| 释义 |
pre-ˈEnglish, a. and n.
[pre- B. 1.]
A. adj.
1. a. Designating the period before settlement of English-speakers in the British Isles.
1922E. Ekwall Place-Names Lancs. 26 We expect the name of such an important river (or at least its first el[ement]) to be of pre-English origin. 1922F. Klaeber Beowulf 190 The poet was interested in the old Anglian traditions—the only legends in Beowulf that are concerned with persons belonging to English (i.e., pre-English) stock. 1934Essays & Stud. XIX. 157 Ǣrgeweorc..referring to constructions of the pre-English period. 1966Eng. Stud. XLVII. 210 The oldest river-names are of pre-English origin.
b. Pertaining to a period before the adoption of a given word into English.
1960C. S. Lewis Studies in Words vi. 133 In modern English the two meanings are not at all related as parent and child. They can be explained only by the pre-English history of the word.
2. Prior to the emergence of the English language; spec. of or pertaining to the West Germanic or Anglo-Frisian dialect from which English developed.
1928C. Bergener Contrib. Study Conversion of Adj. into Nouns in Eng. 1 The conversion should have taken place in English, but for the sake of greater completeness also such cases have been included where the conversion was, or may have been, pre-English. 1933Mod. Lang. Notes XLVIII. 383 For names not of English origin the authors..use..pre-English... The..term is a most unfortunate one, since it is ordinarily used in quite another sense, viz., to denote a word form in the hypothetical Germanic dialect out of which English developed. 1936Anglia LX. 367 To the Langobardish Laiamicho answers a pre-English trisyllabic *Lāimikô > *Laimikô.
B. n. The West Germanic or Anglo-Frisian dialect from which English developed. Also, English before written records.
1929Rev. Eng. Stud. V. 179 A large and important group of writers and speakers..use Anglo-Saxon not in the sense ‘Old English’ but in the sense ‘pre-English’. 1965Language XLI. 34 The allophones of /g/..reveal..both [g] and [ʒ] in pre-English. |