Re: negation and compounding

On Mon, 28 Jun 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Joe Mondello wrote:
> >
> > In English, most or all negative words formed from non-negative words have n-
> > or no-  in them
>
> Used to be even more such as:
> Nill = will not (believed to be the first part of willy-nilly - "will
> I,   nill I?")
> Nis = is not
>
> In Old English:
> Neom = ne eom (am not)
> Naebbe (sp?) = ne haebbe = have not (this, I think, might've survived
> into Early Modern English as nave)
> Naes = ne waes = was not
You forgot my favorite!  Naenig = ne aenig, not any

I've never seen Naebbe, but then, I've only dug through a bit of the
corpus -- Beowulf, some Aelfric, and a few thinigs like the Battle of
Maldon.


> So, the -old is exactly the same meaning as our "old"?  So, "fould" is
> literally "young"?
Actually, it seems to mean "wise."  Actually, you see this in OE too,
although I cannot remember the word off the top of my head.  It means both
"old" and "wise," and it starts with an f.  I think.