This outline history covers the main events in the historical development of English language: the history of its phonetic structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammar system, the growth of its vocabulary and also the changing historical conditions of English speaking communities relevant to language history.

Germanic languages.

Languages can be classified according to different principals: the historical or genealogical classification, groups languages in accordance with their origin from accomant ancestor. Genetically English belongs to Germanic or Teutonic group of languages. Which is one of the twelve linguistic groups. According to the map or the area which languages occupy< Germanic is one of the major groups. The Germanic languages in the modern words are the following: English, German, Netherlands, Africans, Danish, (Flanders), Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Frischian, Faroese, Yiddish. Recently Dutch and Flemich were named as saint languages. Frishient and Faroes are oftenly as dialects. The linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned, because it’s demixed with Danish. British England and American sometimes looked as independence languages. It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic languages, especially in belingvial countries. The number of the English speaking people rage from 250-300 million people. The number total of Germanic people about 400 million people. And the number where English is official language is over 50.

Phonetics. Word stress. The pequile Germanic system of word stress is one of important distinguish … It arrows in P.G period. And was fully or partly retained in several lang. and surved as one of the major causes for many linguistic changes. It is known that proud of G. lang. , their existed two ways of exestuation: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was free and mooveboll. Both this properties of the word assent were changed in P.G Forth stress also could as breath stress became the type of only stress used. And the stress became the first sillable. Which was usually the rud of the word and some time the prefix. This feature was inherited by other G. language The following English and German words illustrate it’s fix position in grammatical form and rising. Become-becoming-othercome

The heavy fix word stress inharitated from P.G has played an important role in the development of G. lang. And especially in phonetic and morphologies changes.

Vowels. Through all the history begging with P.G vowels continence to change. Their undervent different kinds of antiversions: qualiting and quantetive, depended and in depended. Quality chan.-effect of quality of sounds. O-A, P-F

German has often been viewed by non-Germans as a harsh sounding language. That may be due in part to the more guttural pronunciation of certain German alphabet sounds and diphthongs and perhaps even a still lingering effect of old WWII movie stereotypes. Once non-German speakers familiarize themselves with German’s different sounds however, another kind of poetic beauty will unfold before them that has been revered worldwide in the works of many German greats, such as Goethe, Schiller through prose and song.

How does the German alphabet differ from the English alphabet?

Unique Traits of the German Alphabet:  More than 26 letters in the alphabet - German has a so called extended latin alphabet  The extra letters are ä, ö, ü and ß

 The pronunciation of some of these letters do not exist in the English language  Several letters are pronounced more from the back of the throat: g, ch, r (though in Austria the r is trilled).   The W in German sounds like the V in English  The V in German sounds like the F in English  Most of the time the S in German sounds like Z in English when placed at the beginning of a word followed by a vowel. The letter ß is the only letter that will never be at the beginning of a word. Old English

English evolved from the Germanic languages brought to Britain by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other Germanic tribes from about the 5th Century AD. These languages are known collectively as Anglo-Saxon or Old English, which began to appear in writing during the early 8th century AD.

English acquired vocabulary from Old Norse after Norsemen starting settling in parts of Britain, particularly in the north and east, from the 9th century. To this day dialects of English spoken in northern England contain more words of Norse origin than other varieties of English.

Middle English

The Norman invasion of 1066 brought with it a deluge of Norman and Latin vocabulary, and for the next three centuries English became a mainly oral language spoken by ordinary people, while the nobility spoke Norman, which became Anglo-Norman, and the clergy spoke Latin. When English literature began to reappear in the 13th century the language had lost the inflectional system of Old English, and the spelling had changed under Norman influence. For example, the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth) were replaced by th. This form of English is known as Middle English.

Modern English

By about the 15th century Middle English had evolved into Early Modern English, and continued to absorb numerous words from other languages, especially from Latin and Greek. Printing was introduced to Britain by William Caxton in around 1469, and as a result English became increasingly standardised. The first English dictionary, Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, was published in 1604.

During the medieval and early modern periods English spread from England to Wales, Scotland and other parts of the British Isles, and also to Ireland. From the 17th century English was exported to other parts of the world via trade and colonization, and it developed into new varities wherever it went. English-based pidgins and creoles also developed in many places, such as on island in Caribbean and in parts of Africa.

The O.E period characteriste by the existence of the lang. In the formular several dialects. The connection of word was perfomed trough the sgs ending. The word formal was free, and double negative was possible. The first English used runes. 24 in German and 30 in England. The stress was dynamic and shifted to the first syllable and the first word after… 7-8 short vowels, 6-7 long vowels. There four diphthongs ae, io, ie, iou The most frequent ending: aei it different verbs from noun. Consense: labial: p, b, m, f, v ; dental: s, z, t, d, n, r; velar: g, h

6) The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law. Early varieties of Germanic enter history with the Germanic peoples settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire in the second century.

The most widely spoken Germanic languages are English and German, with approximately 400 million and 100 million native speakers respectively Fact|date=June 2008. The group includes other major languages, such as Dutch with 23 million Fact|date =June 2008 and Afrikaanswith over 16 million speakers Fact|date =June 2008; and the North Germanic languages including Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese with a combined total of about 20 million speakers Fact|date=June 2008. In Netherland Frisian is being spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of the province Friesland/Fryslân. The SIL "Ethnologue" lists 53 different Germanic languages.

