The division of the History of English into periods is based on 2 principles

Поможем в ✍️ написании учебной работы

Имя

Поможем с курсовой, контрольной, дипломной, рефератом, отчетом по практике, научно-исследовательской и любой другой работой

Нажимая кнопку "Продолжить", я принимаю политику конфиденциальности

The division of the History of English into periods is based on 2 principles.

1. extra linguistic – cardinal changes in the history of people.

2. linguistic proper – cardinal changes in the structure and status of the language itself.

Roughly covers 12 centuries. It’s divided into 3 periods. The traditional division is based on the phonetics and grammatical principles (Henry Sweet). The following periodisation of English history subdivides the history of English into seven periods differing in linguistic situation and the nature of linguistic changes.

Old English (500-1100) – The Germanic peoples settled in Britain

Their languages were cut off from the related ones on the continent

Began to develop in their own way

The four West Gmc languages transformed into a single language known as Old English

Orthography. Was based on the phonematic principle. OE starting with the 6^th cent began to use the Latin alphabet with some modifications. In the 6^th cent England became a Christian country. The Latin alphabet replaced the runic one. The oldest written record is dated by the 7^th cent.

Grammar: OE was a synthetic lang (had lots of inflexions). Nominal declension + verb conjugation systems. The word order was relatively free. Very few borrowings from Celtic and Latin.

Vocabulary: 23000-24000 words in OE (now 600 000), only 15% survived in NE.

There were 4 dialects of OE language.

1. Northumbrian (north of the river Humber)

2. Mercian (between the Humber and the Thames)

3. Kentish – the peninsula of Kent – spoken by Juts, Frisian.

4. Wessex – West Saxons (south and west of the Thames). Since king Alfred, when Wessex became the most powerful kingdom, Wessex dialect became popular and got the status of written standard. Most OE written record are in Wessex d.

OE was a synthetic language with a well-developed system of morphological categories.

Middle English (1100 – 1500) – reduced inflexions, unstressed endings. During this period 4 million people spoke Middle English Dialects.

During this period 4 million people spoke Middle English Dialects. East Midland became the modern language, was spoken not far from London → modern national English.

Orthography. The phonetic principle disappears as clearly as OE. The spelling shows an influence of French.

Phonetics. Reduction is more active, most unstressed ending disappear. This influences grammar.

Grammar. The noun, adj…lose most their inflexions, its simplified. verb develops new tense forms (Future). Word order becomes fixed.

Vocabulary. Hundreds of Scandinavian and thousands of French and Latin borrowings.

IN LEXIS: Native words

1. In all Gmc languages we find a number of words which are not found in the other IE languages, have no parallels outside the group. Appeared from purely Gmc roots, spheres: nature, sea, home life (sea, house, God, send, drink, broad, own).

2. A number of the basic words are similar in form

№3. ENGLISH DIALECTS FROM A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

After the 5^th c. the 3 waves of the Germanic tribes arrived to Britain. The feudal system had led to the isolation of each tribe and political disunity (feudal wars). As a result, this period witnessed a great dialectal diversity. The most important dialects were the dialects of the 4 most powerful kingdoms. Old English Dialects

Dialect	Kentish	West Saxon	Mercian	Northumbrian
Spoken	in Kent, Surrey, the Isle of Wight	along the Thames and the Bristol Channel	between the Thames and the Humber	between the Humber and the 4th
Origin	from the tongues of Jutes/ Frisians	a Saxon dialect	a dialect of north Angles	a dialect of south Angles
Remarks		9^th c. – Wessex was the centre of the English culture and politics. West Saxon – the bookish type of language (Alfred the Great – the patron of culture and learning)		8^th c. – Northumbria was the centre of the English culture

The most important was the WEST SAXON DIALECT.

In the 8^th – 9^th c. Britain was raided and attacked by the Scandinavians/Vikings. And as soon as the Scandinavian dialects also belonged to the Germanic group, the Danes soon linguistically merged into the local Old English dialects leaving some Scandinavian elements in them.

After the Norman Conquest:

· French became the official language of administration. It was also used as a language of writing and teaching as well as Latin.

· English was the language of common people in the Midlands and in the north of England.

· Celtic Dialects were still used by the Celtic population in the remote areas of the country.

the period of bilingualism (French and English were both used in the country).The Norman and the English drew together in the course of time and intermixed. French lost its popularity due to the fact that it was not the language of the majority and could not be used to communicate with local people. English regained its leading position with time and became accepted as the official language. Thus in the 14^th c. English becomes the language of literature and administration.

Middle English Dialects

OE Dialects	Kentish	West Saxon	Mercian		Northumbrian
ME Dialects	Kentish Dialect	South-Western Dialects

Midland Dialects

Northern Dialects Examples - East Saxon Dialect London Dialect Gloucester Dialect West Midland East Midland Yorkshire Dialect Lancashire Dialect

· in grammar:

3^rd person singular in Present tense endings: Northern dialects: -es (comes), Southern dialects: -eth (cometh)

!All simplifying changes began in the North!

plural of nouns: Northern dialects: -es (cares), Southern dialects: -en (caren)

forms of personal pronouns; scho: Northern sche: East Midland hue: West Midland hi: South Eastern he: South Western

· in vocabulary: (in terms of loan-words)

In North and East Midland prevailed Scandinavian words

In Southern and West Midland appeared French words first (esp. the area around London), but then they spread northwards and eastwards

The most important dialect in the Middle English period was the LONDON DIALECT. In the 12^th -13^th c. the London Dialect became the literary language and the standard, both in written and spoken form. The reasons why this happened:

· The capital of the country was transferred from Winchester, Wesses, to London

· The East Saxon Dialect (the basis of the London Dialect) became prominent in that period.

