- •Subject and Aims of the History of English. Its Ties with Other Disciplines. Germanic Language in the System of Indo-European Family of Languages
- •1. History of English in the systemic conception of English
- •1.1. The aims and the purpose of the study of the subject
- •1.2. Connection of the subject with other disciplines
- •2. Sources of Language History
- •2.1. Writings in early English
- •3. General notes on the language study
- •3.1 The definition of the language
- •3.2 The functions of the language
- •3.3 The structure of the language
- •3.4 The language classification principles
- •3.5 Synchrony and diachrony in the language study
- •4. The comparative-historical method
- •4.1 The stages of the comparative-historical method
- •4.2 The principles of the comparative-historical method
- •4.3 The drawbacks of the comparative-historical method
- •5. The Germanic group of languages
- •The Formation of the English National Language. Periods in the History of the English Language
- •1. Territorial dialects of the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasion
- •2. The dialects of the period of the Norman Conquest
- •3. The development of the dialect of London into a national language
- •Periods in the History of the English Language
- •1. Henry Sweet and his division of the history of English
- •2. Historical periodization as offered by b. Khaimovich
- •3. T. Rastorguyeva’s periodization of the English language
- •4. The division of the history of English as suggested by V. Arakin
- •5. The periods of the development of English as offered by a. Markman and e. Steinberg
- •6. David Burnley’s periodization of the history of English
- •Common Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages
- •1. Phonetic peculiarities of the Germanic languages
- •1.1. The First Consonant Shift
- •1.2. Vowels
- •1.3. The doubling of consonants
- •1.4. Rhotacism
- •1.5. Germanic fracture (or breaking)
- •1.6. The second consonant shift
- •2. Some common grammatical features of Germanic languages
- •2.1. Form-building Means
- •2.1.1. Ablaut
- •2.1.2. Word-structure
- •2.1.3. Types of Stems
- •2.1.4. Strong and Weak Verbs
- •3. Germanic Vocabulary
- •Phonetic Changes in the Old English Period
- •The Main Features of Old, Middle, and Modern English
- •2. Old English Phonetics
- •2.1. Oe Consonants
- •2.2. Vowels
- •2.2.1. Changes of stressed vowels
- •2.2.2. Changes of unstressed vowels
- •Changes in the Middle English Orthography and Phonology
- •1. Changes in the Orthographic System
- •2. Major Changes in the Sound System
- •2.1. The Consonants
- •2.2. Consonant Changes from Old to Middle English
- •2.3. Vowels in Stressed Syllables
- •2.4. Vowels in Unstressed Syllables
- •2.5. The Formation of Middle English Diphthongs
- •The Old English Morphology
- •1. The Old English Noun.
- •2. The Old English Pronoun
- •3. The Old English Adjective
- •4. The Old English Adverb
- •5. The Numeral in Old English
- •6. The Old English Verb.
- •The Middle English Morphology
- •1. Middle English as a Period of Great Change.
- •2. The Middle English Noun.
- •3. Articles.
- •4. The me Adjective.
- •5. The me Adverb
- •6. The me Pronoun
- •7. The me Verb
- •7.1. Strong and weak verbs
- •The New English Morphology and Changes in the System of English Syntax
- •1. New English Morphology
- •2. Old English Syntax.
- •3. Middle English Syntax
- •4. New English Syntax
3.5 Synchrony and diachrony in the language study
A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level – phonetics, grammar or lexis – synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features or their tendencies to change. The synchronic approach can be contrasted to the diachronic. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language. In practice, however, the contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not so marked as in theory: we commonly resort to history to explain current phenomena in Mod E. Likewise in describing the evolution of language we can present it as a series of synchronic cross-sections, e.g. the English language of the age of Shakespeare (16th – 17th c.) or the age of Chaucer (14th c.).
4. The comparative-historical method
The comparative-historical method is widely used to study the history of the language. It helps to reconstruct language phenomena of the past, which are not recorded in the earliest extant written texts. If two or more languages contain words with the same root, it is possible to assume that these words are of the same origin. Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century it was proved that there was a remarkable likeness between certain languages now called Indo-European. These languages have much in common both in the vocabulary, phonetic, and grammatical structure. For example,
English brother
German Bruder
Latin frater
Ukrainian брат
4.1 The stages of the comparative-historical method
Dr. Yuriy O. Zhluktenko distinguishes the following stages of the comparative-historical method:
1. Comparison of sounds and morphemes in the related languages. It is supposed that these units are of the same origin.
2. Determination of natural correspondences between the compared elements.
3. Determination of approximate chronological correlations between the compared phenomena.
4. Reconstruction of the archaic form, so-called “archetype”. At this stage, the phonetic peculiarities of the language development and the possible effect of analogy are taken into account.
4.2 The principles of the comparative-historical method
The principles of the comparative-historical method are as follows:
1. The compared language units should be genetically related.
2. The compared units should be meaningful. It means that a comparison is made not between separate sounds, but between meaningful words or morphemes, which contain these sounds.
3. One should ascertain that the sound similarity in the compared words is not accidental, but regular.
4. It should be proved that the sound correspondences, which we trace as regular, could be really caused by the development of one archaic sound.
5. Semantic correspondence. Even if the sound correspondences are natural, the semantic correspondences between the compared words or morphemes should be analyzed.