3. Medicina De Quadrupedibus, ed. Delcourt, Anglistische Forschungen, XL. MS Harleian 6258; c. 1150; (188)7 4. Peri Didaxeon, ed. Löweneck, Erlanger Beiträge, XII. MS Harleian 6258; XII; (450)7 5. Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, E.E.T.S., pp. 1–33. MS Cotton Vespasian D 14; XII; (680) 6. Passio Beatae Margaretae, ed. Assmann, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, III, 170-180. MS Corpus Christi College Cambridge 303; XII; (244) 7. Winteney Version of Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Schröer. MS Cotton Claudius D 3; XIII, first quarter; (1347) 8. Nativitas Sancte Marie, ed. Assmann, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, III, 117–137. MS Bodley 343; XII; (171)3 9. Twelfth Century Homilies I, ed. Belfour, E.E.T.S., pp. 2–76. MS Podley 343; XII; (794) 10. In Die Pentecosten; De Octo Viciis; ed. Morris, Early English Homilies, I, 87-119. MS Lambeth 487; XII; (286) 11. De Initio Creature, ed. Morris, Early English Homilies, I, 217-231. MS Cotton Vespasian A 22; c. 1200; (124) 12. History of the Holy Rood Tree, ed. Napier, E.E.T.S. MS Fodley 343; XII; (190) 10 13. Peterborough Chronicle, ed. Plummer, op. cit., "Peterborough additions," I, 29-33, 35-37, 39, 52f., 65, 71, 115-117, 127, 144, 163, 183, 198f., 202, 203, 205-207, 209, 234, 238, 241, 245f., 247.11 MS Laud 636; c. 1122; (96) 14. Fragments of Address of Soul to Body, ed. Buchholz, Erlanger Beiträge, VI, 1-10. MS Worcester; XII; (123) 15. Twelfth Century Homilies II, ed. Eelfour, E.E.T.S., pp. 78–140.1 MS Podley 343; XII; (626) 'Texts 3 and 4 appear, according to the information kindly furnished me by J. P. Gilson, Esq., of the MSS Department of the British Museum, to be in the same hand. Texts 8, 9, 12, and 15 are all, according to information kindly furnished by Mr. George Watson of Oxford, in the same hand. 'J. P. Gilson, Fsq., of the Iritish Museum wrote in reply to my inquiry as to the date of these homilies that he would be disposed to put them "about the beginning of the thirteenth century”. 10 See note 8 above. 11 As to these see Plummer, op. cit., II, xlv ff., esp. liv. These additions may be readily recognized from their content and their linguistic characteristics. 12 This part of the MS is, as stated above in note 8, in the same hand as texts 8, 9, and 12, but the distribution of forms with and without n in this part is notably different from that in the other three texts. Table I is divided into three parts, A, B, and C. In A is given the percentage of loss of final n for each of the fifteen texts in five grammatical categories. The grammatical categories used are the singular of weak nouns, the weak adjective, the dative singular and dative plural of the strong adjective, the plural of weak nouns, and the dative plural of strong nouns. The percentage was obtained by dividing the total number of forms of a given grammatical category into the number of forms of that category that had no final n. E.g., text 1 has 122 examples of the singular of weak nouns in which the n is retained and 7 in which the n is lost; the percentage was obtained by dividing 129 (122 plus 7) into 7, giving .054, which was counted as .05. The bottom line of A, marked "Total", shows the percentage of loss of final n in each of the texts for all five grammatical categories taken together. The last column of A, marked "Total", shows the percentage of loss of final n for each of the five grammatical categories in all the texts taken together. The percentages were obtained as before, by dividing the total number of forms with and without n into the number of forms without n. In B the data on which A is based are presented so as to show the percentage of loss of n in the singular of weak nouns as in A and in the strong and weak adjective taken together and in the plural of weak and strong nouns taken together, the percentages being obtained by the same method as was used for A. In C the same data are presented but further assembled so as to show the percentage of loss of final n in the singular of weak nouns, the weak adjective inflection, and the strong adjective inflection on the one hand and in the plural of weak and strong nouns on the other, the percentages being obtained by the same method as was used before. The loss of n in verb forms in these texts is not shown in the table. The majority of texts show no loss of n in verb forms (or a single example that may be due to miswriting). The Hatton Gospels and Medicina de Quadrupedibus show a very small percentage of loss of n in verbs and Peri Didaxeon, the Winteney Rule, De Initio Creature, and the Peterborough Additions show a considerable loss of n. It is evident that the frequency of loss of final n in verbs has no consistent relation to the frequency of loss of final n in the noun and adjective inflection. I have stated above that the distribution of forms with and without n in the twelfth century texts both is and is not of the kind that we should expect to result from chance. When we examine the percentage of loss of n in the first three grammatical categories (singular of weak nouns, weak adjective, and strong adjective) we see that the percentages are A .05.20.21.25.61.49.47.28.37.38.63.84.68 .84.72 .38 .36.26.14.14.50.51.28.48.50.53.67.63.63 .83.86 .50 .20.18.36.49.24.19.29.69.64.79.59.72.921.00.88 .43 .01.06.14.21.07.04.26 .00 .07 .00 .00 .00 .25 .08 .28 .11 .04.13.18.14.02.14.24.14.14.02.14.05.71 .07 .36 .15 .13.17.22.24 .30 .30 .32.35.40.41.47.54.65 .70.72 B .05.20.21.25.61.49.47.28.37.38.63.84.68 .84.72 C .20.21.25.27.42.39 .35 .47.52.57.63.70.70 .89.85 13 The data on which Table I is based were obtained from a single count of the forms with and without n in the texts. The percentages should therefore be regarded merely as approximate. I made a second count, however, of the forms with and without n in two of the texts (6 and 10) and found that the percentages obtained from the second count were for both texts the same in three of the grammatical categories as those I had obtained from the first count, but that for both texts the percentages obtained for the strong and weak adjective in the second count were a little smaller (between .01 and .04) than those obtained in the first count. As to the method used in collecting the data: (1) doubtful cases were usually