Lecture 1

Lecture 1

Introduction

The objectof The History of the English Language is the English Language itself, its phonetic, grammatical and lexical aspects. The subjectof The History of the English Language is: · main changes in the phonetic structure and spelling of the language at different stages of the development of the…

Main Periods in the History of the English Language

  Thus, the main periods in the language evolution are (rough dates are… 1. Old English Period– prewritten (450-700)

Classification of the Germanic Languages

can be classified according to their origin. There are different points of view on the problem of language origin. Some…  

The Place of the English Language in the Modern World

(see the text “English as a World Language” in “Horizons” by Е.П. Михалева)

 

H/w:

1. § 3-5, p. 10-12 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.

2. § 74-87, p. 50-54 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.

3. “English as a World Language” in “Horizons” by Е.П. Михалева.

4. Ex. 1, p. 48 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.

Lecture 2

First Mention of the Germanic Tribes

The first scholars to mention the Germanic tribes in their works were: 1. Pitheas (4th c. B.C.) – a Greek historian and geographer, the work “An… 2. Julius Caesar (1st c. B.C.) – a roman Emperor, the work “Commentaries on the Gallic War”.

Proto-Germanic Language

The Proto-Germanic Language has never been recorded in written form. In the 19th c. it was reconstructed by means of comparative linguistics. With time the dialectal differences among the Germanic tribes grew because of… · overpopulation in the areas of the original settlement;

East Germanic Languages

· Visigotæ(lived on the territory of present-day France) – linguistically were absorbed by the Romanised Celts and spoke their Celtic… · Ostrogotæ(lived on the territory of present-day northern Italy) –… Other East Germanic tribes (Burgundians, Vandals, Langobards) also had their respective languages.

North Germanic Languages

There existed one common language – Old Norse/Old Scandinavian. It had the following characteristics: · It used the original Germanic Alphabet called the Runes/the Runic Alphabet.… · It was spoken by all North Germanic tribes.

West Germanic Languages

· the Franconians(Low, Middle and High Franconians) – settled the lower basin of the Rhine and with time began to speak the language of the… · the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians– settled the coastal… – Old English– later developed into à English (national language – 16th c.; first written records – 7th c.); …

Lecture 3

Linguistic Features of the Germanic Languages

Phonetic Features

  Word Stress/Accent Indo-European (Non-Germanic) …  

Vowels

 

Vowels undergo different types of changes:

1. Qualitative change – affects the quality of a sound (e.g. [o à Λ]).

2. Quantitative change – affects the length of a sound (e.g. [i à i:]).

3. Dependent/positional change– a change that occurs in certain position or in certain phonetic conditions (e.g. bit_ – bite [bit à bait]).

4. Independent/spontaneous change – affects a certain sound in all positions irrespective of phonetic conditions and serves to distinguish a grammatical phenomenon (ablaut) (more about it in Lecture 4).

Main tendencies in Vowel Changes in the Germanic Languages:

1. Short vowels à become neutralized.

2. Long vowels à become short and more open.

à become diphthongized and more closed.

 

Proto-Germanic Vowel System:

Short Vowels	i	e	a	o	u
Long Vowels	i:	e:	a:	o:	u:

Some vowel correspondences between Germanic and on-Germanic Languages:

Sound Correspondence	Non-Germanic	Germanic
Latin	Русский	English	German	Swedish
[a: à o:]	mater	мать	mother	-	moder
[o à a]	nox	ночь	-	Nacht	natt
[e à i]	ventus	ветер	wind	Wind	vind
[u à o]	sunus	сын	son	Sohn	son

Consonants

First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) –in the 19th Jacob Grimm, a German scholar, discovered the existence of regular correspondence between…   № Consonant Correspondences Examples …  

Lecture 4

Linguistic Features of the Germanic Languages

Grammatical Features

  The grammatical forms of the words were built by means of: 1. Suppletion (inherited from Indo-European) – the usage of 2 or more different roots as forms of one and the same…

