3.Major spelling changes in me

In ME runic letters passed out of use.They were replaced by new letters&digraphs(thorn-p-&crossed “d” by digraph “th”, “double u” by “w”)After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance, E regained its prestige as the L of writing, through for a long time writing was in the hands of those, who had a good knowledge of French. Many innovations in ME spelling reveal in an influence of the Fr.tradition. The digraphs “ou,ie,ch”were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds[u:][e:][tS].The letters “j,k,v,q”were probably 1^st used in imitation of Fr. manuscripts.Others changes in spelling can’t be traced directly to Fr. Late ME notaries introduced “sh”, to indicate the new sibillat [s/],the digraph “wh” replaced the OE sequence of letters “hw”as in OE hwaet, ME what .Some replacemens were probably made to avoid confusion of letters.The letter “y”came to be used as equivalent of “I”& was preferred when “I” could be confused with the surrounding letters “m,n”&others

Long sounds in ME texts are oft shown by double letters/digraphs.The length of vowel can be inferred from the nature of the syllable;open syll.contain long vowels,while closed syll.may contain 2:short&long vowels. In the accordance with the phonetic tendencies the stress moved closer to the beginning of the word.

Grimm’s law - is known as the First consonant shift. It became known to the public in 1882. The essence of this law is that Indo-European plosives underwent certain changes in Germanic languages.

1.Indo-European plosives p, t, k changed into voiceless fricatives f, Ө, h. (pientic – five, cardia – heart)

2.Indo-European voiced plosives b, d, g changed into Germanic voiced plosives p, t, k. (Latin: duo- Gothic: twai- English: two, Latin: ego- OE: ic(я))

3.Indo-European voiced aspirated plosives bh, dh, gh correspond to Germanic voiced plosives without aspiration. (Sanskrit: bhratar – E.brother, Sanskrit: ghosti – E: gast)

These changes were stretched for centuries before our era and received the name “the First consonant shift».

Verner’s Law. Important series of consonant changes in PG was discovered in the 19^th by a Danish scholar, Carl Verner. They are known as Verner’s Law. According to VL all the early PG voiceless fricatives (f, x) which arose under Grimm’s Law & also (s) inherited from PIE, became voiced b/n vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed: in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. The voicing occurred in early PG at the time when the stress was not yet fixed on the root-morpheme. Varner’s Law accounts for the appearance of voiced fricative or later modifications (d) in the place of the voiceless (3) which ought to be expected under Grimm’s Law. In later PG, the phonetic condition that caused the voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted to the 1^st syllable.

As a result of voicing by Varner’s Law these arose an interchange of consonants in gram-l forms of the word. Part of the forms retained a voiceless fricative, while others acquired a voiced fricative.(in early PG) both consonants could undergo later changes in the OG lan-es, but the original dif-ce b/n them goes back to the time of movable word stress and PG voicing.

Consonant changes in the history of E.

In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants(∫, t∫, З dЗ) except( s,z). in all Ger. lang. at an early stage of their independent history most consonants were lengthened after a short vowel before [j] – the process is known as West Germanic “doubling” of consonants satjan – settan(bedd, mann) these long consonants disappeared in ME and the phonemic opposition was lost. English consonants were more stable than vowels. The sonorous( m, n, l), the plosives( p, b, t, d) & k, g in most positions haven’t been subjected to any noticeable changes. {З}appeared on the boundary between the OE & the ME, came from French & is the youngest consonant. We evidence palatalisation( softening of the back lingual consonants) – kild, scip, sceal; elision –dropping, omitting of a letter: G Gans – OE Зos, G uns – OE us, mæjden – mæden(maiden). In the ME the sound [w] was lost: hwa – who, hwom – whom; [h] disappeared in combinations with initial hl( half –laf(loaf). At the beginning of the NE period the sound [r] disappeared in the final position or before consonants as a result the preceding vowel lengthened – ME a – NE a: bar, star, car; o – o: door, lord; a: - eə care, dare; o: - uə poor, moor. In the 17^th – 18^th words with h that was denoted by the gh combination, the sound h disappeared & lengthened the preceding vowel – bought, thought. In OE we have metathese( permutation, the process of interchanging sounds in a word, as in rinnan – irnan(run), ascian – axian(ask) & we have assimilation wif-man – wimman. In the OE f,v,s,z,∂,Ө were allophones – in intervocal position appeared as voiced, otherwise were voiceless. In the ME they became independent.- ris[s] – risan[z]. [j] &[y] developed into [i] & [u] respectively. In the 16^th a new vowel appeared [ɔ:] in the following cases: i+r- fir,sir; u+r - fur,burn; o+r after w worm; e+r – fern.

