Distribution of Lexical Doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland

Distribution of Lexical Doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland Mª Nieves Rodríguez Ledesma UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA Vocabulary has undergone a radical transformation throughout the history of the English language: whereas Old English takes very few borrowings from other languages and makes use of its own resources to express new concepts, either by changing the meaning of words already existing in the language (hell “hidden place” comes to mean “home of devils and of damned souls after death” with the arrival of Christianity) or by creating compounds from native elements (pr¯ines “trinity”, b¯ocrœft “literature”), from Middle English onwards loanwords are borrowed in an indiscriminate way, especially from French and Latin, many of which express concepts that were expressed before by means of native vocabulary. The results are lexical doublets such as brotherhood/fraternity, cold/gelid, fatherly/paternal, foot/pedal, hearty/cordial, thin/tenuous, whose elements are now used as stylistic variants, depending on the register and the degree of formality. This paper studies the distribution of some doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland, a literary work in prose written in 1549 by Robert Wedderburn, according to Stewart (1979), and apparently printed in France, probably Paris. Modelled on Chartier’s Quadrilogue Invectif, The Complaynt is full of axioms, exempla, sententiae, and proverbs taken from the Bible and from classical sources (Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, among others), and it makes use of a plain style, according to the author, “for i thocht it nocht necessair til hef fardit ande lardit this tracteit vitht exquisite termis, quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit, bot rather i hef vsit domestic scottis langage, maist intelligibil for the vlgare pepil” (1979:13). The most explicit reference to the distribution of lexical doublets in Middle Scots is made by Aitken, who points out: that knaw and pas, for example, may have functioned as the literary “translations” of the vernacular ken and gang or ga, that the three members of the set hound, dog and tyke had quite different overtones, that items like cummer (female crony), gully (large knife), juggis (lees of drink), lug, bony (bonny), scunner, as well as some others which are recorded only in comic verse, such as gane (face), kyte (belly), larbar (impotent), lounge and queir, had quite restricted spheres of use at the opposite pole from that of many of the “exquisite termis quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit..., dreuyn or rather to say mair formaly reuyn fra lating” (Compl. 16). (Aitken 1971:178) Three of the doublets mentioned by Aitken occur in The Complaynt: knau/ken, pas/gang, ga, and ere/lug, all of which are made up of a borrowing, French in the case of pas and Scandinavian in the other two1, and a native word. The Scandinavian element in Scots is considerable, since not only are there quite a number of borrowings from that language, but many of them have become part of the core vocabulary, which is not the case with those taken from French2. Thus, this is the origin of the causative verb gar and the auxiliary ma(u)n (“must”), as well as that of the prepositions till, fra, and lyik (<líkr) which, later on, will be adopted by English, although with some differences. Another feature distinguishing Scandinavian and French borrowings is that whereas the former, according to Aitken, occur in more informal and colloquial registers than their native counterparts, the latter are typical of formal and literary styles. In this paper I study the distribution of the doublets knau/ken3, pas/gang, ga, and ere/lug in The Complaynt. My aim is to support or to refute Aitken’s suggestion that the elements of these pairs coexisted as stylistic variants in Middle Scots. In every case, I begin by providing a short account of the history of these terms in English and, more specifically, in Scots. The information has been taken from The Oxford English Dictionary and A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue4 1. KNAW/KEN With regard to the first doublet, know (and its northern counterpart knaw) is a common Teutonic and Aryan verb, derived from the same root (gen-, gon-, gn-) as can and ken. With ( ζ e)cnawan as its Old English ancestor, know is well established in all its main senses by 1200, and since then has broadened its semantic field and has taken over the original territory of the verbs wit and can, so that this English