Вопрос 32 oe anomalous verbs

Among the verbs of the minor groups there were several anomalous verbs with irregular forms. Suppletive v(beon, wesen –root be, es,wes)is verb which create different grammatical categories by means of root vowel(be,es,wes). The most important group of these verbs were the so-called “preterite-presents”. Originally the Present tense forms of these verbs were Past tense forms. Later these forms had a present meaning but preserved many formal features of the Past tense. Most of these verbs had new Past Tense forms built with the help of the dental suffix. Some of them also had the forms of the verbals: Participles and Infinitives. In OE there were twelve preterite-present verbs. Six of them have survived in Mod E: OE āз; cunnan; cann; dear(r), sculan, sceal; maзan, mæз; mōt (NE owe, ought; can; dare; shall; may; must). Most preterite-presents did not indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb, an Infinitive which followed the preterite-present. In other words they were used like modal verbs, and eventually developed into modern modal verbs. They have in Present vowel gradation and in the Past – dental suffix.

OE willan was an irregular verb with the meaning of volition and desire; it resembled(имело сходство) the preterit-presents in meaning and function, as it indicated an attitude to an action and was often followed by an Infinitive. Willan had a Past tense form wolde, built like sceolde, the Past tense of the preterite-present sculan, sceal. Eventually willan became a modal verb, like the surviving preterite-presents, and, together with sculan developed into an auxiliary (NE shall, will, should, would).

Some verbs combined the features of weak and strong verbs. OE don formed a weak Past tense with a vowel interchange: and a Parti­ciple in -n: don — dyde — зe-don (NE do). OE buan 'live' had a weak Past — bude and Participle II, ending in -n, ie-bun like a strong verb.

Вопрос 33 Changes of vowel in me

There are qualitative and quantitative changes of vowel in ME. Quantitative vowel changes - In Later OE and in Early ME vowel length began to depend on phonetic conditions. The earliest of positional quantitative changes was the readjustment of quantity before some consonant clusters: 1) Lengthening - ME - in 9-10 century. Short vowels were lengthened before two consonants – a sonorant and a plosive. All vowels occurring in this position became long, e.g. OE wild – ME wild [wi:ld] – NE wild.

Shortening - occurred at long vowels before two consonants. All vowels in this position became or remained short, e.g. OE cēpte > ME kepte [΄keptə] – NE kept.

3) Short vowels became long in open syllables, e.g. OE nama > ME name [na:mə] – NE name. This lengthening

initially affected the more open of the short vowels [e], [a] and [o] 13 cent.

unstressed vocalism: There was a reduction of unaccented syllables in a final position, and then it is lost. At First there was weakening, and then loss of a unstressed syllable.

Qualitative vowel changes.

After Norman invasion continued to develop the dialect: Northern dialect(бывший Northumbrian), East-Midland(Mercian), West_midlend(Mercian), South-Eastern(Kentish), South-Western(Wesseks).

Short vowel - у краткого -а- - сохранился во всех диалектах. -а- или-о- befor nosal: in east-Midland закрепилось(fix) –о- (con), в остальных закрепилось – а- (can). -æ- (лигатура) – found во всех диалектах, но сам значок не существовал. Зап-центр, Кент - -æ turn into –е- (wæs – wes). In the rest - -æ перешел в –а- (wæs – was). e- во всех диалектах без изменений. о – без изменений. i – без измененй . u - без изменений. y – в разных диалектах развивалось по разному: сев, вост-центр –/y/-/i/ и в последствии знак –y- стал обозначать только этот звук (bisy). Wентр, юго-зап – letter –u- стала обозначать звук /ü/ (busy). Кент – /y/ - /e/ (besy). y-i –labialization. Y-e –labial+opening. Y-u. The vowels [y] and [y:] existed in OE dialects up to the 10th c., when they were replaced by [e], [e:] in Kentish and confused with [ie] and [ie:] or [i] and [i:] in WS. In Early ME the dialectal differences grew. In some areas OE [y], [y:] developed into [e], [e:], in others they changed to [i], [i:]; in the South-West and in the West Midlands the two vowels were for some time preserved as [y], [y:], but later were moved backward and merged with [u], [u:]

Long vowels – This was and early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer, so [a:] became [o:] in all the dialects except the Northern group (hām – hōm, stān – stōn) -ō- иногда depicts as digraph –оа-. Долгая æ(была только в Уэссекском диалекте) преходит в –ē- открытую. (изображалась диграфом –еа-). OE slæpan – ME slēpan В других диалектах –æ- (являлась результатом умлаута) перещла в –ē- закрытое. ( изображалась диграфом –ее-). ē – ēзакр. ō- ōзакр., ū – без изменений, ī- без изменений.

OE diphthongs in ME were monophtongonized. ea – a (healf- half). eo: Сначала ео прешло в гласный ö(который изображался как ео и просуществовал а зап-центр и юго-зап диалектах до 14в.) В остальных диалектах с 12 в. ö пререшел в –е-) heorte- herte. Долгий ea преходит в ē откр. hleapan – lepen. Долгий eo – ē закр. (изображался как –ее) seon – sen.

One of the mosl important sound change:, of the Early ME period was the loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative changes. Long and short: [ea:], [eo:], [ie:] and [ea], [eo], [ie]. Towards the end of the OE period some of the diphthongs merged with monophthongs: all diphthongs were monophthongised before [xt], [x’t] and after [sk’]; the diphthongs [ie:], [ie] in Late WS fused with [y:], [y] or [i:], [i]. In Early ME the remaining diphthongs were also contracted to monophthongs: the long [ea:] coalesced (united) with the reflex of OE [ǽ:] – ME [ε:]; the short [ea] ceased to be distinguished from OE [æ] and became [a] in ME; the diphthongs [eo:], [eo] – as well as their dialectal variants [io:], [io] – fell together with the monophthongs [e:], [e], [i:], [i]. As a result of these changes the vowel system lost two sets of diphthongs, long and short. In the meantime anew set of diphthongs developed from some sequences of vowels and consonants due to the vocalization of OE [j] and [γ], that is to their change into vowels. In Early ME the sounds [j] and [γ] between and after vowels changed into [i] and [u] and formed diphthongs together with the preceding vowels, e.g. OE dæз > ME day [dai]. These changes gave rise to two sets of diphthongs: with i-glides and u-glides. The same types of diphthongs appeared also from other sources: the glide -u developed from OE [w] as in OE snāw, which became ME snow [snou], and before [x] and [l] as in Late ME smaul and taughte.