- •Categories of the Verb in me
- •4.Changes within the system of Strong and Weak verbs in me
- •The Old English vowel System
- •5. The Morphological Classification of the oe verbs.
- •Irregular verbs
- •6 Rise of the Article System in me.
- •7The oe Consonant System
- •8Changes within the Adjective System in me
- •9The Non-Finite forms of the Verb in oe.
- •10Changes within the Pronoun System in me.
- •12 Changes within the Noun System in me.
- •11Oe vowels. Development of Vowels in Unstressed Syllables in oe.
- •13Principal features of Germanic Languages.
- •14 Changes within the consonant s to system in me.
- •17Word stress in Indo-European and Common Germanic
- •15Strong, Weak, Preterito-Present and Anomalous verbs in oe.
- •Strong verbs
- •Weak verbs
- •16Formation of New Diphthongs in me.
- •20Me vowels: Quantitative changes.
- •21Verner’s Law. Rhotacism
- •22Me vowels: Qualitative changes
- •Middle English New English
- •Middle English New English
- •Middle English New English
- •23Common Germanic Vowel Shift, Common Germanic Fracture Germanic Vowel Shift
- •24Scandinavian Borrowings in Middle e.
- •Many words with k sound before e and I, numerous words with sk sound are to be assigned to Scandinavian origin. Pronoun same and pronominal forms with initial th – they, their, them.
- •26French Borrowings in me.
- •27Indo-European and Germanic Ablaut
- •28Reduction of Vowels in Final Unstressed Syllable in me
- •Oe writan – wrat – writon – written
- •Written – wrot- written – written
- •29Basic grammatical Features of Germanic Languages.
- •32Changes within the System of Vowels in me
- •Oe writan – wrat – writon – written
- •Written – wrot- written – written
- •Quantitative changes
- •Lengthening of vowels
- •35Periods in the History of English
- •The period of lost endings
- •Changes within the Consonant System in Early New English
- •34. General characteristic of Middle English Grammar
- •The old English vowel system. Phonological Processes in oe and their Traces in Modern English (oe Breaking, Velar Umlaut, I-Umlaut, Palatal Diphon)
- •Umlauts
- •Development of vocabulary in Mod e.
- •Indian: bungalow, indigo Chinese: coolie, tea
- •46. The Linguistic Consequences of the Scandinavian Invasion.
- •The categories of the oe adjective and their further development
- •48. The Linguistic Consequences of the Norman Conquest.
- •Development of vowels in oe
- •Formation of the national literary English Language
- •Latin Borrowings thought the development of the English language
- •The declension of the Noun in oe. Types of stems.
- •Vowel-stems. Declension of a-stem nouns.
- •55. Me dialects.
- •Development of Consonants in oe
- •Development of Non-finite forms of the Verb in the English language
- •Participle I. Has the ending –ende and is declined as a weak adjective. It is used attributively (in pre- and post-position) and predicative.
- •Grammatical categories of the Noun in oe.
- •The pronoun in oe
- •The adjective in oe
- •Changes within the verb system in Modern English
- •You shall do it – necessity
- •I will do it – volition
- •I should be present – to show events which are probable, though problematic
- •I should be present – to show imaginary events contrary to fact.
- •Verbal grammatical categories in oe
- •Ic write (singular) We writa.. (plural) tense
- •Strong verbs in oe
- •Weak verbs in oe
- •Class II – the stem suffix –oi
- •Latin borrowings thought the development of the English language
- •Verbs ending in –ate, -ute
- •Peretrite-present verbs in oe and their further development
- •Oe vocabulary
Irregular verbs
The weak verbs of the rd class are considered to be irregular, because the class consists of only three verbs, following their own individual patterns of form building. Among the 1st class there were also some irregular verbs. This irregularity was inherent, but it was manifested in pre-historic times in OE differently.
tellan (to tell) sellan (to sell)
The sign of irregularity of the weak verbs in OE was vowel interchange, a feature not typical of this group of verbs. The cause of it was the original absence of the stem-forming suffix –i in Past Singular and past participle. Under the influence of –i only the form of the Infinitive could change during the process of palatal mutation. (talian – tellan) the other two remaining unchanged, and as a result the verb acquired vowel interchange.
Preterite-present
There was a group of some strong verbs which in the pre-written period lost some of their forms and preserved the others, changing their lexical and grammatical meaning. These verbs are called preterite-prsent, for in the written period they build their present tense forms from the original past ones. The new past tense forms of these verbs in OE are built with the help of dental suffixation. The majority of preterite-present verbs are defective verbs, which lost their connection with the other forms and were dropped. The group of OE preterite-present verbs includes, among others, the following:
azan -
cunnan
sculan
mazan
Suppletive verbs
Among such verbs we may mention the following:
beon – wesan (be)
zan – eode (go)
don – dyde (do)
6 Rise of the Article System in me.
The first elements of the category of the article appeared already in OE, when the meaning of the demonstrative pronoun was weakened, and it approached the status of an article in such phrases as: se mann (the man), seo sae (the sea).
However, we may not peak of any category if it is not represented by an opposition of at least two units. Such opposition arose only in Middle Engl, when the indefinite article an appeared. The form of the definite article can be traced back to the OE demonstrative pronoun se , which in the course of history came to be used on analogy with the forms of the same pronoun having the initial consonant [O] and began to be used with all nouns, irrespective of their gender or number.
The indefinite article developed from the OE numeral an. In ME an split into two words: the indefinite pronoun an, losing a separate stress and undergoing reduction of its vowel, and the numeral one, remaining stressed as any other notional word. Later the indefinite pronoun an grew into the indefinite article, and together with the definite article formed a new grammatical category – the category of determination, or the category of article.
7The oe Consonant System
The OE consonant system consisted of some 14 consonant phonemes. The consonant system in OE manifested the following peculiarities.
The relatively small number of consonant phonemes.
The absence of affricated and fricative consonants which we now find in the language such as [t ], [d ], [ ], [ ].
Dependence of the quality of the phoneme upon its environment in the word
If the first two require no particular explanation, the last point calls for a special comment.
Among the 14 consonant phonemes that exited in OE there were at least 5 that gave us positional variants which stand rater wide apart.
1. The phonemes denoted by the letters f, p, , or s are voiced or voiceless depending upon their phonetic position. They are generally voiced in the so-called “intervocal position” that is between vowels and voiceless otherwise.
2. The phoneme denoted by the letter c also gave at least two variant – palatal [k] and velar [k]. In the majority of cases it was a velar consonant and palatal generally before the vowel i.
3. Similar remarks can be made about the phoneme denoted by the letter : we have the voiced velar plosive variant [g] of it at the beginning of the word before back vowels or consonants or in the middle of the word after n. The voiced velar fricative variant [ ] in the middle of the word between back vowels. The voice palatal fricative variant [j] before and after front vowels.
The system of consonant phonemes that we observe in OE involves certain peculiarities that are typical of the majority of Germanic dialects, which set them apart from the majority of the Indo-European languages.