Lecture 5

Old English Period in the History of the English Language

Historical Background and Linguistic Situation

  2. The first distinctive inhabitants of the British Isles were the Iberianswho…  

Old English Dialects

  The first historian who started to record the history of the Germanic tribes…  

Lecture 6

Old English Written Records

Alphabets

Runes/Runic Alphabet: · appeared in the 3rd – 4th c. A.D.; · it was also called Futhark (after the first 6 letters of this alphabet);

Old English Alphabet

· ? (“thorn”) = [q] and [ð] · ? (“wynn”) = [w] · ? (“mann”) = stood for OE word “man”

Old English Manuscripts

· personal documents containing names and place names; · legal documents (charters); · glosses to the Gospels and other religious texts (Latin-English vocabularies for those who did not know Latin good…

Old English Poetry

· 5 lines know as “Bede’s Death Song”; · 9 lines of a religious poem “Cædmon’s Hymn”. 2.All in all we have about 30 000 lines of OE verse from many poets, but most of them are unknown or anonimuos. The…

Lecture 7

Middle English Period in the History of the English Language

Historical Background

· brought up in France; · had lots of Norman advisors and favourites; · spoke French and wanted his court to speak it;

Linguistic Situation

· Frenchbecame the official language of administration (it was used in the king’s court, in the law courts, in the church (as well as Latin), in… · Englishwas the language of common people in the Midlands and in the north… · Celtic Dialects were still used by the Celtic population in the remote areas of the country.

Middle English Dialects

 

London Dialect

· The capital of the country was transferred from Winchester, Wesses, to London a few years before the Norman Conquests. · The East Saxon Dialect, that was the basis of the London Dialect got,… · Most writers and authors of the Middle English period used the London Dialect in their works.

Lecture 8

Middle English Written Records

Main Written Records of the Middle English Period

See § 292-295, p. 156-157; § 302-308, p. 160-163 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).

 

Geoffrey Chaucer and His Contribution

Features of the Chaucer’s Language: · Chaucer’s Language was the basis for the national literary language (15th –… · New spelling rules (digraphs) and new rules of reading (1 letter = several sounds) appeared as compared to the Old…

Middle English Alphabet

· th replaced ð/þ/Đ/đ; · w replaced ?; · æ, œ disappeared;

Lecture 9

New English Period in the History of the English Language

In the 15^th – 16^th c. the feudal system started to decay and bourgeois relationships and capitalism started to develop. England became a centralised state.

Introduction of Printing

1475– the first English book was printed in Bruges by William Caxton. It was a translation of the story of Troy. A few years later William Caxton brought his printing press to England and set… Contribution of Printing:

Age of Shakespeare

The sources of information about the language: · private letters (as far as books became available, more people became… · books for pupils and didactic works (e.g. “An Orthographie” by John Hart; “Grammatica Lingæ Anglicanæ”…

Normalisation of the English Language

  Type of Standard Written Standard Spoken Standard Time Limits by the 17th c. end of the 18th…   The normalisation of the English language started in the 17th – 18th c. In 1710 Jonathan Swiftpublished in his journal…

Lecture 10

Phonetic Features of Old English

  OE Word Stress/Accent: 1. fixed (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix);

OE Vowels

Stressed vowelsunderwent some changes: · splitting – 1 phoneme split into several allophones which later become… e.g. à a

Rise of Diphthongs

  Sounds Diphth. Gothic OE a + u à ea: auso eare (ear) e + u…   others (usually short diphthongs) – as a result of the influence of the succeeding and preceding consonants (breaking…

OE Consonants

1. Hardening (the process when a soft consonant becomes harder)– usually initially and after nasals ([m, n]) [ð] à [d] …   2. Voicing(the process when a voiceless consonant becomes voiced in certain positions) – intervocally and between a…

OE Consonant System

See table 9 on p. 90 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).

Lecture 11

The Development of Vowel System in Middle English and New English

In ME and NE word stress acquired greater positions freedom and greater role in word derivation. Recessive tendency –stress in loan-words moved closer to the beginning of the… E.g. ME vertu [ver’tju:] – NE virtue [‘vз:t∫ə]

Vowels

English vowels proved to be more changeable than consonants. Long vowels proved to be more changeable than short ones.

