Volume 136, Issue 2

Lexical innovation is omnipresent and constantly at work. Studies aiming to understand the process of lexical innovation and the subsequent diffusion of neologisms therefore benefit from systematic methods of neologism identification. Retrieval procedures in the past have largely consisted of manual activities of participant observations and close reading. Recently, attempts have been made at designing automatized identification procedures, assisted by state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques and tools. Beginning with a discussion of the most commonly used neologism detection methods and applications in linguistics, the present paper will describe a semi-automatic approach to identifying new words on the web, the NeoCrawler’s Discoverer, which has been developed as part of a project on the incipient diffusion of lexical innovations. The Discoverer daily processes large batches of online text in English and automatically identifies unknown grapheme sequences as potential neologism candidates by means of a dictionary matching procedure, in which the individual tokens are matched against a very large dictionary. These potential neologisms subsequently are presented to the user for manual evaluation of their neologism status. Finally, candidates are added to the NeoCrawler’s database for continuous close monitoring of their development in the online speech community. We argue that the use of dictionary matching in neologism identification offers an efficient method to semi-automatically extract potential instances of lexical innovation with high precision and high recall when compared to previous approaches.

The main focus of this article is on a passage in Ælfric’s Catholic Homily I, 33 and its Latin source in Augustine’s Sermon 71. The correspondence between the Latin source text and Ælfric’s translation is exceptionally close, almost gloss-like. What is particularly striking is the occurrence of passives of possessive (ge)habban in the Old English, corresponding to passives of possessive habere in the source. In both Old English and Latin the expression of possession with the passives of both (ge)habban and habere is very rare. The Latin Trinitarian statement translated by Ælfric consists of three sentences which display a remarkable degree of parallelism at the level of syntax and lexis. This results in a compact statement consisting of parallel repeated elements, which not only establish differences between the three persons of the Godhead but also emphasise the essential unity underlying the Trinity. The article also briefly deals with another, syntactically more relaxed, formulation of the same Trinitarian statement occurring earlier in Augustine’s sermon and tentatively asks the question why Ælfric chose the more complex and unwieldy version with passives of habere as the base text for his translation.

This paper presents an edition and translation of the poem in the Exeter Book better called Paternal Precepts , not just Precepts , with some commentary. The poem is abstract, and father and son are no dramatis personae . Its instruction is that not only how one thinks and acts, but also how one speaks should be endowed with virtue. The brief introduction of Paternal Precepts directs us into the ten paternal precepts to teach a well-born son. The first precept instructs the son to be virtuous, and to honour his parents and teachers. The second and third precepts direct the son not to keep bad company, and teach that God rewards virtue and punishes complicity in evil. The fourth precept is about loyalty, both to one’s friends and to one’s high principles. The fifth precept is about what is to be avoided: drunkenness, evil thoughts, lies, boasting; and the dangers of loving women. It is important to be a safekeeper of one’s words. The sixth precept is about understanding the concepts good and evil. The seventh precept reflects, in expressive contrasts, on futurity, and that the wise recognize sorrow in joys, whereas a fool fails to see that exultation may be enmeshed in sorrow. The eighth precept is about the theological concepts of God and saints. It ends with the glory of truth. The long ninth precept dwells on the Lord’s commandments, and with terms not entirely clear: ancient writings, perhaps the Scriptures together with the writings of the Church Fathers; ‘forward-looking writings’, that is perhaps prophecies, and native traditions. The long tenth precept embraces sins of words and deeds, truth, wrath, and wisdom.

London, British Library, MS Harley 2409, written in the first half of the fifteenth century, contains a text that has come to be referred to as “long Version C” of The Cleanness of Soul , and which for some time has been considered as based on Catherine of Siena’s Dialogo . The latter, however, is wrong, as Jennifer N. Brown (2015) has recently shown. Part of the text is probably based on William Flete’s Documento spirituale , and it is this part which may most correctly be referred to as Cleanness of Soul . It is extant in three versions, of which Version C survives in Harley 2409 and in five other manuscripts. The version in Harley, however, contains additional material from elsewhere. I shall offer a brief discussion of the whole text, its sources and its textual affiliations as well as the first critical edition of what in this long version may more generally be called “Spiritual Teachings by Catherine of Siena”.