verb alone corresponds to Latin n¯ovisse, co-gn¯oscere and sc¯ire, and to Spanish conocer and saber. Ken, also a common Teutonic verb, originally had a causative meaning, “to cause to know”, although at an early stage in all these languages it acquired the sense “to know”, in the case of English probably influenced by Norse, where both meanings were in early use. According to OED, it is this verb, ken, which is used in Scotland with the sense “to know”, after having supplanted knaw. DOST, however, regards them as practically synonymous in that sense, and has examples of both in identical constructions: a) with a noun phrase as direct object and the sense “(re)conocer”, as in: “Bot, for that men suld nocht him ken, He suld a mantill haf, ald and bar”; “He knew hyre nocht”; b) with nominal clauses as direct object and the sense “saber”, as in: “Kennand that thai na kid ware”; “Knawand that Eufagen[e]a... Is spousit to the kinge of hewyn”; “Mycht nane ken quha had ony avantage”; “Quha hurt or haill was, nane micht knaw”. In The Complaynt, knau is the dominant verb, with forty-six examples, as against thirteen instances of ken. These data seem to confirm Aitken’s hypothesis that knau is the literary “translation” of ken, dominant, therefore, in texts written in a formal style, such as The Complaynt. The situation in this work is, however, more complex, since eleven out of the thirteen instances of ken select a noun phrase as direct object and have the sense “(re)conocer”. The following examples illustrate this construction: “thai vald haue clair myskend it, be rasone that it vas sa mekil altrit fra the fyrst fassone” (p.55); “to grant them grace to ken them selfis, for as lang as thai ken nocht them selfis thai sal neuyr ken god” (p.102); “i am leukand gyf i can fynd my fathers hardyn pan, amang thir dede mennis banis bot i can nocht ken it amang them” (p.121). The only exceptions to this rule are: “sen god kennis that ζ our hartis ar euil, and that men kennis that ζ our verkis ar euyl” (p.135), where ken takes a nominal clause and means “saber”. As against the syntactic-semantic specialization of ken, knaw is not restricted in The Complaynt to Mª NIEVES RODRÍGUEZ LEDESMA148 any particular construction. The following examples illustrate the different nominal clauses which this verb takes in this work in the sense “saber”: “the pepil knauis thir mutations to be of verite” (p.17); “he that tynis ane thing, and syne knauis nocht quhair it is” (p.66); “ ζ e knau quhou thai and there forbears hes beene ζ our ald mortal enemes” (p.68); “and sen ζ e knau that god hes schauen sic fauoir” (p.71); “nocht ane of ζ ou knauis quhat ane vthir sais” (p.110); “be the quhilk ζ e may knau quha is ane vilaine” (p.114). Knau also appears in The Complaynt in those constructions which are typical of ken, that is, with noun phrases as direct object and the sense “(re)conocer”, as the following examples illustrate: “he possessis vthir pure pepil, that knauis his gudnes, vitht the samyn reches, that he hes tane fra them, that hes arrogantly miskanuen hym” (p.15); “ther is nocht mony that knauis the cause of thir mutations” (p.17); “his auful scurge of aperand exterminatione sal change in ane faderly correctione sa that ve vil knau his mageste” (p.20); “sum men that knauis the secret of scotland” (p.87). Aitken’s suggestion that knaw is the literary “translation” of ken does not apply, therefore, to The Complaynt, wich has examples of both. On the other hand, these forms are not merely synonyms in this work, but there are syntactic and semantic factors governing their usage. Thus, ken is the marked form in The Complaynt, being restricted to those collocations which know originally had, whereas knau is the unmarked term, used not only in these constructions, but also in those which had previously been exclusive to the verb wit. 2. PAS/GANG, GA With regard to the second doublet, go (and its northern counterpart ga) is a defective verb common to the Teutonic languages, semantically equivalent to Latin ire, which originally was also used in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”. Gang, from Old English gangan, only survives in northern dialects. In Scots this verb is chiefly used in the infinitive, present participle and present tense; from the syntacticsemantic point of view, however, it is practically synonymous with ga, both in the senses “to go” and “to go on foot, to walk”. Pas, on the other hand, is a borrowing from French passer. Originally it meant “to step, pace, walk”, but already in the 11th century in Old French it had come to denote progression or movement from one place to another. In English, pass