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19.When that the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept;

20.Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;

21.Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

22.And Brutus is an honourable man.

23.You all did see, that on the Lupercal

24.I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

25.Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

26.Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

27.And, sure, he is an honourable man.

28.I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke.

29.But here I am to speak what I do know.

30.You all did love him once, not without cause;

31.What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?

32.O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts

33.And men have lost their reason! – Bear with me,

34.My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

35.And I must pause till it come back to me.

ambition for the Elizabethans the word had the special meaning of unscrupulous pursuit of power.

Exercise 1. Examine the spelling of the words in the text and discuss any instances that seem unusual to you.

List the principal linguistic features of Shakespeare’s English which mark its difference from ModE.

Exercise 3. Pick out all the forms of the verb. Comment on them.

Exercise 4. Pay attention to the use of negation and the verb ‘do’. Explain their usage in the text.

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Exercise 5. Can you find any words in the text that seem obsolete or old-

fashioned?

Exercise 6. Below you can find an extract from W. Shakespeare’s Henry IV. The ENE transcription will help you to understand the way the text sounded at that period. Analyze the differences in ENE and ModE pronunciation.

Notes: The rules of pronunciation in that time were the following:

1)/r/ was pronounced post-vocalically (car, card)

2)wh was pronounced [hw] (which, witch)

3)/s/ was not lowered (but, pull)

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4)/a/ before /f, s, θ/ was still short (staff, pass, bath)

5)/a/ after /w/ was not retracted (swan, war)

6)mid-vowels were not diphthongised (play, boat)

7)diphthongs /ai, au/ still centralised (time [tèɪm], house [hèss])

8)/c:, e:/ had not yet been raised to /i:/ (eat rhymes with great)

9)fewer instances of short /u:/ (book, cook, room)

Exercise 7. Listen, read and analyse the sonnet by W. Shakespeare. Can you

understand the gist of it?

Sonnet LXVI

1.Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

2.As, to behold desert a beggar born,

3.And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

4.And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

5.And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,

6.And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

7.And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,

8.And strength by limping sway disabeled,

9.And art made tongue-tied by authority,

10.And folly doctor-like controlling skill,

11.And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

12.And captive good attending captain ill:

13.Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,

14.Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

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PRACTICAL TASK 7

DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Food for thought and further discussion:

Words are the leaves of the tree of language, of which, if some fall away, a new succession takes their place.

John French Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets.

Eddy Peters

You might find it interesting to know that…

OE vocabulary (recorded and preserved in written documents) ranges from 30,000 to 50,000 words;

Native words are the most frequent ones, the shorter, more general words;

English language is a partial result of the borrowings and it can be defined as the collection of words that were selected to appear in a dictionary (Elly van Gelderen);

In addition to few Celtic borrowings in ancient times, there are some more recent borrowings that are still in use: clan (1425), plaid (1513), leprechaun (1604), shamrock (1971), whisky (1715);

Out of 10,000 words borrowed from French, about 7,500 are still in use;

English words with initial z and v are loans.

Exercise 1. Explore the origin of the following place names in Britain and find out what the place names mean.

Applethwaite, Althorpe, Eastoft, Portsmouth, Nottingham, Buckingham, Glenmore, Ashwellthorp, Lancaster, Hamstead, Kilmore, Chatham, Flaxby, Sussex, Brighton, Reading, Derby, Fishtoft, Moorby, Honeythwaite, Stratford, Askrigg.

Exercise 2. The following text appears to be nonsense. This is because the underlined words have been used with their original or earlier meaning. Look up the original meanings of the words and rewrite the text into modern English:

The girl wore his best frock to the dinner-party. He was a healthy young man with a healthy appetite, and he was in danger of eating so much he would starve. There was plenty of meat to suit his vegetarian tastes. After the meal, his disease was so bad he had to go and lie down.

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________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Exercise 3. All of the following English words (A–Y) at one time had meanings that are quite different from their current ones. (In case of borrowed words, the semantic change may have occurred before the word came into English). Identify each of these semantic changes as an instance of narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejorative meaning, weakening, or semantic shift.

Exercise 4. The words below are fairly well known in most world variants of English. But in which variety of English did each of the words originate? Where possible, also try to identify which language supplied the word to English.

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Exercise 5. Use etymological dictionary to discover the components involved in the following words that originally, in Old English, were compounds:

1.Lady__________________________________________________

2.Lord__________________________________________________

3.Gossip________________________________________________

4.Daisy_________________________________________________

5.Nostril________________________________________________

6.Sheriff_________________________________________________

7.Shepherd______________________________________________

8.Goodbye_______________________________________________

9.Garlic_________________________________________________

10.Marshal_____________________________________________

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PRACTICAL TASK 8

‘WORLD ENGLISHES’

Food for thought and further discussion:

A major cause of deterioration in the use of the English language is very simply the enormous increase in the number of people who are using it.

Anonymous The English language is at more than one point in its history a language which is being carried from one part of the world to another.

Terry Hoad England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

George Bernard Shaw

You might find it interesting to know that…

What started as a Germanic dialect spoken in a small part of England is now a language spoken by over a billion people in many parts of the world as a first or second language.

Exercise 1. Give British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) equivalents of the following Ukrainian words:

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13півень

14вантажівка

15вагон

Exercise 2. Make changes to the sentences so that they become more typical

of Canadian English:

1.Have you ever seen a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in the streets of this city?

2.Let’s meet at the Art Center.

3.Most of the residents in this area have French as their first language.

4.You need to have a one-dollar coin to use this vending machine.

Exercise 3. What do you think these examples of Australian colloquialisms mean? They are all formed by abbreviating an English word that you know:

1.Her ambition is to become a journo when she leaves uni.

2.Tom was planning to do a bit of farming bizzo while he was in the States.

3.What are you plans for this arvo?

4.As our oldies had gone away for the weekend, we decided to invite our mates and have a barbie party.

5.What places are you going to visit when you are in Oz?

Exercise 4. Match the Indian English word (1-12) with its American English equivalent (A-L). Explain your choice.

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Exercise 5. The statements below were made by a Scot. Using an English Dictionary, answer the questions about them:

1.Ann had a bonny wee lassie last night. – What happened to Ann yesterday?_____________________________________________

2.The McKingslys live next to the kirk. – What would be your reference point if you were trying to find their house?_________

3.“Are you joining us for a glass of wine, Ned? – “Aye.”

Does Ned agree or disagree?____________________________

4.They have a wonderful view of the loch from their window. – What can they see from the window?_____________________

Exercise 6. Which variety of English might each of these statements or questions represent? Explain your choice.

1.Would you like a wee dram?

2.People had to stand in long queues to see this film in the cinema.

3.We got terribly bitten by mozzies at yesterday’s barbie.

4.That’s a nice vintage chesterfield.

5.As a favor to Alice he bought her a one-way ticket and took care of her luggage.

6.The police finally nabbed the miscreant.

7.He wants to major in Chinese at college when he leaves high school.

8.Every farmer in this country owns a ute.