Тема: The Subject of History of English. English as a Germanic Language

Discussion points:

1. The Subject of History of English.

Give the definition of history of English. What is the purpose of history of English?

Speak on the synchronic and diachronic aspects of the study of the historical

development of the language. Characterize the main methods applied to the study of

language history. Explain why linguistic changes are usually slow and gradual.

2. The position of English in the system of the Indo-European family of languages.

Name the pioneers of historical and comparative linguistics. What is meant by

the statement that two languages are ‘related’? Explain the relations between English

and German, English and French, English and Russian. What is a language family?

Enumerate the main groups of languages of the Indo-European family. What is the

accepted understanding of the term ‘parent language’? What is the parent language of

English? of Spanish? of all Indo-European languages? How can you account for the

special status of Sanskrit in historical linguistics?

3. Germanic tribes and their classification.

What are the accessible sources of our knowledge of Germanic tribes? What territories

did they occupy? Dwell on Pliny’s classification.

4. The classification of Germanic languages. Old Germanic written records. Germanic

alphabets.

Speak on the classification of Germanic languages and compare it with the classification

of Germanic tribes. What is called ‘Common Germanic’? When and into

what groups did it split? Date the pre-written and written periods in the history of

Germanic languages. What are the earliest Germanic written records? Speak on the

origin and structure of Germanic alphabets.

5. Chief characteristics of Germanic languages: a) phonetics; b) grammar; c) lexicon.

Give account of main characteristics of Germanic languages in phonetics,

grammar and lexicon. Cite examples to illustrate Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law.

What verbal and nominal categories existed in Germanic languages? Compare them

with the categories of modern languages. What word-building means can be distinguished

in Germanic languages? What phenomenon is termed ‘ablaut’?

Recommended Reading:

1. Аракин В.Д. История английского языка. М., 1985. – С. 5 –19.

2. Аракин В.Д. Очерки по истории английского языка. М., 2007. – С. 8–17.

3. Иванова И.П., Чахоян Л.П., Беляева Т.М. История английского языка. Учеб-

ник. Хрестоматия. Словарь. СПб., 1998. – С. 46 –62.

4. Ильиш Б.А. История английского языка. Л., 1972. – С. 5 –8.

5. Расторгуева Т.А. История английского языка. М., 2003. – С. 10 –48.

6. Резник Р.В., Сорокина Т.С., Резник И.В. A History of the English Language.

История английского языка. М., 2003. – С. 16-32.

I. We can infer a good deal about the culture of the people, their social structure and

geographical conditions from the words of their language. Consider the following

Proto-Indo-European reconstructions. Conspicuously, no word for ‘sea’ can be reconstructed

for Proto-Indo-European:

*rtko – ‘bear’, *laks – ‘salmon’, *er – ‘eagle’, *gwou – ‘cow, bull’, *kwon –

‘dog’, *mori – ‘lake’, *yewo – ‘wheat’, *weik – ‘village’, *se – ‘to sow’, *yeug – ‘to

‘thrush’, *su – ‘pig’, *sneigwh – ‘snow’, *medhu – ‘honey’, *sel – ‘fortification’,

Describe what these reconstructions tell us about the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the

areas and the environment in which they lived, and their activities.

II. What can be reconstructed of the life of Germanic tribes from the following English

words, whose cognates are found in other Germanic languages: borough, brew,

broth, cliff, earl, east, lore, king, knead, north, sea, seal, ship, south, steer, strand, tin,

were, west, whale, wheat?

III. Analyze the shifting of word stress in the word-building and form-building and

point out the words which can illustrate the original Germanic way of word accentuation:

read, reading, re-read, readable; bear, bearer, unbearable; photograph, photographer,

photographic; circumstance, circumstantial, circumstantialities.

IV. Write down five illustrations of Grimm’s law and five illustrations of Verner’s

Law.

