Anna Wojtyś | University of Warsaw (original) (raw)
Papers by Anna Wojtyś
Studies in Middle English Forms and Meanings, 2007, ISBN 978-3-631-55951-2, págs. 269-287, 2007
Although interlinear glosses theoretically involve providing the most exact native equivalent for... more Although interlinear glosses theoretically involve providing the most exact native equivalent for each foreign item in the text (cf., e.g. Nida 2004: 161), they often prove to be much more than a mechanical process of creating lexical correspondences. One of the best examples of glossing which is a “conscious, occasionally very careful “interpretative translation”” (Nagucka 1997: 180), is the collection of 10 th century glosses added by Aldred to the Latin text of the Lindisfarne Gospels . This oldest existing translation of the Gospels into English consists not only of a word‑for‑word renderings, since Aldred also used multiple glosses, marginal notes, and occasionally left the words unglossed. Thus, particular Latin words are often translated in several different ways. The present study focuses on words denoting objects and phenomena which were presumably unfamiliar or obscure to the Anglo‑Saxon audience. Those include items specific to the society, culture, as well as fauna and f...
... Cuesta, Julia Fernandez, Nieves Rodríguez Ledesma, Inmaculada Senra Silva 2008: Towards a his... more ... Cuesta, Julia Fernandez, Nieves Rodríguez Ledesma, Inmaculada Senra Silva 2008: Towards a history of Northern English: Early and Late Northumbrian. ... A Book of Abstracts 36 Selected references Blake, Norman (ed.) 1992: The Cambridge History of the English Language. ...
The present paper discusses the distribution of the two most common Mediaeval English euphemisms ... more The present paper discusses the distribution of the two most common Mediaeval English euphemisms of Satan, i.e. fiend and enemy, in religious prose. We focus on the rivalry between the foreign word and the native word, comparing the contexts in which the two words tended to occur, and attempting to determine the semantic status of the French word enemy in relation to the sense originally denoted by fiend. The data come from the Middle English period, when French loanwords began to compete semantically with native words.
The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for s... more The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for studies aimed at identifying reasons for the demise of words. The data selected is a set of six non-surviving English preterite-present verbs. The analysis of the material shows that mediaeval manuscripts often exhibit orthographic and morphological variation as well as differ in lexemes. Such differences prove to be useful for the search of factors leading to the elimination of the verbs in question.
English Language and Linguistics, 2021
The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t,... more The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t, d. Some of these words have functioned as variants of forms without such stops (cf. OE endleofan ~ enlefan or gandra ~ ganra) but in most cases they prevail in Present-day English, as exemplified by OE nimol > ModE nimble, OE æmtig > ModE empty. The present study examines the process of labial stop epenthesis from the perspective of diachrony and diatopy. I searched for the words containing emergent labial stops in the texts collected in historical English corpora to identify their uses with and without parasitic consonants. This made it possible to establish a precise chronology of the process, which was at work from Old to Modern English, and the context in which such stops appeared.
Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature, 2013
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2014
The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents... more The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents used in the tenth century gloss translation to the Lindisfarne Gospels. The analysis involves the identification of all English correspondents of the Latin item with the aim of establishing the hierarchy of their frequency and the comparison of contexts in which those Old English items are employed to identify potential differences in their use. A more general purpose of the study is to discuss the methods of translation used in the glosses.
The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachm... more The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachment of the dental or nasal suffix, the past participles quite regularly attached the prefix ge-. Thus, Old English past participles of weak verbs were marked with two affixes, while those of strong verbs displayed an additional marker in the form of the vowel altemation (ablaut). The subsequent changes in the language resulted in the elimination ofprefixal marking, leaving a suffix and occasional ablaut as markers of the form in the Present-Day English. The loss of the prefix geis usually assigned to various periods of Middle English ( e.g., Skeat 1912: 21; Mossé 1952: 80; Mincoff 1972: 284, Pyles—Algeo 1993: 161; and others) although some hypotheses suggest that the process was initiated earlier. While some scholars merely point out that already in Old English the attachment of the prefix was not regular (cf. Limar 1963: 170 and Reszkiewicz 1998: 42), Lass (1992: 147) claims that ge“beg...
Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny, 2019
The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for s... more The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for studies aimed at identifying reasons for the demise of words. The data selected is a set of six non-surviving English preterite-present verbs. The analysis of the material shows that mediaeval manuscripts often exhibit orthographic and morphological variation as well as differ in lexemes. Such differences prove to be useful for the search of factors leading to the elimination of the verbs in question.
Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies, 2016
The present study aims at discussing the use of the Old English ÆFTER in the glosses to the Lindi... more The present study aims at discussing the use of the Old English ÆFTER in the glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels, in order to establish patterns of equivalence between the OE gloss and an array of Latin source terms it renders. We are particularly interested in examining the consistency of such glossing, which would allow us to demonstrate the basic and peripheral senses of ÆFTER as well as its synonyms used in the collection. In an attempt to provide ground for a wider discussion of possible patterns in Old English gloss translation, the study compares the Aldredian employment of æfter and its forms with their use in the Rushworth Gospels, reportedly based on the Lindisfarne collection. The data for the present study come from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (henceforth DOEC), analyzed with AntConc, a corpus analysis toolkit developed by Laurence Anthony. The findings are further supplemented with a close analysis of the editions by Skeat (1970), as well as the digitalized manu...
The examination of Old and Middle English religious lexis has attracted attention of many scholar... more The examination of Old and Middle English religious lexis has attracted attention of many scholars. However, there are hardly any studies that would offer a comprehensive diachronic analysis of the terms denoting ‘Satan/(the)Devil’. The authors of the present study aim to fill this gap by conducting a systematic analysis of early English lexical field of ‘(the) evil spirit’, beginning with the analysis of Old English items that could potentially refer to ‘Satan/(the)Devil’ This paper discusses wiþer-nouns in Old English with the aim to verify which of them were applied with reference to ‘(the) evil spirit’. Thus, the texts compiled in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus have been searched for all the above-listed items. The identification of their uses has allowed us not only to determine the frequency of the words in question but also to specify whether the sense of ‘(the) evil spirit’ was core or peripheral for each lexeme.
The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachm... more The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachment of the dental or nasal suffix, the past participles quite regularly attached the prefix ge-. Thus, Old English past participles of weak verbs were marked with two affixes, while those of strong verbs displayed an additional marker in the form of the vowel altemation (ablaut). The subsequent changes in the language resulted in the elimination of prefixal marking, leaving a suffix and occasional ablaut as markers of the form in the Present-Day English.
English Language and Linguistics, 2021
The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t,... more The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t, d. Some of these words have functioned as variants of forms without such stops (cf. OE endleofan enlefan or gandra ganra) but in most cases they prevail in Present-day English, as exemplified by OE nimol > ModE nimble, OE aemtig > ModE empty. The present study examines the process of labial stop epenthesis from the perspective of diachrony and diatopy. I searched for the words containing emergent labial stops in the texts collected in historical English corpora to identify their uses with and without parasitic consonants. This made it possible to establish a precise chronology of the process, which was at work from Old to Modern English, and the context in which such stops appeared.
The present paper focuses on one of the non-surviving preterite-present verbs, *dugan/deah 'avail... more The present paper focuses on one of the non-surviving preterite-present verbs, *dugan/deah 'avail, be of use'. Although the verb exhibited a low frequency, it continued in use throughout Old and Middle English and died out only by the end of the latter period. The exception is some northem dialects and Scottish English, where it still functions as dow 'to be able, to be willing'. The paper attempts to account for the disappearance of *dugan from English taking under consideration both language intemal and external factors. The analysis covers the usage of the verb in question in Old and Middle English as well as its main and peripheral meanings. The comparison of the distribution and sense of *dugan in the two periods shows the plausible causes of its demise, which include semantic bleaching, loss of impersonal constructions from English, and the presence of the closest synonyms of *dugan.
The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents... more The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents used in the tenth century gloss translation to the Lindisfarne Gospels. The analysis involves the identification of all English correspondents of the Latin item with the aim of establishing the hierarchy of their frequency and the comparison of contexts in which
those Old English items are employed to identify potential differences in their use. A more general purpose of the study is to discuss the methods of translation used in the glosses.
The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachm... more The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachment of the dental or nasal suffix, the past participles quite regularly attached the prefix ge-. Thus, Old English past participles of weak verbs were marked with two affixes, while those of strong verbs displayed an additional marker in the form of the vowel altemation (ablaut). The subsequent changes in the language resulted in the elimination of prefixal marking, leaving a suffix and occasional ablaut as markers of the form in the Present-Day English.
