Reflexes of Proto-Germanic Fricatives in Old English

Change illustrated		Examples
Rhotacism Voicing or Devoicing Hardening	Late PG	ОE	Other OG languages	OE	NE
ð		d	O Icel rauðr	rēad	red
			Gt wasida [ð]	werede	wore, past of war
v		b	Gt broþar	brōþor	brother
γ		g	Gt guma	3uma	'man*
v	{	v	Gt sibun (v]	seofon [v]	seven
Gt hlaifs	hlafas {v]	loaves
f	(Cf. R хлеб)	hlāf [fl	loaf
f	{	v	Gt wulfos	wulfas [vl	wolves
f	Gt wulfs	wulf [f]	wolf
θ	{	ð	Gt siupan [θ]	seopan [ð]	seethe
θ	Gt sauþ [θ]	sead [θ]	seethed
γ	{	γ	Gt dagos	daзas	days
x	Gt baurgs	buruh, burh	borough
s	{	z	Gt kiusan [s]	ceosan [z]	choose
s	Gt kaus [s]	ceas [s]	chose
z		r	Gt maiza [z]	māra	more
Gt huzd	hord	hoard

 

Hardening. The PG voiced [ð] (due to Verner’s law) was always hardened to [d] in OE and other WG languages. The two other fricatives, [v] and [γ] were hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals, otherwise they remained nasals.

Rhotacism. PG [z] underwent a phonetic modification through the stage of [з] into[r]. This process, termed rhotacism, is characteristic not only og WG but also of NG.

Voicing and devoicing of fricatives.The PG set of fricatives [f, θ, x, s] and also those of the voiced fricatives which had not turned onto plosives, that is [v] and [γ], were subjected to a new process of voicing and devoicing. In Early OE they became or remained voiced intervocally and between vowels, sonorants and voiced consonants; they remained or became voiced in ither environments.

West Germanic gemination of consonants. In all WG languages most consonants werer lengthened after a short vowel before [j], e.g. * fuljan>OE fyllan (NE fill). During the process, or some time later, [j] was lost, so that the long consonants ceased to be phonetically conditioned. The change did not affect the sonorant [r].

Palatalisation of velar consonants in Old English.

The velar consonants were palatalised before a front vowel, or sometimes also after a front vowel, unless followed by back vowel.

Palatalisation and Splitting of Velar Consonants

Change illustrated	Examples
Before and after front vowels	In other positions	OE	NE
k к’		сinn, birce, tǽcan	chin, birch, teach
		(from *tākjan),
	k	can, macian (from	can, make
		*makōjan)
g g’		sеnзаn (from *sangjan)	singe
g: g’:		есз, bгусз	edge, bridge
	g	заn, зrētаn	go, greet
x x’		neaht, niht	night
	x, h	hors, hlāf	horse, loaf
γ j		dæ3, 3eard	day, yard
	γ	da3as	days

 

Loss of consonants in some positions.

Nasal sonorants were regularly lost before fricative consonants, in the process the preceding vowel was probably nasalised and lengthened. Cf. Gt fimf, OIcel. Fim, OHG fimf> OE fīf (NE five).

Old English consonant system.

Old English Consonants

Place of articulation     Manner of articulation	Labial, labioden­tal	Forelinguar (dental)	Mediolin- gual (palatal)	Back lingual (velar)
Noise conso­nants	plosive voiceless   voiced	p p:   b b:	t t:   d d:	k’ k’:   g’:	k k:   g g:
	fricative voiceless   voiced	f f:   v	θ θ: s s:   ð z	x’ x’:   γ’ (j)	x x: (h)   γ
Sonorants	m m:   w	n n:   r 1	j	(ŋ)

 

Lecture 5

Old English Grammar

Hours

Plan

1. The Noun. Morphological classifications of Nouns in OE. Declensions of Nouns.

2. The Pronoun. Personal pronouns, their declension. Demonstrative pronouns.Other classes of pronouns.

3. Adjectives. Declensions of Adjectives. Degrees of comparison.

4. Numerals.

5. The verb. Strong and weak verbs. Preterite-present verbs. Anomalous verbs.

Literature

Rastorgueva T.A. A History of English. M.,1983; M.,2005. - p.92-129.

Ilyish B. History of the English language. Л. 1972. – p 63-132.

Reznik R.V., Sorokina T.S., Reznik I.V. A History of the English Language. M., 2001. – p. 89-126.

Аракин В.Д. История английского языка. М., 1985. – c. 45-91.

Бруннер К. История английского языка. М., 2003. – Т.2, с.3-354.

Иванова И.П., Чахоян Л.П., Беляева Т.М. История английского языка. СПб., 1998. с. 98-108, 112-116, 124-128, 131, 132-133, 133-154, 191-204, 216-224, 239-251,292-295.

Смирницкий А.И. Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1998. – с. 207-301.

Morphology

Form-building. Parts of speech and grammatical categories.

1.The Noun. Its grammatical categories. The use of cases. Morphological classification of nouns. Declensions. Weak and strong declensions. Root stems. Types of plural forms.

The OE noun had two grammatical or morphological categories: number and case. In addition it istinguished three genders.

The Noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative.

Historically, the Oe system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in final syllables.