Explain the spelling and the pronunciation of the words: five, wife.

Great vowel shift i:-ai OE w i f-neutral NEwife – the division of nouns into numerous declension is their group acc to gender (Masc, Neut< fem).In OE gender was not always associated with the mean of nouns.

Great vowel shift i:-ai OEf i v - five

 

1. Explain the origin of Modern English form: man’s work.

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) Declension of nouns in the Late 14<sup>th</sup> and 15 the cent. In the 17<sup>th</sup>-18<sup>th</sup> cent a new graphic marker of the Gen case came into use:the apostrophe `s.

 

Explain the spelling and the pronunciation of the words: boat, do.

Some vs combined the features of weak and strong vs. OE d o n formed a weak Past tense with a vowel interchange: and in Part in –n: d o n –dyde- зe-d o n (NE do). Grims law: consonant shift in PG: OG (GT) gadeps, OE [dæd], MEdon NE deed, do – sets of aspirated plosives opposed to pure non-aspirated plosives dt versus b,d,g.

Long monoth a - o OE b a t ME b o t NE (appeared vowel digraph oa to show the length of the vowel) boat MEboot (o:,o) ENE boat

 

Explain the spelling and the origin of the forms of the plural: sheep – sheep.

Native Eng. goes back to the original neutral a-stem declension which had no ending in the Nom and Accus pl even in OE. But long-stem neutrals had homonymous sg and pl forms: OE sc e ap- sc e ap NE sheep – sheep – the retention of u and I after a short syllable and their loss after a long one. They do not change for the plural.

 

Explain the origin of the forms: man – men.

OG mann(a) OE mon (splitting of a to o); NE man

- OE root-stem declension (by changing roots – man-men) the change of declension – minor consonantal stems (included small group of nouns). Root-stems had never had any stem forming suffix. Trace in Mod Eng- irregular pl form – men. Changes of short vws in ENE: ME a is reflected as æ in NE (ME man (man) NE man (mæn)

 

Changes in the nominal grammatical categories in ME AND ENE.

The gram system underwent radical changes. In OE: suffixation; vowel interchange; use of suppletive forms – synthetic mean s. In ME and NE synthetical means either disappeared or came to be expressed by analytical means. The development of analytical forms, word order, special use of prepositions. The process of gradual loss of declensions by many parts of speech. In ME there remainded only 3 declinable parts of speech: the noun, the pronoun and the adj against 5 existing in OE (+Inf and Part). The noun and the pronoun are the only parts of speech that are declined.

 

Explain the spelling and the pronunciation of the words: green, ground

Word inherited by Eng from common Germanic source. OE gr e n – NE green

 

Explain the spelling and the origin of the forms of the plural: ox – oxen.

Native Eng. goes back to the original neutral n-stem declension preserving their plural form: ox-oxen OE oxa-oxan. The ME pl ending –en used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its former productivity in Standard Mod Eng it is found only in oxen and children.

 

Explain the spelling, the pronunciation and the origin of the forms: drink – drank – drunk.

OG (Gt) drigkan, drekka-trinkan-OE drincan; Modern Germ lang (sw) dricka, Gtrinken NE drink

In ME and NE letter k was introduced for (k) instead of c before front vowels and n: drincan-drinken

 

Explain the origin of the form: he is smiling.

In OE: the Pr tense indicates a process in the Pr which is now expressed by the Continuous form. B e on (to be) he is (he is)

 

Explain the spelling and the pronunciation of the words: school, right.

OEriht-NEright (GVS i:-ai). In ME and NE digraph gh appeared: riзt - right.

ME scool borrowed in OE from Latin and always written with sc- (OE scool) respelt as school because in Latin the sound k in words of Greek origin was rendered as ch.

 

Explain the origin of Modern English modal verbs: can, may.

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. OG magan, OEmaзan, mæз Gmodern Sw ma, NE may – Independent vowel changes in PG. OE can, macian (from makojan) – NE can, may –palatalisation and splitting of velar cs. OEmæз, MEmay (mai) – æ+j=ai

The prototype of can may be refered to class 3 (with the grades a-u in the two Past tense stems

 

Explain the origin of the form: he will smile.

OE: No future forms (instead Pr+an adv with the Future meaning). The forms of Pr were used to indicate Pr and Future act. With vs of perfective mean or with advs of future time the Pr acquired the mean of futurity: h e ytt (he will eat). Future could also be expressed by verb phrases with modal vs.

Explain the spelling and the pronunciation of the forms: come – came – come.

Cuom/com, common,cumen- come

 

Explain the spelling, the pronunciation and the origin of the forms: set – set – set.

In west GLs most cs were lengthened after a short vowel before j- West Germanic germination or doubling of cs: sætjan-OE settan-sette-зe-set (ed), ME seten-sette-set NE-set (set with root ending in a dental cons added the dental suff without the intervening vowel e-OE sette. When the inflections were reduced and dropped the three stems of the vs Pr, Past and Part II fell together: NE set-set-set- the source of irregular vs in ME (vs with a short root vowel the root ending –t or –d.

Explain the spelling, the pronunciation and the origin of the forms: tell – told – told.

Simplifying changes in the verb conjugation in ME and ENE. Many markers of the grammatical forms of the verb were reduced or lost.

Strong vs still existed but were limited in 3 clases: 3 forms Inf, Part, Past forms. Some weak became strong, some strong became weak. Weak grew in number (due to the Scandinavian, fr and Lat borrowings). Irregular vs grew in number. All strong vs of the 1-st class became irregular: tellen-tell (told). All weak lost their form of the Preterite (with the ending –ed).

Tellan-tald-tald. Th sign of irregularity of the weak vs in OE was vowel interchange: talian-talde-tald – under the influence of –I only the form of the Inf could change during the process of palatal mutation: talian-tellan. The other two remaining unchanged and as a result the verb acquired vowel interchange.

 

25. Explain the origin of the prefixes over -, under - and the suffix – ish.

OE native prefix ofer, ME over-, OEunder, MEunder-.The most productive OEsuff –isc, ME-ish at first added mainly to nouns indicating nations to form correspondent adj but soon extended to other nouns to indicate qualities and states. Beginning with ME –ish acquired a new func expressed a weakened degree of a quality.

26. Explain the spelling, the pronunciation and the origin of the forms: keep – kept – kept.

Because of Great vowel shift i:-e NE keep-kept Weak v in OE: Inf c e pan-c e pte-c e pt suff -t or-d The case of merging then splitting: the consonant k has split into two phonemes k and ʧ. ME cepte kepte NE kept – the preceding vowel was made short and all vowels in this position became or remained short e:-e. The origin of modern non-standard vs.

OE c e pan-c e pte-c e pt ME k e pen-kepte-kept NE keep – kept – kept

One of the source of irregular vs: vs with a long root vw, the root ending excluding –t,-d.

Explain the spelling and the pronunciation of the words: seem, love.

Class 2 luf o jan, OElufian, NE love – the Inf of all vs of class II ended in –ian but the root vw was not affected because of the time of palatal mutation the vs preserved the full stem suff –oj and the long o: protected the root vw from assimilation.

OE lufu became ME love (luve) ENE loue (u late spelt v –16 cent introduction of new symbols) In ME and NE letter v was introduced for v instead of f as a separate phoneme: lufu-love(luva) NE love o instead of u (because of o was employed not only for o but also to indicate short u when it stood close to n,m or v.)

OE s e mede (e:-e) ME semed (e:-ə) NE seemed (i:)

OE seman, weak 1, ME semen