Theme 5. Linguistic features of the Germanic languages

 

The English language belongs to the group of the Germanic languages.

 

 

The Germanic languages possess several unique features, such as the following:

1. The shifting of stress accent onto the root of the stem and later to the first syllable of the word. Though English has an irregular stress, native words always have a fixed stress regardless of how many and what morphemes are added to them. The result of the heavy fixed word stress was very important for development of the languages: unstressed syllables were pronounced weaker and weaker until they disappeared: flasc e → flask, se o f o n→seven

 

2. The consonant shift known as Grimm’s Law. According to Grimm's Law, certain consonant sounds found in ancient Indo-European languages (such as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit) underwent a change in the Germanic tongue. For example, the sounds p, d, t, and k in Latin correspond to f, t, th, and h respectively in English:

p → f (ped/foot, pisc/fish, pater/father, pyro/fire)

t → ө (th-sound) (tres/three, tu/thou, frater/brother).

k→ h (centum/hundred, cord/heart, cannabis/hemp, canard/hana, cornu/horn)

d → t (dent/tooth, duo/two, decem/ten)

g → k (genu/knee, genus/kin, gelidus/cold).

3. Other common features of Germanic consonants:

· pronouncing voiceless plosives р, t, k with aspiration (except Dutch, Afrikaans);

· opposing voiceless and voiced (except Icelandic, Danish, Faroese, where all plosives correlate due to aspiration);

· devoicing of voiced plosives at the end of the morpheme (except English, Frisian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian).

 

4. Common features of Germanic vowels:

· diphthongs in all languages except Swedish;

· differentiation of short and long vowels;

· reduction of unstressed vowels; in endings – in all languages except Icelandic, Swedish, Faroese.

5. The levelling of the Indo-European tense and aspect system into the present and past tense (also called preterit (форма прошедшего времени - пре΄терит). There are two voices: active and passive; three moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive.

6. The use of a dental suffix (/d/ or /t/) to indicate past tense. This dental suffix has its variants in different languages: -d, -t, -þ:

Old. Saxon: thênkian –thâh t a (to think)

Old. Scandinav.: calla – calla ð a (to call)

Gothic: sōkjan – sōki d a (to search)

7. The presence of two distinct types of verb conjugation: weak (using dental suffix (as in English care, cared, cared or look, looked, looked; German fragen, fragte, gefragt)) and strong (using ablaut (as in English lie, lay, lain or ring, rang, rung; German ringen, rang, gerungen)).

 

8. Another distinctive characteristic is the umlaut - a type of vowel change in the root of a word caused by partial assimilation to a vowel or semivowel occurring in the following syllable (fot (singular), fötter (plural) in Swedish; and Kampf (singular), Kämpfe (plural) in German.)

 

9. Two numbers: singular and plural (dual forms – like in OE pronouns wit - we two, OE git – you two, only in Gothic).

10. Some distinctive characteristic shared by the Germanic nouns are:

-general and genitive case (4 cases – Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative) are preserved in German, Icelandic, Faeroese). In Afrikaans case flexions are absent; -singular, plural (the most number of formal indicators of the plural is presented in German – there are 5of them, the least – in English)

- masculine, feminine, neutral genders – in German, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faeroese, Yiddish; general and neutral – in Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Frisian

 

11. Comparison of adjectives in the Germanic languages follows a parallel pattern, as in English: rich, richer, richest; German reich, reicher, reichst; and Swedish rik, rikare, rikast.

 

12. Formation of the genitive singular by the addition of -s or -es. Examples are English man, man's; Swedish hund, hunds; German Lehrer, Lehrers or Mann, Mannes. English has 161 strong verbs; almost all are of Germanic origin.

 

13. Articles: the article exists in late Germanic (but neither in Gothic nor in Old English), in several Slavic languages (so-called "Balkan language alliance" (Macedonian, Bulgarian)

 

14. Syntax:

a. tendency to a fixed word order, especially verb – predicate;

b. inversion in emphatic, interrogative, imperative constructions and clauses.

 

 

15. Vocabulary: a number of basic words in these languages are similar in form: cf. English (Finger) Dutch (Vinger); German (Finger); Gothic (Figgrs); Icelandic (Fingur); Swedish (Finger); Danish (Finger).

16. Writing. From the 2^nd to 7^th AD the runic alphabet or Futhark is in use (from the first few letters). Runes were also used in divination and magic. Supposed origin of runes is ancient North Italian alphabet

 

 

Latin alphabet is introduced in the7^th AD in England, 8^th AD – Germania, since 11^th AD – Iceland, Norway, 13^th AD- Sweden, Denmark

 

 

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