Principles of Compound Registration and Counting
As pointed out in chapter 2, the present study intends to combine a qualitative analysis and classification of the EModE compounds from the corpus (cp. chs. 7, 8, 9) with purely quantitative observations regarding the frequency of compounds in the respective plays in order to gain insights into the general preferences of the three playwrights for employing compounds.
Precedent to this quantitative analysis and a concomitant assessment of the potential influence which factors such as genre, subject matter, tone and style have on the numbers, I will address some methodological decisions that I made.
As this study aims to take a comparative perspective not only on differences regarding compound use between the three playwrights but also between the nine plays included in the corpus, as will become especially evident in the present chapter, the method of compound registration and counting that I have chosen can best be described as ‘types per play’. While multiple occurrences of one type, such as, e.g., Gentleman (RII 1.1.148), within one play do therefore not alter the compound numbers for this particular play, instances of the same type in the other plays are recorded individually for each work, with the same restriction to type frequency within the respective plays applying. Including all compound types per play, instead of restricting the registered material to compound types in general (i.e. registering each type only once for the whole corpus), secures the quantitative comparability of the nine plays in terms of compound (type) numbers. For all compounds, it is the first occurrence of the type in a play that is registered and listed.
Although a token-based approach would also have been possible and, notwithstanding the fact that both methods have certain advantages (as well as disadvantages), the analysis of one consistent data-set comprising types per play appears most profitable for the study. In general, I have felt compound type numbers, i.e. the question of how many different compounds are being used in one play, to bear more informative value within the quantitative analyses of the present study than token numbers, i.e. the question of how many instances of compounds have been used, including multiple instances of one compound type in one play. By focusing on compound types per play, the results are, therefore, unaffected by recurrences of tokens from a small group of compounds, mostly from highly frequent everyday vocabulary, such as, e.g., Gentleman (RII 1.1.148), that tend to be used repeatedly within a play. Moreover, the chosen
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counting and registration method bears the advantage of significantly reducing redundancy within the qualitative analyses and classifications in the areas of morphology and semantics, as conducted in ch. 7, which would not profit in the least from listing (and analysing) every occurrence of each compound within one play, as morphological make-up as well as semantic structure naturally remain unchanged for each compound type. Further, the significance of quantitative statements about the morphological and semantic diversity, which are based on the number of morphologic / semantic types realised by the compounds from the plays by each playwright (cp. ch. 9), remains unimpaired by the chosen method and would not have been increased by conducting a token-based analysis. Eventually, with respect to the area of innovation and creativeness, the restriction to types per play aids the practicability of the analysis, since new formations (of any type, cp. ch. 10) are automatically registered and counted as such only once for each play.
It is exclusively the area of metaphoricity, in which the registration and counting of tokens instead of types per play would potentially have increased the accuracy of the investigation of contextual metaphor – however, not without simultaneously leading to unconstructive redundancy elsewhere: As pointed out in detail in the course of ch. 5, the two-fold perspective on metaphoricity of compounds taken in the present study, entails the inclusion both of compounds that display morphological metaphor and compounds that show forms of metaphor that have been summarized under the term ‘contextual metaphor’ (cp. ch. 5). Since morphological metaphoricity is context-independent, it remains unchanged for each occurrence of the respective compound. Hence, similar to the qualitative analysis in the areas of morphology and semantics, token registration would once more lead to unwanted redundancy within this realm. Contextual metaphor, on the other hand, has been shown to be context-dependent and, hence, the registration of only the first occurrence of each compound type within one play potentially involves the danger of those instances of contextually metaphorical compounds going unnoticed, which are employed with their literal meaning at their first occurrence, but reoccur with a metaphorical reference in context later in the same play.
However, as the actual number of tokens to which this applies, is assumed to be very low (if existent at all), the impact of this negative effect of the type-based approach is of limited significance compared to its benefits, as outlined above. Hence, it justifies neither an alteration of the counting method for the study, nor the relinquishment of a unified and consistent data-set and registration method forming the basis for all analyses being conducted in this study.
