The Ind.-Eur family of languages. Features common to most of the IE languages

Вопрос №1

The Ind.-Eur family of languages. Features common to most of the IE languages

The Indo-European Family

The langs brought into relationship by recent or progressive differentiation from their parent lang are called a family of langs.

The term Indo European (IE) suggests the geographical extent of the family. The parent tongue, from which the IE langs sprang had become scattered and divided before the dawn of history. The surviving langs show different degrees of similarity. They fall into 11 groups.

1) Balto-Slavic ['bôltō 'slävik]

2) Indian['ɪndɪən]

3) Iranian[ɪ'reɪnɪən]

4) Hellenic[he'lenɪk]

5) Germanic[ʤɜː'mænɪk]

6) Italic[ɪ'tælɪk(s)]

7) Celtic['keltɪk]

8) Armenian[ɑː'mi:nɪən]

9) Albanian[æl'beɪnɪən]

and 2 dead langs

10) Tocharian (Тохарский) [tə'kɛːrɪən,

11) Hittite (Хеттский) [hɪ'taɪt]

The Celts at the beginning of our era formed one of the most extensive groups of the IE family. They were found in Gaul, Spain, Northern Italy, Western Germany and British Isles. They occupied the greater part of the Western Europe and today they are found in the remoter parts of France and the British Isles, where we find Gaelic, spoken in the highlands, Irish, spoken in Ireland, Welsh, spoken in Wales and Manx, which was used in the Isle of Man before the WW2.

The main lang of the Italic group – Latin (the lang of Rome). As Romans colonized Gael, Spain, Northern Africa, Islands in the Mediterranean, Latin spread into that regions. The native population adopted Latin and modified it in accordance with their speech habits. Today the various langs that had developed from Latin are called Romanic.

- Portuguese

- French

- Italian

- Spanish

II. Indo European Features (IEFs)

Every group of langs shares some linguistic features with related groups and also has its own specific features. Thus Common Germanic (CG) Has IEFs and specifically Germanic features. And in its turn Eng has IEFs, CGFs and specifically Eng features.

The earliest IE langs display an identical gram structure. All of them were synthetical inflectional langs. There appeared in them identical fundamental ws which are not likely to be picked up in the course of migration. They are:

- words of family relations (módor, bróðor, fæder)

- names of plants, animals and parts of the body (дерево – trec, cordis - heart)

- basic numerals (three - три)

- certain ws, though with considerable change in mean (sittan – sit, etan – eat, witen - ведать)

Вопрос №2 The Germanic languages and their classification

The common point which the lang of the Germanic group had had before they were differentiated is known as Proto-Germanic (PG) or Common Germanic. At that time the last few centuries BC the Germanic tribes inhabited the western coast of the Baltic Sea and the southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsulas. The languages that descended from PG fall into 3 groups:

- East Germanic,

- North Germanic,

- West Germanic.

The East Germanic Languages

The principal lang is Gothic. By the 3d century of our era, it had left the region of Vistula and moved to the shore of the Black Sea. There in the 4^th century they were christianized by a missionary called Ulfilas. For that purpose he translated into the Gothic lang the gospels and some other parts of the New Testament. And our knowledge of the Gothic lang is almost holy due to this translation. It is of great importance to the study of the German langs, it helps to reconstruct the PG langs.

For a time Goths played a very important part in the history of Europe. When the great migration of people began they moved to the west, conquered Italy and founded a kingdom there, reached Spain. But in those countries they were absorbed by the native population and their lang gave way to Latin.

The Gothic lang survived the longest in the Crimea where some traces of it were noted down in the 16^th century. Some of the EG tribes are: Vandalic, Burgundian

But our knowledge of these dialects is confined to some place names only.

The North Germanic Languages

NG langs are found in Scandinavia and Denmark. Runic inscriptions of the 3d century of our era preserve the earliest traces of the lang. In its oldest form the early Scandinavian lang is known as Old Norse (ON). From the 11^th century dialectal differences became noticeable and today NG langs are represented by:

- the Swedish language,

- the Norwegian language,

- the Icelandic language,

- the Danish language,

- the Faeroes language.

