Analysing affixal entries in Old English lexicographical sourcesproblems and solutions

Resumen

This paper seeks to examine how affixal entries are organized in the main Old Englishdictionaries, inlcuding An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by Bosworth and Toller (1973), A ConciseAnglo-Saxon Dictionary by Clark-Hall (1996), The Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon by Sweet(1976) and the Dictionary of Old English (Cameron et al., eds. 2018) to identify possibleweaknesses and unsystematic patterns in these entries and to offer a proposal of improvedaffixal entries that represents a solution to inconsistency and meaning coverage limitations.Considerable differences have been found in the sources consulted regarding the numberand type of word formation elements attested or the degree of accuracy in the informationprovided by each entry. In addition, one and the same source may address affixal meaningdiversely. In light of this situation, this paper suggests a solution to the aforementionedshortcomings by resorting to a framework of lexical functions (Author 2013, 2016, 2018)that capture the form and meaning relations found in the lexicon of a language in a consistentway. The lexical database of Old English Nerthus (Martín Arista, ed., et al. 2016) hascontributed the main morphological information and has enabled data relations and theconstruction and description of meaning. The example below illustrates a suggested entryfor the suffix frēa-:frēa-. As a nominal affix, it attaches to nouns to designate a higher position both inan organizational or in an intensity hierarchy: frēa-bregd ‘mighty device’, -drihten, -meaht, -miht, -reccere, -wine, -wrāsn. As an adjectival prefix, it derives adjectives with agreater intensity: frēa-beorht ‘glorious’, -fætt, -glēaw, -hræd, -mǣre, -micel, -torht, -wlitig.The model presented has thus permitted both a closer approximation to the affixalassortment of meanings and also a greater descriptive systematization.