Old English Adjectives Functioning as Nouns in Beowulf

• 발행기관: 한국영어학학회
• 저자명: Yookang Kim
• 간행물 정보: 『영어학연구』영어학연구 제16권 3호, 135~162쪽, 전체 28쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2010.04.03

영문 초록

This paper examines morpho-syntactic features of Old English adjectives used as nouns (e.g., seælmihtiga ‘the almighty’). Adjectives are found to function as nouns in the Old English epic poem, Beowulf: they can be a subject, an object or a complement of a preposition in sentences; they can be modified by a demonstrative or another adjective; they denote an individual or object rather than a property. On the other hand, the adjectives in their nominal use appear to maintain their own adjectival features: they inflect for comparison; they have two types of inflectional endings (strong and weak endings). Noting the nominal and adjectival characteristics of the adjectives, and addressing the issue concerning the lexical category they belong to, I attempt to offer a quantitative and descriptive analysis of the 58 adjectives (108 tokens) which are found to function as nouns in Beowulf. Based on the statistic analysis of the morpho-syntactic features of the adjectives, I argue that they constitute a mixed category which stands on the continuum of the two categories: adjectives and nouns (cf. Bhat 1994).

목차

1. Introduction

2. A Quantitative Analysis of OE Adjectives Functioning as Nouns

3. The Morphological Status of OE Adjectives Functioning as Nouns

4. Conclusion

키워드

Old English adjectives nouns decategorization Beowulf