Kinga Sądej
University of Warsaw
Email: kinga dot sadej at wp dot pl

Old English-derived words in the Middle English semantic field HILL / MOUNTAIN

The transition from Old to Middle English brought significant changes in the structure of the lexicon of English. New words were introduced, while native words, following semantic shifts, were pushed into the periphery or were totally ousted from the language. One of the striking characteristics of the period is a gradual marginalisation of native words, which could be casued by both external and internal processes affecting English of that period (cf. Prins 1941, 1942).

The present paper analyses native words belonging to the semantic field HILL / MOUNTAIN in Middle English, with special attention focused on words whose distribution is limited dialectally. Unfortunately, the available accounts of Middle English lexis seem to be devoid of the dialectal focus, which could be due to a belief that there is no direct link between semantics and Middle English dialects. The main source consulted for the present study is Wright (1898 - 1905).

Words selected for the presentation fall into two groups: (1) items denoting ‘hill, mountain’ in Old English, and (2) items which existed in Old English but developed the sense ‘hill, mountain’ only in Middle English, cf.:

bergh, cliff, cloud, doune, hill, hirste, knappe, knōll, lith, lowe;
balke, clot, clour, hēlde, hīl, knotte, link, tōte-hill, wōlde;

Apart from items listed under (1-2), a whole range of the Old English synonyms of ‘hill, mountain’, survived only as fossilized forms in English place names. The semantic field HILL / MOUNTAIN in Old English included 17 items exclusively represented in onomastic evidence, 8 items with the meaning ‘hill, mountain’, satisfactorily attested, but lost before the beginning of the Middle English period, and 10 synonyms of hill, mountain which survived beyond Old English. As shown under (1-2), the semantic field HILL / MOUNTAIN included 19 native elements, but, in fact, only ME hill, the most frequent of all words in the field, occupied an important position, while other, less frequent items, belonged to the periphery.

One of the secondary aims of the present study is to reconsider the role native words played in Middle English dialects. Characteristically enough, the distribution of certain items is dialectally restricted: thus, e.g. clot, hīl, knotte occurred only in texts from the West Midland, while hirste appeared only in the South-Western dialect.

The data for the paper come from the Oxford English Dictionary Online, the Middle English Dictionary, Literature Online (http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk), Innsbruck Computer Archive of Machine-Readable English Texts and The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English on CD-ROM.

References:

• Prins, A.A. (1941) “On the loss and substitution of words in Middle English I”, Neophilologus 26: 280 – 289.
• Prins, A.A. (1942) “On the loss and substitution of words in Middle English II”, Neophilologus 27: 49 – 59.
• Wright, J. (1898 - 1905) English Dialect Dictionary. 6 vols. Oxford: Henry Frowde.
• Chadwyck–Healey (1992) English Poetry Full-Text Database. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd.
• Markus, M. (ed.) (1999) Innsbruck Computer Archive of Machine-Readable English Texts. (CD-ROM version). University of Innsbruck.
• McSparran, F. (ed.) (1999) Middle English Dictionary (a part of the Middle English Compendium). Online, Internet: http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med, date of access: 28 January 2008.
• Rissanen, M.–O. Ihalainen (eds.) The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English (CD-ROM version). (2nd ed.). University of Helsinki.
• The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Online, Internet: http://dictionary.oed.com/about/oed-online/, date of access: August 2007 - January 2008.

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