How to measure the French influence - lexical choices in a 14th-century English Psalter
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wydawnictwo KUL
Abstract
The paper discusses lexical choices in the first 50 Psalms of the Middle English Glossed Prose Psalter with a view to demonstrate that the profusion of borrowings from French should not be taken as evidence of the direct influence of the French source text. Rather, it should be analysed in the context of the underlying Latin Psalter, the French source and the remaining 14th-century Psalter translations simultaneously. When examined from this perspective, the Psalter appears to converge in its use of 90% of the Romance-derived nouns with the three remaining 14th-century Psalter translations. The profusion of borrowings from Romance should be, therefore, perceived as a manifestation of the contemporary linguistic situation in medieval England and a reflection of the perceived inviolability of the biblical text. Furthermore, it is argued that the actual French influence should not be sought in the formal similarities shared by the lexical items used in Middle English Glossed Prose Psalter and the French rendition, but rather in the exceptional vocabulary choices of Middle English Glossed Prose Psalter corresponding semantically, rather than formally, to the relevant items employed in the French translation, both those which are context-motivated and, even more so, those which find no contextual justification with respect to other occurrences of the same Latin lemma.
Description
Keywords
lexical choices, etymology, Psalter, borrowing, French, dobory leksykalne, etymologia, Psałterz, zapożyczenie, język francuski
Citation
Concepts and Structures - Studies in Semantics and Morphology, red. M. Bloch-Trojnar, A. Malicka-Kleparska, K. Drabikowska, Lublin 215, s. 103-120
ISBN
978-83-8061-171-9