Studies in Middle English Forms and Meanings, 2007, ISBN 978-3-631-55951-2, págs. 269-287, 2007
Although interlinear glosses theoretically involve providing the most exact native equivalent for... more Although interlinear glosses theoretically involve providing the most exact native equivalent for each foreign item in the text (cf., e.g. Nida 2004: 161), they often prove to be much more than a mechanical process of creating lexical correspondences. One of the best examples of glossing which is a “conscious, occasionally very careful “interpretative translation”” (Nagucka 1997: 180), is the collection of 10 th century glosses added by Aldred to the Latin text of the Lindisfarne Gospels . This oldest existing translation of the Gospels into English consists not only of a word‑for‑word renderings, since Aldred also used multiple glosses, marginal notes, and occasionally left the words unglossed. Thus, particular Latin words are often translated in several different ways. The present study focuses on words denoting objects and phenomena which were presumably unfamiliar or obscure to the Anglo‑Saxon audience. Those include items specific to the society, culture, as well as fauna and f...
... Cuesta, Julia Fernandez, Nieves Rodríguez Ledesma, Inmaculada Senra Silva 2008: Towards a his... more ... Cuesta, Julia Fernandez, Nieves Rodríguez Ledesma, Inmaculada Senra Silva 2008: Towards a history of Northern English: Early and Late Northumbrian. ... A Book of Abstracts 36 Selected references Blake, Norman (ed.) 1992: The Cambridge History of the English Language. ...
The present paper discusses the distribution of the two most common Mediaeval English euphemisms ... more The present paper discusses the distribution of the two most common Mediaeval English euphemisms of Satan, i.e. fiend and enemy, in religious prose. We focus on the rivalry between the foreign word and the native word, comparing the contexts in which the two words tended to occur, and attempting to determine the semantic status of the French word enemy in relation to the sense originally denoted by fiend. The data come from the Middle English period, when French loanwords began to compete semantically with native words.
The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for s... more The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for studies aimed at identifying reasons for the demise of words. The data selected is a set of six non-surviving English preterite-present verbs. The analysis of the material shows that mediaeval manuscripts often exhibit orthographic and morphological variation as well as differ in lexemes. Such differences prove to be useful for the search of factors leading to the elimination of the verbs in question.
English Language and Linguistics, 2021
The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t,... more The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t, d. Some of these words have functioned as variants of forms without such stops (cf. OE endleofan ~ enlefan or gandra ~ ganra) but in most cases they prevail in Present-day English, as exemplified by OE nimol > ModE nimble, OE æmtig > ModE empty. The present study examines the process of labial stop epenthesis from the perspective of diachrony and diatopy. I searched for the words containing emergent labial stops in the texts collected in historical English corpora to identify their uses with and without parasitic consonants. This made it possible to establish a precise chronology of the process, which was at work from Old to Modern English, and the context in which such stops appeared.
Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature, 2013
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2014
The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents... more The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents used in the tenth century gloss translation to the Lindisfarne Gospels. The analysis involves the identification of all English correspondents of the Latin item with the aim of establishing the hierarchy of their frequency and the comparison of contexts in which those Old English items are employed to identify potential differences in their use. A more general purpose of the study is to discuss the methods of translation used in the glosses.
The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachm... more The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachment of the dental or nasal suffix, the past participles quite regularly attached the prefix ge-. Thus, Old English past participles of weak verbs were marked with two affixes, while those of strong verbs displayed an additional marker in the form of the vowel altemation (ablaut). The subsequent changes in the language resulted in the elimination ofprefixal marking, leaving a suffix and occasional ablaut as markers of the form in the Present-Day English. The loss of the prefix geis usually assigned to various periods of Middle English ( e.g., Skeat 1912: 21; Mossé 1952: 80; Mincoff 1972: 284, Pyles—Algeo 1993: 161; and others) although some hypotheses suggest that the process was initiated earlier. While some scholars merely point out that already in Old English the attachment of the prefix was not regular (cf. Limar 1963: 170 and Reszkiewicz 1998: 42), Lass (1992: 147) claims that ge“beg...
Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny, 2019
The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for s... more The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for studies aimed at identifying reasons for the demise of words. The data selected is a set of six non-surviving English preterite-present verbs. The analysis of the material shows that mediaeval manuscripts often exhibit orthographic and morphological variation as well as differ in lexemes. Such differences prove to be useful for the search of factors leading to the elimination of the verbs in question.
Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies, 2016
The present study aims at discussing the use of the Old English ÆFTER in the glosses to the Lindi... more The present study aims at discussing the use of the Old English ÆFTER in the glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels, in order to establish patterns of equivalence between the OE gloss and an array of Latin source terms it renders. We are particularly interested in examining the consistency of such glossing, which would allow us to demonstrate the basic and peripheral senses of ÆFTER as well as its synonyms used in the collection. In an attempt to provide ground for a wider discussion of possible patterns in Old English gloss translation, the study compares the Aldredian employment of æfter and its forms with their use in the Rushworth Gospels, reportedly based on the Lindisfarne collection. The data for the present study come from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (henceforth DOEC), analyzed with AntConc, a corpus analysis toolkit developed by Laurence Anthony. The findings are further supplemented with a close analysis of the editions by Skeat (1970), as well as the digitalized manu...
The examination of Old and Middle English religious lexis has attracted attention of many scholar... more The examination of Old and Middle English religious lexis has attracted attention of many scholars. However, there are hardly any studies that would offer a comprehensive diachronic analysis of the terms denoting ‘Satan/(the)Devil’. The authors of the present study aim to fill this gap by conducting a systematic analysis of early English lexical field of ‘(the) evil spirit’, beginning with the analysis of Old English items that could potentially refer to ‘Satan/(the)Devil’ This paper discusses wiþer-nouns in Old English with the aim to verify which of them were applied with reference to ‘(the) evil spirit’. Thus, the texts compiled in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus have been searched for all the above-listed items. The identification of their uses has allowed us not only to determine the frequency of the words in question but also to specify whether the sense of ‘(the) evil spirit’ was core or peripheral for each lexeme.
The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachm... more The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachment of the dental or nasal suffix, the past participles quite regularly attached the prefix ge-. Thus, Old English past participles of weak verbs were marked with two affixes, while those of strong verbs displayed an additional marker in the form of the vowel altemation (ablaut). The subsequent changes in the language resulted in the elimination of prefixal marking, leaving a suffix and occasional ablaut as markers of the form in the Present-Day English.
English Language and Linguistics, 2021
The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t,... more The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t, d. Some of these words have functioned as variants of forms without such stops (cf. OE endleofan enlefan or gandra ganra) but in most cases they prevail in Present-day English, as exemplified by OE nimol > ModE nimble, OE aemtig > ModE empty. The present study examines the process of labial stop epenthesis from the perspective of diachrony and diatopy. I searched for the words containing emergent labial stops in the texts collected in historical English corpora to identify their uses with and without parasitic consonants. This made it possible to establish a precise chronology of the process, which was at work from Old to Modern English, and the context in which such stops appeared.
The present paper focuses on one of the non-surviving preterite-present verbs, *dugan/deah 'avail... more The present paper focuses on one of the non-surviving preterite-present verbs, *dugan/deah 'avail, be of use'. Although the verb exhibited a low frequency, it continued in use throughout Old and Middle English and died out only by the end of the latter period. The exception is some northem dialects and Scottish English, where it still functions as dow 'to be able, to be willing'. The paper attempts to account for the disappearance of *dugan from English taking under consideration both language intemal and external factors. The analysis covers the usage of the verb in question in Old and Middle English as well as its main and peripheral meanings. The comparison of the distribution and sense of *dugan in the two periods shows the plausible causes of its demise, which include semantic bleaching, loss of impersonal constructions from English, and the presence of the closest synonyms of *dugan.
The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents... more The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents used in the tenth century gloss translation to the Lindisfarne Gospels. The analysis involves the identification of all English correspondents of the Latin item with the aim of establishing the hierarchy of their frequency and the comparison of contexts in which
those Old English items are employed to identify potential differences in their use. A more general purpose of the study is to discuss the methods of translation used in the glosses.
The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachm... more The Old English past participle form exhibited a redundant marking because apart from the attachment of the dental or nasal suffix, the past participles quite regularly attached the prefix ge-. Thus, Old English past participles of weak verbs were marked with two affixes, while those of strong verbs displayed an additional marker in the form of the vowel altemation (ablaut). The subsequent changes in the language resulted in the elimination of prefixal marking, leaving a suffix and occasional ablaut as markers of the form in the Present-Day English.