Вопросы развития лексикологии

1.Classification of old Germ lang

the history of the germ group begins with the appearance of proto-germanic lang. it is the parent-language of the Germanic group. proto-germanic div into 3 groups

1) east Germanic: gothic, vandalic, burgundian. The oldest surviving literary text is in gothic (4-6 cent)

It’s a translation of the Bible by bishop Williams «the silver codex». All lang are now dead but vandalic had similar features with Spanish and burgudean with French.

2) north Germanic: until 10 cent there was 1 common Scandinavian lang called Old Norse or old Scandinavian. After 10 cent it fell into different lang: Old Swedish, Old Danish, Old Norwegian, Old Icelandish. Historically the most important is O. Icelandic:

1. it had the largest body of written records, dated back to 12-13 cent. (the Elder Edda, the Younger Edda, numerous sagas).
2. Icelandic had retained a more archaic grammar and vocabulary than many other G. Lang.

3) west Germanic: (O.High German, O.English, O. Low Franconian, O. Saxon, Old Frisian)

 

Features - there existed two ways of word accentuation: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was free and movable, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word—a root-morpheme, an affix or an ending. The specific peculiarities of consonants constitute the most remarkable distinctive feature of the Germanic linguistic group. Comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. Thus we regularly find [f] in Germanic where other IE languages have Ip]; cf. e.g., E full, R nojiHuu, Fr plein. The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early I9th c. and are often called Grimm's Law. Another important series of consonant changes in PG was discovered in the late 19th c, by a Danish scholar, Cari Verner. They are known as Verner's Law. Vemer's Law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm's Law.

Principal features:

Old German languages show differences in comparison with other European Lang on 3 main linguistic levels: grammatical, phonetic and lexical.

 Grammatical level – the most important innovation in G. was the emergence of the new types of verbs – “weak”, past tense with the dental suffix –d-: open – opened, work – worked.

Phonetic peculiarities – 1) accent (word stress) in IE was free and musical; in protogerm. Accent become fixed on the root syllable and dynamic, 2) Grimm’s law.

 

 

2. Classification of modern Germ lang

Indo-european linguistic family. 11 germ lang div into 2 groups: west and north.

1)the west group: English (400 mln GB USA канада нов зеланд) German (100 mln герм автрия люксембург) netherlandish (21 mln) Afrikaans, Frisian, Yiddish, Hibrit

2)the north: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandish, Faroese(The Faroe Islands)

 

 

 

3.the chronological division of the history

 English history is divided into three periods: Old English (OE), Middle English (ME) and New English (NE), with boundaries attached to definite dates and historical events affecting the language. OE begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5th c.) or with the beginning of writing (7th c.) and ends with the Norman Conquest (1066); ME begins with the Norman Conquest and ends in the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of the Modern or New English period (Mod E or NE); the New period lasts to the present day.

1)The first — pre-written or pre-historical — period, which may be termed Early Old English, lasts from the West Germanic invasion of Britain till the beginning of writing, that is from the 5th to the close of the 7th c.

2)The second historical period extends from the 8th c. till the end of the 11th. The English language of that time is referred to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon-, it can also be called Written OE.

3) The third period, known as Early Middle Englisli, starts after 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest, and covers the 12th, 13th and naif of the 14th c. foreign influences — Scandinavian and French. Early ME was a time of great changes at ali the levels of the language, especially in lexis and grammar.

4) The fourth period — from the later 14th c. till the end of the 15^th. We may call it Late or Classical Middle English. . It was the time of the restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and the time of literary flourishing.

5) The fifth period — Early New English — lasted from the introduction of printing to the age of Shakespeare, that is from 1475 to c. 1660. The first printed book in English was published by William Cax-ton in 1475. The Early NE period was a time of sweeping changes at all levels, in the first place lexical and phonetic.

6) The sixth period extends from the mid-17th c. to the close of the 18th c. the "neoclassical" age. the neo-classical period discouraged variety and free choice in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The 18th c. has been called the period of "fixing the pronunciation".

7) The English language of the 19th and 20th c. represents the seventh period in the history of English — Late New English or Modern English.

 

 

5. OE dialects

The Germanic tribes who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th c. spoke closely related tribal dialects belonging to the West Germanic subgroup. Their common origin and their separation from other related tongues as well as their joint evolution in Britain transformed them eventually into a single tongue, English. Yet, at the early stages of their development in Britain the dialects remained disunited. On the one hand, the OE dialects acquired certain common features which distinguished them from continental Germanic tongues; on the other hand, they displayed growing regional divergence.

Kentish, a dialect spoken in the area known now as Kent and Surrey and in the Isle of Wight, ft had developed from the tongue of the Jutes and Frisians.

West Saxon, the main dialect of the Saxon group, spoken in the rest of England south of the Thames and the Bristol Channel, except Wales and Cornwall, where Celtic tongues were preserved. Other Saxon dialects in England have not survived in written form and are not known to modern scholars.

