Morphological Comparison of Old English and Modern English verbs

CONTENTS

 

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………..…………………..…4

 

OE MORPHOLOGY. THE VERB

1.1 The grammatical categories of the OE verb..………..……………………….....6

1.2 Morphological classes of the verbs in OE.…………...……………………..…..14

 

Morphological Comparison of Old English and Modern English verbs

2.1Formation verb categories of voice and mood……………………………....…18

2.2 Comparative analysis of the Middle English and Modern English language

an example Shakespeare's plays ……………….………………….…...………21

2.3 The verb in Old English epic poem Beowulf….. …………………………..…...23

 

 

CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………….24

LIST OF REFERENCES ………………………………………………………….26

 

 

INTRODUCTION

The topicality. The history of the English language (HEL) is taught at English departments the world over, and English historical linguistics is a discipline with a very active international research community. The focus of research in the field seems to have gravitated from the earlier, medieval varieties to Early and, quite recently, Modern English. A very recent addition to the library of student grammars is An Introductory Grammar of Old English with an Anthology of Readings by Robert Dennis Fulk, Professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington. Professor Fulk is ideally suited for writing a grammar of Old English and compiling an anthology of Anglo-Saxon literature to accompany the linguistic description. In addition to Old English language and literature, he specialises in Germanic languages, comparative Indo-European linguistics, and Irish and Welsh. In addition to the Grammar, his recent work on HEL includes books on literary history, Old English morphology and Beowulf. The volumes which had constantly when perusing R. D. Fulk’s book are those by Peter S. Baker, whose recent textbook is now in its third edition and Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson.

The relevance of the theme of the course work in the study of the English language for its development and formation. Understanding that there is no language without words, and the words themselves do not constitute a language leads us to believe that the words are only the language when they are organized. It determines their use of language and gives intelligent character, making it the most important means of human communication. And this makes a comparative analysis of Old English and Modern English languages. This theme covers a wide range of issues related to changes in grammar of the English language.

The main idea of the research is the Old English verb, which is a structure that during the entire period of its development was subjected to significant changes. These changes have greatly affected its present state. To fully understand the structure of this system, it is necessary to study it from the very beginning of its origin. This will not only penetrate to the sources, but also more well-suited to a holistic perception of the entire system.

Grammatical categories of the Old English verb are the subject of numerous works of general and specific nature on the theory and history of the grammatical structure of the English language. The study of this problem was thoroughly studied by such prominent foreign linguists as Ilyish B. A., Barkhudarov L. S., Smirnitsky, and many others. The verb in the Old English language and its specific weight, and the number and methods of formation of grammatical forms – of course, the Central part of speech. The number of grammatical verb forms is unrivalled of the parts of speech in the English language.

The goal of the research -to study of the morphological system of the verb in the old English period and analyse the use of categories of the Old English verb in a context, to show their essence.

Achievement of the aim of the study requires a number of tasks:

1. To consider the basic grammatical categories of the Old English verb.

2. To give determination to every category of the Old English verb.

3. To consider application of grammatical categories of the Old English verb in a certain context.

4.To analyze and systematization of the features of the grammatical structures of the English language from the ancient period to the present.

5.To characterize peculiarities of changes in grammar, morphology Old English and Modern English language.

The object of the research – the history of the English Language.

The subject of the research – grammatical categories of the Old English verb.

OE MORPHOLOGY. THE VERB

The Category of Voice

Voice. Voice distinctions in OE were made by the opposition «active - passive». The passive action was denoted with the help of two patterns: weorþan (become)+ Participle II and beon (be)+ Participle II.

Hē fōr on Britanie … and wearþ geflīmed

he went to Britain... and was put to flight

Hiora cyning wæs gewundod on þæm feohte

Their king was wounded in that fight

However the existence of voice in the OE language as a verbal category is doubted. The grounds for such doubt lie in the linguistic character of the means used to denote the idea of passivity. It is most likely that both patterns built free syntactical phrases rather than analytical forms of the verb. The verbs weorþan and beon in these phrases were link verbs, and Participle II functioned as a predicative.

Note: Cf. modern English statements like «He was tired» where the predicate may be treated as a compound predicate consisting of a link-verb (was) and a predicative (tired).

 

The passive meaning was frequently indicated with the help of:

Bēon

+ Participle II of transitive verbs

weorðan

 

Passive constructions

Be-verbs plus past participle.

This distinction between weorÞan and beon/wesan becomes less and less clear during OE, as is to be expected of a form that was to disappear in ME (weorpan was eventually replaced by the get passive).

