The Rise and Decline of Negative Doublets in English

Abstract

TEGATIVE DOUBLETS ON STEMS of Latin origin,1 such as incorruptible and .Luncorruptible, began to appear in the English language in appreciable numbers in the fourteenth century; and they reached their peak of abundance during the first half of the seventeenth century. Few, if any, such doublets appear to have been in use prior to I 250. Their scarcity or complete absence in the Old English period may be attributed, at least in part, to the practice of translating learned foreign words, element by element, into the native tongue. For example, in Old English incomprehensible was rendered as unbegripendlic; and incontinence, as unforhafednes. Then, in the transitional period between Old and Middle English, unwords of whatever origin fell into general disuse. Sir William A. Craigie has estimated that of the approximately twelve hundred unwords to be counted in Old English less than two hundred passed over into Middle English; and 'a fair proportion even of this reduced stock proved unable to survive for more than half a century, and passed out of use by x 25o.' A principal reason for the development of negative doublets in the fourteenth century is the extent to which and the rapidity with which Latin borrowings, directly and through French,3 were absorbed into both literary and spoken English. Otto Dellit4 estimates that Wyclif and his associates introduced more than a thousand Latin words into English, many of which occurred in negative form. As a great number of these appeared in the Wyclif Bible and were retained in subsequent English translations of the Bible, they soon passed into