11. Prehistoric & Celtic Britain.

1^st – Paleolithic men, Rough stone age. Weapons of stone and bone, Lived in caves.

2^nd – Neolithic men. Polished stone age. Well-shaped stone weapons & implements. Lived in artificial buildings & raised crops. Kept domestic animals, knew how to weave cloths.

3^rd – Bronze age.

4^th – presumably Iberians. Native inhabitants. Most slaved when Celts attacked. Some driven to Wales & some moved with the Celts.

5^th – Celts. Written history at the middle of the century, Caesar attacked. Described local population. Defeated in several fightings, driven to Wales & Scotland.

6^th-3^rd cent. BC a people called Celts spread across Europe. Many Celtic tribes, some invaded Britain. Picts & Scotts penetrated North, settled in Ireland. Scotland after Scotts.

12. Germanic settlements of English. Anglo-Saxon regions.

The Britons fought with each other, Picts and Scotts. 5^th cent. – increased Germ. invasion. West-Germ. tribes came to Britain & colonised it. Acc. to Bede, Germ. came under the leadership of two leaders: Hengirt & Hersa, invited by a British king for assistance. Dispossessed their allies & other Germ. tribes followed. Came in clans and settled.

1^st wave – Jutes (Frisians). Occupied S-E (Kent).

2^nd – Saxons. Westwards across to the right (Normandia). Then set up along the S. coast on both banks of the Thames. South – Sussex, West – Wessex, East – Essex.

3^rd – Angles. Betw. rivers Bosh & Hanga. East Anglia, Mercia & Northunbria.

First 7 Germ. kingdoms. Fought w/each other – Kent. 9^th cent. – Mercia conq. by Wessex. Dialects: Kentish, West-Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian.

13-15. Nouns. Declension. Adjective. Verb.

Subst. – as well as other IE – 1 essential structure of parts: root - stem suffix - case inflexion. This type of structure clearly seen in Gothic, while in other – later phon. & gram. changes. The subst. stem:

• vocalic stems (a, o, i, u) – strong declension.

• -n-stems – weak decl.

• -s-stems & -r-stems.

• root-stems – had never any stem suffix which implies the root & the stem in the words always coincided.

Adj. – decl. represented by strong decl. (indefiniteness) and weak decl. (definiteness). Degrees of comparison: iz/oz – ists/ost. Suppletivizm: leitils – minniza – minnists.

Verb – 2 distinct types: strong verbs (Ablaut) - weak verbs (dental suffix d/t); other group – formed by changes (есть – был). Categories: pers., numb., tense, mood, voice.

16. Periods in the history of Engl. Lang.

Taking in consideration the state of grammar H. Sweet subdivided the history of the EL into 3 periods:

• the period of full endings (Any vowel could be found in unstressed endings singan-sunu)

• the period of leveled endings (All vowels in the unstressed endings were leveled under the letter e singen-sune)

• the period of lost endings (Endings were lost all together sing-sun)

OE (700 AD – 1100), ME (1100-1500), ModE (1500-nd): Early ModE (1500-1616); Late ModE (1616-nd)

17-18. O/E dialects and written records.

At its earliest stage ENG was represented by a number of disunited dialects. With the growth of the feudal system tribal dialects  local, regional dialects.

During the OE period there were 4 main dialects:

•Northumbrian – spoken by Angles living north of Humba

•Mercian – spoken by Angles between the Hamba and the Themes

•West-Saxon – Saxons south of the Themes

•Kentish – Jutes in the South-East of the Br. Isles

Each of the dialects represented by a number of written records

•runic texts of the “Ruthwell Cross”, “Frank’s Casket”, translations of the gospels, “Bede’s dying song”

•translation of the Psalter (9^th century), religious hymns

•King Alfred’s words (original & translations), A-S Chronicle, Work of Abbat Alfred (10 c.), Sermons of Wolfsten (early 11 c.)

•Translation of Psalm (L-XX) and old Charters (хартии)

“Beowolf”, “Genesis”, “Exodus”, “Judith” and poems by the monk Synewolf - it is difficult to define their locality (anglian and saxon forms). Ильиш thinks these were written in the anglian dialect in the period of saxon supremacy.

West-Saxon dialect in the 9^th c. became the dominating literary language.

The earliest written records: inscription on a box called the “Frank’s Casket”; short text on a stone cross near the village Ruthwell and it is known under the name “Ruthwell Cross”. Both of them are in the Northumbrian dialects. Also were wills, grants, different deals or purchase, agreements, laws etc.