1. Germanic Philology is the first and preparative stage in the study of English language historical development. The aims of the subject are to underline common features of modern Germanic languages, to follow the ways of these languages historical development, to study genetic relationship and structure of the languages. It used to explain old texts (later its task and notions have been changed) and why the parent IE family gave rise to many groups of languages. The subject matter of Germanic philology: - it studies the languages of Germanic group - their origin, development and structure - mutual connections, common laws - tendencies of development - interconnections with the languages of other group Its main tasks are to explain modern state of Germanic languages and to reconstruct their ancient forms. Modern state can’t be explained without studying ancient situation. 2. The west Germanic language constitute (образовывает) the largest of the tree traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as Germanic, English , Dutch, Africans, the Frisian languages and Yiddish. The other two of these three traditional branches of the Germanic languages are North and East Germanic languages. Family tree has three main groups: Eastern, Northern, And Western which in turn has two main groups: German and Anglo-Frisian. Distribution of Germanic languages (West Germanic English about 443 million speakers, German about 118 mil. speakers, Dutch-21 mil, Africans-10 mil speakers, North Germanic Swedish-9 million, Danish 8 mil, Yiddish 5 mil, Frisian ½ mil.) 4.Substratum (bedding) is a historical change in a language when a conquering minority that imposes its language on a conquered population has its language modified by its victims. It influences mainly phonetics and partially vocabulary and grammar. An example of substratum is the Celtic language for the English language. Superstratum (upper layer) – when the conquerors` language wins out completely. It influences vocabulary and syntax. An example of it is French and Latin for English. Adstratum- а parity between two or more alien languages. It influences the structure of languages. An example of it is Irish and English. 18. The second consonant shift occurred between the 5^th and 7^th c. A.D., gradually spreading from South to North of Germany. Also was discovered by Grimm. Account for the consonant system of High German: p > pf > f: Pipe- pfeife (pf-f-) t > z > s: Two-zwei (ts-) k > kh > ch: Make-machen (-x-) θ > d. The third shift took place only in Danish where voiceless stops became aspirated at the beginning of a word. Other processes which took place in OG system of consonants were doubling. In Proto-Germanic doubling was influenced by the sound N: snitno-snepan-snitzen (tt>tz). In West Germanic a consonant was doubt before J and J disappeared: sitjan-sitia-sittan-sittian. Consonant R was not doubled 19. 1) 1^st shift – correspondences between consonants of Germanic and those of other I-E languages (Grimm used mostly Latin and Greek for illustration). 1^st shift sets Germanic And 2^nd shift - sound changes which separate the Upper High German dialects from other West Germanic languages (Modern English, Dutch, Low German) 2) 1^st shift (720-250 BC) and 2^nd shift( 5th – 7th AD) 3) The resulting language of the second shift, Old High German, can be contrasted with the other continental West Germanic languages, which for the most part did not experience the shift (English “make” – High German “machen”) 20. Stress- is the emphasis given to some syllables. When PG was forming its system of stress the last appeared to be fixed, powerful, non-free. It means that every single word in P.G. language obtained a single stress which couldn’t have been changed under any circumstances. In Germanic languages stress became fixed on the first syllable or as much as possible close to the beginning of the word. It resulted gradual weakening of endings and their loss. 21. The changes in vowels touched the three most important IE vowels (a, e, o). They could be long or short. The main change which happened to the vowels concerned only those which were stressed and these changes appeared to be the following IE a, o appeared in other PG as a single vowel a. IE long a and long o appeared in PG in one single sound long o. I à E :vir-wair E à I :ventus-wind U à O :iugum-ok Also there were processes when diphthongs became monophthongs ( ai – a; ei – e) and monophthong became diphthongs ( e- eo). Also we observe the processes of Ablaut and Umlaut. 