9. What caused to the growth of articles in Early me?

Early ME. The period between c. 1000 and 1300 has been called an "age of great changes" (A. Baugh).In Early ME the indefinite pronoun ān which had a five-case declen­sion in OE lost its inflection. In the 12th c. the inflectional forms of ān reveal a state of confusion; in the 13th c. the uninflected oon/one and their reduced forms an/a are firmly established in all regions.It is believed that the growth of articles in Early ME was caused, or favoured, by several internal linguistic factors. The develop­ment of the definite article is usually connected with the changes in the declension of adjectives, namely with the loss of distinctions between the strong and weak forms. Originally the weak forms of adjectives had a certain demonstrative meaning resembling that of the modern defi­nite article. These forms were commonly used together with the demon­strative pronouns sē, sēo, pæt. In contrast to weak forms, the strong forms of adjectives conveyed the meaning of “indefiniteness” which was later transferred to ān, a numeral and indefinite pronoun. In case the nouns were used without adjectives or the weak and strong forms coincided, the form-words ān and pæt turned out to be the only means of expressing these meanings. The decay of adjective declensions speeded up their transition into articles.

Another factor which may account for the more regular use of arti­cles was the changing function of the word order. Relative freedom in the position of words in the OE sentence made it possible to use word order for communicative purposes, e. g. to present a new thing or to re­fer to a familiar thing already known to the listener. After the loss of inflections, the word order assumed a grammatical function — it showed the grammatical relations between words in the sentence; now the parts of the sentence, e. g. the subject or the objects, had their own fixed places. Accordingly, the communicative functions passed to the articles and their use became more regular.

The growth of the articles is thus connected both with the changes in syntax and in morphology.The division of words into parts of speech has proved to be one of the most permanent characteristics of the language. Through all the periods of history English preserved the distinctions between the following parts of speech: the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the nu­meral, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection. The only new part of speech was the article which split from the pronouns in Early ME (provided that the article is treated as an independent part of speech).

10. Do you think the traditional division of the History of English language into oe, me and MnE really correspond to the evolution of the language?

The historical development of a language is a continuous uninterrupted process without sudden breaks or rapid transformations. Therefore any periodisation imposed on language history by linguists, with precise dates, might appear artificial, if not arbitrary. Yet in all language histories divisions into periods and cross-sections of a certain length, are used for teaching and research purposes. The commonly accepted, traditional periodisation divides English history into three periods: Old English (OE), Middle English (ME) and New English (NE), with boundaries attached to definite dates and historical events affecting the language. OE begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5th c.) or with the beginning of writing (7th c.) and ends with the Norman Conquest (1066); ME begins with the Norman Conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of the Modern or New English period (Mod E or NE); the New period lasts to the pres­ent day.

The amendments proposed to the traditional periodisation shift the boundary lines or envisage other subdivisions within the main periods: it has been suggested that ME reallybegan at a later date, c. 1150(A. Baugh), for the effect of the Norman Conquest on the language could not have been immediate; another suggestion was that we should single out periods of transition and subdivide the three main periods into early, classical, and late (H. Sweet). Some authors prefer a division of history by centuries (M. Schlauch) or a division into periods of two hundred years (B. Strang).

It has been noticed that although language history is a slow uninter­rupted chain of events, the changes are not evenly distributed in time: periods of intensive and vast changes at one or many levels may be followed by periods of relative stability. It seems quite probable that the differences in the rate of changes are largely conditioned by the linguistic situation, which also accounts for many other features of language evo­lution. Therefore division into chronological periods should take into account both aspects: external and internal (extra- and intralinguistic). The following periodisation of English history is partly based on the conventional three periods; it subdivides the history of the English language into seven periods differing in linguistic situation and the na­ture of linguistic changes.

Task 10

Account for the shift of the dialect type of the speech of London in the 14th c. Why the name

“English” language more justified than “Anglo-Saxon” or “Saxon” though in the OE period

one of the Saxon dialects, West Saxon, was the main form of language used in writing

In the course of Early ME the area of the English language in the British Isles grew. Following the Norman Conquest the former Celtic kingdoms fell under Norman rule. Wales was subjugated in the late 13th c.: its eastern half became part of England, while the North and West of Wales was a principality governed separately. In the late 12th c. the English made their first attempts to conquer Ireland. The invaders settled among the Irish and were soon assimilated, a large proportion of the invaders being Welshmen. Though part of Ireland was ruled from England, the country remained divided and had little contact with England. The English language was used there alongside Celtic languages — Irish and Welsh — and was influenced by Celtic.

It is also important that in the course of the 14th c. the local dialects were brought into closer contact; they intermixed and influenced one another: therefore the infiltration of French borrow­ings into all the local and social varieties of English progressed more rapidly. The regional ME dialects had developed from respective OE dialects. A precise map of all the dialects will probably never be made, for available sources are scarce and unreliable: localized and dated documents are few in number.

The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language in Late ME and also the main source and basis if the Literary standard, both in its written and spoken forms.

The history of London extends back to the Roman period. Even in OE times London was by far the biggest town in Britain, although the capital of Wessex – the main OE kingdom – was Winchester. The capital was transferred to London a few years before the Norman conquest. The most likely explanation for the change of the dialect type and for the mixed character of London English lies in the history of the London population.

In the 12^th and 13^th c.the inhabitants of London came from in south-western district. In the middle of the 14^th c. London was practically depopulated during the ‘Black Death’ (1348) and later outbreaks of bubonic plague. It has been estimated that about one third of the population of Britain died in the epidemics, the highest proportion of death occurring in London. The depopulation was speedily made good and in 1377 London had over 35,000 inhabitants.

The London dialect became more Anglian that Saxon in character.

This mixed dialect of London, which had extended to the two universities (in Oxford and Cambridge) ousted French from official spheres and from the sphere of writing. Most of the new arrivals came from the East Midlands: Norfolk, Suffolk, and other populous and wealthy counties of Medieval England, although not bordering immediately on the capital. As a result the speech of Londoners was brought much closer to the East Midland dialect. The official and literary papers produced in London in the late 14th c.display obvious East Midland features. The London dialect became more Anglian than Saxon in character.

This mixed dialect of London, which had extended to the two uni­versities (in Oxford and Cambridge) ousted French from official spheres and from the sphere of writing.