Учебно-методический комплекс дисциплины «История языка» для специальности 050210 «Иностранная филология» учебно методические материалы

для специальности 050210 – «Иностранная филология»

Семей - 2012

2 Лекции

4 Курсовая работа и дипломный проект (работа)

5 Самостоятельная работа студента

1. ГЛОССАРИЙ

Ablaut, vowel gradation аблаут: морфонологическое чередование гласных

(англ. sing/sang/sung).

средневековой Англии, французский язык норманнов, переселившихся в Бри-

танию.

Anglo-Saxon, Old English древнеанглийский язык, англо-саксонский: анг-

лийский язык в период с V по XII вв. н.э.

вой семьи.

логическое чередование, представленное в германских языках

рукции праязыка с использованием материала родственных языков.

ков.

языков: классификация языков, основанная на степени их родства и общности

происхождения.

Germanic languages германские языки: группа в составе индоевропейской

семьи языков.

долгих гласных английского языка в конце среднеанглийского периода (XV в.),

состоявшие в сужении широких гласных и дифтонгизации узких (e:>i:, o:>u:,

i:>ai, u:>au).

Grimm’s Law, consonant shift закон Гримма, первое, или германское, пе-

редвижение согласных: переход индоевропейских глухих смычных в герман-

ские глухие щелевые, индоевропейских звонких смычных в германские глухие

смычные и индоевропейских звонких смычных придыхательных в германские

звонкие смычные без придыхания (ptk>fþh; bdg>ptk; bh dh gh > bdg).

Indo-European languages индоевропейские языки.

Inflectional language флективный язык, язык флективного строя: языки,

для которых характерно тесное взаимодействие между морфемами, нередко

приводящее к размыванию морфемного шва, переразложению, выражению од-

ним аффиксом нескольких значений и т.п. К данному типу относится большин-

ство индоевропейских языков.

Internal inflexion внутренняя флексия: традиционное название способа

выражения морфологических отношений посредством изменения фонологиче-

ского (преимущественно вокалического) состава корня (tooth – teeth).

Kenning кеннинг: троп, состоящий в замене имени нарицательного деск-

рипцией, особенно в древнеанглийской поэзии (др.-англ. banhus ‘дом костей’

вместо ‘тело’).

Metanalysis метанализ, переразложение, деглютинация: смещение мор-

фемной границы (a napron>an apron).

ассимиляции и диссимиляции (þridda>þirda).

XV вв. н.э.

общность, включающая семито-хамитскую, индоевропейскую, картвельскую,

уральскую, дравидийскую и алтайскую языковые семьи.

Preterite-present verb претерито-презентный глагол: группа древнеанг-

лийских и среднеанглийских глаголов, имевших чередование гласных в осно-

вах единственного и множественного числа настоящего времени, бывших ко-

гда-то основами прошедшего времени, но переосмысленных.

языковых формах языка-победителя.

риториальный диалект, местный диалект.

ляции гласных в смежных слогах, характеризующийся регрессивно направлен-

ным влиянием гласного звука суффикса или окончания на корневой гласный. В

дальнейшем окончания часто исчезали, а чередование гласных корня начинало

выполнять грамматические функции (goose – geese; mouse – mice).

Verner’s Law закон Вернера: озвончение глухого щелевого согласного в

германских языках, связанное с подвижностью индоевропейского ударения

(áþa – aðá).

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 1

THE SUBJECT OF HISTORY OF ENGLISH. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC

LANGUAGE

1. The Subject of History of English.

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

3. Germanic tribes and their classification.

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

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

1. History of English is a discipline, studying the origins, the phonetic system,

grammatical structure and vocabulary of the English language at different stages of

its development.

The purpose of history of English is a systemic study of the language’s development from the earliest times to the present day. It enables the student to acquire a more profound understanding of the language of today.

Language as a historical phenomenon has been gradually, slowly but constantly

changing throughout its history. Some changes are due to external causes (extralinguistic factors: social, economic and political events, wars, migrations, cultural contacts, etc.), some of them are due to internal causes (intra-linguistic and systemic changes within the language itself, its phonetics, grammar, etc.)

