Затверджено Вченою Радою ПНПУ ім. К.Д. Ушинського (протокол № від травня 2010 р.)

Г.В.Мельниченко

 

ІСТОРІЯ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ

 

методичний посібник

для студентів заочного відділення

 

 

 

Одеса – 2010

 

УДК: 4 (Англ.) + 378

 

Затверджено Вченою Радою ПНПУ ім. К.Д. Ушинського (протокол № від травня 2010 р.)

Р е ц е н з е н т:

Єременко Т.Є. – кандидат філологічних наук, професор кафедри германської філології і методики викладання іноземних мов.

 

 

 

Мельниченко Г.В. Історія англійської

М 34 мови \ Методичний посібник – Одеса: Південно-

Український національний педагогічний

Університет ім. К.Д.Ушинського, 2010. – 91 с.

 

Навчальний посібник “Історія англійської мови”, розроблений за модульним принципом навчання, стисло охоплює всю історію розвитку мови – від її витоків до сучасного стану. Посібник призначено для студентів заочного відділення педагогічного університету.

 

ВСТУП

Процес формування іншомовної комунікативної компетенції майбутніх учителів іноземних мов включає, поряд з класичними компонентами – мовною, мовленнєвою та соціокультурною компетенціями – історико-лінгвістичну складову, під якою розуміються знання з історії мови, яку майбутні фахівці мають викладати.

Предметом вивчення «Історії англійської мови» є основні події в історії розвитку мови, а саме, - становлення фонетичної структури й орфографії, еволюція граматичної системи й збагачення словнику в контексті конкретних історичних подій, що призвели до саме такої послідовності змінення форми мови.

Методичний посібник «Історія англійської мови» розроблений за модульним принципом розташування навчального матеріалу й оцінювання успішності його опрацювання. Він містить шість змістових модулів за темами: «Предмет курсу «Історія англійської мови»», «Германські мови», «Давньоанглійська мова», «Середньоанглійська мова», «Новоанглійська мова: ранній період», «Сучасна англійська мова». Кожний модуль включає декілька блоків: цільовий, інформаційний, контрольний. Посібник також пропонує теми для самостійного дослідження – рефератів. Нижче наводимо вимоги для написання реферату:

 

Таблиця 1

Вимоги для написання реферату

№	Категорії	Вимоги
	Метод пред’явлення	доповідь та обговорення
	Якість пред’явлення	a) доповідь: 3-5 хвилин; матеріал підлягає вивченню напам’ять b) застосування наочних засобів (таблиці, малюнки, фотографії, дошка)
	Якість виконання реферату	a) друкований b) 5-7 сторінок c) 5-7 використаних джерел
	Послідовність пред’явлення	a) повідомлення теми b) представлення основного змісту реферату c) обговорення питань

 

Модульний принцип засвоєння засад курсу дозволяє отримати залік шляхом накопичення балів за різні типи роботи. Нижче наводимо таблицю, яка демонструє можливий розподіл балів:

Таблиця 2

Розподіл балів з курсу «Історія

англійської мови»

Тип роботи	Максимальна кількість одиниць за навчальною програмою	Максимальна кількість балів	Загальна сума балів
практичні заняття	присутність	4 години	5x2=10
участь	тест за змістом 12 тем, представлених у методичному посібнику (складається шляхом вільної комбінації питань з тестів після кожного модуля)	1 Тест
доповідь	1 реферат

Шкала оцінювання:

95-100 балів – відмінно

75-94 балів – добре

60- 74 балів – задовільно

59-0 балів – незадовільно

Залік отримують студенти, що отримали не менше 60 балів. За умов отримання меншої кількості балів студент має бути готовим до обговорення наступних залікових питань:

 

ТЕМИ ДЛЯ ЗАЛІКУ

 

1. The comparative historic method.
2. Germanic languages: linguistic features, classification.
3. The Great Consonant Shift.
4. Old English written records. Runic inscription.
5. Old English phonology.
6. Old English morphology.
7. Old English syntax.
8. Old English vocabulary.
9. Middle English dialects. The London dialect.
10. G. Chaucer as a founder of the literary dialect. The major features of Chaucer’s English.
11. Linguistic situation on the British Isles after the Norman Conquest.
12. Peculiarities of Middle English phonology.
13. Peculiarities of Middle English morphology
14. Peculiarities of Middle English syntax.
15. Middle English vocabulary and word formation.
16. Early New English. Socio-linguistic features.
17. Early New English – linguistic features.
18. The Great Vowel Shift.
19. The first English dictionaries.
20. Expansion of English today.

MODULE 1

The Subject Matter of the History of the English Language.

The Comparative Historical Method.

Analysis of Development of Languages

Objectives:

1) to know the place of English in the world

2) to develop understanding of the procedure of the Comparative Historic Method

3) to know the main scholars contributing to the development of historical linguistics

 

The Subject Matter of the History of the English Language is: the main events in the historical development of the English Language, the history of its phonetic structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system, the growth of its vocabulary, and also the changing historical conditions of English speaking communities relevant to language history. It also aims at revealing contacts of English with other related and unrelated languages.

There are some postulates to remember when speaking about development of any language:

1) No historical form of a language is simpler or more complicated than any other. English may have lost its old inflectional system, but it has gained new patterns of syntax and word order. No language decays or gets corrupted from an older form. As a corollary, languages do not evolve from lower forms into higher ones.

2) Languages do not change evenly over time; they change at different rates and in different areas. For example, the language of Shakespeare, 400 years old, is relatively comprehensible to us. But the language of Chaucer, 150 years older than the language of Shakespeare, was almost incomprehensible to Shakespeare’s contemporaries

 

Reconstruct proto-form.

