y, peach, or a confection, pasty, tart, jelly, treacle. Among seasoning and condiments we find spice, clove, thyme, herb, mustard, vinegar, marjoram, cinnamon, nutmeg. The verbs roast, boil, parboil, stew, fry, broach, blanch, grate, and mince describe various culinary processes, and goblet, saucer, cruet, plate, platter suggest French refinements in the serving of meals. It is melancholy to think what the English dinner table would have been like had there been no Norman Conquest.
A variety of new words suggest the innovations made by the French in domestic economy and social life. Arras, curtain, couch, chair, cushion, screen, lamp, lantern, sconce, chandelier, blanket, quilt, coverlet, counterpane, towel, and basin indicate articles of comfort or convenience, while dais, parlor, wardrobe, closet, pantry, scullery, and garner imply improvements in domestic arrangements. Recreation, solace, jollity, leisure, dance, carol, revel, minstrel, juggler, fool, ribald, lute, tabor, melody, music, chess, checkers, dalliance, and conversation reveal various types of horse, together with ambler, courser, hackney, palfrey, rouncy, stallion rein, curb, crupper, rowel, curry, trot, stable, harness, mastiff, terrier, spaniel, leash, kennel, scent, retrieve, falcon, merlin, tercelet, mallard, partridge, pheasant, quail, plover, heron, squirrel, forest, park, covert, warren. One might extend the list to include other activities, with terms like joust, tournament, pavilion, but those given are sufficient to show how much the English vocabulary owes to French in matters of domestic and social life.
(6) Art, learning and medicine
The cultural and intellectual interests of the ruling class are reflected in words pertaining to the arts,
architecture, literature, learning, and science, especially medicine. Such words as art, painting, sculpture, music, beauty, color, figure, image, tone are typical of the first class, while architecture and building have given us cathedral, palace, mansion, chamber, ceiling, joist, cellar, garret, chimney, lintel, latch, lattice, wicket, tower, pinnacle, turret, porch, bay, choir, cloister, baptistry, column, pillar, base, and many similar words. Literature is represented by thr word itself and by poet, rime, prose, romance, lay, story, chronicle, tragedy, prologue, preface, title, volume, chapter, quire, parchment, vellum, paper, and pen, and learning by treatise, compilation, study, logic, geometry, grammar, noun, clause, gender, together with verbs like copy, expound, and compile. Among the sciences, medicine has brought in the largest number of early French words still in common use, among them the word medicine itself, chirurgy, physician, surgeon, apothecary, malady, debility, distemper, pain, ague, palsy, pleurisy, gout, jaundice, leper, paralytic, plague, pestilence, contagion, anatomy, stomach, pulse, remedy, ointment, balm, pellet, alum, arsenic, niter, sulphur, alkali, poison. It is clear that the arts and sciences, being largely cultivated or patronized by the higher classes, owe an important part of their vocabulary to French. [7]
Such classes of words as have been illustrated in the foregoing paragraphs indicate important departments in which the French language altered the English vocabulary in the Middle Ages. But they do not sufficiently indicate how very general was the adoption of French words in every province of life and thought. One has only to glance over a miscellaneous list of words-nouns, adjectives,
本论文由英语论文网提供整理,提供论文代写,英语论文代写,代写论文,代写英语论文,代写留学生论文,代写英文论文,留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。