Morphology and Diachrony in A Grammar of Old English and the Dictionary of Old English

Abstract

Just as Richard M. Hogg relied heavily on the resources of the Dictionary of Old English Project, particularly the Microfiche Concordance to Old English, in compiling the first volume of his Grammar of Old English, on phonology, the project of completing the second volume, on morphology, has yielded many reminders what an indispensable asset the Dictionary of Old English and the resources it has spawned are to the community of linguists and medievalists. Hogg was particularly concerned to distinguish diachronic and synchronic analysis of the language, in regard to nominal morphology actually separating the two concerns into discrete chapters; working with the resources of the DOE for the purpose of completing Hogg’s work has, thus, prompted some contemplation of the advantages and disadvantages of the dictionary’s approach to matters of diachrony and synchrony in respect to Old English morphology. The dictionary itself supplies some exceptionally useful information on morphology, particularly in its presentation of attested forms and inflected varieties. A peculiarity of the DOE, however, is the relative thoroughness with which considerations of language history have been excluded from the construction of the dictionary. Considering the very many difficulties that the editors would have had to address had they chosen to include much historical information — difficulties that surely would have strained the Project’s budget and pace of production — it would be unreasonable to expect them to have done otherwise. The consequences of this course of action, however, are far-reaching, and the following remarks will demonstrate that excluding most kinds of historical information from the DOE has had some unanticipated effects, creating problems, some quite serious, in connection with matters that might at first appear to be unrelated to language history. That is to say, the very idea of separating entirely synchronic and diachronic concerns in Old English lexicography is fraught with problems, and the result of excluding most sorts of diachronic concerns is detrimental to many kinds of synchronic analysis.