 

Middle English

1. Quantitative: Reduction –weakening and disappearance of unstressed vowels. As far as the… E.g. ME tale [‘ta:lə], body [‘bodi]

Short Vowels

· [y]changed to [i]e.g. OE hyll – ME hill (hill);

· [æ]changed to [a]e.g. OE wæs – ME was (was).

As a result:

i

e

a

o

u

 

Long Vowels

· [ǽ]fell together with [έ]; · [ā]changed to [ō]e.g. OE stān – ME sto[o:]ne (stone). As a result:   close open ī ū ē ō …

New Diphthongs

  OE Diphth. ME Sounds OE ME ĭě/īē à i līehtan …   New diphthongs appeared due to vocalisation of [j], [γ]and [w]. These consonants turned into vowels ([i], [u]and…

New English

· diphthongized; · narrowed (became more closed); · both diphthongized and narrowed.

Short Vowels

There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc.   Vocalisation of [r]

Lecture 12

The Development of Consonant System in Middle English and New English

English consonants proved to be more stable than vowels. Nevertheless, new sets of consonants started to appear.

 

Sibilants and Affricates

Affricates – sounds consisting of a plosive immediately followed by a fricative – [t∫, dζ]. In OE there were only 2 sibilants – [s, z]. [∫] appeared in ME and… Affricates [t∫, dζ] appeared both in ME and in NE.

Middle English

  OE Sounds ME Sounds In Writing OE ME [k’] à [t∫] tch, ch …  

New English

  ME Sounds NE Sounds ME NE [sj] à [∫] commissioun [komi’sjon] …   There were some exceptions though, e.g. mature, duty, due, suit, statue, tune, etc.

Fricatives

· in functional words and auxiliaries that are never stressed; · when preceded by an unstressed and followed by a stressed vowel.   ME Sounds NE Sounds ME NE [s] à [z] possess…

Loss of Some Consonants

· [r]was vocalised at the end of the word in the 16th -17th c. (see Lecture 11); · [j]disappeared as a result of palatalisation (see palatalisation in Lecture… · [х, х’] were lost (e.g. ME taughte [‘tauхtə] – NE taught [to:t], ME night [niх’t] – NE night [neit]

Lecture 13

Historical Background of Modern English Spelling

OE Spelling

· based on phonetic principle;

· employed Latin characters;

· one letter = one sound;

Exceptions: ζ, f, s, ð(1 letter = 2 or more sounds).

 

ME Spelling

· more ambiguous and less stable (printing was not introduced yet and the manuscripts contained numerous variants of spelling – practically each… · digraphs (2 letters = 1 sound) appear + 1 letter = several sounds, several…   1 letter = several sounds several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound letter …

NE Spelling

· new digraphs appeared (indicated borrowings from other languages) – ph, ps, ch; · spelling became fixed.  

ModE Spelling

Modern English spelling reflects pronunciation of the 14^th – 15^th c.

See also Table 12 on p. 216-218 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.

Lecture 14

Old English Morphology

Old English was a synthetic language, i.e. there were a lot of inflections.

 

Parts of Speech

  changeable 1. Noun Nominal Categories: Number, Case, Gender, Degrees of Comparison, Determination 2.…   Below all notional parts of speech will be discussed, their categories described and the meanings of these categories…

System of Declensions

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

Verbs

Classification:

Finite

They had the following categories:

· Tense –Present and Past (NB no Future! – future actions were expressed by the Present Tense forms);

· Mood –Indicative, Imperative, Superlative;

· Person –1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd;

· Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);

· Conjugation – strong and weak.

2. Non-finite:

v Infinitiveresembled the Noun and had the category of:

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

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

v Participles 1, 2resembledthe Verb, the Noun and the Adjective and had the following categories:

· Tense –Present (Participle 1) and Past (Participle 2);

· Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);

· Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N);

· Case –Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc);

· Voice –Active (Part. 1, 2) and Passive (Part 2).

Finite and Non-finite Verbs will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.

Preterite-Present Verbs

There were 12 of these verbs and most of them later turned into Modal Verbs. They will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.

 

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). They will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.

Lecture 15

The Development of the Noun

Old English

Number –Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl). Case –Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc). Gender –Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N):

System of Declensions

a-stem –the most numerous declension (M, N):   Case Masculine Neuter Singular …  

Middle English

Most changes occurred to the Noun in ME.

