The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 2 part 8 doc

David Burnley Chaucer. MED gives two senses: (a) reward, recompense, remuner- ation ; (b) punishment, retribution, retaliation. These may be exemplified by the following quotations: (1) At after-soper fille they in tretee What somme sholde this maistres gerdoun be To remoeuen alle the rokkes of Britayne. (CT6: 511-13 [V.1219-21]) (2) This is the mede of lovynge and guerdoun That Medea receyved of Jasoun Ryght for hire trouthe and for hire kyndenesse. (LC W 1662-4) Despite the fact that mede is co-ordinate with guerdoun in quotation 2, neither MED nor OED lists sense (b) as one of the senses of MEDE. It is clear that senses (a) and (b) are closely related in the criterion of repayment, but they are directly opposed in respect of the desirability of the kind of repayment referred to: in extract 1 a handsome reward is contemplated; in 2 desertion is the recompense for constancy. This opposition is explicitly stated in other Chaucerian contexts: (3) good and yvel, and peyne and medes, ben contrarie (Bo. IV, p. 3, 60) (4) that is to seyn that shrewes ben punysschid or elles that good folk ben igerdoned. (Bo. V, p. 3, 166) Is it justifiable for MED to list sense (b) as a sense of the lexeme GUERDOUN, or for that matter for OED to list' recompense or retribution for evil-doing; requital, punishment' as a sense of REWARD? Both groups of lexicographers are citing interpretations of occurrences of the words in context, but since both omit a similar interpretation for MEDE, they have at least proceeded inconsistently. It may indeed be better to dispense with this supposed opposition within the denotational meaning of the lexemes GUERDOUN, MEDE and REWARD, and instead consider sense (b) to be an example of pragmatic meaning. These words are frequently used by Middle English authors in a way in which their context gives them an interpretation diametrically opposed to their usual sense - in short, they are often used ironically. 5.4.10 The tendency to use words with strong evaluative associations to imply meanings somehow in conflict with their ordinary sense is a common characteristic of linguistic behaviour, and was as familiar a 468 Lexis and semantics feature in Middle English as it is today. Perception of such usage in Early Middle English texts is less easy than in the time of Chaucer. However, Chaucer's language furnishes a wealth of lexical units used deviantly and ironically. Describing the Summoner, he says: He was a gentil harlot and a kynde, A bettre felawe sholde men noght fynde. He wolde suffre for a quart of wyn A good felawe to haue his concubyn A twelf monthe and excusen hym at the fulle. (CT1: 649-53 [1.647-51]) The usual senses of gentil and kynde are here compromised by application to harlot, a word which more than once in the fifteenth century provoked a fine for insulting language in polite company (see 5.3.12). Kynde, we are told by the compiler of the Lollard concordance, is the adjective we should apply to 'a man which is a free-hertid man & ]?at gladly wole rewarde what )?at men don for hym' (see 5.4.2). If this is really the sense oi kynde, is it misused of the Summoner? He certainly rewards the gift of a couple of pints most generously. The adjective gentil, when applied to persons, ordinarily means 'noble' or 'exhibiting the characteristics proper to nobility'. But it is also frequently used simply as an approbatory epithet. This approbatory use is presumably what we find here. Thus, in terms of the definable senses of the lexemes, neither kynde nor gentil is here used deviantly. What is strange about their occurrence is that the approbatory use of gentil is bestowed upon a scoundrel, and the affability indicated by kynde is associated with corruption. Irony arises here from awareness of behavioural values which would not condone the Summoner's conduct. It is not a part of the semantics of the words, but arises from recognition of their inappropriateness to such a context. 5.4.11 The use of words in inappropriate contexts is a fertile source of verbal irony in the Canterbury Tales. At the beginning of the Shipman's fabliau tale, a monk, 'a fair man and a boold', about thirty years old, is introduced in the company of a merchant's errant wife. The narrative recommences with the words 'This yonge monk ' (CT 10: 28 [VII.28]). Yet, in medieval England, thirty would have been considered the age of full maturity. Thus, because there is a discrepancy between linguistic usage and presupposition, the reader is forced to seek a resolution through the associations of vigour and lust which attach to the word YONG in Middle English usage. 