177 Compound Frequency per Playwright
In the tables provided in the present and the next chapter, the frequency of compounds (types) in the analysed works of the three playwrights is presented first as divided by author, and secondly individually for each play. In order to account for the differences in the respective length of the nine plays, I have calculated ratios for the frequency of compounds per verse (or, in the case of prose passages, line). The numbers include all adjective and noun compounds which I have accepted as compounds, but do not include any formations that have been deemed
‘special cases’ or ‘fringe types’, such as, e.g., multi-part, phrasal or highly opaque compound constructions, as discussed in ch. 8. Further, I have excluded the six instances of verbal compound constructions in the corpus from the countings on the basis of their highly disputed morphological status (cp. ch. 4.5.2) and in an attempt to secure comparability of the results with statements about compound frequency made in earlier studies, such as, e.g., Scheler (1982), which are restricted to noun and adjective compounds as well. Both playwrights and plays are arranged as starting with the playwright / play exhibiting the highest compound frequency.
playwright no. of (adjective and noun) compounds
no. of verses / lines compounds per verse / line
Ben Jonson 415 9677 0.0430
William Shakespeare 316 8573 0.0369
Christopher Marlowe 232 7338 0.0316
Table 3: Compound frequency per playwright
Both in terms of absolute numbers as well as of compounds per verse / line, it is Ben Jonson, who, on overall average, employs compounds most frequently in his three works. With an average frequency of 0.0430 (different) compounds per verse / line, which corresponds to an average of 4.30 compounds being used in 100 verses / lines of text, he clearly surpasses both William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe in that respect, whose analysed texts show an overall average of compound use of 3.69 compounds per 100 verses / lines for Shakespeare’s and 3.16 compounds per 100 verses / lines for Marlowe’s plays in the corpus. Hence, taking only the overall average into account, the data suggests that the general preferences for using compounds in their plays vary among the EModE playwrights, with Ben Jonson apparently being generally more inclined to employ these particular word-formation products than his two contemporary authors. It is only when altering the focus and considering the frequency of compounds in each play that a more complex picture evolves, indicating that, for some
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playwrights, the determinators of compound frequency are more likely to be found in the realms of genre conventions, tone and subject matter of individual works, than in any consistent personal or stylistic habit or preference (cp. below).
The Influence of Genre, Subject Matter and Tone on Compound Frequency
Whereas the comprising view on compound frequencies per playwright may suggest author-specific stylistic habits of a certain uniformity as the main influence on compound frequency, a closer investigation of compound frequency per play demands a refinement of this conclusion:
Table 4: Compound frequency per play
While Ben Jonson’s comedy The Alchemist undisputedly heads the table, with an average of 6.46 (different) compounds occurring within 100 verses / lines of text, it is equally notable that his history, Sejanus, at the same time exhibits the lowest compound frequency of all nine plays in the corpus, this play featuring a distinctly lower average of only 2.13 (different) compounds being used in 100 verses / lines of text. A similar observation can be made with regard to William Shakespeare’s plays, of which the comedy in the corpus, The Taming of the Shrew, although featuring only 4.78 compounds per 100 verses / lines and thereby considerably fewer than Jonson’ s The Alchemist, shows the second highest compound frequency among the plays in the corpus. Simultaneously, it is noticeable that, while his history play, Richard II, ranges in the middle field with an average of 4.0 compounds being used in 100 verses / lines of text, compounds in Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello are remarkably rare, with only 2.56 compounds
play playwright genre no. of (adj. and
n.) compounds
no. of verses / lines
compounds per verse / line
The Alchemist Jonson comedy 202 3125 0.0646
The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare comedy 124 2595 0.0478
Every Man in His Humour Jonson comedy 141 3186 0.0443
Richard II Shakespeare history 108 2699 0.0400
The Jew of Malta Marlowe tragedy 84 2380 0.0353
Tamburlaine Marlowe tragedy 72 2321 0.0310
Edward II Marlowe history 76 2637 0.0288
Othello Shakespeare tragedy 84 3279 0.0256
Sejanus Jonson history 72 3366 0.0213
179 occurring within 100 verses / lines of text. In fact, it is only Christopher Marlowe, whose plays in the corpus display a relatively stable rate of compound frequency, which locates his three plays in the middle field of the table, their respective average compound frequencies ranging between 2.88 and 3.53 (different) compounds in 100 verses / lines of text.