has become the most general verb to express onward motion; in Scots, however, in spite of its being very common in that sense, it seems to be restricted to literary and formal registers. In The Complaynt, pas is largely the dominant verb, with 131 occurrences, as against six examples of gang and nine of ga/go. In this work, however, the vernacular forms have not merely been supplanted by their supposed literary “translation” pas, but they have specialized semantically. Thus, gang is only used in the infinitive and in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”, as the following examples illustrate: “quhen ve ar tirit to gang on oure feit, ve ar solist to seik horse to ryde” (p.27); “quha cam at his command, in ane charriot be cause he mytht nothir ryde nor gang be cause he vas decrepit for aige” (p.79); “he gart the bruit gang that thai presoneris hed eschaipit”5(p.91); “the ζ ong partan vald nocht gang euyn furtht bot rather sche ζ eid crukit bakuart and on syd.... quod sche mother, i can nocht gang of my auen natur as thou biddis me bot nochtheles, vald thou gang furtht rycht befor me, than i sal leyrn to follou thy futsteppis” (p.126). To express this meaning (“to go on foot, to walk”) in other tenses, the forms of DISTRIBUTION OF LEXICAL DOUBLETS IN THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND 149 the verb ga/go are used, as in: “none of them suld tak ther refectione quhil thai hed gone ande run the tyme of fife or sex houris” (p.7); “sche ζ eid crukit bakuart and on syd”6(p.126). Apart from replacing gang in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”, ga/go is used once in the construction SV with the meaning “to go away” [“than quhen he gois, al the leaue rynnis & follouis hym” (p.110)], and on another occasion it functions as an attributive verb and takes a subject complement [“al musing of meruellis amys hef i gone” (p.51)]. In the remaining examples, ga/go takes an adverbial and has the sense “go”, being synonymous, therefore, with pas: “ther is ane vthir circle in the spere callit meridian the quhilk gais betuix the tua polis rycht abufe our hede” (p.39); “the sune circuitis and gais about the eird” (p.40); “sal i go vitht ζ ou to rumbelo fayr” (p.51); “O ignorant abusit ande dissaitful pepil, gone by the path vaye of verteouse knaulage” (p.56). As against the semantic specialization of the vernacular forms gang and ga/go, pas is the most general verb in The Complaynt to express motion, being equivalent to Spanish “ir” and “pasar”. The following examples illustrate the different constructions in which this verb occurs: a) SVA: “the sourde of vengeance sal nocht pas throucht ζ our cuntre” (p.21); “quhen the sune castis oure grite heyt: ve pas vndir the vmbre or the schaddou” (p.27); “Iudas machabeus past athort the montanis and desertis” (p.60); “ther vas tua passagis to pas betuix the romans camp and lucere” (p.78); b) SV + infinitive: “vsit oft to visye the feildis to tak ther recreatione, ande to pas til hounting” (p.10); “left the glorius stait of athenes, & past to remane in ane litil village” (p.35); “sche vald pas to mak veyre contrar ethiope” (p.63); c) SV: “he past and perturbit al greice” (p.63); “than i past and i sleu hym” (p.94); d) SVO, with the noun phrase which functions as object expressing either place7or time: “the iugement of gode... is ane profound onknauen deipnes, the quhilk passis humaine ingyne” (p.17); “thou passis the limitis of baytht thir documentis” (p.102); “to pas the tyme quhil euyn” (p.49). As it happened in the previous case, therefore, both the vernacular forms gang, ga and their supposed literary “translation” pas occur in The Complaynt, and their distribution depends on syntactic and semantic criteria. The French term, pas, is the most general verb to express motion in this work, being used in a wide range of constructions with the meanings “ir”, “pasar”, whereas the vernacular forms, and especially gang, have specialized in the sense “to go on foot, to walk”. 