Lecture 7 Vocabulary of gl east Germanic Languages and Old English

Affixation. Suffixes. Suffixes play a rather important part in OE. We shall consider OE suffixes, grouping them according to the parts of speech which they derive.
Substantive Suffixes. Here we find a group of suffixes which are added to
substantive or verb stems to derive names of the doer. Each of them is connected with a grammatical gender.Thus, the suffix -ere is used to derive masculine substantives: fiscere‘fisherman’,, fu3elere ‘fowler’, writere ‘writer’, ‘scribe’, also þröwere ‘sufferer’. The suffix corresponds to the Gothic suffix -areis in laisareis ‘teacher’, bökareis‘bookman’, and Russan -арьin пахарь, вратарь. The suffix is productive. The suffix -estre is used to derive feminine substantives: spinnestre‘spinner’ bæcestre ‘woman baker’, also wite3estre ‘prophetess’. The suffix end (connected with the participle suffix -ende) is used toderive masculine substantives: frëond ‘friend’, fëond ‘hater’, ‘enemy’, hælend ‘saviour’, dëmend ‘judge’, wealdend ‘ruler’. The suffix -in3 is use to derive patronymics: æðelin3 ‘son of a nobleman’, ‘prince, cynin3 ‘king’, Æðelwulfin3 ‘son of Æthelwulf’, etc. It is aalso used to derive substantives from adjectives, as in lÿtlin3 ‘baby’, earmin3 ‘poor fellow’.

The suffix is productive. An enlarged variant of this suffix, -lin3, serves to derive substantives with some emontional colouring (sepending on the meaning of the stem): 3öslin3 ‘gosling’, dëorlin3 ‘darling’, hÿrlin3 ‘hireling. It is also productive.

The suffix -en is used to derive feminine substantives from masculine
stens, As its original shape was -in, it is always accompanied by mutation: 3yden‘gooddess’ (<*3ydin), cf. 3od ‘god’, fyxen ‘vixen’ (<* fuxin), cf. fox ‘fox’.
The suffix -nis, nes is used to derive abstract substantives from adjective
stems: 3ödnis ‘goodness’, þrënes ‘trinity. It is productive. The suffix -þ, -uþ, -oþ is user to derive abstract substantives; somtimes it is accompanied by mutation: trëowþ ‘truth’ from trëow ‘true’, þiefþ ‘theft’ from þëof‘thief’, 3eo3uþ ‘youth’ (cf. 3eon3 ‘young’), fiscoþ ‘fishing’, cf. fisc ‘fish’, huntoþ‘hunting’, cf. hunta ‘hunter’. The suffix un3, in3 derives feminine verbal substantives: leornun3, leornin3 ‘learning’, monun3 ‘admonishing’, rædin3 ‘reading’. It is productive. Some suffixes originated from substantives.

Thus, from the substantive döm ‘doom’ came the suffix döm, as in wisdöm ‘wisdom’, frëodöm ‘freedom The substantive häd ‘title’, ‘rank’ yielded the suffix -häd, as in cildhäd ‘childhood’, mæ3þad ‘virginity’. The substantive läc ‘gift’ yielded the suffix -läc, as in rëofläc ‘robbery’ from the stem of the verb rëafian ‘bereave’, wedläc ‘wedlock’, scïnläc ’fantasy. The substantive ræden ‘arrengement’, ‘agreement’ yielded the suffix - ræden, as in frëondræden ‘friendship’ sibbræden ‘relationship’, mannræden

‘faithfulness’. The suffix -scipe (cf. the verb scieppan ,’create’) is found in the
substantives frëondshipe ‘frindship’, weorþscipe ‘honour’, 3ebëorscipe ‘feast’
(from bëor ‘beer’).

There is another phenomenon which must be mentioned in connection with

suffixation. Some abstract substantives are derived from adjective stems without
any suffix; they differ from the adjectives by their paradigm (as feminine ö
stems) and by mutation of the root vowel, due to the original suffix -in, e.g.len3u‘length’ from lon3 ’long’, stren3u ‘strength’ from stron3 ‘strong’, brædu‘breadth’ from bräd ‘broad’, hætu ‘heat’ from hät ‘hot’, hælu ‘salvation’ fromhäl whole’, ieldu ‘old age’ from eald ‘old’, wræþþu ‘wrath’ from wräþ‘wroth’.