469 David Burnley The word pitously in Chaucer's usage means (a) 'with pity; com- passionately; mercifully'; (b) 'in a manner arousing or deserving of pity, pitiably'; (c) 'devoutly, reverently, righteously'. Sense (c) is evidently distinct from senses (a) and (b), which, indeed, are simply a subjective and objective application of the same sense: that is, an individual feels pity on the one hand, or an external object is such as to arouse pity on the other — pitying or pitiable. In the Wife of Bath's Prologue we encounter the following account of her dealings with her old husbands: As help me god I laughe whan I thynke How pitously a nyght I made hem swynke, And by my fey I tolde of it no stoor. (CT2: 201-3 [111.201-3]) Clearly the sense here must be the objective one, sense (b). The sentence is perfectly well formed, yet the context makes the use of pitously inappropriate, for the objective sense (b) should surely be reciprocally related to the subjective sense (a). However, the agent causing the pitiable condition is represented as laughing, and she ' tolde of it no stoor'. The context once again contradicts the implications of the sense relations, so that we are forced to seek into our knowledge of human behaviour beyond the bounds of semantics for an explanation of the situation described, which is explicable in terms of unusual lack of sympathy. Alongside this scene, we may set another marital reminiscence of the Wife: I wol perseuere, I nam nat precius: In wifhode wol I vse myn instrument As frely as my makere hath it sent. If I be daungerous, god yeue me sorwe. Myn housbonde shal it han bothe eue and morwe. (CT2: 148-52 [111.148-52]) In this passage, the word at issue is daungerous. The three senses found in Chaucer's writings according to MED are (1) 'domineering, over- bearing '; (2a)' unapproachable, aloof, haughty, reserved'; (2b)' hard to please, fastidious'; (3)' niggardly'. The sense in the above passage must be either (2a) or (3), and the implied opposition with frely suggests the latter. The lexeme DAUNGER is, however, frequently used in contexts of courtly love (Barron 1965), where sense (2a) is the one required, and this is indeed hypostatised as the personification Daunger in the courtly love 470 Lexis and semantics theory of the Romaunt of the Rose. This powerful association of DAUNGER with the decorum of courtly love therefore evokes sense (2a) despite the necessary contextual reading in terms of sense (3). Semantic analysis is once more complicated by pragmatic knowledge, and we are forced to conclude that either Chaucer has here made an incompetent choice of lexical unit or, alternatively and more persuasively, that his choice was deliberate and added to the ironic complexity of his statement by exploiting the discrepancy between pragmatic and semantic aspects of meaning. There is space only for one further illustration of the literary exploitation of the discrepancies between semantic and pragmatic meaning. In Chaucer's Reeve's Tale occur the words: this millere stal bothe mele and corn An hondred tyme moore than biforn, For therbiforn he stal but curteisly, But now he was a theef outrageously. {CT 1: 3987-90 [1.3995-8]) The senses of curteisly listed in MED are (a) 'in a courtly manner; courteously, politely'; (b)' kindly, graciously; benevolently, mercifully; generously'; (c) 'respectfully, deferentially, meekly'; (d) 'decently [used ironically]'. The last of these, sense (d), is exemplified only by the above passage; evidently the lexicographers felt it necessary to add a new sense to the spectrum to account for this one occurrence, although they specify it as an ironic use. The gloss 'decently' adequately captures the contextual meaning, but would be more precise if the implied opposition with the sense of outrageously could have been given more prominence. If curteisly means 'decently', then the outrage in outrageously is one of excess, for this is the commonest meaning of that word. Consequently, the opposition with curteisly implies that the earlier decency was manifested in moderation, so that curteisly should probably be understood in the more specific contextual sense of'moderately'. A word with precisely this sense, mesurably, existed and was indeed associated with the ideals of courtly behaviour, but Chaucer preferred the word curteisly, used in an uncharacteristic sense, and probably in an unparalleled colligation, no doubt