· Most authors of the Middle English period used the London Dialect in their works.

The formation of the national E language. The London dialect. The formation of the national literary English covers the Early NE period.

Factors that influenced: The unification of the country and the progress of the culture; Increased foreign contacts influenced the grouth of the vocabulary. \\ The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Latin invention of printing → spreading of written form of English. French was ousted from official spheres and from the sphere of writing.

The Hourishing of literature which makes the second half of the 14cent testifies to the complete reestablishment of English as the language of writing. It was “the age of Chaucer”, the greatest author of this period. “Canterbury tales

Early NE → Renaissance: Shakespeare, Thomas More. The end of the 17^th cent. – books and dictionaries.

In the18th cent the speech of educated people differed from that of common people: 1) pronunciation; 2) choice of words; 3) grammar.

Varieties of Modern English: By the 19^th c. English became completely standardized:

Written Standard – developed different literary and functional styles
Spoken Standard – colloquial varieties

Dialectal division (19-20^th c.). The dialects were distinguished by counties or shires. Main headings:

Southern dialects (East-Southern, West-Southern)
Midland dialects (Eastern, Central (Midland), Western)
Northern dialects

!Social dialects: e.g. Cockney

Modern English has a large number of dialects spoken in diverse countries throughout the world. This includes Amer. Austr, Brit (En English, We, Sc), Can, Caribbean , Hiberno, Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian, New Zealand, Philippine, Singaporean, S African English.

Alphabets

The first Old English written records are considered to be the runic inscriptions. To make these inscriptions people used the Runes/the Runic Alphabet – the first original Germanic Alphabet.

Runes/Runic Alphabet:

· Supposed to be brought to Britain in 5th c. by the Gmc tribes, used until the 11^th c.;

· each symbol indicated a separate sound (one symbol = one sound);

· the symbols were angular due to the fact that they had to be carved on hard materials;

· the number of symbols: 25, in English version the number was increased to 33.

Old English Alphabet

The Old English Alphabet was borrowed from Latin

- from about the 7^th c, continued in parallel for some time

- 25 letter, but some more additional characters were added from runic alph:

(“thorn”) = [q] and [ð];(“wynn”) = [w];

Alteration of the existing roman letters

Ash - æ = a ligature of [a] and [e],

the letter eth ð/Đ

yogh з = [g] and [j];

Reading:

Phonematic principle: a character indicates a separate sound, but some letters could stand for 2 or more sounds. (h, c, g)

Middle English Alphabet

The Middle English Alphabet resembled the Old English Alphabet but some changes were introduced:

· th replaced ð/þ/Đ/đ;

· æ, œ disappeared;

· digraphs (2 letters = one sound) appeared (came from French): th for [q] and [ð];

tch/ch for [t∫]; sch/ssh/sh for [∫]; dg for [dζ]; wh replace hw but was pronounced still as [hw]!;

gh for [h]; qu for [kw]; ow/ou for [u:] and [ou]; ie for [e:].

SPELLING CHANGES IN ME

Cause: ornamental writing – the use of letters y,w and k at the end of the words can be attributed to the desire of the scribes to finish the word with a curve.

Cause: to avoid misunderstanding – the use of o and y instead of u and i

In the course of ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME:

Many sound changes between OE and ME brought about a number of spelling changes leading to the loss of earlier graphemes or the introduction of the new ones:[ æ] > [a], [æ:] > [ε:]

Cause: French influence

- replacement of the specific OE characters:

o ð þ were replaced

o ‘g’ was introduced instead of «з»

- adoption of French scribal spelling traditions:

o letters used in French (q, z, v, k, j)

o y;

- the increasing use of digraphs

o the use of ‘h’ to indicate a sound without a corresponding Latin character ( ‘ch’,sh, gh etc.)

o double letters for long vowels (ee, oo)

o the adoption of French digraphs for corresponding English long sound (ie, ou)

o the adoption of French digraphs (qu)

- 2 fold use of the same character (g, c)

№5. OE SOUND SYSTEM. Consonant changes in the history of English

The OE sound system developed from the PG system. It underwent multiple changes in the pre-written periods of history, especially in Early OE.

OE Vowels

The OE vowel system shows 7 points of short and long vowels.

ī ĭ y (short and long) ŭū

ēĕ ōŏ

æ (short and l) ăā

The peculiarity of OE vowels: it showed full symmetry.

Length of vowels was phonological, that is to say it could distinguish different words:

Old English Consonant System

- OE had a fairly large set of consonants which was represented by plosives (6), fricatives (7) and sonorants (6) and no affricates

- OE had a distinction between short and long consonants (sunne vs sunu)

- There were a lot of spirants (fricatives)

- Some fricatives had positional variants

Place of artic Manner		labial	dental	Palatal	Velar
noise	Plosive voiceless Voiced	p p: b b:	t t: d d:	k’ k’: g’:	k k: g g:
noise	fricative voiceless voiced	f f: v	q q: s s: ð z:	x’ x’: y’ j	x x: y
Sonorants		m m: w	n n: r l	J	Gn

OE Vowels

The OE vowel system shows 7 points of short and long vowels.