System of Declensions

In ME the declensions disappeared due to the reduction of endings. As far as the Case endings were reduced to one or two, there remained no distinction between the Case forms of different declensions and there was no necessity any more to distinguish these declensions.

Gender

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 11^th – 12^th c.

Number

The quantity of the Number endings was also reduced as far as the declensions disappeared. The markers of the Plural became more uniform (-s, -en, root-sound interchange). The preference of the consonantal endings can be explained by the fact that the vowels were more apt to change and reduction then the consonants that in general proved to be more stable.

Case

The Case system was contracted in ME due to the reduction of endings. As far as the Case endings were reduced to one or two, there remained no distinction between the Case forms and there was no necessity any more to distinguish 4 Cases:

 

OE Cases	ME Cases	Peculiarities
Nominative à Dative à Accusative à	Common	à (Subject) (former Nom) à (direct Object) (former Acc) à (prepositional/indirect Object) (former Dat)
Genitive à	Genitive (Possessive)	The usage of the Genitive became more limited. In Singular it was marked by -‘s. In the 17th – 18th c.the apostrophe (‘) started to be used in Pl, Gen as far as the plural Genitive ending was lost but some distinction between the Common and the Genitive case in Plural should be preserved.

Causes for Decay of Case System:

1.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).

Consequences of Case System Decay:

1.The number of prepositions started to grow to help to replace the former Case forms.

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

H/w:

1. After reading the material of the lecture, use the glossary of “A Reader in the History of English” by Е.К. Щука and analyse the following nouns: ēaζan, sunu, daζas, fæder, brēðer. Plan of analysis:

· initial form;

· type of declension;

· Gender;

· Case;

· Number;

· Modern English equivalent;

· etymology;

· translation.

2. Find all the nouns in the abstract from “Beowulf” on p. 8 in “A Reader in the History of English” by Е.К. Щука and analyse them according to the plan given above.

3. Find the proofs of the changes in the Noun in ME in the abstract from the “Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer (lines 1-14) on p. 33-34 in “A Reader in the History of English” by Е.К. Щука.

Lecture 16

The Development of the Adjective

See Lecture 14 for general information on the Adjective.

Historically the Adjective is a younger class of words as compared to the Noun. So it has borrowed many of its categories and inflections from the Noun and the Pronoun.

The Adjective had the following categories:

 

Gender

It still existed in OE but was the first category to disappear in the 11^th c.

Case

· At the end of OE Period Instrumental Case fell together with Dative Case due to the homonymy of inflections (see the table below);

· All other cases disappeared by the end of the 13^th c. also due to the homonymy of inflections (see the table below).

System of Declensions

  Type of Declension Strong(definite) Weak(indefinite) Borrowed inflections from a-stemando-stem …   There were exceptions from the rule: some adjectives were declined always strong (eall (all), maniζ (many),…

Number

There were some homonymous forms in Singular and Plural in both declensions (see the table above: e.g. -um (OE) – N, Sg, Dat, strong; N, Pl, Dat, strong; -e (ME) – N, Sg, weak; N, Pl, weak), 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

  Way of formation Positive Degree Comparative Degree Superlative Degree inflections soft …   In ME the following changes happened:

Lecture 17

The Development of the Pronoun. The Rise of Articles

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns in OE changed in Gender, Number, Case:   Pronoun in ModE Demonstrative Pronouns in OE …  

Rise of Articles

Causes for Rise of Articles: 1. In OE the there were two declensions of adjectives – strong (definite) and… 2. In OE the word-order was free because inflections were employed to show the relations of the words in a sentence.…

Definite Article

As it was mentioned above, the definite article appeared from the OE demonstrative pronoun se (M, Sg, Nom) from the paradigm of the OE demonstrative pronoun “that” because it was often used to indicate a definite object or notion.

 

Indefinite Article

The indefinite article appeared from the OE numeral ān (one) and had the meaning of “oneness” (it still indicates only nouns in Sg, i.e. nouns indicating one object or notion).

In OE ān had 5-case paradigm that was lost in ME and only one form was left – oon/one. Later it was employed in the building of the indefinite article a/an.

