История языка 19-21
.docx1. Subject and aims of the History of English. Connection with other theoretical subjects. History of the English language is a discipline, studying the origins, the phonetic system, grammatical structure and vocabulary of the English language at different stages of its development. The purpose of the history of English is a systematic study of the language’s development from the earliest times to the present day. It enables the student to acquire a more profound understanding of the language of today. Besides, history of English is an important subsidiary discipline for history of England and of English literature. History of the English language is connected with the other disciplines. It is based on the History of England, studying the development of the language in connection with the concrete conditions in which the English people lived in the several periods of their history. It is also connected with theoretical phonetics, theoretical grammar, and lexicology. It shows phonetic, grammatical, and lexical phenomena as they developed, and states the origins of the present-day system. The English lesson of today reflects many centuries of development. Its origin and graduate evaluation are traced by the scientific discipline which is called the History of the English language. A study of the phonetically, grammatical and lexical evaluation of the language enables a student to see the general trends in the development of English and their interdependence. The History of the English language shows the ties of English with the languages of the Germanic groups, e.g., French and Latin. A language can be studied in various aspects: its phonetics, grammar, word-stock, style and so on. In studying Modern English, we consider all these aspects synchronically and regard the language as a fixed unchangeable system. The synchronic approach may be contrasted to diachronic approach, in which no element of the language is treated as fixed or stable. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact can be interpreted as a stage or a step in the never-ending evolution of the language. One of the primaries aims of the course is to provide the student with knowledge of history sufficient to account for the essential features and some specific peculiarities of Modern English.
2. The invasion of the British Isles by Germanic tribes. Old Germanic languages. he history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from England and their language was called Englisc - from which the words England and English are derived. Old English (450-1100 AD) The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100. West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is closely related to Frisian, German, and Netherlandic languages. English originated in England and is now widely spoken on six continents. Germanic, one of the language groups descended from this ancestral speech, is usually divided by scholars into three regional groups: East (Burgundian, Vandal, and Gothic, all extinct), North (Icelandic, Faeroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish), and West (German, Netherlandic [Dutch and Flemish], Frisian, English). Though closely related to English, German remains far more conservative than English in its retention of a fairly elaborate system of inflections. Frisian, spoken by the inhabitants of the Dutch province of Friesland and the islands off the west coast of Schleswig, is the language most nearly related to Modern English. Icelandic, which has changed little over the last thousand years, is the living language most nearly resembling Old English in grammatical structure.
3. Chronological divisions in the history of English. Short survey of periods. Three main stages are usually recognized in the history of the development of the English language. Old English, known formerly as Anglo-Saxon, dates from AD449 to 1066 or 1100. Middle English dates from 1066 or 1100 to 1450 or 1500. Modern English dates from about 1450 or 1500 and is subdivided into Early Modern English, from about 1500 to 1660, and Late Modern English, from about 1660 to the present time. Short survey of periods Old English (450-1100 AD) The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100. Middle English (1100-1500) In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period, there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today. Early Modern English (1500-1800) Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published. Late Modern English (1800-Present) The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.
4. Old English written records, runic inscriptions and old English alphabet. In the Old English Period we find 2 alphabets: the older (runic) alphabet (only inscriptions) and the Latin alphabet (a number of writings). The runic alphabet: -an inscription on Frank’s Casket (шкатулка). There is a very old ancient inscription made of whalebone. Ruthwell cross (a Christian cross on which we find an inscription). It was found near the place Ruthwell. The Latin alphabet: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (It registered the most important historical events from the 9th c. up to the 12th c. in the 9th c. (on the initiative of King Alfred the Great) the monks compiled different manuscripts in one and began to continue registering the events in several main manuscripts. Prrivate documents (financial documents). Literally works. Poetry. Poems. The longest is “Beowulf”, a complete epic poem, a legend of a hero. Elegiac poems (of the late OE): “Widsith”, Wanderer, Sea Farer. Besides we find fragments of two more epic poems and quite a number of short poems. More than half of them are religious poems either of devotional or moralistic character. Prose is a much later achievement than poetry and it is unique that at the time than other people of Europe only began to compose verse the OE people began to write prose. Anglo-Saxons Chronicle. King Alfred the Great is one of the greatest authors of OE prose (9th c.), «The Father of E. Prose». His purpose was to educate his people. It was on his initiative that the Anglo-Saxon chronicle was started as a single piece. He himself translated several very important books into the OE language: «Ecclesiastical history of the English people» written by Bede the Venerable (translated by Alfred). Bede describes how Cadmon got the ability of glorifying God in his dream. Alfred the Great translated «World History» by Paulus Orosius - a Spanish monk who wrote «World History» in which there are some interesting historical and geographical facts. King Alfred inserted some parts describing the Northern Parts of the world (Scandinavia). So, these are episodes written by King Alfred. «Pastoral Care» by Pope Gregory - he was a highly educated, intellectual and spiritual man. The book describes what a clergyman should do for people. (Translated by King Alfred). Writers Wulfstan and Alfic lived at the end of the OE. They were both clergymen. Wulfstan was a bishop. They mostly wrote homilies (проповеди). Wulfstan was also a great statesman. Alfic is the author of one of the first grammars «Colloqui» which was written as an instruction for monastery students, it was written in the form of a dialogue between the teacher and his pupils.