26. Proto-Germanic language did not have any fixed system or set of case-inflexions used for all nouns. Some nouns followed one pattern and others another pattern that is why they were different declensions. The type of declension was based on the Indo-European grouping of nouns according to the stem-building suffix. Strong declension it combined the nouns with vocalic stems –a-long o-i-u this words belongs to strong declension. Weak declension united substantives with –n- in the stems. Stems in other consonants -r -stems possessed a small number of nouns denoting family relationship. Another small group of nouns is known as -s-- stems. In OE this -s- changed into-r-(rhotacism). Root declension The first type of declension was characterized by absents of stem-building suffix. It means that the case inflexion was added immediately to the root this fact explains the difference between the type of building plural in the majority of nouns and those like goose‚ mouse (mice), man – men. Proto-Germanic nouns unlike Modern English had the system of gender: masculine‚ feminine‚ neuter. Masculine and neuter words generally share their endings. Feminine words have their own subset of endings. The main thing about Proto-Germanic gender is that it never corresponded to the semantics of the word.Gender and number there were different endings depending on whether the noun was in the singular (one ring) or plural (many rings).Types of nouns. Old Germanic nouns were divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have their own endings. Weak nouns are easier than strong, since they had begun to lose their declensional system. There are nine classes of noun stems in Germanic languages according to the stem-building suffix. These suffixes were lost long ago, so this division is a historical one. There were the following classes 33. Morphological classification of OG verbs was extended into four main groups: 1)Strong verbs; 2)Weak verbs; 3)Preterit-Present verbs; 4)Atypical verbs. The first group was the largest and the most difficult to be understood. OG strong verbs were graded into 7 classes according to the root vowel changes(Ablaut). Strong verbs inherited from PIE a special type of tense and number forming. It means that every verb has 4 main forms: Infinitive, Past singular, Past plural and Participle II. Strong verbs transformed into irregular verbs. The category of weak verbs was less numerous than strong one and it had a set of peculiarities. Weak verbs formed their past tenses principally by adding endings and with the help of dental suffix -d(-t). There were only three different classes of weak verbs: 1) with the stem in -j( nerian-nerede- nered (save)); 2)with -o- stem (endian-endode-endod (end)); 3)with -ai- stem (habban-haefde-haefd (have)). In Gothic there were 4 classes of weak verbs. Preterit-Present verbs were a very ancient group. Their root of the present form derived from past form, and the Past tense was formed by means of the dental suffix -d(-t), which possibly derived from the old form of the verb do. E.g. sculan- sceal-sceolde (shall) cunnan-cann, cuthe (can). Atypical verbs is a group of four verbs which are anomalous, the verbs "will", "do", "go", and "be". These verbs have their own conjugation schemes which differ significantly from all the other classes of verbs. They are the most commonly used verbs in the language, and are very important to the meaning of the sentences they are used in.( bēom, eart,bist,is,sind; was, waes (OE)). 34. The category of tense was presented only in two aspects : Present, Past and the Infinitive form. All Germanic verbs did not have Future Tense as a grammatical model. To present the Future Tense in words all the Germanic languages used modal verbs scullan, willan + infinitive or with the help of Present Time form equal to modern "to be going to". OE verbs scullan/willan were the sources and prototypes of the modern Future Tense. There are Present, Past and Future Tense in modern English

