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Module 2 old english historical background. Old english phonetics

1. Periods in the history of English

2. Old English historical background

3 The dialects in Old English

4. Old English alphabet and pronunciation

5. Old English phonetics

5.1. Word stress

5.2. The system of Old English sounds

5.3. Basic phonetic changes in Old English

6. Conclusions

1. Periods in the history of English

The evolution of English in the period of over fifteen hundred years of its existence in England has been an uninterrupted process. Within this development, however, it is possible to recognize three main periods:

(1) Old English (OE) (5^th c. – 11^th c.), which begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain and ends with the Norman Conquest;

(2) Middle English (ME) (11^th c. – 15^th c.), which begins with the Norman Conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475);

(3) New English (NE), and Modern English (MnE) (since the 15^th c. until now), which begins with the introduction of printing and lasts to the present day.

The basic criterion for distinguishing chronological divisions in the history of language is relative consistency of phonological and morphological oppositions, which are constants of a certain synchronic system. The additional criterion involves extralinguistic factors, i.e. events in the British history that affected language development.

Old English represents a group of dialects (tongues) of kindred tribes whose development can only be traced by indirect evidence, i.e. by comparison with Gothic, Old High German and other kindred languages of the period. At that time important phonetic changes were under way.

Old English is characterized by well-developed morphology. The OE noun had four cases (typical of Common Germanic) and different stem-suffixes that underlay classification by the types of stems (types of declension). Adjectives agreed with nouns and expressed the category of definiteness / indefiniteness. Verbs had two tense forms, personal endings, three moods and other morphological features.

On the basis of these features the English scholar Henry Sweet (1845-1912), author of the first scholarly historical phonetics and grammar of English, called OE the period of full endings. This means that any vowel may be found in an unstressed ending. For example, the word sinan ‘sing’ has the vowel ‘a’ in its unstressed ending, while the word sunu ‘son’ has the vowel ‘u’ in a similar position.

Middle English is greatly affected by other languages: Scandinavian dialects related to it and French.

During the 8^th to 10^th centuries the Scandinavians made incursions on the British Isles and even invaded a part of Britain’s territory. It is believed that it was the influence of the Scandinavian dialects that contributed to destruction of the English morphology at that period. The principal trend was a considerable decrease in the number of grammatical categories and reduction of endings in the nominal word-formation, as well as development of new verbal categories and forms. Accordingly, the role of syntactic means of connecting words in a sentence, i.e. prepositions, word order, increases. After the Norman Conquest in 1066 the Franco-Norman dialect becomes the language of the ruling class, and English is assigned the role of a vernacular, which results in considerable disconnection of dialects. A substantial layer of modern English vocabulary goes back to French borrowings which penetrated the language during the Middle English period.

According to Henry Sweet, Middle English is the period of levelled endings. This means that vowels of unstressed endings have been levelled under a neutral vowel, represented by the letter ’e’. Thus, OE sinan yields ME singen, OE sunu yields ME sune (also spelt sone).

Within the New English period, which began in the 15^th century, the subdivision of Early New English is generally pointed out (the 15^th – 17^th centuries). Henry Sweet defines New English as the period of lost endings. This means that the endings are lost altogether. Thus ME singeng became Mod E 'sing', ME sone became Mod E 'son'.

Henry Sweet’s division is based on both phonetic (weakening and loss of unstressed vowel sounds) and morphological (weakening and loss of grammatical morphemes) features.

Grammatical categories in Early New English were almost the same as in Modern English, though their use was not normalized. At that period vocabulary was largely enriched at the expense of both inner linguistic means and borrowings. Major phonetic variations, with the Great Vowel Shift being the most significant among them, result in a discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation.

The 18^th century is called the period of normalization, when the norms of using grammatical structures were established. Dictionaries and grammar books appeared, in which these rules were fixed, and which promoted normalized usage of language. Formation of new grammatical categories and forms of the verb was completed.