Lexical and Grammatical Archaisms of English Language

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ФГБОУ ВПО «ЧЕЛЯБИНСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»

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“Lexical and grammatical archaisms”

Челябинск, 2013

Language is never stable. In the course of time the vocabulary changes by being supplemented with new words which come into being with the development of science and culture. A certain number of obsolete words usually drop out of the vocabulary of the language. Obsolete words pass out of use completely or remain in the language as elements performing purely historical descriptive functions. The disappearance of old occupations causes the disappearance of their old names. The names of such old occupations can be preserved as family names: Chandler (candle maker), Webster (weaver), Wright (worker). Archaic words can be preserved in proverbs: Many a little makes a mickel. The verb to read in the old meaning to interpret, to guess survived in to read a riddle. An old sense of favour (features, looks) survived in hard-favoured, ill-favoured, well-favoured. The preposition on was once common in the meaning because of. This meaning survives in on purpose, on compulsion. The preposition with originally meant against and now this meaning is preserved in withdraw, withstand. Archaic are the following adverbs: therefore, therefrom, wherein, thereon. Archaic are the participles ending in -en: drunken, gotten, washen.

Here we came to the definition of an archaism. Archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately (to achieve a specific effect) or as part of a specific jargon (for example in law) or formula (for example in religious contexts). Many nursery rhymes contain archaisms. Archaic elements that occur only in certain fixed expressions (for example 'be that as it may') are not considered to be archaisms.

Another term that can be confused with an archaism is historism. Historisms belong to obsolete words. The causes of their appearance are extralinguistic. It is the denotatum that is outdated. They are very numerous as names for social relations and institutions and objects of material culture of the past. The names of ancient weapons, types of boats, types of carriages, instruments belong to historisms: battle axe, battering ram.

Archaisms differ from historisms in this respect that they are obsolete names for existing objects. Archaisms always have synonyms: to deem - to think, glee – joy.

Archaisms can be classified into lexical and grammatical. Lexical archaisms are words: woe (sorrow), nigh (near), aught (anything). Grammatical archaisms are old grammatical forms: thou (you), the -est inflexion for the 2nd person singular, -th for the 3rd person singular, the plural form of brother (brethren), tense forms like wilt, spake, builded.

Sometimes a lexical archaism begins a new life, getting a new meaning, then the old meaning becomes a semantic archaism, e.g. “fair” in the meaning “beautiful” is a semantic archaism, but in the meaning “blond” it belongs to the neutral style. 

Sometimes the root of the word remains and the affix is changed, then the old affix is considered to be a morphemic archaism, e.g. “beauteous” - ous was substituted by - ful, “bepaint” - be- was dropped, “darksome” -some was dropped, “oft” -en was added etc.

Archaisms are most frequently encountered in poetry, law, and ritual writing and speech. Their deliberate use can be subdivided into literary archaisms, which seeks to evoke the style of older speech and writing; and lexical archaisms, the use of words no longer in common use. Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature. Should they remain recognised, they can be revived, as the word anent was in the past century. 

Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One example is the use of the archaic familiar second person singular pronoun “thou” to refer to God in English Christianity. Although originally a familiar pronoun, it has been misinterpreted as a respectful one by many modern Christians.

We shall distinguish three stages in the aging process of words:

1. The beginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used. Such words are called obsolescent, i.e. they are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. To this category first of all belong morphological forms belonging to the earlier stages in the development of the language. In the English language these are the pronouns thou and its forms thee, thy and thine, the corresponding verbal ending -est and the verb-forms art, wilt (thou makest, thou wilt), the ending -(e)th instead of -(e)s (he maketh) and the pronoun ye. To the category of obsolescent words belong many French borrowings which have been kept in the literary language as a means of preserving the spirit of earlier periods, e. g. a pallet (a straw mattress); a palfrey (a small horse); garniture (furniture); to peplume (to adorn with feathers or plumes).

2. The second group of archaic words are those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognised by the English-speaking community: e. g. methinks (it seems to me); nay (=no). These words are called obsolete.

3. The third group, which may be called archaic proper, are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (=faith); a losel (=a worthless, lazy fellow).

Examples of archaisms in literature:

• "The old man raised the axe and split the head of John Joel Glanton to the thrapple." (the throat or windpipe) (Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, 1985)

• …He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.(Song of Solomon 1:13) (between)

• "Though thou hast ever so many counsellors, yet ("yet" is generally not an archaism, but it is in this context) do not forsake the counsel of thy own soul." (English proverb) (you have, but, your)

• "To thine own self be true." (William Shakespeare) (your)

• It's what a cove knows that counts, ain't it, Sybil? (The Difference Engine, by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson) (fellow)

СПИСОК ИСПОЛЬЗУЕМОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ

1. Wikipedia. Archaisms. [Электронный ресурс]/Википедия (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaism)

2. O. Jespersen. Growth and Structure of the English Language[Text]/O. Jespersen, Oxford, 1982

3. R. Nordquist. Archaism. [Электронный ресурс]/R. Nordquist, About.com Guide (http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/archaismterm.htm)