3.Linguistics uses various methods to study languages. One of them is Comparative and Historical method. This is a scientific way of reconstruction of those language phenomena of the past, which were not fixed in written texts. The reconstruction can be effected by means of comparing later facts of two or more languages which are known from either written texts or real speech. Sometimes only it works in studying language phenomena. Steps of the process of comparing language phenomena: 1) to compare sounds and morphemes; 2) to establish common laws;3) to establish chronological correspondences among them; 4) to reconstruct a primary form. The method is not ideal, it has some drawbacks: -it can’t give exact dates of this or that language change; -it doesn’t explain several phenomena; -it’s not suitable for all types of languages. This method is based on the following principles: - Genetic commonness of the compared units. - Comparison the meaningful units. - Regularity of correspondences. - Phonetic laws. - Semantic laws. The first scientists who developed this method are William Jones (1746-1794), Rusmus Rask. 5. External cause is the changes outside of the language. Such historical events as social changes, wars, migrations can hardly fail to influence a language, more especially its vocabulary. Internal cause is the changes within the language itself. It influences pronunciation, phonetics and structure of a language. 6. Theories of the Germanic languages origin developed in different directions depending on the time of their appearance. Some theories were well-established, the others were weak. Among the strongest was the theory of August Schleicher called «a tree diagram» of the family tree. According to this theory the proto-germanic languages as a trunk gave birth to 3 main branches. Proto-Germanic 1)Low German 2)Gothic 3)Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic -German Frisian -Yiddish Dutch -English Africans The linguists who offered a tree diagram were the representatives of the main idea of which was the view on the language as living organism which has a date of birth, the period of childhood and middle-ages and the time of death. 22. The term ablaut was coined in the early 19^th c. by the linguist Jacob Grimm. The process of Ablaut or Gradation is an independent vowel change accompanying a change in grammatical function. For example, the vowel change in English from I and A to U in sing (present tense)-sang (preterit)—sung (past-participle) referred to as an ablaut. In the G language gradation was preserved and could be seen the most vividly on the example of strong English verbs while the other IE language also had the examples of ablaut on other parts of speech. Gradation is not confined (ограниченный) to verbs. We see the alternation of e and o grades in the Greek lego(I speak) and the related noun logos(speech). And the same alternation lies behind the MnE: bind-band; ride-rode. 23.Umlaut – is a modification of the vowel which causes it to be pronounced more to the front of the mouth to accommodate (вмещать) a vowel in the following syllable, especially when it’s an inflectional suffix: woman-women; long-length; old-elders. Umlaut may be derived into two kinds: front mutation, velar umlaut. Front mutation is the most important type of umlaut, which is caused by an i/j. Having brought about a complete change in vowel quality (one phoneme is replaced by another), the i/j or I disappear or change to e. a > e namian-nemnon o + i/j > e mohti-mehta u > y fullian-fyllan 24. VELAR UMLAUT Umlaut – is a modification of the vowel which causes it to be pronounced more to the front of the mouth to accommodate (вмещать) a vowel in the following syllable, especially when it’s an inflectional suffix: woman-women; long-length; old-elders. Umlaut may be derived into two kinds: front mutation, velar umlaut. Velar umlaut is a type of assimilation, caused by back vowels u, o, a of the following syllable: I > io sifon-siofon e > eo hefon-heofon a > ea saro-seary 29. All Germanic nouns had grammatical gender: every noun had to be either masculine, feminine or neuter. This grammatical gender had no necessary connection with sex or animacy. The words “he”, “she” and “it” had to be used in accordance with grammatical gender, not in accordance with sex or animacy. Thus, OE wif (wife) was neuter and wifman (woman) was of masculine gender. Masculine and neuter words generally shared their endings. Feminine words had their own subset of endings. In modern English the category of gender is doubtful, because it is hardly ever expressed by means of grammatical forms. There is only a suffix –ess, which expresses feminine gender in some peculiar occasions: actor – actress, waiter – waitress. 