ī ĭ y (short and long) ŭū

ēĕ ōŏ

æ (short and l) ăā

The peculiarity of OE vowels: it showed full symmetry.

Features of OE vocalic system:

1. OE had a large vowel system. It was represented by two sets of vowels: monophthongs and diphthongs.

2. There were long and short vowels

3. OE had 7 or 8 monophthongs depending on the dialect and each could appear as either a long or short monopthong

4. All dialects of OE had 3 or 4 diphthongs which appear to have short and long versions

5. Unstressed vowels were not reduced

The number of short vowels decreased, instead of 7 we find 5 (y-i, æ – a) these vowels merged. The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:) . The origin of a: it developed from short a in pen stressed syllables.

Unstressed Vowels

In ME and NE the main direction of the evolution of unstressed vowels was the same as before; even in the pre-written period unstressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions, namely their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality The tendency towards phonetic reduction operated in all the subsequent periods of history and was particularly strong in unstressed final syllables in ME.

In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syllables: [ə] and [i], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had beer, practically lost.

It should be remembered though that while the OE unstressed vowels were thus reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes, e.g. the shifting of word stress in ME and NE, vocalisation of [r]. These developments show that the gap between the stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct sub-systems— that of stressed and unstressed vowels).

QUANTITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

At the end of OE and in the immediately succeeding centuries accented vowels underwent a number of quantitative changes which affected the employment and the phonological status of short and long vowels in the language. At that time vowel length was for the most part an inherited feature: ОE short vowels had developed from PG short vowels, while long ones went back to long vowels or bi-phonemic vowel sequences.

Shortening: In early ME 12-13c) all long vowels became short if followed by 2 or more consonants: ce(long)pan (OE) – ke:pen(ME)-keep

Lengthening: In the 12th or 13th c. Short vowels became long in open syllables. This lengthening mainly affected the more open of the short vowels e,o,a before clusters [ld, nd, mb]; in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a] in open stressed syllable

QUALITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

1. The OE close labialised vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early ME, merging with various sounds in different dialectal areas.

2. The vowels lyl and ly:l existed in OE dialects up to the 10th c, when they were replaced by [i] and[i:]

The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:) . The origin of a: it developed from short a in open stressed syllables.
In Early ME the long OE [a:] was narrowed to [o]. This was an early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer; the tendency was intensified in Late ME when all long vowels changed in that direction, [a:] became (э:1

5. The short OE [æ] was replaced in ME by the back vowel [a] In OE [æ] was either a separate phoneme or one of a group of allophones distinguished in writing [е, a, a, ea 1 All these sounds were reflected in ME as [a] except the nasalised [a] which became [o]

Dipthongs

The PG diphthongs — ei ai iu eu au underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of the environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i] and [a], respectively; the diphthongs in u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].

In Early ME we observe loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative distinctions.

OE diphthongs turned into monophthongs in ME

OE Diphth.	ME Sounds	OE	ME
ĭě/īē à	I	Līehtan	lighten (lighten)
ĕŏ/ēō à	E	Heorte	herte (heart)
ĕă/ēā à	Æ	Ēa st	ee st (east)

New diphthongs appeared due to vocalisation of [j], [γ] and [w]. These consonants turned into vowels ([i], [u] and [u] respectively) and became the glides of the new diphthongs:

i-glides	OE	ME	u-glides	OE	ME
[ei]	weȝ[j]	wey[i] (way)	[iu]	-	-
[ai]	mæȝ[j]	may[i] (may)	[au]	laȝ[γ]u	law[u]e [‘lauə] (low)
[oi] (in French loan-words)		boy, toy	[ou]	cnāw[w]an	know[u]en [‘knouən] (know)

The diphthong oi was of French origin.

7. MAJOR VOWEL CHANGES IN NEW ENGLISH

In ME the following changes occurred (14th c): i u i: u: e o e: o: a e: o: a:

In ME and NE the main direction of the evolution of unstressed vowels was the same as before; even in the pre-written period unstressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions, namely their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality. The tendency towards phonetic reduction operated in all the subsequent periods of history and was particularly strong in unstressed final syllables in ME.

It should be remembered, that while the OE unstressed vowels were thus reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes:

· the shifting of word stress

· vocalization of r in such endings as writer, actor where [er] and [or] became [ǝ]

· some of the new unstressed vowels were reduced to the neutral sound, while others have retained certain qualitative and quantitative differences: adversely - [æ], directly [ai]

These developments show that the gap between the stressed and the unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct vowel systems (stressed and unstressed), like we can in OE

Rise and growth of long monophthongs and diphthongs due to the vocalisation of consonants

· [au] was contracted to [o:] in accordance with regular vowel changes and [x] was lost, which transformed the words into NE taught

· Palatal fricative [x’] turned into [j] during the 15^th century => the preceding [i] turned into [i:]. Example: the stages of the word night – [nix’t]>[nijt]>[ni:t]>[nait]

· Lengthening of vowels due to vocalization of [r]

After short vowels:

ME: o+r=o: (NE): for-fo:

ME: a+r=a: (NE): bar-ba:

ME: I,e,u+r=e: (NE): fur-fe:

ME: shwa+r=shwa (NE): brother-brathe

After long vowels:

i:+r=aie: fire-faie

e:+r= ie: beer-bie

a+r=ee: bear-bee

o:+r=o: floor

The Great Vowel Shift

Early NE witnessed the greatest event in the history of English vowels — the Great Vowel Shift, — which involved the change of all ME long monophthongs, and probably some of the diphthongs. Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were: diphthongized; narrowed (became more closed); both diphthongized and narrowed.

