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On the prehistory of Old English hlæ fdige
Language Sciences 24 (2002) 213–219 www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci
On the prehistory of Old English hlæfdige Alfred Bammesberger Katholische Universita¨t Eichsta¨tt, Eichsta¨tt, Germany
Abstract The preform for OE hæfdige, the precursor of lady, may be posited as Gmc. *hlaibadaigijon- (9). Its phonologically regular reflex is to be expected as *hlæfdæge at an early stage of Old English (12). The quantity of the vowel in the second syllable is indicated by metrical considerations (9), but the vowel was weakened and then represented by < i> in writing (10). _ _ Neither e-grade *dheyg h- > Gmc. *-deig-> *-dıg- (3–4) nor zero-grade *dhig h- > Gmc. *-dig_ (6) of the root IE *dheyg h-is sufficient for explaining the prehistory of OE dige in hlæfdige. The vowel in the first syllable of hlæfdige is due to the working of i-umlaut (12): In the compound Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon- the suffixal *-ij- of the second element caused i-umlaut in the first element. The rare form hlafdige took over the vowel of the simplex hlaf (15), whereas still rarer hlefdige shows a further development of /æ, /> /e/ (15). # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Etymology; Old English and Germanic; Umlaut; Inflections; Comparative Reconstruction
1. Old English hlæfdige, the precursor of Modern English lady, may be analysed as a determinative compound, the first part of which is connected with the noun OE hlaf ‘loaf of bread’1 < Gmc. *hlaib-a-.2 Old English hlafweard,3 the precursor of Modern English lord, contains the same first element and can be projected back to Gmc. *hlaiba-warda-; the meaning of *hlaiba-warda- can be
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Bammesberger). This etymological connection was rejected by Wood (1900, p. 164), who thought that the first element of the compound should be explained as Gmc. *hlaiba- ‘protection’; since there is no reliable evidence for this noun in Old English, Wood’s proposal is not convincing in any way. 2 The masculine stem Gmc. *hlaiba- can be reconstructed on the basis of Gothic hlaifs ‘Brot’, ON hleifr, OHG leib etc. (Feist, 1939, pp. 260; Lehmann, 1986, pp. 185). 3 The form hlafweard is found only once in Paris Psalter 104, 17 (Krapp, 1932, p. 81). Otherwise the -w- was lost, and we find hlafard, hlaferd and hlaford, the latter by far the prevailing form. 1
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posited as ‘watcher of bread’.4 A third Old English compound with hlaf as first element is hlaf-æta ‘servant’, which occurs only once and has not left any trace in Modern English.5 The second element of hlafæta is no doubt identical with the long-vowel alternant Gmc. *æt- of the root *et-‘eat’, we would therefore assume that hlafæta originally meant something like ‘bread-eater’.6 The following lines will mainly deal with the prehistory of hlæfdige: Questions of word-formation and phonology have to be discussed. 2. It is likely that the second element of hlæf-dige is etymologically related to the noun OE dag‘doug’. OE dag reflects a preform Gmc. *daig-a-z, which goes _ back to the o-grade thematic formation IE *dhoyg h-o- belonging to the root _h h *d eyg -. If we posit the meaning of this root as ‘shape, form, knead’,7 then the original meaning of the compound OE hlæfdige may be assumed to have been ‘(female) bread-kneader’.8 With regard to the precise analysis of -dige divergent views are found in the literature. The analysis of -dige directly affects the linguistic interpretation of hlæf-. 3. A number of authorities give the quantities of the compound in question as hlæfdıge. For a long vowel Gmc. *ı in the second syllable of this word the IndoEuropean diphthong *ey would readily provide the required starting-point. In two works published more than a century ago this analysis is clearly maintained. Thus Skeat (1882, pp. 282) noted in his entry for lady: ‘Perhaps ‘loafkneader’.’ and continued as follows: ‘A.S. hlæfdige, a lady.- A. S. hlaf, a loaf; and (perhaps) A. S. *dıge, a kneader, from the root seen in Goth. deigan ‘to knead’.’ A similar comment can be found in Kluge-Lutz (1898, pp. 117): ‘. . . the second part in OE. hlæfdı´ge is connected with GOTH. deigan vb. ‘knead’ (see dough). Therefore OE hlæfdı´ge (TEUT. *hlaiba-dıˆgjoˆ-) meant orig. ‘the kneader of the bread’.’ This is certainly the most widely accepted etymological explanation of OE hlæfdige.9 4. The explanation is theoretically possible, but some general objections may be _ raised against it. It should be mentioned in particular that the root IE *dheyg h-, whose e-grade is not widely attested in general, does not otherwise appear in 4 The terms ‘lady’ and ‘lord’ were discussed in a wide context by Stibbe (1935). Neither hlafweard nor hlæfdige has correspondences outside of Old English. Norse la´vardr is due to borrowing from English (Carr, 1939, p. 36). 5 Liebermann (1903, p. 4) translated Gif man ceorles hlafætan ofslœh as ‘Wenn jemand eines Gemeinfreien Kosta¨nger erschla¨gt’. 6 Further compounds with hlaf- as their first element include hlafmœsse ‘Lammas’ (1 August), hlafhwœ, te ‘bread-wheat’, hlafgang ‘attendance at a meal’. _h 7 Rix (1998, p. 121) gives the meaning of the root *dheyg - as ‘bestreichen, kneten’ the comparative material is also given by Pokorny (1959, p. 244) in the entry dheig_ h-‘Lehm kneten und damit mauern oder bestreichen (Mauer, Wall; To¨pferei; dann auch von anderweitigem Bilden); auch vom Teigkneten (Ba¨ckerei)’. 8 The underlying word-formation process was discussed by Klein (1992, p. 139). _h 9 Although the details are by no means made absolutely clear in the individual references, IE *dheyg as preform for OE -dıg- was taken into consideration by Sievers (1898, p. 45), Feist (1939, p. 118), Lehmann (1986, p. 90), and Seebold (1970, p. 151). Watkins (1985, p. 13) offered the following note: ‘Germanic *-dıg- in Old English compound hlæfdige, mistress of a household ( <‘bread kneader’; hlæf, bread, loaf)’; see also Flexner (1987, p. 1075).