Let’s examine some cognate words in Latin, Old Slovak and Gothic: hostis (Lat) – гость (Old Slovak) – gasts (Gothic). There is a certain similarity in their meaning and sounding, which enables us to suppose that the three words have common origin. To prove that idea we must make sure that the differences in pronunciation and spelling of these words are not occasional but regular. In other words we must make certain that correspondence between sounds h (Lat), г (Old Slovak), g (Gothic), o (Lat), o (Old Slovak), a (Gothic), which we see in the examples exists in other words of these languages. We find a proof when we compare these words with corresponding words from other related languages. When comparing them with Old Indian it becomes clear that the initial consonant of the ancestor word was aspirated gh. Thus it is possible to reconstruct the proto-form that existed in Proto-Indo-European – ghostis which gave birth to the three mentioned above words.

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 1

 

1. How many people speak English as a first language:

a) 350 mln; b) 500 mln; c) 35 mln; d) 153 mln.

 

2. The subject matter of the History of the English Language covers

a) the English language in its interrelation with culture;

b) contacts of English with other related and unrelated languages;

c) the history of phonetic structure and spelling of the English language;

d) material culture of historically ancient and modern peoples;

e) the changing historical conditions of English speaking communities;

f) peculiarities of spreading of peoples throughout the world in the past and nowadays for determining ethnic borders;

g) language as a systematically composed body of words that exhibit regularity of structure and arrangement into sentences;

h) cultural and routine peculiarities of peoples of the world;

i) the evolution of the grammatical system of the English Language;

j) the growth of the vocabulary of the English Language.

3. The Comparative Historic Method aims at

a) establishing the differences and similarities of development of different countries with the same language;

b) comparing the way the cognate languages have been developing;

c) reconstructing earlier forms of a language or languages by comparing surviving forms in recorded languages

4. Who was the first to have noticed some similarity of Latin, Greek, English and Sanskrit and stated the hypothesis about a common language ancestor for them?

a) Rasmus Rask;

b) Franz Bopp;

c) William Jones;

d) Jacob Grimm.

5. The peoples speaking Proto-Indo-European are supposed to live

a) in southern Russia from some time after 5000 BC;

b) in northern part of modern Germany in 5 BC;

c) on the territory of the Scandinavian peninsular in 1000 BC.

 

6. The peoples speaking Proto-Indo-European are supposed to be called

a) the Slovaks;

b) the Kurgans;

c) the Anglo-Saxons.

7. Match the names of the scientists with the achievements associated with them:

a) A. Schleicher 1) the principle of regular sound changes between individual words in the Germanic languages and their cognates in Greek and Latin

b) F.Shmidt2) an internal connection between acts of general shift in the languages development (voiced→voiceless→fricatives→ voiced…)

c) Franz Bopp3) existence of a so called proto-language

4) the modern concept of conditioning environments

 

d) Rasmus Rask 5) “the family tree”

6) established the relationship of Old Norse to Gothic and of Lithuanian to Slavic, Greek, and Latin.

e) Jacob Grimm 7) the law of consonants correspondence in older Indo-European

8) “The theory of Waves”

f) Karl Verner 9) first to have given a description

of the original grammatical

structure of the Indo-European languages and to have investigated the origin of their grammatical forms

g) William Jones 10) analysis of the relationships

between the Indo-European languages z:\wikiIndo-European_languages

 

 

 

MODULE 2

Germanic languages

Objectives:

1) to know the place of the Germanic languages among the world languages

2) to develop understanding of spreading of the Germanic languages

3) to know the main common features of the Germanic languages

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 2

1. The history of the Germanic language covers a period of approximately how many years:

a) 3000 years b) 1000 years c) 2000 years d) 1500 year

 

2. Which of the following languages is not a Germanic Language?

a) Danish b) English c) Dutch d)Finnish

 

3. Group the languages into three categories:

a) the east Germanic languages

b) the west Germanic languages

c) the north Germanic languages

 

Swedish, Norn, Gothic, Burgundian, Lombardic, Norwegian, Dutch, Yiddish, English, Icelandic, Frisian, Bavarian, Vandalic, Alemanic, Danish, New Low German, Flemmish, Franconian, Faroese, Gutnish, Afrikaans

4. Match the names of the Germanic tribes with the tribes they assimilated with:

1) the Angles a) the Danes

2) the Vikings b) the Slavic

3) the Saxons c) the Romanized Celts of Gaul

4) the Visigoths d) the Swedes

5) the Franks e) the Phoenicians

6) the Vandals f) the Celts

7) the Jutes g) the Romans

8) the Geats h) the Etruscans

5. Which of these features are typical of the Germanic stress?

a) the 1^st syllable stress

b) the 3^rd from the end syllable stress

c) force stress

d) melodic stress

 

6. Fill in the missing consonants due to the Great Consonant Shift:

a) [ ] → [d] → [ ] → [Ө]

b) [bh] → [ ] → [ ] → [f]

c) [gh] → [ ] → [k] → [ ]

7. Which of these features are typical of Germanic vowels?

a) diphthongs

b) short and long vowels

c) pronunciation on a higher pitch level

d) reduction of unstressed vowels

 

8. Reduction of unstressed vowels is typical of:

a) Icelandic b) English c) Swedish d) German e) Faroese

 

9. Which of these features of the (i) noun and (ii) verb are typical of the Germanic languages:

i

a) 7 cases

b) singular and plural

c) masculine, feminine, neutral genders

d) common and objective cases

ii

a) preterit

b)ablaut

c) completeness and incompleteness

d) dual forms

e) personal endings

 

10. Latin alphabet started substituting runes in England in

a) the 2 AD b) the 5^th AD c) the 7^th AD d) the 11^th AD

MODULE 3

Old English

Objectives:

1) to know the historical events resulting in changing the language;

2) to know what languages were spoken on the territory of the British Isles within the period;

3) to know the main peculiarities of the Old English language;

4) to develop understanding the rules of reading Old English texts

Breaking

æ → (developed into) ea before combinations of " r +consonant", " l +cons.", " h +cons.", and before h final: ærm → earm, æld → eald, herte → heorte.

