The Old Germanic language, their classification and principle features.

The Old Germanic language, their classification and principle features.

Languages can be classified according to different principles. The historical or genealogical classification groups languages in accordance with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor.

Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the IE linguistic family. Most of the area of Europe and large parts of other continents are occupied today by the IE languages, Germanic being one of their major groups.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:

English — in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies and dominions; German — in the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland; Netherlandish — in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively); Afrikaans — in the South African Republic; Danish — in Denmark; Swedish — in Sweden and Finland; Norwegian — in Norway; Icelandic — in Iceland; Frisian — in some regions of the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany; Faroese — in the Faroe Islands; Yiddish — in different countries.

All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history. The survey of their external history will show where and when the Germanic languages arose and acquired their common features and also how they have developed into modern independent tongues.

The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. PG is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th c. BC.

As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, the ancient Germans or Teutons moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic-Sea in the region of the Elbe. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of the Teutons.

PG is a prehistorical lan-ge, as it was never recorded in written form. According to Pliny Germ tribes in the 1^st c AD consisted of 5 groups: 1)TheVindili (the Goths, the Burgundians)-eastern part of Germ ter; 2)The Ingaevones (North-Western part, the shores of the North Sea, the Netherlands); 3) The Istaevons (the Westernpart, the shores of the Rhine); 4)The Hermiones (the southern part); 5)The Hilleviones (Scandinavia).

According to the marked dialectical differences Germ l-es are divided into 3 groups (East-Gothic- is not used): 1) North Germ (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese), 2) West Germ (High German, Low German, Dutch, Fresian, English, Yiddish); Afrikaans is the development of Dutch of the 17^th c. spoken in Africa; Vangalic and Burgundian were East GL in structure, but we know only a few proper name of them.

FEATURES: Phonetic :1)while in IE languages the stress was free and tonic, in GL the stress became fixed and dynamic. The stress was fixed on the first rout syllable (except believe, forget). This phonetic feature had very far-reaching consequences, as all the syllables of the word became weakened and finally brought about the reduction of endings.

2) Vowels displayed a strong tendency to change. They underwent different kinds of alterations: Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound, e.g.: IE(a) became (o): latin “mater”>OE “modor”.

quantitative changes make long sounds short or short sounds long, e.g.:(i>i:), dependent changes (also positional or combinative) are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions, for instance, a sound may change under the influence of the neighbouring sounds or in a certain type of a syllable; independent changes — also spontaneous or regular — take place irrespective of phonetic conditions, i.e. they affect a certain sound in all positions.

3) the first consonant shift(1822)-Grimm’s law: 3 categories

-- IE voiceless plosives (p,t,k) corresponded to Germanic voiceless fricatives(f,ө,h): P pięc R пять-E five,L tres-OE preo E three, L cor, cordis-OE heorte E heart.

-- IE voiced plosives (b,d,g) changed into Germ voiceless plosives(p,t,k): P bloto R болото-OE pol E pool, L duo P dwa-Gth twai OE twa E two, L ego-OE ic

-- IE voiced aspirated plosives (bh, dh, gh) corresponded to Germ non-aspirated voiced plosives(b,d,g): L frater- OE bropor E brother, Skr madhu- OE meodu E mead, L hostis-E guest.

German and Law German distinguished by another change in stop sounds-The 2^nd Consonant Shift: ProtoGerm –p-appears in High Germ as –pf-, or after vowels as –ff-(pepper-Pfeffer);Protogerm –t- appears as –ts-(z), after vowels as –ss-(tongue-Zunge, water-Wasser); Protogerm –d- appears as –t-(dance-tanzen).

4) Verner’s Law. In Proto-Germ voiceless fricatives became voiced when they were in a voiced environment and the IE stress was not on the preceding syllable. The effect of stress on voicing can be observed in some ME words of foreign origin(exert, exist). If he preceding vowel is unstressed,-s- in GL becomes voiced –z-. The later history of the voiced fricatives is that this –z- becomes –r- in Western Germ and Nothern GermL. This change of –z- into –r-is termed rhotacism (Gth hausjan “hear” and OE hieran, G hören).

Grammatical: 1) All IE distinctions of tense and aspects were lost in the verb, except to the present and preterit tenses (bind – bound(English), binden – band(Germ))

2) Germ developed a preterit tense form with a dental suffix (d \ t).Thus, all GL have 2 types of verbs: strong and weak(regular-irregular).