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the shape *deig- > *dıg- in Germanic at all. We do find some traces of a corre_ sponding verb in Gothic digan ( < IE *dhig h-), but here the root vowel appears in zero-grade. The zero-grade Gmc. *dig- recurs in the adjectival formation _ *dig-ra- > 10 ON digr ‘thick, strong’. The o-grade of the root IE *dheyg h-, _h h namely *d oyg -, is well attested in the Germanic languages: Go. daigs, ON deigr, OE dag (ModE dough), OHG teig. But before further dealing with the vowel-i- in hlæfdige, the stem formation of the second element in this compound must be examined. Three separate papers were devoted to this particular question (5–8). 5. In 1908 Johannes Hoops published a short note on the etymology of Modern English lady, in which he mainly dealt with the second syllable of OE hlæfdige. Hoops (1908) rejected the assumption that i in hlæfdige was long and posited the starting-point as Gmc. *hlaiba-dig-on-. As parallels to the zero-grade n-stem *-dig-on- (root Gmc. *deig-) Hoops mentions Gmc. *-bur-on- in OE locbore ‘Lockentra¨gerin’, *klib-on- in OE clife ‘Klette’ etc. Hoops’s main contention was that -i- in-dige should be interpreted as short, consequently he found unacceptable the view that the second element of hlæfdige should con_ tinue an e-grade form Gmc. *dıgijon- ( < IE *dheyg h-). 6. Although the starting-point Gmc. *-dig-on- may be morphologically parallelled by the formations mentioned by Hoops it is nevertheless necessary to examine whether OE hlæfdige can really be accounted for on the basis of Gmc. *hlaibadigon-. Eduard Sievers dealt with the etymological analysis of OE hlæfdige twice, and in both papers he insisted on measuring the second syllable of this word as long, so that Hoops’s account would not immediately be acceptable in this respect. 7. Sievers (1909) directly took up Hoops’s paper and and rejected the assumption that -i- in hlæfdige was short. Sievers’s arguments are based on considerations of historical and comparative linguistics and on metrics. In both respects Sievers’ contention that the second syllable of hlæfdige should be measured as long is convincing. From the viewpoint of historical grammar it seems clear that the -g- in hlæfdige represents the palatalized phoneme /-¥´ -/,11 which is best explained on the assumption that we are concerned with a stem in Gmc. *-jon-. From a starting-point Gmc. *-digjon-, however, we would expect gemination of /-g-/ in OE *-dicge. Therefore it is very probable indeed that the vowel preceding -g- was long, so that -jon- was realized as-ijon- and did not cause gemination. Metrical considerations also indicate that the second syllable of hlæfdige was long. According to Sievers the form hlæfdige occurs four times in E-verses: hlæfdige min [Elene 656b (Krapp, 1932b, p. 84), Juliana 539b (Krapp and Dobbie 1936, p. 128)], hlæfdige, us [Elene 400b (Krapp, 1932b, 77)], and hlæfdigan hete [Genesis 2275a (Krapp, 1931, 68)]. Since in this 10 The comparative material for this adjective has been collected by Heidermanns (1993, p. 156); The Gothic noun digrei ‘fullness’ is a regular nominal derivation. 11 The loss of intervocalic /¥´ / is found in the genitive hlafdian [Vespasian Psalter 122,2 (Sweet, 1885, p. 374)]. Since intervocalic /-g-/ would not be lost, Hoops’s derivation is not acceptable in this respect, as was pointed out by Sievers.