5. Old English phonetics: word stress, origin of old English vowels and consonants. The phonetics of the Old English period was characterised by a system of dynamic stress. The chief stress fell upon the stem syllable and always remained there even when suffixes and inflexional endings followed it, e.g., beran ‘to bear’, daas ‘days’, rētin ‘greeting’, lēofosta ‘dearest’, berende ‘bearing’, ædelin ‘companion’, æþelinas ‘noblemen’, fultumian ‘to help’. Many nouns and adjectives were formed from verbs containing an inseparable particle, and accordingly had the chief stress on the second syllable, as bebod ‘command’, bebyrines ‘burying’, forbod ‘prohibition’, forietol ‘forgetful’. In compound words it is necessary to distinguish between compounds whose second element is a noun or adjective, and those whose second element is a verb. In the former case the chief stress was on the first syllable, e.g., ācbēam ‘oak-tree’, dēaþstede ‘death-place’’. The system of Old English sounds The vowels in OE had the following characteristic features: The quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its position in the word. Under stress any vowel could be found, but in the unstressed position there were no diphthongs or long monophthongs, but only short vowels [a], [e], [i], [o], [u]. The length of the stressed vowels (monophthongs and diphthongs) was phonemic, which means that there could be two words differing only in the length of the vowel, e.g., metan ‘to mete, to measure’ – mētan ‘to meet’ pin ‘pin’ – pīn ‘pain’ c) there was an exact parallelism of long and short vowels: Short: a o e u i æ y ea eo Long: ā ō ē ū ī æ: y: ēa ēo The consonants were few. Some of the modern sounds were non-existent ([], [], [], []). The quality of the consonant very much depended on its position in the word, especially the resonance (voiced and voiceless sounds: hlāf [f] ‘loaf’ – hlāford [v] ‘lord, "bread-keeper” and articulation (palatal and velar sounds: climban [k] ‘to climb’ – cild [k’] ‘child’, etc. Changes of vowels The Proto-Germanic (Gothic) short [a] and the long [a:] in OE were fronted and, in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalization of [a, a:]. At the same time, short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.
6. Old English grammar. Much of the Old English language surviving today uses gender in nouns, while word order was not fixed and there was a lot of freedom in the way the language was used. Old English grammar is similar to the grammar of modern German with different inflectional endings, four distinctive cases (nominative, dative, accusative and genitive) and gendered nouns. Another similarity with modern German was that Old English often moved the verb to the end of the sentence in subordinate clauses. Other distinctive parts of Old English grammar included: the absence of a word for ‘do’ when forming questions, a large number of double negatives (as found in modern Spanish), no distinction between the letters V and U in the written form and an absence of the letters J and W.
7. Old English vocabulary. The vocabulary of Old English (OE) is relatively small. It contains almost 34,000 different word forms, whereas a modern desk dictionary might contain 80,000. Some of these words have more than one meaning, i.e., they are polysemous: it contains just over 50,000 meanings altogether. An example of multiple meaning or polysemy is OE ecg, pronounced in the same way as its Modern English (Mod. E.) descendant ‘edge’. In addition to meaning ‘edge’, it also means ‘blade’, the part of an object that has a sharp edge, and ‘sword’, an object distinguished by having a sharp edge or blade. This is an example of metonymy, the identification of an object by one of its attributes, as when the Prime Minister is referred to as ‘No. 10’. ‘Edge’ in Mod. E. also has a metaphorical sense, where an abstract idea is conveyed by referring to something concrete, as in ‘her voice had an edge to it’.Much of the vocabulary of Mod. E. derives from Old English. This applies particularly to our core vocabulary: common words in everyday use for fundamental concepts. Examples include the natural world (earth, sea, wind, fire, water; sun, moon, star); people (man, woman, child, father, mother, brother, daughter); the body (hand, arm, elbow, finger, foot, nose, mouth); and other basic concepts such as food, drink; heaven, hell; friend, neighbour; love, good, evil; hot, cold; after, over, under. However, not all words which look alike necessarily refer to the same thing – such misleading words are often called false friends. An example pair is OE bēor / Mod. E. beer. Although both refer to alcoholic drinks, the nature of the drink is quite different.The examples above are all typical of OE words in being one or two syllables in length. Where there are two syllables, the stress is on the first. Initial stress is a characteristic feature of the Germanic languages as a group and remains the most common type of word structure in Mod. E. We have also retained from OE many of the ways of making new words, but at the same time English has borrowed numerous words from other languages, notably French and Latin. Thousands of French words were brought into English after the Norman Conquest of 1066, which ended the rule of the Anglo-Saxon kings and introduced considerable social change. New words occur especially in fields where Norman influence was strongest, such as Law, Literature and Fashion. These loan words from other languages often exhibit different stress patterns from the basic Germanic vocabulary, as with anatomy and cagoule from French, armada and potato from Spanish, kamikaze from Japanese, anathema from Greek and flamingo from Portuguese.