V. MnE words borrowed from Latin or Greek do not show the influence of Grimm’s

Indo-European through Germanic. For each borrowed word, cite an English word that

is related in meaning and whose pronunciation shows the result of the consonant

shift: cardiac, paternal, plenitude, dual, pentagon, dentist, capital, piscatorial, triangle,

VI. For each given English Germanic word provide the English word that is likely to have been borrowed and has not undergone the Germanic consonant shift: fire,

VII. Latin did not undergo Germanic consonant shifts. Instead, Indo-European [bh]

became [f] in Latin, and Indo-European [gh] became [h] in Latin. With this information,

you may be able to provide an English word inherited directly from Indo-

European for each of the following words borrowed from Latin (focus on the initial

consonant): fraternity, fragile, hospitable, fundamental, flare, fracture.

VIII. Analyse the consonant correspondences in the following groups of words and

classify the words into Germanic and non-Germanic: tame, domestic; agriculture,

IX. Explain the consonant correspondences in the following parallels from Germanic

and non-Germanic languages: Got. winds – Lat. ventus ветер, OE wurdon – Lat.

vertere вертеть; OE etan – Lat. edere едим, OE cnawan – Lat. gnosco знаю.

X. Classify the following verbs into descendants of the strong verbs and the weak

verbs: sing, live, rise, look, answer, speak, run, shake, warn.

Discussion points:

1. Pre-Germanic Britain. The Celts. The Roman conquest of Britain.

What languages were spoken in the British Isles prior to the Germanic invasion?

Which of their descendants have survived today? What historical events account for

the influence of Latin in OE? Describe the linguistic situation in Britain before the

Germanic settlement.

2. The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain.

Describe the chronology of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Note the significance of

geographical separation as well as mixture and unification of people as major factors

in linguistic differentiation and in the formation of the English language.

3. Periods in the history of English.

Speak on the commonly accepted periodisation of English. What criterion of periodisation

did H. Sweet suggest? Characterize the distinguishing features of OE, ME

and MnE.

4. The Dialects in Old English. Old English written records.

What is Heptarchy? What principal OE dialects are commonly distinguished?

Why can we regard the group of OE dialects as a single language despite their differences,

which continued to grow in later OE? What binds them together?

What is called ‘insular writing’? Speak on the principal OE written records:

runic inscriptions, religious works, Anglo-Saxon chronicles, glosses, OE poetry.

Recommended Reading:

1. Аракин В.Д. История английского языка. М., 1985. – С. 19 –30.

2. Аракин В.Д. Очерки по истории английского языка. М., 2007. – С. 18–21.

3. Иванова И.П., Чахоян Л.П., Беляева Т.М. История английского языка. Учеб-

ник. Хрестоматия. Словарь. СПб., 1998. – С. 7 –18.

4. Ильиш Б.А. История английского языка. Л., 1972. – С. 34 –43.

5. Расторгуева Т.А. История английского языка. М., 2003. – С. 49 –71.

6. Резник Р.В., Сорокина Т.С., Резник И.В. A History of the English Language.

История английского языка. М., 2003. – С. 33-43.

Practical assignments:

I. What is the time of the written records below?

1). Hwæt wē Gār-Dena in ʒēardaʒum

ðēodcyninʒa þrym ʒefrūnon,

hū ðā æþelinʒas allen fremedon. (Beowulf)

2). Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;…

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages. (The Canterbury Tales)

3). So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils

To be commenced in strands afar remote. (Henry IV)

Продолжительность занятия – 2 часа.

Тема: Old English: Orthography and Phonetics

Discussion points:

1. OE Orthography.

How many letters were there in OE? On what principle was OE writing based?

What are the peculiarities of OE writing? What rules should be observed in reading

OE texts? Where did the word stress in OE fall?

2. Phonetic structure of OE. OE vowels.

How many vowels were there in OE? Make a list of OE vowels and comment on

the differentiating between them (in quality and quantity). Was the vowel system

symmetrical? State your arguments.