There are two aspects of the study of the historical development of the language:

with no reference to its previous forms) and diachronic (the study describing the

changes occurred in this or that sphere of the language in the course of its development).

Historical development of the language does not mean permanent instability.

In both synchrony and diachrony we can find statics and dynamics. Some features of the language remain stable: they suffer no or little alteration through time due to the tendency to preserve the language in a state fit for communication (statics). Some features of the language undergo profound changes due to the tendency to improve the language (dynamics).

The study of the history of any language is based on applying general principles

of linguistics to the language in question. Foundations of language history are studied in introduction to linguistics. The basic method applied to the study of language history is comparative-historical. It enables us to study various phenomena of the language development from the point of view of evolution and in comparison with the phenomena of other language(s). The comparative-historical method aims to reconstruct an ancestor language from the evidence that remains in daughter languages. It can also be applied to determine which languages are related within families.

2. Language family is a group of languages that are genetically related to one another, because they have all developed from a single ancestral language. The Indo- European family is a language family all of whose members are descendants of an ancestral language called Indo-European. To the Indo-European family belong most 10 languages of Europe as well as most languages of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and most of India. Of the 12 languages with more than 100 million native speakers, 8 belong to the Indo-European family. Yet Indo-European languages number only 150.

The Indo-European family is represented by several groups of languages (old and

modern) (see the partial tree of the Indo-European language family).

Proto-Indo-European

Armenian Albanian

Old Indo-Iranian

Proto-Italic Old Celtic

Proto-Germanic Common Slavonic

Latin Irish Proto

- Iranian Sanskrit

Ancient Greek

West North French Spanish Persian Hindi

Germanic Germanic East Slavonic West

Greek Slavonic

Russian Ukrainian

English German Swedish

Polish

English is descended from Proto-Germanic, a language that was spoken about

Proto-Germanic is itself a daughter language of Proto-Indo-European.

While there are no written records of Proto-Indo-European itself, a rich vein of information about it can be deciphered from the linguistic characteristics of its daughter languages.

3. Our knowledge of old Germanic barbarian tribes is based on testimonies by Greek and Roman authors: the evidence of the Greek traveler and astronomer Pytheas from Massilia (the 4th century B.C.); “Geography” by the Greek geographer Strabo (63 B.C.–20 A.D.); “Natural History” by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.);

“Commentaries on the War in Gaul” by Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.); “Germania” by the Roman historian Tacitus (55-120 A.D.). At the beginning of the new era Germanic tribes occupied vast territories in Western, Central and Northern Europe

(Pliny’s classification):

 the Vindili (the Goths, Vandals and Burgundians) inhabited the eastern part of

Germanic territory;

 the Ingaevones (the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) inhabited the north-western

part;

 the Hermiones (the Allemanians, Bavarians, Langobardians) inhabited the southern

part;

 the Helliviones (the Danes, Sweons) inhabited Scandinavia.

three branches: East Germanic (extinct), North Germanic (or Scandinavian), West

Germanic.

Old Germanic written records.Gothic is the only well-documented member of

the extinct eastern branch. It was spoken by the Ostrogoths of ancient Germany and Italy and by Visigoths of Eastern Europe and Spain. Records of Gothic are older than those for any other Germanic language (except for some runic inscriptions in Scandinavia).

Most knowledge of Gothic is derived from fragments of a translation of the

Bible (‘Silver Code’ or ‘Codex Argenteus’) made by the 4th-century Gothic bishop

Wulfila (311-383). The Gothic alphabet, traditionally devised by Wulfila, consisted of 27 characters: 25 modified Greek symbols and 2 runes.

Old Norse was the common Scandinavian language. Its earliest runic inscriptions

date from the 3rd century.

Among the most important monuments is Old Icelandic ‘Older Edda’, a collection

of epic songs dating from the 10th or 11th century.

The famous epic written in Old High German is ‘Song of Hildebrandt’ (8th century).

