Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1993, Page 119

Learned & Popular Etymology 117
GT-based paradigms cannot accommodate the processes we have been
examining.
8. Epilogue: the Venerable Bede
For medieval scholars, crucial aspects of textual signification were
incorporated in the surface structure of words. In his De Computi
Ratione, Bede repeatedly poses the question Unde dictum est? ‘Where
does the term come ítom?’: dies ‘day’ is that which ‘divides’ (disjungat
ac dividat) the light from the darkness (PL XC:580c), and nox ‘night’
is that which is said to impair (noceat) the sight and hamper man’s
activities (582a). A good example of this method occurs in his spelling
handbook De orthographia liber, (PL XC: 123-150), where he makes
a note of the fact that the word sermo ‘discourse’ is composed of the
verbs sero ‘connect in a row’ and moveo ‘move’ (PL XC:150d):
(12) Verbum est omne quod lingua profertur et voce; sermo autem,
cuius nomen ex duobus compositum, serendo et movendo,
comptior ac diligentior sit; sententia vero quæ sensu concip-
itur.
‘Verbum is the core term for speech; sermo is more succinct,
incorporating both ‘sero’ and ‘moveo’; sententia refers to
the semantic content.’
Bede is guilty here of false etymology in a way which would make
the pedants pounce on him with glee. But he is not concemed with
systematic mles of language change, which were not formulated in his
day. He is working instead within the classical framework of lexical
speculation which again goes back, through Augustine for one, to
Plato’s Cratylus. His statement that the syllables ser and mo can be
associated with other meanings is cogent and instructive in that he is
invoking intertextual signification on a pragmatic level, and giving us
an important insight into the semantic values he attaches to the word.
He is consciously analysing the interface between form and meaning,
and as such he is making a compelling epistemological statement on
language and signification.