Along with everyday and familiar vocabulary, there is a passive vocabulary, which includes archaisms, historicism and neologisms.
Archaism is an obsolete word that has been replaced by a synonym in modern speech.
The archaisms include words and expressions that are outdated and are not used in modern speech because they have corresponding synonyms or, on the other hand, archaisms include words that have no synonyms because the concepts expressed by these words have ceased to play any role in the modern life of society.
In English lexicology, archaisms, which are the words that have finally emerged from a language that are marked «old» are denoted by the term «obsolete words». Their meanings are understandable, but they are almost never used. It is unlikely that today we will hear the following words: ere, hither, thither.
The reason for the appearance of archaisms is in the development of the language and in the updating of its dictionary.
The research work presents usage of archaisms in the English speech and literature. We have analysed the usage of archaisms in the work of one of the most popular authors of the XIV century.
The purposeis to study the different types of archaisms, and to reveal the percent of words which underwent changes in its composition after the passage of seven centuries in «The Canterbury Tales».
Archaisms are divided into the following types: linguistic, lexico-semantic, grammatical, morphological, poetic and lexical.
The term «Linguistic archaism» means that the subject still exists, but it is already called by another word: valley, unlucky, by chance. The long-term meanings of words have disappeared from the lexico-semantic and new ones came in exchange. F/E fairbeautiful fairblack maidgirl. They are hard to hear. According to Irina Vladimirovna Arnold, a linguist, grammatical archaisms are the forms of words that are not currently used because of changes in the grammatical structure of the language. In modern English, grammatical archaisms are, for example, the words with the suffix -en moved to -es, horse — horses, however, you can still find the previous form in the words children and oxen. Morphological archaisms are outdated forms of the word, such as:
* singular third person verbs ending in “th” (doth, hath, heareth, etc.)
* abbreviated forms (tis, twas, twill, etc.).
Archaisms used to make a speech of high solemnity, pathetic tone are considered as poetic. Here are some examples: billow, hallowed, fare, aught.
Let us consider in more detail the group of lexical archaisms.
This is a category of outdated vocabulary, resulting from the separation of the dictionary. Lexical archaisms belong to the book vocabulary, in modern language they are interrelated with synonyms.
Lexical archaisms are also divided into various subgroups: lexico-phonetic and word-building.
Word-building archaisms include obsolete words which are occupied the wordsthat are synonymous with the same root, but differ from them by affix, affixes, or by the absence of them. Lexico-phonetic archaisms are archaisms that differ from modern variants of English words only by the presence of additional sounds.
Archaisms and historicisms are often used in works of art, when you need to create a certain color in the image of antiquity. In the texts of historical novels, short stories in order to recreate the historical color of the era. Also, it is necessary to mention the style of business documents. The function of archaisms in this style of speech could be conventionally called a terminological function. Many English laws have not changed in the last 600 years. Naturally, therefore, in the language of English law there is a large number of archaisms. The language of various legal documents, business letters, contracts, agreements, etc., trying to get as close as possible to the language of laws, is replete with archaisms. Archaisms are also used to convey the comic tone of speech, can also perform a satirical function and display the peculiarities of foreign speech.
Being interested in the question of the distribution of words which underwent changes in its composition in the work of English literature of the 14th century, I decided to study the percentage of such words. For the subjects of the study I took the words that have undergone phonetic change which are yellow in the text, changes in their morphemic composition which are green in the text and those that have undergone both phon etic and word-building changes in their composition which are blue. For example, the chapters by Geoffrey Chauser from «The Canterbury Tales» were taken. I have analized 97 lines, chapters from 11 to 14.
bathe- word-building archaisms.
ther — lexico-phonetic archaisms.
compaigne — archaisms that have undergone a double change in their composition.
Chapter 14
445: A good wif was ther of biside bathe,
446: But she was somdel deef, and that was scathe.
447: Of clooth-makyng she hadde swich an haunt,
448: She passed hem of ypres and of gaunt.
449: In al the parisshewif ne was thernoon
450: That to the offrynge biforehiresholde goon;
451: And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she,
452: That she was out of alle charitee.
453: Hir coverchiefs ful fyne weren of ground;
454: I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound
455: That on a sonday weren upon hir heed.
456: Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,
457: Ful streite yteyd, and shoes ful moyste and newe.
458: Boold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe.
459: She was a worthy womman al hir lyve:
460: Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve,
461: Withouten oothercompaignye in youthe, --
462: But therof nedeth nat to speke as nowthe.
463: And thries hadde she been at jerusalem;
464: She hadde passed many a straunge strem;
465: At rome she hadde been, and at boloigne,
466: In galice at seint-jame, and at coloigne.
467: She koude muchel of wandrynge by the weye.
468: Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.
469: Upon an amblere esily she sat,
470: Ywympled wel, and on hir heed an hat
471: As brood as is a bokeler or a targe;
472: A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large,
After analyzing the distribution of various types of lexical archaisms, we obtained the following results:
Percentage chart of types of lexical archaisms:
Comparing the results, we may conclude that in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer «The Canterbury Tales», lexico-phonetic archaisms take the leading place in terms of use, then word-building, and the least common group of lexical archaisms are obsolete words that have undergone a double change in their composition. So, we can see that a significant part of the vocabulary which Chaucer’s stories are composed is, at this point in time, archaic for us. However there are a lot of words which did not change and are used in modern speech during the XXI century. Middle English in its sound and writing is close to modern English, so the lexical units are related to lexico-phonetic and word-building archaisms. Although some words have undergone multiple changes, however, these changes do not prevent the modern person from understanding their meanings.
Here are some examples of words which were used by Geoffrey Chaucer in «The Canterbury Tales» in chapters from 11 to 14 but they are obsolete right now.
Table 1
|
An archaism |
A modern word |
Translation |
|
Hadde |
Had |
Имел |
|
Hem |
Them |
Их |
|
Koude |
Could |
Мог |
|
Londoun |
London |
Лондон |
|
Alle |
All |
Все |
|
Olde |
Old |
Старый |
|
Boold |
Bold |
Лысый |
|
Sonday |
Sunday |
Воскресенье |
|
Newe |
New |
Новый |
|
Hir |
Her |
Ее |
|
Compaignye |
Company |
Компания |
Having done the research, we discovered that the most frequently encountered group of archaisms are phonetic archaisms. Geoffrey Chaucer’s work «The Canterbury Tales» contains 59 % of the phonetic archaisms of all that we have reviewed. 35 % is a group of word-building archaisms, and 6 % are archaisms, which have undergone a double change in their composition.
Despite the fact that the work contains a huge number of obsolete words, it is not so difficult to read. This is due to the fact that many words have historically similar roots, so we can freely translate the Old English work in modern English.
References:
- English-Russian dictionary, 2000/ V.K.Muller - M., Diamant, Zolotoi Vek.
- Бабич, Г. Н. LEXICOLOGY: A CURRENT GUIDE.2017/ Г. Н. Бабич - М.: ФЛИНТА: Наука. – URL:https://rucont.ru/efd/244047 (дата обращения 23.02.2019)
- URL: http://yakov.works/libr_min/24_ch/os/er_01.htm ( дата обращения 20.02.2019)
- URL: http://allrefs.net/c57/3qv72/p4/ ( дата обращения 21.02.2019)
- URL: http://textarchive.ru/c-2756206-p5.html ( дата обращения 20.02.2019)
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaism ( дата обращения 22.02.2019)
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales ( дата обращения 22.02.2019)
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer ( дата обращения 22.02.2019)
