Middle-English prepositions

[MikC]

Hi all,

I'm hoping for some help in the above topic, more specifically, the word 'of' and in addition, 'of the...'

e.g. ".. wedding of Jack and Jill..."

& ".. of the..."

also 'from'

Thank you for any info in advance

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi MikC,

This is strictly off the top of my head, but I believe the word "of" as a preposition goes back to Old English and it has a myriad number of meanings and uses throughout its long history. My memory from my Old English reading is that it is used more often to mean something like "from," "away from" or "coming from" in Anglo Saxon texts than in more modern ones, but I don't know much off the top of my head about the status of that word in Middle English.

Could you be a little more specific about what you want to know about the word as a preposition and why? It might be easier to answer a more particular question. Have you already consulted the Oxford English Dictionary and/or Middle English Dictionary? Any university library will have both these books if you have access to one (some universities have a subscription to the online version that students can access), or it's possible that a very good public library will have a copy of the OED. I have access to both and would be happy to look the word up to answer a very specific query (I cannot help you with substantial research) if you do not have access yourself.

Edit: I was looking something up in the online OED anyway this afternoon and looked up the definition of "of" as a preposition since you had whetted my curiosity. The entry has an extensive prefatory note that may be of help to you and which I've quoted below. The entries themselves for "of" as preposition are entirely too long to replicate here, but as I said before, if you have a particular question I may be able to glean an answer from there or from the MED.


The primary sense was ‘away’, ‘away from’, a sense now obsolete, except in so far as it is retained under the spelling off (see OFF adv., prep., n.1, and adj.). All the existing uses of of are derivative; many so remote as to retain no trace of the original sense, and so weakened as to be in themselves the expression of relatively indefinable syntactic relationships. For example, an ‘appositional’ interpretation has been proposed for a number of senses such as 23, 28c, 32, and 49b (see O. Jespersen On Some Disputed Points in English Grammar (S.P.E. Tract No. XXV, 1926)). The sense-history is exceedingly complicated by reason of the introduction of senses or uses derived from other sources, the mingling of these with the main stream, and the subsequent weakening, which often renders it difficult to assign a particular modern use to its actual source or sources. From its original sense, of was naturally used in the expression of the notions of removal, separation, privation, derivation, origin or source, starting-point, spring of action, cause, agent, instrument, material, and other senses, which involve the notion of ‘taking, coming, arising, or resulting from’. But, even in Old English, this internal development was affected by the translational character of the literature, and the employment of of to render Latin ab, d{emac}, or ex, in constructions where non-literary discourse would not have used it. Of greater significance was its employment from the 11th cent. as the equivalent of French de, itself of composite origin, since it not merely represented Latin d{emac} in its various prepositional uses, but had come to be the substitute in French for the Latin genitive case. Whether of might have come independently in English to be a substitute for the genitive has been much debated. In the expression of ethnic or national origin, we find of and the genitive to some extent interchangeable already in early Old English, cf. the following:eOE tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) III. xv. 222 Se wæs eac Scotta cynnes [L. de natione Scottorum]. eOE tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) III. xv. 222 Se nyhsta wæs Scyttisces cynnes [L. natione Scottus]. eOE tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) III. xiv. 210 Wæs {th}es wer..of {th}æm æ{th}elastan cynne Scotta [L. de nobilissimo genere Scottorum].This may well have extended in time to other uses; but the influence of French de was probably a major factor in the replacement of the Old English genitive after adjectives, verbs, and even nouns by the of construction in early Middle English. The evidence, however, also suggests that an internal change in English, the loss of inflection in the definite article and strong adjective (by the end of the 13th cent. at the latest), triggered the advance in the use of the of construction as a periphrastic genitive. Beside this (a far-reaching fact in the functional history of of) the same influence is also manifest in numerous phraseological uses, and esp. in the use of of as the equivalent of French de, in the construction of many verbs and adjectives. Many of these can be clearly distinguished; but, in other cases, the uses derived from French de have so blended with those derived from Old English of, giving rise again to later uses related to both, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate the two streams, with their many ramifications. The present entry seeks to exhibit the main uses of the preposition, and to show generally how far back each of these is exemplified. It has not been attempted to classify or even mention all the verbs and adjectives which are or have been construed with of; examples occur under the chief senses and uses, but the construction of any individual verb or adjective is dealt with under that word itself, where also it is shown what other prepositions share or have shared the same function with of.

[kiki1982]

Maybe this can also help for in the future:

English Etymology Online (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php)

[MikC]

Thanking you both for your posts, both very useful, some things to add to the bookmarks ;)

To put my query further into context, going on from your request, Petrarch's Love; it's actually for a tongue-in-cheek illuminated manuscript-style scroll, as if its a 'blessing from the King' kind of thing (I'm here in UK, he's in Aus :p) I'm doing for my brothers wedding (I can do a bit of calligraphy). And the opening line is:

'Kythen and Knowlechen Þere Wedden'
(Recognising and Acknowledging the marriage)

and then 'of'

... (my bro and partner)...