1. Te Germanic language family. General characteristics. Classification of G.lang. & ancient G. tribes.

I- Old G. Lang. :

1. East G. L. ( Vindili) :

• Gothic(4c.AD)

• Vandalic

• Burgundian

2. North G. L. (Hilleviones)

• Old Norse or Old Scandinavian (2-3c. AD) Futhark

• Old Icelandic (12c.AD)

• Old Norwegian (13c.AD)

• Old Danish(13c.AD)

• Old Swedish (13c.AD)

3. West G.( Ingvaeones, Istaevones, Herminones):

• Anglian

• Frisian

• Langobardian

• Jutish

• Saxon

• Franconian

• High German:

-Alemanic

-Thüringian

-Swabian

-Bavarian

• OE (7c. AD)

• Old Saxon (9c. AD)

• OHG (8c. AD)

• Old Dutch (12c. AD)

II- Modern Lang.

1.West Germ.

• English

• German

• Dutch

• Flamish

• Frisian

• Yiddish

• Afrikaans

2. North G. L.

• Icelandic

• Norwegian

• Danish

• Swedish

• Faroese

3. East G.L. - extinct

Characteristics

1. All the G.L. of past & present have common linguistic features, some of these features are shared by other groups in the IE family, others are specifically Germanic.

2. The Germanic group of lang. acquired their specific distinctive features after the separation of the ancient Germanic tribes from other IE tribes and prior to their expansion and disintegration that is during the period of the Proto Germanic language ( unattested). The aim is to provide the general idea of what the PGLang was like, to point out its linguistic ftatures. Theese PGfeatures, inherited by the descendant l-ges, represent the common features of the Germanic group.

3. Other common features developed later in the course of individual history of separate Germanic l-ges as a result of similar tendencies from PG causes. On the other hand many Germanic features have been disguised, transformed and even lost in later history.

Germanic languages possess several unique features, such as the following:

1. A large class of verbs that use a dental suffix (/d/ or /t/) instead of vowel alternation (Indo-European ablaut) to indicate past tense; these are called the Germanic weak verbs; the remaining verbs with vowel ablaut are the Germanic strong verbs

2. The shifting of stress accent onto the root of the stem and later to the first syllable of the word

3. Another characteristic of Germanic languages is the verb second or V2 word order. This feature is shared by all modern Germanic languages except modern English

4. Strict differentiation of short and long vowels

5. Tendency for assimilation and reduction

6. A great number of fricatives, small number of plosives

7. No palatal consonants at all.

2.Eng. As a world language.

English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era, in the fifth century AD when Germanic tribes began to move from their homes in Northern Germany and Jutland in order to settle in what was then still a Celtic country — Britannia. Historically, English originated from several dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the island of Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers beginning in the 5th century. English was further influenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders. At the time of the Norman conquest(1066), Old English developed into Middle English. As a result of influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century, Eng. has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language.English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million),Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million),Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006. Eng. is the dominant language or in some instances even the required international language of communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy. English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union (by 89% of schoolchildren). Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

3.Word stress in pg & its morphological consequences.

I.1.Proto-Indo-European (PIE) – musical accent (музичний наголос)

Proto-Germanic – stress accent (силовий наголос)

Example from Classical Greek:

mētēr “mother” (Nominative case)

mētéros “of a mother” (Genitive case)

I.2.Weakening and loss of unstressed syllables:

For example:

PIE *bheronom “to bear” > PG *beranan > OE beran > ME beren > bere > PDE bear

• In PIE there were two ways of word accentuation:

1. musical pitch(tone)

2. force(dynamic) stress

The position of stress was free & moveable. It could fall on any syllable of a word: on a root morpheme, on an affix, or even on the ending. It could be shifted both in form-building & word –building.

• In PG force stress became the only type of stress used. In early PG the stress was still moveable, but in late PG the position of stress was fixed on the first syllable (either root or prefix). The verbal prefixes were unstressed, the nominal & adjectival prefixes were stressed.

Consequences: the vowels of non-initial syllables became unstressed & therefore they were weakened & could be lost. The 1^st syllable of a word was given a special prominence.