E. g. he gefeaht wiþ Gotan, & gefliemed weard & bedrifen on anne tun he fought against Goths and put-to-flight was and driven into one fortress

PDE: he fought against the Goths and was put to flight and driven into afortress;

 

The grammatical categories of verbals

In OE there were 2 non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. They were closer to the nouns and adjectives than to the finite verb. Their nominal features were obvious at the morphological level. The verbal nature of the Inf. and the Part. was revealed at the syntactical level: like finite forms they could take direct objects and be modified by adverbs.

 

The infinitive

The Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories. Being a verbal noun by origin, it had a sort of reduced case-system: two forms roughly corresponded to the Nom. and the Dat. cases of nouns, e.g.

Beran – uninflected Infinitive (Nom. case) = an infinitive with the suffix -(t)an, originally the nominative case marker for a neuter verbal noun

To berenne or to beranne – inflected Infinitive (Dat. case) = an infinitive with prepositional to, originally 'toward', and the inflected infinitive suffix -attne/-enne, originally the dative case marker for a verbal noun.

Like the Dat. case of nouns the inflected infinitive with the preposition tō could be used to indicate the direction or purpose of an action, e.g.

Mani3e cōmen tō byc3enne Þa Þin3 – ‘many (people) came to buy those things’

The uninflected Inf. was used in verb phrases with modal verbs, e.g.

Þū meaht sin3an – ‘ you can sing’

 

The participle

The participle was a kind of verbal adjective which was characterized not only by nominal but also by certain verbal features. Participle I (Pr. Part.) was opposed to Participle II (Past Part.) through voice and tense distinctions: it was active and expressed present or simultaneous processes and qualities, while Part. II expressed states and qualities resulting from past action and was contrasted to Part I as passive to active, if the verb was transitive.

The forms of the two participles were strictly differentiated.

Part. I was formed from the Present tense stem (i.e. the Inf. without the ending –an, -ian) + suffix –ende.

Part II had a stem of its own – in strong verbs it was marked by a certain grade of the root-vowel interchange and by the suffix – en; with weak verbs it ended in –d/t. Part II was marked by prefix 3e-, though it could also occur without it, especially if a verb had other word-building prefixes.

¨ Bindan (Inf) - bindende (Part I) – 3e-bunden (Part II)

Participles were employed predicatively and attributively like adjectives and shared their grammatical categories: they were declined as weak and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case. Sometimes, however, they remained uninflected.

 

Non-Finite Forms

 

The OE verb had three non-finite forms: the infinitive, participle I and participle II. However the verbal features of all these forms were less conspicuous than their nominal properties. The infinitive was very close to the noun, and both participles were close to the adjective.

The OE infinitive had no verbal categories at all. But it had a nominal category, the category of case which was made up of two forms: Nominative and Dative.

 

N	bicgan	(buy)
D	to bicgenne	(for buying)

 

Morphologically the infinitive was marked by -an, -ian in the Nominative case, and by anne, enne in the Dative case. It should be noted that the Dative form of the infinitive was always used with the preposition to. In most cases the Dative form indicated the purpose of the action.

… eac monige cwomon to bicgene þā þing

also many (people) came to buy those things

… hē selfa geare wære … þæt weorc to fremmenne.

he himself was ready to fulfill that work

The Nominative form of the infinitive was mostly used in patterns with modal verbs, verbs of volition and the like.

…hī magon cyle gewyrcan

they can produce cold

AElfred cyning hāteþ grētan Wærferd biscep

King Alfred orders to greet bishop Warferd...

Participle I was built by means of - ende. It was always active and was used to indicate an action which was present, or simultaneous with the action of the predicate.

… hī common ānne laman to him berende

they came carrying a lame man to him

Participle II could have both an active and a passive meaning. It was passive if the verb was transitive, and active if the verb was intransitive.

Þa wæron agane fif hundra wintra …	(active meaning)
when five hundred winters passed (were gone)
hī līþ inne unforbærned …	(passive meaning)
he lies inside (the house) unburnt

Participle II was built by means of vowel interchange and inflection -en, or by means of dental suffix -d/-t. The particular means of building participle II depended upon the morphological type of the verb.

The nominal categories of the participle can be revealed through the case, number and gender distinctions. The participles were declined like adjectives, they also agreed with the nouns and pronouns in case, number and gender.

… hē … geflimed wearþ

he was put to flight

geflimed agrees with hē  (he) in theNominative singular.

… hī wurdon geflimede

They were put to flight

geflimede agrees with hī (they) in the Nominative plural.