Proto-Germanic  West Germanic languages High German languages standard German  Central German East Central German West Central German  Luxembourgish Pennsylvania German (spoken by the Amish and other groups in southeastern Pennsylvania)  Upper German Alemannic German Swabian German, including Stuttgart Low Alemannic German, including the area of Lake Constance and Basel German Alsatian High Alemannic German, including Zürich German and Bernese German Highest Alemannic German, including the Bernese Oberland dialects and Walliser German Austro-Bavarian German North Bavarian (including Nuremberg) Middle Bavarian (including Munich and Vienna) South Bavarian (including Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, and Bolzano, Italy) Hutterite German (aka "Tirolean") Yiddish (with a significant influx of vocabulary from Hebrew and other languages, and traditionally written in the Hebrew alphabet) Wymysorys (with a significant influence from Low Saxon, Dutch, Polish, and Scots) Low Franconian Standard Dutch Old Dutch Middle Dutch Modern Dutch Brabantic Zealandic West Flemish East Flemish Hollandic Limburgish Zuid-Gelders Afrikaans (with a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages) Low German West Low German Northern Low Saxon East Frisian Low Saxon Westphalian language Eastphalian language East Low German Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low Saxon) Anglo-Frisian Old Frisian Frisian Stadsfries language West Frisian language (spoken in the Netherlands) Clay Frisian (Klaaifrysk) Wood Frisian (Wâldfrysk) Noardhoeks South Frisian (Súdhoeks) Southwest Frisian (Súdwesthoeksk) Schiermonnikoogs Hindeloopers Aasters Westers East Frisian language (spoken in Germany) Saterland Frisian language Several extinct Frisian variants North Frisian language (spoken in Germany) Mainland Frisian Mooring Goesharde Frisian Wiedingharde Frisian Halligen Frisian Karrharde Frisian Island Frisian Söl'ring Fering Öömrang Heligolandic Anglic Old English Middle English (significant influx of words from Old French) Early Modern English Modern English British English (English English, including Northern English, Midlands English, Southern English, Welsh English, Scottish English, and others) and Irish English North American English (American English and Canadian English) Australian English and New Zealand English South African English South Asian English (Indian English) South East Asian English (Philippine English, Singapore English, and Malaysian English) West Indian English (Caribbean English) Early Scots [A term widely used by scholars of the language, for example, ******** Middle Scots Modern Scots Northern Scots North Northern (Scandinavian influence via Norn) Mid Northern (North East Scots or Doric) South Northern Central Scots North East Central South East Central West Central South West Central Scots Ulster Scots Southern Scots Insular Scots (Scandinavian influence via Norn) Yola North Germanic Proto-Norse Old Norse West Scandinavian  Norwegian (genealogically Western branch, but heavy influence from Eastern branch) Bokmål (official written standard) Høgnorsk (unofficial written standard) Landsmål (unofficial written standard) Nynorsk (official written standard)  Riksmål (unofficial written standard) Vestlandsk Sørlandsk South-West Norwegian Bergen Norwegian/Bergensk North-West Norwegian Nord-Norsk Helgeland Norwegian Nordland Norwegian Troms Norwegian Finnmark Norwegian East Norwegian Vikvær Norwegian Middle East Norwegian Oppland Norwegian Østerdal Norwegian Midland Norwegian Gudbrandsdal Norwegian Valdres and Hallingdal Western Telemark Norwegian Eastern Telemark Norwegian Trøndelag Norwegian Outer Trøndelag Norwegian Inner Trøndelag Norwegian Namdal Norwegian South-eastern Trøndersk Jamtlandic (also considered Norrlandic) Icelandic Old Icelandic Modern Icelandic Gøtudanskt("Faroese Street Danish") Faroese Norn (extinct) Shetland Norn (extinct) Orkney Norn (extinct) East Scandinavian Danish Rigsdansk/Rigsmål Eastern Danish (Amager, Bornholm, Skåne, Halland, Blekinge) Bornholmsk Scanian Island Danish Jutlandic/Jutish North Jutlandic East Jutlandic West Jutlandic Sønderjysk (Danish Slesvig, German Schleswig) Swedish Dalecarlian Elfdalian Old Swedish Modern Swedish Svealand Swedish Norrlandic Götish East Swedish/Finland Swedish South Swedish Götalandic Old Gutnish Modern Gutnish

Alternate classification of contemporary North Germanic languages Insular Scandinavian

 Icelandic Faroese Continental Scandinavian Danish, Norwegian, Swedish

7)

8) There were about three hundred strong verbs in O.E. They were native words descending from P.G with parallels in other OG languages: many of them had a high frequency of occurrence and were basis items of the vocabulary widely used in word derivation and word comppounding

Class 1  This class is characterized by a long vowel single consonant root syllable, specifically -íC where C is any singular cosonant. The root vowels and their changes go as follows.

Present: -í- Past Sg.: -á- Past Pl.: -i- Past Part.: -i-

Examples of this class of verb are dífan, dráf, drifon, drifen (drive), rísan, rás, rison, risen (rise), bídan, bád, bidon, biden (abide).

Class 2  This class was actually characterized by two present tense vowel roots, -éo and -ú, that followed ablaut in exactly the same fashion. They are also of the -VC template. There is no way of telling whether a verb has a present tense form with -ú or with -éo from looking at its other ablauted forms; their roots of development go a very long way into ancient Indo-European history from different vowel grades.

Present: -éo-/-ú- Past Sg.: -éa- Past Pl.: -u- Past Part.: -o-

Examples include dréopan, dréap, drupon, dropen (drip), slúpan, sléap, slupon, slopen (slip), and léogan, léag, lugon, logen (lie).

Class 3  Things looked pretty easy until now, didn't they? No longer. The third class of strong verbs is characterized by the template -VCC, where V is a short vowel. In distant times before Old English was written, the original pattern of ablaut was e, a, u, and u. Through process of vowel change, this class split into five different sub-categories . The linguistic phenomona behind these changes can be traced, for example category 1 illustrates the fronting of the short a in West Germanic languages, while category 3 undergoes a process called 'breaking' related to the presence of a syllabic r in the stem. Mostly though, one will just need to memorize the principle parts of strong class three verbs. Here are the subcategories.

Category 1 Present: -e- Past Sg.: -æ- Past Pl.: -u- Past Part.: -o-

Category 2 Present: -e- Past Sg.: -ea- Past Pl.: -u- Past Part.: -o-

Category 3 Present: -eor- Past Sg.: -ear- Past Pl.: -ur- Past Part.: -ur-

Category 4 Present: -ie- Past Sg.: -ea- Past Pl.: -u- Past Part.: -o-

Category 5 Present: -i- Past Sg.: -a- Past Pl.: -u- Past Part.: -u-

Examples for all five categories are bregdan, bægd, brugdon, brogden (shake), helpan, healp, hulpon, holpen (help), beorcan, bearc, burcon, burcen(bark), gielpan, gealp, gulpon, golpen (boast), and drincan, dranc, druncon, druncen (drink).

Class 4  Class four strong verbs are characterized by a short -e- followed by a liquid consonant, either 'r' or 'l'.

Present: -e- Past Sg.: -æ- Past Pl.: -áé- Past Part.: -o-

Examples include stelan, stæl, stáélon, stolen (steal) and beran, bær, báéron, boren (bare). There aren't many of them.

Class 5  Almost exactly the same as class four, except that the short -e- was followed by a different single consonant. The Past participle changed to -e-, in this case. Examples include sprecan, spæc, spéácon, sprecen (speak) and awrecan, awræc, awréácon, awrecen (recite). Again, not many of these.

Class 6  This class had a short -a- in the root syllable. Because of a tendency to to front the 'a' in West Germanic languages, the past participle form often took an -æ- (more natural than the -a-). By analogy with the infinitive, however, this was sometimes morphed back into an -a- again. In other words, just memorize the past participle form, it will cause less headaches.

Present: -a- Past Sg.: -ó- Past Pl.: -ó- Past Part.: -a-/-æ-

Examples include wascan, wósc, wóscon, wascen (wash), bacan, bóc, bócon, bacen (bake), and faran, fór, fóron, færen (go).

Class 7  Regular root syllable? Predictable past participle? BWAHAHAhahahahaha..ha.. heh heh *cough*. Anything could be a class seven verb, no matter the root syllable. Memorization is your friend.

