Lexicographic coverage: a characteristic example

The present section, then, discusses the treatment of particle verbs in Old and Middle English in the standard historical dictionaries of English, viz.

most notably for Old English Bosworth–Toller (published 1882–1898;

Supplement from 1921), for Middle English the MED (1952–2001), and across the individual periods also the OED (substantially still 1884–1928).

Until comparatively recently, with the publication of the first fascicles of the DOE, these were the main lexicographic aids available to scholars working on the subject (for a general overview of the English historical dictionaries, see Thim 2011b and the references given there). In none of these historical dictionaries the existence of particle verbs is satisfactorily acknowledged and there are striking parallels between the deficiencies of the lexical accounts discussed above and of those of the lexicographic coverage to be discussed in the present section.

The present section does not aim at providing a full critical analysis of the coverage of particle verbs in the historical dictionaries but rather a very selective discussion of a typical example, with the aim to demonstrate the almost predictable limitations imposed by the dictionaries on the older research. The Old English verb forþfēran already introduced in Chapter 1 above may serve as an example of the lexicographic practice typical of the older historical dictionaries (the selection of a particle verb with forth is

due in part to the inclusion of the DOE in the discussion, which so far does not provide coverage beyond the letters A–G).⁴

4.3.1. Bosworth–Toller and other older dictionaries

The treatment in Bosworth–Toller and its Supplement is quite characteris-tic. The coverage of the verb is spread over two entries (s.vv. forþferan and forþ-geferan):⁵ s.v. forþferan the senses ‘go forth, depart, die; decedere, defungi, mori, expirare’ are given. In the eight sample quotations, the particle precedes the verb immediately and the consistent spelling as one word adds to the impression of an inseparable prefix verb. Thus Bosworth–

Toller s.v. feran contains only a cross reference to forþ-[feran] and is rather consistent in its de facto treatment of the combination as an inseparable prefix verb. Consequently there is also no cross reference between this entry and the entry for forþ-geferan (i.e. forþ-gefēran), which in fact would provide good evidence for the analysis of the construction as a particle verb:

forþ-geferan … go forth, depart, die; decedere, mori: –Ðara monige forþgeferdon on Drihten many of whom died in the Lord.

If forþfēran was an inseparable prefix verb, one would not expect the prefix

GE- to intervene between the prefix and the verb. It would, of course, be conceivable in principle that forþgefēran is a distinct prefixation (of a verb gefēran), but this would be a rather unsatisfactory explanation in the light of the separability of forþ in both cases, the synonymy of both

4 Dietz (2004: 596–600) points out several of the limitations of older research on Old English prefixes, which may be due to the authors’ reliance on the dictionaries, but also to their use of small or unrepresentative corpora. With respect to the status of Old English forþ Dietz (2004: 608–609) points out that it occurs predominantly in glosses of Latin prefixed verbs and he suggests that it is therefore problematic to label forþ as a native Old English prefix and that it had better be classified as a particle. Although this observation on the predominant occurrence in calques is certainly true (cf. DOE s.v. forþ-), it has no direct bearing on the present discussion where the focus is on the lexicographic coverage of such formations as verb-particle constructions rather than on their limited productivity because of their status as calques.

5 The stem vowel of the verb is erroneously presented as short in Bosworth–

Toller but emended to a long vowel (“é”) in the Supplement. In the examples from Bosworth–Toller the dictionary’s use of acute accents to indicate vowel length will be followed.

fēran/gefēran and forþfēran/forþgefēran, the general characteristics of Old English ge- (cf. e.g. the discussion in Kastovsky 1992: 377–380 and the comparative evidence discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 above; see also the discussions of related lexicographic problems by Butler & Mitchell and by Sauer in Bammesberger 1985). The Supplement to Bosworth–Toller, how-ever, acknowledges Old English evidence for the verb with postposed particle by referring to féran forþ ‘die’ s.vv. féran and forþ. The supplementary entry for forþ, which has almost tripled in size compared to Bosworth–Toller, contains the following sub-entry (6a):

of death and decay: – Gif ceorl and his wíf bearn hæbben gemǽne and fére se ceorl forð (and the husband die).

Moreover, the Supplement also adds s.v. féran (I.2b):

of going from this world, to depart this life: … Férdon forð Tatwíne and Biéda

… Gif ceorl and his wíf bearn hæbben gemǽne and fére se ceorl forð.

