The Lexicon Of Mind And Memory: Mood And Mind In Old And Middle English

This chapter examines the semantic development of two English mind -words from the Old and Middle English periods. It focuses on the question of how mod , the central Old English lexeme meaning "mind," gradually changed its meaning to become Modern English mood , and how the Old English gemynd (Middle English minde ) - at that time signifying "memory" - took the meaning of the Modern English mind sometime in the Middle English period. Recently, there has been quite a lot of interest in the Anglo- Saxon mind-vocabulary. Nevertheless, this is the first study that aims at giving a comprehensive picture of the semantic development of these two words through 700 years of the English language, comprising Middle English, as well. In order to find out how these lexemes changed their meanings in this time-span, the author compiled a tailor-made corpus of Old and Middle English texts during his research. Keywords: Anglo- Saxon mind-vocabulary; English mind -words; Middle English periods; Modern English mood ; Old English periods