SIL Electronic Book Reviews 2005-011
URL: http://www.sil.org/silebr/2005/silebr2005-011
English Words: History and Structure
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. 208. hardback $58.00, paper $20.00.
Reviewed by John Roberts
SIL International
English Words teaches the basic principles of morphology and word structure within the framework of the history of the English language. The textbook discusses the origins and history of the learned (learnèd) vocabulary of English, the words borrowed from the classical languages such as Latin, and from Norse and French. The three invasions and conquests of the British Isles over a period of about 1,100 years (55 B.C.–1066 A.D.) by the Romans, Vikings, and Normans, respectively, that had a significant impact upon the native populations of the time are reflected in these sets of borrowings. The phonological and morphological changes accompanying word formation are described and analysed against the historical events that define the layers of vocabulary in Old English (c. 450–1066), Middle English (1066–1476), Early Modern English (1476–1776), and Modern English (1776–present). As well as being introduced to how the English language in its present form came to be, the student is introduced to the basic principles of linguistic analysis and how to apply such principles to English word-formation. Exercises are provided for each chapter but these are only accessible on-line at http://uk.cambridge.org/linguistics/resources/englishwords. Unfortunately, no answers to the exercises are provided for the student to check if s/he has learned what s/he is supposed to learn. The textbook also has two appendices: one presents a review of the main unabridged and desktop English dictionaries available in the US and the UK and one provides a list of all the morphemes cited in the root exercises in the on-line Workbook, plus the affixes cited in chapter 5 of the textbook.
Ch. 1 describes the various mechanisms by which new words are generated in a language such as English apart from borrowing. Ten main sources of words in English are described. The first source, inheritance, does not involve the creation of new words and relates primarily to the core vocabulary that has been part of the language for millennia and most of which is shared by closely related languages like Dutch. The sources of created words are by creative imagination (neologisms), by blending, by joining initial letters of a phrase (acronyms), by shortening, by derivation, by conversion, by compounding, by using names as ordinary words (eponyms), and by some rare echoic processes (onomatopoeia and reduplication).
Ch. 2 describes the family history of English, that it belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages, and the historical influences that changed Old English into Middle English. Old English had many words that could be traced back to the Indo-European parent language and later borrowed terms from Celtic, Latin and Old Norse. The Norman Conquest (1066) had an enormous effect on the vocabulary of English. It is estimated that over 10,000 French borrowings came into the language as a consequence of the Norman Conquest, and this produced the hybrid Anglo-French language that became known as Middle English.
Ch. 3 describes the social and cultural developments that influenced the shift from Middle English to Early Modern English. Two of the most influential events that effected this change were the introduction of the printing press by Sir William Caxton in 1476 and the discovery (by Europeans!) of the New World in 1492. The availability of books and literacy meant a wider exposure of speakers to new texts and new words. Also with more people able to read, the smoother the channels were for the adoption of new words. The exploration of the New World and the Renaissance in Europe meant that English speakers were exposed to cultures and vocabulary from outside of England. During this time words were readily borrowed from Italian, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese. The end-point of Early Modern English coincides with two important events which occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century. The first was the appearance of the first really influential dictionary of English, the Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson in 1755, and the second was the American Revolution in 1776.
The remainder of the textbook teaches the principles of morphological analysis required to analyse the forms of English and the concepts of lexical semantics required to analyse the semantics of English vocabulary. Ch. 4 introduces the concept of morpheme and the notions of root and affix; Ch. 5 deals with allomorphy and the phonetic sounds of English; Ch. 6 deals with morphophonological processes such as assimilation, lenition, palatalization and affrication; Ch. 7 deals with deletion rules and other kinds of allomorphy, and Ch. 8 deals with fossilized allomorphy. Ch. 9 looks at how words change their meaning over time. It deals with homonymy and polysemy and introduces the lexical functional notions of antonymy, heteronymy, metonymy, synonymy, and hyponymy. Ch. 10 deals with the pronunciation of classical words in English with a particular focus on stress rules.
Appendix I discusses the origin of dictionaries and compares the main American and British English dictionaries particularly focussing on etymology. The textbook points out that dictionaries are a relatively recent invention. While the Ancient Greeks invented the first widely used alphabetic writing system, grammars, geometry, and the Olympic Games, they did not invent dictionaries. Dictionaries are, curiously, a by-product of ignorance. Their invention was left to the monks of the Middle Ages writing in scriptoria (places where books were copied by hand) who often did not know Latin very well. Most of the texts they were copying were written in Latin; but the monks could not read it easily, and they jogged their memories by writing in English “glosses” between the lines. Other monks later made lists of the glosses, and these were the earliest Latin-to-English “dictionaries.” The first moderately complete English dictionary was published by Samuel Johnson in 1755. Modern lexicography is therefore only 250 years old. The British and American dictionaries compared are the Oxford English Dictionary, The Chambers Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. Appendix II gives a list of over 400 of the most common roots and affixes in Modern English with their meanings, sources and examples of occurrence.
I found this textbook gave interesting insights into how the English language came to be. It is also a useful resource for finding out the original meanings of many of the common English words in current usage. Most English speakers are unaware that they speak a language whose origins can be traced back at least 7,000 years and whose present form has been shaped by momentous historical events. This book helps to pull back that veil of ignorance.