These significant differences between the individual works, that can be observed for both Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare, in combination with the fact that The Alchemist, The Taming of the Shrew and Every Man in His Humour, as the three plays from the corpus with the highest average compound frequencies, all share the common feature of being comedies, suggest that, for these two playwrights, the genre of the comedy and the authors’
stylistic adjustment to its peculiarities plays a very important role, when it comes to compound use. Indeed, a qualitative investigation of the actual compounds found in the respective texts and their particular nature, further substantiates this interpretation and illustrates that compounds contribute significantly to the comedies’ stylistic character. In this context, the Ciceronian idea of a tripartite style, falling into a low, a middle and a high, or grand style level, with the latter being traditionally represented in the tragedy and the history, while the former two are primarily connected to comedy, satire and comic interludes (cp. Adamson 2001b:32;
cp. further Gilbert 1979:6ff) comes into play. Cicero’s three styles, although originally describing different functions of an orator’s language, exert an appreciable influence on the conceptualisation of literary language in the Renaissance, (cp. Gilbert 1979:6f) visible from contemporary rhetoricians, such as Thomas Wilson, taking up the idea and promoting an adjustment of literary style to subject matter and plot along the lines of these three classical style levels. (Wilson 1909[1585]:169) Whereas the use of "great words" (Wilson 1909[1585]:196), a category under which Latinisms, archaisms as well as compounds fall, traditionally pertains to the level of the grand style, (cp. Adamson 2001b:169) the results of the present investigation show that compounds, in fact, figure in significantly higher numbers within the middle and low style passages of the comedies from the corpus, where they function as important style markers. Clearly, "the primary subject matter of a text controls its vocabulary" (Gilbert 1979:11) and in the case of the comedies from the corpus, both the personnel and the plot of the latter works is of a much more mundane and every-day nature than observable in the histories and tragedies. While several of the highly poetic new formations among the material, used as attributive epithets, as in smoothe toongd scholler (EII 16.66), leane-lookt prophets (S 2.4.1246) or male-spirited dame (RII 2.211), hence, provide suitable examples for the purposeful creation and employment of poetic adjective compounds to suit the elevated grand style, as well as the serious subject matter of the respective history plays, the
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diction of the comedies is to a great degree marked by a considerably less orotund and far more colloquial register, that coincides with the less grave and more humorous tone and content of the plays. Among other effects, this involves more frequent references to phenomena of every-day life, such as, e.g., common occupations and objects of daily routine, which seem to frequently appear in the form of noun compounds and traditionally belong to the realms of the middle and low style levels, that are commonly used to focus on the "social aspects of man"
(Gilbert 1979:12) and treat the basic and concrete circumstances of life, ranging from art and love to "the satisfaction of the crudest social and physical appetites" (Gilbert 1979:13). Indeed, although noun compounds outnumber adjective compounds in the plays from all three genres, the discrepancy between the number of noun and adjective compounds is most distinct in the comedies, which feature an overall of 408 noun compounds as opposed to only 59 adjective compounds. Among the former group, the three comedies in the corpus include a remarkably high portion of compounds referring to common occupations of the lower classes, e.g., Cow-herd (A 1.1.107), fish-wife (A 1.4.2), coach-man (A 3.3.73), tabacco-Boy (A 3.4.16), oyster-women (A 5.1.4), Tabacco-men (A 5.1.5), ale-wiues (A 5.4.114 and, in singular, TS I2.157), car-men (EM 3.2.70), Costar´-monger (EM 1.3.61) water-tankard (EM 3.7.10), Cardmaker (TS I2.155), Saile-maker (TS 5.1.2330) or seruingman (TS P. and, in plural, EM 1.2.27).