30. In PIE the adjective inflections had been essentially the same as the noun inflections, because originally there was no distinction between the noun and the adjective (for example, красно-солнышко). But in many daughter-languages they became distinguished from them. This happened in PG which developed two distinct sets of inflections for the adjectives, called the strong and the weak declensions. Every adjective was declined both according to the strong and the weak declension. Weak declension forms were used when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the definite article. They were associated with the meaning of definiteness (OE se goda mann – ME this good person). Strong declension forms were used in all other contexts. They were associated with the meaning of indefiniteness (OE god mann – ME a good person). Adjectives in PG had the following categories: number (singular and plural), gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and instrumental). OG adjectives had the superlative and comparative degrees of comparison. Degrees of comparison were formed by means of suffixes added to the Positive form. Comparative degree was formed by means of suffixes –iz, -oz (in Gothic), -ra, -ir, -or: hauhs – hauhiza, soft – softra, hoh – hohiro. Superlative degree was formed by means of suffixes –ist, -ost, -est: hauhs – hauhista, soft – softost, hohiro – hohisto. In modern English there are comparative and superlative degrees of comparison, too. They are formed by means of suffixes –er (comparative degree) and –est (superlative degree) or by means of words more (comparative degree) and most (superlative degree): long – longer, the longest; big – bigger, the biggest; beautiful – more beautiful, the most beautiful. 37. All verbs were divided into:Strong verbs, Weak verbs, Preterit-present, Atypical Weak verb A verb which is inflected by ending a dental suffix -d-/-t- to the stem, not by an internal vowel change. The origin of the weak conjugation is uncertain. One theory is that the ending was originally a part of the verb “to do”, rather as though he walked had developed out of he walk did. According to another view, the origin of the suffix is to be sought in the -t- of such Latin participles as lectus, auditus, or Russian битый, бритый, колотый, etc. Weak verbs are formed principally by adding endings to past and participles. An example is “walk, walked” or “learn, learned”. There were only 3 different classes of weak verb: with the stem in j- nerian-nerede-nered (save), with o-stem endian-endode-endod (end), with ai-stem habban-haefde-haefd (have) in Gothic there were 4 classes of weak verbs. The weak verb at a definite period of time merged with some strong verb as a result these 2 categories partially mixed and the group of weak verb adopted a large number of those verb which previously belong to strong that’s why the modern category of regular verbs is larger than the parallel category of old Germanic verb to learn-learnt, learned; to light-lit, lighted. 38. All verbs were divided into:Strong verbs, Weak verbs, Preterit-present, Atypical Preterit-present verb A “past-present” type of a verb, which has a peculiar place within the system of all the OG languages. The Present Tense forms of this verb were originally Past Tense forms of strong verbs, which have acquired the meaning of the present. It’s past is derived according to the part of weak verbs. Preterit-present verbs were a very ancient group. Their root of the present form derived from past form, and the Past tense was formed by means of the dental suffix -D(-T), which possibly derived from the old form of the verb DO, or from Indo-European suffix of Verbal Adjectives. Examples: sculan-sceal-sceolde (shall); magan-maeg-meahta (may). 39. Differ from all other OD verbs in that their forms are derived from different roots, that is their system is based on suppletivity. (Отличие от всех других старогерманских глаголов в том, что их формы образуются от разных корней, то есть их система основана на suppletivity.)

