemes by normal phonetic development or from OF and ON phonemes by their normal adaptation to the phonemic system of ME. British Museum MS. Harley 2277 was written in the Southwestern dialect of about A.D. 1300, which has 8 short vowels, 9 long vowels, 5 diphthongs, and 19 consonants. The present chapter lists those phonemes and their sources. Since the purpose of this dissertation is to discover and present the development of verb forms, the sources of the vowel phonemes were provided with non-verb forms collected in the SEL in the hope that they might throw light upon the explanation of the development of verb forms.

2.2. PHONEMIC SYMBOLS

The system of phonemic symbols used in the present study is generally that employed in the Middle English Dictionary.1

2.3. THE VOWEL PHONEMES

2.3.1. Short vowels /i e

ii o

u a o aI

2.3.2. The Source of the short vowels /i/ spelled i, y 1

Hans Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., Middle English Dictionary (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1954-); hereafter abbreviated as "MED".

14

PHONOLOGY

OEi:

OE i: OF i: ONi:

lym (481.133),2 widue (492.6), stille (513.46), inne (518.95), blis (518.108), disciple (519.139), schip (520.171), quic (520.172), wille (531.477), drinke(sb.) (531.476), wicche (542.284) vyftene (483.13), wysdom (542.284) princes (pi.) (512.7), miracle (531.483) drift (547.143) /e/ spelled e

OE e:

bedde (496.105), wem (514.96), wrench (517.57), stren3de (529.415), temple (534.20) OE e: swettest (superl.) (545.74), grettere (compara.) (551.11) OF e: fel (517.57) • /a/ spelled a OE ae: what (468.129), Sat (528.405), after (528.406),/&i (512.8) OE a: before a single nasal consistently /a/, as in man, an (prep.) /o/ spelled o OE o: OF o:

lockes (pi.) (523.241), god (527.371), godspelles (pi.) (551.14), apostles (pi.) (522.229) cofre (531.503) /uI spelled u, o

OE u:

sum(468.128),gutt(511.591),hunte(488.144),loue(468.145),somdel(473.316), monek (479.65), wolf (514.67) /o/ spelled u, e, o, eo

OE eo: hunne (458.83), hurte (459.112), fur (479.72), dure (504.357), vrde (463.74),3 mule (542.296), heuene (464.44), sterres (pi.) (534.25), soue (481.127), soueni3t (476.368), smeort (496.111) /u/ spelled u, initially v4 OE y:

OE i: OF u:

hul(466.92), furst (458.84) murie (463.73), dulke (515.2), put (470.188), brugge (470.201), gult (477.10) rug (496.112), cunne (533.1), hurne (552.79), vuel (470.260) churche (471.227) and durne (513.61) < LWS y < EWS ie. due (531.491) also duk (531.490), hucche (533.547)

M (1) Any unstressed short vowel of OE except /i/. (2) Any OF vowel or diphthong except /i/, if it became unstressed in ME. 2 3 4

Numerals in the parentheses refer to page and line of the SEL. The initial u is spelled v, which is the spelling practice of the SEL. It is also spelled o in some verb forms. See p. 29, below.

PHONOLOGY

15

2.3.3. Long vowels /i ti ? S ?

u 9 9 à/

2.3.4. The sources of the long vowels /I/ spelled /, near minims j OE i:

OE i: OF i :

WiVJe (484.24), tyme (468.138), wyn (471.228), wyf (472.250), />j>ne (468.146), lyf (492.6), JwWe (479.67), wWe (512.3), side (512.4), pikes (pi.) (513.47), schryne (514.91), slyme (532.517) child (483.15), mylde (478.50), siker (485.66), bihynde (473.275), blynd (529.428) iustise (530.457), sacrefise (530.458), gentil (520.156) /?/ spelled e

OE e: mede (493.25), suete (478.42) OF e : feble (492.256), febliche (496.110) /§/ spelled e 1

WS àé < WGmc. a : brede (478.44) fere (484.35), sell (487.139), strete (504.370), drede (504.361) OE ae< WGmc. ai with i-umlaut 5 : hedene (483.6), er (485.81), lene (490.221), ene (490.222), clene (492.8), see (522.223) OE e: stede (486.106) OE éa: dede (478.43), sere (480.120), leue (484.51), ter (486.82), ded (493.12), schrewe (471.233), gret (511.1), heued (513.56), def (529.428) OF e: beste (486.100) /a/ spelled a WS a: name (468.129), hare (487.143), fawe (496.99), ¿«awes (pi.) (536.78) WS s : whate (523.254), fader (475.332) OE à: ham-ward (470.188), wawe (517.73) OF a : grace (485.60), cas (486.91) dame (493.21)fame (527.350), heritage (528.408), stat (533.9) /