Examination questions

1. Periods in the history of English and their characteristics.

2. The state of endings and its significance for the development of English.

3. The major peculiarities of Proto-Germanic compared with Indo European.

4. Word accentuation in the Proto-Germanic period.

5. Scandinavian invasion and its influence on the history of English.

6. Norman Conquest and its influence on the history of English.

7. The formation of the English national language: reasons and consequences.

8. The comparative-historical method. Indo-European family of languages.

9. Grimm’s Law. Exceptions to the Grimm’s Law.

10. Verner’s Law. Development of Indo-European vowels in Germanic languages.

11. Phonetic peculiarities of West-Germanic languages.

12. Anglo-Saxon dialects and their phonetic peculiarities.

13. Phonetic changes in Old English.

14. The Old English system of sounds and letters.

15. Middle English spelling changes.

16. Middle English consonant changes.

17. Middle English quantitative changes of vowels.

18. Middle English qualitative changes of vowels.

19. Development of OE diphthongs and new diphthongs in Middle English period.

20. Early New English spelling changes.

21. Early New English changes of short and long vowels.

22. Early New English combinative changes.

23. Early New English changes of consonants.

24. Development of diphthongs in Early New English. 25. Historical development of the English Noun.

26. The main categories of the Verb in Old English.

27. Verb conjugation in Old English. Irregular verbs in Old English.

28. Mixed (Preterite-Present) verbs in Old English.

29. Development of the Verb in Middle English.

30. Early New English changes in the system of the Verb.

31. The Pronoun and its historical development.

32. The Article and its historical development.

33. Historical development of the English Adjective.

34. Old English Syntax.

35. English Syntax in the Middle and Early New English periods.

36. Development of the English vocabulary in the Old English period.

37. Development of the English vocabulary in the Middle English period.

38. Development of the English vocabulary in the Early New English period.

1. Periods in the history of English and their characteristics.

Dates (centuries)	Historical classification	Linguistic classification (by Henry Sweet)
5th – 11th	Old English period (OE)	period of full inflections
11th – 15th	Middle English period (ME)	period of levelled inflections
15th – 16th	Early New English period (ENE)	period of lost inflections
17th - nowadays	Present Day English (PDE)

The history of English is conventionally divided into three periods. Old English (OE) started in 449 and lasted through the Norman Conquest and the few subsequent decades. The term Anglo-Saxon may be used for Old English to underline its connection with the Germanic languages of the Continent. The second period is Middle English (ME), which ends in the late fifteenth century. The third period is New English (NE) that lasts until nowadays. A subperiod of the New English period that corresponds roughly with the Renaissance period and covers the time necessary for the completion of the Great Vowel Shift (15-16^th centuries) is often referred to as Early New English period (ENE). Contemporary English may be called Present-Day English (PDE) or Modern English (ModE), although there is no consensus as to when it begins.

2. The state of endings and its significance for the development of English. The English scholar Henry Sweet suggested the following periodization. He divided the history of English into 3 periods depending on the state of endings.1^st period: Old English period (from the 5^th century till the 11^th century, from Anglo-Saxon Invasion to Norman Conquest). It was a period of full endings, any vowel c-d stand in the end of words: oxa, knutu. First English literature appears; English borrows many words from Latin via the church. (Consonant Shift – Grimm’s Law; doubling of consonants; rhotacism; palatalization of velar consonants k-ts, g-dg, sk-sh; voicing of fricatives, palatal mutation; lengthening of short vowels). During the 1^st period (in the 7^th century (in 604 - archbishop of Canterbury Augustine) the introduction of Christianity: It influences the English language in 2 aspects: 400 hundred words were borrowed from Latin (candle, school) and the introduction of the Latin alphabet. In Old English there were 15 letters denoting 23 sounds. In the Middle English six new letters were introduced (k, q, v, z, g, j). 2^nd: Middle English (from 11^th till15th: from Norman Conquest till the introduction of printing).This was a period of reducing endings. Vowels at the end of words were levelled (reduced) under the letter ‘e’ in spelling and the neutral sound in pronunciation: oxe, nute. In the 15^th century spelling and pronunciation fell apart. As a result, a number of originally distinct endings such as -a, -u, -e, - an, -um were reduced generally to a uniform -e, and those grammatical categories that they formerly expressed were no longer needed. Changes in the vocabulary and spelling were induced by French language, which became the official in England (simplification of consonant groups; 5 new diphthongs appeared; unstressed vowels were levelled). Norman Conquest in 1066 influenced in 2 aspects: vocabulary (general, officer, prince) and spelling - to make it closer to French rules. 3d period: New English: since the 15^th century. This is the period of loss endings. In the majority of words the endings were lost in pronunciation or both in spelling and pronunciation (ox, nut, seven). English is taken to America, Australia, India; rise of printing; attempts to standardize the language. By this time a large part of the original inflectional system has disappeared entirely (the period of lost inflections). The grammatical structure resembles that of the modern English. In New English a number of words with double consonants became single (lette-let; dogge-dog) in some words double consonants were preserved (kisse-kiss; stuffe-stuff).