The most important work of literature in Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) is an

epic poem ‘Beowulf’ (was written in the late 10th century on the basis of an 8th century poem). It consists of 3,182 lines, each line with four accents marked by alliteration (the repetition of the initial letter or first sound in 2 or 3 of 4 stressed syllables in every line).The poem is told in vigorous language, with much use of metaphor.

Germanic Alphabets.

Germanic tribes used three alphabets. The earliest known was the runic alphabet,

the letters of which were called runes. The first runic inscriptions appear about

the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. It is customary to distinguish between an older and a

The younger runes had 16 letters (some letters were dropped). The last runic alphabet developed is called the dotted runes (dots were added to some runes to denote new sounds). The runic alphabet underwent changes with different Germanic tribes:

some new letters were added, some of the original ones were dropped. An Anglo-

Saxon runic alphabet had 31 runes.

The second Germanic alphabet was Wulfila’s Gothic (4th century; based on the

Greek alphabet with devised by Wulfila admixture of Latin and runic letters).

With the spread of Christianity (7th century) the Germanic tribes borrowed the

Latin alphabet.

5. During the first millennium B.C., before the Germanic group of languages had

split into three branches, but after it had split from other branches of Indo-European, Proto-Germanic developed certain characteristic features of phonology, lexicon, morphology and syntax that continue in its daughter languages, setting them apart as a group from all the other Indo-European languages. They are:

 a set of consonant correspondences found in none of the other Indo-European languages

(Grimm’s law);

 rhotacism (the change of z > r);

 ablaut (internal vowel gradation);

 Germanic fracture;

 umlaut (palatal mutation of root vowels under the influence of the sounds [i] or [j]

in the suffix or ending);

 shifting of stress patterns to a word’s first root syllable;

 peculiarities of grammar and lexicon.

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

2. The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain.

3. Periods in the history of English.

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

1. The earliest inhabitants of Britain were: cave-men (prehistoric population); Iberians

(Ivernians), who in 3 millennium B.C. came from the east and bore a striking resemblance to the Basques (the population of the western Pyrenees); Celtic tribes

(from 1 millennium B.C.)

Greek explorer Pytheas, of Massilia, sailing round Europe landed in Kent. At this

time Britain was inhabited by Celtic tribes (Britons, Gaels), who spoke Celtic languages.

The Celts came to Britain in three waves. Economically and socially they

were a tribal society made of kins, kinship groups, clans and tribes. They practiced a primitive agriculture, and carried on trade with Celtic Gaul.

The Celts are the first inhabitants of Britain whose linguistic affiliation has been

established. Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

The Roman period in Britain (55 B.C. -410 A.D.)

The Roman colonization had a profound effect on the country. The natives borrowed the elements of material culture (paved roads, powerful walls of military

camps) as well as the names of these objects. The borrowed words belong to the

spheres of military organization, trade, agriculture:

strata via ‘мощеная дорога’ street

castra ‘лагерь’ Chester, Manchester, Winchester

milia (passuum) ‘тысяча (шагов)’ mile

saccus ‘мешок’ sack

molina ‘мельница’ mill

caseus ‘сыр’ cheese

prunum ‘слива’ plum

secures ‘безопасный’ secure

2. When the Roman legions withdrew in 410 A.D., the Celts, who had long been accustomed

to their protection, were at the mercy of the Picts and Scots from the north

of Britain. Vortigern, king of the Romanized Celts in Britain, sought help from three

Germanic tribes, who in 449 A.D. set sail from what is today northern Germany and

southern Denmark to aid the Celts. When they landed in Britain, however, they decided

to settle, leaving the Celts only the remote corners – today’s Scotland, Wales

and Cornwall.

The invaders spoke closely related varieties of West Germanic – the dialects that

were to become English. The word ‘England’ derives from the name of one of the

tribes, the Angles. The Old English language used by the early Germanic inhabitants

of England and their offspring up to about 1100 A.D. is often called Anglo-Saxon,

after the two of the tribes. Early Anglo-Saxon has left no written records. The oldest

surviving English-language materials come from the end of the 7th century.

