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Lecture 1

Theoretical aspects of the history of the English language.

Plan:

1. Subject and aims of the history of English language.

2. Evolution, static and dynamic in the language.

3. Linguistic changes.

4. Inner and outer history of the language.

1. The history covers the main events in the development of the language. The main of them are internal and external.

Internal events happened in phonetic level, grammatical level, spelling, and vocabulary. Speaking about external events, these were the events happened in the history of English speaking community.

The language can be studied from two angels: diachronically and synchronically. Diachronically means to study the language in its development. Synchronically means to study the fixed present day state in the language.

Different scholars set up the main problems to solve during their investigation:

• to observe the changes.

• to explain the changes.

• to study the present day state.

• to distinguish periods.

• to find correlations between the inner and outer history of the language.

There are some aims from the pragmatic point of view:

Theoretical:

• to study the relationships between statics and dynamics.

• to study the role of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors.

• to study the interdependence of different processes of English language.

Practical:

• to explain the discrepancy between a letter and the sound of the English language. Because the pronunciation changes quicklier then the spelling.

e. g. Many modern spellings show how the words were pronounced some 4 or 5 hundred years ago. In the 14^th century in Old English the word knight sounded as [knix’t], root as [ro:t], tale as [‘ta:le].

- to explain the presence of numerous Roman words.

English language	Germanic language	Roman language
give	geben	-
peace	frieden	Fr. paix, L. pace
army	heer	It. armata, Fr. armée

• to supply the explanations both of regular features and peculiarities.

To solve all these problems and aims of investigation two methods of it were discovered:

- method of comparative analyses.

- method of linguistic reconstruction.

2. The evolution of the language it is a series of events in the internal and external systems of the language. As for internal system the language can be divided into historical phonetics, historical morphology, historical syntax and historical lexicology.

The external system embraces the following problems:

• the spread of the language in space and time.

• differentiation into functional varieties. (geographical variants, dialects, standard and sub-standard forms).

• contacts with other languages.

• naturalist trend. (every language has birth, development and death).

• sociological point. (the evolution is posed by social conditions and events of English speaking community).

• some modern linguists consider the external factors are no concern of linguistic history. And the more important is internal pressure of the language. Everything in the language should be symmetry. Internal factors can be subdivided into general and specific. General are peculiar for all languages. Specific are for one language or for group of languages.

The causes or moving factors in language history have always attracted the attention of linguists and have given rise to various explanations and theories. In the early 19^th century philologists of the romantic trend (J.G. Herder and W. Grimm) interpreted the history of Indo-European, and especially the Germanic languages.

The study of factual history undertaken by the Young Grammarians led them to believe that there are no superior or inferior stages in language history and that all languages are equal; changes are brought about by phonetic laws. Sociologists in linguistics (J. Vendryes, A. Meillet) maintained that linguistic changes are caused by social conditions and events in external history.

Like any movement in nature and society, the evolution of language is caused by the struggle of opposites. The moving power underlying the development of language is made up of two main forces: 1). the growing and changing needs of man in the speech community; 2). the resisting force that curbs the changes and preserves the language in a state fit for communication. These two forces are manifestations of the two principal functions of language – its expressive and communicative functions.

Many features of the language remain static in diachrony: these constant features do not alter through time or may be subject to very slight alteration.

In the first place there exist certain permanent properties to be found in all languages at any period of time, such as: the division of sounds into vowels and consonants, the distinction between the main parts of speech and the parts of the sentence. For instance, some parts of English vocabulary have been preserved through ages; to this stable part belong most of the pronouns, many form-words and words indicating the basic concepts of life. Many ways of word-formation have remained historically stable. Some grammatical categories, i.e. number of nouns, degrees of comparison of adjectives, have suffered little alteration while other categories, such as case or gender, have undergone profound changes. The proportion of stable and changeable features varies at different historical periods and at different linguistic levels but there is no doubt that statics and dynamics both in synchrony and in diachrony can be found.

3. One can distinguish three main types of difference in language: geographical, social and temporal. Linguistic changes imply temporal differences, which become apparent if the same elements or parts of the language are compared at successive historical stage. For instance: the Old English form of the Past tense plural Indefinite Mood of the verb to find – fundon [‘fundon] became founden [fu:nden] in the 12th-13^th century and found in Modern English.