The most interesting is Old Icelandic lang, which appeared as a result of the colonization of Ireland by Norwegians in the 9^th century. It is important because it has preserved heroic literature, which is considered unsurpassed (непревзойденный) among Germanic people. The most important are: “Edda” – 9^th – 10^th centuries; “Eofa” – a collection of poems that describes exploits of some traditional heroes.

The West Germanic Languages WG languages are divided into:

- low languages and high languages.

In old times as Low German we distinguish

- Old Saxon

- Old Franconian

- Old Frisian

- Old English

Old Saxon became the main constituent part of modern Low German. Old Franconian became the basis of modern Dutch (spoken in Holland) and Flemish (spoken in Belgium). These 2 are treated now as the Netherlandish. Its offshoot is Africaans. Frisian survived in the Dutch province of Friesland and some islands along the coast. As to High German it is the literal lang of Australia, German, Switzerland, Luxemburg. From High German dialects there developed Yiddish.

Вопрос №3 Phonetic features common to the Germanic languages

Word Stress

In the IE parent lang the stress was musical and was not fixed. In Germanic langs it became force or expiratory and it became fixed on the 1^st root syllable. Thus in Modern Eng (ME) we have: ‘ like, ‘likeness, dis’like, un’like. Other syllables of the w remained unstressed and as a result were gradually weakened and even lost. This led to the simplification of w-structure and the shortening of the w.

The process, which began in PG, continued through the history of the Eng lang and resulted in the considerable simplification of the structure of ws.

Vowels

The quality and quantity of the vowels depended on the stress. In stressed position there was an opposition of vowels in quantity and quality, that is long and short vowels were possible in stressed position.

Cynin – king

Mys – mice

In an unstressed position this opposition was lost. Long vowels became short and short vowels were reduced and very frequently lost. But the contrast between long and short vowels was supported by the different directions of their changes. The original IE long vowels tended to become closer and short vowels tended to become more open.

Мать	Módor
Брат	Bróðor
IE sound	merged into	PG sound
a	>	o
o	>	a
ночь	>	naht
мочь	>	Ma an

Тот - ata > ðæt

IE	merged into	PG
a	>	o
o
a	>	a
o

This merging (of IE a, o) also occurred in diphthongs

IE	merged into	PG
ai	>	ai
oi
au	>	au
ou

Вопрос №5

Вопрос №6 Periods in the history of English

The evolution of Eng in the 15 hundred years it possible to single out 3 main periods:

Old English (OE); Middle English (ME); New English (NE)

1. Early OE (from the West Germanic invasion of Br till the beg of writing) from the 5 to 7-th cent. The 1-st pre-written or pre-historical period oral communication.

2. OE or Anglo-Saxon The 2-nd from the 8till the end of 11-th (written OE).

3. Early ME – after 1066 (the Norman 'conquest) covers 12, 13 and half of the 14-th (Fr and Scand influence).

4. Late or Classical ME from the later 14-th till the end of the 15-th (the restoration of Eng)

5. Early NE – from the introduction of printing to the age of Shakespeare 1475-1660. the formation of the National Eng lang.

6. NE or Mod Eng -The age of normalization and correctness the mid of 17-th to the 18-th.

7. Late NE or Mod Eng the 19-th and 20-th acquired all the qualities of the Nat Eng Lang.

Old English

It began in the 5^th century, when the German tribes settled in the British Isles. Originally the social and economical sys was tribal and slave owning, which gradually developed into a feudal one. The main historical events are:

- the introduction of Christianity;

- the Scandinavian invasion.

Word-stock (WS) Originally OE was a purely G lang. The WS comprised 3 layers of native ws:

1^st – IE words (mother, father)

2^nd – CG words (to rise, to sink)

3^d - OE proper (hlaford - lord)

There were some borrowings from the Celtic lang, denoting mostly place-names (London, York) and names of rivers (the Thames). After their settlement in Britain the G. tribes came into contact with the Celtic tribes, but the Celtic borrowings are very few (Loch Ness).

Latin borrowings are: Latin ws borrowed by Ancient G. tribes when they lived on the continent of Europe; borrowed by the Anglo-Saxon tribes from Romanized Celts on the British Isle; Latin words which penetrated into OE after the introduction of Christianity.

The gram forms were built in the synthetic way (they expressed the gram mean by changing the forms of the w itself): by means of inflections, sound interchanges and suppletion [sə'pli;ʃ(ə)n].

