Лабораторная работа №6

New English. Phonetics

Topics for discussion in class

1. Quantitative and qualitative changes of vowels in Early New English.

2. The Great Vowel shift and other New English vowel changes; their effect on Modern English.

3. Early New English consonant changes.

4. The rise of sibilants and affricates in Early New English.

Questions and assignments

1. What phonetic conditions affected the length of vowels in Early New English?

2. What change affected the monophthongs [a] and [u] in New English? Were the changes positional or independent? Give examples from the text to illustrate points 1 and 2.

3. Make a list of vowels that underwent the Great Vowel shift. What is the general direction of the shift?

4. What changes did the unstressed vowels undergo in New English? How did it affect the grammatical endings?

5. Write out words from the text to show the different spelling of the sounds [æ], [e:], [ou], [ei], [ʌ], [ɔ], [i:] and explain the origin of the sounds and spelling.

7. What is the origin of the Modern English consonant phonemes [f], [ʒ], [ʧ], [ʤ] in borrowed words?

8. Account for the underlined consonants in:

a) literature, Asia, soldier, measure.

b) shall, drudgery, occasion, nature

9. Find words in the text to illustrate the so-called "Verner's Law" in New English.

10. Account for the "mute" letters "gh", "k" and "1", "r" before "n" and at the end of words, position of stress in native and borrowed words.

11. Read and translate the text into Modern English / Russian. Make the phonetic analysis following the given model (analyse only the underlined words).

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1565—1616) was born at Stratford-on-Avon.His father was engaged in various kinds of trade and held various municipal offices. Shakespeare was educated at a grammar school learning to read and write and studying the works of some classical historians, moralists and poets, but he did not go to the university. He married at the age of 18. How Shakespeare spent the next 8 years or so until his name begins to appear in London theatre records is not known. By 1592 he seems to have attracted the attention of the Earl of Southampton. It was very important for him: although the puritanical city of London was generally hostile to the theatre many of the nobility were good patrons of the drama and friends of actors. From 1594 onward he was a recognised member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company of players: they had the best theatre, the Globe, and the best dramatist, Shakespeare. He became a full-time professional man of his own theatre. For 20 years Shakespeare devoted himself to his art, writing more than a million words of poetic drama.

Shakespeare lived at a time when ideas and social structure established in Middle Ages still influenced man's thought and behaviour. Alongside that, economic and social orders were disturbed by the rise of capitalism, expansion of education and by the new wealth from the discovery of new lands. An interplay of new and old ideas was typical of the time (in "Hamlet" discussions on man, belief, a "rotten" state, and times "out of joint" clearly reflect a growing disquiet and scepticism.)

It is a usual and reasonable opinion that Shakespeare's greatness is nowhere more visible than in the series of tragedies — "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear". '

With a few exceptions Shakespeare did not invent the plot of his plays. Sometimes he used old stories ("Hamlet"), sometimes he we from the stories of comparatively recent Italian writers, the chronicles, the popular prose fiction of his contemporaries. The source of the plot ("Tragical History of Hamlet, prince of Denmark") was probably the Icelandic saga of Amleth narrated by Saxo Grammaticus in his history of Denmark, in "Hamlet" the drama of revenge acquired Hew philosophic aspects introduced by the genius of the author.

Given below is an extract from "Hamlet" (mostly MS 2-nd quarto, published in 1604) which is the Performance "The Murder of Gonzago " played by the actors at Hamlet's request.

The language of Shakespeare's plays gives a full representation of the literary language of the Elizabethan Age (the age of literary Renaissance in Early New English). In Shakespeare's day the syntax and other aspects of English grammar and vocabulary were in a state of transition from an earlier, highly inflected language. The loss of endings obscured the distinguishing marks of various parts of speech and the result was not so much confusion as freedom.

Shakespeare's ability to create new words and use the living ones in the full range of their polysemy, his versatile grammar are generally typical of the Early New English period and sometimes are specifically Shakespearean (e.g. more than one negation in the sentence "nor it is not strange"; one stem used as both Past Tense and Participle II "begunn"; placing a simple verb before the subject in questions "What means this...?"; subject-verb semantic agreement "the fruit...sticks...but fall..."; polysemy of words when all the meanings of the word "work" at a time, e.g. posie — 1) poetry, 2) a motto, a short inscription; mich(ing) — I) to skulk or retire from view, 2) to steal small things, 3) to pilfer, 4) to play truant, etc.)

From Hamlet, Act III, Scene II.

The Performance

(part 1)

The Trumpets sounds. Dumbe show followes: Enter a King and a Queene, the Queene embracing him, and h. her, he takes her vp, and declines his head vpon her necke, he lyes him downe upon a bancke of flowers, she seeing him asleepe, leaues him: anon come in an other man, takes off his crowne, kisses it, pours poyson in the sleepers eares, and leaues him; the Queene returnes, finds the King dead, makes passionate action, the poysner with some three or foure come in againe, seeme to condole with her, the dead body is carried away, the poysner wooes the Queene with gifts, shee seemes harsh awhile, but in the end accepts loue.

Oph. What meanes this my Lord?

Ham. Marry that munching Mallico, it meanes mischiefe.

Oph, Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow, [Enter Prologue.]

The Players cannot keepe, they'le tell all.

Oph. Will a tell vs what this show meant?

Ham. I, or any show that you will show him, be not

you asham 'd to show, heele not shame to tell

you what it meanes.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught. He mark the play.

Prol. For vs and for our Tragedie,

Heere stooping to your clemencie,

We begge your hearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a Prologue, or the posie of a ring?

Oph. Tis breefe my Lord.

Ham. As womans loue.

Enter King and Queene.

King. Full thirtie times hath Phebus cart gone round

Neptunes salt wash, and Tellus orb'd the ground,

And thirtie dosen Moones with borrowed sheene

About the world haue times twelue thirties beene

Since loue our harts, and Hymen did our hands

Vnite comutuall in most sacred bands.

Quee. So many iourneyes may the Sunne and Moone

Make vs againe count ore ere loue be doone.

But woe is me, you are so sicke of late,

So farre from cheere. and from our former state,

That I distrust you, yet though I distrust,

Discomfort you my Lord it nothing must.

For women feare too much, euen as they loue.

And womens feare and loue hold quantitie,

Eyther none, in neither ought, or in extremitie.

Now what my Lord is proofe hath made you know,

And as my loue is ciz'd, my feare is so,

Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare.

Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.

King Faith I must leaue thee loue, and shortly to,

My operant powers their functions leaue to do

And thou shalt Hue in this faire world behind.

Honour'd, belou'd, and haply one as kind.

For husband shalt thou.

Model of phonetic analysis

Word as used in the text	Changes of spelling and sounds
	Old English	Middle English	New English
trumpet	—	trompet [u] o--aME spelling	trumpet > [ʌ] device
sound	—	Soun [u:]	sound > [au]
dumbe dumb [u] u replaced by		domb [u] [b] lost in NE o—aME spelling	dumb > [ʌ] device
show rel to v. sceaw(ian) [sk'] > sc replaced by		n. shewe [ʃ] sh	show > [ʃ]
enter	----- unstressed	Inf.entre(n) [e] + vocalised	enter r > [ǝ]
king cyninʒ [y] > c replaced by k		kyng [i](East Midland dialect)	king