 

 

CONCLUSION

English verb system from the VII century to the present day is a part of the continuous and regular development of all English language. This allows us to talk about the English verb system as a system, directly and gradually growing out of each of the preceding period of the system. And every time the verb system is characterized by some specific features in comparison with the system of the previous period. But on the other hand, the new system saves a significant part of the system from which it arises.

We examined whether the most characteristic features of the system of the English verb ancient, middle and new periods that make it qualitatively different in each individual period.

English verb is the result of the formation of the national language in Modern Englishduring the nation based on language Middle English period, which, in turn, formed on the basis of the Old English period.

As a result of the development of the English verb system, we see almost a complete breakdown of the system of verbs with alternation, which has lost owing to complicated phonetic changes its systemic nature and preserved as an old quality item to our days.

All the features of English verbs that were reported in this study allows to distinguish three phases in terms of periodization of the history of the formation of the English verb system.

Summing up, it should be noted:

1. English verb system has changed considerably throughout history, but, nevertheless, it continues to maintain its basic traits of Germanic language group.

2. Despite the fact that the English verb for the whole period of its development was influenced by a variety of languages, he came out the winner in all cases and continued to develop according to its own internal laws.

3. Changes that have occurred in the area of ​​the English verb system is slow and gradual, and elements of the old quality of dying out, and new quality components gradually accumulate and eventually led to a significant qualitative change typologically throughout the verb system.

It can be concluded that the study of the emergence and formation of a modern system of the English verb formed understanding of its structure, which allows more deeply to understand a particular feature of the system of the old English verb, to accept it as a whole, formed on the basis of a variety of options.

Our research is to monitor the morphological changes during development and formation of old English verb. Comparative Analysis Old English and Modern English language leads us to believe that nothing comes from nowhere and disappear into nowhere. Language as a means of human communication, is formed in the process of evolution of humanity itself. Borrowing words from one language supplement, supplement, forming another language. Of course, the historical development, migration of peoples, the development of the arts, the professions and other aspects of human activities also affect the modification of language. These are the aspects we have tried to highlight in the course of this work, and to show how the Old English language was transformed into Modern English. Some words, grammar, phonetic, lexical structure are lost or modified and shaped, and was generated during the development of new words and language constructs, but, of course, the following: that the distant linguistic ties are always present in modern English. And as an illustration to this conclusion confirms our idea, we gave an example of the Old English epic poem Beowulf and the Middle English Shakespeare's works. William Shakespeare in his works actively uses the Old English grammar and language of Modern English. In this paper, through the prism of events that took place in the language of the early Modern Englishperiod, basic grammatical features of the language of William Shakespeare have been investigated. As for the morphological features of Shakespeare's language, the word he easily passes from one grammatical category to another. It is very enriching, makes it more succinct and colorful, colorful language of his works, appealing to the reader and inimitable masterpiece of literature.

 

 

LIST OF REFERENCES

 

1. R. D. Fulk & Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature, Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester 2013.

2.R. D. Fulk, An Introduction to Middle English: Grammar, Texts, Broadview Press: Peterborough, Ontario 2012.

3. Richard M. Hogg & R. D. Fulk, A Grammar of Old English, Volume 2: Morphology, Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester 2011.

4. R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork & John D. Niles (eds), Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, University of Toronto Press: Toronto 2008.

5. Peter S. Baker, Introduction to Old English, Blackwell: Malden 2007.

6. Richard Hogg, An Introduction to Old English, Second Edition Revised by Rhona Alcorn, Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh 2012.

7.Lass, Roger. “Phonology and morphology.” Volume III of The Cambridge History of the English Language. 1999.

8. Arakin V.D “The history of the English language” - M., 1985. - 260 p.

9. Ilish B.A “The history of English” - M., 1968 - 312 p.

10.Jespersen, Otto. (1909–1949). “A modern English grammar on historical principles” (Vols. 1-7). Heidelberg: C. Winter.

11. Morozov M.M “Articles on Shakespeare” - M., 1964 - 280 p.

12.Blake, N.F.. A grammar of Shakespeare’s language. London: Palgrave, 2002.

13. Smirnitsky A.I “History of the English language”. (Modern English and Middle English period) // Lectures - M., 1965 - p.150 - 167

14. Yartsev V.N “Historical English Grammar” - M., 1960 - S.215-223

15. Yartsev V.N “History of the English literary language IX - XV centuries” - M., 1961

p.112 - 120

16. Rastorgueva T. A. “A History of English” - M., 1983 - 240 p.

17. William Shakespeare “Two Tragedies” - M., 1985 – 210p.

18. Morozov M.M, Parfyonov A.T “A comment. The language of Shakespeare” - M., 120-128p.

19.Hope, Jonathan. Shakespeare’s grammar. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2003.