Once the Anglo-Saxon tribes had settled in Britain, there were additional onslaughts

from other Germanic groups (the Scandinavians) starting in 787 A.D. Attacks

from the Scandinavians continued throughout the Viking Age (roughly 750-

1050). The intermingling between the Anglo-Saxon invaders and the subsequent

Scandinavian settlers created a mix of Germanic dialects in England that molded the

particular character of the English language and distinguishes it markedly from its

cousins.

3. Scholars have divided the history of English into three main periods, representing

very different stages of the language: Old English (OE) or Anglo-Saxon (500 A.D. –

1100 A.D.); Middle English (ME) (1100 A.D. – 1500 A.D.); Modern English (MnE)

(since 1500 A.D.).

H. Sweet characterized OE as the period of full endings. The morphological system

was highly developed. Any vowel could be placed in an unstressed position: e.g.

sunu. ME was called the period of leveling of endings. Any vowel in an unstressed

position is reduced to neutral e: e.g. sone. For this reason many earlier distinctions

disappeared and new (analytical) forms appeared. Thus the morphological system

weakened. MnE was qualified as the period of lost endings: e.g. son_. The structure

of the language changed considerably, yielding to the analytical type.

Like the classical Latin of Roman times and the German of today, OE was a

highly inflected language. It had an elaborate system of inflectional suffixes on

nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and even determiners. For example, OE adjectives

case (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental). Besides, there were

two distinct kinds of adjective declensions – ‘weak’ (or ‘definite’) and ‘strong’ (or

‘indefinite’). There were ten different forms of an adjective as compared to its single

form in MnE.

Major phonological changes of the ME period are:

 leveling of short vowels in unstressed syllables: sunu>sone;

 simplification of diphthongs: seon>seen, beon>been;

 simplification of initial consonant clusters: hring>ring; hnutu>nute.

Unstressed syllables included all the inflections on nouns, adjectives and verbs.

The leveling of short vowels in unstressed syllables made the inflections indistinguishable

and led to their further dropping. Thus phonological reductions undermined

the inflectional morphology. As a result, the OE noun, adjective and verb paradigms

became greatly simplified.

The language of the 15th century is in most ways Modern – though the principal

phonological development of English vowels took place sometime between 1450 and

1650, when the long vowels changed their quality very markedly.

The complex inflectional system of OE was destroyed in MnE. Most nouns, adjectives

and verbs lost their inflections. Gradually, the word order yielded to the relatively

fixed word order, whose linear arrangements have become the chief carrier of

grammatical functions. MnE thus became an analytical language, relying principally

on the word order to express grammatical relations that were formerly marked inflectionally.

4. By the end of the 6th century the Germanic tribes established 7 kingdoms (Heptarchy)

in Britain: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent.

Thus, four principal dialects of English sprang up: Northumbrian (in the north, above

the Humber River); Mercian (in the Midlands); Kentish (in the south-east); West

The West Saxon (Wessex) dialect is represented by the works of King Alfred

the Great (849-899); the oldest epic poem ‘Beowulf’ (the author is unknown); the

epic poems ‘Genesis’ and ‘Exodus’ by Caedmon, ‘Andrew’ and ‘Elene’ by Cynewulf;

the works of the abbot Ælfric (10th century); the sermons of Wulfstan.

The Northumbrian dialect is represented by runic ‘Franks’ casket’ and ‘Ruthwell

cross’; Bede’s ‘Dying Song’; Caedmon’s ‘Hymn’; translations of the gospels.

The Mercian dialect is represented by translation of ‘Vespasian Psalter’ (8th century)

and the Kentish dialect – by translation of Psalms and charters.

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 3

OLD ENGLISH: ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONETICS

1. Phonetic structure and orthography of Old English.

2. Old English phonetic changes.

1. OE vowels.

OE had a system of long and short vowels:
short: a æ e i o u y å

long: ā ē ī ō ū

and Gemüt; æ was sounded like MnE [æ] in cat.

OE diphthongs were long and short:

short: ea eo ie io

long: ēa ēo īe īo

OE diphthongs were falling (their first element was stressed).

OE consonants.

OE consonant system consisted of 14 phonemes denoted by the following

graphs:

p, b, m, f, t, d, n, s, r, l, þ/ð, c, h, ʒ.