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[i:] à	[ai]	time [‘ti:mə]	time [teim]
[e:] à	[i:]	kepen [‘ke:pən]	keep [ki:p]
[a:] à	[ei]	maken [‘ma:kən]	make [meik]
[o:] à	[ou] [u:]	stone [‘sto:nə] moon [mo:n]	stone [stoun] moon [mu:n]
[u:] à	[au]	mous [mu:s]	mouse [maus]
[au] à	[o:]	cause [‘kauzə]	cause [ko:z]

The spelling remained unchanged. lt should be obvious from the chart and the table that the Great Vowel Shift did not add any new sounds to the vowel system; in fact, every vowel which developed under the Shift can be found in Late ME

And nevertheless the Great Vowel Shift was the most profound and comprehensive change in the history of English vowels: every long vowel, as well as some diphthongs, were "shifted", and the •pronunciation of all the words with these sounds was altered

Qualitative changes in NE. In addition to the main sources of long monophthongs and diphthongs in Early NE, such as the Great Vowel Shift and the vocalisation of the sonorant [r], there were a few other instances of the growth of long vowels from short ones in some phonetic conditions. This lengthening resembles Early ME quantitative vowel changes before consonant groups; only this time the consonant sequences which brought about the lengthening were different: [ss], [ft] and [nt]; the sequences mainly affected the vowel [a], e.g. ME plant [plant ]>NE plant, ME after ['aft∂r]>NE after, ME mass [mass]>-NE mass.

8. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOUN IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISHTHE CATEGORIES OF NOUN:

1. Number (gram category) – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl). Number proved to be the most stable of all the nominal categories. The noun preserved the formal distinction of two numbers through all the historical periods

Since OE is a synthetic lang., it employs dif. Ways of forming the plural which depend on the type of declension a noun refers to

- in most declensions the plurals were inflected (lamb – lambru)

- some nouns made plural by vowel gradation (mann – menn)

- the sg. And the pl. form coinside

This system has still trases in MnE, which are preserved as irregular plurals: goose – geese, man – men

2. Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N). The OE Gender (there were 3 genders), being a classifying feature (and not a grammatical category proper) disappeared together with other distinctive features of the noun declensions. The Gender in OE was not supported semantically. It was only a classifying feature for the declensions and as far as the declensions disappeared there was no necessity to preserve the Gender. It disappeared by the 11th – 12t-h -13 c.(Early ME).

3. Case (gram category) – Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative.

The main peculiarities of OE cases:

1. Nom and Acc were coinside;

2. Dat pl ended in ‘-um’;

3. Gen pl always had ‘-a’.

The grammatical category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes in Early ME. The number of cases was reduced from four (distinguished in OE) to two in Late ME due to:

Causes for Decay of Case System:

1. Extra linguistic factor. Influence of the Scandinavian Dialects that were grammatically simpler in comparison with OE Dialects and this influence led to the minimization of grammar.

2. Phonetic reduction of final unstressed syllables (inflections), forms of diff. cases became harmonious

3. As far as there was no distinctions between the Cases, the distinction between the Subject and the Object of a sentence was lost => fixed word order appeared (The Subject almost always took the first place and was followed by the Object).

4. The growing number and role of prepositions

System of Declensions

In OE there were 25 declensions of nouns. All nouns were grouped into declensions according to stem-suffix.

We will mention only the most numerous declensions/stems here:

Strong Vocalic Stems

Weak Consonantal Stems

Stem-suffix Gender Stem-suffix Gender a-stem M, N n-stem M, N, F o-stem F r, s, nd-stems M, N, F i-stem M, N, F root-stem M, F u-stem M, F

Though the stem-suffixes merged with the root, declensions were still existent in OE and were based on the former IE stem-suffixes:

a-stem – the most numerous declension (M, N):

· -es (M,N Sg, Gen); -as (M, Pl, Nom, Acc)

root-stem – never had stem-suffix, words consisted of just a root, gram. Ending was added to the root. (M, F) (in the Dat. Sg and the Nom. And the Acc pl, the root vowel underwent palatal mutation due to the sound [i] in the ending), retained in MnE

Number

There were some homonymous forms in Singular and Plural in both declensions, so the category of Number disappeared together with the system of declensions.

The Adjective lost many of its categories in ME as far as all the inflections were lost. Thus it became an unchangeable part of speech.

Degrees of Comparison In OE there were three ways of formation of the degrees of comparison:

Way of formation	Positive Degree	Comparative Degree	Superlative Degree
Inflections	soft	softra	Softest
root-sound interchange + inflections	lonζ	lenζra	Lenζest
Suppletion	ζōd	bettra	Betest

In ME the following changes happened:

· In most cases inflections -er, -est were used to form the comparative and the superlative degrees;

· Root-sound interchange fell into disuse (long – longer – longest), though in some cases it was preserved as an exception from the rule (e.g. old – elder – eldest; far – further – furthest);

· A new way of formation of the degrees of comparison appeared:

more + Adj (comparative) || most + Adj (superlative)

The development of demonstrative pronouns (Dem pron, their categories , declentions, the decay of declentions & gramm. Categ in Middle E, the rise of articles.)

