- •Lecture 1 history of language as a linguistic discipline
- •Sources Used for Studying Language History
- •Periods in the History of English
- •The Role of the Discipline in Training the Teacher of a Foreign Culture
- •Lecture 2 germanic languages Classification of Modern Germanic Languages and their Distribution
- •Table 1 Germanic Languages
- •Old Germanic Languages and their Classification
- •Earliest records of Germanic tribes
- •Table 2 Classification of Ancient Germanic Tribes
- •Material Culture
- •Warfare
- •Form of Government
- •Conversion to Christianity
- •Germanic Alphabets and Old Germanic Writings
- •Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages Phonetic peculiarities of Germanic Languages. Word Stress and its role in further development of Germanic languages
- •The First or Proto-Germanic Consonant Shift (Grimm's Law)
- •Verner’s Law
- •Old English Kingdoms and Dialects
- •Scandinavian Raids
- •King Alfred and His Literary Activity
- •The Middle English Period The Norman Conquest and its Influence on the Linguistic Situation in England
- •Middle English Dialects. Growth of Dialectal Differences
- •The New English Period The XVI century – the Period of the Development of the National Literary Language
- •Economic and Political Unification. Conditions for Linguistic Unity
- •Progress of Culture. Introduction of Printing
- •Foreign Contacts in the Early New English Period
- •Expansion of English over the British Isles
- •Flourishing of Literature in Early New English (Literary Renaissance)
- •New Sources of Information about the Language. Private Papers and Didactic Compositions
- •Normalising Tendencies. Grammars and Dictionaries in the Late 17th and 18th c
- •Word Stress
- •Old English Vowel System
- •Changes in the system of vowels:
- •Middle english period
- •Word Stress
- •Vowel Changes in MdE and Early MnE Unstressed vowels
- •Stressed Vowels
- •Monophthongization of oe Diphthongs
- •Quantitative vowel changes
- •Modern english period
Word Stress
The system of word accentuation inherited from PG underwent no changes in Early OE.
In OE a syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation; in other words, a dynamic or a force stress was employed. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent fell on the root-morpheme or on the first syllable. Word stress was fixed; it remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms of the words, and, as a rule, did not shift in word-building either. For example, the Nom. hlāford, cyning, Dat. hlāforde, cyninge.
Polysyllabic words, especially compounds, may have had 2 stresses, chief and secondary, the chief stress being fixed on the first root-morpheme, and the secondary stress on the second. For example, Norðmonna, here the chief stress falls on the first component, while the second component gets the secondary stress; the Gen. plural ending – a is unstressed.
In words with prefixes the position of the stress varied: verb prefixes were unaccented, while in nouns and adjectives the stress was commonly fixed on the prefix: ā-` risan, `mis-dæd
Old English Vowel System
The system of OE vowels in the 9th and 10th centuries is shown below:
Monophthongs
Short vowles |
Long vowels |
Front vowels
[i] fisc, scip [y] fyllan, pytt [e] sprecan, helpan |
[i:] wīn, tīd [y:] brÿd, wÿscan [e:] fēt, tēθ
|
Back vowels
[u] sunu, cumin [o] folc, cos [a] faran, caru [a] – positional variants: [æ] glæd, hwæt [o] mann,( monn) cann (conn) |
[u:] hūs, tūn [o:] fōt, bōk, gōd [a:] ān, wrāte
|
Diphthongs
[ea] healf, wearm (before 1, r + cons., and before h instead of [a] |
[ea:] hēah, ēare |
[eo] steora, feohtan |
[eo:] deop, leoht |
[io] siofun (f pronounced v in intervocal position) |
[io:] stīoran |
[ie] scield, nieht |
[[ie:] cīese, hīeran |
OE vowels underwent different kinds of alterations: qualitative and quantitative, dependent and independent. In accented syllables the oppositions between vowels were clearly maintained. In unaccented positions the original contrasts between vowels was weakened or lost; the distinction of short and long vowels was neutralised so that by the age of writing the long vowels in unstressed syllables had been shortened. As for originally short vowels, they tended to be reduced to a neutral sound, losing their qualitative distinctions and were often dropped in unstressed final syllables.
Changes in the system of vowels:
1) Fracture/breaking (преломление) – diphthongization of short vowels ‘a’, ‘e’ before the clusters: ‘r+ con.’, ‘l + con.’, ‘ h+ con., final ‘ h’: ærm – earm, herte – heorte, selh – seolh;
2) Gradation /ablaut: (alternation of vowels in different grammatical forms: in strong verbs: Infinitive (giban), Past. sing. (gaf), Past Pl. (gebum), Second Part. (gibans);
3)Palatalisation: diphthongisation of vowels under the influence of the initial palatal consonants ‘g’, ‘c’ (before front vowels) and the cluster ‘sc’ (all vowels): gefan – giefan, scacan – sceacan;
4) Mutation/Umlaut (перегласовка) - a change of vowel caused by partial assimilation to the following vowel: i-mutation – caused by ‘i’, ‘j’ of the following syllable: namnian – nemnan, fullian- fyllan; back/velar mutation – phonetic change caused by a back vowel (u, o, a) of the following syllable, which resulted in the diphthongisation of the preceding vowel: hefon – heofon;
5) Contraction: if, after a consonant had dropped, two vowels met inside a word, they were usually contracted into one long vowel: slahan – sleahan – sle:an;
6) Lengthening of Vowels: before ‘nd’, ‘ld, ‘mb’: bindan – bīndan; climban – clīmban