26 Classification of vowel in modern English

Vowels are voiced sounds in forming which the air stream passes freely without any obstruction through the larynx the mouth cavity make the vocal cords vibrate.

The first linguist who tried to describe and classify vowels for all languages was D. Jones. He devised the system of 8 Cardinal Vowels.

Russian phoneticians suggest a classification of vowels according to the following principles: 1) stability of articulation; 2) tongue position; 3) lip position; 4) character of the vowel end; 5) length; 6) tenseness.

in the stability of articulation: (1.l) monothongs - are vowels the articulation of which doesn’t change. The quality of such v-ls is relatively pare [i,e,a:, o:,);, u,3:, ?] ;(1.2) diphthongs in the pronunciation of diphthongs the organs of speech slide from one v-l position to another within one syllable. The nuclear of diphthongs is strong distinct the glide is very weak [ei, эi, au, ?u, є?, u?]. (1.3) In the pronunciation of diphthongs the articulation changes just a little bit.

But the difference between the nuclear the end is not so distinct as it is in the case of diphthongs; [i:, u:]. The tongue position: horizontal movement of the tongue. When the tongue is in the front part of the mouth and the front part of it is raised up to the hard palate a front v-1 is pronounced [i:, e].

When the front of the tongue is raised towards to the back part of the lard palate the vowel is called

central (or mixed) [?:, ?]. When the tongue is in the back part of the mouth and raised up to the soft palate a back vowel is pronounced [a:, э, э:, u:]. Vertical movement high (or closed) vowels: [i:, u, u:], open (low) vowels [a:, o;].

The lip position. When the lips are neutral or spread the vowels are called unrounded.When the lips more or less round they called rounded [u;, u]. The character of vowel end. If a stressed v-l is followed by a strong voiceless consonant it is cut off by it. In this case the end of the vowel is strong and the vowel is called checked. If a v-1 is followed by a weak voiced consonant or by no consonant at all, the end of it is very weak. In this case the vowel is called free.

Vowel length. All Eng. Monophthongs are divided into long[I:, a: u:,?:] and short[I e u a].

There is one more articulatory characteristic that needs our attention, namely tenseness. It characterizes the state of the organs of speech at the moment of vowel production. Special instrumental analysis shows that historically long vowels are tense while historically short are lax.

29 Formation of the English vocabulary

1. The vocabulary in oe

The OE vocabulary was almost purely Germanic; except for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of native words inherited from PG or formed from native roots and affixes. Vocabulary develops more rapidly than the other linguistic aspects. It is explained by the specific nature of its connection with life. Vocabulary reflects all changes in political, economic, scientific and cultural life of the society and these changes are numerous:

1. Many old words are replaced by new ones in the process of borrowing.

# OE niman<Sc takan(=to take)

hīe< Ђei (=they)

2) Some words develop new meaning in the course of time. In OE “marah-scalc”(=a man looking after horses). Later it developed the meaning of a commander of the troops now: =marshal. Some words become archaisms OE cweЂan (to say) nowadays the root f the word exists in the word “to bequeathe” ([bi’kwei] завершать). It is very important to the history of any language to know the number of words existing at this/that period. But as we’ve got a clear idea of the vocabulary only from the written records the number of words is difficult to determine, because on the one hand, lots of documents have been lost, on the other hand, the written documents cannot contain all the words that existed in the language at a remote (отдален.) period of time. The comparative-historical method helps to reconstruct certain words comparing texts in different OGL-s or written in the same language at different periods of its existence.

The origin of OE vocabulary

Two main parts can be singled out in the OE vocabulary: native and borrowed words.

Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers from different historical periods. The three main layers in the native OE words are:

a) common IE words;

b) common Germanic words;

c) specifically OE words.

1. Common IE words constitute the oldest part of the vocabulary. Among these words we find names of some natural phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship, etc.; this layer includes personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals. Verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of man; adjectives indicate the most essential qualities.

# mōdor (OE) – mater (Latin)

read (OE) – ruber (Latin) рыжий

beard (OE) – barda (L.) борода

2. The common Germanic layer includes words which are shared by most Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. Being specifically Germanic, these words constitute an important distinctive mark of the Germanic languages at the lexical level. This layer is certainly smaller than the layer of common IE words. Semantically these words are connected with nature, with the sea and everyday life.

# OE (hand) - Goth. (handus) - NE hand

OE (eorЂe) – Goth. (airЂa) - NE the earth

OE (steorfan) – N. Germ (sterben) – NE to starve

3. Specifically OE words can be defined as specifically OE words which occurred neither in other GL-s nor in other IE languages. They are very few, if we include here only the words whose roots have not been found outside English: OE clipian ‘call’, OE brid (NE bird) and several others. However, they are far more numerous if we include in this layer OE compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots in England, e.g. OE wīfman or wimman (NE woman) consists of two roots which occurred as separate words in other OG languages, but formed a compound only in OE.

# clipian ( to call somebody)

bridd (bird)

A few compounds derived from common Germanic roots existed only in OE.

# wīfman (woman)

hlāford (lord) hlāf=хлеб, ford=guard(ian)

hlāfdiʒe ( lady)

scir-ʒerefa* (cherif)

* scir (NE shiredistrict); ʒerefa ( a chief, boss)