Demonstrative pronouns (se and bes) in OE changed in 2 Numbers, 5 Case( + the instrumental)

The forms of the pron may help to define the forms of the nouns.

In 12-13^th centuries due to the reduction of unstressed syl. And the decay of the nominal declension, the dem. Pronouns lost the traces of their inflections and became indeclinable.

The development of se, sēo þæt led to formation of the def article

In NE the Gender was lost due to the fact that there were some homonymous forms

· OE m Se and F seo – turned into the form “the”

The only category that was left in the demonstrative pronouns was the Number (e.g. ModE this – these, that – those).

In OE the demonstrative pronouns were frequently used as noun-determines before the weak form of the adjective which expressed definiteness.

As the decay of the adj, declension took place – the dem. Pronoun remained the only means of expressing definiteness.

Since 14^th c, the forms ‘that’ and ‘this’ were only preserved as demonstrative pronoun forms.

The plural forms of both developed irregulary

- The pl. of ‘that’ was ‘thos’, the development of OE pō into ME with a –s, which was added by analogy with the other plurals in –s

- The plural of ‘this’ became ‘thise’ or these’ on analogy, but the latter became the only plural form by the end of 15^th century.

By the end of ME, the system of 2 demonstratives inflected only for number (this\these and that\those) and a sngle definite article ‘the’ fully established.

The indef. Article developed from the OE numeral ãn. In ME it split into 2 words:

- the indef. Pronoun an which was frequently used in unstressed position

- the numeral oon ‘one’

The unstressed form of the indefinite pronoun grew into the indefinite article – together with the definite art. They formed a new gram. Category.

Preterite-Present Verbs

There were 12 of these verbs and most of them later turned into Modal Verbs.

Anomalous Verbs

They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them – willan (will), bēon (to be), ζān (to go), dōn (to do).

2. Non-finite:

Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of:

· Case – 2: Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)

e.g. Nom beran (uninflected) – Dat to berenne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose);

Present Participles and Past participle - depended on the morph. Type of the verb. the Verb, the Noun and the Adjective

peculiarities of the verb conjugation

The system of conjugation of the OE verb is built up by 4 gram. Categories:

- person

- number

- tense

- mood

The distinctive features of V. conjungarion:

1) all forms of the verb were synthetic (gram. Ending, vowel gradation, v.grad+ending)

2) the person is distinguished only in the indicative singular, never in the plural or subjunctive

3) there are only 2 tenses in OE, past and present, with diff. forms for the Indicative and the Subjunctive.

The evolution of the verbal system in English is characterized by 2 opposite tendencies:

- the verb conjugation underwent simplifying changes due to the reduction of verbal endings

- the system became more complicated due to the growth of analytical forms and new categories.

In 11-12 c the vowels in unstressed syllables were weakened to –e – the number of inflections in the verb was reduced to –e, -st, -p, -en or to no inflections at all.

In the course of ME and ENE the inflectional system underwent further simplification:

1) the 1^st person quickly lost its inflections due to the reduction of the unstressed ending –e.

2) The 2 person sg lost it inflection –est as the pl. pronoun ye\you was extended to the sg

3) The inflections in the past –est for the 2sg and –en for the pl fell in the same way as the similar endings of the present tense.

4) the 3 person sg. In late OE the north had all singulars of the present indicative in –es and there was a southern drift of –es- form in the 3-person sg.

5) In the 16^th c the –s form was already the usual form in speech and it was used alongside with the old form in –eth

6) During the 16 and 17 c –eth is displaced in the standart language by –s. (restricted to writing.) In the pl there were dialectal variants: Nothern- (e)s, Midland – en, Southern – eth

7) It was Midland ending –en that was adopted by the London dialect, which later formed the basis of the national English language.

Strong verbs

1. the grammatical category of conjugation: vowel gradation of the root vowel.

2. Number – about 300 (was decreasing)

3. Origin – native words descending from PGmc with parallels in other IE lang.

4. Principle forms – 4 forms – infinitive – past sg – past pl – past participle

5. Classes – 7 classes depending on the vowel gradation

6. Productivity – a non-productive type

Strong verbs – irregular verbs now

Simplification of strong verbs:

1. In ME – tendency to use the same vowel in both forms of the past tense – the number of principle forms was reduced from 4 to 3. The vowel that is preserved in the modern past tense

a. Is generally traced back to the sg.stem

b. Originated from the pl.stem

c. Borrowed from the participle stem

2. Another trend was towards the transfer of strong verbs from one class into another – so that the dominant classes survive and less usual patterns collapse

3. Dif. ME phonological changes led to the irregularities in the strong verb vowel gradation that broke up the OE system of strong verbs – transfer of strong verbs to the weak class.

The number of strong verbs was decreasing bec it was a non-producive type. Some died out as lexical units, others became weak verbs (laugh, help) i.e. started to employ -t/-d suffix in their form-building (e.g. to climb, to help, to swallow, to wash, etc.). Thus in NE only 70 strong verbs out of 300 in OE remained.