Mercian, a dialect derived from the speech of southern Angles and spoken chiefly in the kingdom of Mercia, that is, in the central region, from  the Thames to the Humber.

Northumbrian, another Anglian dialect, spoken from the Humber rth to the river Forth (hence the name — North-Humbrian).

The boundaries between the dialects were uncertain and probably Movable, The dialects passed into one another imperceptibly and dialectal forms were freely borrowed from one dialect into another. Throughout this period the dialects enjoyed relative equality; none of them was the dominant form of speech, each being the main type used over a limited area. In the 9th c. the political and cultural centre moved to Wessex. the West Saxon dialect has been preserved in a greater number of texts than all the other OE dialects put together. Towards the 11th c. the written form of the West 5axon dialect developed into a bookish type of language, which, probably, served as the language of writing for all English-speaking people.

In the IX cent – during the reign of King Alfred (871-899) the Great, when Wessex became the most powerful kingdom and led the successful war against the Scandinavians. Since him the dialect of Wessex became more popular and got the status of written standard. Most OE written records that came to us are in the Wessex dialect (“Beowulf”, Anglo-Saxon chronicles).

 

 

6.ME dialects.

In ME period we can observe the change of the names of dialects:

Northumbrian → Northern dialect

Mercian    → East Midland d.

→West Midland d.

Kentish ----

Wessex → South Western d.

East Midland became the modern language (today). It was spoken not far from London.

For a long time after the Norman Conquest there were two written languages in England: Latin and French. English was held in disdain as a tongue used only for common illiterate people and not for writing.

The most important event in the changing linguistic situation was the rise of the London dialect as the prevalent written form of language.

The history of London dialect reveals the sources of literary language in late ME. The London dialect fundamentally East Saxon.

ME division → LD belonged to the S. Western dial. group.

12-13^th S. West. districts – “Black Death” (In the 12th and 13th c. the inhabitants of London came from the south-western districts. In the middle of the 14th c. London was practically depopulated during the "Black Death" (1348))→ Most of the new arrivals came from the East Midlands. As a result the speech °* Londoners was brought much closer to the East Midland dialect. → London dialect became more Anglian.

The dialect division which evolved in Early ME was on the whole preserved in later periods. In the 14^th, 15^th cent there were the same grouping of local dialects.

1. Southern group → Kentish

→ South-West dialect

2. Midland group  → East Midland

→ West Midland

3. Northern group

 

 

7. The old alphabets. Major written records.

 The earliest written records of English are inscriptions on hard material made in a special alphabet known as the runes. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate a separate sound. before they came to Britain, since runic inscriptions have also been found in Scandinavia. The letters are angular; straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided; this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin. Their main function was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are "Franks Casket" and The Ruthwell Cross. "thorn" wynn

The OE alphabet’s letters:

1. the runes (‘secret’): thorn (th)
1. germanic tribes;
2. each symbol – a separate word.
2. the letters of the Latin alphabet:

• i and j, w and v were not distinguished;

• k, q, x and w were not used.
• Each letter – a separate sound;
• Letters – short/long – line above the letter.

Rules of letters in Latin alphabet:

1. f, s, Þ/đ – voiced fricatives between vowels + between a vowel and a voiced consonant:

Eg: ofer [‘over]

       Rīsan [‘rizan]

       Ōđer [‘ođer].

Otherwise they’re voiceless.

2. 3 –   [g] – initially before back vowels;

[j] – before/after front vowels;

[г] – between back vowels;

[g’] – when preceded by ‘c’.

Eg: 3ān, dœ [j].

3. h –   [x] – between a back vowel and a  

                       consonant; initially before

                       consonants.

[x’] – next to front vowels.

Eg: mi[x’]t, mi[x]te.

4. n   – [n] – all positions except, when

                        followed by [k], [g].

[ŋ] – followed by [k], [g].

Eg: [n]iht, se[gg]an.

 

8. Main peculiarities of OE poetry.Beowulf.

OE poetry has a specific vocabulary of its own.

1.namees of the poets are unknown(exc.Ceolmon and Cynewulf)

2.mainly3 subj-s:

-heroes(Beowulf)

-lyrical poems(the Wanderer)

-religious poems(paraphrase the Bible)

3. the lines are not rhymed and the number of the syllables in a line is free, only the number of stressed syllables-being fixed. The line is divided into two halves by caesura with two strongly stressed syllables in each half and is bound together by the use of the same sound at the beginning of at least two stressed  syllables in the line alliteration.

 4.metaphorical phrases:e.g. bānhus (bone-house) for a person’s body

5.many synonyms:e.g. juma, wer, beorn, secj; flota, ship (many of which are so called kennings. They describe things indirectly, metaphorically)

OE poetic words went out of use.

Beowulf.