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position a short middle syllable would be unexpected Sievers (1909, p. 579) concluded: ‘Der ansatz hlæfdı´ge12 ra¨umt auch diese unbegreiflichkeit hinweg.’ That the second syllable of hlæfdige is metrically long can therefore be safely assumed. 8. Fifteen years later Sievers (1927) discussed the quantity of the middle syllable in hlæfdige a second time and offered a completely new etymological analysis for it. His main statement is worth quoting (Sievers, 1927, p. 16): ‘Seit ich vor fu¨nfzehn jahren in den Beitr. 34,576f. die bemerkungen niederschrieb, welche die la¨nge des ı von ags. hlæfdige erweisen sollten, habe ich mich oft gewundert, warum ich nicht schon damals den mut gehabt habe, das ags.-dæge, obl.-dægan dieses wortes direct seiner nord. parallele deigja gleichzusetzen und danach auch fu¨r das ags. einen durch ai hervorgerufenen umlaut anzunehmen von der art wie ihn das deutsche in bekannten fa¨llen besitzt (Behaghel, Beitr. 20,344)’.13 9. The novelty of this suggestion lies in the fact that -dıge in hlæfdige is identified with a noun that we have every reason to assume really existed: It is then possible to interpret hlæfdige definitely as a determinative compound of two free morphemes. The noun which functions as second element of this determinative compound is quoted as Old Norse deigja by Sievers. The preform for deigja must be posited as Gmc. *daigijon-. It is particularly important to stress that the regular reflex of Gmc. *daigijon- is found in Old English in the shape dæge.14 We may assume that the starting-point of OE hlæfdige was Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon-. This determinative compound could have meant ‘(female) bread kneader’. The phonology of OE hlæfdige requires some further comment, however.15 10. The determinatum OE dæge (= ON deigja) is the regular continuation of Gmc. *daigijon-.16 In the unstressed medial syllable of the compound-dæge the vowel quality became indistinct, and we would perhaps expect the indistinct vowel to be represented by < e> . The spelling < i> in < hlæfdige> (instead of * < hlæfdege > ) may have been analogically induced: In instances like Gmc. *modaga- > OE modæg> modeg, written < modig > , the final syllable -ig, written < -ig > , was taken over from formations in Gmc. *-ıga-. In a similar way < hlæfdæge > > < hlæfdege > could be written < hlæfdige > ; 17 vowels in unstressed syllables were discussed by Sievers (1898, p. 18). 12
The acute in -dı´ge is meant to indicate the length of the vowel. The reference is to a short paper by Behaghel (1895). Whether this parallel is really relevant for the account of i-umlaut in Old English is doubtful. 14 The noun dæge is found in the gloss pristris dæge (Wright and Wu¨lcker, 1884, p. 277); the lemma of this gloss is to be read as pistris. A further attestation is ane dægan [to]Lindune to iuwan ‘a dairymaid to Linton (?) as a slave’ (Robertson, 1956, pp. 254-255). 15 Sievers’s intepretation is mentioned in some subsequent publications, but the details have not really been worked out; see Holthausen (1934, p. 161) and Hoad (1986, p. 256). Modern English dairy is a derivation from the nominal stem OE dæge by means of the suffix -(e)ry, which is due to borrowing from French; dairy shows that OE dæge must have been in regular use. Many relevant details are given by Simpson and Weiner (1989, pp. 582–585). 16 The Norse cognate shows that OE dæge can be an inherited lexical item, the fact that it is attested relatively late is therefore of minor importance. Faiss (1978, p. 141) wanted to reject dæge as the second element of hlæfdige, but his account is not convincing. 17 That -ige in hlæfdige is not identical with -ige in modrige was pointed out by Campbell (1959, p. 249). 13
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11. Not immediately clear is how the vocalism in the first syllable of the compound Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon- would regularly develop. This question is intimately linked up with problems of i-mutation in Old English. The usual assumption is that i/j produced umlaut in the preceding syllable (type *hauz-ijan- > hıeran ‘hear’ etc.); furthermore double umlaut is admitted for instances like gædeling ‘companion’ (cf. OS gaduling). The basic reasoning was summed up as follows by Campbell (1959, p. 83): ‘It is essential to i-umlaut that the i or j, which causes it, should be in an unstressed syllable. Hence medium stressed second elements of compounds do not usually cause it’.18 In the same section Campbell points out that ‘umlaut always appears in hlæfdige and the forms endlufon (< *anliv-), enwintre’.19 12. The development of the vowel in the first syllable of Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon to OE /æ/ would require an extensive discussion of the phenomenon of i-umlaut, which cannot be offered here. But some points may be submitted even so. The main theory of i-umlaut may well be in need of considerable revision, as was indicated in 11, and will be emphasized in 13. 13. The last paragraph in Campbell’s chapter on i-umlaut is devoted to ‘Apparent failure of i-umlaut’ (Campbell, 1959, p. 83). Each individual instance would deserve a full investigation. Only a few thoughts can be submitted here. The main problem concerns derivatives and compounds whose stressed syllable either exhibits i-umlaut or preserves a vowel that did not undergo i-umlaut. Theoretically one could readily assume that i-umlaut was not limited to the influence of i/j in the following syllable or the next syllable but one in simplex words. There are some strong indications that indeed i-umlaut also worked in compounds. Thus the numerals for ‘11’ and ‘12’ consist of the numerals for ‘1’ and ‘2’ followed by a lexeme Gmc. *lib-, which is readily available in Go. ainlif and twalif. Admittedly the prehistory of the OE word for ‘eleven’ is very complicated,20 but even the initial vowel of Modern English eleven /i’levn/ still shows that *aina-lib- underwent i-umlaut, which can only be due to the -i- in *-lib-. Furthermore forms like ænlepe ‘single, separate’ and ænege ‘having one eye’ clearly indicate that the second element of compounds could cause iumlaut in the first element. We have to reconstruct the respective startingpoints as Gmc. *aina-hlaupija- and *aina-augija-, and the i-umlaut in the initial syllable can have been induced only by the suffixal-ija-. 18 The basic facts concerning i-umlaut in Old English are presented in the handbooks; see Luick (1921, pp. 166–186), Girvan (1931, pp. 70-80), Campbell (1959, pp. 71-85), Brunner (1965, pp. 69-79), Hogg (1992, pp. 121-138), and Lass (1994, pp. 59-71). 19 Although hlœfdige is by far the most frequent spelling of the word, Campbell’s formulation is not completely correct: Beside 102 matches for the Old English Concordance (Healey and Venezky, 1980) gives nine for and 8 for . In his monograph on opaque compounds in English Go¨tz (1971, 82) gives the Old English form as hlafdige, which is misleading because the most frequently occurring spelling is . The further development of OE hlæfdige to Modern English /leidi/ is not completely clear, but this question cannot be dealt with here; see Luick (1921, pp. 392). 20 Apparently the numeral for ‘11’ received an extension in -n- in English, and the stress shifted from the initial syllable to the first syllable of the second member of the compound.