Weak verbs

1) the grammatical means of conjugation: by means of the dental suff –d\-t (Gmc innovasion)

2) Number: about 900 )constantly growing)

3) Origin: a feature of Gmc only and are not found outside the Gmc group

4) Principal forms: 3 forms: - infinitive, past, - past participle

5) Classes: 3 classes differing in the stem suffix

6) Productivity: a dominant pattern; an open class

Strong verbs – irregular verbs now; weak verbs – regular verbs now

The re-arrangement of the weak verbs:

1) the simplifying changes in the inflectional system also affected the morphological classification of verbs- the OE division into weak and strong verbs was re-arranged and broken up.

2) In ME the 3 OE classes of the weak verbs was united into a single class due to weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables

3) The reduction in the number of principle forms from 3 to 2 due to the loss of the ending –e in the Past tence

a. This made weak verbs the most numerous class –

b. formed new verbs from nouns, adj, strong verbs

c. The majority of borrowed verbs

i. From French (join, move)

ii. From Norse (call, lift)

4) All these changes gained regularity and order – this affected the system of strong verbs – stransfer of some into the class of weak verbs.

5) Phonological changes in ME and NE made some weak verbs join the class of strong verbs – vowel gradation occurred in diff. forms of some weak verbs (some quantative and qualitive sound changes)

a. In the verbs having a long root vowel it was shortened before 2 consonants in the past and past participle in ME

b. The vowel in the Inf changes due to the Great vowel shift in NE (keep – kept – kept)

The great grouth in the number of weak verbs is due to the fact that all the new words that came into English were conjugated as weak ones.

Form-building means

1)endings(weak verbs, strong verbs, preterite-present verbs, anomalous verbs)

2)suffixation (weak verbs, preterite-present verbs, anomalous verbs)

3)vowel gradation: (weak verbs, strong verbs, preterite-present verbs)

4)suppletion:(anomalous verbs)

Causes of changes in the morphol-l system in ME &NE

The simplification of the nominal paradigms and the replacement of synthetic means by analytical means of word connection — took place mainly in the Early ME period.

The OE division into classes of weak and strong verbs was completely rearranged and broken. Most verbs have adopted the way of form-building employed by the weak verbs: the dental suffix. The strict classification of the strong verbs with their regular system of form-building degenerated. – led to increased regularity and uniformity and to development of a more consistent and simple system of building .

Strong verb:

In ME the final syllables of the stems were weakened, in early NE most of them were lost. The OE endings –an, -on, -en were reduced to ME –en. The root-vowels underwent the regular changes of stressed vowels. The most imp. Change in the system of strong verbs was the reduction in the number of stems from 4 to 3.

Future-Tense Forms :

In OE Future actions were expressed by Present-Tense forms and modal phrases with sculan (shall), willan (will), maζan (may), cunnan (can), etc.

1) Formation sculan/willan + Infinitive.

2) 13^th – 14^th c. –sculan (shall) and willan (will) were completely interchangeable.

3)17^th c. – “shall – 1^st person, will – 2^nd and 3^rd person”.

4)In NE there is a tendency to use will + 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd person without any distinction

Perfect Forms :

1) Formation: habban (with transitive verbs ) /bēon + Participle 2 (this distinction is still left in German).\

2)In ME and NE only the auxiliary habban was left while bēon ceased to be used not to confuse them with the Passive forms

Passive Forms:

1) Formation: bēon/werthen + Participle 2.

2)Werthen died out in late ME.

3) often marked with prepositions “by/with” (to show the doer of the action or the instrument of the action).

Subjunctive-Mood Forms :

1) In ME and NE analytical forms of the Subjunctive Mood appeared.

Formation: biden (bid)/leten (let)/neden (need)/sholde (should)/wolde (would) + Infinitive. the modal phrases

The forms with sholde/wolde outnumbered all other forms, became auxiliaries: should – 1^st person, would – 2^nd, 3^rd person.

2)Peculiarities: 1. should/would + Infinitive à simultaneous actions; 2)should/would + Perfect Infinitive à past or preceding actions.

Continuous Forms : Sometimes they were found in OE:

1)Formation: bēon + Participle 1.

2) In ME Continuous forms fell into disuse.

3) In NE these forms reappeared together with a synonymous form: be + on/in +

4) 18^th c. – Continuous forms became well-established.

5) 19^th c. – Continuous forms in the Passive were accepted as a norm.

Do-Forms

1)In NE “do-periphrasis” was used in the Past and Present of the Indicative Mood.

2)16^th c. – “Do” was used in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences and was freely interchangeable with the simple forms (without “do”),

3) 17^th c. – “do” was left only in negative and interrogative sentences to keep the word-order S + P + O. In affirmative sentences “do” acquired an emphatic meaning

14. THE MAIN TREND IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH SYNTACTIC SYSTEM OE SYNTAX

Old English was a synthetic language, – a lot of inflections that showed the relations between the words in a sentence.

Syntactic Connections between the Words: \

1)Agreement – a correspondence between 2 or more words in Gender, Number, Case, Person: a). relation – correspondence between the Subject and the Predicate in Number and Person; b). correlation – agreement of an adjective, a demonstrative pronoun, a possessive pronoun, Participle 1, 2 with noun in Gender, Number, Case.

2) Government – a type of correspondence when one word (mainly a verb, less frequently – an adjective, a pronoun or a numeral) determines the Case of another word.

3) joining – an adj referring to a verb\ adj is connected with it without any formal means.

Word Order : In OE the word order was free as far as there were a lot of inflections that showed the relations between the words in a sentence. Most common word-order patterns were:

1)S + P + O (in non-dependent clauses);

2) S + O + P (when the Object was a pronoun,);+(in dependent clauses,);

3)P + S + O (in questions);(in sentences starting with adverbial modifier,).