8.The Scandinavian invasion and the Norman conquest and their effect on Middle English. Middle English (1100-1500) In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period, there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today. In the early period of Middle English, a number of utilitarian words, such as egg, sky, sister, window, and get, came into the language from Old Norse. The Normans brought other additions to the vocabulary. Before 1250 about 900 new words had appeared in English, mainly words, such as baron, noble, and feast, that the Anglo-Saxon lower classes required in their dealings with the Norman-French nobility. Eventually the Norman nobility and clergy, although they had learned English, introduced from the French words pertaining to the government, the church, the army, and the fashions of the court, in addition to others proper to the arts, scholarship, and medicine.
9. Dialects in late Middle English. Kentish Kentish was originally spoken over the whole southeastern part of England, including London and Essex, but during the Middle English period its area was steadily diminished by the encroachment of the East Midland dialect, especially after London became an East Midland-speaking city (see below); in late Middle English the Kentish dialect was confined to Kent and Sussex. In the Early Modern period, after the London dialect had begun to replace the dialects of neighboring areas, Kentish died out, leaving no descendants. Kentish is interesting to linguists because on the one hand its sound system shows distinctive innovations (already in the Old English period), but on the other its syntax and verb inflection are extremely conservative; as late as 1340, Kentish syntax is still virtually identical with Old English syntax. Southern The Southern dialect of Middle English was spoken in the area west of Sussex and south and southwest of the Thames. It was the direct descendant of the West Saxon dialect of Old English, which was the colloquial basis for the Anglo-Saxon court dialect of Old English. Southern Middle English is a conservative dialect (though not as conservative as Kentish), which shows little influence from other languages — most importantly, no Scandinavian influence (see below). Descendants of Southern Middle English still survive in the working-class country dialects of the extreme southwest of England. Northern By contrast with these southernmost dialects, Northern Middle English evolved rapidly: the inflectional systems of its nouns and verbs were already sharply reduced by 1300, and its syntax is also innovative (and thus more like that of Modern English). These developments were probably the result of Scandinavian influence. In the aftermath of the great Scandinavian invasions of the 860's and 870's, large numbers of Scandinavian families settled in northern and northeastern England. When the descendants of King Alfred the Great of Wessex reconquered those areas (in the first half of the 10th century), the Scandinavian settlers, who spoke Old Norse, were obliged to learn Old English. But in some areas their settlements had so completely displaced the preexisting English settlements that they cannot have had sufficient contact with native speakers of Old English to learn the language well. They learned it badly, carrying over into their English various features of Norse (such as the pronoun they and the noun law), and also producing a simplified syntax that was neither good English nor good Norse. Those developments can be clearly seen in a few late Old English documents from the region, such as the glosses on the Lindisfarne Gospels (ca. 950) and the Aldbrough sundial (late 11th century). East-Midland and West-Midland The East-Midland and West-Midland dialects of Middle English are intermediate between the Northern and Southern/Kentish extremes. In the West Midlands there is a gradation of dialect peculiarities from Northern to Southern as one moves from Lancashire to Cheshire and then down the Severn valley. This dialect has left modern descendants in the working- class country dialects of the area. The East-Midland dialect is much more interesting. The northern parts of its dialect area were also an area of heavy Scandinavian settlement, so that northern East-Midland Middle English shows the same kinds of rapid development as its Northern neighbor. But the subdialect boundaries within East-Midland were far from static: the more northerly variety spread steadily southward, extending the influence of Scandinavianized English long after the Scandinavian population had been totally assimilated. In the 13th century this part of England, especially Norfolk and Suffolk, began to outstrip the rest of the country in prosperity and population because of the excellence of its agriculture, and — crucially — increasing numbers of well-to-do speakers of East-Midland began to move to London, bringing their dialect with them. 10. Spelling changers in Middle English, rules of reading. 1. In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn – þ – and the crossed d – ð – were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value: [θ] and [ð], the rune "wynn" was displaced by "double u" – w; the ligature æ fell into disuse. 