3) 2 ways of declining adjectives: weak(with an –n- steam) (when precede by a pronominal adjective including the demonstrative pronoun, that developed later into the definite article) and strong (in other cases). ME has lost declension of adjectives.

Lexical: Germanic has a large number of words, that have no known cognates outside the GL (land, sea, wife, to live, drink, drive,dead,broad,soft, all, each,)

 

Word order

The order of words in the OE sentence was relatively free.The position of words in the sentence was often determined by logical and stylistic factors rather than by grammatical constraints. The word order depends on the order of presentation and emphasis laid by the author on different parts of communication.

The order of words could depend on the communicative type of the sentence – question versus statement, on the type of clause, on the presence and place of some secondary parts of the sentence.

Inversion was used for grammatical purposes in questions; full inversion with simple predicates and partial – with compound predicates, containing link-verbs and modal verbs.

A peculiar type of word order is found in many subordinate and in some coordinate clauses: the clause begins with the subject following the connective, and ends with the predicate or its finite part, all the secondary parts being enclosed between them.

Those were the main tendencies in OE word order. In many respects OE syntax was characterized by a wide range of variation and by the co-existence of various, sometimes even opposing, tendencies.

SPOO - occurred in non-defendant clauses in simple sentences and main clauses unless they open with an adverb

SOP - occure when the object was a pronoun or was used in dependent clauses.

PSO - in questions

The Great Vowel Shift.(GVS)

During the period of 14-17 c. all 7 long vowels in existence at this time came into motion and were involved in highly systematic change, which brought the qualitative changes and the appearance of diphtongs. GVS didn’t bring any new phonems, as all of them existed before, but changed the quality.

ai ← ei ← i: u:→ au →əu ↑- narrowing

↑ ↑

e: o: → diphtongization

↑ ↑

ei← ε:←a: (front) O: → ou

ti:me (ME)→taim(NE), kepen[ke:pən]→keep, moon[mo:n]→moon

It is important to note that the Great Vowel Shift (unlike most of the earlier phonetic changes) was not followed by any regular spelling changes: as seen from the examples the modification in the pronunciation of words was not reflected in their written forms. (The few graphic replacements made in the 16th c. failed to reflect the changes: the digraphs ie, ee, and the single e were kept for the close [e:], while the digraph ea was introduced to show the more open [ε: ]

During the shift even the names of some English letters were changed, for they contained long vowels. Cf. the names of some English letters before and after the shift:

ME: A [a:]. E [e:], 0 [o:], I [i:], B [be:]. K [ka:]

NE: A [ei],E [i:] O [ou] I [ai] B [bi:]. K [kei].

The Great Vowel Shift has attracted the attention of many linguists (K. Luick. 0. Jespersen. F. Mosse. A. Martinet, V. Plotkin and others).

1) Many linguists agree that the intensification of changes in Late ME not only to phonological but also to morphological factors (V. Plotkin). The shift may have been stimulated by the loss of the final [e] in the 15th c., which transformed disyllabic words into monosyllables.

2) The changes have been interpreted as starting at one end of each set of vowels—front and back—the initial change stimulating the movement of the other sounds. If the changes started at the more open vowels, [a:] and [o:]. every step "pushed" the adjoining vowel away to avoid coincidence, so that finally the closest vowels, which could not possibly become narrower were "pushed" out of the set of monophthongs into diphthongs: [i:] > [ai] and [u:l > [au]. This interpretation of the shift is known as the "push-chain" (K. Luick).

The opposite view is held by the exponents of the theory of "drag-chain" (0. Jespersen); according to this theory the changes started at the two closest vowels, [i:] and [u:]; these close vowels became diphthongs, "dragging” after themselves their neighbours, [e:] and [o:]. which occupied the vacant positions; every vowel made one step in this direction, except [ε:] which made two: [ε:] became (e:] and then [i:].

 

 

The OE personal pronouns

OE pronouns fell under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. The grammatical categories of the pronouns were either similar to those of nouns or corresponded to those of adjectives. Some features of pronouns were peculiar to them alone.

OE personal pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the 1^st and 2^nd p. (2 numbers – in the 3rd) and 3 genders in the 3^rd person. The pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd persons had suppletive forms like their parallels in other Indo-European lang.

In OE personal pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of the Dat. Case of the pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd persons were frequently used instead of the Acc.