3. Phonetic structure of OE. OE diphthongs.

Describe the OE diphthongs. Comment on the phonemic status of OE short

diphthongs.

4. Phonetic structure of OE. OE consonants.

Comment on the system of OE consonant phonemes. What fricative consonants

were allophones of the same phonemes?

5. OE phonetic changes.

Innumerate the assimilative changes of vowels in OE. Explain the term ‘mutation’

and illustrate the results of palatal mutation in OE. Comment on the consonant

changes in OE.

Practical assignments:

I. Read the following OE words with the consonants s, f, þ:

II. Read the OE words with the letter c:

III. Read the following OE words with the letter ʒ:

26

be-ʒitan, ʒodcund, swiʒian, ealweʒ, ʒecnāwan, ʒe, ʒān, fuʒol, dæʒ, ʒedōn,

ʒeond, ʒuma, beʒen, maniʒ, ʒedrync, ʒeorn, halʒa, dryʒe, hāliʒ, ʒebīdan, ʒear, fylʒan,

buʒan, myriʒ, ʒebūʒan.

IV. State on what syllable the stress falls in the following words:

V. Explain what consonant or vowel changes are illustrated by the following pairs of

words:

frēosan (OE to freeze) – froren (OE Participle II); full (OE full) – fyllan (OE to

fill); niʒ (OE any) – ān (OE one); *sehan – sēon (to see); ʒīet (OE yet) - ʒet (Got

yet); fōt (OE foot) - fēt (OE feet).

VI. Read and translate the text. Make its phonetic analysis.

Þā þ s on hærfeste þā wicode sē cynʒ on nēaweste byriʒ, þā hwīle þe hīe hīre

corn ʒer pan, þæt þā Deniscan ne mehton þ s ripes forwiernan. Þā sume dæʒe rād sē

cynʒ ūp bē þ re s and ʒehawade hw r mon mehte þā ēa forwyrcean þæt hīe ne

mehton þā scipu ūtbrenʒan. (The Parker Chronicle)

Glossary to the text:

Þā adv. then

hærfest n.m.a. harvest

wician wv. 2 to dwell; to stay

cynʒ, cyninʒ n.m.a. king

nēawest n.f.ō. nearness, neighbourhood

byriʒ dat. of burʒ n.f.cons. town

þā hwīle þe adv. while

hīe pron. they

hīre pron. their

corn n.neut.a. corn

ʒer pan, ʒerīpan sv.1 to reap

þæt conj. that

Denisca adj. Danish; Danes pl. of Dene n.m.i. the Danes

ne particle not

maʒan pret.-pres. v.(Past Sg. meahte, mehte; Past Pl. mehton) may, might

forwiernan wv. 1 to prevent

sum pron. some

dæʒ n.m.a. day

rīdan sv. 1 (Past Sg. rād) to ride

ūp, ūpp adv. up

bē prep. By, near

s n.f.i. sea

ʒehawian wv.2 to look at, to observe, to reflect

hw r adv. where

mon, mann n.m.cons. man

ēa n.f.cons. water, river

forwyrcan, forwyrcean irr. wv.1 to block

scip n.neut.a. ship

ūtbrinʒan, ūtbrenʒan irr.v. to bring out
СЕМИНАРСКОЕ ЗАНЯТИЕ № 4

Тема: Old English Morphology

Discussion points:

1. The Noun.

Explain why OE is called a “synthetic” or “inflected” language. Enumerate the

grammatical categories of the OE noun. Why are noun declensions in OE referred to

as “stems”? Point out relics of the stem-suffixes in the forms of nouns.

2. The Pronoun.

What are the main classes of OE pronouns? Enumerate the grammatical categories

of the pronouns. Point out the peculiarities of all classes of pronouns.

3. The Adjective.

Enumerate the grammatical categories of OE adjectives. Explain the difference

between the groupings of nouns into declensions and the two declensions of adjectives.