 

Personal Pronouns

Personal Pronouns possessed (and still do) a very vivid Indo-European feature – suppletivity (i.e. they build their forms with the help of different… Personal pronouns in OE changed in Gender, Number, Case, Person:   Pers. Case Number Singular Plural Dual 1st …

Gender

Genderisstill preserved(he, she, it) in ModE but is often denied by scholars because it is expressed lexically and practically has nothing to do with grammar.

2. Cases:

· In MEthe Genitive Case turned into a new class of pronouns – Possessive Pronouns(e.g. ModE I (pers.) – mine (possess.); you – yours, he – his, she – her, etc.);

· The Dative and the Accusative Cases fell together and formed the Objective Case.Thus in ME there were only two cases left in the personal pronouns – Nominative and Objective (e.g. ModE I (Nom) – me (Obj); he – him, she – her, etc.).

Number

Dual formsdisappeared in ME. In NE the category of Number disappeared in the 2^nd person of the personal pronouns (see the explanation below).

 

4. 3^rd person

As far as in the Early ME many forms in the 3^rd person coincided phonetically and often caused confusion and difficulties in communication, the following changes occurred:

 

Pers.	Gender	OE	Early ME	Late ME	Comments
3rd	M, Sg	hē à	he à	he	preserved original form
F, Sg	hēo/hīo à	he à	she	As far as it coincided with M, Sg and Plural forms, a new word was found – derived from the demonstrative pronoun sēo (F, Sg, Nom) – to distinguish the forms.
N, Sg	hit à	hit à	it	preserved original form, lost initial [h]
Plural	hēo/hīe à	he/hi à	they	As far as it coincided with M, Sg and F, Sg forms, a new word was found – a Scandinavian borrowing – to distinguish the forms.

 

5. 2^nd person

Pers.	Number	OE	ME	Comments	NE
2nd	Sg	þu à	thouà	Fell out of use due to the French etiquette (it forbade impolite “thou” form, so it was replaced with the polite “ēow” form).	ēow (Pl, Dat)(you)
Pl	ζē à	ye à	Coincided phonetically with wē à was dropped

 

Thus in NE the category of Number disappeared in the 2^nd person of the personal pronouns.

Lecture 18

The Development of the Verb

See Lecture 14 for the categories of the Verb in OE.

 

Strong and Weak Verbs in Comparison

 

Strong Verbs and their Development

2.The strong verbs were subdivided into 7 classes according to the type of vowel gradation/ablaut. The classes that survived best through different periods of the history were…   Class 1 Infinitive Past Sg Past Pl Participle 2 OE …

Weak Verbs and their Development

  2.Weak verbs were not as complex as strong ones and had a greater regularity…

Non-Finite Forms

Participle 1

  OE ME NE berende bering bearing   In OEParticiple 1 was considered Present Participle, had only the form of the Active Voice, possessed the categories…

Participle 2

· in strong verbs – with the help of the suffix –en(+ sometimes root-vowel interchange) + often marked by prefix ζe-: e.g. OE bindan (Infinitive) – ζebunden(Participle 2) (to bind) In MEprefix ζe-was weakened toprefixi-/y-(e.g. ME y-runne (run, Part.2 from “to run”) and in NEit disappeared at…

Infinitive

e.g. OE Nom writan (uninflected) – Dat to wrītanne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose).   In ME the Infinitive lost the Dative Case (the inflected form) and only one form was left:

Gerund

The Gerund appeared only in the 12^th c. Actually it presented a mixture of the OE Verbal Noun (with suffix -unζ/-inζ) and Participle 1 and its characteristics were:

· It took direct object (verbal feature) (e.g. buying a book);

· It could be preceded by an article or a possessive pronoun (noun feature) (e.g. the cleaning of my room, your coming late).

 

Preterite-Present Verbs

OE

The preterite-present verbs had the following characteristics:

· Their Present-Tense forms resembledPast-Tense forms (Germ. “Präteritum” = past tense, that’s why they were called so);

· Some of these verbs did not have a full paradigm and were called “defective”;

· These verbs expressed attitude and were followed by the Infinitive without “to” (NB! Most of these verbs are present-day modal verbs);

· Out of 12preterite-present verbs only 6survived in ModE:

āζ (ought), cunnan (can), dear (dare), sculan (shall), maζan (may), mōt (must).

