hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2024-08-08

■ #5582. -ster は女性を表わす語尾ではなかった？ --- Jespersen 説 [onomastics][personal_name][name_project][by-name][occupational_term][suffix][etymology][word_formation][agentive_suffix][gender]

　昨日の記事「#5581. -ster 語尾の方言分布と起源論争」 ([2024-08-07-1]) に引き続き，-ster の起源について．当該語尾がもともとは女性を表わす語尾だったという通説に対し，Jespersen は強く異を唱えた．実に10ページにわたる反論論文を書いているのだ．議論は多岐にわたるが，そのうちの論点2つを引用する．

The transition of a special feminine ending to one used of men also is, so far as I can see, totally unexampled in all languages. Words denoting both sexes may in course of time be specialized so as to be used of one sex only, but not the other way. Can we imagine for instance, a word meaning originally a woman judging being adopted as an official name for a male judge? Yet, according to N.E.D., deemster or dempster, ME dēmestre, is 'in form fem. of demere, deemer.' Family names, too, would hardly be taken from names denoting women doing certain kinds of work: yet this is assumed for family names like Baxter, Brewster, Webster; their use as personal names is only natural under the supposition that they mean exactly the same as Baker, Brewer, Weaver or Web, i.e., some one whose business or occupation it is to bake, brew or weave. (420)

There is one thing about these formations which would make them very exceptional if the ordinary explanation were true: in all languages it seems to be the rule that in feminine derivatives of this kind, the feminine ending is added to some word which in itself means a male person, thus princess from prince, waitress from waiter, not waitress from the verb wait. But in the OE words -estre is not added to a masculine agent noun; we find, not hleaperestre, but hleapestre, not bæcerestre, but bæcestre, thus direct from the nominal or verbal root or stem. This fact is in exact accordance with the hypothesis that the words are just ordinary agent nouns, that is, primarily two-sex words. (422)

　通説か Jespersen 説か，どちらが妥当なのかを検討するには，詳細な調査が必要となる．この種の問題が一般的に難しいのは，ある文脈において当該の語尾をもつ語の指示対象が女性だからといって，その語尾に女性の意味が含まれていると言い切れない点にある．語尾にはもともと両性の意味が含まれており，その文脈ではたまたま指示対象が女性だった，という議論ができてしまうのだ．
　その観点からいえば，上の文中の「女性」を「男性」に替えてもよい．つまり，ある文脈において当該の語尾をもつ語の指示対象が男性だからといって，その語尾に男性の意味が含まれていると言い切れない．というのは，語尾にはもともと両性の意味が含まれており，その文脈でたまたま指示対象が男性だった，というだけのことかもしれないからだ．
　多くの事例を集め，当該語尾の使用と，その指示対象の男女分布との相関関係を探るといった調査が必要だろう．実際に Jespersen 自身も，そのような趣旨で事例を提示しているのだが，その量は不足しているように思われる．

　・ Jespersen, Otto. "A Supposed Feminine Ending." Linguistica. Copenhagen, 1933. 420--29.

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