decided in favor of retention of n in the singular of weak nouns and the adjective inflection and in favor of loss of n in the plural of nouns; (2) loss and retention of inflectional n was counted in stressed syllables (e.g. OE twēo, twēon) as well as unstressed syllables; (3) in the great majority of the texts I counted as weak nouns only those that were historically weak in Old English and disregarded analogical -en plurals of nouns that were not historically weak, but in two or three texts (1, 11, and possibly 6) I counted the analogical -en plurals among the plurals of weak nouns; the effect of including the analogical -en plurals was to make the percentage of loss of n in the plural of weak nouns somewhat smaller for these texts than it should have been, but as the percentages were very low anyhow (.01, .00, and .04) the effect produced was small. not consistently greater or consistently smaller for one grammatical category than for another. If we rearrange them so that the greatest percentage will always stand first and the smallest last we find that the three grammatical categories occur in all the six arrangements that it is possible for them to appear in and that the number of times each of the six arrangements occurs is: 1, 3, 4, 1, 2, and 4. The percentages are very far from being equal, either for the same grammatical category in the different texts or for the three grammatical categories in the individual texts, but when we examine the total percentage of loss of n for the three grammatical categories in all the texts taken together we find that the consolidated percentages are very much more nearly equal than the percentages for the individual texts. The percentages for the first three grammatical categories give no indication that loss of n was more frequent in one grammatical category than in another; they are those that might result from a chance distribution. When we examine the percentage of loss of n in the last two grammatical categories (plural of weak nouns and dative plural of strong nouns) we find that in four texts there is a greater percentage of loss in the weak nouns and that in eleven texts there is a greater percentage of loss in the strong nouns, but it would be rash to conclude from this numerical preponderance of eleven to four that loss of n was actually greater in the dative plural of strong nouns than in the plural of weak nouns. Moreover when we examine the total percentage of loss of n for the two grammatical categories in all the texts taken together we find again that the consolidated percentages are very much more nearly equal than the percentages for the individual texts. The relative frequency of loss of n in these two grammatical categories considered only in relation to each other appears to be the result of chance rather than of any other factor. When we consider the percentages for the first three grammatical categories in comparison with those for the last two grammatical categories, however, we see that the relations are altogether different from those that we found in comparing together the percentages of the two groups taken by themselves. The percentage of loss of n is consistently greater in the first three grammatical categories than in the last two. This is most strikingly shown in the totals showing the percentage of loss of n for the five grammatical categories in all the texts taken together, which are .38, .50, and .43 for the first group and .11 and .15 for the second. The really important and significant differences, however, are found in the percentages for the individual texts. We see from part C of Table I, showing the total percentage of loss of n for the first three categories taken together and for the last two taken together, that in every text the percentage of loss is substantially greater in the first group than in the second. In part B of Table I, showing the percentage of loss for each of the texts in the first, in the second and third, and in the fourth and fifth grammatical categories, the quantitative relations are similar to those that appear in part C. In every text but one the percentage of loss for the last two grammatical categories is substantially less and in most texts very much less than for either the first category or the second and third taken together. In text 7 (the Winteney Rule), however, the difference is less than the others we have found, the percentages for this text being .47, .29, and .24 respectively. The difference of distribution of forms with and without n in the two groups is most conclusively shown in part A of Table I. In three texts only, 3, 4, and 13, is the greatest percentage in the second group larger than the smallest percentage in the first group. In text 1 the greatest percentage in the second group, .04, is not very much less than the smallest percentage in the first group, .05. In text 7 neither percentage in the second group is very much less than either of the two smallest percentages in the first group. In the other ten texts the greatest percentage in the second group is substantially greater than the smallest percentage in the first group. The fact that in the twelfth century MSS the loss of final n is very decidedly and on the whole consistently greater in the first three grammatical categories than in the last two cannot reasonably, I believe, be regarded as the result of chance. It is with much more probability accounted for as a reflection of the speech habits of the scribes who copied the MSS. But we must not lose sight of the fact that in these MSS the distribution of forms with and without n is controlled by three independently variable factors: the written form of the text that was copied, the speech habits of the scribes who made the copies, and chance. The rather small differences of distribution that we find between Medecina de Quadrupedibus (3) and Peri Didaxeon (4), both in the same hand of Harleian 6258, may very well be the result of chance. So may the differences that we find between Nativitas Sancte Marie (8) and Twelfth Century Homilies I (9), both in the same hand of Bodley 343. But the differences between these two texts and 12 (History of the Holy Roodtree), also in the same hand, seem rather to reflect differences of distribution in the texts that were copied. And Twelfth Century Homilies II |