E.g.:

Numb.	Pers.	Present	Past
(formed like Past Tense of strong verbs)	(formed like Past Tense of weak verbs)
cunnan	sculan	cunnan	sculan
Sg	1st	cann	sceal	cuðe	sceolde
2nd	canst	scealt	cuðest	sceoldest
3rd	cann	sceal	cuðe	sceolde
Pl	-	cunnon	sculon	cuðon	sceoldon

 

ME

The following changes happened to the preterite-present verbs:

· They lost their Verbals (non-finite forms) (e.g. OE cunnen – Part 2 of cunnan);

· They lost the Number and Mood distinctions (e.g. OE cann (Indicative) – cunne (Subjunctive); OE cann (Sg) – cunnon (Pl)).

 

NE

The paradigm of the preterite-present verbs (that had already become modal verbs) was reduced to one or two forms (e.g. must (just one form), can, could (just two forms), etc.).

 

Anomalous Verbs

  Willan: · had the meaning of volition;

Analytical Forms

In OEthere were no analytical forms. They appeared later:

· ME – Future Tense, Perfect, Passive and Subjunctive forms;

· NE – Continuous and Do-forms;

and had the following characteristics:

· They consisted of 2 elements:

- a verb of broad semantics and high frequency (an auxiliary);

- a non-finite form (Infinitive, Participle 1, 2).

 

Future-Tense Forms

In OEthere was no Future Tense. Future actions were expressed by Present-Tense forms and modal phrases with sculan (shall), willan (will), maζan (may), cunnan (can), etc.

Formation

Willan had more strong modal meaning (volition) that was later weakened and almost lost. 2. 13th – 14th c.– these forms were very common and sculan (shall) and willan… 3. 17th c. – John Wallis introduced the rule “shall – 1st person, will – 2nd and 3rd person”.

Perfect Forms

Formation

habban/bēon + Participle 2

↓ ↓

with transitive with intransitive (this distinction is still left in German)

verbs verbs

2.In MEand NEonly the auxiliary habban was left while bēon ceased to be used in the Perfect forms not to confuse them with the Passive forms (though some of these forms are still left, e.g. He is gone).

Passive Forms

Formation

bēon/werthen + Participle 2

2.Werthen died out in late ME.

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

 

Subjunctive-Mood Forms

· independent clauses – to express wish, command, hypothetical condition, concession, purpose (e.g. Sīēn hira ēāζan… · dependent clauses – temporal clauses (related to future) (e.g. Bring me… · impersonal sentences (e.g. Methinks – I think (мне думается), me lycige – I like (мне нравится)) – went out of use…

Continuous Forms

Sometimes they were found in OE:

Formation

2.In OEit denoted a “quality” or a “lasting state” and was characterising a person or a thing indicated by the Subject of the sentence. The… Sēō eorðe is berende missenlīcra fuζela – This land… 3.In MEContinuous forms fell into disuse.

Do-Forms

2. 16th c. –“Do” was used in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences and was freely interchangeable with the simple forms (without “do”),… Heard you all this? = Did you hear all this? I know not why he cries. = I don’t know why he cries.

Lecture 19

The Development of the Syntactic System

 

OE

Old English was a synthetic language, i.e. there were a lot of inflections that showed the relations between the words in a sentence.

Syntactic Connections between the Words

· relation –correspondence between the Subject and the Predicate in Number and Person; · correlation –agreement of an adjective, a demonstrative pronoun, a… 2. Government –a type of correspondence when one word (mainly a verb, less frequently – an adjective, a pronoun or a…

Functions of Cases

· Subject of the sentence; · Predicative; · Direct Address.