2. After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance (the 11th—13th c.) English regained its prestige as the language of writing, though for a long-time writing was in the hands of French-speakers. Therefore, many innovations in ME spelling reveal the influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo-Norman texts were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], and []. The letters j, k, v, and q were probably first used in imitation of French manuscripts. The two-fold use of g and c, which has survived today, owes its origin to French. 3. A wider use of digraphs. Late ME notaries introduced sh (also ssh and sch) to indicate the new sibilant, e.g., ME ship (< OE scip), dg to indicate [] alongside j and g (before front vowels), e.g. ME edge ['eə] ‘edge’, joye ['oiə] ‘joy’, engendren [en'endrən] ‘engender’; the digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hwæt, ME what [hwat] ‘what’. Long sounds were shown by double letters, for instance ME book [bo:k] ‘book’, sonne ['sunnə] ‘sun’, though with vowels this practice was not very regular, e.g. long [e:] could be indicated by ie and ee, and also by e,cf. ME thief [θe:f] ‘thief’, feet [fe:t] ‘feet’, meten ['me:tən] ‘meet’. The introduction of the digraph gh for [x] and [x’] helped to distinguish between the fricatives [x, x’], which were preserved in some positions, and the aspirate [h]; cf. ME knyght [knix’t] ‘knight’,and ME he [he:] ‘he’; in OE both words were spelt with h: OE cnieht, hē. 4. The letter o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u; it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v, for they were all made up of down strokes and were hard to distinguish in a hand-written text. That is how OE munuc became ME monk ‘monk’ though it was pronounced as [muk], and OE lufu became ME love ['luvə] ‘love’. 5. The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. Sometimes y, as well as w, were put at the end of a word for purely ornamental reasons, so as to finish the word with a curve; ME nyne ['ni:nə] ‘nine’, very [‘veri] ‘very’ my [mi:] ‘my’. The letter w was interchnageable with u in the digraphs ou, au, e.g. ME doun [du:n] ‘down’ and was often preferred finally: ME how [hu:], now [nu:], lawe ['lauə], drawen ['drauən]. The alphabet of the 14th c. is basically the same that is in use now: the letter “z”, which was used in OE to denote several distinct consonant phonemes, is replaced by the letters “g” and “y” (e.g.: OE zōd - ME gōd; OE zēar – ME yēr); the ligature “æ” comes into disuse; the change accompanies the phonetic change of short “æ” into “a” and that of long “æ” into “ē”; the letter “g” was introduced to denote the sound [g] as in “gōd” and also the sound [dz] as in “singe”; the sound [dz] is also denoted by the letter “j” as in “joy”; the letter “v” is introduced to denote the sound [v], which in ME became a separate phoneme. However, this letter soon came to be treated as an allograph of the letter “u” and they became interchangeable (e.g.: over – ouer; use – vse; love – loue); the letter “q”, also accompanied by “u”, is introduced to denote the consonant [k] or the cluster [kw] (replaced OE “cw”) (e.g.: quay; queen); the letter “z” is introduced to denote the consonant [z], which in ME became a separate phoneme, but it is not used systematically yet, esp. in the middle of words where it is spellt “s” (e.g.: zēl, chēsen) Secondly there came changes in spelling habits: -the sound [u:], which was represented by the letter “u” in OE, came to be spelt “ou”, the way it was in French (e.g.: hūs – house; ūt – out; hlūd – loud). In final positions and sometimes in medial ones instead of “ou” the spelling “ow” was introduced (e.g.: cū – cow; hū – how; dūn – down); - the vowel [u] is often represented by the letter “o” if found in the neighbourhood of such letters as “v, n, m” (e.g.: cuman – come [‘kume]; sum – som [sum]; sunu – sone [‘sune]; lufu – love [‘luve]); - the vowel [e:] is sometimes denoted by the diagraph “ie” (e.g.: fēld – field [fe:ld]; þēof – thief [θe:f]; lēof – life [le:f]); - to denote the vowel [ü] in the dialects where it was preserved, the letter “u” was used (e.g.: fÿr – fur = fire); - the spellings of “þ” and “δ” for the sounds [θ,δ] were changed by the digraph “th” (e.g.: þis – this; þrēo – three); - for the consonant [v], which had been a mere positional variant of the [f] phoneme in OE and which in ME became a separate phoneme, the letter “v” was introduced; - the affricate [t∫] was denoted by the digraph “ch”, the corresponding voiced affricate was spelt by “j, g’ dg”; - the consonant [∫] was spelt “sh” and sometimes “sch” (e.g.: ship, shal); - the consonant [χ] was first spelt “z” and later “gh”: (e.g.: lizt – light; nizt – night); - the letter “c” when denoting the consonant [k] was replaced by the letter “k” before “e, i” and “n” (e.g.: drincan – drinken; cyninz – king); - the cluster [kw] was spelt “qu” instead of OE “cw” (e.g.: cwellan – quellen = kill); - the consonant “spely in Oe by “z” now came to be spelt “y” (e.g.: zēar – yēr; ziet – yet).