The Gen.case of personal pronouns had 2 main applications: like other oblique (косвенный) cases of noun-pronouns it could be an object, but far more frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a possessive pronoun (his fæder). The forms of the 2^nd and 1^st were declined like adjectives to show agreement with the nouns they modified, while the forms of the 3d person behaved like nouns: they remained uninflected and did not agree with the nouns they modified.

The oblique cases of personal pronouns in combination with the adjective self could also serve as reflexive pronouns.

 

French loans.

The French language was brought to England by the Norman conquerors. The Normans remained masters of England for a sufficiently long time to leave a deep impress on the language. The Norman rulers and the immigrants, who invaded the South-Westem towns after the Conquest, spoke a variety of French, known as "Anglo-Norman". This variety died out about two hundred years later, having exerted a profound influence upon English; In the 13th and 14th c. English was exposed to a new wave of French influence; this time it came from Central, Parisian French, a variety of a more cultivated, literary kind.

The effect of these successive and overlapping waves was seen first and foremost in a large number of lexical borrowings in ME. At the initial: the speech of the aristocracy at the king's court; the speech of the middle class, who came into contact both with the rulers and with the ruled; the speech of educated people and the population of South-Eastern towns. Eventually French loanwords spread throughout the language space and became an integral of the English vocabulary. Early borrowings were mostly made in the course of oral communication; later borrowings were first used in literature — in translations of French books. The total number of French borrowings by far exceeds the number of borrowings from any other foreign language (though sometimes it is difficult to say whether the loan came from French or Latin). The greater part of French loan-words in English date from ME.

To the 13th c. no more than one thousand words entered the English language, whereas by 1400 their number had risen to 10,000 (75% of them are still in common use). The majority of French loan-words adopted in ME were first recorded in the texts of the 14th c. Chaucer's vocabulary, which amounts to 6,000 words, contains about 4,000 words of Romance origin, i.e. French and Latin borrowings.

Among the earliest borrowings are Early ME prisun (NE prison), Early ME castel (NE castle). Early ME werre (NE war). Late OE pryio, prut (NE pride, proud). The French borrowings of the ME period are usually described according to semantic spheres. To this day nearly all the words relating to the:

1. government and administration of the country are French by origin: assembly, authority, pertaining to the

2. Feudal system and words indicating titles and ranks of the nobility: baron, count, lord, lady, king, queen, earl, knight.

3. military terms: armour, arms, army, banner,

4. law and jurisdiction,: accuse,court, crime, damage

5. Church and religion, for in the 12th and 13th c. all the important posts in the Church were occupied by the Norman clergy: abbey, altar, archangel, Bible

6. house, furniture and architecture: arch, castle, cellar, chimney, column, couch, curtain,.

7. art: art, beauty, colour, design, figure, image, ornament, paint. Another group includes names of garments: apparel, boot, coat, collar, costume, dress, fur, garment, gown, jewel, robe.

8. entertainment, are: cards, dance, dice, leisure, partner, pleasure, adventure (ME aventure),

We can also single out words relating to different aspects of the life of the upper classes and of the town life: forms of address— sir, madam, and also mister, mistress, smith.

French influence led to different kinds of changes in the vocabulary. Firstly, there were many innovations. Secondly, there were numerous replacements of native words by French

The vocabulary was also enriched by the adoption of French affixes. Derivational affixes could not be borrowed as such; they entered the language in scores of loan-words, were unconsciously or consciously separated by the speakers and used in derivation. They could become productive in English only after the loan-words with those affixes were completely assimilated by the language; that is why the use of borrowed French affixes dates largely from the Early NE period.

Anglo-Norman words must have been very hard to pronounce as they contained many sounds which did not exist in English, such as J, nasalised vowels, the sound [y] and soft, palatalised consonants. The foreign features were lost and the words were adapted to the norms of English pronunciation. French sounds were replaced by resembling English sounds.

Ex.Palatalised [1'] and ln'1 were shown as ordinary [1] and [n] or as sequences [il, in], cf. e.g. 0 Fr faillir, which contained IF], and ME fallen, NE fail.

The stress in French loan-words was shifted in conformity with the English rules of word accentuation,

People freely added English grammatical endings to the stems of the borrowed words, and used them in all grammatical forms like native words

Since the French loan-words of the ME period were completely assimilated, it is not easy to identify a French borrowing and to distinguish it from native words or borrowings from other languages.

 

Scandinavian loans.

The Scandinavian invasions had far-reaching linguistic consequences which became apparent mainly in ME; the greater part of lexical borrowings from OScand was not recorded until the 13th c.

