- •Lecture 1. Periodisation of English.
- •Subject and aims of the course «a History of the English Language».
- •Internal and external factors of language evolution
- •Indo-European and Germanic Influence on the English Language
- •The early writings of the English Language
- •The Northumbrian, Mercian, West-Saxon, Kentish dialects
- •King Alfred’s translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People
- •9Th c. Translation of the Psalter, hymns
- •Nominal morphology
- •Oe Adjectives
- •Strong and weak adjectives
- •Oe Pronouns
- •Personal pronouns
- •Demonstrative pronouns
- •Interrogative pronouns
- •Indefinite pronouns
- •Relative pronouns
- •Reflexive pronouns
- •Numerals
- •Strong and weak verbs
- •Classes of strong and weak verbs
- •Preterit-present verbs
- •Irregular verbs
- •The Communicative Types of Sentences
- •Sentence Simple
- •The Object
- •Phrases and ways of expressing syntactical relations
- •The Word-Order
- •Vowel system: quantitative changes in unstressed vowels
- •Interpretations of gvs
- •The System of Vowels in Late me Short monophthongs I, e, a, o, u
- •The System of Consonants in Late me
- •Changes in me vocabulary
- •Adoption of affixes
- •Assimilation of French words
- •Classical and Romance element in English
- •Borrowings from Latin and Greek
- •Interrogative, Indefinite, Relative Pronouns
- •Verb patterns
- •Voicing of consonants (16th.)
- •Intralinguistic factors:
Interpretations of gvs
1. All the vowels were changed in a single direction. The changes formed a kind of a series or chain. K. Luick interpreted the GVS as the push-chain. According to Luick the changes start either from front or back vowels – the initial change stimulating the movement of the other sounds. If the changes started at the more open vowels /a:/, /o:/, they pushed the adjoining vowels away. The closest vowels were pushed out into diphthongs /i:/ > /ai/, /u:/ > /au/.
2. According to another theory of drag-chain (proposed by O. Jespersen) the changes started at the closest vowels /i:/, /u:/ which became diphthongs dragging after them their neighbours /e:/, /o:/, /a:/.
3. It was suggested (by the German linguist F. Wrede) that the shift was stimulated by the morphological factors: by the loss of the unstressed /∂/ in final position. Many disyllabic words became monosyllabic. To differentiate between words such as bit / bīte the quality of the long vowels was changed.
4. V.M. Zhirmundsky interpreted the shift due to the strong dynamic stress.
Thus the problem of GVS remains unresolved.
The Chronological Frame of the Shift
H. Sweet, O. Jespersen: after the age of Chaucer – 18th c.
H.C. Wyld: ?– 16th c.
Iljish B.A.: 15th c. – 17th c.
Modern English scholars: 12th c. – 18th. c. (main effect in the 15th., 16th c.)
T.A. Rastorguyeva: 14th c. – 18th. c.
Word-Stress in ME
In ME the word-stress acquired greater positional freedom. New accentual patterns are found in numerous ME loan-words from French. Gradually the loan-words were assimilated and the word-stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word under the influence of the recessive tendency. In disyllabic words the stress moved to the first syllable conforming to the pattern of native words, e.g. ME vertu /ver’tju:/ > NE virtue /’v∂:tju:/.
In words of 3 or more syllables the stress could be caused either by the recessive or rhythmic tendency which required a regular alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables. In verbs with prefixes the latter remained unstressed. Corresponding nouns received the stress on the first syllable, but not always: ‘present – pre’sent. Thus the word-stress began to perform a phonological function as it distinguished a verb from a noun.
Main Stress Patterns in ME
1. ME - -┴ - > NE ┬ - ┴
ME reco’mmenden > NE ,reco’mend
2. ME - -┴ - > NE ┴ - -
ME conse’craten > NE ‘consecrate
ME - - - ┴ > NE - ┴ --
necessi’ty > NE ne’cessity
In ME the entire system of word-accentuation has altered: the stress became relatively free – it could be shifted in word-derivation, but the stress never moved in building grammatical forms.
The System of Vowels in Late me Short monophthongs I, e, a, o, u
Long monophthongs i:, e:, ε:, a:, o:, o:, u:
Short diphthongs ei, ai, oi, au
Long diphthongs au, ou
In ME the balance of long and short vowels was disrupted - correlation through quantity in ME couldn’t be regarded as the basis of phonemic oppositions. Some phoneticians defined the difference between the former long and short vowels as lax to tense or free to checked.