2. Palatalization - the process which took place under the influence of g, c, sc before vowels at the beginning of the word: e → ie (gefan → giefan), æ → ea (cæster → ceaster)

3. i-mutation - being caused by i (or j) in the next syllable, it affected all vowels, except i and e and lead to vowels moving from their back position to the new front one: æ → e (tælian → tellan), u → y (fullian → fyllan)

4. Back Mutation - appears before sonants and labial consonants (i.e. r, l; p, b, f, m): i → io (hira → hiora)

5. Contraction of vowels due to a dropped h: after the consonant had dropped, two vowels met, and they collided into one long vowel:

ah + vowel → eah + vowel → éa, (slahan → sleahan → sléan)

 

The consonants in the Old English language are simple to learn for a nowadays English-speaker:

 

Labials	p, b, f, v
Dentals	d, t, s, þ (English [th] in thin), ð (English [th] in this)
Velars	c [k], g( 3 ), h
Liquids	r, l
Nasals	n, m

 

Of them the special attention is always attracted to the letter g( 3 ). Though it was written in the same way in every position, it was pronounced in three different ways:
1. as English [g] in gift - before any consonant or a, o, u (back vowels): (gód (a god).

2. as Greek [γ] or Irish gh and very close to Ukrainian [г] in pronunciation - after (between) back vowels (a, o, u or after r, l.): dagas, folgian.

3. as English [j] - preceding or following any front vowel (e, i, y): d æ g (a day). As we see, this g in dæg later turned into the Modern English y.

 

Consonants could also be subject to mutation, the main of which are:

1.Voicing of fricative sounds (h, f, s, þ) appearing if a fricative is between vowels: ofer [΄over], selfa [΄selva], rīsan [΄ri:zan], ōðer [΄o: ðer ], wyrþe [΄wyr ðe ]. However in Old English unlike any other old Germanic languages there exist long consonants – geminates marked by a doubled letter “ sti cc a (stick), steo rr a (star). Geminates despite their intervocal position has always been voiceless: o ff rian [f:] – to offer, o ðð er [θ:] – or.

2. Palatalization appears only in Late Old English, but significantly changes the pronunciation making it closer to today's English: cild [kild] → [child]; scip [skip] → [ship]; everywhere [g], [cg] sounds turn into [d 3 ]: bricg [bricg] → [brid 3 ]

3. Doubling of consonants (gemination) followed by -j (except for -r-) after a short consonant: tælian → tellan, swæfian → swebban (later ff→bb)

4. Hardening:voiced fricatives → voiced plosives [ð, v, γ → d, b, g]: Gt broþar →Grm Bruder

5. Rhotacism: modification of –s into –r: Gt raisjan→ OE r æ: ran (to rear)

6. Splitting of velar C:

a) palatalisation of velar \c\ before\after front vowels: cild [k’ild] → [t∫aild]

b) preserving the features of velar consonantotherwise: cēpan (keep)

7. Loss of consonants

a) loss of nasal before fricatives (lengthening for compensation = Ingweonic loss of nazal): Gt fimf →OE fīf, OE wifman→NE ‘wife’;

b) loss of fricatives between vowels and before some plosive consonants: Gt slahan →OE slean (slay)

8. Metathesis: sounds exchanging the places: P.Gmc. thridjas → O.E. þ ridda → third (c.950 in Northumbria)

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 3

1. Old English period covers

a) 450-1066AD b) 405 - 1475 AD c) 7^th –2^nd BC

d) 210 – 1474 AD

 

2. Arrange the dwellers of the British Isles due to the sequence of historical periods they lived in:

a) Roman colonists 1) 7^st - 5^th BC

b) the Germanic tribes 2) before the 7^th BC

c) the Picts 3) 1^st BC

d) the Celts 4) 449 AD

e) the Vikings 5) 1066 AD

f) the Norman conquest 6) 6^th AD

g) Roman Christians 7) 8^th AD

3. The informal confederation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the 5^th to the 9^th century was called:

a) Heptagon b) Heptarchy c) Heptateuch

4. This confederation comprised (Tick those which made it up):

a) Northumbria b) Cumbria c) Mercia d) East Anglia

e) Kent f) West Wales g) Essex h) Sussex i) Wessex j) Ireland

5. Arrange the words into appropriate column due to their origin:

Indo-European	Celtic	Germanic	Latin	Scandinavian

a) down b) Tuesday c) mother d) wine e) egg f) earth g) whiskey h) eye i) skin j) take k) Birmingham l) moon m) street n) neck o) do

 

6. Arrange the words into appropriate column due to the period of their appearance in Old English:

Borrowing from Latin
the 1^st layer of loanwords (from the 1^st AD)	the 2^nd layer of loanwords (from the 6^th AD)

a) Winchester b) pear c) master d) post

e) devil f) angel g) castle h) bishop

i) kitchen

7. Which of these are the Old English dialects:

a) Kentish b) South Saxon c) West Saxon d) East Saxon e) Mercian f) Northumbrian

 

