hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2023-12-20

■ #5350. the green-eyed monster にみられる名詞を形容詞化する接尾辞 -ed (3) [morphology][word_formation][compound][compounding][derivation][suffix][parasynthesis][adjective][participle][oed][conversion][johnson][coleridge]

　一昨日と昨日に引き続き，green-eyed のタイプの併置総合 (parasynthesis) にみられる名詞に付く -ed について (cf. [2023-12-18-1], [2023-12-19-1]) ．
　OED の -ed, suffix² より意味・用法欄の解説を引用したい．

Appended to nouns in order to form adjectives connoting the possession or the presence of the attribute or thing expressed by the noun. In modern English, and even in Middle English, the form affords no means of distinguishing between the genuine examples of this suffix and those participial adjectives in -ed, suffix¹ which are ultimately < nouns through unrecorded verbs. Examples that have come down from Old English are ringed:--Old English hringede, hooked: --Old English hócede, etc. The suffix is now added without restriction to any noun from which it is desired to form an adjective with the sense 'possessing, provided with, characterized by' (something); e.g. in toothed, booted, wooded, moneyed, cultured, diseased, jaundiced, etc., and in parasynthetic derivatives, as dark-eyed, seven-hilled, leather-aproned, etc. In bigoted, crabbed, dogged, the suffix has a vaguer meaning. (Groundless objections have been made to the use of such words by writers unfamiliar with the history of the language: see quots.)

　基本義としては「～をもつ，～に特徴付けられた」辺りだが，名詞をとりあえず形容詞化する緩い用法もあるとのことだ．名詞に -ed が付加される点については，本当に名詞に付加されているのか，あるいは名詞がいったん動詞に品詞転換 (conversion) した上で，その動詞に過去分詞の接尾辞 -ed が付加されているのかが判然としないことにも触れられている．品詞転換した動詞が独立して文証されない場合にも，たまたま文証されていないだけだとも議論し得るし，あるいは理論上そのように考えることは可能だという立場もあるかもしれない．確かに難しい問題ではある．
　上の引用の最後に「名詞 + -ed」語の使用に反対する面々についての言及があるが，OED が直後に挙げているのは具体的には次の方々である．

1779 There has of late arisen a practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives, the termination of participles: such as the 'cultured' plain..but I was sorry to see in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the 'honied' spring. (S. Johnson, Gray in Works vol. IV. 302)

1832 I regret to see that vile and barbarous vocable talented..The formation of a participle passive from a noun is a licence that nothing but a very peculiar felicity can excuse. (S. T. Coleridge, Table-talk (1836) 171)

　Johnson と Coleridge を捕まえて "writers unfamiliar with the history of the language" や "Groundless objections" と述べる辺り，OED はなかなか手厳しい．

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