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14. It may therefore be advisable to assume a general rule according to which iumlaut did not only operate in simplex words but could also be caused by i/j in the second element of compounds. Obviously a rule of this kind would have a very high number of apparent exceptions. But these exceptions are readily explainable as due to analogy. Hogg’s wording, although evidently intended in a completely different sense, may be taken to indicate a rule of this kind: ‘. . . an /i/ in the second element of a compound does not cause umlaut provided that the word is still treated as a transparent compound’ (Hogg, 1992, p. 122). Clearly this formulation leaves an important question open: If the umlaut does not occur when ‘the word is still treated as a transparent compound’ then one would assume that in fact i-umlaut did occur in compounds and could be levelled away analogically in the transparent ones. We may assume that basically i-umlaut would work in compounds, but if a given compound was transparent then the non-umlauted simplex forms could be reintroduced. 15. In this context it would seem reasonable to posit the phonologically regular continuation of *hlaiba-daigijon- as hlæfdæge in Old English: The originally long middle syllable was reduced in quantity and represented by < i> , so that the most frequently occurring form hlæfdige can be explained without major difficulty (10). The stressed vowel æ -in hlæfdige is due to the working of iumlaut caused by suffixal-ij- of the second member in the compound (13–14). In hlafdige the vowel a of the simplex hlaf was analogically introduced, whereas hlefdige21 shows a further development of the monophthong æ.
References Behaghel, O., 1895. Mhd. Erbeit. Paul und Braunes Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 20, 344. Brunner, K., 1965. Altenglische Grammatik nach der angelsa¨chsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers. Niemeyer, Tu¨bingen. Campbell, A., 1959. Old English Grammar. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Carr, C.T., 1939. Nominal Compounds in Germanic. University Press, Oxford. Faiss, K., 1978. Verdunkelte Compounds im Englischen. Ein Beitrag zu Theorie und Praxis der Wortbildung. Narr, Tu¨bingen. (Tu¨binger Beitra¨ge zur Linguistik, 104). Feist, S., 1939. Vergleichendes Wo¨rterbuch der gotischen Sprache. Brill, Leiden. Flexner, S.B., 1987. The Random House Dictionary of the English language, Second edition, unabridged. Random House, New York. Girvan, R., 1931. Angelsaksisch Handboek. Willink & Zoon, Haarlem. Go¨tz, D., 1971. Studien zu den verdunkelten Komposita im Englischen. Hans Carl, Nu¨rnberg. (Erlanger Beitra¨ge zur Sprach- und Kunstwissenschaft, 40). Healey, A., Venezky, R., 1980. A microfiche concordance to Old English. Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto. Heidermanns, F., 1993. Etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch der germanischen Prima¨radjektive. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin. Hoad, T.F., 1986. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Hogg, R.M., 1992. A Grammar of Old English. Volume 1: Phonology. Blackwell, Oxford. Holthausen, F., 1934. Altenglisches Etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch. Winter, Heidelberg. 21
On Middle English hlefdi see Stibbe (1935, p. 96) with further references.
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Hoops, J., 1908. Zur Etymologie von ne. LADY. Englische Studien 39, 467. Klein, J.S., 1992. Review of Alfred Bammesberger, Die Morphologie des urgermanischen Nomens, Heidelberg 1990. Kratylos 37, 136–142. Kluge, F., Lutz, F., 1898. English Etymology. A Select Glossary Serving as an Introduction to the History of the English Language. Tru¨bner, Strassburg. Krapp, G.P., 1931. The Junius Manuscript. Columbia University Press, New York. Krapp, G.P., 1932a. The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius. Columbia University Press, New York. Krapp, G.P., 1932. The Vercelli Book. Columbia University Press, New York. Krapp, G.P., Dobbie, E.V.K., 1936. The Exeter Book. Columbia University Press, New York. Lass, R., 1994. Old English. A Historical Linguistic Companion. University Press, Cambridge. Lehmann, W.P., 1986. A Gothic Etymological Dictionary Based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wo¨rterbuch der Gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist. Brill, Leiden. Liebermann, F., 1903. Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen I.Niemeyer, Halle. Luick, K., 1921. Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache. Erster Band, 1. Abteilung. Tauchnitz, Leipzig. Pokorny, J., 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch. Francke Verlag, Bern und Mu¨nchen. Rix, H., 1998. LIV. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Reichert, Wiesbaden. Robertson, A.J., 1956. Anglo-Saxon Charters University Press, Cambridge. Seebold, E., 1970. Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch der germanischen starken Verben. Mouton, The Hague. Sievers, E., 1898. Angelsa¨chsische Grammatik. Niemeyer, Halle. Sievers, E., 1909. Ags. hlæfdige. Paul und Braunes Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 34, 576–579. Sievers, E., 1927. Ags. hlæfdige. Paul und Braunes Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 50, 16–17. Simpson, J.A., Weiner, E.S.C., 1989. Oxford English Dictionary, second edition. University Press, Oxford. Skeat, W.W., 1882. A concise etymological dictionary of the English language. Clarendon, Oxford. Stibbe, H., 1935. ‘‘Herr’’ und ‘‘Frau’’ und verwandte Begriffe in ihren altenglischen A¨quivalenten. Winter, Heidelberg. Sweet, H., 1885. The Oldest English Texts. Early English Text Society, London. Watkins, C., 1985. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Mifflin, Boston. Wood, F.A., 1900. Etymological Notes. Modern Language Notes 15, 163–165. Wright, T., Wu¨lcker, R.P., 1884. Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies. Tru¨bner, London.
