OLD ENGLISH LEXEME ÆÐELING IN THE GLOSSARIES AND IN THE TEXT OF THE POEM BEOWULF

Abstract

Background. The Old English poem Beowulf is one of the samples of the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition and the culture. This work keeps secrets that attract attention of culture experts, historians, linguists, including lexicographers. The 19th century became a starting point for making dictionaries to this poem. Both dictionaries as the text can be a valuable source of information about semantic scope of lexical items. Purpose. The article considers the semantic scope and the shades of the meaning of the Old English æðeling. Materials and methods. The research material comprises the text of the Old English poem Beowulf, unindependent glossaries by J. Kemble 1837, B. Thorpe 1855, W.J. Sedgefield 1913, F. Klaeber 1950, A. Wyatt 1898, the glossaries to online projects Beowulf on Steorarume, Gutenberg. The continuous sampling, contextual analysis, dictionary criticism methods were used. Results. The article considers the etymology of the Old English lexeme æðeling, and its etymological parallel lines. On the basis of the text examples the meaning of the noun and the shades of the meaning were determined. They are “king”, “noble man”, “warrior”, “descendants of noble and glorious”, “weak man”, “bold man”, “noble kinsman”. The analysis of the dictionary entries proves the wide semantic meaning and the shades of the meaning of the noun. The dynamics of the development of the definition in the dictionaries of the 19-21th centuries is also fixed. Practical implications. The results of the research can be used in teaching students History of the English Language. Also, they can be used for replenishing the dictionaries to the Old English poem Beowulf.