2) Nouns. A well-developed case sys with (4 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative). Two number forms (singular, plural). Have the category of gender (feminine, masculine and neutral). The same categories: gender, case, number. Acc to the ending of their stems 3 types of declension: - a-stem (mostly masc and neutr); n-stem; root- declension (masc with the help of suff as well as by changing roots – man-men)

3) Adj Have: gender, case (Nomin< accus< dative, genitive+instrumental (творит), number. Have strong and weak declension (acc to the ending of the stem). The degree of comparison: suffixation and the comparative degree (ra-re); suff – ost for superlative degree.

4) Verbs.

The Inf had 2 case forms: the common case (что делать) and dative case (с тем чтобы сделать – маркер окончание -enne) The use of the dative was limited. The finite forms could only be conjugated. 4 gram forms: category of person (3 person forms only in the singular; it was the characteristic of only indicative mood), number, tense (2: Pr and Past or Preterite), mood (3: Indicative, Imperative, Oblig). No future forms (instead Pr+an adv with the Future meaning). Morphologically: strong (7 classes); weak (3 classes); and others.

Middle English

ME began in the 9 and lasted till the 14 cent (the introduction of printing). ME corresponds to the well developed feudal system. Local dialects were distinguished. There were no common national lang. The period after the Norman conquest is the period of French as it was the official lang of the country (300 years). Eng existed only in oral form. That’s why there developed a gap in the written history of the Eng lang.

Later on there appeared some records in local dialects and in the 14^th century (at the time of Choser) the London dialect developed as literary lang. On the basis of this dialect the national Eng lang developed. Geographically Eng spreads to cover the entire territory of England.

As a result of the Scandinavian Invasion and the Norman conquest the WS lost its purely G. character. There took place numerous borrowings and replacements.

Scandinavian	OE
Taken	niman
Callen	clypian

W-formation was slightly affected by the foreign influence.

Phonetics.

The G. system of w-stress was partly lost due to the addition French borrowings with a different system of w-accentuation and due to the stress shift in the course of the assimilation vowels underwent positional changes in quantity, which undermined the original contrast between long and short vowels. Some OE cs and consonant clusters gave rise to new kinds of cs in ME which had not existed before.

E.g. sibilants and affricates. [, d, t, ]

Some OE diphthongs (ea, ea, eo, eo) were monophthongized and new diphthongs appeared.

Spelling

It was affected by French spelling. This influence is mainly seen in the introduction of diagraphs (диграф): -th (French); -“oo” (French)

Grammar was considerably simplified. This period is called a period of leveled endings, as the inflexions were greatly reduced especially in the nominal system (nouns, adjs & pronouns) Now declensions were practically lost; adjs retained some traces of declension. Great changes took place in the system of vs, as there began to develop analytical forms.

New English

Began in the 1475. 2 per: early New English (15^th – 18^th centuries) mod Eng (18^th – up to now)

Is the period of growth of capitalism, Renaissance, the growth of the nation and the national lang. WS grew both due to w-formation and borrowings from the classical and contemporary langs.

Phonetics.

The shift of the w-stress continues and the original Germanic system is distinguished. Great changes especially the Great Vowel Shift (all long monoths in NE XV-XVII underwent a qualitative change. affected the vowels and as changes were not reflected in spelling, there developed a gap between the written and spoken ws. Consonant changes, such as losses and vocalizations produced similar results: Kniht – knight

Grammar There were a few changes in the nominal system Adjs lost the last traces of declension. Former case relations were performed mostly by analytical means such as prepositions and w-order.

Simplification also affected the verb. Some personal endings were lost and the division of strong vs into classes was lost as well. Analytical forms continued to develop and embraced both finite and non-finite vs. There appeared new grammatical categories.

This period is called a period of Lost Endings. (a theory of Henry Sweete).

I. The system of OE vowels

There were 5 short monophtongs: I; e (э); u; o; a. There were an opposition bet æ and æ –one and the same

6 long monophthongs: i e; ae; u o: a

3 long diphtongs: io: eo: ea

E – eo; I – as a result of breaking

Vowels were pronounced the way they were written with the exception of [ a ] – a nasal

[y,y] – a rounded v.