Present: you wish Past Sg.: -é- Past Pl.: -é- Past Part.: start weeping now

Examples include láétan, lét, léton, láéten (let), feallan, féoll, féollon, feallen (fall), and bláwan, bléow, bléowon, bláwen (blow).

9)

10) Changes of stressed vowels in Early Old English

The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.

Independent changes. Development of monophthongs

The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.

Development of diphthongs

The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].

Assimilative vowel changes: Breaking and Diphthongization

The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fracture. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”.

Palatal mutation

Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. mūs and mўs). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. We find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mўs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding –iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g.mouse – mice, foot – feet, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut).

11)

Weakening of vowels

Phonetic reduction most often involves a centralization of the vowel, that is, a reduction in the amount of movement of the tongue in pronouncing the vowel, as with the characteristic change of many unstressed vowels at the ends of English words to something approaching schwa. A well-researched type of reduction is that of the neutralization of acoustic distinctions in unstressed vowels, which occurs in many languages. The most common reduced vowel is schwa.

Whereas full vowels are distinguished by height, backness, and roundness, according to Bolinger (1989), reduced unstressed vowels are largely unconcerned with height or roundness. English /ə/, for example, may range phonetically from mid [ə] to [ɐ] to open [a]; English /ɨ/ ranges from close [i], [ɪ], [e], to open-mid [ɛ]. The primary distinction is that /ɨ/is further front than /ə/, contrasted in the numerous English words ending in unstressed -ia. That is, the jaw, which to a large extent controls vowel height, tends to be relaxed when pronouncing reduced vowels. Similarly, English /ɵ/ ranges through [ʊ] and [o]; although it may be labialized to varying degrees, the lips are relaxed in comparison to /uː/, /ou/, or /ɔː/. The primary distinction in words like folio is again one of backness. However, the backness distinction is not as great as that of full vowels; reduced vowels are also centralized, and are sometimes referred to by that term. They may also be called obscure, as there is no one-to-one correspondence between full and reduced vowels. (Bolinger 1989:347)

Centralisation isn't the only form of reduction, however. Many Germanic languages, in their early stages, reduced the number of vowels that could occur in unstressed syllables, without (or before) clearly showing centralisation. In Old Norse, for example, only three vowels were written in unstressed syllables: a, i and u (their exact phonetic quality is unknown). Old English, meanwhile, distinguished only e, a, and u (or o). Catalan, a Romance language, also shows reduction, but in differing degrees depending on dialect. The Valencian dialect reduces the number of possible vowels from seven to five in unstressed environments, merging [ɛ] into [e] and [ɔ] into [o]. The central Catalan dialect goes even further, distinguishing only [i], [u] and [ə] or [ɐ], with [ɛ] and [e] becoming [ə] and [ɔ] and [o] merging into [u].

Sound duration is a common factor in reduction: In fast speech, vowels are reduced due to physical limitations of the articulatory organs, e.g., the tongue cannot move to a prototypical position fast or completely enough to produce a full-quality vowel. Compare: clipping (phonetics). Different languages have different types of vowel reduction, and this is one of the difficulties in language acquisition; see, e.g., "Non-native pronunciations of English" and "Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages". Vowel reduction of second language speakers is a separate study.

Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of Indo-European ablaut, as well as other changes reconstructed by historical linguistics.

Such vowel reduction is one of the sources of distinction between a spoken language and its written counterpart. Vernacular and formal speech often have different levels of vowel reduction, and so the term "vowel reduction" is also applied to differences in a language variety with respect to, e.g., the language standard.

Some languages, such as Finnish, Hindi, and classical Spanish, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. Such languages are often called syllable-timed languages. At the other end of the spectrum, Mexican Spanish is characterized by the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/. It can be the case that the words pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same: [ˈpesə̥s]. In the same way, Slovene has a stressed reduced vowel: /e/ appears as schwa [ə] in some reducing environments (such as /er/ when no other vowel is adjacent), even when the syllable is stressed.

12) The O.E noun had two grammatical or morphological categories: number and case. The category of number consisted of two members, singular and plural. The noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. In most declensions two, or even three, forms were homonymous, so that the formal distinction of cases was less consistent than that of numbers. The Nom. Can be loosely defined as the case of the active agent , for it was the case of the subject mainly used with the verbs denoting activity; the Nom. Could also indicate the subject characterised by a certain quality or stat; could serve as a predicative and as the case of address, there being no special Vocative case.

The Genitive was primarily the case of nouns and pronouns serving as attributes to other nouns. The meanings of the Gen. were very complex and can only roughly be grouped under the headings “Subjective” and “Objective” Gen. subjective Gen. is associated with the possessive meaning and the meaning of origin

Dat. Was the chief case used with prepositions. The O.E Dat. Could convey an instrumental meaning, indicating the means or manner of an action. The Acc. case, above all, was the form that indicated a relationship to a verb. It is important to note that there was considerable fluctuation in the use of cases in O.E. One and the same verb could be construed with different cases without any noticeable change of meaning. The semantic functions of the Gen. , Dat. And Acc. as objects commonly overlapped and required further specification by means of prepositions. The vague meaning of cases was of great consequence for the subsequent changes of the case system.

13, 14) The adjective in O.E could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a predicative. Like nouns adj. had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adj. differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adj. served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning-e.g.

Weak and Strong declension.

As in other OG lang., most adj. in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and to the strong declension. The formal differences between the declensions, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes in PG: vocalic: a, o, u and i and consonantal n. Accordingly, there developed sets of endings of a-stems of nouns for adj. in the Masc. and Neut. and of o-stems- in the Fem., with some differences between long and short-stemmed adj. and some remnants of other stems. Some endings in the strong declensions of adj. have no parallels in the noun paradigms; they are similar to the endings of of pronouns:-um for Dat. sg, ne- for Acc. sg Masc. in some Fem. And pl endings. Therefore the strong declensions of adj. in sometimes called the “pronominal” declension. As for the weak declension. It uses the same markers as n-stems of nouns except that in in the Gen. pl the pronominal ending –ra is often used instead of the weak – ena . The difference

between the strong and weak declension of adj. was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adj. did not belong to a certain type of declension. Most adj. could b e declined in both ways. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adj., the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adj. had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determines. The weak form was employed when the adj. was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun of the Gen. case of personal pronouns. Therefore the weak forms were regular y used together with demonstrative pronouns. The formal and semantic opposition between the two declensions of adj. is regarded by some historians as a grammatical category which can be named “the category of definiteness/indefiniteness. In later OE the distinction of forms in the adj. paradigm became even more blurred. The Instr. Case fell together with the Dat. Numerous variant forms with phonetically reduced endings or with markers borrowed from other forms through analogy impaired the distinction of categorical forms.

15) OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns; personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefi­nite. As for the other groups — relative, possessive and reflexive — they were as yet not fully developed and were not always distinctly separat­ed from the four main classes. The grammatical categories of the pro­nouns were either similar to those of nouns (in "noun-pronouns") or corresponded to those of adjectives (in "adjective pronouns"). Some fea­tures of pronouns were peculiar to them alone. In OE, while nouns consistently distinguished between four cases, personal pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of the Dat. case of the pronouns of the 1st and 2nd p. were fre­quently used instead of the Acc; in fact the fusion of these two cases in the pi was completed in the WS dialect already in Early OE: Acc. eowic and Hsic were replaced by Dat. eow, as; in the sg usage was variable, but variant forms revealed the same tendency to generalise the form of the Dat. for both cases. It is important to note that Ihe Gen. case of personal pronouns had two main applications: like other oblique cases of noun-pronouns it could be an object, but far more frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a possessive pronoun, e. g. sunu min, his fsder (NE my son, his father). Though forms of the Gen. case were em­ployed as possessive pronouns, they cannot be regarded as possessive pronouns proper (that is, as a separate class of pronouns). The grammati­cal characteristics of these forms were not homogeneous. The forms of the 1st and 2nd p. — min, are and others —were declined like adjectives to show agreement with the nouns they modified, while the forms of the 3rd p. behaved like nouns: they remained uninflected and did not agree with the nouns they modified.

16)  Word-building means in Old English Word Structure According to their morphological structure OE words fell into three main types: 1) simple words (“root-words”) containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes, e.g. land, зōd. 2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes, e.g. be-зinnan. 3) compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme, e.g. mann-cynn.

17) The full extent of the OE vocabulary is not known to present-day scholars. There is no doubt that many words have not been recorded in the extant texts at all. The evidence of the records has been supple­mented from other sources: from the study of the words of closely related OG languages and from later, more extensive ME texts.

Modern estimates of the total vocabulary of OE range from about thirty thousand words to almost one hundred thousand (A. I. Smir-nitsky, M. Pei), — the latter figure being probably too high and unreal­istic. (Among other causes the differences in the estimates depend on the treatment of polysemy and homonymy. But even the lowest esti­mates show that OE had already developed about as many words as used by a present-day cultured English speaker.) Despite the gaps in the accessible data, philological studies in the last centuries have given us a fairly complete outline of the OE vocabulary as regards its etymology, word structure, word-building and stylistic differentiation.

18) The Roman Invasion of Britain In 55 and 54BC Julius Caesar came to Britain with a Roman Army. Both times he made some progress into England before returning to France having not successfully conquered Britain. Caesar reported that the Britons were a strange breed of people, that they dyed themselves blue and were very barbaric. Caesar's visit may not have overwhelmed the island but the Romans now new that Britain really did exist (many people thought that it was a magical or even made up Island before his visit) and that it had lots of valuable crops and minerals. Ideas of invading Britain faded until Claudius became Emperor in AD41. He was eager for people to think of him as a strong man and knew that a successful war would make people in Rome like him. he chose to invade Britain.  The Roman Army sailed from Boulogne in France across the English Channel and landed at Richborough in Kent. The British tribes met the Romans in a fiercely fought battle at the River Medway . After much bloodshed the Romans emerged victorious and 4 Legions went on to conquer all of England, much of Wales and parts of Scotland.  Remains of the time that the Romans were in control of Britain are not hard to find. The City of York has much that was made at this time and Hadrian's Wall is testament to the impact of the Romans on this country.

19) Latin Influence on the Old English Vocabulary

The role of the Latin language in Medieval Britain is clearly manifest; it was determined by such historical events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the influence of the Roman civilisation and the introduction of Christianity. It is no wonder that the Latin language exerted considerable influence on different aspects of English: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. The impact of Latin ₀n the OE vocabulary enables us to see the spheres of Roman influence _on the life in Britain.

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into several layers.

The earliest layer comprises words which the WG tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilisation began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon inva­sion (see § 91).

The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years. Though the Romans left Britain before the settlement of the West Teut­ons, Latin words could be transmitted to them by the Romanised Celts.

Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and con­cepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and home life.

Words connected with trade indicate general concepts, units of measurements and articles of trade unknown to the Teutons before they came into contact with Rome: OE ceapian, ceap, сёартап and mansion, man^uns, manzere ('to trade', 'deal', 'trader', 'to trade', 'trading', 'trader') came from the Latin names for 'merchant' — caupo and mango.

Evidently, the words were soon assimilated by the language as they yielded many derivatives.

Units of measurement and containers were adopted with their Lat­in names: OE pund (NE pound), OE ynce (NE Inch) from L pondo and uncia,OEmynet,mynetian ('coin', 'to coin'),OE flasce, ciest (NE flask, chest).

The following words denote articles of trade and agricultural prod­ucts, introduced by the Romans: OE win (from L vinum), OE butere (from L batyrum), OE plume (from L prunus), OE ciese (from L caseus), OE pipar (from L piper), (NE wine, butter, plum, cheese, pepper).

Roman contribution to building can be perceived in words like OE cealc, ti$ele, coper (NE chalk, tile, copper). A group of words relating to domestic life is exemplified by OE cytel, disc, cuppe, pyle (NE kettle, dish, cup, pillow), etc.

Borrowings pertaining to military affairs are OE mil (NE mile) from L mi Ilia passuum, which meant a thousand steps made to measure the distance; OE weall (NE wait) from L vallum, a wall of fortifications erected in the Roman provinces; OE str&t from Latin strata via, — a

"paved road" (these "paved roads" were laid to connect Roman military camps and colonies in Britain; the meaning of the word changed when houses began to be built along these roads, hence NE street); to this group of words belong also OE pit 'javelin', OE putt (NE pile, pit). There is every reason to suppose that words of the latter group could be borrowed in Britain, for they look as direct traces of the Roman occu­pation (even though some of these words also occur in the continental Germanic tongues, cf. G Stra/Je).

Among the Latin loan-words adopted in Britain were some place-names or components of place-names used by the Celts. L castra in the shape cosier, ceaster 'camp' formed OE place-names which sur-. vive' today as Chester, Dorchester, Lancaster and the like (some of them with the first element coming from Celtic); Lcolonia 'settlement,for re­tired soldiers' is found in Colchester and in the Latin-Celtic hybrid Lin­coln; L vicus 'village' appears in Norwich, Woolwich, L partus — in Bridport and Devonport (see also the examples in §234). Place-names made of Latin and Germanic components are: Portsmouth, Greenport, Greenwich and many others.

It should be noted that the distinction of two layers of early Latin bor­rowings is problematic, lor it is next to impossible to assign precise dates to events so far back in history. Nevertheless, it seems more reasonable to assume that the earlier, continental layer of loan words was more numerous than the laypr made in Britain. In the first place, most OE words quoted above have parallels in other OG languages, which is easily accounted for if the borrowings were made by the Teutons before their migrations. At that time transference of loan-words Irom tribe to tribe was easy, even if they were first adopted by one tribe. Second­ly, we oufeht to recall that the relations between the Germanic conquerors and the subjugated Britons in Britain could hardly be favourable for extensive borrowing.

