История английского языка

Билет 1. The formation of the National Literary English Language.

The English nation belonged to the western subdivision of old Germanic tribes, and the dialect they spoke later became the English national language.

1. The first borrowing comes in the 1^st  century BC with Romans. These were words of trade, food, that Germanic tribes hadn’t known. (cheese, cup, port, wine)

Runic alphabet: Frank’s casket, Ruthwell cross.

2. The 5^th century. Several of Germanic tribes (The Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes) migrates across the sea to the British Isles. There they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the isles. Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowing were place names, names of the rivers, hills (Avon, Exe) (bald, down)

They established separate kingdoms: - Angles: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia; the Saxons: Wessex, Sussex, Essex; the Jutes: Kent. The geographical separation of England from the continent was a factor of distinguishing English from other Germanic languages.

3. The 7^th century AD was significant for the Christianization of England. Latin was the official language of the Christian church and new period of Latin borrowings began. These words mostly indicated the persons, ideas, objects associated with church and religion (priest, bishop, monk, candle). And educational (school, magister). Latin alphabet. Written records: translations of Bede’s, Psalter.
4. 8^th-11^th. Scandinavian invaded to England and left their trace on English vocabulary (call, take, die, law, husband). Some of these words are recognizable as Scandinavian  borrowings by the initial sk- combination (Sky, skill, ski, skirt).

Efforts to unite England failed for a very long time, because as soon as one kingdom became great other tried to pull it down. And also because of Scandinavian invasion (Danes) which destroyed all kingdom except Wessex, where king Alfred ruled. He stopped the Danes, established the schools and wrote history book “Anglo-Saxon chronicle”. The west Saxon dialect became the chief dialect.

5. 1066 English were defeated by the Normans (king Edward the Confessor). England became a bi-lingual country for 200 years(King Duke William). French words from the Norman dialect penetrated every aspect of social life. Legal terms: court, judge, justice; administrative: state, government; military: army, war, soldier. The victorious and defeated peoples continued to speak their own language. The rule of the King Henry 4

The formation of the National Literary English Language began with the late Middle English – Early new English. This period marked by the following events:

1. The end of war between the White and the Red Rose (1455-1485) and the establishment of an absolute monarchy with Henry Tudor. The War of the Roses was the most important event of the XV century which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of new social order. It is also signified  a linguistic centralization leading to a predominance of a national language over local dialects.
2. The introduction of printing – in 1477 by William Caxton. The first English printing office was founded in 1476 by W. Caxton and in one year there appear the first book called The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. The appearance of a number of printed books contributed to the normalization of spelling and grammatical forms, was chosen the single variant over others.

Since that time – the end of the XV c the English began its development as the language of the English nation. The London dialect began to be dominant type. Thus, the English national language was formed on the basis of the London dialect. The importance of the London dialect as the foundation of the ENL grew also because of the fact that many of the best writers of the 14^th-15^th centuries were Londoners or used the London dialect in their writings (Geoffrey Chauser).

 

Билет 2. Development of the adjectives.

The adjective in OE could change for number, gender, case. Adj had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adj differed from that of nouns: instead four cases(N, A, D, G) they had one more case – Instrumental. It was used when the adj served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat, case expressing an instrumental meaning.

Most adj in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and to the strong declension. The strong and weak formed using several stem-forming suffixes: a, o, u, i, n. the differences between the strong and weak declensions of adj was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, adj did not belong to a certain type of declension.

There are three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The comparative made their form by suffix –ra. The superlative by suffix est/ost.

Heard(hard) – hearda – heardost.

Sometimes adj change its root vowel: eald (old) – ieldra – ieldest. (palatal mutation: ealdira-ieldra)

Some adj had suppletive forms: god (good) – bettra – betst.

In the ME the adj lost all its grammatical categories with the exception of the degrees of comparison and number.

In the ME the adj lost all its grammatical categories with the exception of the degrees of comparison, number and declension.

Strong adj had zero ending in sing and weak had the ending –e also in sing. But their forms of declension in the plural had similar ending –e.

By the end of 15^th century the final “e” was no longer pronounced and later it dropped in the spelling. So the adj became an entirely uninflected part of speech.

In NE the declension disappeared completely. Contrary the degrees of comparison of comparison of the adj were not only preserved but also developed in M and NE. comparison degree: -ra – -er; -ost – -est. at the same time there was formed a new means – analytical: more/better.

 

Билет 3. Development of the new grammatical forms and categories of the verb.

The verb system in OE was represented by two sets of forms: the finite forms of the verb and non-finite, or verbals (Infinitive, Participle). The verbals were not conjugated like the verb proper, but were declined like nouns or adj. Thus the infinitive could have two case-form which may conventionally be called the “Common” case (writan) and the “Dative” case (to writenne).

The system of conjugation of the OE verb was built up by four grammatical categories, those of person(3), number(2), tense(2) and mood(3).

The grammatical category of tense was represented by two forms: Present and Past: Ic write – ic wrat.

There was no Future tense in OE, futures were expressed with the help of a present tense V+ adverb denoting futurity or by a combination of a modal verb (sculan –shall; willan –will).

All OE verbs may be subdivided into a number of groups in accordance with the following means:

1. By means of vowel interchange of the root vowel
2. By means of suffixation.

In accordance with these two methods of the formation of the verb-stems all the verbs in OE formed two main groups – the strong verbs and the weak verbs.