The change begins with the growing variation in pronunciation which was followed by the appearance of numerous allophones. Most often the change will involve both types of replacement – splitting and merging. So we deal both with the rising if new phonemes and with the redistribution of new allophones among the existing phonemes. They are:

Non-assimilated changes

NA changes – independent or spontaneous changes.

NA changes of vowels in OE were:

1) process of discrepancy:

palatalization (fronting) and splitting - ( the 5 century) when some ger monothongs gave forms of OE vowels

			oa
a:	æ	a	æ
	O:		a

2) The development of diphthongs a+u=[ea]

In IE vowels transformed into diph e+u=eo; i=u+io

Assimilated changes

Assimilated changes were positional. They were combinative changes. They were changes of 2 types.

1. breaking (преломление ) in the 6-th century (transforming of the front monoth into a diph) and diphthongization was caused by consonants (l, ll, l+cons, r+cons: e-ea;eo.).

2. palatal mutation (передняя переглосовка) 6-7 cent was caused by the neighboring vowels. (h-glottal: mus-mys-mouse) the most striking change when this diph ie it resulted y (и,ю)

I. The system of OE vowels

There were 9 short monophtongs: I; e (э); u; o; a; y; æ; a; oe.

There were 8 long monophtongs: I:; e: (э); u:; o:; y:; æ:; a:; oe:.

3 long diphtongs: ie: eo: ea:

E – eo; I – as a result of breaking

Vowels were pronounced the way they were written with the exception of [ a ] – a nasal

[y,y] – a rounded v.

The change begins with the growing variation in pronunciation which was followed by the appearance of numerous allophones. Most often the change will involve both types of replacement – splitting and merging. So we deal both with the rising if new phonemes and with the redistribution of new allophones among the existing phonemes. They are:

Non-assimilated changes

NA changes – independent or spontaneous changes.

NA changes of vowels in OE were:

2) process of discrepancy:

palatalization (fronting) and splitting - ( the 5 century) when some monothongs gave forms of OE vowels

	Æ
a	O, a
	a
a:	Æ:
	O:

2) The development of diphthongs a+u=[ea]

In IE vowels transformed into diph e+u=eo; i=u+io

PG Diphthongs

ei

ai

iu

eu

au

 

Assimilated changes

Assimilated changes were positional. They were combinative changes. They were changes of 2 types.

3. breaking (преломление ) in the 6-th century (transforming of the front monoth into a diph) and diphthongization was caused by consonants (l, ll, l+cons, r+cons: e-ea;eo.).

4. palatal mutation (передняя переглосовка) 6-7 cent was caused by the neighboring vowels. (h-glottal: mus-mys-mouse) the most striking change when this diph ie it resulted y (и,ю)

Number

Nouns, adjs & pronouns distinguished 2 numbers: singular & plural. But the personal pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd persons preserved a set of forms for 2 things – the dual number.

1^st p. Ic (sg) wit (dual) we (pl)

2^nd p. pu (sg) it (dual) e (pl)

Case It was a grammatical category.

Nouns had 4 cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative

Adjectives had 5 cases as well as pronouns: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative + Instrumental. The Instrumental case of nouns coincided with the Dative case.

e.g. Dat.sg. miclum stane (a large stone - большому)

Inst. Micle stane (большим)

Nouns. A well-developed case sys with (4 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative). Two number forms (singular, plural). Have the category of gender (feminine, masculine and neutral). The same categories: gender, case, number. Acc to the ending of their stems 3 types of declension: - a-stem (mostly masc and neutr); n-stem; root- declension (masc with the help of suff as well as by changing roots – man-men)

A-stem

N-stam root-stem

Nominative and accusative were synonyms in all types of declensions in the plural in most cases in the singular. Some types of declensions contained many homonymous forms. The endings of G and D pl. were absolutely the same. The traces of the PM are found in the root-stem mostly, as in this type of declension the endings were added directly to the root without any suffixes. As the endings contained the sounds i/j they influenced the root vowel.

The most important endings from the historical point of view are:

- as (the N and A pl. of a-stem masculine). It is reflected in the modern endings s/es

- es (the G sg. Of a-stem declension). It is reflected in the possessive case today.

- the forms of the neuter gender a-stem with the long root vowel. Neuter nouns of a-stem declension differed from masculine only in the N and A pl.

