Nother post on nor

A recent Language Log post discusses the use of nor in the sentence:

"The snow fell nor did it cease to fall."

(The Road, Cormac McCarthy)

Since this topic touches on disjunction and ultimately on wh-words (interrogative pronouns), central issues in my dissertation, I can (almost) justify taking the time to investigate some of the antecedents of McCarthy's use of nor. Nor in the above sentence, as Mark Liberman observes, conforms to the sense in the OED's[1] entry 5a. for nor:

5. And — not; neither. In later use normally with inversion of subject and verb.

a. Following an affirmative clause, or in continuing narration. Obs. (chiefly poet. in later use).

Liberman offers discussion of modern and (late) early modern English examples in the aforementioned Language Log post; I shall concentrate on earlier examples, such as:

[1423] Guildhall Let.-bk. in R. W. Chambers & M. Daunt Bk. London Eng. (1931) 114 He shalle wirke..without fraude..nor he shall nat entermete of sekenes, sore, or hurte..vnknowynge to hym in eny maner.

[1492-3] in T. Pape Medieval Newcastle-under-Lyme (1928) 180 The aforesaid William shall delyuer all evedence and writings that belonges to the lands in the Newcastle, nor hurt nor truble the aforesaid John Leighton.

[1523] LD. BERNERS tr. J. Froissart Cronycles I. cxxxv. 162, I greatly desyre to se the kynge my maister, nor I wyll lye but one nyght in a place, tyll I come there.

These are the three earliest examples the OED gives for sense 5a. It is interesting to note that the first two appear to come from legal documents.

The OED suggests that nor derives from earlier nother¹ (a contracted form of Old English nōhwæðer "neither", on which more presently), for which its earliest example means "neither of two preceding things or persons":

[eOE] KING ÆLFRED tr. Gregory Pastoral Care (Hatton) li. 399 Ne fornime incer noðer oðer ofer will butan geðafunge.

"Let neither of you deprive the other without consent."

As Mitchell[2]:§§1847-51 observes, OE nohwæðer/noðer cannot always be interpreted as a pronoun, as in:

[Blickling Homilies[3]:45.14]...þæt hi þonne ne mihtan nawþer ne him sylfum ne þære heorde þe hi ær Gode healdan sceoldan, nænige gode beon.

"[For the good teacher has said that, when the priest or bishop was led into eternal perdition,] that they could not be any good, neither for himself nor for the flock which they previously should have kept for God.",

where it plays a similar role to modern English neither.

This nother¹ is not to be confused with a nother [sic] development which led to a form nother: namely the reanalysis of another/an other as a nother², for which we find early examples such as:

[c1390] MS Vernon Homilies in Archiv f. das Studium der Neueren Sprachen (1877) 57 280 He wolde him say his onswere on a noþer day.

And, of course, this nother² is frequent in the collocation (that's) a whole nother story, but it may be found outside of this formula, as in:

[1977] C. MCFADDEN Serial (1978) xxviii. 62/2 I'm in a whole nother space.

[1993] Wired Dec. 18/3 A new direction and a new name seem inevitable. But ‘tekkies?’ It seems too much like ‘Trekkies’, which invokes a whole 'nother set of connotations.

Interestingly, there is also a dialectal English (apparently particularly in Southwest England, if the prominence of Zomerzet zs in the last two examples is any indication) development which the OED suggests represents convergence between nother¹ and nother²:-- neither nother, originally "neither one nor another", and thence "no other":

[?a1425 (c1380)] CHAUCER tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. V. met. iii. 52 Who so that sekith sothnesse, he nis in neyther nother habit, for he not nat al, ne he ne hath nat al foryeten.

[1533] T. MORE Apologye 180 There are fewe or none good in neyther nother parte.

[1640] R. BROME Sparagus Garden IV. v, No sir, we come with no zick intendment on neither nother zide.

[1888] F. T. ELWORTHY W. Somerset Word-Bk. 523 There idn nother-nother lemon vor to be had in the town, nit vor love nor money, zo Mr. Baker zess.

Neither nother is also prominent in West Indian English, with the sense "no other":

[1957] F. A. COLLYMORE Notes for Gloss. Barbadian Dial. (ed. 2) 59, I ain't got neither-nother sixpence.

[1975] T. CALLENDER It so Happen 99 He never going look at neithernother girl again.

Nother¹ also appears with the OED's nor sense 5a., as far back as the Old English of Beowulf:

Swā wē þǣr inne andlangne dæg

nīode nāman oð ðæt niht becwōm

ōðer tō yldum; Þā wæs eft hraðe

gearo gyrnwræce Grendeles mōdor

sīðode sorhfull; sunu dēað fornam,

wīghete Wedra; wīf unhӯre

hyre bearn gewræc; beorn ācwealde

ellenlīce; þǣr wæs Æschere

frōdan fyrnwitan feorh ūðgenge.

Nōðer hӯ hine ne mōston syððan mergen cwōm

dēaðwērigne Denia lēode

bronde forbærnan nē on bǣl hladan

lēofne mannan; hīo þæt līc ætbær

fēondes fæðme under firgenstrēam;

þæt wæs Hrōðgāre hrēowa tornost

þāra þe lēodfruman lange begēate.

Beowulf ll.2115-30

"We were happy therein all day long,

and enjoyed ourselves, until another

night descended on man. Then suddenly

Grendel's mother, ready to revenge her sorrow,

journeyed, sorrowful--- death had taken her son,

the war-hate of the Wederas [=Beowulf]. The ghastly woman

avenged her child, slew a warrior

boldly. Thus from Ashhere,

the wise counsellor, life departed.

