In the same way the French word 'receit' under the influence of Latin 'receptum' got 'p' in its ModE spelling 'receipt'.

The letter 's' was added into the OE iland, because the French noun of the same meaning was 'isle', as a result - ModE 'island'. All these modifications, which were alien to the nature of the language, complicated English spelling and now cause great difficulties both for native and foreign learners of English.

Numerous attempts were undertaken to overcome this imperfections of English spelling. For example, the famous dramatist G.B.Shaw was a sharp critic of the English alphabet and its rules of spelling. He even devised an alphabet of his own which he hoped, would be closer to pronunciation. But it was not a success either and for this reason not accepted by the public.

At present, there is felt the influence of spelling upon pronunciation; the tendency is known as 'spelling pronunciation'. In accordance with it unpronounced letters began to sound in such words as 'often', 'listen', 'soften'; in other cases they disappeared from spelling: EModE musick —> music

But these minor changes can hardly improve the state of matters. The English do realize what a great gap exists between their spelling and pronunciation. The famous English scholar S. Potter writes in this respect 'It is well-known that English has the most unphonetic spelling among the great languages of the world, with French as a close second. What, then, is to be the future of our unsystematic spelling, are we to go on suffering in indefinitely?' 31. OE Strong Verbs (I-III classes).

Strong verbs use vowel gradation for their word-changing. Vowel gradation is a spontaneous change of the root vowel which is used to derive a new form of the verb in questions. Verb gradation is characteristic of all Indo-European languages and it was registered in the earliest writings in Indo-E. languages but its reasons, causes have not yet been clarified. In Indo-E. languages there are 3 stages of gradation which combine the quantative and qualitative changes.

IE e-o – zero (qualitative)

o – zero (quantative)

беру – сбор – брал

e - o - zero

qualit quant

In Germanic languages there is a different pattern of vowel gradation because Indo-Eur “e” is reflected in Germanic languages as “I”, “o” as “a”:

e – o - zero

i - a – zero

The 1st stage of gradation of “I” is found in the Inf of strong verbs. It serves as a root vowel of the Inf. In the 2nd stage “a” – it is met in the forms of Pret.Sg. And zero of the root vowel.

i – Inf zero – Pret. Pl.

a – Pret. Sg. zero - Part2

Strong verbs in Germanic languages were distributed into 7 classes and the first 5 classes were differentiated on the basis of their toot-modifiers. The root-modifier is a vowel or a consonant which appears regularly after the root vowel in all the forms of the verb and thus the root-modifier serves as determiner of a certain class.

I class – root modifier – i.

I (Inf) – a – zero (Pret. Pl.)

OE: risan – ras – rison - risen

II class – root modifier – u

OE: ceosan – ceas – curon – coren (u > o)

In the 2nd class the difference from the ideal pattern. i – a – zero is explained in the following ways: first of all, in the Inf. Instead of the expected diphthong –iu- the OE verbs had the diphthong –eo- which in a regular correspondence of OE to Goth –iu-. In the forms of the Pret. Pl. and the Part2 the consonant “s” in the OE verb was influenced by voicing under Verner’s law (s>z>r) and then rhotacism and the appearance of “r” in OE verb. In Part2 instead of the expected root-modifier “u” there appears the vowel “o”, which is the result of the Germanic feature of vowels. If in the 2nd syllable of a word there was an open vowel in Germanic languages narrow vowels widened and i > e; u > o. Originally in Germanic languages in the suffix (Part2) was “a”.

III class had a sonorous consonant as a root-modifier r,l,n,m + a non-sonorous consonant.

OE: bindan – band/bond – bundum – bunden

In the III class the forms of the Pret. Pl. and the Part.2 instead of the zero vowel developed the epenthetic vowel “u” in the root, which could appear in this position due to the ability of sonorants to produce an additional syllable. In OE depending on the dialects there were 2 forms of the Pret. Sg.:

o (bond) – the result of the influence of the nasal N or M which caused narrowing of the preceeding vowel – and a (band).

32. OE Strong Verbs (IV-VII classes).

IV class – the root modifier “a” sonorous consonant n,m,l,r only

OE: stelan - st?l/stal - st?lon – stolen

In the course of the 5th class the form of the Pret. Pl, instead of the expected zero vowel has a long root vowel e (Goth) ? (OE). In Part2 again there is epenthetic vowel “u” (Goth) o(OE) – due to the Germanic fracture. The origin of the vowel in the form of the Pret. Pl. is not definite but it is supposed that it might have developed from the ancient Indo-Eur aspect form – aorist; this aspect form could characterize the whole duration of an action.