On the prehistory of Old English hlæfdige Alfred Bammesberger Katholische Universita¨t Eichsta¨tt, Eichsta¨tt, Germany
Abstract The preform for OE hæfdige, the precursor of lady, may be posited as Gmc. *hlaibadaigijon- (9). Its phonologically regular reflex is to be expected as *hlæfdæge at an early stage of Old English (12). The quantity of the vowel in the second syllable is indicated by metrical considerations (9), but the vowel was weakened and then represented by < i> in writing (10). _ _ Neither e-grade *dheyg h- > Gmc. *-deig-> *-dıg- (3–4) nor zero-grade *dhig h- > Gmc. *-dig_ (6) of the root IE *dheyg h-is sufficient for explaining the prehistory of OE dige in hlæfdige. The vowel in the first syllable of hlæfdige is due to the working of i-umlaut (12): In the compound Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon- the suffixal *-ij- of the second element caused i-umlaut in the first element. The rare form hlafdige took over the vowel of the simplex hlaf (15), whereas still rarer hlefdige shows a further development of /æ, /> /e/ (15). # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Etymology; Old English and Germanic; Umlaut; Inflections; Comparative Reconstruction
1. Old English hlæfdige, the precursor of Modern English lady, may be analysed as a determinative compound, the first part of which is connected with the noun OE hlaf ‘loaf of bread’1 < Gmc. *hlaib-a-.2 Old English hlafweard,3 the precursor of Modern English lord, contains the same first element and can be projected back to Gmc. *hlaiba-warda-; the meaning of *hlaiba-warda- can be
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Bammesberger). This etymological connection was rejected by Wood (1900, p. 164), who thought that the first element of the compound should be explained as Gmc. *hlaiba- ‘protection’; since there is no reliable evidence for this noun in Old English, Wood’s proposal is not convincing in any way. 2 The masculine stem Gmc. *hlaiba- can be reconstructed on the basis of Gothic hlaifs ‘Brot’, ON hleifr, OHG leib etc. (Feist, 1939, pp. 260; Lehmann, 1986, pp. 185). 3 The form hlafweard is found only once in Paris Psalter 104, 17 (Krapp, 1932, p. 81). Otherwise the -w- was lost, and we find hlafard, hlaferd and hlaford, the latter by far the prevailing form. 1
0388-0001/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0388-0001(01)00029-8
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posited as ‘watcher of bread’.4 A third Old English compound with hlaf as first element is hlaf-æta ‘servant’, which occurs only once and has not left any trace in Modern English.5 The second element of hlafæta is no doubt identical with the long-vowel alternant Gmc. *æt- of the root *et-‘eat’, we would therefore assume that hlafæta originally meant something like ‘bread-eater’.6 The following lines will mainly deal with the prehistory of hlæfdige: Questions of word-formation and phonology have to be discussed. 2. It is likely that the second element of hlæf-dige is etymologically related to the noun OE dag‘doug’. OE dag reflects a preform Gmc. *daig-a-z, which goes _ back to the o-grade thematic formation IE *dhoyg h-o- belonging to the root _h h *d eyg -. If we posit the meaning of this root as ‘shape, form, knead’,7 then the original meaning of the compound OE hlæfdige may be assumed to have been ‘(female) bread-kneader’.8 With regard to the precise analysis of -dige divergent views are found in the literature. The analysis of -dige directly affects the linguistic interpretation of hlæf-. 3. A number of authorities give the quantities of the compound in question as hlæfdıge. For a long vowel Gmc. *ı in the second syllable of this word the IndoEuropean diphthong *ey would readily provide the required starting-point. In two works published more than a century ago this analysis is clearly maintained. Thus Skeat (1882, pp. 282) noted in his entry for lady: ‘Perhaps ‘loafkneader’.’ and continued as follows: ‘A.S. hlæfdige, a lady.- A. S. hlaf, a loaf; and (perhaps) A. S. *dıge, a kneader, from the root seen in Goth. deigan ‘to knead’.’ A similar comment can be found in Kluge-Lutz (1898, pp. 117): ‘. . . the second part in OE. hlæfdı´ge is connected with GOTH. deigan vb. ‘knead’ (see dough). Therefore OE hlæfdı´ge (TEUT. *hlaiba-dıˆgjoˆ-) meant orig. ‘the kneader of the bread’.’ This is certainly the most widely accepted etymological explanation of OE hlæfdige.9 4. The explanation is theoretically possible, but some general objections may be _ raised against it. It should be mentioned in particular that the root IE *dheyg h-, whose e-grade is not widely attested in general, does not otherwise appear in 4 The terms ‘lady’ and ‘lord’ were discussed in a wide context by Stibbe (1935). Neither hlafweard nor hlæfdige has correspondences outside of Old English. Norse la´vardr is due to borrowing from English (Carr, 1939, p. 36). 5 Liebermann (1903, p. 4) translated Gif man ceorles hlafætan ofslœh as ‘Wenn jemand eines Gemeinfreien Kosta¨nger erschla¨gt’. 6 Further compounds with hlaf- as their first element include hlafmœsse ‘Lammas’ (1 August), hlafhwœ, te ‘bread-wheat’, hlafgang ‘attendance at a meal’. _h 7 Rix (1998, p. 121) gives the meaning of the root *dheyg - as ‘bestreichen, kneten’ the comparative material is also given by Pokorny (1959, p. 244) in the entry dheig_ h-‘Lehm kneten und damit mauern oder bestreichen (Mauer, Wall; To¨pferei; dann auch von anderweitigem Bilden); auch vom Teigkneten (Ba¨ckerei)’. 8 The underlying word-formation process was discussed by Klein (1992, p. 139). _h 9 Although the details are by no means made absolutely clear in the individual references, IE *dheyg as preform for OE -dıg- was taken into consideration by Sievers (1898, p. 45), Feist (1939, p. 118), Lehmann (1986, p. 90), and Seebold (1970, p. 151). Watkins (1985, p. 13) offered the following note: ‘Germanic *-dıg- in Old English compound hlæfdige, mistress of a household ( <‘bread kneader’; hlæf, bread, loaf)’; see also Flexner (1987, p. 1075).