8. Which of the letters did not belong to the Old English alphabet?

a) æ b) q c) z d) g e) j f) v

9. Among the diphthongs of Old English the original ones are:

a) ēā b) ēō c) ea d) iu e) ai

 

10. Name the mutation the early OE vowels underwent during their development. Choose the names from the pool below:

a) cæster → ceaster (city)f) lárian → læ:ran (teach)
b) fullian → fyllan (fill)g) saru → searu) (device)

c) scacan → sceacan (shake) h) herte → heorte (heart)

d) ærm → earm (arm)i) mūs →mỹs (mouth)

e) jâr → gēar (year)j) swestar → sweostor (sister)

k) slahan → slēan) (strike)

 

1.i-mutation; 2. palatalization; 3. back (velar) mutation; 4. breaking; 5. contraction of vowels due to a dropped h

11. Establish the rules of reading OE consonants by matching the lines in columns:

I)a) 3 is pronounced as Eng. [g] 1) preceding or following

any front vowel (e, i, y)

b) 3 is pronounced as Ukr. [γ] 2)before back vowels - a, o, u

c) 3 is pronounced as Engl. [j] 3) after (between) back

vowels or after r, l

d) 3 is pronounced as Engl. [d3] 4) in combination cg (c3)

 

I I) a) c is pronounced as [t⌡] 1) before original back vowel

b) c is pronounced as [⌡] 2)in combination s c: scēap

(sheep), fisc (fisc)

c) c is pronounced as [k] 3) between or before front

vowels a, æ, e and y

 

12. Establish the rules of reading OE consonant [h] by matching the lines in the columns:

a) h is pronounced as Eng. [h] 1) afterfront vowels a, æ, e and y

b) h is pronounced as Rus. [х] 2)initially

c) h is pronounced as Engl. [х’] 3)after back vowels - a, o, u

13. Which of the words below present the examples of geminates:

a) sticca b) Zān c) oððer d) offrian

14. Match the words with the consonants mutation they illustrate:

a) Gt broþar → Grm Bruder 1) doubling of consonants

b) OHGerm gans → OE gōs 2) metathesis

c) Gt raisjan→ OE ræ:ran 3) hardening

d) P.Gmcsatjanan → O.E. settan 4) loss of nasal

e) OE rinnan – OE irnan5)rhotacism

15. Strong verbs are the verbs that

a) form the past and participle by adding a dental suffix

b) form the past and participle through changing root vowel

c) their the past and participle forms coincide with the infinitive

16. Weak verbs made up the past forms

a) by adding -te

b) by adding -de

c) by adding - te, -de

d) through changing the root vowel

 

17. Tick the features of the OE noun:

a) three genders

b) eight cases

c) various stem-type declension

d) singular and plural

 

18.Tick the features of the OE adjective:

a) the genders depending on ones of the noun it modifies

b) five cases

c) independent strong or weak forms of declension

d) suffixes –er, -est in the comparative and superlative

e) ablaut in the root in some degrees of comparison

19. Old English pronouns have

a) dual number b) eight cases c) the 2^nd person singular d) no gender

20. Tick the features inherent in the Old English numerals:

a) ordinal n. use the suffix -ta or -þa

b)ordinal n. use the suffix -te or -þe

c) 21 are pronounced - án and twentig

d) 21 are pronounced - twentig and án

21. Old English word formation types are:

a) determinative compounding

b) qualitative compounding

c) repetitive compounding

d) noun-adjective formation

e) adjective -noun formation

f) prefix and suffix formation

22. “Kenning” is the term meaning:

a) the unique official vocabulary of OE documents, especially referring to royal family

b) the borrowed vocabulary of OE literature taken from the Vikings

c) the unique poetic vocabulary of OE literature, especially in metaphorical constructions

23. Which of these features are inherent in the Old English syntax?

a) free word order

b) direct word order

c) only one negative word within the sentence

d) several negative words within the sentence

e) synthetic word order

 

 

MODULE 4

Middle English

Objectives:

1) to know the historical events that influenced changes of the language;

2) to know what languages were spoken on the territory of the British Isles within the period; to know some of their peculiarities;

3) to describe the major differences between Old English and Middle English;

4) to know the main phonetic, grammatical, syntactic and lexical peculiarities of development of the language within the Middle English period;

5) to develop understanding the rules of reading Middle English texts.

 

Middle English Consonants

· consonants of Middle English were very similar to those of Present Day English but lacking [η] as in hu ng (velar nasal) and [ 3 ] as in mea s ure (alveo-palatal voiced fricatives)

· addition of phonemic voiced fricatives: [v], [z] as an effect of French loanwords: vetch/fetch, view/few, vile/file

· loss of long consonants (OE mann →ME man)

· h got lost in clusters (OE hlæfdige →ME ladi ("lady")

· g became w after l and r (OE swelgan →ME swolwen ("swallow"), OE morgen →ME morwen ("morning")

· OE prefix ge- lost its initial consonant and was reduced to y or i (OE genog →ME inough ("enough")

· unstressed final consonants tended to be lost after a vowel: OE ic →ME i, OE - lic →ME - ly (e.g. OE rihtlice →ME rihtly ("rightly")