The presence of the Scandinavians in the English population is indicated by a large number of place-names in the northern and eastern areas, most frequent are place-names with the Scandinavian components thorp "village*, Wood thorp

The fusion of the English and of the Scandinavian settlers progressed rapidly; in many districts people became bilingual, which was an easy accomplishment since many of the commonest words in the two OG languages were very much alike.

It is noteworthy that the number of Scandinavian loan-words in the Northern dialects has always been higher than in the Midlands and in the South. Probably in Early ME there were more Scandinavian words in current use than have survived today. Some words died out or were retained only in the local dialects, e.g. kirk 'church'.

It is difficult to define the semantic spheres of Scandinavian borrowings: they mostly pertain to everyday life and do not differ from native words. Only the earliest loan-words deal with military and legal matters and reflect the relations of the people during the Danish raids and Danish rule. Cnif (NE knife) similarly fellow which stemmed from OScand felagi, indicated one who lays down a fee, as a partner or shareholder. In the subsequent centuries many Scandinavian military and legal terms disappeared or were displaced by French terms.

Examples of everyday wordsof Scandinavian origin. Nouns — bag, band, cake, crook, dirt, egg, wing; adjectives — ill, low, ugly, weak, wrong; verbs — call, cast, crawl, cut, die,

It must be mentioned that form-words are rarely borrowed from a foreign language. The Scandinavian pronoun pegg (3rd p. pl) Gradually they, together with the forms them, their, themselves displaced OE hie.

It is believed that the final selection of they (instead of hie) was favoured, if not caused, by the resemblance of ME descendants of several pronouns of the 3rd p.: hie, he, and heo, ("they¹, 'he*, 'she'). It was at that ti me that OE heo was replaced by she.

Other form-words borrowed from Scandinavian are: both, though, fro (which was used interchangeably with the native parallel from and has been preserved in the phrase to and fro).

Vocabulary changes due to Scandinavian influence proceeded in different ways: 1. a Scandinavian word could enter the language as an innovation, without replacing any other lexical item; such was probably the case of law, fellow, outlaw. 2. More often, however, the loan-word was a synonym of a native English word and their rivalry led to different results: the loan-word could eventually disappear or could be restricted to dialectal use (e.g. Late OE barda 'ship*, lip 'fleet'); it could take the place of the native word (e.g. they, take, call, which replaced OE hie, niman, clipian)', both the borrowed and the native words could survive as synonyms with a slight difference in meaning sky (from 0 Scand sky 'cloud') and heaven

Scandinavian words were very much like native words. The only criteria that can be applied are some phonetic features of borrowed words:the consonant cluster tsk ] is a frequent mark of Scandinavian loan-words, e.g. sky^ skill (see the lists above); [sk] does not occur in native words, as OTE [sk] had been palatalised and modified to [ƒ] cf. ME fish, ship (from OE fisc, scip, see §403).¹ The sounds l|] and [sk] are sometimes found in related words in the two languages: native shirt and the Scandinavian loan-word skirt are etymological doublets (which means that they go back to the same Germanic root but have been subjected to different phonetic and semantic changes;

Other criteria of the same type are the sounds [k] and [g] before front vowels, which in native words normally became [t ƒ] and [dзl. Cf. kid (from 0 Scand) and chin (native, from OE cin).

The intimate relations of the languages, among other things, could result in phonetic modification of native words. Words like give, get, gift are included by some scholars in the list of Scandinavian loan-words on the basis of this criterion, but are also regarded as instances of phonetic influence upon native words; we may say that ME gyven, geten and gift were Northern variants of the words whose pronunciation was influenced by Scandinavian; nevertheless, they are native words. The same is true of the word sister, which goes back to native OE sweostor and to 0 Scand systir.

 

Latin loans.

I. period. The role of the Latin language in Medieval Britain is clearly manifest; it was determined by such historical events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the influence of the Roman civilization and the introduction of Christianity. It is no wonder that the Latin language exerted considerable influence on different aspects of English: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. The impact of Latin on the OE vocabulary enables us to see the spheres of Roman influence on the life in Britain.

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into several layers. The earliest layer comprises words which the WG tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilization began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years

1. Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and concepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and-home life.

Words connected with trade: OE ceapman ‘trader, came from the Latin names for 'merchant* — caupo and mango.

Units of measurement and containers were adopted with their Latin names: OE pund (NE pound), from L pondo OE ynce (NE inch) from L uncia.