The Mercian or Northumbrian dialect. Heroic epic (7/8th).The oldest poem in Germanic literature. It’s the story of the youth and age of a hero. Built up of several songs arranged in 3 chapters.Based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient teutons language – Late West Saxon. It is written in the alliterative verse. It was meant to be heard rather than read

9. Major spelling changes in ME.

1. Runic letters – thorn Þ, d, đ → digraph ‘TH’.
2. the rune ‘wynne’ → ‘double u’ – w;
3. the ligatures œ, æ fell into disuse.
4. the use of g, c as [dg], [s] – before

                                           front vowel;

            [g], [k] – before back  

                          vowel.

5. sh, ssh, sch → [∫];
6. hw → wh: Eg: hwæt – what - replacement.
7. long sound – double letters. Eg: book.
8. gh [x], [x’] to distinguished between the fricatives

[xx’] and the aspirate [h]  Eg: knyhte [knix’t], he [he].

9. o → [o],

[u] + n, m, v. Eg: OE munuc – ME monk.

10. y → [i] – eg: nyne, very, my.

[j] – at the beginning: eg: yet.

11. w-interchangeable with ‘u’ in ‘ou’, ‘au’. Eg: ME down – down [dun];

how [hu].

12. th, s are voiced between vowels: eg:

                       worthy [wurđi];

are voiceless – initially, finally: less.

 

10. Major written records.

The flourishing of literature, which marks tha sacond half of the 14th c, apart from its cultural significance, testifies to the complete reestablishtnsnt of English as the language of writing. Some authors wrote in their local dialect from outside London, but most of them used the London dialect. poetry was more prolific than prose.

It was “the age of Chaucer”, the greatest author of this period. “Canterbury tales”

Chaucer was the most outstanding figure of the 14^th cent. the founder of the literary language .He had the most varied experience as student, official member of Parliament. His later works were imitative of other authors. He never wrote in any other language than English. The culmination of his work as a poet is his unfinished collection of stories “The Canterbury tales”. Chaucer’s literature language based on the mixed London dialect is known as classical ME, in the 15-16^th cent it became the basic of the national literary Engl language.

One of the prominent authors of the time was John de Trevisa of Cornwall. In 1387 he completed the translation of seven books on world history — POLYCHRONICON by R. Higden — from Latin into the South-Western dialect of English.

John Wyclif. translation of the BIBLE completed in 1384

The chief poets of the time, besides Chaucer, were John Gower, William Langland and, probably, the unknown author of SIR GA-WAINE AND THE GREEN KNIGHT.

ME 12-15^th:

1. Kentish: 13^th – Kentish Sermons, Poema Morale.
2. South Wester: 13^th – Layamon “Brut”;

14^th – Robert of Gloucester, a versified chronicle, Ser Gawaine and the Green Knight.

3. London – 13^th – Proclamation of Henry III, polit novel;

14^th – roman of chivalry, Chaucer’s works;

4. Midland W and E Midland: 12 cent – the Peterbour chronicle;

14^th – Adam Davy’s poems, Miracle Plays

5. Northern: 13^th – the Prose ryle of St Benedict;

14^th – Hampole “The prick of Conscience”;

6. Scottish: 14^th – J.Babour “Bruce”, Henry the Minstrel “Wallace”.

 

11. The Scandinavian invasion and its effect on English.

By the end of the 8-th cent Britain was often invaded by Vikings (Danes from Denmark and Northmen from Scandinavia). England was invaded by Danes, Scotland and Ireland by Northmen. At first they came in small groups, than in large bands conquering territories one after another. Wessex kingdom under Alfred the Great began to struggle. But still Scandinavian invasion had made some effect on English:

1. words beginning on “sk” (sky, skirt, skin)
2. the system of personal pronouns (they, them, their)
3. the form ‘are’ of the verb to be/
4. the ending–s- for Present  Simple, 3-rd person singular (in verbs) (he makes).
5. the system of personal names ending on –son-: Davidson, Richardson, Jefferson.
6. there are more then 1500 words of Scandinavian origin in ModE: sister, bad, fog, cake, get, again etc.

[sk’] → [s] NE  Etymological doublets in  

                   ME

        → [sk] Sc   skjorte (Sc) – skirt (NE)

                           scierte (OE) – shirt  (NE)

The influence was felt in 2 spheres

• vocabulary – law, husband, loose, root, sky, smile, want;
• morphology – the verb system was expanding.

 

12. The Norman Conquest and its effect on English.

The last of the invaders to come to Britain were the Normans from France. In 14 October 1066 Duke William of Normandy defeated the English at the battle of Hastings and established his rule in the country as King of England. He is known as William the Conqueror. They started a new period in England, which is known as Norman period. The Normans settled in the country and the French language became the official language of the ruling class. This explains the great number of French words in English (80%) – boots, pearl, beef, biscuit, home, sir, council, tax.