Nor could the Danish people, when morning came,

cremate the dead one in the fire,

could not lay on the funeral pyre

the body of the beloved man: she had carried off the corpse,

held in fiend's embrace, beneath the mountain-stream.

That was for Hrothgar the most bitter grief

which had long befallen the ruler of the people."

Thus this use of nother¹/nor (in the OED sense 5a. for nor) appears to have a long history in English. [Additional note: Nōðer here does not seem to mean "neither", in the sense "neither...nor", despite the present of nē in the sentence (see this comment on Languagelog), since on bǣl hladan "lay/load (his body) on the pyre" is really just a variation of bronde forbærnan "cremate in the fire" --- these aren't two different funerary options that the Danes have. But see this post for what is perhaps a clearer example from The Fortunes of Men.]

Old English nōhwæðer, originally a pronoun meaning "neither of two persons or things", from which nother¹ (OE nōðer) derives, is itself etymologically-interesting. Nōhwæðer is morphologically composed of ne "not" + ā/ō "always" + hwæðer "whether". Without ne we find āhwæðer (with contracted forms āwðer, ōwðer, āðer), with essentially the sense of modern English either:

[KING ALFRED, Trans. of Orosius, 290.21] Þa oferhogode he þæt he him aðer dyde, oþþe wyrnde, oþþe tigþade...

"Then he scorned to do either, forbid it or grant it..."

More interesting is the original sense of hwæðer (ancestor of modern English whether): "which of two", as illustrated by Beowulf's speech to his men before his fight with the dragon:

'Gebīde gē on beorge byrnum werede

secgas on searwum hwæðer sēl mæge

æfter wælrǣse wunde gedӯgan

uncer twēga; nis þæt ēower sīð

nē gemet mannes nefne mīn ānes.'

Beowulf, ll.2529-33

"'Wait you here in the barrow, wearing mailcoats,

warriors in armour, (and see) which of the two can better,

during the slaughter-race, survive wounds,

of the two of us; this is not your adventure,

nor in the power of any man, save mine alone.'"

The predominant modern use of whether for introducing indirect yes/no questions was originally only one of its many functions, which including introducing alternative questions (note that, like other wh-words, in matrix questions it triggers verb-raising to the second-position):

[c1000] Ags. Gosp. Matt. xxi. 25 Hwæðer wæs iohannes fulluht, þe of heofonum, þe of mannum?

"Was John's baptism from heaven or from man?"

[1595] SHAKES. John I. i. 134 Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,..Or the reputed sonne of Cordelion?

[1713] BERKELEY Hylas & Phil. I. (1725) 5 Whether does Doubting consist in embracing the Affirmative or Negative Side of a Question?

[a1822] SHELLEY Ion Pr. Wks. 1888 II. 115 Whether do you demonstrate these things better in Homer or Hesiod?

As well introducing as indirect alternative questions:

[c1000] ÆLFRIC Hom. II. 120 Eft ða Gregorius befran, hwæðer þæs landes folc cristen wære ðe hæðen.

"Then Gregorius asked whether the people of the land were christian or heathen."

[1610] SHAKES. Temp. V. i. 123 Whether this be, Or be not, I'le not sweare.

[1849] MACAULAY Hist. Eng. iv. I. 464 His neighbours might well doubt whether it were more dangerous to be at war or at peace with him.

The modern function as introducing indirect yes/no questions is attested early as well:

[c1000] Ags. Gosp. Matt. xxvi. 25 Cwyst þu, lareow, hwæðer ic hyt si?

"Do you say, teacher, whether it is I?"

[1470-85] MALORY Arthur VII. xx. 244 He mette with a poure man..& asked hym whether he mette not with a knyghte.

All of these functions can be seen to derive from the original sense "which of two". The morphological formation of hwæðer is curious however: it derives from Proto-Germanic *χwaþaraz (with cognates in other Germanic languages, e.g. Old Frisian hwedder, Old Saxon hweðar, Old High German hwedar, Old Norse hvaðarr (> Swedish hvar), Gothic hwaþar), which itself can be traced to PIE *k^wo- "what, who etc." + the comparative suffix *-tero-.

What is curious is the use of the comparative suffix: all of these forms would literally be something like "what-er" ("more what")! (Though of course, since hwæðer etc. are used to inquire about "which of two", the comparative suffix, which compare two things, does make a certain amount of sense.)

Proto-Germanic *χwaþaraz has cognates in other old Indo-European languages, e.g. Greek πότερος, and Sanskrit katará-, the latter is found for example in the Rgvedic hymn on "Heaven and Earth":

katarā́ pū́rvā katarā́parāyóḥ

RV 1.185,1a

"Which of the two is earlier, which of the two is later?"

In Sanskrit, the interrogative pronoun can also combine with the superlative suffix (PIE *-temo-), to mean "which amongst many", as in the following Rgvedic passage praising Varuṇa:

kásya nūnáṁ katamásyāmŕ̥tānām

RV 1.24,1a

"Who now is he? Which among the many immortals?" [Lit. "Whichest of the immortals?"]

We're now of course a long way from the snow fell nor did it cease to fall, but following nor back along the path to nother "neither of two", and then off on the side path of its component morpheme hwæðer (mod. Engl. whether) "which of two", originally "what-er"(!), seemed an interesting enough detour.

References:

[1]The Oxford English Dictionary, September 2009 rev. ed.

[2]Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.

[3]Morris, Rev. R. 1880. The Blickling Homilies of the tenth century. London: Early English Text Society.

[4]Graßmann, Hermann. 1873. Wörterbuch zum Rig-Veda. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.