–u survived only in nouns with a short root syllable. In long root syllable ws this –u disappeared. Nouns with a long root vowel had the zero ending in the N and A pl.: e.g. word – N a-stem with a long root vowel: sceap sheep – sheep They do not change for the plural.

- the ending - an of the n-stem declension plural. It is preserved in ME oxen, children.

The class of n-stem nouns was the 2^nd largest after and it survived longer then other classes. (a-stem exception). That’s why in southern dialects some newly borrowed ws or coined ws were declined acc to the n-stem type and it influenced the nouns of other classes: OE an > ME en OE a-stem: N sg. cild; N pl. cildru > ME children

- the forms of the root-stem type of declension, where as a result of the PM in the D sg. and the N and A pl. the root vowel underwent PM, the vowel interchange survived as the only mean of differentiating the forms of pl. and sg.

The endings of the rest of the case forms were built up by the analogy with those of the a-stem.

Вопрос №31 Modern diph

2 diph changed ai-ei dai-dei; au-o:-law-lo:

Вопрос № 48 Minor group

Phonetic and analogical changes which affected their functions. Several preterite-present vs died out. ME can was used only in the sing but also in the plural by the side of cunnen. Can/could a modal verb indicated physical or mental ability, gradually it replaced OE mæз; ME may. ME may was retained as the Past form, Indicative and Subjunctive.

ME shall has lost many of its forms and has retained only two forms shall and should. A similar shift of time-reference in the history of Must and ought (moste, mostesr, mosten were OE Past forms of mot “can”. The Pr form have been lost while must has acquired the mean of obligation and is is treated as Pr tense form. Dare is a preterite-present by origin. It has lost most of its peculiarities. It takes - s in the 3-rd person and has a standard Past form dared. Willan not a preterite-present by origin has acquired many of the features of that group.

Practical questions

Вопрос №1

The Ind.-Eur family of languages. Features common to most of the IE languages

The Indo-European Family

The langs brought into relationship by recent or progressive differentiation from their parent lang are called a family of langs.

The term Indo European (IE) suggests the geographical extent of the family. The parent tongue, from which the IE langs sprang had become scattered and divided before the dawn of history. The surviving langs show different degrees of similarity. They fall into 11 groups.

1) Balto-Slavic ['bôltō 'slävik]

2) Indian['ɪndɪən]

3) Iranian[ɪ'reɪnɪən]

4) Hellenic[he'lenɪk]

5) Germanic[ʤɜː'mænɪk]

6) Italic[ɪ'tælɪk(s)]

7) Celtic['keltɪk]

8) Armenian[ɑː'mi:nɪən]

9) Albanian[æl'beɪnɪən]

and 2 dead langs

10) Tocharian (Тохарский) [tə'kɛːrɪən,

11) Hittite (Хеттский) [hɪ'taɪt]

The Celts at the beginning of our era formed one of the most extensive groups of the IE family. They were found in Gaul, Spain, Northern Italy, Western Germany and British Isles. They occupied the greater part of the Western Europe and today they are found in the remoter parts of France and the British Isles, where we find Gaelic, spoken in the highlands, Irish, spoken in Ireland, Welsh, spoken in Wales and Manx, which was used in the Isle of Man before the WW2.

The main lang of the Italic group – Latin (the lang of Rome). As Romans colonized Gael, Spain, Northern Africa, Islands in the Mediterranean, Latin spread into that regions. The native population adopted Latin and modified it in accordance with their speech habits. Today the various langs that had developed from Latin are called Romanic.

- Portuguese

- French

- Italian

- Spanish

II. Indo European Features (IEFs)

Every group of langs shares some linguistic features with related groups and also has its own specific features. Thus Common Germanic (CG) Has IEFs and specifically Germanic features. And in its turn Eng has IEFs, CGFs and specifically Eng features.

The earliest IE langs display an identical gram structure. All of them were synthetical inflectional langs. There appeared in them identical fundamental ws which are not likely to be picked up in the course of migration. They are:

- words of family relations (módor, bróðor, fæder)

- names of plants, animals and parts of the body (дерево – trec, cordis - heart)

- basic numerals (three - три)

- certain ws, though with considerable change in mean (sittan – sit, etan – eat, witen - ведать)