7. Our knowledge of the ancient Germans is based on the testimonies (утверждение) by Greek and Roman writers, who were interested in them. The earliest of them was the Greek traveler and astronomer Pytheas from Massilia who lived in the 4th century B.C. He sailed from his native town through the Gibraltar along the west coast of France to the Baltic. His book has not come down to us, only some pieces of it were preserved by the Greek geographer Strabo (63 B.C. – 20 A.D.). Pytheas was the first who mentioned the Teutons. The Teutons, who were allied (в союзе) with the Cimbri in 103 B.C., were crushed by Marius. Julius Caesar was a Roman general, statement and writer. In his “Commentaries on the War in Gaul” Caesar gave several chapters to the Germans, whom he combated (боролся) and dealt with on the Rhine. Pliny the Elder was Roman writer and administrator. Pliny gave a classification of Germanic tribes basically accepted by modern historians. Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian. In his short work “Germania” he characterized the social structure of the old Germanic tribes around 100 A.D. 8. This classification was composed by Pliny the elder. 1)The Vindili, (including the Goths and the Burgundians) were the tribes who lived in the eastern part. 2)The Ingaevones ( or the Saxons) were in the north-western part. 3)The Iscaevones ( or the Franks) were in the western part on the Rhine. 4)The Hermiones lived in the southern part. 5)The Peucini and Bastarnae lived near Rumania. 6)The Hilleviones in Scandinavia were in the northern part of the territory. This classification still coincides with the modern point of view on the classification of ancient Germanic languages and is correlated with modern Germanic languages. 25. The morphological system of substantives in Germanic Languages as well as other Indo-European languages is based on the common principles. The substantive consists of three main elements: root, stem-building suffix, case inflection. The ‘’root’’ of the word keeps lexical meaning. The case inflection expresses number and case. But the role of a stem-building suffix is quite unclear. It posses not to keep a lexical meaning. The only suffix which had definite meaning was the one found in the substantives which had common semantics of kinship. All this substantives were built with the help of stem-building r: trodar modar/матери дочери .In the earliest documents of the Germanic languages this original three element structure began to change. The stem-building no had definite meaning was united with the root of a word, building up a common element-the stem. 27.Like all other PIE languages PG were highly inflected. PG inherited its system of inflection from PIE. But reduced the number of cases from 8-5: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Instrumental, Accusative. The N case indicated the subject of the sentence. The G indicated possession. The D indicated the indirect object of the sentence. The A ind. the direct object of the sentence. The I indicates the agency whereby smth was done. PG Also had two extra cases Vocative and Locative. The presents of which could have been observed by the presents of preposition at. In the OE the most widely used 4 case inflexions: um (Dat.pl.), a (Gen.pl.), es (Gen.sing.), as (Nom.‚ Acc. pl.) The modern one have two cases (some nouns denoting living beings and some nouns denoting lifeless things), an noninflected form called the common case and an inflected form called the genitive case. The genitive is formed by adding -'s (singular) and only '( the apostrophe) to plural forms ending in-s . As to its use the genitive case falls under: the dependent genitive and the absolute genitive. 28. Substantives in PIE were divided into three numbers: singular, plural and dual. There were different endings depending on whether the noun was in singular (e. g. “hryng”, one ring) or plural (“hryngas”, many rings). There also was specific dual number – an inflected form expressing two, indicating that there were two of a thing (we two, you two, they two). In modern English there are only two numbers: singular (song, girl) and plural (songs, girls). 31. OG pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as ME pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. They had the same categories as Nouns. Most OG pronouns have the categories of person, number, case, and gender. In the plural form most OG pronouns have only one form for all genders. Most OG pronouns are declined by four main cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative. In ME only some pronouns have the grammatical categories of person, gender, case, and number. The categories of person and gender (in the third person singular) exist only in personal and possessive pronouns. ME pronouns have two cases but whereas some pronouns have the Nominative and objective cases, others have the common and Genitive cases. OG pronouns have three numbers: singular, plural and so-called dual («we two", "you two" or "they two"). ME pronouns have only two numbers: singular and plural. Many OG pronouns are quite similar to their modern equivalents. For example, OG ūre became "our", mīn became "mine" and others. 35 OG verb. The category of voice in comparison with the modern. Voice – Active, Passive, (Medio-passive in Gothic) In modern English the verb has two voices : the Active Voice and the Passive Voice. 36 Strong verbs. *Strong verbs use the Germanic form of conjugation ( known as Ablaut).In this form of conjugation , the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense. We still have verbs like this in modern English : "sing, sang, sung" is a strong verb, as are "swim, swam, swum" and "choose, chose, chosen". * The root portion of the word changes rather than its ending. In Old English, there were seven major classes of strong verbs; each class has its own pattern of stem changes. Strong verbs inherited from PIE a special type of tense and number forming. 4 main forms: Infinitive, Past (sing),Past (pl),Participle || Strong verbs – 7 classes Weak verbs -- 3 classes In Gothic -- 4 classes

