- •МThe old Germanic langs, their classification and principal features
- •2. The common features of Germanic langs
- •The Scandinavian invasion and its effect on English.
- •The Norman Conquest and its effect on English.
- •Principal oe & me written records
- •Spelling changes in me
- •Oe sound system. Vowel & consonant changes in oe.
- •Monophthongs in the history of English
- •12. Consonant changes in the history of English
- •14. Oe noun system
- •13. Form-building means in the history of English
- •15. The simplification of the noun declension in English
- •16. The development of personal pronounce in the history of English
- •17. The development of the adj in the history of English
- •18. The development of demonst pronouns
- •19. Oe verbal system
- •20. Oe weak verbs and their further development
- •21. Oe strong verbs & their further dev-t
- •22. Oe preterite-present & anomalous verbs & their further development
- •23. Changes in the verb conjugation in the e
- •24. The rise of analytical forms within the verbal system in e
- •25. Verbals in the history of English
- •26. The cause of changes in the morphol-l system in me &ne
- •Diphthongs in the history of English
- •27. The principal features of oe syntax
- •28. The main trends in the development of e syntax
- •29. Oe vocabulary & its etymological character-cs
- •30. The main trends in word-formation in e
- •31. Borrowing as a source of the replen-t of e vocabulary in me & ne
14. Oe noun system
As it has been mentioned in Lecture 14, the Noun had the following categories in OE: Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl). Case – Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc). Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N): 1)Originally (in PG) it was a semantic division (he/she/it – associated with the lexical meaning of a noun), but in OE this principle did not work any more; 2)In OE the nouns started to be groupped into genders according to the suffix. System of Declensions : Though the stem-suffixes merged with the root, declensions were still existent in OE and were based on the former IE stem-suffixes:
a-stem – the most numerous declension and proved to be productive (M, N).
Traces of a-stem in Modern English: -es (M, Sg, Gen) ‘s (student’s book) – Possessive Case; -as (M, Pl, Nom) -(e)s (watches, books) – plural ending for the majority of nouns; - (N, Pl, Nom) zero ending (deer, sheep) – homogeneous Sg and Pl.
n-stem (M, N, F): Traces of n-stem in Modern English: -an (M, Pl, Nom) -en (oxen, children, brethren) – irregular plural ending.
root-stem – never had stem-suffix, words consisted of just a root (M, F): Traces of root-stem in Modern English: root-sound interchange (M, Pl, Nom) root-sound interchange (men, geese, mice) – irregular Plural.
13. Form-building means in the history of English
In OE the vocabulary mainly grew by means of word-formation. 3 main types: 1) -simple words (=root-words) – words consisting of a root-morpheme with no suffixes (god, land) 2)- derived words (a root-morpheme + 1 or more affixes): be-ginnan 3)- compound words (more than 1 root-morpheme): feower-tiene (fourteen), mann-cynn (mankind)
1. sound interchange: -i-mutation verbs from nouns:(food-feed), verbs from adj: full – fill, nouns from adj.: long – length
-consonantal interchanges: death – dead
2. word stress (not frequent) to differ-te between parts of speech
3. prefixation ( - IE prefix (OE neg. un-), - Germ. Pref-s (OE mis-, ofer-), - to modify lexical meaning)
4. suffixation (-dom, -nes, -lic, ful-, scipe-)
The rise of analytical forms in verbal system in NE: NE: -continuous; -do-forms; -future tense; -Perfect; -Passive; -Subjunctive
-1- Future – 17th c. John Wallis – the rule: shall – 1st p, will – 2,3rd p
-2- Perfect – only the auxiliary habban was left while beon ceased to be used in the Perf. Forms not to confuse them with Passive forms (though some of the forms are still left)
-3- Subj. Mood – analytical forms appeared: leten (let), neden (need).sholde/ wolde soon weakened their modal meaning and became auxiliaries.
Pecularities: sh/w + Inf – simult act; sh/w + Perf Inf – preced. act.
-4- Cont-s – 18th c. Cont forms became well-established
18th c. Cont forns in Passive were accepted as a norm (but clumsy and non grammatical)
-5- Do-forms – in the 16th c. in negative, affirm, interr.
17th c. only in negat. And interr. To keep word order S+P+O in affirm. Sent. Do acquired an emphatic meaning.
The grammatical forms of the words were built by means of: Suppletion (inherited from Indo-European) – the usage of 2 or more different roots as forms of one and the same word: Inflections (inherited from Indo-European) – though in the Germanic languages inflections were simpler and shorter than in other Indo-European languages.
Let’s take the system of declensions as an example. In PG it was well-developed but in the Old Germanic languages, due to the stress that was fixed on the root and the weakening of the end of a word as a result, the declensions started to disappear. While the nouns and adjectives still preserved stem-suffixes, they had declensions but once the stem suffixes started to weaken and disappear, the declensions were lost as well and the endings were simplified and got fewer: Sound Interchange – the usage of interchange of vowels and consonants for the purpose of word- and form-building (e.g.: English: bear – birth, build – built, tooth – teeth; German: gebären – Geburt)
Ablaut/Vowel Gradation – an independent vowel interchange, unconnected with any phonetic conditions (phonetic environment/surrounding) used to differentiate between grammatical forms of one and the same word. The Germanic ablaut was consistently used in building the principle forms of strong verbs. Jacob Grimm has subdivided all the verbs into two groups according to the way they build their principle forms:
Suffixation dental suffixes in weak verbs
Analytical Forms
In OE there were no analytical forms. They appeared later:
ME – Future Tense, Perfect, Passive and Subjunctive forms;
NE – Continuous and Do-forms;
and had the following characteristics:
They consisted of 2 elements:
-a verb of broad semantics and high frequency: habben, beon (an auxiliary);
-a non-finite form (Infinitive, Participle 1, 2).