The strong verbs  are verbs formed their stem by means of vowel gradation (ablaut) and by adding certain suffixes. The strong verbs was of two kinds: qualitative and quantitative. The first five classes are mainly based on the qualitative ablaut; the sixth class – on the quantitative ablaut; the 7^th class by means of reduplication of the root syllable. Qualitative ablaut is the use of gradation series consisting of a front vowel, back vowel and zero: e – o – x.

The weak verbs formed their forms with the help of suffixation, namely – -t, -d: cepan – cepte – cept. The weak verbs are subdivided into three classes: stem-suffix –i- and –oi-.

The weak verbs of 3^rd class are considered to be irregular verbs. The sign of  irregularity was vowel interchange, a feature not typical of this group. (tellan, habban, sellan). There were also irregular verbs in the class of strong verbs, they are formed the past tense with the help dental suffixation, like weak verbs. They were called preterite-present (cunnan, sceal, maey)

Suppletive verbs. Supplition is one of the oldest means of form-building – those building different forms from different root: beon – wesan(be), gan – eode(go), don – dyde(do).

In comparison with OE in the ME and NE the number of verbals: at the end of the ME new verbal developed – the gerund. The gerund appeared as a result of a blend between the OE Present Participle ending in –ende and the OE Verbal noun ening in –inge. From the verbal noun the gerund acquired the form (the ending), but under the influence of the Participle it became more “verbal” in meaning.

In the process of English history the Verbals are gradually shifting from the system of declension into the system of conjugation. The OE preposition TO preceding the Dative case of the infinitive loses its independent meaning and simply shows that the Verbal is an Infinitive.

The subdivision of OE verbs into Strong and Weak verbs is preserved with modifications in ME. But in the NE original classes slit into subclasses; some strong verbs entered another class; some strong verbs passed into the group of weak verbs and vice versa.

In NE we have only three principal forms of strong verbs: write-wrote-writen.

Weak verbs were becoming more and more numerous. Alike strong verbs many weak verbs became  irregular, especially the 1^st class, because of shortening of the vowel in the 2^nd and 3^rd forms in ME (before 2 cosonants):

OE: cepan-cepte-cept

ME: kepen-kepte-kept

NE: keep-kept-kept.

 

In ME and NE there developed three more grammatical categories: person, number, tense, mood + order, voice, aspect. These grammatical categories used a new grammatical means for the formation, namely, analytical forms. These analytical forms developed from free word combinations of the OE verbs habban, beon/wesan + infinitive.

Order: habban + past participle

Voice: weorpan (beon) + past participle

Aspect: ben (be) + present participle

The future tense formed by the combination of the OE modal verbs sculan and willan.

 

 

Билет 4.  Development of the Noun.

The OE noun had following grammatical categories: gender, number and case.

Noun distinguished three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender in OE was not always associated with the meaning of the nouns: wifman (woman) was a mascul gender.

Number: sing and plural.

Case: Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc.

The nouns made the morphological classification according to the stem-suffixes and fell into the groups: the vowel declension (strong d): a, I, u, o and the consonant declension (weak): n, r, s.

Some groups of noun had no stem-forming suffix or had a zero-suffix, they are termed root-stem.

Declension of n-stem nouns: masc and neut geneders.

N-stem: all genders.

Root –stem nouns had no stem-suffix and the grammatical ending was added directly to the root (man, mus)

In ME there are 2 grammatical categories: number and case. There are only cases in ME: common and genitive. In ME we observe only three declension: a-stem, n, and root. In NE we do not find different declensions, as majority of nouns is declined in accordance with the original a-stem declension masculine, the endings of plural form –es. N-stem and root-stem we have in NE but isolated forms, as exeptions or irregular nouns.

All modern irregular can be subdivided according to their origin:

1. A-stem: sheep – sheep (sceap-sceap); deer – deer (deor - deor)
2. N-stem: ox – oxen (oxa - oxan)
3. S-stem: child – children (cild -cildru)
4. Root-stem: foot – feet (fot-fet); tooth – teeth
5. Foreign plurals: datum – data

In ME and NE nouns have no category of gender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old English.

Breaking (6^th cent) affected two vowel – ae and e.

ae – ea before r,l,h,+consonant; h final. aerm – earm (arm), aeld – eald (old), aehte – eahta

e – ea before r,lc,lh, + consonant; h final. herte – heorte; melcan – meolcan (milk)

 

Palatal mutation (i-mutation)

Stressed syllable  + syllable with i or j = e, ae, y (more narrow)

Tealian – tellan; domjan –deman; fullian –fyllan.

 

Grimm’s law. Первый перебой согласных.

I-E          Germ

P, t, k - F, θ, h

 Kardia – heorte, Pater –fadar

B, d, g – p, t, k

Duo – twai

 

Verner’s law

P, t, k, s – b, ϐ/d, g, z/r

Pater - faeder

Dekas – tigus (ten)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Middle English

Long monophtongs

e –ȇ teϷ - teeth

o - ȭ toϷ - tooth

 

short monophtongs

ae –a Ϸaet –that; waes –was

y – I first – first

 

changes of diphthong

eo –e deop –deep

eo – e seofon – seven

ea – a eald – ald

 

development of the fricative consonants

k - ʧ cild –child

sk -ʃ scip – ship

g - ʤ brycʒ- bridge

 

new English

great vowel shift

ȧ- ei make

ȇ - i: see

ȭ - ou ston-stone

ȭ -u moon