The third period of Latin influence on the OE vocabulary began with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6th c. and lasted to the end of OE.

Numerous Latin words which found their way into the English lan­guage during these five hundred years clearly fall into two main groups: (1) words pertaining to religion, (2) words connected with learning. The rest are miscellaneous words denoting various objects and concepts which the English learned from Latin books and from closer acquaint­ance with Roman culture. The total number of Latin loan-words in OE exceeds five hundred, this third layer accounting for over four hundred words.

The new religion introduced a large number of new concep­tions which required new names; most of thern were adopted from Lat­in, some of the words go back to Greek prototypes:

OE apostol NE apostle from L apostolus from Gr apostolos

antefn anthem antiphona antiphona

bfscop bishop eptscopus episcopos

candel candle candela

clerec clerk clericus klerikds

'clergyman'

deofol devil diabolus diabolos

ma?sse mass missa

mynster minster monasterium

тигшс monk monachus monachcs

To this list we may add many more modern English words from the same source: abbot, alms, altar, angel, ark, creed, disciple, hymn, idol, martyr, noon, nun, organ, palm, pine ('torment'), pope, prophet, psalm, psalter, shrine, relic, rule, temple and others.

After the introduction of Christianity many monastic schools were set up in Britain. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was conducted in Latin, or consisted of learning Latin. The written forms of OE developed in translations of Latin texts. These conditions are reflected in a large number of borrowings connected with education, and also words of a more academic, "bookish" character. Unlike the earlier borrowings scholarly words were largely adopted through books; they were first used in OE translations from Latin, e.g.:

OE scol NE school L schola (Gr skhole)

scolere scholar scholaris

ma^ister master, 'teacher' magister

fers verse versus

dihtan 'compose' dictare

Other modern descendants of this group are; accent, grammar, meter, gloss, notary, decline.

A great variety of miscellaneous borrowings came from Latin probably because they indicated new objects and new ideas, introduced into English life together with their Latin names by those who had a fair command of Latin: monks, priests, school-masters. Some of these scholarly words became part of everyday vocabulary. They belong to different semantic spheres: names of trees and plants — elm, lily, plant, pine; names of illnesses and words pertaining to medical treatment — cancer, fever, paralysis, plaster; names of animals — camel, elephant, tiger; names of clothes and household articles — cap, mat, sacfe, socfe; names of foods — beet, caul, oyster, radish; miscellaneous words — crisp, fan, place, spend, turn.

The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of them is the appearance of the so-called "translation-loans"-— words and phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations. The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the week found not only in OE but also in other Old (and modern) Germanic languages:

OE Мопап-ожо (Monday) 'day of the moon', L Lunae dies;

Tiwes-dxi (Tuesday) May of Tiw' L Mortis dies (Tfw — a Teutonic God corresponding to Roman Mars).

The procedure was to substitute the name of the corresponding Ger­manic god for the god of the Romans. Other translation-loans of the type were OE ^odspell (NE gospel) 'good tidings', L euangelium; OE priness (lit. 'three-ness'), NE Trinity.

In late OE, many new terms were coined from native elements ac­cording to Latin models as translation-loans: OE еогрЫ%епъа 'inhabitant of the earth' (L terricola); OE zoldsmip (NE goldsmith) 'worker in gold' (L aurifex); OE tun^olcrseft 'astronomy', lit. 'the knowledge of stars' <L astronomos).

Some grammatical terms in ^lfric's GRAMMAR are of the same origin: OE dSlnimend 'participle', lit. 'taker of parts' (L participium); OE nemniiendlic (L Nominatious), OE wre^endlic 'Accusative', lit. 'accusing, denouncing' (L Accusativus). This way of replenishing the vocabulary may be regarded as a sort of resistance to foreign influence: instead of adopting a foreign word, an equivalent was produced from native resources in accordance with the structure of the term.

Another question which arises in considering borrowings from a foreign language is the extent of their assimilation. Most Latin loan­words were treated in OE texts like native words, which means that they were already completely assimilated.

Judging by their spellings and by later phonetic changes they were naturalised as regards their sound form. . Like native English words, early Latin loan-words participated in the sound changes, e.g. in disc and ciese the consonants tskl and [k'l were palatalised and eventually changed into Ц] and [Ц] (NE dish, cheese). Note that some later bor­rowings, e.g. scot, scolere did not participate in the change and [ski was retained

Loan-words acquired English grammatical forms and were inflected like respective parts of speech, e.g. cirice, cuppe (NE church, cup). Fem. nouns were declined as л-stems: типе, deofol (NE monk, devil), Masc. — like д-stems, the verbs pinion, temprian were conjugated like weak verbs of the second class ('torture', NE temper).

Important proofs of their assimilation are to be found in word-for­mation. Stems of some Latin borrowings were used in derivation and word compounding, e.g. the verbs fersian 'versify', plantian (NE plant) were derived from borrowed nouns fers, plant; many derivatives were formed from the early Latin loan-words caupo, mengo (see § 238); ab­stract nouns — martyrdom, martyrhad were built by attaching native suffixes to the loan-word martyr (NE martyrdom); compound words like cirice$eard (NE churchyard), mynster-ham (lit. 'monastery home'), туп-ster-man 'monk' were Latin-English hybrids.

The grammatical form of several loan-words was misunderstood: pisum on losing -m was treated as a plural form and -s- was dropped to produce the sg: OE pese, NE pi peas, hence sg pea; in the same way L cerasum eventually became cherries pi, cherry — sg.

20) In Early ME the differences between the regional dialects grew. Never in history, before or after, was the historical background more favourable for dialectal differentiation. The main dialectal divi­sion in England, which survived in later ages with some slight modifi­cation of boundaries and considerable dialect mixture, goes back to the feudal stage of British history.

In the age of poor communication dialect boundaries often coincided with geographical barriers such as rivers, marshes, forests and moun­tains, as these barriers would hinder the diffusion of linguistic features.

In addition to economic, geographical and social conditions, dialectal differences in Early ME were accentuated by some historical events, namely the Scandinavian invasions and the Norman Conquest,

21) English essentially began with the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain constituted part of the wider Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire. The Anglo-Saxons, after the departure of the Roman Legions, overwhelmed Roman Britain and drove the Romanized Celts into the remote west. Thus the Anglo-Saxon Germanic tongue became the foundation for the English language. The Anglo-Saxon language is generally referred to as Old English and was widely spoken once the Romanized Britons had been defeated and driven into the west during the 6th century. The first English literature comes from this period. The most important work from this time is the epic poem, Beowulf, based on a Germanic legend that goes back several centuries and was transmitted orally long before it was written down. Writings of the preacher Wulfstan also survive. Old English is not understandable to the modern reader. One author describes it as sounding dark and brusque. [Lerer] Old English words are not easily recognizable, but the influence on modern English can sometimes be seen. The word for throne was "gifstol" (literally “gift seat” or “gift stool”) because it was from his regal seat or throne that a king dispensed tokens (gifts) to his retainers. Many words are totally lost, such as "uht," which meant something close to “dawn.” Latin was also an important contributor to Old English during destinct periods.

