Вопрос №36 Quantitative changes of vowels in Early New English

1)There were some instances of the growth of new long vowels from short ones in some phonetic conditions: a>a: before the consonant sequences ss,st,sk,ft,sp

2) a became long when it was followed by l + another consonant: ME half [haf]> NE[ha:f]

3) when a was followed by l +another consonant but not labial it turned into long o: ME all [al]>NE [o:l]

4)The reverse quantitative changes – shortening of vowels. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries the long vowels e:, u: were changing or had already changed under the Great Vowel Shift. And then they were also shortened in Early NE before dental and velar consonants.[O, d, t, k]: OE dēād[ε:] >ME deed [e:] >NE dead[e]

5) The long vowel u: which was mostly shortened before k and some other cs turned into short u

e.g. ME book [bu;k]>NE book [buk]

Vocalisation of r

In early NE r was vocalized when it stood after vowels, either finally or followed by another consonant. Losing its consonantal characteristics r turned into the neutral e, which was added to the preceding vowel as a glide thus forming a diphthong: ME there [ere]- NE there

Sometimes the only trace left by the loss of r was the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel: ME arm[arm]­ NE arm

If r stood in the final unstressed syllable after e it resulted in the survival of the ending: NE rider

If the neutral e produced by the vocalization of r was preceded by a diphthong, it was added to the diphthong to form a sequence of sounds named triphthong: NE shower

Вопрос № 37 The Vocalisation of R.

In early NE r was vocalized when it stood after vowels, either finally or followed by another consonant. Losing its consonantal characteristics r turned into the neutral e, which was added to the preceding vowel as a glide thus forming a diphthong: ME there [ere]- NE there

Sometimes the only trace left by the loss of r was the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel: ME arm[arm]­ NE arm

If r stood in the final unstressed syllable after e it resulted in the survival of the ending

e.g. NE rider

If the neutral e produced by the vocalization of r was preceded by a diphthong, it was added to the diphthong to form a sequence of sounds named triphthong: NE shower

Вопрос № 38 Changes in the form-building means in ME and ENE.

The means of form-building changed greatly in ME as the proportion of synthetic forms fell (inflections, sound-interchange, suppletion) and new analytical forms developed. The main change in the synthetic means of form-building were:

1) the reduction (to the neutral [э]) and leveling of most OE endings (plural- en>es)and the loss of most of them, especially the vowel endings in ENE;

2) greater restrictions in the use of sound-interchange, although some new instances appeared in the irregular verbs;

3) the loss of the OE prefix “ge”>ME y>loss. Suppletive form-building was confined to a few words. Sound-interchanges were not very productive (occurred in verbs, adjectives, nouns). Inflections (gram. suffixes and endings) were used in all the inflected parts of speech. In ME Analytical forms appeared in the system of verbs and adjectives: mostly in ME and later. They developed from free syntactic groups (phrases, constructions). The first component of which gradually lost its lexical meaning and turned into a grammatical marker. The second component retained its lexical meaning and acquired a grammatical function. Analytical form-building was not equally productive in all parts of speech. It transformed the morphology of the verb but has not affected the noun. Some nominal categories were lost:gender and case in adjectives, gender in nouns; the cases of nouns and pro-nouns, numbers in personal pronouns were reduced. In Late ME the distinction in number and the distinction of weak and strong forms of adjectives were lost (more, most). The number of verbal grammatical categories increased, as the number of forms within the categories. The verb acquired the categories of Voice (Passive), Time correlation (Phase; perfect, non-perfect) and Aspect. Within the category of tense there developed a new form- the Future tense. In the category of mood there arose new forms of the Subjunctive. The infinitive and the participle, having lost many nominal features developed verbal features: they acquired new analytical forms and new categories. The main changes at the syntactical level were: the rise of new syntactic patterns of the word-phrase and the sentence, the growth of predicative constructions, the development of the complex sentences and the diverse means of connecting clauses. The most important innovation in the adjective system in ME period was the growth of analytical forms of the degree of comparison- more, most were used with all kinds of adjectives, but preferred with mono- and disyllabic words.

Вопрос № 39 Changes in the nominal grammatical categories in ME and ENE.

Themorphology of the noun, adj, pronoun was considerably simplified. Already in the 15^th century they acquired their modern characteristics. In OE the nominal categories were- gender, case, number.

1) in EME gender in nouns and adjs ceased to be distinguished. It was reflected only in pronouns. In EME nouns were grouped into classes of type of declension acc to gender instead of stems. The weakened and leveled endings of adjs and adj pronouns ceased to indicate gender;

2) 2 numbers were preserved and were distinguished in nouns and pronouns through all historical periods. But in adjs this category was lost by the end of ME. The dual number disappeared in EME. In late ME the ending –es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the plural;

3) case -the number of cases were reduced to 3 cases in EME (common, dative, genitive) and then to 2 (common<resulted from the fusion of 3 OE cases; genitive) in late ME in nouns and pronouns. But their development in nouns and pronouns was different. The former case relations were expressed by prepositions or by the position of w in the sentence.

The adjs lost all the traces in case distinctions in ME. The role of weak and strong declension changed. The category of definiteness and indefiniteness was shown in OE by the 2-fold declension of adjs. In ME it was expressed in the adjs by the ending –e. Strong decl.sg. good; pl.-goode. Weak sg.- goode; pl.- goode. When –e was reduced and lost this category ceased to be distinguished with adjs. In ENE the Nom case of pronouns began to merge with the Objective case. The OE gen. Case of personal pronouns split from the other forms and turned into a new class of pronouns-possessive. The OE oblique case-forms of personal pronouns and the ME possessive pronouns gave rise to one more type of pronouns-reflexive. They developed from combinations of some forms of personal pronouns with the adj self. In the coarse of ME there arose a difference between the demonstrative pronouns and the definite article: as a demonstrative pronoun “that” preserved number distinctions, as a definite article it was uninflected.

Вопрос № 40 Decay of noun declensions in ME and ENE.

The simplification: - the disappearance of the number of declensions

- development of plural endings for all kind of nouns. –es/s/

- the genitive case which actually had disappeared and were the presence of `s (the poss case today)

- Root declension nouns were presented in NE period. Many of them survived

- borrowed from Latin nouns preserved their original forms (datum/data).

Вопрос № 41-42 Decay of declensions and grammatical categories of the adjective in ME and ENE.

Also marked by disappearing of declension; no longer disagreed with nouns.

Strong weak

Sg hard harde

Pl harde harde

The sys developed new means in terms of comparison: more and the most forms.

These forms were built with the help if suffixes such as -er for the comparative degree and –est for the superlative degree.

The mutative forms still occur but they are not numerous. The supplative forms remained the same.

Adjectives lost their gender category.