V class – non-sonorous consonant as its root-modifier. The root vowel in the 2d form here was the same as in the 4th class. A peculiar feature: the root vowel in Part2 was the same that in the Inf

OE: etan – at/?t - ?ton – eten

VI class had a peculiar form which was based on the pattern a (Inf) – o (Pret. Sg.) – o (Pret. Pl.) – a (Pt2)

OE: faran – for – oron – faren

VII class is known as the class uniting redouplicative verbs. There appears an additional syllable before the root which is composed ao the initial consonant of the root a link vowel “e”.

Goth: haitan – haihait – haihaitum - haitans

OE: hatan – het(heht) – heton – haten

Most probably in OE there has never been redouplication. If we compare OE and Gothic verbs of the VII class the first supposition may be that in OE redouplication had never taken place. At the same time there were registered some forms of the preterite which prove that actually I OE redouplication had also taken place but by the time of the earliest writings these forms had been simplified and lost essential features of redouplication.

In general, regular features of form-building in these verbs can be traced only with reference to Gothic which had preserved an older state of forms of strong verbs. In addition to the verbs above discussed in OE there were many verbs with some irregularities:

standan – stod – stodon – standen (VI class, n-infix)

sprecan - spr?c - spr?con – sprecen (V class)

In OE strong verbs were numerous but didn’t make a very productive type of verb derivation because by that time vowel gradation had no longer been an active way of word-changing. The productive type of the verbs was represented by weak verbs. The majority of loan verbs (even in OE) joined the group of weak verbs. 33. Changes of Strong Verbs through the Middle and Early Modern English Periods.

The MidE period was the time when strong verbs suffered the process of disintegration, which developed in several directions:

1 direction – an active change and transition of strong verbs into weak ones

1 class: glide

2 class: lie, creep, lock

3 class: climb, swallow, melt, starve, bark, moun, help, yield

4 class: threat, weigh

5 class: help, grave

6 class: leap, sleep, fold, salt, walk, read

This process was very strong in EModE but stopped at the end of the 17th c. In ModE however it’s activized under the influence of American English when even the verbs began to level it.

2 direction – the verbs of the 4, 5 classes began to interchange their forms and certainly united into one and the same class which got the features of the 4th one. This unification became possible because even in OE the essential forms of the 4, 5 classes were similar except Part2 where the root vowels were different. But after the unification the verbs of the 4th class began to use the vowel of the 5th class.

3 direction (began in the MidE) – it consisted in reducing the number of essential forms from 4 to 3. In the 6, 7 classes this process began earliest of all because even in OE the root vowels in the Pret. Sg. and Pret. Pl. in these classes were the same.

6 class, Pret: for(s) – foron (Pl) united in MidE to indicate the Pl.

7 class: hit - hitou

In the 1st class there survived the forms of the Inf, Pret. Sg. and Part2.

writan – wrat – written (Pt2)

writon (Pret. Pl.)

The verbs of the 2nd class were not numerous even in OE > it’s difficult to find any regularities of it.

3d class: the verbs having –nd- (as a root modifier) retained in ModE the forms of the Inf, Pret. Pl. and Participle2

findan – fand (does not exist) – funden – finden

5 and 4 classes: retained the Inf, Pt2 and their form of the Pret is derived as a result of mixture of the Pret.Sg. and Pret. Pl.

bear – bore – born

steal – stole – stolen

The OE verbs ?iefan, ?ietan > MidE – changed their initial consonant having borrowed the non-palatal stop [g] from the corresponding Scandinavian verbs – geta, geva. 34. History of Weak Verbs.

Weak Verbs make another peculiar feature in the verbal system of Germanic languages. They form their Pret., Sg. and Pl., and Participle2 with the help of the dental suffix. The basic form of the suffix is –d, but its phonetic variants may be –t, -?. According to the type of suffix, weak verbs fell into 3 classes in OE. In Gothic there were 4 classes of them, but the 4th class had no correspondence in OE. Weak verbs had only 3 essential forms, because of the forms of the Pret. Sg. and Pl. differed only in their personal endings.

OE classes:

1) In the prewritten period all the verbs of the 1st class had the sound –j/i- in their stem suffix which caused mutation of the root vowel (i-mutation): taljan > tellan. This i-mutation did not take place in Gothic, the texts in which can be traced back to the 4th c AD, while the earliest OE texts were written in the 7th c. And in the texts of the 7th c the results of i-mutation in OE weak verbs were quite obvious. So, i-mutation took place somewhere between the 4-7th c AD. And Gothic in this case is very helpful in stating the quality of the route vowel in OE verbs before i-mutation.

