[Chaucer and the language of science]

The study of the medieval sciences and their technical vocabulary has been considered essential to an adequate understanding of Chaucer's works ever since the nineteenth century. But any attempt of evaluating Chaucer's scientific vocabulary is confronted with several major difficulties. The well-known fact that the Norman Conquest caused the breakdown of an established literary standard and eventually led to the dominance of French and the suppression of the native vernacular as a means of instruction and formal education up to the middle of the fourteenth century is equally responsible for the comparative lateness of Middle English literature on the artes. This limitedness of comparative material also contributes to the difficulty in evaluating Chaucer's scientific lexicon and its use in fictional contexts. The still unsatisfactory state of scholarship in the field of Middle English prose enhances these problems. Concerning Chaucer, three separate possibilities are discussed: the poet follows an already established native tradition, he makes use of existing French or Latin terminology, or he coins a new word. Especially the third case poses intricate problems which are connected with the question of the status of words, since it is often impossible to draw precise limits between different categories.--In addition to that, Chaucer's use of the hermeneutic technique of etymology and the linguistic importance of variant readings are dealt with.