Speak on the means of expressing the degrees of comparison.

4. The Numeral.

Into what groups do the OE numerals fall? What characterizes each of these

groups? What are the peculiar features of the numerals ān, tweʒen, þrēo?

5. The Adverb.

What is understood by primary and secondary adverbs in OE? Speak on the

means of expressing the degrees of comparison.

Practical assignments:

I. Determine the type of noun declension and supply the missing forms. Look through

the noun paradigms and find the instances of different means used in form-building.

Sg. Pl. Sg. Pl.

Nom. word word earm earmas

Gen. wordes ? earmes ?

Dat. ? ? ? ?

Acc. ? ? ? ?

Nom. bōc bēc cuppe ?

Gen. bōce, bēc ? ? ?

Dat. ? ? ? ?

Acc. ? ? cuppan ?
II. Which forms of adjectives, weak or strong, should be used in the following contexts?

Fill in the blanks with the appropriate endings:

of his house’.

III. Form the degrees of comparison of the following adjectives:

heard, ʒlæd, blæc, hwæt, ʒrēat, sceort, strong, hēah, ʒeonʒ.

IV. Determine the case, number and gender of nouns, pronouns and adjectives in the

following:

Þā wildan hrānas; ealra norþmonna;

hiera āʒnum lande; his yldran sunu;

mine daʒas; tō him.

V. Write down the forms of the OE numerals 40, 50, 60, 80, 1st, 23rd, 77th. Comment

on their structure.

VI. Comment on the structure of the following adverbs:

þ r, luflice, swylce, frēondlice, swīþe, oft, hwi, fullice, eft, ēastlanʒ, earmlice,

rest.
СЕМИНАРСКОЕ ЗАНЯТИЕ № 5
Тема: Old English Verb

Discussion points:

1. Strong Verbs.

Enumerate the grammatical categories of the finite and non-finite forms in OE.

In what respects was the OE verb system “simpler” than the MnE system? What are

the main distinguishing features of the strong verbs? Into what classes did they fall?

Point out the differences between them. Speak on the conjugation of the strong verbs.

2. Weak verbs.

What is the proportion of strong verbs to weak in OE? What are the main distinguishing

features of the weak verbs? Would it be correct to say that the weak verbs

employed suffixation as the only form-building means? Account for the division of

the weak verbs into classes and point out the differences between them. Speak on the

conjugation of the weak verbs.

3. Preterite-Present verbs.

Explain the origin of the term “preterite-present verbs”? How many preteritepresent

verbs were there in OE? What are their peculiar features? How are they subdivided?

What MnE verbs did preterite-present verbs give rise to?

4. Suppletive Verbs.

What distinguishes suppletive verbs from all the other groups of verbs in OE?

Prove that suppletion is an ancient way of form-building that can be traced to Proto-

Indo-European. Cite the principal forms of the paradigm of OE suppletive verbs.

5. Analytical formations in OE.

Enumerate the analytical formations the verbal system acquired during the OE

period.
Recommended Reading:

1. Аракин В.Д. История английского языка. М., 1985. – С. 69 –88.

2. Аракин В.Д. Очерки по истории английского языка. М., 2007. – С. 166–205.

3. Иванова И.П., Чахоян Л.П., Беляева Т.М. История английского языка. Учебник.

Хрестоматия. Словарь. СПб., 1998. – С. 133 –150.

4. Ильиш Б.А. История английского языка. Л., 1972. – С. 87 –110.

5. Расторгуева Т.А. История английского языка. М., 2003. – С. 108 –129.

6. Резник Р.В., Сорокина Т.С., Резник И.В. A History of the English Language. Ис-

тория английского языка. М., 2003. – С. 107-125.

Practical assignments:

I. Build the principal forms of the strong verbs forlēosan, weorþan and drīfan and explain

the interchange of vowels and consonants.