In ME and NE, due to the loss of the Cases and, as a result, loss of the inflections the distinction between the Subject and the Object of a sentence was lost. Thus the word order became fixed and direct (S + P + O – The Subject almost always took the first place). Such word order led to the appearance of the formal Subject (formal it, there, e.g. It was winter; There is a book.) that took the place of the Subject if a sentence did not have one and thus preserved the direct word order. Inversion was used only in questions and for emphasis.

Negation:

In OE the common word for negation was ne (IE origin). It was placed before a word that was to be negated. As a result of this position before a word the particle ne often fused with: 1) a verb; 2)a numeral; 3) a pronoun; 4) an adverb. Multiple negation was perfectly normal.

In ME particle ne fell out of use and was replaced completely by the particle naht that later developed into not, stood manly after a verb (V + not).

In NE, during the Normalisation Period, no-double-negation rule appeared that prohibited more than one negative word in a sentence.

Compound and Complex Sentences

The growth of the written forms of English, and the advance of literature in Late ME and Early NE – development of the compound and complex sentence. Differentiation between the two types became more evident, the use oi connectives — more precise.

In ME Many new conjunctions and other connective words appeared during: both...and, a coordinating conjunction, (a borrowed Scandinavian dual adjective bath and the native and; because, (the native English preposition by and a borrowed Latin noun, cause0

The structure of the sentence was further perfected in the 18th and 19th c. It suffices to say that from the 15th to 18th c. the number of coordinating connectives was almost doubled.

OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY

OE vocabulary had between 23 000 and 24 000 lexical units. In OE there were an extremely low percentage of borrowings from other languages (only 3% as compared to 70% in ModE). Thus OE was a thoroughlyGermanic language.

Native OE words can be subdivided into 3 following layers:

A) Common IE words – the oldest and the largest part of the OE vocabulary: IE- PG-Germanic languages

Semantic fields:

1) family relations (father, mother, daughter, brother, etc. (except aunt, uncle – words of the Germanic origin));

2) parts of human body (eye, nose, heart, arm, etc.);

3) natural phenomena, plants, animals (tree, cow, water, sun, wind, etc.).

Parts of speech:

1)nouns (eye, brother, etc.);

2)verbs (basic activities of man) (to be, can, may, to know, to eat, to stand, to sit, etc.);

3)adjectives (essential qualities) (new, full, red, right, young, long, etc.);

4)pronouns (personal and demonstrative) (I, my, this, that, those, these, etc.);

5)numerals (most of them) (1-10, 100, 1000, etc.); prepositions (for, at, of, to, etc.).

B) Common Germanic words – the part of the vocabulary that was shared by most Germanic languages.

Semantic fields:

1)nature, plants, animals (earth, fox, sheep, sand, etc.);

2)sea (starve, sea, etc.);

3)everyday life (hand, sing, find, make, etc.).

Parts of speech:

1)nouns (horse, rain, ship, bridge, life, hunger, ground, death, winter, evil, etc. );

2)verbs (to like, to drink, to bake, to buy, to find, to fall, to fly, to make, etc.);

3)adjectives (broad, sick, true, dead, deaf, open, clean, bitter, etc.);

4)pronouns (such, self, all, etc.);

5)adverbs (often, again, forward, near, etc.).

C)Specifically Old English words – native words that occur only in English They are very few and are mainly derivatives and compounds (e.g. fisher, understand, woman, etc.).

D) Borrowed words –The words were mainly borrowed from: Latin (around 500 words only) (abbat, anthem, alms, etc. Celtic dialects: common nouns (bin, cross, cradle, etc.) place names and names of waterways: Kent, London, York, etc.; Ouse, Avon, Evan, Thames, Dover – all with the meaning “water”; -comb (“deep valley”) – Duncombe, Winchcombe, etc.; -llan (“church”) – Llandoff, Llanelly, etc.; -pill (“creek”) – Pylle, Huntspill, etc.

Word-formation in E

The words fell into 3 main types:

1)simple words (root-words) – a word consisting of a root-morpheme with no derivational suffixes;

2)derived words – a word consisting of a root-morpheme + 1 or more then one affix;

3)compound words – a word consisting of more then one root-morpheme.

Ways of Word-Formation:

1)sound interchange –(usually was accompanied by suffixation). Sources of sound-interchange:1)ablaut; 2) palatal mutation (verbs from nouns; verbs from adjectives; nouns from adjectives;), 3) consonantal interchanges).

2)word stress – was not frequent; it helped to differentiate between parts of speech and was used together with other means;

3)prefixation – was a productive way (unlike in ModE): 1) IE prefixes (OE un- (negative)); 2) Germanic prefixes (OE mis-, be-, ofer-(over-));

prefixes were widely used with verbs, prefixes often modified lexical meaning; there were grammatical prefixes( was used to build Participle 2 of strong; turned durative verbs into terminative) .

suffixation – was the most productive way, mostly applied to nouns and adjectives, seldom to verbs.

Classification of OE suffixes:

1) Suffixes of agent nouns (-end, -ere, -estre);

2) Suffixes of abstract nouns (-t , -þu, -nes/nis, -unζ/inζ);

3) Adjectival suffixes (-iζ, -isc, -ede, -sum);

4) New suffixes derived from noun root-morphemes (-dōm, -hād, -lāc, -scipe);

5) New suffixes derived from adjective root-morphemes (-lic, -full, -lēas).