Crucially, there is no cross reference to the entry for forþféran and no substantial change s.v. forþféran. Also note in the two preceding examples that part of the entry for fēran reduplicates the supplementary entry for forþ, again without cross reference. Thus, while the meaning ‘die’ of the whole combination is haphazardly connected to either the simple verb or the particle in postposition, the postposed variant is in no way marked as related to the preposed one. Since this example shows the common practice in Bosworth–Toller and its Supplement, it is clear that the existence of the particle verb in Old English is far from being obvious in the dictionary, let alone systematically recorded, and it is easy to see how this procedure may have resulted in the impression first voiced by Kennedy (1920: 12) that in Old English “occurrences of the verb-adverb combination are practically nil”. A satisfactory solution would be a single entry for forþ(ge)fēran which points out the possibility of pre- and postposition of the particle. The example is typical. In many instances the Modern English glosses of the Old English headwords in Bosworth–Toller are highly suggestive of remarkable diachronic continuities. With respect to verbs listed as beginning with forþ- alone one finds no less than 65 verbs with Modern English glosses involving forth, including the considerable number of cases where the selection or the form of the headword in the dictionary seems problematic and also including the glosses with particles other than forth if they follow a gloss involving that particle (but not including the one-word glosses which often follow the ones involving particles and which are typically connected to non-literal and lexicalized senses).

As with forþfēran discussed here in greater detail, many of these apparent prefix verbs correspond throughout quite systematically to verb-particle sequences. How lexicographers of Old English who must have been familiar with the conventions of German dictionaries could present such forms as distinct from identical particle verbs with the particle in post-verbal position is hard to explain, and the overall impression is very much comparable to a hypothetical dictionary of Modern German covering a particle verb fortfahren s.vv. fortfahren and fortgefahren for the preverbal position of the particle and s.vv. fahren and fort for the postverbal position.

But nevertheless this procedure is expressly defended by Campbell (1972:

v) in the preface to the Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda to the Sup-plement, with no apparent reason except for a reference to “the tradition of the Dictionary”. These findings seem to confirm Kornexl’s (1994: 447, fn.

68) suspicion that “one might surmise that the relative scarcity of com-pound verbs in dictionaries of Old English to some extent at least results from Modern English structures unconsciously shaping the criteria applied to this previous stage of the language by present native speakers”.

Remarkably, Grein’s earlier dictionary of the vocabulary of the Anglo-Saxon poets (1861–1864) offers a more satisfactory solution since it lists forð faran s.v. forð (5) and gives as one example (among others): “fêrdon ~ þonon”; i.e. Grein treats the particles as adverbs rather than prefixes and consequently his presentation avoids the inconsistencies characteristic of the later period dictionaries (although his treatment of other particles is sometimes a bit confusing, though; cf. e.g. the classification s.v. up). It comes as no surprise that Grein’s dictionary is not listed in Kennedy’s (1920) bibliography (just as Mätzner’s, 1878–1896, cf. below). Conversely, Borden’s much later Old English dictionary (1982, compiled on the basis of several earlier dictionaries and glossaries) is very unsatisfactory with regard to particle verbs since in this dictionary they are completely indistinguishable from inseparable prefix verbs, even after perusal of the entries for the particle verb, the simple verb, and the particle (cf. e.g. again s.vv. forðfēran, fēran, forð). The same criticism applies to the widely-used Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by Clark Hall (first published in 1894, most recent edition ⁴1960), which, moreover, lists the particle verb s.v.

±forðfēran, implying (“±”) that it is a prefix verb which may be preceded by ge-.

4.3.2. The Middle English Dictionary

For Middle English, coverage of particle verbs in the Middle English Dic-tionary (MED) is in principle very similar to the older dictionaries of Old English, and hence the same criticism applies in those cases where the particles may still both precede and follow the verb (i.e. typically, but by no means exclusively, in early Middle English). Again there is no cross reference between the entries for forth-fāren and fāren, although it seems quite clear from the two entries taken together that in early Middle English forth-fāren with pre- and postposed particle is a single verb. In Middle English, the Old English verbs forþfaran and forþfēran seem to have almost completely merged into a mixed paradigm and are therefore both treated in the MED in one entry, just as the Middle English continuations of the simple verbs. It is therefore admissible to use the MED entries for (forth-)fāren to continue the discussion of the lexicographic treatment of Old English (forþ-)fēran (cf. the spelling variants and the morphological explanations given in the MED s.vv. fāren and fāren). Thus s.v. forth-fāren the senses ‘pass away, die; travel, go out, fare forth, issue out, advance (in age), pass (of a period of time)’ are given, i.e. the Old English literal and figurative senses of the verb are continued, e.g.:⁶

(1) On þes ilces geares forð ferde se eadig biscop Ernulf of Roueceastre (a1126 Peterb. Chron. an.1124)

(2) Go we þane narewe pað … [þ]ar forð fareð […] wel litel folc (a1225 (?c1175) PMor (Trin-C) 344)