11. Middle English vocabulary. The main sources of enriching M.E.V are Old Norse and French. French borrowings: French literature. French words: literary and technical, not generally used in spoken language. (In writing). Tte Old Norse words: ordinary. The use of “they” and “though”. O.E- “hie” and “peah” M.E- “hi” and “peih” (theigh). Early Old Norse * pough (th) had resulted in northern English. Old Norse: anger,both, call, neck, window. Old Norse (affixes and suffixes): by, fell, thwaite to denote the place names Get (ON geta) Mod E- forget A lot of phrasal verbs adopted from the old North in the M.E period. The French words borrowed at this time are not often so much part of our everyday vocabulary as those from Old Norse. A poet of this period-Chaucer “Treatise on the Astrolabe '' used : ascensioun, ascendant, eauynoxial, operaciouns, mansioun. Less technical: daliaunce, oynement, galayntyne, jocounde. French did provide English with a large number of prepositions: ex: Byeause Affixes from the F.L: ant, ent, fry, ment, con, en, pre. 14 century: prefix en: engendre, enhaunce, entune. Latin words dropped off the language: contradiction, collect, diocese, executor, heutor, psalm, simile. With the fall of inflections it was impossible to tell from its form alone whether a word was a noun, adjective or adverb. Nouns: chill, fellow, hammer, hawk, spire, sleet. French: avaunt, forfeit, gest(story), issue, outrage, trespass-occurred at 1 time as verbs. As nouns: fart, hunt, among Germanic Words Assure, support among French words. Authors and Writers invented their own vocabulary. Wycliffites or Lollards. Prefixes continue to fall out language: a, ge, to, ymb Ful (i) and ish remain -productive. A new ending-ling-darling.
12. Scandinavian and Norman influence on Middle English grammar. During the eighth and ninth centuries, Vikings from Scandinavia from the North attacked the Germanic tribes living in England (Smith “External”). Around the same time period, Danish Vikings assailed and conquered the northern area of France, which became the dukedom of Normandy (Baugh and Cable 92). Only two hundred and fifty years later in September 1066, the Norman French led by William the Conqueror invaded England from the South and won the Battle of Hastings (Baugh and Cable 108-111). Both Old Norse and Norman French contributed linguistically to the English language. Whereas the changes attributed to the Viking language are often viewed positively by otherwise delightful English language historians, linguistic affects credited to the Norman French language are considered negative to the Germanic nature of English. Scandinavian Consonants The Modern English sounds [g], [k], and [sk] are all of Scandinavian borrowing. Words such as egg, give, get, and kid are pronounced with hard [g] and [k] sounds because of Scandinavian influence. Likewise, Modern English words that are pronounced with an alveo-palatal [š] are of Old English origin whereas words pronounced with a hard [sk] sound are borrowed from the corresponding Old Norse. For example, the Old English scyrte and the Old Norse skyrta were the same word during the Old English period but became the distinctive shirt and skirt of Modern English because of the borrowing of [sk] from Scandinavian. Pronouns Although languages rarely borrow grammatical words from other languages, Old English borrowed pronouns and verb forms from the Scandinavian language. Compared to modern forms of the third person singular pronouns, the third person plural pronouns of Modern English bear negligible resemblance to the Old English forms The third person plural pronouns they, them, and there are instead of Scandinavian origin. Instead of developing into hi from hī just as he developed from hē, the Scandinavian form þei replaced the Old English form and developed into they. In addition to gaining the third person plural pronouns from Scandinavia, Old English also borrowed verb forms such as the plural form of the most common verb to be from the Viking language. The plural form of to be in Wessex, which was the most powerful kingdom in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy during the Viking invasion, was syndon. Like the Modern English third person plural pronouns, the present plural and second person singular are also of Scandinavian origin. Phonemes and Allophones Rather than provide significant contributions to the grammaticization of English, Norman French contributed to the phonolozation of certain Old English phonemes. [f] and [v] are allophones of the phoneme /f/ just as [s] and [z] are allophones of the phoneme /s/ in Old English The voiceless allophones [f] and [s] only occurred at the beginning or end of words such as in freond and segst. Correspondingly, the phonetic environment of the voiced allophones [v] and [z] is only between two vowels such as in ofer and cǣsa. Unlike for /f/ and /s/, [š] is the only possible sound for the phoneme /š/ in Old English such as in sceap and scip. When the Normans invaded England in 1066, speakers of Norman French introduced the phonetic sound [ž] to the English language such as in the modern words measure, lingerie, and Kosur. During the Middle English period, phonolozation occurred because of the addition of the voiced [ž] sound. The allophones [f], [v], [s], [z], [š], and recently-acquired [ž] split into the separate phonemes /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /š/, and /ž/ in Middle English. Because of the influence of Norman French, English words now begin with both [v] and [z] as well as both [f] and [s]. 