The following words denote articles of trade and agricultural products, introduced by the Romans: OE win (from L vinum) - wine OE butere (from L biityrum)- butter

Roman contribution to building can & a group of words relating to domestic life is exemplified by OE cytel, cuppe, (NE kettle, cup, etc).

Borrowings pertaining to military affairs are OE mil (NE mile) from L millia passuum, which meant a thousand steps made to measure the distance;

2.Among the Latin loan-words adopted in Britain were some place-names or components of place-names used by the Celts. L castra in the shape caster, coaster 'camp* formed OE place-names which survive today as Chester, Dorchester, Lancaster

3. The third period of Latin influence on the OE vocabulary began with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6th c. and lasted to the end of OE. Numerous Latin words which found their way into the English language during these five hundred years clearly fall into two main groups:

(1) words pertaining to religion, (2) words connected with learning. The rest are miscellaneous words denoting various objects and concepts which the English learned from Latin books and from closer acquaintance with Roman culture. The total number of Latin loan-words in OE exceeds five hundred, this third layer accounting for over four hundred words.

1).OE apostol NE apostle from L apostolus from Gr apostolos

After the introduction of Christianity many monastic schools were set up in Britain. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was conducted in Latin, or consisted of learning Latin. "'

OE scol NE school L schola (Gr skhole)

A great variety of miscellaneous borrowings came from Latin probably because they indicated new objects and new ideas.They belong to different semantic spheres: names of trees and plants — lily, plant; names of illnesses and words pertaining to medical treatment — cancer, fever; names of animals — camel, elephant, tiger, names of clothes and household articles — cap, mat, sack, sock; names of foods — beet, caul, oyster, radish;

The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of them is the appearance of the so-called "translation-loans" — words and phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations. The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the week found not only in OE but also in other Old (and modern) Germanic languages:

OE Monan-dss (Monday) 'day of the moon', L Lunae dies;

Another question which arises in considering borrowings from a foreign language is the extent of their assimilation. Most Latin loan- words were treated in OE texts like native words, which means that they were already completely assimilated.

II. period. The Latin -language continued to be used in Englandallthrough the OE and ME periods in religious rituals, in legal documents and in texts of a scientific and philosophical character. After the Norman Conquest it was partly replaced by official Anglo-Norman. The main spheres of the Latin language were the Church, the law courts and academic activities.

Latin words were borrowed in all historical periods. In ME they were certainly less numerous than borrowings from French; their proportion was high only in religious texts translated from Latin. John Wyclif (late 14th c.), one of the most prolific borrowers from classical languages, introduced about a thousand Latin words in his translation of the Bible.

The extraordinary surge of interest in the classics in the age of the Renaissance opened the gates to a new wave of borrowings from Latin. Latin was the main language of philosophy and science, its use in the sphere of religion became more restricted after the Reformation and the publication of the English versions of the Bible.

In some cases it has been possible to specify the date of the borrowings and the authors who used them initially. Numerous Latin and Greek words were first used by Thomas More (early 16th c.), who wrote in Latin and in English; among his innovations were, explain, fact, monopoly. Many classical borrowings first appeared in Shakespeare's works: accommodation.

Some borrowings have a more specialized meaning and belong to scientific terminology (for the most part, they go back to Greek prototypes and may have been taken either from Greek or from Latin and French in a Latinized form), e.g. acid, antenna, apparatus, appendix, atom, formula.

The vast body of international terms continued to grow in the 18^th -19^th c. A new impetus for their creation was given by the great technical progress of the 20th c., which is reflected in hundreds of newly coined terms or Latin and Greek words applied in new meanings, e.g. examples of new application of Latin terms are — facsimile, introvert, quantum, radioactive, relativity;

In addition to words and roots, Latin and Greek have supplied English (as well as other modern languages) with a profusion of derivational affixes which have become productive in the English language of the recent centuries. These suffixes can be seen in the following classical loan-words: humanism (-ism from theGr -ismos, L -ismus);protagonist (from theGr -istes, L –ista) prefixes de-, ex-, re- and others occur in numerous modern words combined with other components of diverse origin (see below).

One of the effects of the classical borrowings on the English language was the further increase of the number of synonyms

Early NE borrowings from classical languages have been assimilated by the language: they do not contain any foreign, un-English, sounds and receive primary and secondary stresses like other English words; the grammatical forms of borrowed words are usually built in accordance with the regular rules of English grammar.

Grimm’s Law.