9.Germanic tribes are great ethnic complex of ancient Europe, a basic stock of the modern people of Sweden, Norway, England. It is considered that they lived in the territory between the rivers Elbe and Odra, on the peninsula Jutland and the Southern Sweden. From archaeology it is clear that the Germans had little ethnic solidarity. Their rise to significance (4th B.C.) in the history of Europe began roughly with the general break-up of Celtic culture in central Europe.Geography made the territory of the Germanic tribes attractive to the Romans as a potential province to add. The main resources that Germany had to offer came in the form of metals, more specifically, iron. Their iron was of such quality and was acquired in such abundance that it was exported to Rome for use in most everything that was created from iron.The Germanic agricultural system was vital to the economy in Germany. Most of Germans were farmers but a large potion of the population was herders. The Germans were agriculturists from the beginning of their existence. Around the North sea area there was an emphasis on cattle raising.The tribes that eventually settled in the Germanic area were tribes that had for the most part been migrating throughout Europe for many years. 12.The word “rune” is translated as “secret” The most important sources about runic history are ancient texts of Scandinavian pagan religion – Old Edda and Lesser Edda. German runic writing was the letter system of peculiar look, accounted by the writing technique on bone, wood and metal. Nowadays we have the main runic alphabet, consisting of 24 signs. The whole system is divided into 2 parts: Old futhark and Late futhark. 24 signs traditionally gradate into 3 groups of 8 symbols called atts. There were two main theories: 1)Runic writing appeared on the basis of Latin alphabet 2)Cradles of these signs are i North Italian scripts. Scientists have a lot of historical facts, approving the Etruscan merchants used this system. Probably they brought it to the North. The top of development and complete formation of Runic alphabet system was in 1-2c AD. 28 signs appeared in the middle of the 6th in Britain where German runes penetrated in the 5th with Anglo-Saxon invasion. Frisian futhark was improved by the some additions and changes and numbered 29 units.In Northumberland 33 rune system existed already, with the mixture of Celtic runes. In the middle of 7th the tendency to simplification appeared – some runes changed in inscription, some were lost. To the middle of the 10th the number of runes decreased to 16 units and late futhark formed. The next step in development of RA took place in the middle of the 12th by adding dots to 16 sign system. 13. The Gothic alphabet (4th century) was probably created by bishop Ulfilas who also translated the Bible. A peculiar alphabet based on the Greek alphabet, with some admixture of Latin and Runic letters. The Gothic alphabet should not be mixed up with the so called Gothic script which is still used in German writings and which is a modified shape of Latin script. The Gothic alphabet is a writing system used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic lang. 14. LATIN ALPHABET The Latin Alphabet superseded (вытеснять) both the Runic and the Gothic alphabet in order to organize church service. First glosses (толкования) appeared to render (воспроизводить) the names into Latin. The Latin alphabet of that time had only 23 letters. Historically there were the following types of Latin writing: scriptura capitalis, scriptura uncialis, semiuncialis and minusculis. 15. GRIMM’S LAW Grimm’s law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) was the first systematic change ever to be discovered. It was discovered in 1822 by Jacob Grimm. It establishes a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives and the stop consonants of certain in other Indo-European languages 1. IE p, t, k à Germanic f, p, x: pater-faeder 2. IE b, d, g à Germanic p, t, k: cordis-heorte, duo-twa 3. IE bh, dh, gh à b, d, g 16. VERNER’S LOW Verner’s Law, discovered by Karl Verner in 1875, describes sound changes in the PG language whereby voiceless fricatives become voiced if the preceding syllable was unstressed but otherwise remained unchanged: 1. p, t, k à f, p, x, (h) à (v) b, d, g: Māter – mōdor: Pater - fæder 2. s à z 17. RHOTASISM The term derived from the name of the Greek letter “rho” which partly explained essence of the notion. Thus in the case of RHOTASISM if the preceding vowel was unstressed S changed Z eventually Z become R in West Germanic and Northern Germanic languages (but not in Gothic):Maiza – maira – more s à z z à r 32. In OG languages, as well as in the ME, numerals were a part of nominal group. They were divided into such types as cardinal and ordinal. Ordinary numerals were derived from cardinals with the help of suffixes tjo-to.Some OG numerals, unlike ME numerals, had the form of cases - Nominative, Genitive and Dative.OG numerals from one to three were declined as a strong Adjective. OG numerals from four to nineteen were usually invariable if used as attributes to a substantive, but they were declined if used without a substantive.OG cardinal numerals were declined as weak adjectives. ME cardinal numerals from 1 to 12 and 100, 1000, 1000000 are simple words. Numerals from 13 to 19 are derivatives with the suffix -teen. The cardinal numerals indicating tens are formed with the help of the suffix -ty.With the exception of the first, second and third the ME ordinal numerals are formed from cardinal with the help of the suffix -th. Adverb.There were several structural types of OG adverbs: 1)simple(primary), usually monosyllabic(inn 'inside', ūt 'near');2)adverbs with suffixes(-e- hēr 'here', -a- sonā 'soon'); 3)adverbs derived from a case noun form, usually Genitive or Dative(anes-'once');4)adverbs formed by the use of preposition and the noun( of dune - 'down'). ME adverbs are divided into: 1)simple (long, there, etc.); 2)derivative( slowly, forward, etc.);3)compound( anyhow, nowhere, etc.);4)composite( at once, at last, etc.).Some OG adverbs have the degrees of comparison: comparative and superlative. The comparative degree was formed by adding -or, -ozh, -is and other. The superlative one was formed by adding -ost(or -ist). (widely=wīde-wīdor-wīdost; forward= fram-framis-frumist). Some comparative forms were formed only by means of mutation of the root vowel, without any suffixes (feorr-fierr(-or)-fierrost =far). Some ME adverbs also have comparative and superlative degrees of comparison. The comparative one is formed by adding -er or with the use of more The superlative degree is formed by adding -est or with the use of most. Some of ME adverbs have irregular forms of comparison (little-less-least; much- more-most).