for the comic appropriateness which those familiar with the characteristic use as well as the senses of the words involved would at once recognise. The word curteisly as well as the sense 'moderately', suggested by opposition with 'excessively', had the advantage of association with a whole panoply of ideals of social 471 David Burnley behaviour, of decorum, propriety, decency — ideals which, elsewhere, Chaucer shows to be the aspirations of the miller and his wife. Once more, knowledge of the uses of words, of their consequent associations, contributes complex meaning beyond that apparent from the immediate sense of the lexical units involved. This discussion illustrates a number of important points for lexical meaning in Middle English. Firstly, it is possible, and indeed desirable for the purposes of clear illustration, to draw a distinction between semantic and pragmatic meaning. Secondly, and equally importantly, simultaneous awareness of both kinds of meaning is necessary for the competent interpretation of medieval discourse; indeed, although the distinction is a descriptive convenience, in the absence of guidance from native speakers, there is no natural or certain boundary between the two kinds of meaning in the everyday use of language. Associational meanings may be present alongside a particular contextual sense at any occurrence of a lexical unit, and may arise from awareness of the frequent situational conditions of use of a lexical unit or from consciousness of secondary senses within the sense spectrum of the lexeme to which the lexical unit belongs. Such factors must have been as important to the daily communication of medieval Englishmen as they are in their more urbane literature. Moreover, as we shall see, the interpenetration of pragmatic meaning in the form of knowledge of situations of use, and the sense spectra of lexemes, may be a crucial prerequisite of semantic change. 5.4.12 In the preceding discussion of the borderline between pragmatic and semantic aspects of meaning, the point has implicitly been made that lexical units do not exist in splendid isolation from one another. Just as words may be categorised by details of their use and grouped by style and register, so also, within the more narrowly limited sphere of semantics which we have adopted for this discussion, categories and relationships exist. The simplest and most familiar sense relationship, already mentioned by the compiler of the Lollard concordance, is that of sameness of meaning, synonymy. Although synonymy is the most familiar of the relations existing between the meanings of words, it must be recognised that it is, to be more precise, a relationship of sense; complete denotational sameness is rare, and rarer still is equivalence in terms of both semantic and pragmatic meaning. 47 2 Lexis and semantics 5.4.13 A rough test for synonymy when dealing with the language of earlier texts is occurrence in identical contexts. It is not always easy to find occurrences of two words in identical contexts in Middle English, but there are numerous examples where contexts are very similar, for example: (5) Leon rorynge and bere hongry been like to the cruee! lordshipes in withholdynge or abreggynge of the shepe or the hyre or the wages of seruauntz. (CT 12: 568 [X.568]) (6) Of coueitise comen thise harde lordshipes thurgh whiche men been distreyned by taylages, custumes and cariages moore than hir duetee or resoun is. (CT 12: 752 [X.752]) 'Certes,' quod dame Prudence, 'this were a cruel sentence and muchel ageyn reson. (CT 10: 1836 [VII.1836]) 'Youre prynces erren as youre nobleye dooth,' Quod tho Cecile, 'and with a wood sentence Ye make vs gilty, and it is nat sooth. (CT 7: 449-51 [VI1I.449-51]) In passages (5) and (6) it is apparent that the lexical units cruel and hard have a very similar sense; in (7) and (8) cruel seems to have the same sense as wood. Can we go further and say that the senses in (5)—(8) are the same, so that cruel, hard and wood are synonymous ? What then of shepe, hyre and wages in passage (5)? It would be possible to make short lists of lexemes which in Middle English share much of their sense spectra: (7) (8) stibourn hyre sturdy shepe stout strong stif stern stoor hals maistresse sweven p' e y swire lemman dreme game guerdoun necke lotebie mettynge disport mede throte lady avisioun laik wages wenche The group beginning with stibourn is interesting as an apparently phonaesthetic grouping, where the initial /st/ seems to be associated with an attitude of hostility and