Query Details
| Query Subject: |
germanic-root and romance-root redundant word pairings in English
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| Author: | Scott Newstrom | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Historical Linguistics
Pragmatics Semantics Sociolinguistics |
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| Query: |
Hello,
I am trying to find a term to describe a particular phenomenon in the English language, namely, when two nearly synonymous words are linked, one of them having anglo-saxon roots and the other franco-latin roots. There are many examples, including ''will and testament,'' ''give and bequeath,'' ''love and amity.'' My hunch is that these redundancies are in some way a by-product of the use of Latin and/or French in the medieval English courts, as many of the pairings come from legal discourse (e.g. wills) or other ceremonial events (e.g. marriages). The rhetorical term ''hendiadys'' has been suggested, but that doesn't describe this particular linguistic phenomenon; ''binomial'' is too broad, and ''doublet'' refers to words derived from the same source at different points (regal/royal) rather than two different language families. Other people have suggested ''conjoined phrases'' and ''repetitive word pairs.'' None of these feels specific enough to this particular phenomenon. Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Scott Newstrom newstrom@fas.harvard.edu |
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| LL Issue: | 11.573 | |
| Date posted: | 15-Mar-2000 | |
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