The OE spelling was phonetic, but three pairs of sounds were allophones of single

phonemes:

[f] and [v]; [θ] and [ð]; [s] and [z].

The voiceless allophones [f, θ, s] occurred at the beginning and at the end of

words and when adjacent to voiceless sounds within words. The voiced allophones

[v, ð, z] occurred between voiced sounds:

wīf [wi:f] ‘wife’ but wīfes [wi:ves] ‘wives’.

The letter ʒ represented three sounds:

 [j] initially when preceded and finally when it followed front vowels

gēar ‘year’, Rōmānabyrig ‘Rome’

 [γ] after back vowels and consonants l, r

 [g] before consonants and back vowels

The letter c represented two sounds: [k] – cuman ‘come’ and [k’] – cild ‘child’.

The letter x was an alternative spelling of cs, as in axode ‘asked’.

2. OE phonetic changes (breaking or fracture; umlaut; lengthening of vowels before

the clusters nd, ld, mb; palatalization; metathesis; stress on the first root syllable).

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 4

OLD ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY

1. The noun in Old English.

2. The pronoun in Old English.

3. The adjective in Old English.

4. The numeral in Old English.

5. The adverb in Old English.

1. OE was a highly inflected language. It had an elaborate system of inflectional suffixes

on nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and even determiners. OE nouns were in-

Accusative). OE nouns exploited four or three cases because nominative and accusative

forms often coincided. OE gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) may not reflect

the natural gender of the noun. Every noun belonged to one of the declension

types: strong, weak or root.

2. There were several types of pronouns in OE: personal, possessive, demonstrative,

interrogative, definite, indefinite, negative and relative.

3. OE adjectives were inflected for gender, number and case to agree with their head

noun. There were two kinds of adjective declension: weak and strong. Degrees of

comparison were expressed synthetically (by means of suffixes, by means of vowel

gradation plus suffixes, or by means of suppletive forms).

4. Cardinal numerals. Numerals from 1 to 3 were declined. Numerals from 4 to 19

were invariable. Numerals from 13 to 19 were formed by means of adding the suffix -

tien (tin, tyn). Numerals expressing tens were formed by means of the suffix –-tiʒ

(from 70 to 100 the numeral hund was added).

Ordinal numerals: 1st – forma, fyresta; 2nd – oþer, æfterra, 3rd – þridda, þirda;

numerals from 4th were formed by adding suffixes -þa or -ta.

5. Some OE adverbs were primary, others were derived from other parts of speech

by means of suffixes (-e, -lice, -es). Degrees of comparison were expressed synthetically

– by means of suffixes -or and -ost.

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 5

THE OLD ENGLISH VERB

1. Strong verbs.

2. Weak verbs.

3. Preterite-present verbs.

4. Suppletive verbs.

5. Analytical formations.

1. Like other Germanic languages OE exhibited two main types of verbs: strong (the

traditional Indo-European type showing a vowel gradation (ablaut) in the Past and

Participle II) and weak (characteristically Germanic). The strong verbs in OE were

subdivided in 7 classes, each class with its own type of vowel change. There was one

more subdivision – into 4 forms: the Infinitive, Preterite Singular, Preterite Plural,

and Past Participle. The OE system of verb forms includes two tenses (the Present

and the Past or Preterite) and three moods (Indicative, imperative and subjunctive).

The category of person is represented only in the Indicative Sg. and in the imperative.

There is no indication of person in the Indicative Pl. or in any of the Subjunctive

forms.The conjugation of the strong verbs.

2. The weak (regular) verbs in OE form their Past and Participle II by addition of a

dental suffix -d/t. They are subdivided in 3groups, according to the stem-vowel joining

the endings to the root. The conjugation of the weak verbs.

3. The group of Preterite-Present verbs consists of 12 verbs. These verbs have vowel

gradation in their present-tense forms, corresponding to vowel gradation in the preter17

ite of strong verbs. Their preterite is formed on the weak pattern. These verbs have a

marked modal meaning; most of them exist in MnE as modal verbs.