· final -n in many verbal forms (infinitive, plural subjunctive, plural preterit) was lost, e.g. OE cuman →Modern English come (the n remains in some past participles of strong verbs: seen, gone, taken); final -n got also lost in possessive adjectives "my" (OE min → ME mi) and "thy" (OE þin → ME þi) and indefinite article "an" before words beginning with consonant (-n remained in the possessive pronouns, e.g. mine)

· w generally dropped after s or t: OE sweostor → sister (sometimes retained in spelling: sword, two; sometimes still pronounced: swallow, twin, swim)

· l was lost in the vicinity of palatal c in adjectival pronouns OE ælc, swilc, hwilc, micel → each, such, which, much (sometimes remained: filch)

· fricative f/v tended to drop out before consonant +consonant or vowel+consonant: OE hlaford, hlæfdige, heafod, hæfde →ME lord, ladi, hed, hadde ("lord," "lady," "head," "had") (sometimes retained: OE heofon, hræfn, dreflian →"heaven," "raven," "driven")

· final b got lost after m but retained in spelling: lamb, comb, climb (remained in medial position: timber, amble); intrusive b after m: OE bremel, næmel, æmerge →ME bremble, nimble, ember (also OE þuma →ME thombe, "thumb")

· initial stops in clusters gn- and kn- were still pronounced (ME gnat, gnawen, knowen, knave, cniht ("gnat," "gnaw," "know," "knave," "knight")

· h was often lost in unstressed positions (OE hit →ME it)

· If a word contains the Germanic "gh," the latter sounded a soft, nearly guttural sound, between a modern "g" and a modern "k," e.g., kni gh t, ri gh t, bri gh t

Vowels

· Vowels in Middle English were similar to those of Old English, except for the loss of OE y and æ so that y was unrounded to i and æ raised toward [^] or lowered toward [a:].

· addition of a new phonemic sound (mid central vowel), represented in linguistics by the symbol called schwa: Ə, the schwa sound occurred in unstressed syllables and its appearance is related to the ultimate loss of most inflections

· loss of unstressed vowels: unstressed final -e was gradually dropped, though it was probably often pronounced. (The final "e" in many words may be sounded if it helps the meter of an individual line, e.g., When that Aprille with his shoures sot e

The droughte of Marche hath perced to

the rot e ( G, Chaucer)

-e of inflectional endings was also lost, even when followed by a consonant (as in -es, eth, ed) (e.g. breathe/breathed) except for wishes, judges, wanted, raided; final -e in French loanwords was not lost because of French final stress, hence cité →"city," pureté →"purity"

· French loanwords added new diphthongs, e.g. OF point, noyse →ME point, noise

· short vowels tended to lengthen before certain consonant clusters (OE climban, feld → ME climbe, feld ("climb," "field")

· lengthening of short vowels in open syllables (OE gatu, hopa → ME gate, hope)

· shortening of long vowels in stressed closed syllables (OE sōfte, gōdsibb, scēaphirde →ME softe, godsib, scepherde ("soft," "gossip," "shepherd"); exceptions (before -st): OE gast, crist →ME gost, Christ ("ghost," "Christ")

· in a long word (if two or more unstressed syllables followed the stressed one), the vowel of the stressed syllable was shortened (Christ/Christmas [ME Christesmesse], break/breakfast [ME brekefast])

 

Middle English Morphology

-loss of inflections

-loss of grammatical gender

-two noun cases: possessive and non-possessive

-all adjective inflections are lost, loss of weak/strong distinction

-introduction of Continuous and Perfect aspect; use of analytical way of rendering modality; use of auxiliary verb to form future tense

-relative rigidity of word order, increasing use of prepositions and particles

 

Middle English Nouns are characterized by the following features:

-Use of suffix -es for genitive singular and all plurals, e.g.

Singular plural

Nominative, Accusative, Dative stōn stōnes

Genitive stōnes stōnes

 

Nouns ending with –f and –th retained exchanging voiceless for voiced

Sg pl

N līf, path līves, pathes

G līves, pathes līves, pathes

 

Some nouns having umlaut in N, A, D (pl) were declined due to this scheme:

Sg pl sg pl

N, D, A man men fōt fēt

Gen mannes mennes fōtes fētes

 

Some neuter nouns retained the form of plurality without any suffixes: thing (things), yēr (years), hors (horses), shēp (sheep), swīn (swine) dēr (deer), as well as some masculine and feminine: winter (winters), mōneth (months), night (nights), though suffix -es gradually passes through this group of words making such forms appear as thinges, yēres, mōnethes.

Some nouns that referred to weak declension group in OE retained –en in plural: oxe –oxen, eye – eyen, brōther – brēthren, doghter – doghtren.

Loss of case inflexion reflected important shifts in language thinking, but the mechanisms of that as well as their connection with social life of the country can’t be described clearly. But it’s obvious that this process was enhanced by the influence of French as already in OF there was a tendency of introducing prepositional constructions instead of case inflexions. O. Jespersen believes that the cause of it lies in the Scandinavian dialects bordering on English in the 9-11 centuries. He is right to have pointed out nouns that sounded similar to those in English:

sunu (E) – sunr (Sc)

wind (E) – windr (Sc)

O. Jespersen supposes that in the process of communication the common root which was clear for both peoples was pronounced the most clearly whereas the flexion hindering mutual understanding was articulated unclearly, which led to reduction. This theory was very popular but seems unconvincing. If the phenomena of this kind had really taken place, they would have remained no less than the feature of the dialects of the frontier district. It is difficult to believe that such border dialectal phenomena could have changed grammatical structure of a certain language.

