This book is about the integration into English of the five nominal suffixes -ment, -ance, -ation, -age and -al, which entered Middle English via borrowings from French, and which now form abstract nouns by attaching themselves to various base categories, as in cord/cordage or adjust/adjustment. The possibility is considered that each suffix might individually affect the general semantic profile of nouns which it forms. A sample of first attributions from the Middle English Dictionary is analysed for each suffix, in order to examine biases in suffixes towards certain semantic areas. It is argued that such biases exist both in real-world semantics, such as the choice of bases with moral or practical meanings, and in distinct aspects of the shared core meaning of action or collectivity expressed by the derived deverbal or denominal nouns. The results for the ME database are then compared with the use of words in the same suffixes across a selection of works from Shakespeare. In this way it can be shown how such tendencies may persist or change over time.

Contents:

Productivity and Semantics - English and French in Medieval England - The Suffix -ment in Middle English - The Suffix -ance/-ence in Middle English - The Suffix -ation in Middle English - The Suffix -age in Middle English - The Suffix -al in Middle English - Five Suffixes over Three Periods of Middle English - Five Suffixes in Ten Plays by Shakespeare.

Cynthia Lloyd graduated in English from the University of Bristol and gained a research MA by thesis on connections between language and literature in early modern English. In 1991 she read for an MA in linguistics at the University of York, and in 2005 completed a PhD in the field of word formation at the University of Leeds. She has taught Middle English for the MA programme at Bristol University, humanities courses for the Open University in Bristol and Manchester, and English language at the Universities of Benghazi and Kuwait. She has previously published articles in the field of French suffixes in English.