4. The suppletive verbs stand apart from all the other groups of verbs in OE. They are

building different forms from different roots. Among such verbs are bēon/wesan (to

be), ʒān/ēode (to go) and don/dyde (to do). The first verb of each of the pairs is the

root for the present tense, the second – for the past. A similar phenomenon is observed

in Russian: быть – есть, иду – шел.

5. During the OE period the verbal system acquires some analytical formations:

 bēon/wesan + Participle II of transitive verbs (a means of expressing a passive action):

þ r wæs sē ʒūþfana ʒenumen (there was a warbanner seized);

 sculan/willan + Infinitive (a means of expressing a future tense):

wille ic āsecʒan (I will say);

 bēon/habban + Participle II (a means of expressing the result of the action):

hīe hæfdon hiera cyninʒ āworpenne (They had deposed their king);

ic eom cumen (I have come).

1. The syntactic structure of Old English.

2. Composition of Old English vocabulary. Means of enriching the vocabulary.

1. Word order. Having a rich inflectional system, OE could rely on its morphological

distinctions to indicate grammatical relations and certain semantic roles without having

to rely on word order. Word order was therefore more flexible in OE than it is in

MnE. Both OE and MnE show a preference for SPO order (subject preceding predicate

preceding object) in main clauses. OE preferred verb-final word order (SOP) in

subordinate clauses.

The order of elements in OE noun phrases was usually determiner-adjectivenoun:

sē ʒōda månn (the good man).

Far more frequently than in MnE, genitives preceded nouns: m res līfes månn

(a man of splendid life).

OE nouns generally had prepositions, though pronouns often had the same form

in postposition: sē hālʒa Andreas him tō cwæþ (St. Andrew said to him).

OE adjectives almost uniformly preceded their head nouns (sē foresprecena here

‘the aforesaid army’), though they could sometimes follow them: wadu weallendu

(surging waters).

Relative clauses, unlike adjectives, generally followed their head nouns in OE:

ða cyninʒas ðe ðone onwald h (the kings who had the power).

Negation. Negative words were freely used in OE, their number not being limited:

nān nē dorste nān þinʒ āscian (nobody dared ask anything). The negative particle

ne+hæfde (had)>næfde; ne+is>nis; ne+wæs>næs; ne+w ron (were) >n ron.

putting the predicate before the subject: Hwannon feriʒeað ʒē fætte seyldas? (From

where do you carry strong shields?).

Reported sentences. To express indirect speech (including indirect questions) the

subjunctive mood was used: hē s de þæt Norðmanna land w re sw e lanʒ and

sw e smæl (he said that the land of the Northmen was very long and very narrow).

The composite sentence. In a compound sentence clauses may be connected by

the conjunctions and, oþþe (or),ac (but). The subordinate clauses of complex sentences

were introduces by the following conjunctions: þā/ þonne/þanne (when); þæt

(that); syþþan (since); þær (where); for (because); forþ (because); swā (so); ʒif

(if); þēah (though), etc.

2. Composition of OE Vocabulary. The Vocabulary of OE contained about 50000

words. The oldest stratum (Common Indo-European words): fæder (father), mōðor

(mother), nama (name), niht (night), nēowe (new), sittan (to sit), licʒan (to lie). The

second sratum (Common Germanic words): eorþe (earth), land, sæ (sea), earm (poor),

ʒrēne (green), findan (to find), sinʒan (to sing), steorþan (to die). The third stratum

(specially English words): clipian (to call), wifmann (woman).

Means of enriching the vocabulary: derivation, composition, borrowings (Latin,

Celtic).

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 7

MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-1500)

1. The Scandinavian invasions.

2. The Norman Conquest and its effect on the linguistic situation.

3. Spelling changes and reading rules in Middle English.

4. Phonetic system of Middle English: a) vowel changes; b) consonant changes; c)

development of diphthongs.

1. The Viking Age (750 A.D. – 1050 A.D.). The Danelaw. The intermingling between

the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavian settlers and a mix of Germanic dialects

that molded the particular character of the English language.

