- •1. When did the historical study of languages begin? Who was the first to prove the relations of many languages to each other and the existence of their common source?
- •2. What is the character of internal and external language changes?
- •3. What are considered to be the main reasons for language changes?
- •4. What groups belong to the Indo-European family of languages? What are Satem and Centum languages?
- •5. What group does English belong to? Name the closest linguistic relations of English.
- •6. What territory did the ancient Germanic tribes inhabited?
- •7. What are the distinctive features of Germanic languages that made them different from other Indo-European languages?
- •8. What is the nature of the First Consonant Shift? Who was the first to explain its regularities?
- •9. Who was the first to explain the irregularities in the First Consonant Shift?
- •Ie voiceless stop was preceded by an unstressed vowel, the voiceless fricative
- •10. How long is the history of the English language?
- •11. What periods do we distinguish in the History of the English language?
- •12. What languages were spoken in the British Isles before the Germanic invasion? Which of their descendants have survived today?
- •13. When did the Germanic invasion in the British Isles begin? What Germanic tribes came to live there?
- •14. What Germanic kingdoms existed on the British Isles?
- •15. How did the country acquire the name of England?
- •16. What important event took place at the end of the 8th century ad on the territory of the British Isles?
- •17. What alphabet did Anglo-Saxons used for their writings? What written records have survived from that time?
- •18. What vowels existed in Old English? How were they represented in writing?
- •19. What consonants existed in Old English? How were they represented in writing?
- •20. What main phonetic changes occurred during the Old English period?
- •Vowel changes
- •Consonants changes
- •21. What was the etymological composition of the oe vocabulary? What languages did the loan words come there from? Composition
- •Foreign influences on Old English
- •22. What word building patterns were common in oe?
- •23. What categories did the oe noun have?
- •24. What categories did the oe adjective have?
- •25. What were the classes of oe pronouns?
- •26. What categories did the oe verb have?
- •27. What were the most common syntactical patterns in oe?
- •28. Did there exist any analytical forms in oe?
- •29. What events of the Modern English period launched the process of forming the National English Language?
- •30. What important changes in phonetic system happened in Early ModE?
- •The Great Vowel Shift
- •31. What was the Nature of the Great Vowel Shift?
- •32. Describe the main changes in grammar system in Modern English.
- •33. Changes in the categories of nouns and adjectives. What old forms of substantive plural survived in ModE? Changes and features of ModE noun system
- •34. Describe the main changes in the ModE pronoun system.
- •35. Describe the main changes in the categories of verb in ModE. Changes and features of Early ModE verbal system
- •36. Describe the main changes in ModE syntax.
- •37. Describe the main changes in vocabulary system in Early Modern English.
29. What events of the Modern English period launched the process of forming the National English Language?
The period from 1475 till 1660 was very important in development of the
English language, as in this period the National English language was formed.
Before this time, English existed in forms of different dialects which played
different roles in different periods of history.
One of them, the London dialect, was the basis for the formation of the
National English language.
This process was launched and backed up by the following tendencies and
events:
The power became highly centralized after the years of discord and the
Civil War of Roses. After Henry the VII Tudor established absolute monarchy,
London became a bureaucratic and administrative centre, where the documents and
bills were issued.
Latin was ousted from many spheres under Henry the VIII who split up
with the Catholic Church.
The invention of printing and subsequent spread of literacy.
Oxford and Cambridge, two basic centres of education, were very close to
London and also propagated London dialect.
Popularity of great literary works by Chaucer, who deliberately created in
English.
As a result, people apprehended the literary, written language as the model
that must be followed. It was not that easy to change the spelling of words any
more; that was why the later phonetic changes in English did not find their
reflection in spelling.
In the 16thcentury the first standard grammars appeared. The first
grammarians tried to describe all elements of the language and to find the universal
strict rules. In 1755 Dr Johnson issued the first English dictionary.
Until the 17th century English was spoken only in the British Isles. In the time of
Great Geographical discoveries and of first settlements in the New World, the
English Language started to spread all round the world. It was the first important
premise that made English so popular nowadays.
30. What important changes in phonetic system happened in Early ModE?
Consonants
1) [χ] was lost and the preceding short vowel became longer:
lightMidE [li χt][li: χt], [χ]became [f] in final position:sigh, tough;
2) The consonant [d] becomes [ð] in the neighborhood of [r]:
fader father, moder mother;
3) Loss of [l] after low back vowel and before labial or velar consonant:
half, palm, talk;
4) Addition of phonemic velar nasal [ŋ,] and voiced alveopalatal fricative [Ʒ];
5) General loss of [r] before consonants or in final position; also regular loss
of [r] in unstressed positions or after back vowels in stressed positions:
quarter, brother, March;
6) [j] was merged with the preceding consonant after a stressed vowel, thus
causing changes in the pronunciation of consonants, for example: [dj] [ʤ], as in
soldier.
7) Development of palatal semivowel [j] in medial positions (after the major
stress and before unstressed vowel:
tenner/tenure, pecular/peculiar;
when semivowel [j] followed s, z, t, d, the sounds merged to produce a palatal
fricative or affricate:
pressure, seizure, creature, soldier(this phenomenon is known as assibilation and
is the origin of voiced alveopalatal fricative [Ʒ]).
Short Vowels
Short vowels remained practically unchanged except the following cases:
Loss of final unstressed -e (exceptions: judges, passes, wanted);
[a] in general a became [æ]; but later æ > a before r: harm, scarf, hard; also
æ a before voiceless fricatives: staff, class, path; original [a] remained however
when the fricative was followed by another vowel: classical, passage;
a before l became lax o: all, fall, walk; also after w: want, wash, reward;
but not if the vowel preceded a velar consonant: wax, wag, quack;
[u] changed into [ʌ] (started to be pronounced shorter and without lip-
rounding: run, mud, gull, cut, hum, cup; but not if preceded by labial and followed
by l, or palatal s, or palatal c: full, pull, push, bush, butcher;
Influence of following r: r tended to lower vowels when following them,
fer far, sterre star, derk dark, ferme farm; often however
pronunciation reverted to higher positions: sarvant servant, sarmon sermon;
Rise of long [ə:] – this new vowel appeared in the 16th century in
connection with changes of some vowels before [r], namely it appeared from ir
(fir), ur (fur), or after w (word), er (heard);