The concept of linguistic change is not limited. It also includes temporal differences in the position of the given unit in language space. A new feature – a word, a form, a sound – can be recognized as a linguistic change only after it has been accepted for general use in most varieties of the language or in its main variety - the Literary Standard. For instance: in the 10^th – 11^th c. many Scandinavian words penetrated into the Northern dialects of the English language. E.g. sky, they, call; later they entered literary English.

Most linguistic changes involve some kind of substitution and can be called replacement. Replacements are subdivided into different types or patterns. A simple one-to-one replacement occurs when a new unit merely takes the place of the old one, E.g. in the words but, feet the vowels [u] and [e:] have been replaced by [^] and [i:].

Two or more units may fall together and thus may be replaced by one unit, or vice versa. The former type of replacement is defined as merging or merger; the latter is known as splitting or split. E.g. the modern Common case of nouns is the result of the merging of three Old E. cases: Nom.; Gen.; Acc. Many instances of splitting can be found in the history of E. sounds. E.g. The consonant [k] has split into two phonemes [k] and [tS] in words like kin, keep, chin, child.

Some changes are pure innovations, which do not replace anything, or pure losses. So we should regard as innovations numerous new words which were borrowed to denote entirely new objects or ideas, such as sputnik, Soviet, nylon, high-jacking, baby-sitter. On the other hand, many words have been lost, such as numerous poetic words denoting warriors, ships and the sea.

Linguistic changes are usually slow and gradual. The rate of them is restricted by the communicative function of language, for a rapid change would have disturbed or hindered communication between speakers of different generations.

It is often said that the vocabulary of the language change very rapidly. Lexical changes are quite conspicuous and easy to observe. New words are usually built in conformity with the existing ways of word formation which are very slow to change; the new formations make use of available elements –roots, affixes – and support of productive word-building patterns. e.g. motel – hotel; typescript – manuscript.

The system of phonemes cannot be subjected to sudden or rapid changes since it must preserve the oppositions between the phonemes required for the distinction of morphemes. Sometimes phonetic changes affect a whole set of sounds – a group of vowels or group of consonants.

The grammatical system is very slow to change. Being the most abstract of linguistic levels it must provide stable formal devices for arranging words into classes and for connecting them into phrases and sentences.

4. The outer history of the language is the history of people reflected in their language. The inner history of the language is the description of the changes in the language itself, its grammar, phonetics, vocabulary or spelling.

It is well known that the English language belongs to the Germanic subdivision of the Indo-European family of languages. At the beginning of AD Germanic tribes occupied vast territories in western, central and northern Europe. The tribes and the dialects they spoke at the time were generally very much alike, but the degree of similarity varied. It is common to speak about the East Germanic group of dialects – mainly spoken in central Europe – Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian; North Germanic groups of dialects – Old Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Swedish, Old Icelandic; and the West Germanic group of dialects – the dialects of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and others. The first knowledge of these tribes comes from the Greek and Roman authors, allows to obtain information on the structure of their society, habits, customs and languages.

The principal East Germanic language is Gothic. At the beginning of our era the Goths lived on a territory from the Vistula to the shores of the Black Sea. The knowledge of Gothic came due to a translation of the Gospels and other parts of New Testament made by Ulfilas, a missionary who Christianized the Gothic tribes. For a time the Goths played a prominent part in European history, making extensive conquests in Italy and Spain. In these districts, their language soon gave place to Latin. Gothic survived longest in the Crimea, where vestiges of it were noted down in the 16^th century.

North Germanic is found in Scandinavia and Denmark. Runic inscriptions from the 3^rd century preserve the earliest traces of the language. From about the 11^th c. the Scandinavian languages fall into two groups: an eastern group including Swedish and Danish, and a western group including Norwegian and Icelandic. Of the early Scandinavian languages Old Icelandic is the most important. Iceland was colonized by settlers from Norway about A.D. 874 and preserved a body of early heroic literature unsurpassed among the Germanic peoples.

West Germanic is divided into two branches, High and Low German, by the operation of a Second (or High German) Sound – Shift. This change, by which West Germanic p, t, k, d, etc. were changed into other sounds, occurred about A.D. 600 in the southern part of the Germanic area. Accordingly in early times it is distinguished as Low German tongues: Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old Frisian and Old English. High German comprises a number of dialects and is divided chronically into Old High German (before 1100), Middle High German (1100 – 1500), and Modern High German (since 1500). High German is spoken in the midlands and used in the imperial chancery, it was popularized by Luther’s translation of the Bible into it (1522 – 1532), and since the 16^th c. has gradually established itself as the literary language of Germany.

Lecture 2