- •It has a fixed order of words. But old Tnglish was a synthetic l-ge. I had – an elaborate system of inflexions to rander gram relatives. –the order of words was more free.
- •Old English Dialects
- •Christianity and Writing!
- •The Scandinavian invasion & the Scandinavian influence!
- •Old English Memorials or Manuscripts.
- •In most positions old English {k} was spatalized when in fokwed {s} represented the sound.
- •Old English Morphology
- •It contained words thar subdivided into words common to all the Indo- European l-ges& common omly to germanic l-ges
- •Compounding
In most positions old English {k} was spatalized when in fokwed {s} represented the sound.
Literaly prose!!
Began to be written in the 9th century, which witnessed a flourishing of learning and literature in the king of Wessex during king Alfred’s reign & emodite himself Alfred translated from Latin books on Geography, history & Philosophy popular. Among these a version of Orosius history of the world a book of instruction for parish preasts & this book was translated.
The Ecclesiastical history of the English people by an English schol philosopher Bede. Towards the 10th cent. The west Saxon dialect had firmly established itself & the written standed of the time.
16. 10.2012
The structure of old English
Pronounciation of OE. Old English had achieved it’s own alphabet which grown out of the Latin by the 7 cent. 23-24 leters in it…
A, d, b, c, d, l, f, g, h, I, e, m, w, o,p ,r, s, t, p (thorn), (eth) , u, uu, x, y.
(a,I, o, e,u au)
L he 7th -> [a] ash
[sk] – ascian, tusc g [z] + yogh
Could represent 2 difer phonems [g] – god, ges, dogga
[j]- appear at the beginning or in the end ot between two nowels.[j]- position between vowels or undoubled
Fugol, lagu [dj]: brydeg secgan
n-k-g- [n] nring [ng] h [h] h%t [x] dohtor [c] niht
r- powerfully articulated sound vibrated in the position not found today. Bearn Weter
In general, every symbol must be pronounced.
Like h-nint k- cneo e-cwene
Old English Morphology
Old English carried out some simplyfication of the Proto Germanic system & had the folowing gramm category:
Category of number
Category of place
Category of gender
OE nours have only four cases:
Nominative
Genetive
Dative
Acusative
The number of Declantions is reduced to three of four. A few dinstinctive andings remained. All nouns have the ending um for dative plurel & a for genetive plurel. Many musculine nouns have endings es for genetive singular & as – Nom. Acc. Pl
In many nouns other distinctions are obliterated. Giefu has one from giefe for its Acc, & dative sing Nom Acc – plural
The musculine noun ‘guma’ had one form guman. OE infact relied a good deal on the adjectives & the definite article – se which still had a large numbers of forms for different cases & genders. The adjectives had the same gram categories as old Eng nouns, shich were most distinctive later on Adj-s agreed with nouns in gram categories in form, gender case.
Two-fold declantion – weak –strong. No posessove ones.
One big different afrom VE in the system of demonstrations today we have the this –these –5 forms.
In OE : 2 demonstrative p-s:
Se(the), yes (this)
On the other hand the temporary modern syst compies adj:
3 gendess
5 cases
2 numbers
Subj Mood
Helpe helpen Imp. Mood Help helpa
Past T-s
Pu-hulpe
Is, he ,heo, hi--- healp hulpon
Past subjunctive forms
Hulpe hulpen
Past partisiple form
Holpen
Present Part form
Helpende
At the end of the old english period there began to apper a new tense system using auxiliaries and it began with the development of forms for the perfect & the passive.
Analytic tense forms of old English The perfect tenses of transitive verbs were formed by the use of the auxiliary habban + part2.
Originally this part2 agreed with the form of the pronoun-n an object.
The perfect tenses of intransitive verbs were formed with auxiliary verbs; Beon, wesan, weopan.
This much multitude into the fortress flad.
The passive forms were fond with verbs beon/wesan.
Passive forms could be used only with transitive verbs which took an object in the Accusative case. Many old English verbs tok an object in the Dative case and sometimes in the genitive case.
The verb helpan usually had a Dative object so in old English it took place.
Old English syntax
Because of inflexional system old English agreed the freedom than nowadays & had a grate word- ardey.
However there were cartain rules & pretepences about word-order
OE favored 3 particular types of word- order
Subject- verb- Object
!) s-v-o
!) v-s-o
!)s-o-v
The order V-T-O was normal in questions
The negation is achieved by cesed of particle ne.
Multiple negation wasn;t very frequent. In the noun phrase adjectives followed the nouns and titles of renge usually followed the name: Elfered cuning.
Present –day English Vocabulary
=300 000 words
Mostly of germanic origin The Oe vocabulary was much more homogenious than the present –day.