22) OE and Old North were very much alike. Englishmen and Scandinavians could understand each other without any translation. Culturally these two peoples were equal. Scandinavian borrowed words were rather numerous in OE. These words were basic every day. The scand. infl. can be seen in place names. All the English settlements whose names and in scand. morpheme [by] mean town, and [tafe] mean house and grounds.  Under the year 787 three shiploads of Northmen landed upon the coast of Britain and invaded the country. These invaders were Scandinavian tribes: The Danes, the Swedes. They inhabited the north of Europe (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden). They started their invasion taking possession over the East of Britain and the Danish invasion resulted in the occupation of a great part of the territory by Scandinavian settlers. In the year 878 the English King Alfred the Great, by the Treaty of Wedmore was obliged to recognize Danish rule over a territory covering two-thirds of modern England; all Northumbria, all East Anglia and one half of Central England made up District called the Danelaw.  The effect of the Danish Conquest was a contribution of many Scan¬dinavian words to the English vocabulary.  The criterion of sound in many cases may be applied in distinguish¬ing Scandinavian words. Since in native English words the sk sound had regularly changed to sh and since the k sound before the vowels e and i had regularly changed to ch, the greater part of the Germanic words in English with the sk sound such as scare, skill, skin, skirt, sky and many words with the k sound before e and i, such as kettle, keg, kirk are to be assigned to Scandinavian origin.  In cases where the Scandinavian form of a word differed from the Eng¬lish form, sometimes both forms survived with a different meaning.  The Scandinavian influence was especially marked in place-names in Northern England, Among the more common ones are those ending in-by (0. N. byr, a dwelling, village); in -beck (has been used as an inde¬pendent word since 1300 especially in the North; 0. N. bekker, a brook, Ger. Bach); in-dale (O. N. Dalr, a valley, Ger. Thai); in thorp or-torp (0. N thorp, a hamlet, village); in -toft (O. N, toft a homestead, enclosure) and in -twaite (0. N. veiti, a clearing).  In some cases when the English word and the Scandinavian agreed in form, the Scandinavian form has imported a new meaning to the English. Thus dream in О. Е. meant toy, but in Middle English the modern meaning of dream was taken over from O.N. draumr. The same is true of bread (formerly meaning a fragment or bloom (O. E. bloma, mass of metal), plough (О. Е. ploh, a measure of land); holm (О. Е. holm, ocean).  A number of common words which existed in Old English have been assimilated to the kindred Scandinavian synonyms only in form (e. g. sister descends not from the Old English sweoster, but from the O. N. syster. The same is true of such everyday words as birth, get, give, etc. Sometimes the Scandinavians gave a fresh lease of life to obsolescent or obsolete native words. The preposition till, for instance, is found only once or twice in Old English texts belonging to the pre-Scandinavian period, but after that time it begins to be exceedingly common in the North, from whence it spreads southward. The same is true of the words barn, blend and dale.  From no other foreign source has the English language derived words so elemental in character. Scandinavian elements combine with native elements in hybrid compounds such as awkward and greyhound. Since these Scandinavian words are, as has been mentioned already, so nearly related to the Anglo-Saxon, and since they were borrowed so early and have consequently undergone changes in form and in meaning along with the Anglo-Saxon element, one may almost reckon them as belonging to the native stock of English words. In later periods of English, history the con¬tact between English and Scandinavian-speaking peoples was never so close.

23) Scandinavian Borrowings in English Unless you are a specialist, it is very difficult to pick out Scandinavian loan-words in English. This is because they seem to have the same quality and texture as Anglo-Saxon words. They are ordinary, everyday words, and quite often monosyllabic and include grammatical words (like the verb are (to be), or the pronouns their, them and they and some of the commonest words in English today like bag, dirt, fog, knife, flat, low, odd, ugly, want, trust, get, give, take, raise, smile and though. A good number of sc- or sk- words today are of Scandinavian origin (scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, sky). Scandinavian loan-words are therefore more usefully considered as core items. Why is this so? • The English and Scandinavian belong to the same Germanic racial, cultural and linguistic stock originally and their language, therefore, shared common grammatical features and words. But changes had occurred in the languages during the couple of centuries of separation of the two sets of people.  • The Scandinavians came to settle, rather than conquer or pillage. They lived alongside the Anglo-Saxons on more or less equal terms.  • Under the Norman French, particularly, the two different groups fashioned a common life together as subjects.  Under these conditions, (a) the English word sometimes displaced the cognate Scandinavian word: fish instead of fisk; goat instead of gayte; (b) the Scandinavian word sometimes displaces the cognate English word: egg instead of ey, sister instead of sweoster; (c) both might remain, but with somewhat different meanings: dike-ditch, hale-whole, raise-rise, sick-ill, skill-craft, skirt-shirt; (d) the English word might remain, but takes on the Scandinavian meaning dream (originally ‘joy’, ‘mirth’, ‘music’, ‘revelry’); and (e) the English words that were becoming obsolete might be given a new lease of life, eg dale and barn.

24) The English language that is spoken today is the direct result of 1066 and the Norman Conquest. Modern English is vastly different from that spoken by the English prior to the Conquest, both in its word-hoard and its grammar. In order to understand what happened, and why, it is necessary to look at both English and Norman French before 1066, and then the Middle English that resulted from their interaction. Old English Old English was a highly inflected member of the West Germanic language family. It had two numbers, three genders, four cases, remnants of dual number and instrumental case, which could give up to 30 inflectional forms for every adjective or pronoun. Its syntax was only partially dependent on word order and has a simple two tense, three mood, four person (three singular, one plural) verb system. The spelling of Old English is strictly phonetic. As a result of the Viking wars and the subsequent settlement of many speakers of Old Norse, a North Germanic language, the introduction of new words and a simplification of the grammar had already started to take place. This was more marked in those areas in the North, Midlands and East Anglia where the Danes and Norwegians settled in large numbers. Although the two languages were mutually understandable, a modern day comparison would be a Geordie talking to a Cockney with neither making any concession to the other. The language had four major dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. As the kings of Wessex (West Saxons) gradually emerged as kings of all England, West Saxon dominated the written form of the language. As such, it gradually became less reflective of the spoken language, especially in the Danelaw. Norman French A legacy of the Roman Empire was the fact that the area west of the Rhine spoke Latin. The Latin they spoke, however, was not the highly inflected Classical Latin, used by the church and scholars, but the common, or Vulgar Latin of the soldiers and the market place. This Vulgar Latin, as it had no one controlling or regulating its use, brought in words from the languages of the local populace. For this reason people who speak Spanish , Italian, Catalan, Occitan, Romanian, Portuguese and French, though similar, even by 1066 were not able to understand one another. French had brought in many words from the Gauls who originally occupied the land. In addition they had suffered conquest and settlement from various Germanic Tribes such as the Goths and Vandals, and finally the Franks, who gave the country its new name. From these peoples came additional words. There were two major divisions in French: langue d'oil in the north; langue d'oc in the south (oil and oc being variations of 'yes'). Langue d'oc was nearer to Catalan than it was to Langue d'oil. Langue d'oil had three major dialects , namely those of Picardy, Ile de Paris and Norman. The Northmen (Danes and some Norwegians) who had taken the land and settled there influenced Norman French. Its proximity to England had also allowed some English words to slip in, noticeably nautical terms. The English language that is spoken today is the direct result of 1066 and the Norman Conquest. Modern English is vastly different from that spoken by the English prior to the Conquest, both in its word-hoard and its grammar. In order to understand what happened, and why, it is necessary to look at both English and Norman French before 1066, and then the Middle English that resulted from their interaction.

