1. Germanic languages: history, classification.

All the Germanic Languages of the past and present have common linguistic features that are not shared by other groups of languages in the Indo-European family: fixed stress (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix); dynamic stress (force, breath stress). The Proto-Germanic type of stress led to the formation of the following peculiarities of the Glanguages as compared to IE languages:phonetic – as a result of the fixed position of the stress the unstressed syllables were becoming weaker and weaker, they got less distinct and neutral sounds (such as “schwa”) appeared; morphological – as a result of the fact that the stress was fixed on the root and the syllables following the root were always unstressed and weak, many Gls began to lose suffixes and grammatical endings and became analytical.E.g.:(OE)[`sunu] (ME) [`sunə (NE) [`sun] (ModE) [`sΛn] First Consonant Shift 11th (Grimm’s Law) – in the 19th Jacob Grimm, a German scholar, discovered the existence of regular correspondence between IE and G consonants. 3 acts. 1 voiceless stops (p,t,k) are represented by G voiceless fricatives (f,Ђ,h). Pater – father, пламя – flame; три-three; cordis-heart. 2 IE voiced stops (b,d,g)→voiceless stops (p, t, k). два- two, слабый-sleep. 3 IE voiced aspirated stops( bh, dh, gh)→ voiced stops without aspiration (b,d,g). bhrata-brother, widhawa-widow, lagh-lie. Carl Werner later in the 19th explained and classified some correspondences which seem to contradict Grimm’s law: The G fricatives became voiced b-n vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed. p||f/v; t||Ө/ђ; k||h/j. In the field of Grammar: The existence of verbs with the dental suffix in the past tense; strong and weak declension of adjectives. Gls have about 60 words which are not to be found in other IE l (rain, see, drink). Palatal mutation ( i-Umlaut) happened in the 6th -7th c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Languages, except Gothic-fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable. a>e-sandian>sendan æ>e-tælian>tellan ā>æ-larian>læran o, ō> e u>y-fullian>fyllan ū>y ea>ie ; ēa>īe ; eo>ie ; ēo>īe Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English: irregular Plural of nouns (man – men; tooth – teeth); irregular verbs and adjectives (told ←tell; sold ←sell; old – elder); word-formation with sound interchange (long – length; blood – bleed).

3. Chronological division.

The division is based on phonetic and morphological principles.

The commonly accepted periodisation divides English history in 3 periods: OE begins with the G settlement of Britain (5^th) or the beginning of writing (7^th) and ends with the Norman conquest; ME begins with the Norman conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of New E period-lasts to the present day. Old English Period – prewritten (450-700). Last from the West G invasion till the beginning of writing.

– written (700-1100). Dialectal divergence, historical instability of the language.

During this period 1 million people spoke Old English Dialects. A period of no reflection.

Middle English Period – 1100-1500. The period of reduced inflections. By the end of the period English developed from highly inflected to mainly analytical. E absorbed 2 layers of borrowings: the Scandinavian and the French. Flourishing of literary. The main dialect used in writing and literature-mixed London.

Modern English. The London dialect has risen to prominence, formed the basis of the growing national literary l. The period of lost endings. The growing gap b-n pronunciation and spelling. 17-18^th – the age of normalization and correctness. The establishment of norms, fixed as rules of correct usage in dictionaries and grammar-books, were spread by education and writing. 18^th – the period of fixing pronunciation. Pronanc. was stabilized, word usage and grammatical constructions were normalized, the formation of new verbal grammatical categories completed, syntactical structures were standardized. 20^th – the local dialects are displaced by Standard E. The spread of E overseas.

4. Scandinavian invasion.

In the 8^th – 9^th c. Britain was raided and attacked by the Danes/Scandinavians/Vikings. The only king who was able to keep them at bay was Alfred the Great of Wessex. In 878 the Treaty of Wedmore was signed and England was divided into Wessex (belonged to Alfred) and Danelaw (belonged to the Danes). But as soon as the Scandinavian dialects also belonged to the Germanic group, the Danes soon linguistically merged into the local Old English dialects leaving some Scandinavian elements in them. Scandinavian invasion had made some effect on English: words beginning on “sk” (sky, skirt, skin); the system of personal pronouns (they, them, their); the form ‘are’ of the verb to be; the ending–s- for Present Simple, 3-rd person singular (in verbs) (he makes); the system of personal names ending on –son-: Davidson, Richardson, Jefferson; there are more then 1500 words of Scandinavian origin in ModE: sister, bad, fog, cake, get, again etc. morphology – the verb system was expanding.

Wish-want/heaven-sky(common things)

5. Norman conquest.