The first consonant shift or Proto- Germanic consonant shift (1822)-Grimm’s law: 3 categories

-- IE voiceless plosives (p,t,k) corresponded to Germanic voiceless fricatives(f,θ,h) ex: пять-five, три-three, cardia-heart

-- IE voiced plosives (b,d,g) changed into Germ voiceless plosives(p,t,k) ex: яблоко-apple, два- two ego- ic

--IE aspirated plosives (bh, dh, gh) corresponded to Germ voiced plosives without aspiration.(b,d,g) ex: bhratar- brother, manhu- medu, ghosti- gasts.

Later in West Germ lang-es there have appeared smaller subgroups: High and Low German distinguished by another changes in stop sounds- the second consonant shifts, which occur recently.

-(Proto Germanic)p →pf(High German)

-t → ts[z]

-d → t

Verner’s law.

Another important series of consonant changes in Proto-Germanic was discovered in the late 19th c. by a Danish scholar, Carl Verner. They are known as Verner‘s Law. Verner's Law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm's Law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. According to Verner's Law all the early PG voiceless fricatives [f, θ, x] which arose under Grimm's Law, and also [s] from Proto-IE, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. The voicing occurred in early PG at the time when the stress was not yet fixed on the root-morpheme. The process of voicing can be shown as a step in a succession of consonant changes in prehistorical reconstructed forms; consider, e.g. the changes of the second consonant in the word ‘father’: pater-faθar

If the preceding vowel is unstressed, [s] in germ lang-es becomes voiced. So, it changed into [z]. The later history of devoiced fricatives is that this [z] becomes [r] in Western Germ and Northen Germ lang-es. This change is called rhotacism.

Verner's Law, accounts for the appearance of voiced fricative or its later modifications [d] in place of the voiceless [θ] which ought to he expected under Grimm's Law. In late PG, the phonetic conditions that caused the voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted to the first syllable.

As a result of voicing by Verner's Law there arose an interchange of consonants in the grammatical forms of the word, termed grammatical interchange. Part of the forms retained a voiceless fricative, while other forms—with a different position of stress in Early PG—acquired a voiced fricative. Both consonants could undergo later changes in the OG languages, but the original difference between themgoes back to the time of movable word stress and PG voicing.

32. Chaucer and his “Canterbury Tales”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) was by far the most outstanding figure of the time. A hundred years later William Caxton, the first English printer, called him "the worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our language." In many books on the history of English literature and the history of English—Chaucer is described as the founder of the literary language.

Chaucer was born in London about the year 1340 and had the most varied experience as student, courtier, official, and member of Parliament.

His early works were more or less imitative of other authors — Latin, French or Italian—though they bear abundant evidence of his skill. He never wrote in any other language than English. The culmination of Chaucer's work as a poet is his great unfinished collection of stories THE CANTERBURY TALES.

The Prologue of this poem, the masterpiece of English poetry, describes how the poet found himself at the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, bound on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. There he met twenty-nine other pilgrims, who, at the suggestion of the host, agreed to liven up the journey by story-telling. Chaucer lived to write only twenty-four stories out of the intended sixty, but in the Prologue he managed to give a most vivid picture of contemporary England: he presented in the pilgrims a gallery of life-like portraits taken from all walks of life. In social position they range from knight and prioress to drunken cook and humble plowman — a doctor, a lawyer, a monk, a sailor, a carpenter, an Oxford scholar and many others. These people are shown as they appear on the road, with their distinctive dress and features, and with a bit of their personal history. Even in their choice of tales they unconsciously reveal themselves, the stories being in harmony with the character of the narrators (e. g. the knight relates a story of chivalry).

Chaucer wrote in a dialect which in the main coincided with that used in documents produced in London shortly before his time and for a long time after. Although he did not really create the literary language, as a poet of outstanding talent he made better use of it than his contemporaries and set up a pattern to be followed in the 15th c. His poems were copied so many times that over sixty manuscripts of THE CANTERBURY TALES have survived to this day. His books were among the first to be printed, a hundred years after their composition.