25) The Normans in England belonged to the Capetian dynasty spoke Norman French; this became non-prestigious in France as the variety spoken by the Angevian dynasty in France, Parisian French, became the prestige variety; because Norman French was seen as socially inferior, it was less difficult to abandon it in favour of English; subsequently, England became at war with France in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Even as English was on its way in, the gaps in English vocabulary had to be filled by loanwords from French. These include items pertaining to new experiences and ways of doing things introduced by the Normans. domains that became enriched with French loanwords include: Government: parliament, government; Finance: treasure, poverty; Law: jury, verdict; War: battle, castle; Religion: charity, saint; Art, fashion, etc.: beauty, colour; Cuisine: bacon, mutton; Household Relationships: uncle, aunt.

26) French borrowings The influence of French on the English spelling.

The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them came into English during the Norman Conquest. French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also it’s spelling, because French scribes wrote documents as the local population was mainly illiterate, and the ruling class was French. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latin alphabet was borrowed were substituted by Latin letters and combinations of letters, e.g. «v» was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of «f» in the intervocal position /lufian - love/, the digraph «ch» was introduced to denote the sound /ch/ instead of the letter «c» / chest/ before front vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph «sh» was introduced instead of the combination «sc» to denote the sound /sh/ /ship/, the digraph «th» was introduced instead of the Runic letters  «0» and «   »  /this, thing/, the letter «y» was introduced instead of the Runic letter «3» to denote the sound /j/ /yet/,  the digraph «qu» substituted the combination «cw» to denote the combination of sounds /kw/ /queen/, the digraph «ou» was introduced to denote the sound /u:/ /house/ (The sound /u:/ was later on diphthongized and is pronounced /au/ in native words and fully assimilated borrowings). As it was difficult for French scribes to copy English texts they substituted the letter «u» before «v», «m», «n» and the digraph «th» by the letter «o» to escape the combination of many vertical lines /«sunu» - «son», luvu» - «love»/.

Borrowing of French words.

There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings:

a) words relating to government : administer, empire, state, government;

b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier, battle;

c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest, sentence, barrister;

d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat, embroidery;

e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl ;

f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew.

Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mainly through French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these borrowings:

a) words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie, brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville;

b) words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage, manouvre;

c) words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau;

d) words relating to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine.

27)

28)  Palatal mutation Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. mūs and mўs). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. We find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mўs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding –iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse – mice, foot – feet, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut).

29)

30) The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.

Because English spelling was becoming standardised in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English. Before the Great Vowel Shift, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in Italian and liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height with one of them coming to the front. The principal changes (with the vowels shown in IPA) are roughly as follows.^[4] However, exceptions occur, the transitions were not always complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes in orthography:

Middle English [aː] (ā) fronted to [æː] and then raised to [ɛː], [eː] and in many dialects diphthongised in Modern English to [eɪ] (as in make). Since Old English ā had mutated to[ɔː] in Middle English, Old English ā does not correspond to the Modern English diphthong [eɪ], but was rather formed from the lengthening of short a in open syllables.

Middle English [ɛː] raised to [eː] and then to modern English [iː] (as in beak).

Middle English [eː] raised to Modern English [iː] (as in feet).

Middle English [iː] diphthongised to [ɪi], which was most likely followed by [əɪ] and finally Modern English [aɪ] (as in mice).

Middle English [ɔː] raised to [oː], and in the eighteenth century this became Modern English [oʊ] or [əʊ] (as in boat).

Middle English [oː] raised to Modern English [uː] (as in boot).

Middle English [uː] was diphthongised in most environments to [ʊu], and this was followed by [əʊ], and then Modern English [aʊ] (as in mouse) in the eighteenth century. Beforelabial consonants, this shift did not occur, and [uː] remains as in soup and room (its Middle English spelling was roum).

This means that the vowel in the English word date was in Middle English pronounced [aː] (similar to modern non-rhotic dart); the vowel in feet was [eː] (similar to modern fate); the vowel in wipe was [iː] (similar to modern weep); the vowel in boot was [oː] (similar to modern boat); and the vowel in house was [uː] (similar to modern whose).

The effects of the shift were not entirely uniform, and differences in degree of vowel shifting can sometimes be detected in regional dialects both in written and in spoken English. InNorthern English, the long back vowels remained unaffected, the long front vowels having undergone an earlier shift.^[5] In Scotland, Scots differed in its input to the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels [iː], [eː] and [aː] shifted to [ei], [iː] and [eː] by the Middle Scots period, [oː] had shifted to [øː] in Early Scots and [uː] remained unaffected.^[6]

The effect of the Great Vowel Shift may be seen very clearly in the English names of many of the letters of the alphabet. A, B, C and D are pronounced /eɪ, biː, siː, diː/ in today's English, but in contemporary French they are /a, be, se, de/. The French names (from which the English names are derived) preserve the English vowels from before the Great Vowel Shift. By contrast, the names of F, L, M, N and S (/ɛf, ɛl, ɛm, ɛn, ɛs/) remain the same in both languages, because "short" vowels were largely unaffected by the Shift. History. The exact causes of the shift are continuing mysteries in linguistics and cultural history. But some theories attach the cause to the mass migration to the south-east part of England after the Black Death, where the difference in accents led to certain groups modifying their speech to allow for a standard pronunciation of vowel sounds. The different dialects and the rise of a standardised middle class in London led to changes in pronunciation, which continued to spread out from the city.