1. SUBJECTS, AIMS AND TASKS OF Germanic Philology

Germanic Philology is the first and preparative stage in the study of English language historical development. The aims of the subject are to underline common features of modern Germanic languages, to follow the ways of these languages historical development, to study genetic relationship and structure of the languages. It used to explain old texts (later its task and notions have been changed) and why the parent IE family gave rise to many groups of languages.

The subject matter of Germanic philology:

- it studies the languages of Germanic group

- their origin, development and structure

- mutual connections, common laws

- tendencies of development

- interconnections with the languages of other group

Its main tasks are to explain modern state of Germanic languages and to reconstruct their ancient forms. Modern state can’t be explained without studying ancient situation.

2. Modern Germanic languages and their distribution in various parts of the world

The west Germanic language constitute (образовывает) the largest of the tree traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as Germanic, English , Dutch, Africans, the Frisian languages and Yiddish. The other two of these three traditional branches of the Germanic languages are North and East Germanic languages. Family tree has three main groups: Eastern, Northern, And Western which in turn has two main groups: German and Anglo-Frisian. Distribution of Germanic languages (West Germanic English about 443 million speakers, German about 118 mil. speakers, Dutch-21 mil, Africans-10 mil speakers, North Germanic Swedish-9 million, Danish 8 mil, Yiddish 5 mil, Frisian ½ mil.)

3. The comparative and historical method

Linguistics uses various methods to study languages. One of them is Comparative and Historical

method. This is a scientific way of reconstruction of those language phenomena of the past, which were not fixed in written texts. The reconstruction can be effected by means of comparing later facts of two or more languages which are known from either written texts or real speech. Sometimes only it works in studying language phenomena. Steps of the process of comparing language phenomena:

1) to compare sounds and morphemes;

2) to establish common laws;

3) to establish chronological correspondences among (соответствия) them;

4) to reconstruct a primary form.

The method is not ideal, it has some drawbacks:

-it can’t give exact dates of this or that language change;

-it doesn’t explain several phenomena;

-it’s not suitable for all types of languages.

This method is based on the following principles:

- Genetic commonness of the compared units.

- Comparison the meaningful units (not simply sounds). (смысловые единицы)

- Regularity of correspondences.

- Phonetic laws.

- Semantic laws.

The first scientists who developed this method are William Jones (1746-1794), Rusmus Rask.

4. Linguistic substratum, superstratum, adstratum

Substratum (bedding) is a historical change in a language when a conquering (завоеванное) minority that imposes (навязывает) its language on a conquered (завоеванному) population has its language modified by its victims (жертвами). It influences mainly phonetics and partially vocabulary and grammar. An example of substratum is the Celtic language for the English language.

Superstratum (upper layer) – when the conquerors` language wins out completely. It influences vocabulary and syntax. An example of it is French and Latin for English.

Adstratum- а parity (равенство) between two or more alien languages. It influences the structure of languages. An example of it is Irish and English.

5. External and internal causes of changes in the languages.

External cause is the changes outside of the language. Such historical events as social changes, wars, migrations can hardly fail to influence a language, more especially its vocabulary.

Internal cause is the changes within the language itself. It influences pronunciation, phonetics and structure of a language.