intractability. Yet, although the words in each column have very similar senses, readers familiar with Middle English texts will be reluctant to allow that they are all synonyms. They may differ according to social status {hyre and guerdoun), geographical 473 David Burnley distribution (hals and swire), derogatory or approbatory associations (Jemman and lady) or technical as opposed to general use (avisioun and siveven). Indeed, the tendency for synonyms to become differentiated has repeatedly been the subject of comment by semanticists (Breal 1964; Ullmann 1967; Palmer 1981). Thus, although cruel, bard and wood may appear synonymous because all refer to the oppressive behaviour of a tyrannous lord, they are not pragmatically equivalent. It has been shown that in translated works wood frequently renders Latin saevus whereas cruel corresponds to crudelis. In Latin technical writings, saevitia is associated with tyrannical madness, whereas crudelitas may indicate strict justice. Something of this distinction seems to have been transferred into Chaucer's English (Burnley 1979). But is this merely a matter of the kind of encyclopedic knowledge which should be excluded from the proper field of semantics ? The question cannot be answered with certainty, but it may be significant that in passage (7) the qualifier muchel ageyn reson is added to cruel. The word wood does not receive such qualification, perhaps because irrationality is felt to be an important criterion in the meaning of the lexeme. Let us consider two further examples of contextual synonymy: (9) thow shalt come into a certeyn place, There as thow mayst thiself hire preye of grace. {Jroilus II.1364-5) (10) This Diomede al fresshly newe ayeyn Gan pressen on, and faste hire mercy preye. (Jroilus V.1010-11) (11) And hym of lordshipe and of mercy preyde. And he hem graunteth grace. (CT1: 1829-30 [1.1827-8]) It is clear that in passages (9) and (10)grace and mercy are synonymous; this is confirmed in a different situation in passage (11). In other contexts, of course, the lexeme GRACE may be synonymous with destine, and the lexeme MERCY with pitee. Moreover PITEE and MERCY may, like WOOD and CRUEL, be separable according to the criteria of, respectively, irrational and rational impulses. These lexemes may be synonymous at the level of individual senses, although their denotational meanings are not identical. But compare MERCY and GRACE in their shared sense of the 'erotic favour of a lady' with a third such term: (12) Lemman, thy grace, and, swete bryd, thyn oore. (CT 1:3718 [1.3726]) 474 Lexis and semantics Although the sense of the word oore is here cognitively equivalent to that just discussed, this word's meaning would have felt quite different to a Chaucerian audience, for it has been shown how this is the unique use in Chaucer of a word from an unaccustomedly popular stylistic register, exploited by Chaucer for satirical effect (Donaldson 1951). Semantically equivalent to MERCY and GRACE it may be, but it is pragmatically quite distinct. Concentrating upon the lexeme CURTEISIE in Chaucer's language, we may examine this matter of sense relations further. Within the specific situational context of the judgement of wrongdoers, CURTEISIE is used to imply sympathetic and merciful sentences: (13) yow moste deme moore curteisly; this is to seyn, ye moste yeue moore esy sentences and iugementz. (CT 10: 1855-6 [VII. 1855-6]) This sense we shall call 'merciful'. Chaucer's works reveal other examples of this sense, but realised by other lexical units, thus: (14) oure swete lord Iesu Crist hath sparid vs so debonairly in oure folies that if he ne hadde pitee of mannes soule a sory song we myghten alle synge. (CT 12: 315 IX.315]) (15) For, syth no cause of deth lyeth in this caas, Yow oghte to ben the lyghter merciable. (LGWF 409-10) Thus we have evidence that with regard to the sense 'merciful', curteisie is synonymous with DEBONAIR and MERCY. This synonymy does not, of course, extend to other senses which may be realised by the lexical form curteis; we have seen, for example, that the latter, when realised as an adverb, can have the sense 'moderately'. CURTEISIE is, however, realised in a context which demonstrates a third sense, that of 'kindliness', and here it becomes synonymous with the lexical unit kyndenesse: (16) But nathelees I wol of hym assaye At certeyn dayes yeer by yeer to paye, And thonke hym of his grete curteisye. (CT6: 851-3 [V.1567-9]) (17) Seend me namoore vnto noon hethenesse, But thonke my lord heere of his kyndenesse. (CT3: 1112-13 [11.1112-13]) Thus we have two distinct senses of CURTEISIE, and the strong sug- 475 David Burnley gestion of a third. The situation may be represented diagrammatically as follows: senses lexical units ' merciful' curteis merciable debonair CURTEISIE ' moderate(ly)' curteisly mesurably 'kind' curteisie kyndenesse The senses ' merciful' and ' kind' are realised respectively by the forms curteis, merciable and debonair, on the one hand, and by curteis and kyndenesse, on the other. The lexical forms curteisly and mesurably with the sense ' moderate(ly)' are deduced from Chaucer's usage and that of wider Middle English sources. 