9. North-germanic branch

The teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths, gave rise to the N-G subgroup of languages. The N-G tribes lived on the Southern Coast of the Scandinavian peninsular and in the northern Denmark since the 4th century. The speech of the N-G tribes showed little dialectal variation until the 9th century and is regarded as a sort of common N-G parent language called Old-North or Old-Scandinavian. It came to us in runic inscription objects dated from the 3d to the 9th century. The disintegration of Old-North into separate dialects and languages began after the 9th century when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages. The principal linguistic differentiation in Scandinavia corresponded to the political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The three kingdoms couldn’t constantly fight for dominants and the relative position of three languages altered. The earliest written records in old Danish, Norwegian and Swedish date from the 13th century. In the later middle ages with the growth of capitalist relations and the unification of the countries, Danish and then Swedish developed into national literary languages. Norwegian was the last to develop into an independent national language. In addition to these 3 languages the N-G subgroup includes 2 more languages: Icelandic and Faroese. Old Icelandic written records date from the 12th and the 13th century-an age of literary flourishing. The most important records are: the Elder Edda (Poetic Edda), about the 12th century, and the Old Icelandic Sagas.

26, 27. Phonetic system of early new English.

ENE witnest the greatest events in the history of English vowels. The great vowel shift which involved the change of old English monophthongs and probably some of the differs. The great vowel shift in the name giving to a series of changers of long vowels between the 14th and the 18 centuries. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were defenised. The changers can be defined as independent as they were not caused by any apparent phonetic conditions in the syllables but effected regularly in any positions. All the vowels became closer and some of the vowels occupied the place of the next vowel. (ME I: ME time e (наобор.) NE time). It is important to note that the great vowel shift (unlike most of the earlier phonetic changes) wasn’t followed by any regular spelling changers. The modification in the pronunciation of word was not reflected in the written forms. During the shift the names of some English letters were changed for the long vowels. ME a(a:) e(e:) o(o:) NE a(ei)e(i:)o(ou)i(ai). As compared the great vowel change of the NE period seem few. The short vowels in early NE were on the whole more stable than the long vowels. Only 2 short vowels out of 5 underwent certain alterations. This vowels are (a)and (u)1(a) is reflected first as (лягушка)2(o)when it was preceded by w.*water (галка) NE water(o).middle e short (u) became (галка).

Evolution of consonants in Early New English

One of the most important events in the system of consonants was the loss of quantitative distinctions. It should be recalled that in OE long consonants were apposed to short at the phonological level. In ENE long consonants were shortened and the phonetic opposition through quantity was lost. Other alteration took place in 16th century the fricative were subjunctive in voice under certain phonetic conditions, they were pronounced as voiced if they were preceded by the unstressed vowel and followed by stressed one. *ENE possess came from ME possessen.

Билет №10