2. William, Duke of Normandy. The Battle of Hastings. A Norman Kingdom in England.

Norman French as the language of the ruling class. The decline of English during

the 12th and the 13th centuries. Struggle between English and French. Rise of the

English of the 14th century. French influence on ME.

3. Changes in the alphabet:

 the letter ʒ was replaced by g and y;

 the ligature æ comes into disuse;

 the new letters (j, v, q, z) were introduced;

Changes in spelling habits:

 the sound [u] came to be spelt ou/ow or o (in the neighbourhood of u, v, m, n);

 the sound [e:] is denoted by French digraph ie;

 the letters þ and ð for the sounds [θ] and [ð] were superseded by the digraph th;

 the letter c was replaced by k before e, i and n to denote the consonant [k];

 the cluster [kw] was spelt qu instead of OE cw.

19

4. a) The number of vowel phonemes was reduced. Vowel quantity lost its phonemic

denoted by the letter e. Long vowels occurring before two consonants were shortened

(except ld, nd, mb). Short vowels were lengthened in open syllables. Lengthening affected

the short vowels a, e, o. The narrow vowels i and u remained unaffected by

this change.

b) The number of consonant phonemes increased. The sounds [f] and [v], [s] and [z],

which in OE had been allophones of one phoneme, became separate phonemes. OE

palatal c developed into the affricate ch. The OE cluster sc changed into sh. The OE

long consonant denoted by cʒ developed into the voiced affricate dg. The velar spirant

ʒ changed into w after the liquids l and r.

c) OE diphthongs containing a second open or half-open element (the ea or eo type)

disappeared. Diphthongs containing a second closed element (the ei or ai type) arose.

The new diphthongs aw[au] and ow [ou] appeared.

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 8

MIDDLE ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY

1. The noun in Middle English.

2. The adjective in Middle English.

3. The pronoun in Middle English.

4. The article in Middle English.

5. The adverb in Middle English.

1. The weakening of unstressed vowels was closely connected with developments in

declension. Unstressed syllables included all the inflections on nouns in OE. Thus,

most of them merged, becoming indistinguishable in ME. As a result of these merges,

the OE noun paradigms became greatly simplified in ME. In fact, only two numerous

groups of nouns survived in ME. The first is the former a-declension, which had absorbed

the other stems. The other group is the n-declension, which consists of the

former weak declension. The root declension lost some words, but continued to exist.

By the end of the ME period the noun had lost grammatical gender and got two cases:

the common case and the possessive case.

2. The disappearance of grammatical gender and the reduction of case endings of

ME nouns led to a considerable change in adjective declension. The weak-declension

ending -en was dropped. The only case ending came to be -e. Degrees of comparison

were formed in ME by means of the suffixes -(e)r, -est. Some adjectives (old, long,

strong) kept a mutated vowel in the comparative and superlative. Several adjectives

(gōd, evil, muchel, litel) preserved suppletive degrees of comparison. There also appeared

a new means of forming degrees of comparison: comfortable – more comfortable

– most comfortable.

3. In ME the pronominal paradigm was greatly simplified. What remained of pronominal

declension is mainly represented by the declension of personal pronoun. The

OE four-case system of personal pronouns gave way to a two-case system. Grammatical

gender disappeared. The OE three-number system was substituted by a twonumber

system.

20

Other groups of pronouns: possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, reflexive

4. The system of determination in ME is represented by means of the category of article.

In ME an indefinite article arose. It had its origin in the numeral ān ‘one’. The

definite article appeared when the meaning of the demonstrative pronoun was weakened

in OE. In ME the definite article the developed from OE demonstrative pronoun

sē.

5. Derived adverbs. New ways of deriving adverbs in ME. Degrees of comparison

of adverbs: suffixation, mutation, suppletive and analytic forms.