II. Determine the class of the following strong verbs and supply the missing forms:

Infinitive Past Sg. Past Pl. Part. II MnE

stelan ? ? ? steal

? scān ? ? shine

? ? ton ? eat

? ? ? sunʒen sing

ceorfan ? ? ? carve

? wearð wurdon worden become

? sanc ? ? sink

? ? ? ʒliden glide

? wōc ? ? wake

? ? ? bacen bake

III. Prove that the non-finite forms in OE had more nominal features than they have

today.

IV. Find instances of “breaking” in the principal forms of strong and weak verbs.

the following:

VI. Define the form and class of the verbs in the following phrases and reconstruct

their initial forms:

wīciað Finnas; fōr hē; þā Beornas spr con; Ohthere mētte; wē willað secʒan.

VII. Explain with what classes of the strong verbs the preterite-present verbs mōt

(must) and dearr (dare) correlate.

VIII. Read the sentences and define the forms of the suppletive verbs:

тогда он пошел на запад.

Discussion points:

1. The syntactic structure of OE.

Speak on the tendencies in the order of words in the OE sentence. How does it

differ from the word-order in MnE? What are the peculiarities of the OE negation?

What are the peculiar features of the interrogative sentences in OE? Characterize OE

reported sentences. Speak on the structure of compound and complex sentences.

2. Composition of OE vocabulary. Ways of enriching the vocabulary.

Speak on the three strata (etymological layers) of the OE vocabulary. Comment

on the morphological classification of the OE vocabulary and the ways of enriching

it. Why does the OE vocabulary contain so few borrowings from the Celtic languages?

Why do place-names constitute a substantial part of Celtic element? Describe

the Latin impact on the OE vocabulary. What facts can be given to prove that

OE was generally resistant to borrowing and preferred to rely upon its own sources?

Practical assignments:

I. Read the following sentence and comment on the word-order in each of the clauses:

II. Read the given sentence and explain the use of the inverted word order:

III. Point out the connectives and comment on their type:

IV. Comment on the multiple negation in the following sentences:

V. Read and translate the text. Explain the distinguishing features of the OE syntax:

VI. Classify the OE words into four groups: a) simple words; b) derived words; c)

compound words; d) loan translations.

fuʒolere, Tiwesdæʒ, tunʒol, spinnestre, stronʒ, tunʒolwiteʒa, strenʒu,

Sunnandæʒ, īceceald, bysiʒ, bēodan, dæʒessēaʒa, helpleas, frið, misbēodan, r den,

r desman, miht, unfriðe, witeʒa,

VII. Pick out the OE suffixes and prefixes which are still used in English and can be

regarded as productive today.

VIII. Add negative prefixes to the following OE words and explain the meaning of

the derivatives:

VII. Classify the following OE words into three groups: a) Common Indo-European

words, b) Common Germanic words, c) specifically English words.

finʒer, wīfman, fæder, etan, scip, mere, cwene, hūs, winter, s , hlāford, cl ,

bitter, sand, trēow, findan, lonʒ, beard, macean, hl ʒe, fox, þat.

IX. Classify the following loan-words in OE into: a) the first layer of Latin borrowings;

b) the second layer of Latin borrowings; c) Celtic borrowings.

Cleric, creda, assa, dūn, avon, offrian, myln, pere, mint, māʒister, loch, scōl.

X. From the list of Latin loan-words in OE speculate on the kind of contacts the English

had with Rome at different historical periods:

cēapman, pund, wīn, plume, cīese, pipor, cealc, coper, disc, cytel, cuppe, pyle,

mīl, weal, str , ceaster, apostol, antefn, biscop, candel, dēofol, mæsse, mynster,

munuc, scōlere, fers, dihtan.

XI. Fill in the tables with the English place-names with the Latin and Celtic elements:

Latin borrowing

Portus

порт

лагерь

поселение

Fossa

ров

Celtic borrowing

Pill

ручей

холм

церковь

скала

долина

place-name