5.4.14 A structure such as that above, in which one lexical unit is placed superordinate to others which are, among themselves, in- compatible in sense, is termed a hyponymic structure, CURTEISIE is the superordinate term and the other lexical units are co-hyponyms. It is important, however, to realise that hyponymy is a sense structure operating between lexical units, with their distinct senses, rather than between lexemes, which may have multiple significance, and cannot therefore be subsumed under a single superordinate. Turning now to sense opposition, we shall find that in the situation of judgement a clear opposition to the sense 'merciful' is demonstrated in scenes where a judge exacts unsympathetic and harsh penalties. This sense, we shall call ' merciless': (18) I resceyve peyne offals felonye for guerdoun of verrai vertue. And what opene confessioun of felonye hadde evere juges so accordaunt in cruelte that either errour of mannys wit, or elles condicion of fortune ne enclynede some juge to have pite or compassioun? (Bo. 1 p. 4 226-34) (19) Ther shal the stierne and wrothe iuge sitte aboue, and vnder hym the horrible pit of helle open to destroye hym that moot biknowen hise synnes. (CT 12: 170 [X.170]) (20) 'Youre prynces erren as youre nobleye dooth,' Quod tho Cecile, 'and with a wood sentence Ye make vs gilty, and it is nat sooth. (CT 1: 449-51 [V11I.449-51]) The lexical units stern, cruel and wood are used in contexts which strongly 476 Lexis and semantics suggest a sense opposition to those lexical units which realise the sense ' merciful'. Taking CRUEL as the lexeme for further investigation, we again discover a hyponymic structure, this time of more extended hierarchical form: CRUEL CRUEL 1 CRUEL 2 sense 'merciless' 'merciless' 'oppressive 'repressive (just) (unjust) tyranny' tyranny' lexical forms cruel stern cruel wood irous cruel wood irous cruel hard dangerous tiraunt felonous Here it is possible to make a distinction between mercilessness justified by the crime of the prisoner, and mercilessness without justification, motivated by tyranny. Such tyranny is represented by senses outside the judicial situation:' oppressive tyranny' covers various acts of cruelty and injustice on the part of a feudal lord; 'repressive tyranny' means his withholding of various rights. The lexeme CRUEL is used to realise all four senses, but each one is realised also by the lexical forms listed beneath each sense. It is apparent that CRUEL will be opposed in sense to CURTEISIE within the particular situation of judgement, and that as a consequence the hyponyms merciable and debonair, on the one hand, and stern, wood, irous and tiraunt, on the other, enter this opposition. The manner in which hyponymy is represented in the diagrams illustrates a further important feature about this structure. This is that it may be used to represent not only the relations of different lexical forms to one another, but also that of related lexical units belonging to the same lexeme. Since hyponymy is a sense relationship, the lexical units cruel, with their distinct senses, are just as much co-hyponyms of the lexeme CRUEL as the lexical units wood or hard. Hyponymy thus presents a model of the relationship of individual senses to the denotational meaning of the lexeme. As mentioned above (5.4.4), it is certainly misleading to think of this more generalised level of meaning as consisting of an inventory of discrete senses, and it would be better to regard it rather as a meaning potential which both makes available and places restrictions on the senses which can be realised in context. The denotation of a lexeme, therefore, is not a precisely definable concept; nevertheless, even out of context, certain criteria of meaning 477 [...]