Chaucer's literary language, based on the mixed (largely East Midland) London dialect is known as classical ME; in the 15th and 16th c. it became the basis of the national literary English language. |

The rise of articles

In OE texts the pronouns “se,seo,pat”were frequently used as noun-determiners with a weakened meaning, approaching that of the modern definite article(D.A). In the course of ME there arose an important formal difference between the demonstrative pronoun&D.A.:as a demonst.pronoun “that”preserved №distinctions whereas as a D.A-usually in weakened form “the”-it was uninflected.In the 14c.the article had lost all traces of inflection&became a short unaccented form-word.The meaning&functions of the D.A.became more specific when it came to be opposed to the indef.artc,which had developed from the OE numeral&indefin.pronoun “an”.In OE there existed 2words:an(a numeral)&sum(indef.pronoun)which were oft used in functions approaching those of the modern indef.artc.”An”seems to have been a more colloquial word, while sum tended to assume a literary character. In early ME the indef.pronoun “an” which had 5-case declension in OE lost its inflection. Its believed that the growth of articles in early ME was caused by: the development of the D.A is connected with the changes in the declension of adject., namely with the loss of distinctions b/n strong&weak forms;&the changing function of the word order(now the parts of the sentence had their own fixed places.

 

34. SPELLING CHANGES IN MIDDLE ENGLISH.

The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of the words in Late ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different. Before considering the evolution of English sounds one must get acquainted with the system of ME spelling in order to distinguish between sound changes and graphical changes.

1) In ME the runic letters passed out of use. þ — and ð — were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value: [θ] and [ð]; the rune "wynn" was displaced by "double u" — w —; the ligatures æ and œ fell into disuse.

2) many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo- Norman texts were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u: ]. [e:], and [tч].

3) a wider use of digraphs. In addition to ch, ou, ie, and th mentioned above Late ME notaries introduced sh (also ssh and sch) to indicate the new sibilant [ш] e.g. ME ship (from OE scip),

the digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hwset, ME what [hwat] (NE what).

The introduction of the digraph gh for [x] and [x'l helped to distinguish between the fricatives [x, x¹], which were preserved in some positions, and the aspirate [h]

4)Long sounds were shown by double letters, for instance ME book [bo:k],

Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u, it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v,

5)The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. Sometimes, however, y, as well as w, were put at the end of a word for purely ornamental reasons, so as to finish the word with a curve; ME very I'veri], my [mi:] (NE nine, very, my), w was interchangeable with u in the digraphs ou, au, e.g. ME doun, down [du:n]

6) Long sounds in ME texts are often shown by double letters or digraphs. The length of the vowel can sometimes be inferred from the nature of the syllable; open syllables often contain long vowels, while closed syllables may contain both short and long vowels. The succeeding consonant groups can also serve as indicators: vowels are long before a sonorant plus a plosive consonant and short before other consonant sequences.

The dropping of deocreatic signs (“ - “ долгота)

The rise of do-forms

In the early NE a new set of analytical forms which entered the paradigms of the Pres.&Past Tense of the Indicative Mood was developed:interrogative&negatives forms with the auxiliary verb “do”.these forms are known as do-periphrasis.In ME the verb don was used ogether with an Inf.to express a causative meaning.In the early NE the causative meaningpassed to a similar verb phrase with “make”,while the perphrasis with do began to be employed instead of simple,synthetic forms.At 1st the do-perephrasis was more frequent in poetry.The use of do enabled the author to have an extra syll.in the line/Then it spread to all kinds of texts.In 16&17c the periphrasis with do was used in all types of sentences-negative,affirmative&interrogative;it freely interchanged with the simple form,without do.In the end of17 c he use of simple forms&the do—pre became more differentiated:do was found mainly in negative statements&?,the simple forms-in affirmative statements.The do-pre turned into analytical negative&interrogative forms of simple forms:presn&past.When word oder became fixed,&the pedicate

Of the centence followed the subject,the use of do made it possible adhere to this order in?,for at least the notional part of the predicate could thus preserve its position after the subject.This order of words was well established in numerous sentences with analytical forms&modals phrases.In the 18 c the periphrasis with do as an equivalent of the simple form in affirmative statements fell into disuse(its employment in affirmative sentences acquired a stylistic function:it made the statement emphatic)

Forms of negotiation in OE.

One of the distinguished features of OE syntax was multiple negation within a sentence or clause. Most common negation particle was ne, placed before verb, it was often accompanied by other negative words(naht=noht developed into not in ME), which emphasized the meaning of negation. Another feature-ne could be attached to some v(beon, willan, witan), pronouns, adv to form single words(nis-ne+is). Ne gradually fell out of usage.

 

 

The Old Germanic language, their classification and principle features.

Languages can be classified according to different principles. The historical or genealogical classification groups languages in accordance with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor.

Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the IE linguistic family. Most of the area of Europe and large parts of other continents are occupied today by the IE languages, Germanic being one of their major groups.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:

English — in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies and dominions; German — in the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland; Netherlandish — in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively); Afrikaans — in the South African Republic; Danish — in Denmark; Swedish — in Sweden and Finland; Norwegian — in Norway; Icelandic — in Iceland; Frisian — in some regions of the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany; Faroese — in the Faroe Islands; Yiddish — in different countries.

All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history. The survey of their external history will show where and when the Germanic languages arose and acquired their common features and also how they have developed into modern independent tongues.

The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. PG is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th c. BC.

As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, the ancient Germans or Teutons moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic-Sea in the region of the Elbe. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of the Teutons.

PG is a prehistorical lan-ge, as it was never recorded in written form. According to Pliny Germ tribes in the 1^st c AD consisted of 5 groups: 1)TheVindili (the Goths, the Burgundians)-eastern part of Germ ter; 2)The Ingaevones (North-Western part, the shores of the North Sea, the Netherlands); 3) The Istaevons (the Westernpart, the shores of the Rhine); 4)The Hermiones (the southern part); 5)The Hilleviones (Scandinavia).

According to the marked dialectical differences Germ l-es are divided into 3 groups (East-Gothic- is not used): 1) North Germ (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese), 2) West Germ (High German, Low German, Dutch, Fresian, English, Yiddish); Afrikaans is the development of Dutch of the 17^th c. spoken in Africa; Vangalic and Burgundian were East GL in structure, but we know only a few proper name of them.

FEATURES: Phonetic :1)while in IE languages the stress was free and tonic, in GL the stress became fixed and dynamic. The stress was fixed on the first rout syllable (except believe, forget). This phonetic feature had very far-reaching consequences, as all the syllables of the word became weakened and finally brought about the reduction of endings.

2) Vowels displayed a strong tendency to change. They underwent different kinds of alterations: Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound, e.g.: IE(a) became (o): latin “mater”>OE “modor”.

quantitative changes make long sounds short or short sounds long, e.g.:(i>i:), dependent changes (also positional or combinative) are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions, for instance, a sound may change under the influence of the neighbouring sounds or in a certain type of a syllable; independent changes — also spontaneous or regular — take place irrespective of phonetic conditions, i.e. they affect a certain sound in all positions.

3) the first consonant shift(1822)-Grimm’s law: 3 categories

-- IE voiceless plosives (p,t,k) corresponded to Germanic voiceless fricatives(f,ө,h): P pięc R пять-E five,L tres-OE preo E three, L cor, cordis-OE heorte E heart.

-- IE voiced plosives (b,d,g) changed into Germ voiceless plosives(p,t,k): P bloto R болото-OE pol E pool, L duo P dwa-Gth twai OE twa E two, L ego-OE ic

-- IE voiced aspirated plosives (bh, dh, gh) corresponded to Germ non-aspirated voiced plosives(b,d,g): L frater- OE bropor E brother, Skr madhu- OE meodu E mead, L hostis-E guest.

German and Law German distinguished by another change in stop sounds-The 2^nd Consonant Shift: ProtoGerm –p-appears in High Germ as –pf-, or after vowels as –ff-(pepper-Pfeffer);Protogerm –t- appears as –ts-(z), after vowels as –ss-(tongue-Zunge, water-Wasser); Protogerm –d- appears as –t-(dance-tanzen).

4) Verner’s Law. In Proto-Germ voiceless fricatives became voiced when they were in a voiced environment and the IE stress was not on the preceding syllable. The effect of stress on voicing can be observed in some ME words of foreign origin(exert, exist). If he preceding vowel is unstressed,-s- in GL becomes voiced –z-. The later history of the voiced fricatives is that this –z- becomes –r- in Western Germ and Nothern GermL. This change of –z- into –r-is termed rhotacism (Gth hausjan “hear” and OE hieran, G hören).

Grammatical: 1) All IE distinctions of tense and aspects were lost in the verb, except to the present and preterit tenses (bind – bound(English), binden – band(Germ))

2) Germ developed a preterit tense form with a dental suffix (d \ t).Thus, all GL have 2 types of verbs: strong and weak(regular-irregular).

3) 2 ways of declining adjectives: weak(with an –n- steam) (when precede by a pronominal adjective including the demonstrative pronoun, that developed later into the definite article) and strong (in other cases). ME has lost declension of adjectives.

Lexical: Germanic has a large number of words, that have no known cognates outside the GL (land, sea, wife, to live, drink, drive,dead,broad,soft, all, each,)