(3) I forthferde To walke, as I yow telle may ((a1393) Gower CA 1.98) Characteristically, in this entry none of the sample quotations contains the particle in postposed position and the separability of the particle is marked only implicitly, although it might be more obvious to the casual user than in the older dictionaries of Old English, due to the spelling of some of the examples in two separate orthographical words, but also due to the morphological information provided at the beginning of the entry, where the past participle variants -fāre(n, -ivāre(n and -iværed are given, with the

GE- (i-) prefix as a strong indication of separability of particle and verb. But this sign is likely to be interpreted correctly only by users who are aware of

6 It has not been possible to reproduce all of the diacritics used in the MED; in particular combinations of two diacritics, e.g. macron plus dot below, had to be omitted here. The abbreviations of the sources have been retained as used in the MED.

the comparative Germanic evidence anyway and who consult the dictionary also s.v. fāren and s.v. forth-; cf. e.g. the more confusing treatment with a separate and unrelated entry for the ^GE- variant in Bosworth–Toller discussed above (for a discussion of the position of GE-prefixes between preposed particle and verb in other Germanic languages, see Chapter 5 below). S.v. fāren, users will find examples of the verb with postposed particles (or, more precisely, only with the postposed particle), e.g.:

(4) Ic ne mihte na faren forð on þin ærende (a1175 (?OE) Bod. Hom.

18/1) [s.v. fāren (6a)]

(5) Esau ferde forð ðeden to Seyr (a1325 (c1250) Gen. & Ex. 1836) [s.v. fāren (2a)]

(6) Fare forthe … and fech as þou seggez (c1400 (?c1380) Cleanness 621) [s.v. fāren (6c)]

S.v. forth-, the particle is characterised as the first element of ‘compound verbs’, but, again, without reference to the possibility of postposition, and consequently no cross reference to the synonymous postposed uses, e.g.

s.v. forth adv.:

forth-, stressed prior member of cpd. verbs and action nouns [OE forþ-].

Examples: forth-bringen bring forth, bring up [cp. L prōdūcere]; -comen come forth; -cume departure; -gōn go forth, advance; -gang progress; -lēden lead out, carry out; -passen proceed; -sīth departure.

Once again the example is typical of the practice in the dictionary, cf. e.g.

MED s.vv. forth-bringen (vs. bringen forth s.vv. bringen and forth, cf. Old English forþ-bringan), callen (“[m]odeled on L prō-vōcare”), forth-casten, forth-clēpen, forth-comen, forth-dōn, forth-drauen, forth-fillen, gangen, gōn, lēden, nimen, passen, forth-sheuen, forth-wīsen, forth-wīten. A much earlier dictionary of Middle Eng-lish (Mätzner 1885) treats the particle in a considerably more satisfactory way:

Seit frühester Zeit finden wir zahlreiche lockere oder uneigentliche Zusam-mensetzungen mit der Partikel forð, von denen die mit Zeitwörtern häufig auch eine Trennung mit Umstellung der Partikel zulassen, während die Partikel anderweitig, namentlich an Substantiven, ihre Stellung behauptet. (Mätzner 1885: s.v. forð)

[‘Since the earliest time there have been numerous loose compoundings with the particle forð. Among these the ones with verbs often allow the particle to be separated and moved, while otherwise the particle, in particular next to nouns, retains its position.’]

This is the best explanation to be found in a dictionary to date (but cf. the strikingly similar though somewhat hazier statement in the OED quoted below). What renders treatment in the MED perhaps even more confusing than the Old English dictionaries discussed so far is the fact that some-times, without apparent reason, there is a cross reference to the simple verb (e.g. s.vv. forth-nimen or forth-passen), sometimes odd bits of etymological information (e.g. s.v. forth-wenden: “[f]rom wenden go”) and twice (with respect to particle verbs involving forth) even an explicit cross reference to the postposed variant: s.vv. forth-bēren (“[a]lso bēren forth”) and forth-tēn (“[a]lso tēn forth”).