4. The OE noun system. OE was a synthetic language with a complex nominal system. The Indo-European noun had a three-element structure, namely root – stem-building-suffix – ending cud – n – y. The Germanic structure of n. includes 2 elements: root and ending. The OE noun fell into several types of declension, called stems: a-(ja,wa,M.N.), o-(jo,wo,F), u-(M,F), i-(M,F,N) stems make up stong dec. & are called vocalic stems; n-stem & root-stem( ending in other consonants) are considered to be consonant stems & represent weak dec. The absence of the stem-building suffixe means that the endings were joned immediately to the root & the inflexion included the i-element it caused mutation in this class of words; manis – men. The a-stem made the largest group 7 served as a model for the whole class system as time went on. The ME plural comes from plural N –as inflexion which turned into NE – (e) s.G. singular –es turned into ’s (possessive), the forms children, oxen, brethren comes from the OE n-steem. Gender was short lived because it wasn’t supported either semantically or formally. It disappeared in the first half of the ME period widuwa-widowe-widow. Number has proved to be the most. stable gram. category .in NE noun has –es, while in OE it depended on the stem of the noun. ME changes: the division into stems & gender disappear, the four-case system is simplified to a two-case: OE – N, D, A, G. ME – Common case, Genitive or Possessive.

The OE adjectives .The adj in OE could change for number, gender & case. Those were dependent grammatical categories or forms agreement of the adj-s with the noun it modified or with the noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence-of the Adj-ve was a predicate. Like nouns, adj-s had 3 genders & 2 numbers. The category of case in adj-s differed from that of nouns: in addition to the 4 cases of nouns they had 1 more case, Instrumental. It was used when the adj-s served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat case expressing an instrumental meaning. Most adj. in OE could be declined in 2 ways: according to the weak & to the strong declension. The formal difference between the declension, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong & weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes.. As for the weak declension, it uses the same markers as n-stem of nouns except that in the Gen pl the pronominal ending –ra is often used of the weak –ena. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactic function of the adj, the degree of comparison & the presence of noun determiners. The adj. had a strong form when used predicatively & when used attributively without any determiners. The weak form was employed when the adj was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen case of personal pronouns.

In the course of the ME period the adj lost all its grammatical categories with the exception of the degrees of comparison. The instr. case had fused with the Dat by the end of OE. In the 13^th case could be shown only by some variable adj-ve endings in the strong declension, towards the end of the century all case distinctions were lost. The strong & weak forms of adj were often confused in Early ME texts.

Degrees of comparison in OE. & their futher development.

3 degrees of comparison: positive,comparative,superlative. The regular means to form the comparative & the superlative from the positive were the suffixes –ra & -est/ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel. Eald-ieldra-ieldest(old), lon3-len3ra-len3est(long). The mutation of the root-vowel was caused by i-umlaut in Early OE. At that stage the suffixes were either –ira, -ist or –ora, -ost. In the forms with –i the root-vowel was fronted & made narrower, later –i was lost & weakened to –e. In ME the suffixes had been weakened to-er, -est & the interchange of the root-vowelwas less common than before. The alternation of root-vowel in Early NE survived in the adj. old, elder, eldest, where the difference in meaning from older, oldest, made the formal distinction essential. The most important innovation in the adj. system in the ME period was the growth of analytical forms of the degrees of comparison. In ME, when the phrases with ME more, most became more & more common, they were used with all kinds of adj., regardless of the number of syllables & were even preferred with mono- & disyllabic words. The 2 sets of forms, synthetic & analytical, were used in free variation until the 17^th & 18^th , when the modern standart usage was established.

The OE personal pronouns. OE personal pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the 1^st & 2^nd p.(2 numbers-in the 3^rd ) & three genders in the 3^rd p.. The pronouns of the 3^rd p., having originated from demonstrative pronouns. In OE, personal pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of the Dat case of the pronouns of the 1^st & 2^nd p. were frequently used instead of the Acc; in fact the fusion of these 2 cases in the pl. was completed in the WS dialect already in Early OE , in the sg. usage was variable, but variant forms revealed the same tendency to generalize the form of the Dat for both cases. The Gen. case of personal pronouns had 2 main applications: it could be an object, but far more frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a possessive pronoun. The forms of the 1^st & 2^nd p. were declined like adj. to show agreement with the nouns they modified, while the forms of the 3^rd p. behaved like nouns: they remained uninflected & did not agree with the nouns they modified. The oblique cases of personal pronouns in combination with the adj. self could also serve as reflexive pronouns.

In OE texts the pronouns “se,seo,pat”were frequently used as noun-determiners with a weakend meaning, approaching that of the modern definite article.

