- •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.
18. What vowels existed in Old English? How were they represented in writing?
Old English Vowels
Old English Vowel |
Description, Position, Pronunciation |
The letter used for the vowel |
Example |
MONOPHTHONGS | |||
I |
Short front vowel; it is pronounced in Old English in much the same way as it is in Modern English (like in still); |
i |
bindan (to bind) |
i: |
Long front vowel; like in ModEnglish steal |
ī |
wrītan (to write) |
E |
Short front vowel; ModEnglish bed |
e |
helpan (help) |
E: |
Long front [e] vowel; it is pronounced like an extended version of the first element in the diphtong [ei] in name; or like in German Meer |
ē |
cēpan (keep) |
Æ |
Short back vowel; met mainly in closed syllables, or in open ones, if the next syllable contains a front vowel; like in ModE back |
æ |
wæter (water) |
Æ: |
Long back vowel, like a longer variant of a ModE vowel in bad |
ǣ |
drǣfan (drive) |
A |
Short back vowel; mainly in open syllables, when the following one contains a back vowel; like in ModE cup |
a |
macian (make) |
A: |
Long back [a] vowel; In any kind of syllables; like in ModE star |
ā |
stān (stone) |
o |
Short back vowel; like in ModE cost |
o |
stolen (stole) |
o: |
Long back [o] vowel; like in ModE store |
ō |
scōc (shook) |
u |
Short back vowel; used only when the next syllable contains another back vowel; like in ModE book |
u |
hulpon (they helped) |
u: |
Long back [u] vowel; like ModE stool |
ū |
lūcan (lock) |
y |
Short front vowel; i-mutation of u; like modern German vowel in fünf; pronounced as i, with lips in a whistling position |
y |
wyllen (woolen) |
y: |
Long front [y] vowel; i-mutation of ū, like in German glühen |
ỹ |
mỹs (mice) |
DIPHTHONGS A diphthong is a glide from one vowel sound to another pronounced as a single syllable. The short OE diphthongs ea, eo, io, ie and the long diphthong īe appeared after phonetic changes in pronunciation of some sounds. These were the processes of mutation, fracture and palatalization (see later). The long diphtong ēa and ēo resulted from Gothic sounds.
| |||
ea |
The sounds starts with æ and glides to a, with the emphasis on the first sound. |
ea |
earm (arm) |
ea: |
The sounds starts with ǣ and glides to a, with the emphasis on the first sound. |
ēa |
cēas (chose) |
eo |
The sounds starts with e and glides to o, with the emphasis on the first sound. |
eo |
meolkan (to milk) |
eo: |
The sounds starts with ē and glides to o, with the emphasis on the first sound. |
ēo |
cēosan (choose) |
ie |
The sounds starts with i and glides to e, with the emphasis on the first sound. |
ie |
iefan (give) |
ie: |
The sounds starts with ī and glides to e, with the emphasis on the first sound. |
īe |
hīeran (hear) |
io |
The sounds starts with ī and glides to o, with the emphasis on the first sound. This diphthong in most cases is the variant of eo |
|
|
io: |
The sounds starts with ī and glides to o , with the emphasis on the first sound. |
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