The sudden social mobility after the Black Death may have caused the shift, with people from lower levels in society moving to higher levels (the pandemic also having hit the aristocracy). Another explanation highlights the language of the ruling class: the medieval aristocracy had spoken French, but, by the early fifteenth century, they were using English. This may have caused a change to the "prestige accent" of English, either by making pronunciation more French in style or by changing it in some other way, perhaps byhypercorrection to something thought to be "more English" (England being at war with France for much of this period). That thought, however, can also be refuted because there is just as much evidence of the hypercorrection to be "more English", as there is to be "more French" (French being slightly still the language of the upper class). Another influence may have been the great political and social upheavals of the fifteenth century, which were largely contemporaneous with the Great Vowel Shift.

Because English spelling was becoming standardised in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. Spellings that made sense according to Middle English pronunciation were retained in Modern English because of the adoption and use of the printing press, which was introduced to England in the 1470s by William Caxton and later Richard Pynson.

31) In the OE language there was no form of the Future tense. The category of Tense consisted of two members: Past and Present. The Present Tense could indicate both present and future actions, depending on the context.

Alongside there was another way of presenting future actions — modal phrases consisting of verbs «sculan, willan, magan, cunnan» (NE shall, will, may, can) and the Infinitive of the notional verb.

In these phrases the meaning of the futurity was combined with strong modal meanings of volition, obligation and possibility.

In ME the use of modal phrases, especially with the verb «shall» became increasingly common. «shall» plus Infinitive was not the principal means of indicating future actions in any context. «Shall» could retain its modal meaning of necessity, but often weakened it to such an extent that the phrase denoted «pure» futurity.

In late ME texts «shall» was used both as a modal verb and as a Future Tense auxiliary. Future actions were also commonly expressed by ME «willen» with an Infinitive, but the meaning of volition in «will» must have been more obvious than the modal meaning of «shall».

In the times of Shakespeare the phrases with «shall» and «will» occured in free variation. They can express «pure» futurity and add different shades of modal meanings. Phrases with «will» and «shall» outnumbered all the other ways in indicating futurity.

In 1653 John Wallis for the first time formulated the rule about the regular intechange of «shall» and «will» depending on the person. These rules were observed throughout the 19^th century. «Shall» was used with the 1^st person and «will» – with the 2^nd and 3^rd persons, that became a mark of the British Standard.

The form «’ll» is ousting the auxiliary «will» from British English now.

In OE there were 12 modals, In ME — 2 most frequently used modals «shall» and «will».

The rule of John Wallis was checked by Charles Fries. He investigated the usage of «shall», «will» from the early 17^th century to 1845 in British and American English.

They were studied in drama, where the Conversational English and author’s diction were. He produced 25 sumplings for British English and 25 for American English. He formulated the conclusion: there was never a period in the history of English when John Wallis’s rule was ever observed either in British or American English drama or author’s diction.

Charles Fries formulated the rule: there is no future tense in English. «shall» and «will» are always modals.

Otto Jespersen in 1924 also stated that there was no future tense in English.

On the other hand such a linguist as Mauler investigated the modality of «shall»/»will». His sumplings constituted 4000 examples. He found out that «will»/»shall» are modals in 94% of their uses. And only 6% they express futurity. His conclusion was that there was no future tense in English. Only our linguists Ivanova, Illish, Smirnitsky consider that there is future tense in English. Judging by everything mentioned above The Future tense is a moot point in the history of English.

«Will» has ousted «shall» completely in American English.

Like other analytical forms of the verb, the Perfect forms have developed from OE verb phrases. The main source of the Perf.form was the OE «possessive» construction, consisting of the verb «habban» (NE «have»), a direct object and the Participle II of a transitive verb, which served as an attribute to the object.

The meaning of the construction was: a person (subject) possessed a thing (object), which was characterized by a certain state resulting from the previous action (the participle).

Towards ME it turned into analytical forms and made up a single set of forms termed «perfect».

In the Perfect form the auxiliary «have» had lost the meaning of possession and was used with all kinds of verbs.

By the time of the Literary Renaissance the perfect forms had spread to all the parts of the verb system, so that ultimately the category of time correlation became the most universal of verbal categories.

In the beginning the main function of the Perfect forms was to indicate a completed action, to express «perfectivity» rather than priority of one action to another.

As for the Continuous forms it should be said the following.

Verb phrases consisting of «beon» (NE «be») plus Participle I are not infrequently found in OE prose. They denoted a quality or a lasting state.

In Early ME «beon» plus Participle I fell into disuse. It occured occasionally in some dialectal areas.

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries «be» plus Participle I was often confused with a synonimous phrase – «be» plus the preposition «on» plus a verbal noun.

By that time the Present Participle and the verbal noun had lost their formal differences: the Participle I was built with the help of -ing, and the verbal noun had the word-building suffix — ing.

The prepositional phrase indicated a process taking place at a certain period of time. It is believed that the meaning of process or an action of limited duration — which the Continuous forms acquired in Early NE — may have come from the prepositional phrase.

The formal pattern of the Continuous as an analytical form was firmly established.

32) The growth of the English vocabulary from internal sources — through word-formation and semantic change — can be observed in all periods of history; as mentioned above, internal sources of vocabulary growth may have become relatively less important in ME, when hun­dreds of foreign words (especially French) entered the language. In the 15th, 16th and 17th c. the role of internal sources of the replenishment of the vocabulary became more important though the influx of borrow­ings from other languages continued.

As before, word formation fell into two types: word derivation and word composition. Word Derivation

The means of derivation used in OE continued to be employed in later periods and their relative position and functions were generally the same. Suffixation has always been the most productive way of de­riving new words, most of the OE productive suffixes have survived, and many new suffixes have been added from internal and external sources. The development of prefixation was uneven: in ME many OE prefixes fell into disuse; after a temporary decline in the 15th and 16th c. the use of prefixes grew again; like suffixes, Early NE prefixes could come from foreign sources. Sound interchanges and the shifting of word stress were mainly employed as a means of word differentiation, rather than as a word-building means. The Early NE period witnessed the growth of a new, specifically English way of word derivation — con­version (also known as "functional change"), which has developed into a productive way of creating new words.

Sound Interchanges. Sound interchanges have never been a productive means of word derivation in English. In OE they served as a supplementary means of word differentiation and were mostly used together with suffixes (see §251 ff.). In ME and Early NE sound interchanges continued to be used as an accompanying feature together with other derivational means. Although new instances of sound interchanges were few, in NE their role as a means of word differentiation grew.

New vowel alternations in related words could arise as a result of quantitative vowel changes in Early ME. Since those changes were positional, they did not necessarily take place in all the words derived from the same root; consequently, there arose a difference in the root-vowels. For instance, the vowels remained or became long in ME deem, wise, wild, but remained or became short in the related words clensen, wisdom, wildreness. (Cf. the resulting vowel interchanges in NE clean — cleanse, wild — wilderness, wise —wisdom, see §371.)

The role of sound interchanges has grown due to the weakening and loss of many suffixes and grammatical endings.