Further, the comedies feature several instances of noun compounds referring to every-day objects such as, e.g., meals or dishes (cp. ginger-bread (A 3.5.66), leeke-porridge (EM 3.4.45), breakefast (EM 2.2.45) or apple Tart (TS 4.3.1968)) or common concrete objects belonging to the houshold sphere (cp., e.g., hob-nailes (EM 1.5.98), bed-staffe (EM 1.5.126), pack-thred (EM 4.6.40 and TS 3.2.1369), back-dore (EM 1.2.79), or stone-Iugs (TS I2.223)), which do not occur in the tragedies or histories from the corpus. Hence, what Esko Pennanen (1951) in his study on Ben Jonson’s language claims, when he notices that "Jonson’s substantive compounds serve a practical purpose, and the great majority are drawn from colloquial speech" (60), can be further substantiated by the results of the present study, although, however, with the important qualification that this observation proves true only for Jonson’s two comedies.162 Moreover, to a certain degree the same tendencies are visible in William Shakespeare’s comedy
162In his very early study on Rhetoric as a Dramatic Language in Ben Jonson (1948), which, however, is located in the field of literary criticism rather than linguistics, Alexander Sackton ascribes an "elevated character of language, in comedy as well as tragedy" (8) to Jonson, which does not correspond to the findings of the present study, that, in consistence with Pennanen (1951), rather suggest a deliberately colloquial style dominant in Jonson's comedies.
181 in the corpus, The Taming of the Shrew, which exhibits very similar characteristics in terms of compound use.
It is also the colloquial and humorous tone of the comedy that encompasses a further phenomenon, which, to this extent, is exclusively encountered in the three plays from this genre:
the exhaustive use (and new formation) of swearwords, invectives and abusive expressions – traditional ingredients of the low style, reserved for "comic subjects, the satirical, the realistic and the obscene." (Gilbert 1979:7) From an overall of 93 compound expressions which can be considered insults, swearwords or invectives in the corpus, 50 (noun and adjective) compounds (i.e. 54%) occur in the three comedies, while the three tragedies feature only 25, and the three histories only 18 such formations. Indeed, when Petruchio, whilst famously ‘taming’ his newly married wife, calls his servant a horson beetle-headed flap-ear´d knaue (TS 4.1.1703) and when the compound whorson is encountered in every single one of the comedies from the corpus, this characteristic property of the genre’s typical register and its influence on the frequency of compounds in the plays becomes fairly evident. Hence, compound swearwords like cut-purse (A 1.1.108), punque-master (A 4.6.24), inke-dablers (EM 5.5.44), connie-catching raskall (EM 3.1.181) or whore-master (A 4.6. 24) make up a considerable portion of the noun compounds from the comedies. In addition to that, especially Shakespeare´s characters in The Taming of the Shrew habitually indulge in using abusive adjective compounds as attributive insults for their opponents and commonly use expressions like logger-headed (TS 4.1.1671), mad-brain´d (TS 3.3.1470), or shrew´d [and] ill-fauour´d (TS 1.2.585). It becomes quite obvious, thus, that invectives and insults as well as references to every-day objects and occupations, as part of the comedies’ particular style and register, present an influential factor on compound frequency in these plays from the corpus. The variation in the numbers of compounds per play, that can be observed with both Shakespeare and Jonson in this study, may therefore point at these playwrights´ precise adaptation of the language of the plays to the stylistic conventions and properties of their respective genre.
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