Mutation was firstly accompanied by the narrowing of the root vowel and secondly by the doubling of the route consonant if * the route vowel was short; *the route vowel wasn’t equal to r; *it wasn’t represented by a combination of consonants: E.g. (short vowel)

Goth knusjan

OE cnyssan > cnysed-e (Sg.) – cnysed-on (Pl.) > cnysed (Pt2)

In the forms of the Preterite and Participle2 the sound –i/j- which had one existed in the stem suffix is reflected in the form of the link vowel –e- which stands between the rout and the dental suffix.

E.g. (long vowel):

Goth dowjan

OE deman > demd-e/demd-on – demd (demed) (Pt2)

If the consonant standing after the rout vowel was voiceless it caused devoicing of the dental suffix, too. The 1st class of weak verbs had a special subgroup of the so-called irregular verbs. They were called irregular as i-mutation in them took place only in the form of the Inf, so the rout vowel in the preterite was different. But instead the forms of the Pret. and Pt2 were affected by other phonetic changes. As a result the difference between the rout of the Inf and other forms was considerable.

E. g. Goth sallan (to sell)

OE sellan – sealed/sealdon – seald (?/a > ea – OE breaking)

All the verbs of the 1st class were transitive and most usually they were derived from nouns or adjectives:

E.g. (N) dom+jan > deman

(Adj) full+jan > fyllan

2) In the pre-written period wek verbs of the 2nd class had the stem suffix –oja- which were registered in the strong verbs gothic of the 2nd class. E.g. makojan. In the earliest OE texts this suffix is represented in its simplified form. It lost the vowel –o-. The phonetic position of the sound –i- seems to be very favourable for i-mutation. In spite of this favourable position the verbs of the 2nd class had never suffered mutation of the rout vowel because in the period when mutation was in its active stage the rout vowel was distanced from –j/i- by the long vowel –o-, which made part of the stem suffix.

And by the time when the suffix –oja- had been simplified and the condition for mutation became favourable, the phonetic process had already been over. But the vowel –o- from this suffix can be traced in the forms of the preterite and Pt2 as a link vowel. E.g. macian – macoda/macodon – macod

Verbs of the 2nd class usually were derived from nouns or verbs in the form of their preterite. The 2nd class was very regular in the process of forming its grammatical forms. The rout vowel in all the forms was the same, that’s why the greatest part of loan words and newly derived verbs joined this very class.

3) In Gothic the verbs of the 3d class had the stem suffix –i-. But in OE no traces of this suffix could be found. And the dental suffix in the forms of the preterite and Pt2 was joined into the rout immediately. In the form of the Inf. the verbs of the 3rd class were characterized by the doubled consonant which implies that these forms had suffered once i-mutation. E.g. sec?an - s??de/s??don - s??d. These verbs were not numerous and even in OE the process of their disintegration began.

Middle and Early Modern English.

Their number increased greatly during these periods. First of all, weak verbs made a productive type of w-changing and w-building. So, all newly derived verbs joined the group of weak verbs. Secondly, loan verbs borrowed from Fr. and Scand. also joined the group of weak verbs and mostly the 2nd class. Thirdly, a great number of strong verbs during MidE and EModE periods changed their morphological nature and became weak verbs, too. In the 17th and 18th c, the link vowel –e- in the forms of the preterite and Pt2 was first reduced and finally disappeared from pronunciation. E.g. MidE:

hoped hop’d written form

loved lov’d

But later the mute –e- returned into the spelling and nowadays the spelling of weak verbs is similar to that of the MidE. In MidE 2 OE verbs which were close in their meaning:

?yncan (to seem) – ?uhte – ?oht

?encan (to think) – ?ohte – ?oht

mixed and produced the modern forms: to think – thought – thought, where the modern Inf. is traced back to the OE verb “?yncan”, while the forms of the preterite are borrowed from “?encan”. This verb came into literary English from the Northern dialect, that’s why palatal [k] in the stem didn’t turn into [t?] which happened regularly in Middle and South dialects. In MidE weak verbs of the 2d class leveled their phontic forms of the Inf on the basis of the phonetic forms of Pret. and Pt2.

OE habban - h?fde - h?fd

The rout of the Pret. and Pt2 was different in these verbs. And in MidE the rout of the Pret was taken to derive a new form of the Inf.

MidE hav+en – haven – havde – havd

Secondly, it was a positive change, as after it weak verbs of the 3rd class got the same rout in all their form: Inf, Pret and Pt. In ModE there are several words of the so-called “mixed type”, which derived their Pret. with the help of the dental suffix, but in Pt2 they use of ending –en as strong verbs do. E.g. to show – showed – shown; to strew – strewed – strewn(ed). 35. History of Preterit-Present and Irregular Verbs.