As a result of these practices, it is very difficult to draw conclusions about the morphological, syntactic and semantic status and development of one or more particle verbs on the basis of the MED. It is also usually very hard to tell whether at some point the preposed particle became an inse-parable prefix and also what the semantic relationship of such a prefix verb and a possibly still existing particle verb (presumably at that time one with postposed particle only, i.e. a phrasal verb) might have been; cf. the obser-vation made by Burnley (1992) reported in Section 4.2.2 above that in the Middle English period there is a redistribution of the Old English particle and prefix verbs and the more detailed discussion in Chapter 5. Indeed, in the case of forth-fāren it seems on the basis of the dictionary evidence that in Middle English the metaphorical meaning ‘die’ becomes a property of the verb with preposed particle, while the spatial meaning continues to be found with the particle in pre- and in postposition (as witnessed by the absence of examples with postposed particles in the sense ‘die’ in the dictionary, cf. the representative examples quoted above and see also OED s.v. fare v.¹ 12, where there is no mention of fare forth ‘die’ after early Middle English), a finding which is strongly reminiscent of the typical distribution in some present-day Scandinavian languages discussed in Chapter 2 above. But this impression would certainly need a considerably more thorough analysis of the Middle English sources than can be provided here. The crucial point to be made in the present context is that the struc-ture of the MED renders this kind of information extremely difficult to unearth, and almost completely invisible to anyone who is not actively looking for it. Another case in point is forth-fillen, where neither the MED nor the OED offer any evidence of a postposed particle. Moreover, all

quotations s.vv. in both dictionaries are from the late 14th century or later, and it seems that forth- in this formation had better be analysed as an (inseparable) prefix. But on the basis of the explicit information given in the MED, it is indistinguishable from the many particle verbs with forth.

4.3.3. The Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers a comparatively satisfactory treatment of particle verbs. It is obvious that the likely reasons for the positional characteristics of the construction were not yet known to the editors of the OED (although at the time of publication of the entries for the letter F the reasons for the positional properties could have been known to them due to the publication of Harrison’s study in 1892). Nevertheless the relationship between the preposed and the postposed variant tends to be pointed out in its entries, not only implicitly (via cross references), but also explicitly.⁷ Thus, to return to the example of forþfēran etc., the relevant entry in the OED (NED vol. IV.1, published in 1901) reads as follows:

† Forthfa·re, v. Obs. [OE. forðfaran, f. FORTH adv. + faran to go: see FARE v.¹] 1. intr. To go forth, go away, depart, journey.

c888 K.ÆLFRED Boeth. xxxiii. § 4 Swa ðætte hi æþer e forþ faraþ e eftcumaþ.

a1200 Moral Ode 340 Go we .. þene wei grene þer forþ-fareþ lutel folc. a1300 E.

E. Psalter x[i]. I, I sal forth fare, ife I wil, als a sparwe into þe hil. 13.. K. Alis.

6936 Sorwe and care That day thei letten forth fare.

2. To decease, die.

O. E. Chron. an. 571, On þam ilcan eare he forþfor. a1175 Cott. Hom. 225.

Noe lefede .. nion hund eare and fifti, and he þa forðferde. c1205 LAY. 11458 Þenne þu beost forð faren. c1320 Cast. Love 218 Atte laste he moste dyen and forþ-fare. c1350 Will. Palerne 5266 Þemperour was forþ-fare faire to crist.

And s.v. fare there is the following sub-entry:

12. Fare forth (analytical form of OE. forðfaran). See FARE v.¹ and FORTH. a. To go forth, depart, start.

c1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 225 To heueriche hie sulle fare forð mid ure drihte.

1375 BARBOUR Bruce III. 345 All hyr cumpany, Lap on thar horss, and furth thai far. c1400 Melayne 206 Rowlande .. Fares forthe with Baners brade. 1647 H.

7 Apart from the comparatively good coverage of the particle verbs in medieval English, the OED is also quite strong on Modern English phrasal verbs, which are recorded with remarkable reliability (cf. e.g. its coverage of Early Modern English phrasal verbs established in Thim 2006a).

MORE Song of Soul I. I.xxvi, Like Doves so forth they fore. 1727–38 GAY Fables

I.I. xiv. 5 Forth he fares, all toil defies. 1853 KINGSLEY Hyapatia xxi. 258 Before sunrise .. Raphael was faring forth gallantly.

† b. To go on, advance, with respect to either space or time. In the latter sense also quasi-impers.

1340–70 Alex. & Dind. 939 Whan he is fare so forþ fer in his age. c1350 Will.

Palerne 3260 It was forþ [to] nit faren bi þat time.

† c. To go by, pass by. Obs.

a1225 Leg. Kath. 1629 Pinen, þe fare forþ in an hondhwile.

But although the OED relates the preposed and the postposed variants to each other, it is also clear that this is again not done in an entirely sys-tematic fashion, especially since, as the sample entries show, this is not done in a consistent and reciprocal way. Thus the cross references s.v.

forthfare are quite satisfactory, especially when one bears in mind that the OED is not a dictionary of Old English, but a historical dictionary of the post-Anglo-Saxon language (cf. Stanley’s 1987 discussion of the treatment

forthfare are quite satisfactory, especially when one bears in mind that the OED is not a dictionary of Old English, but a historical dictionary of the post-Anglo-Saxon language (cf. Stanley’s 1987 discussion of the treatment