
- •1.The aim of the study of the subject ‘‘The History of the English Language’’.
- •2. Inner and outer history of the language ‘‘The History of the English Language’’.
- •4. Chief characteristics of the Germanic languages. Grammar. Alphabet.
- •5.Old English. Outer history. Principal written records.
- •6. Old English. Outer history. Dialectal classification.
- •7. Old English. Inner history. Phonetics. Spelling. Grammar. Vocabulary.
- •Vocabulary
- •1.2. Establishment of the literary norm
- •11.New English. Inner history. Phonetics. Grammar. Vocabulary.2. Inner history
- •12.Old English Phonetics. Origin of Old English vowel phonemes. Changes in Old English vowel phonemes. Breaking. Palatal mutation. Effect of palatal mutation upon grammar and word-stock.
- •2. Changes in Old English
- •Vowel phonemes
- •13. Old English consonants. Dependence of the quality of the consonant phoneme upon its environment in the word. Grimm's law, Verner's law.
- •14. Old English grammar. General survey of the nominal system. The noun. Gender. Number. Case.
- •15. Old English grammar. Declensions in Old English. Vowel-Stems. Declension of a-stem nouns. Consonant stems. Declension of n-stem nouns. Declension of root-stem nouns.
- •17. Old English grammar. The adjective. Declension of adjectives. Degrees of comparison of adjectives.
- •18. Old English grammar. General survey of finite and non-finite forms of the verb. Grammatical categories of the finite forms of the verb. Person. Number. Tense. Mood.
- •19. Old English grammar. Morphological classification of verbs. Strong verbs. Weak verbs.
- •20. Old English grammar. Morphological classification of verbs. Irregular verbs. Irregular weak verbs. Irregular strong verbs. Suppletive verbs.
- •Irregular verbs
- •Irregular weak verbs
- •Irregular strong verbs
- •21. Changes in the phonetic system in Middle English. Vowels in the unstressed position. Vowels under stress. Qualitative changes.
- •Vowels under stress
- •22. Changes in the phonetic system in Middle English. Vowels in the unstressed position. Vowels under stress. Quantitative changes.
- •Vowels under stress
- •23. Changes in the phonetic system in Middle English. Consonants.
- •24. Changes in the phonetic system in New English. Vowels in the unstressed position. Vowels under stress. Qualitative changes.
- •Vowels under stress
- •25. Changes in the phonetic system in New English. Vowels in the unstressed position. Vowels under stress. Quantitative changes.
- •Vowels in the unstressed position. Quantitative changes
- •26. Changes in the phonetic system in New English. Consonants.
- •28. General survey of grammar changes in Middle and New English. The noun. Middle English. Morphological classification. Grammatical categories.
- •In Middle and New English
- •Grammatical categories
- •29. New English. Morphological classification. Origin of irregular noun forms. Grammatical categories.
- •30. New English. The adjective. The pronoun. The article.
- •31. Old English. General characteristics. Means of enreaching vocabulary. Internal means. External means.
- •Vowel interchange:
- •32. Middle English. General characteristics. Means of enreaching vocabulary. Internal means. External means.
- •Internal means of enriching vocabulary
- •33. New English. General characteristic. Means of enriching vocabulary. Internal means.
- •34. New English. General characteristic. Means of enriching vocabulary. External means.
- •35. Ethymological strata in Modern English. General characteristic. Native elements in Modern English. Common Indo-European stratum. Common Germanic stratum.
- •36. Ethymological strata in Modern English. Foreign element in Modern English (borrowings). Latin element.
- •37. Ethymological strata in Modern English. Foreign element in Modern English (borrowings). Scandinavian element.
- •38. Ethymological strata in Modern English. Foreign element in Modern English (borrowings). French element.
- •39. Ethymological strata in Modern English. Word-hybrids.
- •40. Ethymological strata in Modern English. Ethymological doublets.
23. Changes in the phonetic system in Middle English. Consonants.
The most important change in the consonant system that can be observed if we compare the Old English and the Middle English consonant system will be the development of the fricative consonant [ʃ] and the affricates [tʃ] and [dƷ] from Old English palatal consonants or consonant combinations.
Thus we can notice that variants of some Old English consonant phonemes developed differenly. For example:
The phoneme denoted in Old English by the letter с had two variants: [k] — hard and [k’] — palatal, the former remaining unchanged, the latter giving us a new phoneme, the phoneme [tʃ] .
Special notice should be taken of the development of such consonant phonemes that had voiced and voiceless variants in Old English, such as:
[f] — [v] in spelling f
[s] — [z] in spelling s
24. Changes in the phonetic system in New English. Vowels in the unstressed position. Vowels under stress. Qualitative changes.
Vowels in the unstressed position already reduced in Middle English to the vowel of the [ə] type are dropped in New English if they are found in the endings of words, for example:
Old English Middle English New English
Nama name name [neim]
The vowel in the endings is sometimes preserved — mainly for phonetic reason: wanted, dresses
— without the intermediate vowel it would be very difficult to зronounce the endings of such words.
Vowels under stress
Qualitative changes
— Changes of monophthongs
All long monophtongs in New English underwent a change that is called The Great Vowel Shift. Due to this change the vowels became more narrow and more front.
Two long close vowels: [u] and [i] at first also became more narrow and gave diphthongs of the [uw] or [ij] type. But those diphthongs were unstable because of the similarity between the glide and the nucles.
Consequently the process of the dissimilation of the elements of the new diphthongs took place and eventually the vowels [i] and [u] gave us the diphthongs [ai] and [au], respectively.
Middle English New English
[u]>[au] hous house
[i]>[ai] time time
Influence of the consonant “r” upon the Great Vowel Shift.
When a long vowel was followed in a word by the consonant “r” the given consonant did not prevent the Great Vowel Shift, but the resulting vowel is more open, than the resulting vowel in such cases when the long vowel undergoing the Shift was followed by
a consonant other than "r".
As a result of the Great Vowel Shift new sounds did not appear, but the already existing sounds appeared under new conditions. For instance:
The sound existed
before the Shift
[ei] wey
[u:] hous
[i:] time
The sound appeared after the Shift
[ei] make
[u:] moon
[i:] see, etc.
Two short monophthongs changed their quality in new English (XVII century), the monophthong [a] becoming [ae] and the monophthong [u] becoming [ʌ]. For instance:
Middle English New English
That that
Cut cut
However, these processes depended to a certain extent upon the preceding sound. When the sound [a] was preceded by [w] it changed into [o].
Where the sound [u] was preceded by the consonants [p], [b], [f], the change of [u] into [ʌ] generally did not take place,(bull, butcher, pull, push, full, etc.)
But sometimes even the preceding consonant did not prevent the change, for instance:
Middle English New English
[u] > [ʌ] but [but] but [b ʌ t]
— Changes of diphthongs
Two out of the four Middle English diphthongs changed in New English, the diphthong [ai] becoming [ei] and the diphthong [au] contracted to [o:] For example:
Middle English New English
[ai] > [ei] dai day
[au]> [o:] lawe law