Noun-Adjective Compounds in Old English Poetry

Authors

Don William Chapman, Brigham Young University - ProvoFollow
Ryan Christensen, Brigham Young University - Provo

Keywords

Old English Poetry, Old English compounds

Abstract

One of the marks of Old English poetic style is the compound word. Malcolm Godden calls compounds “the essence of Anglo-Saxon poetic language.”(1) The lexicon of words exclusive to poetry includes many compounds, and many of these compounds are used only once in the Old English corpus. Thus it seems Anglo-Saxon poem-making consisted not only in using a large number of compound words, but in true compounding, in coining new words by combining two old words.

Original Publication Citation

“Noun-Adjective Compounds in Old English Poetry.” Studies in the History of the English Language 3. Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 6, 2004.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Chapman, Don William and Christensen, Ryan, "Noun-Adjective Compounds in Old English Poetry" (2004). Faculty Publications. 6559.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/6559

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2004

Publisher

Brigham Young University

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

Linguistics

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

Copyright Use Information

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/