Verbal prefixes in Old Northumbrian
Evidence from the Lindisfarne glosses
In late Old English dialects, adverbial elements are frequently morphologically ambiguous (independent words,
clitics, verbal prefixes, etc.), and an important facet of the proper treatment of these items is the quality of source-data in
different texts. This paper examines the usage of three adverbial/prepositional elements in the Northumbrian Lindisfarne Glosses:
eft ‘again, after’, ymb ‘around’, and ofer ‘over’. Skeat (1871–87), whose transcription of the original manuscript is the primary reference for research on
the Glosses, frequently transcribes these items as prefixes, alongside other OE prefixes like ge-,
a-, for-, and be-. However, Skeat also deviates from this pattern in many
cases, leaving their proper analysis uncertain. Nevertheless, various works (e.g., Cook
1894; Bosworth 2011), have indeed taken these items to be prefixes. I follow
Fernández-Cuesta (2016) in revisiting the original Lindisfarne manuscript to
determine the correct treatment of these items, concluding that eft and ofer should not be
analyzed as prefixes in the manuscript, while ymb should have prefix status.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Distribution of eft
- 2.1Data
- 2.2Word spacing of eft
- 2.3Intervening morphemes with eft
- 2.4Doublets with eft
- 2.5Intermediate summary
- 3.Distribution of ymb
- 3.1Word-spacing of ymb
- 3.2Intervening morphemes with ymb
- 3.3Doublets with ymb
- 4.Distribution of ofer
- 4.1Word spacing of ofer
- 4.2Intervening morphemes with ofer
- 4.3Doublets with ofer
- 5.Discussion and conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Fernández-Cuesta, Julia & Nieves Rodríguez-Ledesma
2020.
Reduced forms in the nominal morphology of the Lindisfarne Gospel Gloss. A case of accusative/dative syncretism?.
Folia Linguistica 54:s41-s1
► pp. 37 ff.
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