Word-Composition: Word-composition – a combination of 2 ore more root-morphemes – was a highly productive way of word-formation. The main patterns were:

1) N + N à N (the most frequent); 2) syntactical compounds à N; 3) Adj + N à Adj (so-called bahuvrihi type); 4) N + Adj à Adj; 5) V + N à N (very rare) .

French Borrowings

Scandinavian Borrowings Time

since the 11^th c. (Norman Conquest)

since the 9^th c. (Scandinavian Invasion) Number

10 000

1 000 Area

French borrowings started to penetrate from the South and spread northwards.

Scandinavian borrowings came to English from Northern and North-Eastern Dialects Ways of Borrowing

French borrowings penetrated through oral and written speech and at first were adopted only by the high strata of the society (French was the language of the administration, king’s court, law courts, church (as well as Latin) and army).

Scandinavian borrowings penetrated only through oral speech as far as the Scandinavians had never been too eager to come to the power wherever they went. They were just raiders. Assimilation of Borrowings French borrowings were more difficult to assimilate as far as French was a Romance language while English was a Germanic one (they belonged to different language groups). So they two languages differed in some essential features (stress/accent, vocalic system, etc.) and the assimilation was hard.

Scandinavian borrowings were easier to assimilate as far as the Scandinavian Dialects as well as Old English Dialects were Germanic dialects (they all belonged to one and the same language group). So the languages were very similar and the assimilation was easy.

Semantic Fields government and administration (assembly, authority, council, to govern, office, nation, etc.); feudal system (baron, countess, duke, feudal, noble, etc.); military (aid, arms, army, battle, defeat, force, etc.); law (crime, court, jury, justice, false, defendant, etc.); church (abbey, Bible, chapel, clergy, grace, etc.); art, architecture (chimney, palace, colour , figure, design, etc.); entertainment (pleasure, leasure, sport, dance, cards, etc.); address (madam, sir, mister, etc.).

everyday life (cake, raft, skirt, birth, dirt, fellow, root, window, to die, etc.);

military (knife, fleet, etc.);

legal matters (law, husband, etc.);

some pronouns and conjunctions (they, their, them, both, though, etc.);

essential notion (N scar, anger; V to call, to take, to want to kill, to cast, to scare; Adj happy, ill, weak, wrong; Pron same, both; Prep till, fro, etc.).

Recognition in ModE French borrowings are often recognisable due to some phonetic, word-building and spelling peculiarities: oi, oy (point, joy, toy, etc.); initial v (very, voice, etc.); -age (village, carriage, etc.); c as [s] (pierce, city, etc.).

Scandinavian borrowings are hard to distinguish from the native words as far as Scandinavian Dialects belonged to the same language group (Germanic). The only distinctive Scandinavian feature in English:

Scandinavian cluster [sk] (sky, skill, skin, skirt, etc.);

Contributions French borrowings enlarged the English vocabulary (a lot of new words); Some French borrowings replaced the native words (very, river, easy,etc.); French borrowings enlarged the number of synonyms in English: native to hide – Fr. borr. to conceal, native wish – Fr. borr. desire, native smell – Fr. borr. odour , etc. Some French affixes were borrowed into English ( com-, sub-, dis-, (prefixes) -ment, -ish, -able, (suffixes) etc.).

A lot of Scandinavian borrowings disappeared, some were left only in dialects;

Some Scandinavian borrowings replaced the native words (they, take, call, etc.);

Scandinavian borrowings enlarged the number of synonyms in English:

native to blossom – Scan. borr. to bloom,

native wish – Scan. borr. want,

native heaven – Scan. borr. sky , etc.

The surge of interest in the classics during the Age of the Renaissance led to a new wave of borrowings from Latin and Greek (through Latin mainly).

Latin	Greek
abstract concepts (anticipate, exact, exaggerate, explain, fact, dislocate, accommodation, etc. )	theatre (drama, episode, scene, theatre, etc.)
	literature (anapest, climax, epilogue, rhythm, etc. )
	rhetoric (dialogue, metaphor, etc.)
affixes de- (demolish, destroy, etc.), ex- (extract, , explore, explain, etc.), re- (reread, retell, retry, etc.), -ate (locate, excavate, etc.), -ent (apparent, present, turbulent, etc.), -ct (correct, erect, etc.)	roots for creation of new words ( )
	affixes -ism (humanism, mechanism, aphorism, etc.), -ist (protagonist, terrorist, cyclist, etc.), anti- (antibody, antidote, antibiotic, etc.), di- (digest, diverse, etc.), neo- (neo-realism, neo-conservatism, etc.)
Greco-Latin Hybrids (words one part of which is Greek and the other one – Latin): e.g. tele-graph, socio-logy, tele-vision, etc.

Fate of these Borrowings in English: Many of them underwent a shift of meaning: e.g. Lat. musculus (literally “little mouse”) à Eng. muscle; Gr. kosmos (“universe”) à Eng. cosmetics; Gr. climax (“ladder”) à Eng. climax (the top of something). Many of them formed the basis for international terminology:

e.g. Latin borrowings: facsimile, introvert, radioactive, relativity, etc.; Greek borrowings: allergy, antibiotic, hormone, protein, stratosphere, etc. Many of them increased the number synonyms in English: