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Morphological Causatives in Old English: the Quest for a Vanishing Formation 1
Author(s) -
García García Luisa
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.2012.01287.x
Subject(s) - linguistics , suffix , old english , causative , verb , germanic languages , history , middle english , historical linguistics , fell , philosophy , geography , cartography , german
A few present‐day English verb pairs, such as lie/lay or fall/fell, are remnants of a Germanic word‐formation type which was productive in the derivation of causative from primary verbs by means of the suffix * ‐(i)ja‐ . In Old English texts a substantial number of these verb pairs are attested, although often diachronic change has rendered them difficult to recognise. The aims of this paper are to make a new assessment of deverbal jan‐ pairs in Old English with the help of an updated theoretical approach and newly available sources; to establish the semantic and syntactic relationship between the members of each pair; to reveal some tendencies in the evolution of these verbs from Germanic to Old English; and to connect these to wider issues of morpho‐syntactic change in English. The paper attempts a rigorous philological description sustained by relevant contemporary typological and linguistic findings.