In the ne period the forms with be denoted the state (“the tree is fallen”) while the forms with have denoted an action.

Lecture 10. The New English Period. The formation of the National English Language.

The War of Roses resulted in the establishment of monarchy in the country. The introduction of printing in 1476 called for gradual stabilization of spelling, grammar norms and the vocabulary. These facts resulted in the formation of a standard language throughout the country. The growing economic contacts resulted in the formation of a national market. England extended its political influence on other territories.

All those factors facilitated the growth of the dialect of London into the basis of the national language.

England was one of the most highly developed countries to get colonies and dependent territories. English was taken to other countries and continents. At the same time it led to a lot of borrowings from other languages.

Lecture 11. The ne period

The main phonetic changes in the NE period.

There was a number of short vowel changes in NE.

The main change is called the Great Vowel Change. It consisted in the raising of all vowels that could be raised and in the diphthongization of the highest ones. The process began in the middle of the 14^th c and lasted till the 18^th c, though the most important changes had been completed by the end of the 16^th c.

The Vowel Shift was different in character if a long vowel was followed by the sound /r /.

In the 17^th c a new phoneme appeared from a combination of / i+r/, /e+r/, /u+r/, /o+r/ after /w/.

In the 15^th c the sound /h/ was lost in the position after /i/. But the spelling did not change. The sounds /f, s/ and the inter-dental sound became voiced in unstressed syllables.

In the 17^th c dental consonants /d, t, s, z/ became palatalized before /j/ and turned into sibilants and affricates.

The New English Grammar System.

The 2-case system of the noun was preserved throughout the NE period. In the 15 – 16 centuries the plural forms of the OE weak declension were substituted by the ending – es.

The apostrophy as a marker of the possessive case was introduced in the 17thc.

In the 17^th c the distinction was introduced in the use of you and thou according to the French code of politeness. A new form of the possessive case of the 3d person neuter appeared. Alongside with his the forms it and its were used. The form its was registered first in 1598. The form with the apostrophy was used in the 17^th c.

In passing from ME to NE the adjective lost its only inflection – e and became an uninflected part of speech except for the degrees of comparison.

In the 16^th – 17^th c the difference the difference between the past forms of the Singular and the Plural of some verbs disappeared. First the process was over in classes 4-7, later the first three classes were involved. In some cases, especially in class 4, the vowel of Participle 2 penetrated into the form of the Past tense. Class 1 fixed the only past form of the former Singular form. A strict division into the classes of strong verbs was ruined.

The changes in the system of NE syntax.

In early NE noun patterns began to include syntactic complexes: predicative constructions with the Gerund and the infinitive. The adjective patterns included a variety of dependent components. Adjectives were commonly modified by adverbs.

In the course of history the structure of the simple sentence became more orderly and more uniform. Yet, at the same time it grew more complicated as the sentence began to include more extended and complex parts: longer attributive groups, diverse subjects and numerous predicative constructions (syntactic complexes). The subject of the sentence became more varied in meaning as well as in the form of expression. Due to the growth of new verb forms the subject could now denote not only the agent or a thing characterized by a certain property, but also the recipient of an action or the “passive” subject of a state and feeling. The predicate had also become more varied in form and meaning. The simple predicate could be expressed by compound forms which indicated multiple new meanings and subtle semantic distinctions.

Though some types of compound predicates had turned into simple – as the verb phrases into analytical forms – the compound predicate could express a variety of meanings with the help of numerous link –verbs and more extended and complex predicatives.

Double negation gradually went out of use. During the normalizing 18^th c when the scholars tried to improve and perfect the language, multiple negation was banned as illogical: it was believed that one negation eliminated the other like two minuses in mathematics and the resulting meaning would be affirmative. These logical restrictions on the use of negations became a strict rule of English grammar.