13. Vowel changes in Middle English. 1) The shortening of «u»: a) the earlier (the 15th century); ‘u’ was shorted before the dental sounds [t, d] e.g.: blood, flood; b) the later (the 18th century); ‘u’ was shortened before [k] e.g.: took. (до великого сдвига) 2) The Great Vowel Shift. It was rather lengthy: 15th century - part of the 17th c. It affected all the long vowels. All the long vowels tended to become more high, more narrow and more front. Those that were narrow enough turned into diphthongs.a>ei (это объясняет необычное звучание англ. алфавита Aa [ei]) e (открытый) е (закрытый) i>ai o (открытый) > ou o (закрытый) > u: u>au 3) The development of the short ‘a’: (in a close syllable) hag – э (before ‘l’) hall – o: (preserved by [w] was labialised) what – a before a combination of consonant) ask - a: 4)The development of the long ‘e’: e>e (short) before [d, t] - dental sounds; bread (но в mean (i: по шифту). 5)Delabialization of the short ‘u’: u>^ blood - bl [^] d 6) The formation of new diphthongs which have [нетральн] for the glide: [iэ], [ёэ], [uэ]. «a vowel + r» - it’s called vocalization of ‘r’, but: her [h :/з:] here [hi]; in ME her = here = [her] => if the vowel was short, the resulting sound was a long vowel; if the vowel was long, the resulting sound was a diphthong. 14. Consonants changes in Middle English. 1) the development of the sound [h], but there were also [x], [x’] both the hard and the soft in the middle of the word were dropped causing the lengthening of the preceding vowel thought, taught [x] (in ME) light: ME [lixt] > [lit] > NE [lait] dropped. 2)Vocalization of ‘r’ It occurred in the 16th – 17th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word. Consequences: new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə]; the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.); triphthongs appeared: [aiə], [auə] (e.g. shower [‘∫auə], shire [‘∫aiə]). 3)voicing of fricatives (Verner’s law in NE) fricatives [s] and [z] were voiced, when they were preceded by an unstressed vowel: his [z], tables [z], game cats [z] (но это слово прошло уже вторичную ассимиляцию), exhibit [z] ȳ exhibition [s] 4)the development of the combinations [tj, sj, dj, zj] in borrowed words (mostly French) into fricatives and affricates: precision [з], decision [з]. There was no development when these combinations preceded a stressen vowel tune [‘tju:n]: sugar - исключение, sure - тоже исключение. 15. Grammatical changes of the Middle English. Noun. The category of gender was lost; and the loss was total, with no remnants in any of the nominal parts of speech. The category of number was preserved; it had grounds. Due to the reduction of the unstressed vowels all these came to -es -0 -e or -0 -en So finally we have -es ,-en, which becomes a competing ending, and a group of conservative nouns retain the vowel interchange. Ending -es was invariably added to form the plural The Verb. All types of verbs existing in Old English — strong, weak, preterite-present and irregular were preserved in Middle English. In each type we find changes due to phonetic developments of this period, but the proportional value of the weak ones is greater and continues to grow, and a tendency is already traced — that is, some of the former strong verbs are drifting in the direction of the weak ones. The drift was not a comprehensive one; there was even a reverse process, some of the former weak ones became strong. 16. The London dialect. Formation and development of the National English Language. By the beginning of the Middle English Period we can’t speak about a uniform literary language. It means that when we speak of the language of the Middle English Period we mean a community of dialects, but within this community there was a very important process of the London dialect, becoming more and more important as the main dialect, born for writings and for communication. Towards the end of the Middle English Period, we find that the London dialect is gradually turning into the basis of the literary language. The main group of the words in the London dialect belonged to the Southern group (the southwestern part of it), though of course we find a lot of elements from the Midland group. London was the capital; the center of culture, trade, navigation and it was the center of printing. The great trend of that period is great transformation in the English language. The Middle English Period was a period when the English language was transforming from the synthetic structure in the analytic structure the English language is now. So, the Middle English Period is the period of transition. The most important processes: The phonetic process of reduction (in OE there were no reduced vowels) – unstressed vowels came to be reduced; it was one of the main reasons for dropping of endings. Leveling on analogy (выравнивание по аналогии) – the grammatical processes; употребление форм в соответствии с продуктивными парадигмами. Another very important event of the period was the influence of the French language, which is connected with the so-called Worman Conquest. It affected the life of the country, its political and social systems, its economic system and it’ language greatly. 