- •Федеральное агентство по образованию
- •Contents
- •Introduction the subject of the history of the english language. The indo-european family of languages. Germanic languages. The periods in the history of english 5
- •Indo-European Language Family 6
- •Variant I 86
- •Causes of language changes
- •Historical Linguistics
- •Indo-European Language Family
- •Indo-European languages tree
- •Germanic Languages
- •Peculiarities of Germanic languages
- •Germanic people. Origin and culture
- •Germanic Alphabet
- •Periods in the History of English
- •The Old English period: brief outline and main features
- •The Middle English period: brief outline and main features
- •The Modern English period: brief outline and main features
- •The old english period Historical Background: Prehistoric Britain, Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon Britain
- •Old English Writings
- •How Do We Know What Old English Pronunciation Was Like?
- •The Old English Sound System
- •Phonetic Changes in Old English
- •Vowel changes
- •Consonants changes
- •Old English Grammar The Old English Noun
- •The Old English Pronoun
- •Interrogative pronouns
- •Indefinite pronouns
- •The Old English Adjective
- •The Old English Verb
- •Irregular (anomalous) verbs.
- •The Old English Numeral
- •The Old English Adverb
- •The Old English Auxiliary Words
- •The Old English Syntax
- •Old English Vocabulary Composition
- •Word building
- •Foreign influences on Old English
- •The middle english period Historical background: Medieval Britain
- •Changes in Spelling
- •Phonetic Changes in Middle English
- •Vowel changes:
- •Changes in Middle English Grammar
- •Changes in Middle English Vocabulary
- •The modern english period Historical background: Tudor Britain, Stuart Britain
- •General Changes in Modern English Phonology
- •The Great Vowel Shift
- •Early Modern English Grammar Changes and features of ModE noun system
- •The Modern English Pronoun
- •Changes and features of Early ModE verbal system
- •Early Modern English Syntax
- •Features of Early ModE vocabulary:
- •Part II The Old English Period
- •Part III the Middle English period
- •Part IV The Modern English Period
- •Appendix 1: British History Timeline
- •Appendix 2: Control tests
- •Part III.
- •Task IV.
- •Instructions: Read the following extract from Hamlet by Shakespeare and do the tasks below.
- •Variant II
- •Instructions: Basing on the Grimm’s law, explain the correspondences of underlined sounds in the following words of the common root from Germanic and non-Germanic Indo-European languages.
- •Instructions: Provide grammatical analysis of the suggested elements from the sentence below:
- •Verbs — strong or weak type, define tense, aspect, mood, person, number.
- •Part III.
- •Instructions: Read the passage in Middle English, analyze the part in bold and do the tasks below.
- •Task IV.
- •Instructions: Read the following extract from Hamlet by Shakespeare and do the tasks below.
- •Variant III.
- •Part III.
- •Instructions: Read the passage in Middle English, analyze the part in bold and do the tasks below.
- •Task IV.
- •Instructions: Read the following extract from Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare and do the tasks below.
- •Variant IV
- •Part III.
- •Instructions: Read the passage in Middle English, analyze the part in bold and do the tasks below.
- •Task IV.
- •Instructions: Read the following extract from The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare and do the tasks below.
- •Variant V
- •Part III.
- •Instructions: Read the passage in Middle English, analyze the part in bold and do the tasks below.
- •Task IV.
- •Instructions: Read the following extract from the Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare and do the tasks below.
- •Related reading
- •Internet resources
- •Г. А. Васильцова история английского языка и введение в специальную филологию
The Old English Auxiliary Words
These traditionally include prepositions, conjunctions, different particles and interjections. All Indo-European languages have this system of auxiliary parts of speech. Most of Old English prepositions are easily recognizable:
Primary: of(of, out of),æt(to),fram(from),tō(to),wiþ(against),in, of,mid(with), on(on, at), be(by, near, to, because of, about),þurh(through),under,ofer(over),æfter(after),bufan(above),ūt(out).
Secondary: beforan(before),būtan(without),benorþan(north of), etc.
Mind that ætmeans 'to' andwiþmeans 'against'.
Conjunctions included the following:
Primary: and / ond (and), ac (but), gif (if), or.
Secondary: ægþer ge... ge (both... and..., either ... or...), hwonne (when), þa (when), þonne (when), þēāh (though), þætte (that), ær (before), swā... swā... (so... as...).
And a few interjections: iā (yes), wā (woe!, wow!), hwæt (there! what!).
The Old English Syntax
OE was a synthetical language, which means that the relations between words in phrases and sentences were shown via different flections. Due to this, the OE word order was generally free.
The standard order of subject, object, and verb in a declarative sentence in Modern English is subject first, followed by verb, followed by object, however, Old English doesn't always use SVO order in its sentences and clauses.
For instance, in "Cynewulf and Cyneheard" we have examples of the following orders:
SVO order:
He hæfde þa [i.e. Hamtunscire]oþ he ofslog þone aldormon.
He had it [i.e. Hampshire] until he killed the ealdorman.
He wræc þone aldor mon Cumbran.
He avenged the ealdorman Cumbra.
VSO order:
Þa geascode he þone cyning.
Then he discovered the king.
OSV order:
hiene þa Cynewulf on Andred adræfde.
Cynewulf then drove him into [the forest] Andred.
ær hine þa men onfunden þe mid þam kyninge wærun.
before the men discovered him who were with the king
VOS order:
Ða on morgenne gehierdun þæt þæs cyninges þegnas.
Then in the morning the kings thegns heard that.
The question were usually build with the help of inversion, gehrst Þu Þā word? (Have you heard this word?)
Old English Vocabulary Composition
The OE vocabulary is mainly homogeneous, loan words are an insignificant part of it. Among native words we can distinguish the following layers:
Common Indo-European words, for example: fæder (father), fōt (foot), sittan (sit).
Common Germanic words, for example: earm (poor), grēne (green), steorfan (die).
A few specifically English words, not found in any other languages, for example clipian (call).
The OE vocabulary, like that of any other language, develops in two ways: by forming new words from elements existing in the language or by borrowing words from other languages.
Word building
Main word building patterns in OE were affixation, composition and expanding the meaning of old words.
Affixation was a very important means of word builing in OE, there existed a plenty of productinve word building suffixes and prefixes, for example:
The suffix –erewas used to derive masculine substantives,fiscere (fisherman), wrītere (writer).
The suffix –Þ, -uÞ, oÞwas used to derive abstract substantives,trēowÞ (truth) fromtrēow(true).
Composition is widely used in OE. too. There appeared compound nouns, adjectives, verbs, for example: ǣfentīd (evening time). Names of the days of the week were also formed by composition:
Mōnandæg (Moon’s day) – Monday.
Tīwesdæg (Tiw’s, the war god’s, day) – Tuesday.
Wednesday (Woden’s, the foremost Germanic god’s, day) – Wednesday.
Þunresdæg (Thunor’s, the god of thunder’s, day) – Thursday.
Frigedæg (Friya’s, the goddess of love’s, day) – Friday.
Sæternesdæg (Sturn’s day) – Saterday.
Sunnandæg (Sun’s day) – Sunday.