5. OE verb was a highly inflected part of speech. All its gram categories were expressed with the help of inflections. All the forms of the verb were synthetic as analytical forms were only beginning to appear. Gram categories:-Tense (present, past);-Mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive); -Person (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd);-Number (sing, pl). The verb-predicate agreed with the subject of the sentence in 2 gram categories: number and person. Morphological types:-Strong – 7 classes (now irregular verbs);-Weak – 3 classes with different stem-suffixes (now regular); -Preterit-present (now modals); -Anomalous (beon, gan, don, willan) – changed gram forms by changing roots (suppletive form buildig).300 strong v in OE: -The past tense is formed by changing the root vowel. (risan-ras); -Participle 2 is formed by -en, accompanied in some cases by the change of the root vowel. (takan-taken, beran-boren); -Strong v referred to Indo-European type. So they built past forms by ablaut (gradation – change of the root vowel); -They were root words (not derivatives); -Non-productive

-There were 4 principle parts: infinitive, past sing, past pl, participle2

Strong v were traditionally subdivided into 7 classes, depending on the type of vowel change. But all of them had the same endings: -an for the infinitive, no ending for the Past sing, -on for the Past pl, -en for Participle 2. As the time went on, many strong v transformed into weak. (Help, bake, laugh, bark). They began to form Past and Participle with the dental suffix instead of vowel gradation.

In ME the final syllables of the stems were weakened. (OE -an, -on, -en were all reduced to ME -en) In early NE most of them were lost in the infinitive and Past pl, but was sometimes preserved in Participle 2. In ME and ENE the distinction between Past sing and pl was removed by weakening of the ending -on. Some strong v dropped out of use owing to the changes in the vocabulary.

Weak. There were 900(3/4 of all v). The number of weak v was constantly growing since all new v derived from other stems were conjugated weak. Weak v are often derivatives from nouns, adj, strong v (talu- tellan, full-fullan, sittan-settan). They had 3 principle parts: infinitive,past and participle 2. Weak v refer to the German type. There were 3 classes. But class 2 deserves the special attention as it serves as a pattern for all newly produced or borrowed words starting from OE period. The past tense is formed with the dental suffix d/t (lician – licode, cepan – cepte). Participle 2 is also formed with the help of this suffix (cepan-cepte, lufian-lofod). The significant element is the suffix o preceding the dental suffix in the past or participle 2. Then o transformed into e. (OE -ode, EME –ede, LME –ed, NE –d/t).

The evolution of weak v in ME and ENE reveals a tendency towards greater regularity and order. ME – 2 classes of weak v.

Preterite-present v. Originally their Present tense forms were Past tense forms. Later these forms acquired a present meaning but preserved many formal features of the Past tense. Most of the v had new Past tense forms built with the help of the dental suffix. Some of them also acquired the forms of the verbals: Participles and Infinitives. In OE there were 12 pret-present v. 6 of them have survived in Mod E (OE āg> NE owe; cunnan, cann> can; dear(r)> dare; sculan, sceal> shall; magan, mǽg> may; mōt> must). Most didn’t indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb, an Infinitive that followed the preterite-present.

The rise of the perfect forms.The main source of the Perf form was the OE possessive construction, consisting of the verb habban (NE have), a direct object & Part II of a transitive verb. The meaning of the contruction was: a person (the subject) posessed a thing (the object), which was charact. by a certain state resulting from a previous action(the participle). The participle, like other attributes, agreed with the noun-object in Number, Gender & Case.

The other source of the Perf forms was the OE phrase consist. of the link-verb beon & Part II of intransitive verbs.Then the Participle usually stood close to the verb have & was followed by the object which referred now to the analytical form as a whole – instead of being governed by have. In the Perf form the auxiliary have had lost the meaning of possession & was used with all kinds of verbs, without restriction.For a long timePerf forms were used as synonyms of the Simple Past.

The rise of the passive forms.

The analytical passive forms developed from OE verb phrases consisting of OE beon (NE be) & weoröan (become) & Part II of transitive verbs. OE beon was used as a link-verb with a predicate expressed by Part II to denote a state resulting from a previous action, while the construction with OE weorböan indicated the transition into the state expressed by the participle. The participle, which served as predicative to these verbs, in OE agreed with the subject in number & gender. Now it could express not only a state but also an action. The new Pass forms had a regular means of indicating the doer of the action or the instrument with the help of which it was performed. P.f. began to be built from verbs associated with dif. Kinds of objects. In the beginning it was common for impersonal sentences 18, 19th cent. – high productivity of P.Voice soon continued its new verb paradigm – Gerund and the Continuous.

Non-finite forms & development.OE: 2 non-finite forms of v: the Inf.& the Participles. Their nominal features were more pronounced than their verbal feat. Inf had no verbal gram. categories. P-verbal adj. PI active meaning, expressed present or simultaneous process.<present tense-stem+ende> PII passive or act meaning dep. on transitivity of the v.,expressed states & qualities resulting from past act. <str v- root-vowel interchange+en/weak v- d/t+ pref ge>.The main trends of their evolution in ME & NE-gradual loss of most nominal features & growth of verbal feat.

The rise of the future forms.In OE category of tense consisted of Pr.& Past. Pr could indicate pr & fut actions. Fut happenings were also presented: modal phrases(v sculan, willan, magan, cunnan) & Infinitive of the notional verb. The meaning of fut was combined with strong modal meaning.

ME shall+inf=the principle means of indicating fut in any context. 17cent. John Wallis formulated the rule about regular interchange depending on person, which proves that the semantic diff b/n the 2 auxiliary v was slight. End of 17-constructive form ‘ll.