The subject of the history of English

Study of any language studies its development and changes from the earliest to the present days. The earliest time of existence is the time to which certain written documents refer or date back.

The oldest English texts refer to the 7^th century A.D. One of them is an inscription of a short religious poem on a box made of whalebone known as a “Frank’s casket”. Another one is a religious poem engraved on a tall stone-cross known as the “Ruthwell cross” situated near the village of Ruthwell in the South-East of Scotland.

Historical comparative method

Under the influence of Ferdinand de Saussure there exist 2 approaches to linguistic studies:

• Synchronic, means that the language is studied from point of view of one moment of time

• Diachronic, is based on the historical perspective that is when the language is studied in its progress from 1 period of time to another one.

The history of English Language uses both approaches. On the one hand, it views all linguistic peculiarities of English at a certain period, on the other hand it analyses those linguistic changes taking place in the course of transition (переход) from 1 period to another one.

The principal way of historical study is so-called “Comparative Historical Method”. It consists in comparing early-old forms of words in related languages. One condition should be observed in such case. The words compared must have the same meaning or at last must be semantically connected.

For example:

OE fif – Goth fimf

This particular comparison gives us an opportunity to draw a conclusion that perhaps the same element “m” existed in the Old English word before writing was introduced. So we can reconstruct the pre-historical Old English form marked with the * (`asterisk)

Another procedure of this method consists in comparing linguistic phenomena of the same rank at different periods of the development of one and the same language.

For example:

OE nama – ME name [na: mə] – NE name

OE risan – ME risen [ri: zən] – NE rise

Comparing these two sets we see that in the course of history English vowels have tended to diphthongization. So the process of linguistic change can be easily detected if we compare words, phrases or sentences in Old English (OE) with those in Middle English (ME) and New English (NE).

Laws of language development

Every language has its own driving forces or causes for development. This causes are called Internal [in`tə:n(ə)l] Laws of Linguistic Development.

1. Law of Uneven or Irregular Development of Different Linguistic Aspects. It means that different aspects of the language developed different from the point of view of speed. The quickest change is observed in the vocabulary: new words appear, old words die out of the language, new words are borrowed from other languages and new words oust [aust] old words. For example: OE niman < Sc takan (to take). Grammar changes more slowly. Phonetic change also takes much time. For example: OE stān (500 years) > ME stōn (200y) > NE stone. Syntax is the slowest aspect to change. OE was a synthetical language from the point of view of its grammatical structure. It took E a thousand and a half yeas to change from the synthetical to analytical.

2. Law of concretizing (рассматривать в деталях). It works when some more concrete linguistic elements develop from more abstract elements. In the pre-historical times there were no grammatical tenses. There were only aspects which are more abstract than tenses. Tenses developed from aspect later. For example: OE heofon (the sky, but the meaning: the roof of the world) < Sc sky

3. Law of abstraction. Formal elements of language such as suffixes and endings usually appear as the result of the development from concrete to abstract. For example: NE –ly < OE lic (body)

4. Law of analogy. Some particular elements of any language change in the way similar to that or other element of the same class. For example: ME coude [kyde], sholde, wold

5. Law of differentiation. It is observed when different languages developed out of dialects. Thus for example Slavonic dialects gave rise to such languages as Russian, Ukraine, and Belarusian. And all Germanic dialects known as proto-Germanic dialects differentiated into the group of languages known now as the group of Germanic languages.

Classification of Germanic languages (Gl)

Modern English belongs to the group of Gl-s within which linguists differentiate languages into 3 subgroups:

• North Germanic (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish)

• West Germanic (English, German, Dutch)

• East Germanic (Gothic, Burgundian [bə:`gΛndiən]) which are not spoken today, they are dead.

Present day Germanic Languages developed from the group of Old Gl-s which were in their turn subdivided into:

• Old North Gl-s including Old Scandinavian, Old Norse, Old Icelandic

• Old West Gl-s, including Old English, Old High German, Old Low Franconian and Old Saxon

• East Gl-s – first it was a group of uniform dialects known as Proto Germanic

Old Germanic written records

At the beginning of the first millennium B.C. (before Christ) Germanic tribes separated from the other Indo-European tribes and the differentiation of their dialects into languages began. By the beginning of the new era Gl-s spread over the territory of modern Eastern and Western Europe. One of the most powerful and mobile tribes was Goths. They moved from Scandinavia to the South and occupied a vast [va: st] territory in East Europe.

In the 4^th century A.D. they were Christianized by the missionary [miſ(ə)n(ə)ri] Ulfilas. He invented an alphabet for the Goths and translated Godspell from Greek into Gothic. Our knowledge of Gothic is mainly due to this translation. This is the earliest document in Old Gl. It is know as “The Silver Code” because the text is written in gold and silver letters. The text contains the earliest peculiarities of the Gl-s.

Phonetic Peculiarities of Old Gl-s.

A) the First Consonant Shift

These peculiarities are mostly concerned with the system of consonants and are due to the so-called first consonant shift. This shift was explained by the German philologist Jacob [dзeikəb] Grimm in 1822. This exploration has the name Grimm’s Law.