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 9

THE MIDDLE ENGLISH VERB

1. Strong verbs.

2. Weak verbs.

3. Preterite-present verbs.

4. Suppletive verbs.

5. Growth of analytical forms and new grammatical categories.

1. All types of verbs existing in OE were preserved with modifications in ME. Due

to phonetic changes (leveling of unstressed vowels) the endings of the forms of

strong verbs were weakened: -an, -on, and -en were all reduced to -en. The final -n,

which characterized many verb forms, was lost. It proved stable only in some second

participles. There was a strong tendency to reduce the number of stems. Vowel gradation

was considerably modified. Some strong verbs entered other classes. Some

strong verbs passed into the group of weak verbs and (rarely) vice versa. Conjugation

of strong verbs.

2. Weak verbs were becoming more numerous in ME due to passing of some strong

and borrowed verbs (of Scandinavian and French origin) into this type. Classes of

weak verbs. Forms of weak verbs. Quantitative changes. Changes on analogy. Conjugation

of weak verbs.

3. OE preterite-present verbs were preserved in ME except the verb ʒeneah, but their

forms underwent changes (phonetic and analogical) due to the general tendencies of

the period: they lost the forms of the verbals and the distinctions between the forms

of number and mood in the Present tense. Some of them have changed their meaning.

Most of them are commonly used as modal verbs.

4. The verbs bēn and gōn preserved the suppletive forms inherited from OE: different

forms were derived from different roots. The suppletive verbs preserved some of

the grammatical distinctions which were practically lost in other verbs, namely the

distinctions of number, person and mood. The paradigms of the suppletive verbs.

5. The OE verb had four categories: person, number, tense and mood. In ME there

developed three more grammatical categories – order (‘category of temporal relation’

Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky), voice and aspect. All the new forms are analytical. These analytical

forms developed from OE free word combinations habban, bēon/wesan + Infinitive

(or Participle):

 Perfect forms (the Present Perfect and the Past Perfect): habban, bēn + Participle

II;

 Future Tense: shal, wil + the Infinitive;

 Passive Voice: bēn + Participle II.


ЛЕКЦИЯ № 10

MIDDLE ENGLISH DIALECTS. THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE

1. The Southern dialects.

2. The Central (Midland) dialects.

3. The Northern dialect.

4. Spread of London dialect in the 15th century.

5. The Scottish language.

6. Formation of the national language: a) development of the literary language; b)

peculiar features of Modern English.

7. Expansion of English.

1. The South-Western and South-Eastern (Kentish) varieties. Peculiarities of spelling

and phonetics. Morphological peculiarities. Written documents: Ayenbyte of Inwit,

Polychronicon.

2. The East Midland and West Midland varieties. Peculiarities of spelling and phonetics.

Morphological peculiarities. Written records: Petersborough Chronicle, Ormulum,

Brut.

3. Peculiarities of the Northern dialect: spelling, phonetics, morphology. Written

documents: Cursor Mundi, The Prick of Conscience, York Plays.

4. London dialect as the prevalent written form of the language. Its features. The history

of the London dialect as the source and the basis of the literary standard. The

Early ME records. The Proclamation of 1258. Chaucer and his contemporaries.

5. Scotland as another centre of forming the national language. Scots and its basis.

Characteristic peculiarities of Scots. Scotland’s national literature. Bruce by J.

Barbour.

6. The formation of the national language covers the early MnE period. It witnessed

some great social and political events: the revolution of the 17th century, the Restoration

of 1660, the industrial revolution of the 18th century. The economic and political

unification played a decisive role in the development of the English language. Progress

of culture. William Caxton and the introduction of printing. The role of printing

in fixing and spreading the written form of English. Literary Renaissance. W. Shakespeare.

Establishment of written and spoken standards. The period of ‘normalisation’.

Grammarians and orthoepists.

MnE and its characteristic features. Phonetic changes: loss of unstressed [ə]; loss

of vowels in intermediate syllables; The Great Vowel Shift; influence of -r; other

changes. Changes in morphology. Vocabulary. Word-building. Conversion. Syntax.

7. In OE and ME English was spoken in what is known as England proper. From

the 13th to the 17th century it extended to the whole of the British Isles. It spread beyond

the British Isles with the growth of England’s colonial expansion (North America,

India and Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa).

The present-day English as the global lingua franca.


СЕМИНАРСКОЕ ЗАНЯТИЕ № 1