20. Ionina A.A “Some features of the use of verbs in modern English // Foreign languages ​​at school. - 2003. - №5. - P.100 - 104.

22.Hogg, Richard M. (1992), “ A Grammar of Old English”, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hogg,

23.Richard M. and David Denison (2003), A History of the English Language,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_grammar

25.https://en.wikibooks.org/ theory /Old_English/Verbs

26.https://en.wiktionary.org/grammar/Category:Old_English_verbs

27. Wolfgang U.D. Morphology // Handbook of discourse analysis. – Vol. 2. Dimensions of discourse. – London; Tokyo, 1985. – P. 77–86.

28.Whorf B.L. “Grammatical Categories // Syntactic Theory”. Structuralist 1. - Penguin Books, 2005.

29.Salmon V., (in) Lass, R. (ed.), The Cambridge, History of the English Language, Vol. III, CUP 2000, p. 39.

30.Matthews, Peter H. (1991), Morphology (2nd edn), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

31.Miller, Jim (2002), An Introduction to English Syntax, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

32.Stockwell, Robert P. and Donka Minkova (2001), English Words: history and

structure, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

33.Wagner, Karl Heinz (1969), Generative Grammatical Studies in the Old English language, Heidelberg: Julius Groos.

 

CONTENTS

 

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………..…………………..…4

 

OE MORPHOLOGY. THE VERB

1.1 The grammatical categories of the OE verb..………..……………………….....6

1.2 Morphological classes of the verbs in OE.…………...……………………..…..14

 

Morphological Comparison of Old English and Modern English verbs

2.1Formation verb categories of voice and mood……………………………....…18

2.2 Comparative analysis of the Middle English and Modern English language

an example Shakespeare's plays ……………….………………….…...………21

2.3 The verb in Old English epic poem Beowulf….. …………………………..…...23

 

 

CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………….24

LIST OF REFERENCES ………………………………………………………….26

 

 

INTRODUCTION

The topicality. The history of the English language (HEL) is taught at English departments the world over, and English historical linguistics is a discipline with a very active international research community. The focus of research in the field seems to have gravitated from the earlier, medieval varieties to Early and, quite recently, Modern English. A very recent addition to the library of student grammars is An Introductory Grammar of Old English with an Anthology of Readings by Robert Dennis Fulk, Professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington. Professor Fulk is ideally suited for writing a grammar of Old English and compiling an anthology of Anglo-Saxon literature to accompany the linguistic description. In addition to Old English language and literature, he specialises in Germanic languages, comparative Indo-European linguistics, and Irish and Welsh. In addition to the Grammar, his recent work on HEL includes books on literary history, Old English morphology and Beowulf. The volumes which had constantly when perusing R. D. Fulk’s book are those by Peter S. Baker, whose recent textbook is now in its third edition and Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson.

The relevance of the theme of the course work in the study of the English language for its development and formation. Understanding that there is no language without words, and the words themselves do not constitute a language leads us to believe that the words are only the language when they are organized. It determines their use of language and gives intelligent character, making it the most important means of human communication. And this makes a comparative analysis of Old English and Modern English languages. This theme covers a wide range of issues related to changes in grammar of the English language.

The main idea of the research is the Old English verb, which is a structure that during the entire period of its development was subjected to significant changes. These changes have greatly affected its present state. To fully understand the structure of this system, it is necessary to study it from the very beginning of its origin. This will not only penetrate to the sources, but also more well-suited to a holistic perception of the entire system.

Grammatical categories of the Old English verb are the subject of numerous works of general and specific nature on the theory and history of the grammatical structure of the English language. The study of this problem was thoroughly studied by such prominent foreign linguists as Ilyish B. A., Barkhudarov L. S., Smirnitsky, and many others. The verb in the Old English language and its specific weight, and the number and methods of formation of grammatical forms – of course, the Central part of speech. The number of grammatical verb forms is unrivalled of the parts of speech in the English language.

The goal of the research -to study of the morphological system of the verb in the old English period and analyse the use of categories of the Old English verb in a context, to show their essence.

Achievement of the aim of the study requires a number of tasks:

1. To consider the basic grammatical categories of the Old English verb.

2. To give determination to every category of the Old English verb.

3. To consider application of grammatical categories of the Old English verb in a certain context.

4.To analyze and systematization of the features of the grammatical structures of the English language from the ancient period to the present.

5.To characterize peculiarities of changes in grammar, morphology Old English and Modern English language.

The object of the research – the history of the English Language.

The subject of the research – grammatical categories of the Old English verb.