-Instead of disappeared flective forms there appeared prepositional constructions:

to – OE Ēode tō his hūse (went to his house): to loses the meaning of “towards” and renders indirect object relations.

of – OE He dyde helm of hafelan (He took the helmet off his head): of loses the meaning of “from, off” acquiring the meaning of the genitive case: ME: the droghte of Marche (the drought of March)

with - OE Gefeaht wi ð ðone (fought with the army): with loses the meaning of “against” and acquires the one of instrument of activity: ME speken with tonge (speak a language)

Adjectives

- greatest inflectional losses: loss of case, gender, and number distinctions.

In weak declension there was lost a typical suffix of the plural –en. Thus the only adjective case inflexion was a weak –e, and a complicated OE paradigm came to such scheme:

Sg

Plural

Verbs

- retained categories of tense, mood, number, person, strong, weak types

- addition of a new type of verb, two-part or separable verbal expression, use of adverbial particles instead of prefixes used in Old English (e.g. put in, blow out, pick up, take over)

- increased use of weak verbs. Due to general tendency – unification of different types and simplification of paradigm – many strong verbs joined the weak type during ME period. By the New English period 80 verbs joined the weak type. Thus, the verbs of the 7^th class (there still remained 7 classes) slēpen, wēpen, rēden already in OE formed weak forms: slēpte, wēpte, rēdde, while folden, helpen – in Late ME.

- as for strong verbs, there happened some important changes too: under the influence of weakening vowels up to –e letter, flexions of the infinitive and past plural changed too:

OE wrītan – wrāt – wrīton – wrīten

ME wrīten – wrōt – writen – writen

- use of passive constructions (with 'be' as auxiliary)

- use of modal auxiliaries instead of subjunctive (may, might, be going to, be about to)

- “tō” started to be used with infinitives as their indicator. However some verbs like beginnen, longen, wishen when next to other verbs were also used without “tō”: But atte laste speken she began. (But at last speak she began.) Infinitives without “tō” were also used with verbs of motion: Thow shalt com speken with thi ladi.

 

Personal Pronouns

- use of 2nd person plural (ye) to address one person as polite form (French influence), eventual loss of singular forms in the18th century

- loss of ch in the first-person singular - ich/I (pronounced as the 'i' in "kid"); me was used for the object case; min(e) and mi - before words beginning with vowel and consonant respectively

- emergence of absolute pronominal forms (ours, hers, yours, theirs)

- second person singular: þu, thou, etc.

- appearance of reflexive pronouns: myself (= myselven and the same form for the other pronouns), thyself, himself, herself, ourself, yourself, themselves

Middle English Syntax

- a trend towards modern word order: subject-predicate-object in affirmative independent clauses; predicate-subject-object in questions and imperatives

- double and triple negation was freely used for making it stronger

- the adjective was placed before the noun (erthely servaunt)

- prepositions were placed before objects; sometimes followed if the object was a pronoun (he seyde him to)

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 4

1. Decline of English covers the period:

a) 1204 - 1348 b) 1348 – 1457 c) 1066 – 1204 d) 1166 – 1248

2. Rise of English is connected with:

a) break with the Norman tradition of allegiance to the Roman church

b) decay of Anglo-Saxon traditions

c) invention of the printing machine by William Caxton

3. Which of these factors stipulated the dominance of English?

a) Black Death

b) Norman invasion

c) invention of the printing machine

d) separation of French and English nobility

4. Match the main features of the language development with the appropriate period.

Early Middle English Period	Central Middle English period	Late Middle English period

a) rise in use of English

b) Old English system of writing is still in use

c) z:\Documents and SettingsAdminРабочий столсреднеанглийскийtopic?idxStructId=102489&typeId=13beginning of standard English based on the London dialect

d) English became the official language of legal proceedings

e) decay of Anglo-Saxon literary practices

f) the basic lines of inflection as they appear in Modern English first established

g) Norman French - the prestige language

h) English – the everyday folk language

i) W. Caxton and other printers

j) the East Midland dialect as a standard

k) Latin - a written language of the Church and secular documents

l) use of orthography influenced by Anglo-Norman writing system

m) increase in dialectal differences, formation of literary dialects

n) English completely replaced French at home, education and government; Latin is used as the language of written communication

5. Which of these are Middle English dialects?

a) Eastern b) Western c) Northern

d) Southern e) Midland f) Central

6. Due to which of the dialects is there such feminine form of the word as “fox” as “vixen”?

a) Eastern b) Western c) Northern d) Southern

e) Midland f) Central

 

7. Which of the Middle English dialects was characterized by a rich Scandinavian vocabulary and a set of sounds also keyed to certain Scandinavian habits of pronunciation?

a) Eastern b) Western c) Northern d) Southern

e) Midland f) Central

8. Chancery English is:

a) a dialectal variant of English having specific features

b) a written form of English used by government bureaucracy and for other official purposes from the late 14th century

c) the original language of Geoffrey Chaucer

9. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in

a) the East Midland dialect

b) the Southern dialect

c) the Northern dialect

10. W. Caxton and other printers used

a) the East Midland dialect

b) the Southern dialect

c) the Northern dialect

 

