Читать книгу A Catalogue of Manuscripts Known to Contain Old English Dry-Point Glosses - Dieter Studer-Joho - Страница 10

In casual usage, the term “gloss” often only refers to the added L. or vernacular element itself. Typically, however, a gloss consists of two constituting elements: Firstly, the added piece of information itself, which is referred to as the interpretamentuminterpretamentum, and secondly, the word or phrase of the L. text that is being commented on or translated by the interpretamentum, the so-called lemmalemma. Both the interpretamentum and the lemma may consist of a single word form or a short phrase. Inked interpretamenta are often easily spotted, as they are usually placed above the line of the base text as an interlinear glossglossesinterlinear or outside the text block in the margins of the MS page as a marginal gloss. The identification of the corresponding lemma, on the other hand, is not always straightforward: If the interpretamentum is added interlinearly, it is usually placed right above its lemma. However, if the interpretamentum is added marginally,glossesmarginal the connection between the interpretamentum in the margin and the lemma in the text block is not always directly indicated by the physical proximity on the MS page. While marginal interpretamenta added to the inner or outer margin of the MS are often added at about the same height on the page as the line in which the lemma is to be found, interpretamenta placed in the top or bottom margin do not offer similar clues. It is sometimes possible to guess the corresponding lemma on account of semantic considerations (especially if the gloss represents a synonymous lexical gloss), but this is not directly possible if the attribution to several lemmata on the same page would make equal sense.

Marginal glosses can sometimes fall prey to the cutting of the book blocks during post-Anglo-Saxon re-binding of the codex. If the interpretamenta are not cut off completely, those in the left outer margin will lose letters at the beginning of the interpretamentum and those in the right outer margin will lose letters at the end of it, accordingly. Interpretamenta in the top and bottom margin may be cut in half, sometimes still allowing for educated guesses. Those in the inner margin are usually safe from such procedures; however, if the binding is very tight and the opposing page partly obstructs the view of the glosses, they can be difficult to autopsy.

Sometimes the reader is guided by so-called signes-de-renvoisignes-de-renvoi, characteristic symbols made up of strokes and dots, which are added next to both the interpretamentum and the lemma to render their connection explicit. As far as I could establish, this has not yet been reported for OE dry-point glosses, though. Signes-de-renvoi are often not recorded in lexically orientated gloss editions since they do not convey any meaning of their own. However, from the point of view of more recent approaches to glossography, they should always be specified in editions.

In general dry-point glosses are not fundamentally different from their inked relatives. They, too can be added interlinearly or marginally with the same difficulties of association with the correct lemma of the L. base text. One property, however, that results from the manner in which they are added to the MSS, namely without ink, sets dry-point glosses off from ink glosses quite markedly.