- •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
Modern english period
Vowels: 1) loss of the neutral sound of unstressed endings (in the 15th c.) 2) loss of vowels in intermediate syllables: chapiter – chapter, medicine 3) change of [er] into [ar] with some exceptions: ferre – far, sterre – star , but occasionally this change did not take place: certain, prefect, etc. when it didn’t change into [ar] , it eventually developed into [e:], but ‘clerk, ‘Derby’.
The Great Vowel Shift began in the 15th century: all long vowels were narrowed and the narrowest were diphthongized:
Take [ta:ka] – [teik]; beat [be:t]/[ bi:t]; meet [me:t]/[mi;t]; like [li:ka]/[laik]; boat [bo:t]/[bout]; tool [to:l]/[tu:l]; house [hu:s]/[haus]. All those changes show one general tendency: narrowing of long vowels and diphthongization of the narrowest of them. All these changes occurred gradually, without being noticed by the speakers.
Influence of [r]: when a long vowel was followed by ‘r’, new phonemes came into being: (ia], [ea], [ua]: fare [fa;r] – [fea]; tire [ti:r] /[taia], power [pu:ar] /[ paua].
Some words have sounds which do not correspond to the general law of the shift.
Long [u:] remained unchanged when followed by a labial consonant: droop, room; [i:] remained unchanged in words borrowed from French: machine, police, etc.; long open [e:] did not always change into [i:], it was shortened in some words head, death, etc.
Other changes:
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short ‘a’ into ‘ae’: hat, cat; but when it was preceded by [w] it developed into [o]: what, was, ec.
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In the 16th c. 2 new long vowels arose [a:], [o:]
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[a:] – before: bath, father, brass, cast, ask, clasp, calm
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[o:] – before: cork, port, autumn, dawn
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long [u:] was shortened before [k]: book, cook; also in good, foot, etc.
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rise of long [e:] – fir, sir, fur, curtain, worm, word, heard, learn
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short [u] changed into [^]: cut, but, love, son, rough, enough; blood, flood; remained unchanged before labial consonants: pull, full, bull, etc.
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unstressed vowels were reduced either to [i] or [a]: begin, wishes, mountain, etc.