11. Which of the following alternation (s) did OE runes undergo in the ME period?

a) þ is sporadically replaced by -w

b) þ is sporadically replaced by -th

c) ρ is sporadically replaced by -w

d) ρ is sporadically replaced by - uu

e) ρ is sporadically replaced by - th

f) 3 is replaced by –g

g) 3 is replaced by –z

h) æ is sporadically replaced by a

12. Complete the following theses to demonstrate the changes that OE consonants underwent in the ME period:

a) cw change for qu (cwic → quick) 1) after l and r

b) gu for g (guard) 2) after s or t

c) h lost (OE hlæfdige → ME ladi) 3) in French loans

d) g became w (OE swelgan → ME swolwen) 4) under French

influence

e) unstressed final consonants tended to

be lost (OE ic → ME) 5) before cons +cons

or vow+const

f) w generally dropped (OE sweostor → 6) in the vicinity of

palatal c sister)

g) l lost (OE micel → much) 7) in clusters

h) fricative f/v tended to drop out

(OE hlaford → ME lord) 8) in final position after m

i) b lost (lamb, comb) 9) initially

j) h often lost (OE hit → ME it) 10) after a vowel

13. Tick the right items demonstrating the changes that OE consonants underwent in the ME period:

a) appearance of long –s symbol

b) gh instead of h [х]

c) ch instead of c3

d) introduction of French letters k, z, v and j

e) sc turned into d3

f) hw turned into wh

g) c for s

h) prefix ge- lost initial consonant and was reduced to y or i

i) kn cluster lost the first phoneme

 

14. A minim is a

a) a word in which - u was replaced by - o

b) a phenomena of changing – u for – o which took place in front of –u, m, v, w (uu)

c) a short vertical stroke of a penwhich in adjacent position is difficult to read

15. Which of the vowels modifications took place in the ME period?

a) u replaced by ou

b) g palatal merged with the preceding front vowel into a diphthong

c) disappearance of schwa - Ə

d) complete loss of final -e

e) disappearance of diphthong –[oi]

f) lengthening of short vowels before certain consonant clusters –ld, -nd, –mb, etc.

g) lengthening of short vowels in open syllables

h) lengthening of long vowels in stressed closed syllables

i) changing - er for - ar

j) æ turned to a before r

 

16. Which of the following statements about ME noun are (is) correct?

a) all noun case ending except for Genitive and Accusative got lost

b) the plural is formed with by means of adding -en, -es to the singular form

c) Genitive is formed by means of suffix –es

d) nouns ending with –f and –th did not exchange voiceless for voiced: līf - līfes

e) noun class distinctions were still preserved

f) grammatical gender got lost

g) flective forms are still more preferable than prepositional constructions

 

17. The ME adjective has distinction in

a) case b) gender c) case, gender, number

d) number

18. The degrees of comparison are formed by means of the suffixes:

a) -re,(later -er); -est b) -ra, -ost c) -er, -ost d) -re, -est

19. Were perfect and continuous aspects presented during the period?

a) yes, they were b) no, they were not

20. How many negations were possible to use in a ME sentence?

a) only one b) two c) two or three

MODULE 5

From French from Latin

Defeat defect

feat (подвиг) fact

Sure secure (уверенный)

Treason tradition

The process of loaning got order, thus some Roman suffixes (-tive, -tion) got independence to such a degree as to form new forms of original English stems: talkative, starvation, etc.

 

Interest awoken to classical Greek and Roman literature during the period of the Renaissance gave opportunity to compare old Germanic loanwords with classical Latin forms, which brought to necessity of introducing the right, Latinized spelling of these words:

Phonology

Consonants

- addition of phonemic velar nasal [ŋ] (as a result of development of OE allophone of /n/ before /g/) and voiced alveopalatal fricative [ 3 ] (as a result of (a) borrowing from French (beige); (b) a set of sound changes called palatalization: /zj/ → /3/: seizure; /sj/ → /∫/: nation, ocean; /dj/ -> /d3/: soldier; /tj/ -> /t∫/: creature

- disappearance of allophones of / h / at the beginning of the word: heir, honest; before t: sight, caught, straight; disappearance or development into [f] in final position: sigh, tough

- loss of l after low back vowel and before labial or velar consonant: half, palm, talk

- loss of t/d in consonant clusters with s: castle, hasten.

- loss of ME intrusive t after s: listen, hustle

- g/k lost in initial position before n: gnaw, gnome, know, knight

- w was lost in initial position before r: wrong, wrinkle, wrist. W in unstressed position after consonant disappeared in words: answer, conquer, liquor, but retained in those having suffix – ward and language, conquest. In the stressed position it disappears when it is between a consonant and rounded vowel: sword, two, who, whose, whom. It is interesting that in the word whole (OE hāl – ME hōl) the letter w was introduced into spelling after sound [w] disappeared in who

- general loss of r before consonants or in final position; also regular loss of r in unstressed positions or after back vowels in stressed positions: quarter, brother

- development of palatal semivowel /j/ in medial positions (after the major stress and before unstressed vowel: tenner/tenure, pecular/peculiar

Vowels

During the 15th to 18th centuries long Vowels were affected by the so called Great English Vowel Shift, discovered by Otto Jespersen. The long vowels shifted upwards:

 

 

i: →ai

e: →i:

ε: →e: →i:

a: → ei

o: →ou

o: →u:

u: →au

Short vowels were not affected by the Great English Vowel Shift. Thus, ME sak remained ME sack, ME fish remained ME fish.

Short Vowels

-further loss of final unstressed -e (exceptions: judges, passes, wanted)

- a → æ; but æ → a before r: harm, scarf, hard; and æ → a before voiceless fricatives: staff, path; original /a/ remained when the fricative was followed by another vowel: classical, passage

- a before l → o: all, fall, walk; also after w: want, reward; but not if the vowel preceded a velar

 

Morphology and Syntax

Nouns, peculiarities:

-only two cases (common and possessive);

-two numbers (singular and plural), a few -n plurals (shoes/shoon, housen, eyen) which soon disappeared but for ox and child. Isolated plural retained in “ twelvemonth – a year”, “ fortnight – 2 weeks”, “ sennight - week” (without –es in pl).