... presentation of material Furthermore, their influence is not likely to have been felt before the fourteenth century in English works, and so the implications of the development of the academic prologue are restricted in their applicability to the whole of the Middle English period It does not seem as though either of these books provides a way in to the study of the literary language The Latin background... Middle English extended to use as a form of address As such, from the fourteenth century it becomes correlated with the use to a single addressee of the plural form of the second person pronoun,ye Together they represent part of a system of polite address inspired by French usage (Finkenstaedt 1963; Shimonomoto 1 986 ); but there has been no change in the meaning of these words, the change is rather in the. .. more prominent than others These may be so either from the frequency of occurrence of particular senses, or from some other cause of psychological salience Indeed, the details of the relation between mental actuality and the senses of lexical units are beyond the scope of this discussion, but the matter is worthy of some discussion, since it may help to explain a peculiarity of the data examined above... based upon the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary It may be expected that the publication of the materials gathered at the University of Glasgow for a Historical Thesaurus will contribute substantially to the resources available for 496 Lexis and semantics the study of Middle English lexis Discussion of the nature of the word as a linguistic unit is perennial, and may be found in Lyons (19 68) , Matthews (1974)... with Old English literary expression and the texts written after the re-emergence of English for literary use in the fourteenth century In both the earlier and the later periods not only do texts from many different parts of the country survive but they are also written in the prevailing regional forms Towards the end of the Middle English period London emerges as the most important centre for the production... perspective over the occurrences and senses of many more lexemes This would then have demonstrated to us that the particular structure represented by the CURTEISTE hyponymy arises as the artefact of our decision to choose that particular lexeme as the starting point of our investigation 5.4.15 The general direction of the discussion of the semantic structure of Chaucer's Middle English has been from the simple... concentrated on the development of rhetorical techniques in Latin handbooks and the influence these exerted on English writers (Atkins 1943) The general influence of these rhetoricians was partly to encourage a distinction between different styles and the appropriateness of certain styles for particular types of writing, and partly to encourage the elaboration of English writing through the use of tropes,... hinder effective communication They are then said to be in conflict The result of this conflict may then be the avoidance of the word in contexts where such confusion may arise, and the consequent loss of one or more senses, or even of the word form itself Thus the fact that in most Middle English dialects the Old English word bread 'morsel' (and later under the influence of Scand braud, 'bread'), came... (Curtius 1953) Yet the encouragement such handbooks gave to writers to present their material within certain themes such as the brevity formula or the ideal landscape may have led English writers to copy the words as well as the topoi of their Latin counterparts, though the differing structures of each language would provide a limit to the extent of this similarity Nevertheless, the Latin models might... disruption of the system can occur, but how the system proves self-regulating The concept of a system is that of an abstraction, but the process of regulation is not itself idealised or abstract It lies in the use of the language by those who wish to communicate with one another For the results of homonymic conflict to come about, language users have to be inconvenienced by the existing state of affairs: . of pragmatic meaning in the form of knowledge of situations of use, and the sense spectra of lexemes, may be a crucial prerequisite of semantic change. 5.4. 12 In the preceding discussion of the. as the personification Daunger in the courtly love 470 Lexis and semantics theory of the Romaunt of the Rose. This powerful association of DAUNGER with the decorum of courtly love therefore. that particular lexeme as the starting point of our investigation. 5.4.15 The general direction of the discussion of the semantic structure of Chaucer's Middle English has been from the simple