PPV have a peculiar place in the system of Germanic verbs. Their forms of the Present tense correspond to the Past, to the Pret., of the strong verbs. And their pret forms are derived like the pret of weak verbs with the help of dental suffix. The origin of PPV is explained by the fact that tense forms of Germanic verbs developer from the Indo-Europ. aspect forms of the verb. And among them there was a resultative aspect (видовое значение завершенности действия).

With the majority of strong verbs the resultative aspect realized in the forms of the pret or Past Tense. But in a certain group pf words the meaning of the R. Aspect was interpreted as denoting the present result of the past action. So, their present tense has the same stages of vowel alternation (чередование) which in strong verbs denote the past tense forms. And to derive their forms of the pret PPV use the dental suffix like weak verbs: they combine the features both of strong and weak verbs. They’re distributed into classes in the same way as the strong verb, that is with the help of the route modifier.

1) witan (Inf) – wat (Pr.Sg.) – witon (Pr.Pl.) – wit+d+e>wiste (Past Sg.) – wiston (Past Pl.) – ?ewriten (Pt2)

2) du?an – dea? – du?on – dohte – dohton – no Pt

3) cunnan – can – cunnon – cun+?+e>cu?e – cu?on – cu? (couth)

In the forms of the pret this verb had an irregular dental suffix which was not a dental stop, but a dental fricative. Nasal consonant [n] was dropped before it.

4)munan – man/mon – munon – munde – mundon - ?emunen

5) ma?an - m?? – magon – meahte – meahton – no Pt

6) a – o – o – a

no Inf – mot – moton – moste – moston – no Pt

7) a?an (to own) – a? (to owe) – a?on – ahte (ought) – ahton a?en (own)

Further development of PPV.

Only few of them survived in MidE and they’re all the verbs of Mod meaning. Some of them changed their tense distinctions.

E.g. OE moste began to refer to the Pr.Tense in MidE ahte

By the EModE period these mod verbs had lost their non –finite forms such as the Inf, Pt1 and Pt2. In MidE to the verbs “cunnan”, “durren”, “moste”, “scholde” there also joined the verb “willen” which originally belonged to the group of irregular verbs. The forms “scholde” and “wolde” in EModE became polyfunctional. First of all they were used in their original mod meanings. Secondly – as tense auxiliaries in the Future-in-the Past and Mood auxiliaries (Subj. Mood). When they were used as auxiliaries they were unstressed and pronounced indistinctly. [l] disappeared from pronunciation and [o] which long developed into long [u] and the length of [u] was lost due to the same unstressed character. But their spelling retained that “l”. On the analogy of these forms the unpronounced mute “l” was added into the verb “could” which was similar in its modal meaning and auxiliary function.

Irregular Verbs.

In Indo-E. languages they make a peculiar type. Sometimes they are called –m verbs because in the 1st person Sg. Pr. Tense these verbs have the ending “m”. E.g. I am - Sum (Lat); don-dom (OE) to do

But in the course of time the majority of these verbs lost their peculiar feature. Only the form “m” indicates its irregular origin. 37. Changes of the Substantives. Reasons for Disintegration of subs.declantion.

In late midE( 14-15cc) the number of cases in the substantive declantion were reduced from 3 to 2 and the difference b/w strong and weak d. was lost.

Sin. Plural.

N ston name stones names

G stones names ------, ------

Thus by the end of the MidE period the OldE system of N. declantion had been disintegrated. And the main reason was the phonetic process of reduction of unstressed vowels in the inflexions.the OldE Nom,Dat,and Acc cases in MidE merged and formed the Common case. Only the Gen. case retained its inflexion. In MidE after thr loss of Nom.case inflexions the N had lost its gender distinctions.After that gender ch-ics of the adj. became unimportant and gradually they were lost. In MidE period the most influential type of D. was represented by –a- stems and they influenced other paradigms and involved the N-s of other stems into their own pattern of D.( ex.in oldE boc,cu,knutu belonged to the root-stem D and were ch-ed in the plural by the i-mutation of the root vowel- bec,cy,hnyte---this was in oldE).In midE they joined the group of a-stemsand began to derive their plural in a regular form with the help of –s-( inflexion)- books,cows,nuts.The OldE nouns of weak D. represented by n-srems also joined a-stems and lost their inflexion –en.In ModE inflexion can be found only in few forms- oxen,brethren.The N child-chilru in midE changed its typeand got the inflexion –n- in the plural.