3. ERE/LUG With regard to the last doublet, lug as a synonym of ere is first used early in the 16th century, and in colloquial Scots it has supplanted the vernacular form, which is now restricted to a few collocations. The primary meaning of the Scandinavian noun was “something that can be pulled or laid hold of, an appendage”, and it is possible that it was first used to refer to the flap of a cap or a bonnet, since this is the sense of the earliest attested examples, and that, by a later colloquial sense-transference, it came to denote “ear”. Alternatively, and according to DOST, the sense “ear” “may have existed earlier but remained unrecorded as a purely colloquial use”. In any case, lug is normally used in Scots in the sense “the external ear” (Spanish “oreja”), whereas in the sense “the ear as organ of hearing” (Spanish “oído”) it is uncommon and late; ere, however, is used in both senses throughout Older and Middle Scots. With regard to the usage of this doublet in The Complaynt, Aitken’s suggestion that lug, together with other terms, “had quite restricted spheres of use at the opposite pole from that of many of the “exquisite termis quhilkis ar nocht daly vsit..., dreuyn or rather to say mair formaly reuyn fra lating” (1971:178) is not true for this work, which has two instances of this noun. Mª NIEVES RODRÍGUEZ LEDESMA150 As with the previous doublets, however, lug and ere are not synonyms in The Complaynt, but each has specialized semantically. Lug is used in the sense “earflap”, as in the example “euyrie scheiphird hed ane horne spune in the lug of there bonet” (p.34), and in the sense “the external ear” (Spanish “oreja”), as in “the tail quhou kyng midas gat tua asse luggis on his hede be cause of his auereis” (p.50). Ere, on the other hand, means “the ear as organ of hearing” (Spanish “oído”), as the following examples illustrate: “nor his eyris ar nocht stoppit, bot he maye heir ζ ou” (p.59); “the damysele that heris and giffis eyris to the amourus persuasions of desolut ζ ong men” (p.85); “i vil nocht gyf eyris to thy excusations nor to thy purgations” (p.108); “i refuse to gyf eyris or audiens to thy accusations contrar thy tua brethir” (p.109). CONCLUSIONS The results obtained from the study of the distribution of these lexical doublets in The Complaynt of Scotland do not support Aitken’s suggestion that knau and pas functioned in Middle Scots as the literary “translations” of the vernacular ken and gang, ga respectively, since both sets of forms occur in this work. The former, nevertheless, are dominant in The Complaynt, which proves that they are typical of literary and formal registers. The elements of these doublets are not, however, merely synonyms in this work, but there are syntactic and semantic factors governing their usage. On the other hand, the occurrence in The Complaynt of the term lug which, according to Aitken, is restricted to colloquial registers, is a proof of the plain and intelligible language which the author states in the prologue to have used throughout his work, and turns, thus, his excuse for his “barbir agrest termis” into something other than a mere literary device. NOTES 1Ken has been regarded as a Scandinavian borrowing since, although the verb cennan exists in Old English. it did not have the sense “to know”, which it seems to have taken from Norse. 2Scandinavian influence is also apparent in the preference of Scots and northern dialects for the velar plosives /k, g/ in contrast with the palatal affricates /t, d ζ / of Standard English, which results in doublets such as Kirk/church, Kist/chest, breeks/breeches, sic/such, ilk/each, quhilk/which, brig/bridge, rig/ridge, etc. 3The compounds mysknaw/mysken have also been taken into account. 4Throughout the rest of this paper, these dictionaries will be refered to as OED and DOST respectively. 5In this collocation, Spanish does not use the verbs “andar” or “caminar”, but “correr”: “hizo correr el rumor de que estos prisioneros habían escapado”. 6Ga/go being a defective verb, its past tense was supplied in OE by eode, which became in ME ζ ede, yede, yode. These forms died out in the south in the fifteenth century, and were superseded by went, the past tense of wend. In Scots went and ζ ede /or ζ eid) were used in this function down to the latter part of the sixteenth century, when they were replaced by gaed, a new formation on the present-stem, which first appeared in the Bannatyne MS. of 1568. 7In this case it is translated into Spanish as “sobrepasar, exceder”. DISTRIBUTION OF LEXICAL DOUBLETS IN THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND 151 WORKS CITED Aitken, A.J. 1971: “Variation and Variety in Written Middle Scots.” In Aitken, A.J., McIntosh, A. & Pálsson, H. eds. Edinburgh Studies in English and Scots. London, Longman. 177-209. Craigie, William & Aitken, A.J. eds. 1931- : A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue from the Twelfth Century to the End of the Seventeenth, Founded on the Collections of Sir William A. Craigie. 7 vols. to date. Chicago, U of Chicago P; London, Oxford UP. Simpson, J.A. & Weiner, E.S.C. eds. 1989: The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, Clarendon. Stewart, A.M. ed. 1979: The Complaynt of Scotland. Edinburgh, The Scottish Text Society. Mª NIEVES RODRÍGUEZ LEDESMA152