Word Order

Most common word-order patterns were: 1. S + P + O(in non-dependent clauses); 2. S + O + P(when the Object was a pronoun, e.g. OE Ic þe secζe – literally “to you say”);

Negation

e.g. OE Ne can ic (“I don’t know”, or literally “Not know I”). As a result of this position before a word the particle ne often fused with: … · a verb (e.g. OE nis ← ne is; næs ← ne wæs; næfde ← ne hæfde (had),…

Lecture 20

Old English Vocabulary

According to some rough counts OE vocabulary had between 23 000and 24 000lexical units. About only 15% of them survived in ModE. In OE there were an extremely low percentage of borrowings from other… Native OE words can be subdivided into 3 following layers:

Lecture 21

Word-Formation in Old English

· simple words(root-words) – a word consisting of a root-morpheme with no derivational suffixes (e.g. OE ζōd (good), land (land),… · derived words –a word consisting of a root-morpheme + 1 or more then one… · compound words –a word consisting of more then one root-morpheme (e.g. OE mann-cynn (mankind),…

Ways of Word-Formation

· sound interchange –was employed frequently, but never alone (usually was accompanied by suffixation). Sources of sound-interchange: - ablaut (OE rīdan (V) – rād (N) = NE ride (V) – raid (N); OE… - palatal mutation:

Word-Composition

· N + N à N (the most frequent) (e.g. OE ζimm-stān (gemstone), OE mann-cynn (mankind)); · syntactical compounds à N (e.g. OE dæζes-ēaζe… · Adj + N à Adj (so-called bahuvrihi type) (e.g. OE mild-heort (literally “mild heort” = NE merciful), OE…

Lecture 22

Latin Borrowings in Old English

Borrowings from Classical Languages (Latin, Greek) during the Renaissance

OE

Latin has been the most long-lasting donor of borrowings to English because its influence started before the 5^th A.D. (when Anglo-Saxons still lived on the Continent) and continues up to present day.

Usually Latin borrowings in OEare classified into the following layers:

1. Continental borrowings – words that the West Germanic tribes borrowed from Latin while they still lived on the Continent. Later, when they conquered the British Isles, they brought these words with them. These words are present in all the Germanic languages.

Semantic fields:

· concrete objects(household (cup, pillow, etc.), food (cheese, butter, etc.), animals (mule, turtle, etc.));

· units of measurement(mile, pound, inch, etc.).

2. Borrowings after the Roman Invasion of the British Isles (through the Romanised Celts) that lie within the following semantic areas:

· trade(trade, deal, chest, flask, etc.);

· building(chalk, file, copper, etc.);

· domestic life(dish, kettle, etc.);

· military affairs(wall, street, pile, etc.);

· place names:

- -castra(“castle”)(Chester, Lancaster, etc.);

- -wich(“village”) (Norwich, Woolwich, etc.);

- -port(“port“) (Bridport, Devonport, etc.).

3. Borrowings after the Introduction of Christianity(597) that lie within the following semantic areas:

· religion(angel, hymn, idol, pope, psalm; from Greek through Latin – anthem, bishop, candle, apostle, etc.);

· learning(school, scholar, master, verse, accent, grammar, etc.);

· everyday life(plant, pine, radish, cap, sock, etc.).

Plus there appeared a lot of so-called translation loans – words that were translated part-for-part from Latin (e.g. Monday (“moon day”, from Latin Lunae dies), goldsmith (from Latin aurifex (auri = gold, fex = worker)), etc.).

All Latin borrowings in OE underwent assimilation, i.e.:

- changed their spelling according to the English rules;

- underwent some phonetic changes according to the English rules;

- were used in derivation and compounding;

- acquired grammatical categories of the English parts of speech.

ME

After the Norman Conquest the main spheres of the Latin Language remained:

· church;

· law;

· academic activities.

Frenchbecame the official language of administration (it was used in the king’s court, in the law courts, in the church (as well as Latin), in the army, by the nobles in the south of England).

Englishwas the language of common people in the Midlands and in the north of England. It still remained the language of the majority who were the representatives of the lower classes of society and never learned French, so the Norman barons had to learn English to be able to communicate with locals and soon English regained its position as the language of the country.

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.)	rootsfor 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:

1.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).

2.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.

3.Many of them increased the number synonymsin English:

 

Native Germanic Word	French Borrowing	Latin Borrowing
reckon	count	compute
size	calibre	magnitude
kingly	royal	regal

Lecture 23

French and Scandinavian Borrowings in English

  Basis for Comparison French Borrowings Scandinavian Borrowings Time since the 11th c. (Norman…