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the shape *deig- > *dıg- in Germanic at all. We do find some traces of a corre_ sponding verb in Gothic digan ( < IE *dhig h-), but here the root vowel appears in zero-grade. The zero-grade Gmc. *dig- recurs in the adjectival formation _ *dig-ra- > 10 ON digr ‘thick, strong’. The o-grade of the root IE *dheyg h-, _h h namely *d oyg -, is well attested in the Germanic languages: Go. daigs, ON deigr, OE dag (ModE dough), OHG teig. But before further dealing with the vowel-i- in hlæfdige, the stem formation of the second element in this compound must be examined. Three separate papers were devoted to this particular question (5–8). 5. In 1908 Johannes Hoops published a short note on the etymology of Modern English lady, in which he mainly dealt with the second syllable of OE hlæfdige. Hoops (1908) rejected the assumption that i in hlæfdige was long and posited the starting-point as Gmc. *hlaiba-dig-on-. As parallels to the zero-grade n-stem *-dig-on- (root Gmc. *deig-) Hoops mentions Gmc. *-bur-on- in OE locbore ‘Lockentra¨gerin’, *klib-on- in OE clife ‘Klette’ etc. Hoops’s main contention was that -i- in-dige should be interpreted as short, consequently he found unacceptable the view that the second element of hlæfdige should con_ tinue an e-grade form Gmc. *dıgijon- ( < IE *dheyg h-). 6. Although the starting-point Gmc. *-dig-on- may be morphologically parallelled by the formations mentioned by Hoops it is nevertheless necessary to examine whether OE hlæfdige can really be accounted for on the basis of Gmc. *hlaibadigon-. Eduard Sievers dealt with the etymological analysis of OE hlæfdige twice, and in both papers he insisted on measuring the second syllable of this word as long, so that Hoops’s account would not immediately be acceptable in this respect. 7. Sievers (1909) directly took up Hoops’s paper and and rejected the assumption that -i- in hlæfdige was short. Sievers’s arguments are based on considerations of historical and comparative linguistics and on metrics. In both respects Sievers’ contention that the second syllable of hlæfdige should be measured as long is convincing. From the viewpoint of historical grammar it seems clear that the -g- in hlæfdige represents the palatalized phoneme /-¥´ -/,11 which is best explained on the assumption that we are concerned with a stem in Gmc. *-jon-. From a starting-point Gmc. *-digjon-, however, we would expect gemination of /-g-/ in OE *-dicge. Therefore it is very probable indeed that the vowel preceding -g- was long, so that -jon- was realized as-ijon- and did not cause gemination. Metrical considerations also indicate that the second syllable of hlæfdige was long. According to Sievers the form hlæfdige occurs four times in E-verses: hlæfdige min [Elene 656b (Krapp, 1932b, p. 84), Juliana 539b (Krapp and Dobbie 1936, p. 128)], hlæfdige, us [Elene 400b (Krapp, 1932b, 77)], and hlæfdigan hete [Genesis 2275a (Krapp, 1931, 68)]. Since in this 10 The comparative material for this adjective has been collected by Heidermanns (1993, p. 156); The Gothic noun digrei ‘fullness’ is a regular nominal derivation. 11 The loss of intervocalic /¥´ / is found in the genitive hlafdian [Vespasian Psalter 122,2 (Sweet, 1885, p. 374)]. Since intervocalic /-g-/ would not be lost, Hoops’s derivation is not acceptable in this respect, as was pointed out by Sievers.
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position a short middle syllable would be unexpected Sievers (1909, p. 579) concluded: ‘Der ansatz hlæfdı´ge12 ra¨umt auch diese unbegreiflichkeit hinweg.’ That the second syllable of hlæfdige is metrically long can therefore be safely assumed. 8. Fifteen years later Sievers (1927) discussed the quantity of the middle syllable in hlæfdige a second time and offered a completely new etymological analysis for it. His main statement is worth quoting (Sievers, 1927, p. 16): ‘Seit ich vor fu¨nfzehn jahren in den Beitr. 34,576f. die bemerkungen niederschrieb, welche die la¨nge des ı von ags. hlæfdige erweisen sollten, habe ich mich oft gewundert, warum ich nicht schon damals den mut gehabt habe, das ags.-dæge, obl.-dægan dieses wortes direct seiner nord. parallele deigja gleichzusetzen und danach auch fu¨r das ags. einen durch ai hervorgerufenen umlaut anzunehmen von der art wie ihn das deutsche in bekannten fa¨llen besitzt (Behaghel, Beitr. 20,344)’.13 9. The novelty of this suggestion lies in the fact that -dıge in hlæfdige is identified with a noun that we have every reason to assume really existed: It is then possible to interpret hlæfdige definitely as a determinative compound of two free morphemes. The noun which functions as second element of this determinative compound is quoted as Old Norse deigja by Sievers. The preform for deigja must be posited as Gmc. *daigijon-. It is particularly important to stress that the regular reflex of Gmc. *daigijon- is found in Old English in the shape dæge.14 We may assume that the starting-point of OE hlæfdige was Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon-. This determinative compound could have meant ‘(female) bread kneader’. The phonology of OE hlæfdige requires some further comment, however.15 10. The determinatum OE dæge (= ON deigja) is the regular continuation of Gmc. *daigijon-.16 In the unstressed medial syllable of the compound-dæge the vowel quality became indistinct, and we would perhaps expect the indistinct vowel to be represented by < e> . The spelling < i> in < hlæfdige> (instead of * < hlæfdege > ) may have been analogically induced: In instances like Gmc. *modaga- > OE modæg> modeg, written < modig > , the final syllable -ig, written < -ig > , was taken over from formations in Gmc. *-ıga-. In a similar way < hlæfdæge > > < hlæfdege > could be written < hlæfdige > ; 17 vowels in unstressed syllables were discussed by Sievers (1898, p. 18). 12
The acute in -dı´ge is meant to indicate the length of the vowel. The reference is to a short paper by Behaghel (1895). Whether this parallel is really relevant for the account of i-umlaut in Old English is doubtful. 14 The noun dæge is found in the gloss pristris dæge (Wright and Wu¨lcker, 1884, p. 277); the lemma of this gloss is to be read as pistris. A further attestation is ane dægan [to]Lindune to iuwan ‘a dairymaid to Linton (?) as a slave’ (Robertson, 1956, pp. 254-255). 15 Sievers’s intepretation is mentioned in some subsequent publications, but the details have not really been worked out; see Holthausen (1934, p. 161) and Hoad (1986, p. 256). Modern English dairy is a derivation from the nominal stem OE dæge by means of the suffix -(e)ry, which is due to borrowing from French; dairy shows that OE dæge must have been in regular use. Many relevant details are given by Simpson and Weiner (1989, pp. 582–585). 16 The Norse cognate shows that OE dæge can be an inherited lexical item, the fact that it is attested relatively late is therefore of minor importance. Faiss (1978, p. 141) wanted to reject dæge as the second element of hlæfdige, but his account is not convincing. 17 That -ige in hlæfdige is not identical with -ige in modrige was pointed out by Campbell (1959, p. 249). 13
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11. Not immediately clear is how the vocalism in the first syllable of the compound Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon- would regularly develop. This question is intimately linked up with problems of i-mutation in Old English. The usual assumption is that i/j produced umlaut in the preceding syllable (type *hauz-ijan- > hıeran ‘hear’ etc.); furthermore double umlaut is admitted for instances like gædeling ‘companion’ (cf. OS gaduling). The basic reasoning was summed up as follows by Campbell (1959, p. 83): ‘It is essential to i-umlaut that the i or j, which causes it, should be in an unstressed syllable. Hence medium stressed second elements of compounds do not usually cause it’.18 In the same section Campbell points out that ‘umlaut always appears in hlæfdige and the forms endlufon (< *anliv-), enwintre’.19 12. The development of the vowel in the first syllable of Gmc. *hlaiba-daigijon to OE /æ/ would require an extensive discussion of the phenomenon of i-umlaut, which cannot be offered here. But some points may be submitted even so. The main theory of i-umlaut may well be in need of considerable revision, as was indicated in 11, and will be emphasized in 13. 13. The last paragraph in Campbell’s chapter on i-umlaut is devoted to ‘Apparent failure of i-umlaut’ (Campbell, 1959, p. 83). Each individual instance would deserve a full investigation. Only a few thoughts can be submitted here. The main problem concerns derivatives and compounds whose stressed syllable either exhibits i-umlaut or preserves a vowel that did not undergo i-umlaut. Theoretically one could readily assume that i-umlaut was not limited to the influence of i/j in the following syllable or the next syllable but one in simplex words. There are some strong indications that indeed i-umlaut also worked in compounds. Thus the numerals for ‘11’ and ‘12’ consist of the numerals for ‘1’ and ‘2’ followed by a lexeme Gmc. *lib-, which is readily available in Go. ainlif and twalif. Admittedly the prehistory of the OE word for ‘eleven’ is very complicated,20 but even the initial vowel of Modern English eleven /i’levn/ still shows that *aina-lib- underwent i-umlaut, which can only be due to the -i- in *-lib-. Furthermore forms like ænlepe ‘single, separate’ and ænege ‘having one eye’ clearly indicate that the second element of compounds could cause iumlaut in the first element. We have to reconstruct the respective startingpoints as Gmc. *aina-hlaupija- and *aina-augija-, and the i-umlaut in the initial syllable can have been induced only by the suffixal-ija-. 18 The basic facts concerning i-umlaut in Old English are presented in the handbooks; see Luick (1921, pp. 166–186), Girvan (1931, pp. 70-80), Campbell (1959, pp. 71-85), Brunner (1965, pp. 69-79), Hogg (1992, pp. 121-138), and Lass (1994, pp. 59-71). 19 Although hlœfdige is by far the most frequent spelling of the word, Campbell’s formulation is not completely correct: Beside 102 matches for
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14. It may therefore be advisable to assume a general rule according to which iumlaut did not only operate in simplex words but could also be caused by i/j in the second element of compounds. Obviously a rule of this kind would have a very high number of apparent exceptions. But these exceptions are readily explainable as due to analogy. Hogg’s wording, although evidently intended in a completely different sense, may be taken to indicate a rule of this kind: ‘. . . an /i/ in the second element of a compound does not cause umlaut provided that the word is still treated as a transparent compound’ (Hogg, 1992, p. 122). Clearly this formulation leaves an important question open: If the umlaut does not occur when ‘the word is still treated as a transparent compound’ then one would assume that in fact i-umlaut did occur in compounds and could be levelled away analogically in the transparent ones. We may assume that basically i-umlaut would work in compounds, but if a given compound was transparent then the non-umlauted simplex forms could be reintroduced. 15. In this context it would seem reasonable to posit the phonologically regular continuation of *hlaiba-daigijon- as hlæfdæge in Old English: The originally long middle syllable was reduced in quantity and represented by < i> , so that the most frequently occurring form hlæfdige can be explained without major difficulty (10). The stressed vowel æ -in hlæfdige is due to the working of iumlaut caused by suffixal-ij- of the second member in the compound (13–14). In hlafdige the vowel a of the simplex hlaf was analogically introduced, whereas hlefdige21 shows a further development of the monophthong æ.
