Oe vocabulary

• Old words can be replaced by new ones, perhaps loan words

• new phenomena – new words

• old words acquire new meanings

• some words become archaisms

1. 70% of NE Voc – borrowings

3% of OE Voc – borrowings

2. googol > google.com

3. …

4. 30 000 – 100 000 words in OE Voc

Native words

the oldest part of the E Voc

1) Common IE layer

• natural phenomena, plants and animals

• names of parts of human body

• verbs belonging to this layer denoting basic activities of man

• adjs indicate the most essential qualities

• personal & demonstrative pronouns & most numerals

2) the common Germanic layer

• words connected with nature

• sea

• everyday life

3) specifically OE

clipian – to call

hlaefdige – lady

wifman – woman

hlaford – lord

Borrowings

1) Celtic

• place names (Kent, Deira, Bernicia)

• many place names were hybrids (Latin – Chester, shire/wall/bury – Germanic)

• the names of rivers and hills (Thames, Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Dover, Wye)

• common nouns

binn – bin

cradol – cradle

dun – dark coloured

Dry – magician

2) Latin

• 1 layer (trade): win-winr, cycine-kitchen, pipor-pepper

• 2 layer (building & architecture): straet, weal

• 3 layer (religion, church, education): biscop, deofol, munuc, magister

• translation-loans (names of week)

Word structure

• simple (root) words

• derived words (with affixes)

• compound words

Word derivation

1) Suffixation (the most productive) nouns & adjs, seldom verbs

noun suffixes: suff of agent nouns, suff of anstract nouns

adj suffixes

Nouns: ere, man, ing/ung, scip, had

Adj: -ig, -isc, -lic

Adverb: -e

Verb: -s, -laec

2) Preffixation verbs (productive)

gan – agan – began – foregan...; un-

3) Sound interchanges vowel & consonant

sprecan (v) – spraece (n)

4) Word stress the verb had unstressed prefixes.

Me phonetics

Some letters disappeared: thorn (th), giefu (g, y), aesc (e), wyn (w).

New letters: G, J, K, V, Q, Z

Consonantal Diagraphs: ch (ч), dg, gh, th, ph, ch (к)

Vowel Diagraphs: ea (e:), ee (e:), oa (o: ), oo (o), ie (e: ), ow/ou (u: )

Some changes were made for ease of reading and for a better visual image of the word.

• k instead of c

• y instead of i

• w instead of u

Rules of reading:

1. g & c – [g & k] before back vowels, [dж & s] before front vowels

2. ‘y’ – [j] at the beginning of the words, otherwise – [i]

3. ‘th’ & ‘s’ – voiced between vowels & a vowel with voiced con-t

4. ‘f’ – only voiceless, ‘v’ – voiced.

5. ‘o’ – [u] next to the letters whose shape resembles the shape of the letter ‘u’. But sometimes in the same environment it could be read as [o]: sonne [sune], some [sume], not [not].

6. ‘ou, ow’ were interchangeable. They indicated [u:] in the words containing [u:] in OE and [au] in NE. If the modern word has [ou] it means that in ME it was read like [ou]: OE hus > ME hous [hu:s] > NE house; ME snow [ou] > NE snow.

7. ‘wh’ – [hw]

Unstressed – only schwa and e.

Quantitative changes:

1. Short vowels were lengthened before two consonants (a sonorant and a plosive): wild [i:]

2. Short vowels became long in open syllables.

3. Some long vowels became short in closed syllables.

Qualitative changes.

Three long monophthongs underwent changes:

1. labialized [y:] disappeared (different sounds, like e, u:, i: replaced it)

2. the long [a:] was narrowed to [o:]

3. the long [ae:] – [e:] back vowel

Two short monophthongs underwent changes:

1. the short [ae] – [a] back vowel

2. [y] – [i]

Diphthongs

1. OE [ie:], [ie] > ME [i:], [i] (nieht – night)

2. OE [ea:] > ME [e:] (read – reed – NE red)

3. OE [ea] > ME [a]

4. OE [eo:], [eo] > ME [e:], [e]

The sound [j] and [xг] between and after vowels changed into [i] & [u] (day). The change gave rise to 2 sets of diphthongs with i-glides and u-glides. + ow/ou – [ou]

	monophthongs	diphthongs
short	i e a o u	ei ai oi au
long	i: e: a: o: u:	ou: au:

Consonants

1) Development of sibilants & affricates in EME

k’ – ч

g’ – дж

sk – ш

2) [f] and [v] – the new phonological treatment of fricatives

• loanwords from French: vine (fine), view (few), veal (feel)

• dialect mixing (fox) vixen

• loss of final vowels in unstressed syllables: husian - house [z]

• voiced consonants require less energy to pronounce

3) loss of quantitative opposition in the consonant system

4) [j] & [r] became vocalized under certain phonetic conditions – finally and before consonants, but

they were also used initially.

5) some con-s were lost in cluster. [x] only initially, followed by a vowel, as an aspirated [h]

hund OE – ME hound [hu:nd]

hlaense OE – ME leene [le:ne] – NE lean