17. Development of the National Literary Language. The age of Chaucer. The formation of the national literary English language covers the Early New English period (1475-1660). There were at least two major external factors, which favoured the rise of the national language and literary standards: the unification of the country and the progress of culture. The invention of printing was one of the outstanding achievements of this great age. It had the most immediate effect on the development of the language, its written form in particular. Printing was then called "artificial writing". It was invented in Germany in 1438 by Johann Gutenberg. The first printer of English books was William Caxton (1422-1491). In Chaucer's time The Great Vowel Shift Began. At the beginning of the Middle English Period, we find that in literature in writings they continued the old Anglo-Saxon tradition: they mostly wrote religious poems, tents, gospels and in the very way they wrote them it was also a continuation of the Anglo-Saxon tradition – that is poems were written in alliterative form. As to continuation of the A-Saxon tradition in prose, we find it in chronicles, which were renewed after the break. The chronicle, which covers the late period, is referred to as “Petersburg Chronicle”. In the middle of the early Middle English Period, we already come across new trends and developments in literature. English literature of that period was greatly influenced by French literature. In French literature the main genre of the time was chivalry romance (рыцарские романы). These were poems, which mostly described the life of knights. We find a number of romance poems in England in English, however at the beginning of the development of this genre the poems were written mostly in French and in Latin (ballads), towards the end of the Middle English Period there appeared quite a number of them – even some cycles in English. Another important work of that period was a prosaic work – a translation of the Bible, made by John Wiclif and his followers. He was an outstanding man; he was one of the fathers of the Reformation in England. This translation is usually considered to be a work of art, because the quality of the translation is such that makes us think that it is a work of art, a splendid sample of medieval literature. J. Chaucer (1340-1380) – a man of genius. He was an outstanding statesman, a man of great courage, wish, irony; he is of course also a writer of genius. He wrote several poems. The greatest of which is the famous poem, a real masterpiece – “The Canterbury tales”. It is a long poem, which is written in iambic pentameter (пяти-строчный ямб). This is an encyclopedia of the life of that time. Chaucer described all the layers of society. Chaucer’s vocabulary is very rich and picturesque. He used words form different dialects. The situation in the country couldn’t but tell on the linguistic situation in the country, which was three-lingual at that time. By the 14th century French had lost its significance and English became the state language.
18. Early New English phonetics. Vowel changes. 1. loss of unstressed [∂] (when it was final or followed by a coconant): lived, fille, stopped, tables. However, it was preserved and later changed into [i] in the groups [s∂z], [z∂z], [∫∂z], [dz∂z], [t∂d], [d∂d]. it was also preserved and eventually developed into [i] in some adjectives and participles: learned, wicked, ragged. 2. loss of vowels in intermediate syllables: in some three-syllable and four-syllable words the vowel of a middle syllable is lost: chapiter►chapter; phantasie►fancy. 3. the change of [er] into [ar]: 14th c.-15th c., in a few cases the combined spelling “ear” is adopted: ferre→far; sterre→star; werre→war; herthe→hearth; herte→heart. 4. the Great Vowel Shift: the narrowing of all ME long vowels and diphthongisation of the narrowest long ones: i: →ai time, finden, e: →i: kepen, field, ε: →e: →i: street, east, a: →ei maken, table, o: →o: →ou stone, open, o: →u: moon, goos, u: →au mous, now, au→o: cause, drawen 5. changes of short vowels: the short vowels of NE were more stable than the long ones: only two out of five underwent certain alterations: [a] and [u]. 6. growth of long monophthongs and diphthongs: new long monophthongs and diphthongs developed in NE from the vocalisation of some consonants. Two voiceless fricatives [χ] and [χ’] were vocalised towards the end of ME. The glide [u] is already shown in ME spelling: taughte, braughte. Later [au] was contracted to [o:] according to regular vowel changes and [χ] was lost. The palatal fricative [χ’] changed into [j] during the 15th c.; it changed into [i] and together with the preceding [i] yielded a long monophthong [i:]: night [niχ’t] →[nijt]→[ni:t] →[nait]. The most important instance of vocalisation is the development of [r] which accounts for the appearance of many new monophthongs and diphthongs in the 16th or 17th c. It was vocalised when it stood after vowels, either finally or followed by another consonant. Losing its consonantal character [r] changed into the neutral sound [∂] which was added to the preceding vowel as a glide forming a diphthong: fter short vowels (o+r → o: for, thorn, a+r → a: bar, dark, i+r → з: first, e+r →з: serven, u+r → з: fur, ∂+r → ∂ brother) after long vowels (i:+r → ai∂ shire, e:+r → i∂ beer, ε:+r → i∂ ere (ear), ε:+r → ε∂ there, a:+r → ε∂ hare, o:+r → o∂/o: floor, o:+r → u∂ moor, u:+r → au∂ flour (flower)) 7. rise of long [a:] and [o:]: There are two main sources of modern [a:]: - [a:] from [a] → [a-æ-æ: -a;]; it occurs before [θ, δ] – bath, path, father, rather; fefore [s] – class; grass; before [st] – cast, fast; before [sk] – ask, mask; before [sp] – grasp, clasp; - [a:] from [au]; in some cases MnE has [a:] in words where ME [a] was followed by the cluster “l+consonant” and had developed into [au] from which [o:] might have been expected: calm, palm. The group [al] developed into [aul] already in the 15th c., so the words “all, call, talk” were pronounced [aul], [kaul], [taulk]. In the 16th c. the diphthong [au] developed into [o:] whith the spelling “au, aw”: walk, tall. Before “lf, lv” and “m, n+consonant] [a:] developed: calf, half; plant, example. 8. rise of long [з:]: in the 16th c. a new vowel appears, its appearance is connected with changes of some vowels before [r] and with vocalization of [r]. It arises in the following cases: - from the group i+r: fir, sir, dirt; - from u+r: fur, curtain, burn; - from o+r after “w”: worm, word, world; - from e+r: heard, learn. Changes in the 17th century. a) the change of [a] into [o] after [w]: ME short [a] remained unchanged after [w], but in the 17th c. the group [wa] developed into [wo]: labial articulation of the consonant was exteneded to the vowel. The change [wa→wo] didn’t take place when [a] was followed by one of the velar consonants [k, g, η], in this case [a] developed into [æ]. b) the change of [u] into [λ]: short [u] changed into [λ] in words with u-spelling (but, cut), sometimes with o- spelling (some, love) and ou-spelling (rough [ru: f→ruf→rλf], enough). The vowel [λ] is also found in a few words which had in ME [o:] represented by “o” or “oo”. These words went through the shift of [o: →u: →u→λ] (month, done, blood, flood). [u] remained unchanged in words where it was preceded by a labial consonant (bull, pull). c) the change of [e:] into [i:]: long close [e:] resulting from ME long open [ε:] was narrowed to [i:]. The sound values of the digraphs “ea” and “ee” coincided (beat, sea). In “great” and “break” the [e:] was preserved and was eventually diphthongized into [ei]. d) other changes: [ei] and [e:] merged into [ei] (says, said) and [o:] and [ou] also merged (stone, oak). Most unstressed vowels were reduced to either [r] or [∂] in the 2nd syllable of dissylabic words or in the 1st syllable of dissylabic words (wishes, admire). Consonant changes. 1) development of [χ]: two variants of the development of [χ] are distinguished: a) before “t” and b) in final position. [χ] is lost before “t” and the preceding vowel is shortened (light [liχt>li:t]). Final [χ] changes into [f] (cough, laugh), where it remained to be denoted “gh”; in a few words it was lost (though, through). 2) loss of [l] before [k, m, f, v]: it was lost before [k,m,f,v] and the words like “talk, plam, calf, halves”came to be pronounced [to:k], [pa:m], [ka:f], [ha:vz]. [l] was preserved before [v] in words of Latin origin (resolve, valve). [l] was also lost [d] in “should” and “would”. 3) appearance and loss of [w]: in a few words with an initial labialised vowel there appeared an initial so-called prothetic [w]. The most well-known example is the word “one” in OE it was “ān”, in ME “ōn”. The development is like that: [o:n>wo:n>wu:n>wun>wλn]. [w] also appeared in the word “woof”, but it was lost in anstressed syllables after a consonant (answer, conquer). 4) voicing and voiceless fricatives: voiceless consonants were voiced in several types of words. It mainly affected the consonant [s] and the cluster [ks] which became [z] and [gz] (words of French origin: dessert, resemble; exhibit, anxiety). In a few words it also affected [f] and [t∫] which became [z] and [dz] (of>off; knoweleche>knowledge). 5) loss of consonants in clusters: in many words when a word ended in ttwo consonants, the final one was los: [mb]> [m]: lamb, climb; [mn]> [m]: damn, solemn; [ln]>[l]: kiln. In a cluster of three consonants the middle one was dropped: [stl]>[sl]: castle, rustle; [stn]>[sn]: fasten, glisten; [ftn]>[fn]: often, soften; [stm]> [sm]: Christmas; [ktl]> [kl]: exactly; [ktn]> [kn]: exactness; [skl]> [sl] muscle; [ndz], [ldz]>[nz, lz]: strange, divulge; [nt∫, lt∫]>[n∫,l∫]: French, milch. Words having one final consonant sometimes acquire another with final –n added –d: poune>pound, boun>bound. 6) change of [d] to [δ] when close to [r]: [d] became [δ] in the neighbourhood of [r] in the words: fader>father, weder>weather. A similar change [t>θ] took place: autour> author. 7) [j] merged with preceding consonant: it happens after an unstressed vowel and affects clusters [sj, zj, tj, dj]. [sj] often spellt by –ti-, -xi-> [∫]: pension, session, anxious; [zj]>[z]: collision, division; the group [zju]>[zu,z∂]: measure, pleasure; [tj]>[t∫] often spellt by “ture, tue”: fortune, statue; [dj]>[dz]: soldier, educate. 8) loss of consonants in initial clusters: in certain cases a cluster is lost: [k, g] are lsot before [n]: knight, gnaw; when [kn, gn] was preceded by a vowel it was preserved: diagnosis. Initial [w] is lost before [r]: write. The cluster [hw] or the voiceless [w], which was denoted by the spelling “wh”, changed into [w]: what.