As –es was interpreted as an indicator of the plural, Old French cerise existing as cherris was interpreted as plural and for the singular was dropped. The same with pese (peas) and rēdels (riddle). In other cases, on the contrary, -s plural was interpreted as a constituent of a word and so original form of the plural was used as sg:

bodice (корсет) ← bodies

truce (перемирие) ←trēowes (sg ←trēow, договор)

quince (айва) ← quines (sg quine)

- some unmarked genitives (mother tongue, lady slipper); -s of genitives was sometimes omitted when a word ended in a sibilant or the following word started with one (peace sake); misinterpretation of genitive ending -s as 'his' (e.g. John Browne his meaddow, Ann Harris her lot)

 

Adjectives: adjectives had lost all inflections (even –e – an indicator of weak declension and plurality) except comparative (-er) and superlative (-est) (synthetic) and more, most (analytic). These could be combined (e.g., most unkindest cut of all) for emphasis. Eventually, monosyllables started using synthetic forms and multisyllables - analytic.

 

Pronouns, peculiarities:

- the most heavily inflected word class

- development of separate possessive adjectives and pronouns (my / mine, etc); possessive of it: his → it → its sometimes spelled it's. It’s was spelled with an apostrophe until about 1800. Singular forms (thou, thy, thee) were used with familiars or when speaking to someone of a lower rank. Plural forms (ye, your, you) were used as marks of respect when addressing superiors. By the end of the 16th century, the singular forms disappeared (except among Quakers). Shakespeare’s works (17^th c) has both forms, the former – in conversation with relatives, friends and servants, to express anger and contempt.

 

Verbs: peculiarities:

- two-part verbs are very common (shorten up, wear out, cut off);

- transformation of strong verbs into weak: washen – to wash, steppen – to step, helpen – to help, though some verbs retain both forms: (shave – shaven, shaved, mow – mown – mowed). This process is not over yet; e.g. coll. knowed instead of knew, seed instead of saw.

cf. also a reverse phenomenon: OE hŷdan – hŷdde –hŷded

ME hīden – hidde –hidd

NE hide – hid – hidden

There appeared a special group of unchangeable verbs whose roots ended with –ed, -t:

cutten – cutte-cutt shutten – shutte- shutt sprēden – spredde – spred

- disappearing or losing separate forms for the past and past participle (cling/clung/clung): either past sg or past pl remained

-ing became universal present participle ending; -s and -th were the 3^rd person singular present indicative endings, eventually just -s;

- use of the gerund spread in the 16^th century. It appeared in the Middle English period, but full development of its features took place in the Early New English period. Shakespeare used both indefinite and perfect forms of infinitives. By the end of the 18^th – differentiation of the gerund and the verbal noun got fixed; 17^th – there appeared analytical forms of the gerund;

- the future tense is rendered by both will and shall irrespectively of the person and number (up to the 17^th c) (I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek); there appeared a complicated system of the Future-in-the-Past;

- by the 18^th – the Present Perfect and Continuous aspect got fixed in their modern structure and use;

- by the 16^th – the Past Perfect got fixed (though only in object clauses), by the 18^th – in its full use;

- since the 15^th – do acquired its auxiliary function and used as an auxiliary verb.

 

Syntax

- do with negatives and in questions was often missing (they knew him not);

- inverted word order was still acceptable (follow thou me, things eternal);

- double negatives were still acceptable;

- some continued use of impersonal constructions (it likes me not, this fears me, methinks) but the former impersonal verbs were more often used personally with a nominative subject;

- Subject-Object-Verb pattern was acceptable for pronoun objects and for emphasis (as the law should them direct, Richard that dead is); Object-Subject-Verb or Object-Verb-Subject patterns were used to emphasize an object;

- influence of Latin, "elegant English," long sentences featuring subordination, parallelism, balanced clauses; bus also native traditional use of coordinators (but, and, for);

- Shakespearean clichés (vanish into thin air, flesh and blood).

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 5

 

1. The New English period comprises the interval:

a) c. 1476 – now b) 1476-1660 c) 1660-1800

 

2. Which of the event influencing the language development of the mentioned period took place at that time?

a) industrial Revolution: more intensive urbanization, technical vocabulary based on Latin and Greek roots

b) defeat of Spanish Armada 1588, control of seas

c) Black Death

 

3. The term “ inkhorn” means:

a) a way of representing in writing regional or dialect variations by spelling words in nonstandard ways

b) a bit-by-bit, or morpheme-by-morpheme, translation of one word in one language into another word in another language, often used to avoid bringing new or loan words into the translating language

c) scientificwords from Latin or Romance languages, coined and introduced into English in the 16th and 17th centuries

 

4. Was the spelling of that time fixed yet?

a) Yes b) No

 

5. Which of the linguistic features characterise(s) the period?

a) - silent –e to mark the length

b) final –e is still pronounced

c) initial stops in clusters gn- and kn- are still pronounced

d) appearance of velar nasal [ŋ]

e) appearance of alveo-palatal fricative [ 3 ]

6. The way of pronunciation the word seizure obtained since the Early New English period is named

a) back mutation b) palatalisation c) i-umlaut

7. Which of the following changes in pronunciation took place in the Early new English period:

a) w dropped after s or t: sweostor → sister

b) w got lost in initial position before r: wrong, wrinkle, wrist

c) l got lost in the vicinity of palatal c in a