Grimm’s Law shows the difference between the European system of plosives (взрывной) and that of the Germanic Languages.

The Law explains regular correspondences Germanic consonants and consonants such European languages as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Russian and so on. These correspondences may be grouped into 3 theories or 3 acts:

1. The change of plosive voiceless stops [p], [t], [k] in Indo-European languages to voiceless fricatives [f], [θ], [h] in the Gl-s. For example:

[p] > [f] R пена – OE fām – NE foam

[t] > [θ] Lat. tu – OE Әu – NE thou

[k] > [h] Lat. cordis – OE heorte – NE heart

2. I-E voiced stops [b], [d], [g] correspond to Germanic voiceless stops [p], [t], [k]

[b] > [p] R болото – OE pōl – NE pool

[d] > [t] R два – OE tva – NE two

[g] > [k] R иго – OE ʒeoc – NE yoke

3. I-E voiced aspirated stops [bh], [dh], [gh] correspond to the G. voiced stops without aspiration [b], [d], [g]

[bh] > [b] Sct [bharat] – Goth bairan – OE beran

[dh] > [d] Sct [madhu] – OE medu

[gh] > [g] Sct [stighnoti] – Goth steigan – MnG steigen

B) Voicing of Fricatives (Verner’s Law)

It was observed that not all words show these correspondences. Sometimes instead of changing [f], [θ], [h] the sounds [p], [t], [k] became voiced.

[p, t, k] > [b, d, g] Lat. parter – OE fæder – NE father

Such exceptions were explained in 1877 by the Danish scholar Cart Verner. Verner proved that the change develop upon the place of the stress in a word. If the stress I-E word is before [p, t, k] the sound in Germanic word changes according to Grimm’s Law [f, θ, h]. For example: Gr `deka – Goth taihum (k>h), but if the stress follows the sound in the Germanic word it become voiced. For example: Gr de`kas – Goth tigus (k>g). There is one process which is due to Verner’s Law is called rhotacism [`rəutəsizm]. If the preceding vowel in the I-E word is unstressed the consonant [s] in the corresponding Germanic word becomes voiced and then changes into [r]. Rhotacism takes place in all Gl-s except Gothic. For example: Goth hausjan – OE hieran – NE hear.

The structure of the word in Gl-s

Beginning with proto-Germanic vowels also displace a strong tendency to change, they underwent certain changes: qualitative and quantitative, the nature of which was often determined by stress. In stressed syllables the position between vowels was more distinct (отчетливый). In unstressed position the contrast between vowels were weaked or lost.

The most important characteristic of the Germanic vowels was a strict differentiation of short and long vowels. Another feature is a tendency of long vowels to diphthongization. Whereas short vowels in Gl-s changed to more open sounds. For example: R мочь, могу – OE maʒan, mæʒ. One of the most distinctive features of the group is the peculiar Germanic system of word accentuation. If in I-E languages the position of the stress was free and movable, in late proto-Germanic its position in the word was stabilized. For example: `дом – дом`а – домовн`ичать. The stress in the Germanic wod was fixed on the first syllable which was either the root or the prefix. The other syllables were unstressed. This feature was inherited (унаследована) by most Gl-s and now in English the main stress commonly falls upon the root `morpheme and it never shifted in different grammatical forms. For example: NE to become – becoming. The fixed word stress has played an important role in the development of specific morphological features in Gl-s.

Strong verbs. The system of Germanic ablaut. Weak verbs and peculiarities of their classes. Minor groups of verbs.

Ablaut is an independent vowel interchange unconnected with any phonetic condition; different vowels appear in the same environment, surrounded by the same sounds. Vowel gradation was used as a special independent device to differentiate between words and grammatical forms built from the same root. The principal gradation series used in the I-E languages – [e ~ o] – can be shown in Russian examples: нести ~ ноша. This kind of ablaut is called qualitative, as the vowels differ only in quality. Alternation [o:ltə’ neiſn] of short and long vowels, and also alternation with a “zero” represent quantitative ablaut. Germanic ablaut was mostly used in building the principal forms of the verbs called strong.

1. Strong verbs (built their forms by means of vowel gradation unconnected with any phonetic conditions). Strong verbs had 4 principal forms:

Gothic:

• Infinitive – bairan

• Past Singular – berum

• Past Plural – baurans

• Participle II – baurans

2. Weak verbs (built their past with the help of so-called dental suffixes [d, t, θ, Ә]). Weak verbs split into 4 classes in Gothic and into 3 classes in the German L-s. They had 3 principal forms:

Gothic:

• Infinitive – domjan

• Past Singular – domida

• Participle II - domiӘs

Weak verbs existed only in Gl-s

2. Preterit (форма прошедшего времени) – Present Verbs (built their present by means of ablaut and they built their past like weak verbs)

Gothic:

• Ifninitive – Kunnan

• Present Singular - Kann

• Past Singular - KunӘa

2. Anomalous Verbs. It was a small group of verbs that didn’t fit into any other group, among them there were verbs that built there forms by means of suppletivism/suppletion – they built there forms by means of different roots.

Gothic: ʒinʒan (inf) – iddja (past sg.)

R: иду – шел, есть – был