9. Early Germanic society

Germanic tribes are great ethniccomplex of ancient Europe,a basic stok in t composition of modern peoples of Sweden,Norway,Denmark, Iceland,Germany,Belgium,etc. In ancient times t territory of Germanic langs was more limited than now. It’s considered that Germanic tribes lived in t territory between t rivers Elbe&Odra,on t peninsu

La Jutland& in t Southern Sweden. At that time they were passing through t stage of development which is called ‘barbarism’.By t 7^th c BC they had begun a division into many peoples. Their rise to significance(4^th c BC) in t history of Europe began with t general break-up of Celtic culture in central Europe.

T territory of t Gtribes was very attractive to t Romans cos of its natural resources,agriculture & t strategic value. The most popular resource that was exported was iron.

T Germanic agricultural system was vital to t economy in Germany. Most of t Germans were farmers but there were also lots of herders. The Germans were agriculturists from the beginning of their existence. The main crops that they raised were cereal grains such as wheat,barley,oats,rye.

Around the North Sea are there was an emphasis on cattle raising. Germany also had a great strategic adv that was appealing to the Romans.

36. Strong verbs

Strong verbs use the Germanic form of conjuctaion,which is called 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,it’s 3 formf of the verb-infititive& 2 participles. F. ex. “swim,swam,swum” or “sing, sang, sung”. In strong verbs the root changes rather than its ending. In OE there were 7 classes of strong verbs,which had its own pattern of stem changes.

37. Weak verbs.

Weak verbs are formed by adding endings to past and participles. We still have them in modern English,they are called regular verbs. F ex. “dance,danced,danced”, “learn,learned,learned”. In comparison with strong verbs, weak verbs had very little classes,only 3:

1)with t 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.

38. Preterite-Present verbs.

Were a very ancient group,which now has a peculiar place in the system of all t OG langs. Their root of t present form derived from Past form,and the Past tense was formed by means of the dental suffix –D(-T), which possibly derived from old form of the verb DO,or from IE suffix of Verbal Adjectives. F.ex. sculan-sceal-sceolde(shall), cunnan-cann,cuthe(can), witan-wat-wisse(know).

39. Og Irregular verbs.

There is a group of 4 verbs which are anomalous or atypical,the verbs “will”, “do”, “go” and “be”. They have their own conjugation schemes which differ from all the other classes of verb. These verbs are the most commonly used in the lang and are very important to the meaning of the sentence they are used in. ga(go,OE); don,dyde(OE).

They have their own conjugation schemes to make them as distinct as possible, to reduce the possibility that a listener will mishear the word.

40.OG vocabulary. Word-formation in OG langs and stylistic stratification of Ancient Germanic lexicon.

The most typical ways of word-formation in Germanic langs were:

1. affixation -suf –ari(ME –er,-or)-bocere(a man of books);

-suf -ing,-ung – lytling(a small thing)

-l- Wulfila

-ig – a suffix of adjectives - staenig(stony)

-prefix bi- bistanden (to stand around)

2. Ablaut+affixation – brinnan-gabrannjan (to burn)

3. Word connection - gold-smith(jeweler) gudhus(church).

Main stylistic layers of old Germanic vocabulary were:

1.Common words used by all people. F ex. Stan ,geiz, aex,iss. They mainly denoted the objects of nature,flora,fauna(handus,land)

2.Poetical terms(metaphors,epithets,synonyms) which were widely used in literary texts. F.ex. Beado-swat – battle sweat=blood

3.Bookish vocabulary( Latin words connected with the church service,terms,etc). F ex. Creda (I believe), regol(rule).

Stratification of OG lexicon according to its origin

IE words denoted natural phenomena(sunna), animals(wulf), plants(boc), birds(aened), people (eare), relatives(modor), activity(feoh) etc.

There were a great deal of Latin words in Glangs,among them the days of week,military terms,everyday words like butter,cup,wine.

The words were borrowed into Germanic from many langs,1^st of all,from Latin,cos many people at that time were competent in Latin. The 2^nd major source of loanwords to OE was the Scandinavian words during the Viking raids of the 9^th&10^th c. There were also words borrowed from Celtic. Those were names of geographical features, especially rivers.

26.page.20. part.1.Practice.

In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration (alliteration refers to repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words and/or phrases.) as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of many Germanic languages. The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, and the Old Norse Poetic Edda all use alliterative verse

№21.OG system of vowels

Indo-European system of vowels included 5 short and 5 long ones (a, o, u, i, e). the first 3 were used in stressed syllables and are considered the basic ones. From Indo-European A and O changed into Germanic long A: Lat. hostis – Goth. gasts, OHG – gast.

It is the most ancient change.

Also long vowels A: and O: changed into O: Lat. Mater, OE modor, O.Sax modor. IE short vowels I, E, U could move into Germanic languages without changes. In other cases the following changes took place: I into E: Lat. vir(man) – Goth. Wair, E into I: Lat. ventus(wind) – OE wind, U into O: Lat. iugum(yoke) – Oicel. ok. E: in early period changed into Germ. AE which in Goth. Became E, in Northern and western Germ. Lang. A and then returned to AE in Frisian and English. Under the influence of dynamic stress there were changes among monophthongs and diphthongs. The 1st element of G diphthongs tended to absorb the second element and diphthongs became monophthongs. Later the opposite process began in the languages especially in Old High German where monophthongs became diphthongized.

№14Practice. Part 1. Page 19

king

O.E. cyning, from P.Gmc. *kuninggaz (cf. Du. koning, O.H.G. kuning, O.N. konungr, Dan. konge, Ger. könig). Possibly related to O.E. cynn "family, race" (see kin), making a king originally a "leader of the people;" or from a related root suggesting "noble birth," making a king originally "one who descended from noble birth." The sociological and ideological implications make this a topic of much debate. Finnish kuningas "king," O.C.S. kunegu "prince" (Rus. knyaz, Boh. knez), Lith. kunigas "clergyman" are loans from Germanic.

book

O.E. boc "book, writing, written document," traditionally from P.Gmc. *bokiz "beech" (cf. Ger. Buch "book" Buche "beech”)the notion being of beechwood tablets on which runes were inscribed, but it may be from the tree itself (people still carve initials in them). The O.E. originally meant any written document.

thing

O.E. þing "meeting, assembly," later "entity, being, matter" (subject of deliberation in an assembly), also "act, deed, event, material object, body, being," from P.Gmc. *thengan "appointed time"