References Behaghel, O., 1895. Mhd. Erbeit. Paul und Braunes Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 20, 344. Brunner, K., 1965. Altenglische Grammatik nach der angelsa¨chsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers. Niemeyer, Tu¨bingen. Campbell, A., 1959. Old English Grammar. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Carr, C.T., 1939. Nominal Compounds in Germanic. University Press, Oxford. Faiss, K., 1978. Verdunkelte Compounds im Englischen. Ein Beitrag zu Theorie und Praxis der Wortbildung. Narr, Tu¨bingen. (Tu¨binger Beitra¨ge zur Linguistik, 104). Feist, S., 1939. Vergleichendes Wo¨rterbuch der gotischen Sprache. Brill, Leiden. Flexner, S.B., 1987. The Random House Dictionary of the English language, Second edition, unabridged. Random House, New York. Girvan, R., 1931. Angelsaksisch Handboek. Willink & Zoon, Haarlem. Go¨tz, D., 1971. Studien zu den verdunkelten Komposita im Englischen. Hans Carl, Nu¨rnberg. (Erlanger Beitra¨ge zur Sprach- und Kunstwissenschaft, 40). Healey, A., Venezky, R., 1980. A microfiche concordance to Old English. Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto. Heidermanns, F., 1993. Etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch der germanischen Prima¨radjektive. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin. Hoad, T.F., 1986. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Hogg, R.M., 1992. A Grammar of Old English. Volume 1: Phonology. Blackwell, Oxford. Holthausen, F., 1934. Altenglisches Etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch. Winter, Heidelberg. 21
On Middle English hlefdi see Stibbe (1935, p. 96) with further references.
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Hoops, J., 1908. Zur Etymologie von ne. LADY. Englische Studien 39, 467. Klein, J.S., 1992. Review of Alfred Bammesberger, Die Morphologie des urgermanischen Nomens, Heidelberg 1990. Kratylos 37, 136–142. Kluge, F., Lutz, F., 1898. English Etymology. A Select Glossary Serving as an Introduction to the History of the English Language. Tru¨bner, Strassburg. Krapp, G.P., 1931. The Junius Manuscript. Columbia University Press, New York. Krapp, G.P., 1932a. The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius. Columbia University Press, New York. Krapp, G.P., 1932. The Vercelli Book. Columbia University Press, New York. Krapp, G.P., Dobbie, E.V.K., 1936. The Exeter Book. Columbia University Press, New York. Lass, R., 1994. Old English. A Historical Linguistic Companion. University Press, Cambridge. Lehmann, W.P., 1986. A Gothic Etymological Dictionary Based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wo¨rterbuch der Gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist. Brill, Leiden. Liebermann, F., 1903. Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen I.Niemeyer, Halle. Luick, K., 1921. Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache. Erster Band, 1. Abteilung. Tauchnitz, Leipzig. Pokorny, J., 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch. Francke Verlag, Bern und Mu¨nchen. Rix, H., 1998. LIV. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Reichert, Wiesbaden. Robertson, A.J., 1956. Anglo-Saxon Charters University Press, Cambridge. Seebold, E., 1970. Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch der germanischen starken Verben. Mouton, The Hague. Sievers, E., 1898. Angelsa¨chsische Grammatik. Niemeyer, Halle. Sievers, E., 1909. Ags. hlæfdige. Paul und Braunes Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 34, 576–579. Sievers, E., 1927. Ags. hlæfdige. Paul und Braunes Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 50, 16–17. Simpson, J.A., Weiner, E.S.C., 1989. Oxford English Dictionary, second edition. University Press, Oxford. Skeat, W.W., 1882. A concise etymological dictionary of the English language. Clarendon, Oxford. Stibbe, H., 1935. ‘‘Herr’’ und ‘‘Frau’’ und verwandte Begriffe in ihren altenglischen A¨quivalenten. Winter, Heidelberg. Sweet, H., 1885. The Oldest English Texts. Early English Text Society, London. Watkins, C., 1985. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Mifflin, Boston. Wood, F.A., 1900. Etymological Notes. Modern Language Notes 15, 163–165. Wright, T., Wu¨lcker, R.P., 1884. Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies. Tru¨bner, London.