- •II.Lectures Lecture 1
- •I. Origin of English
- •II. Problem of division into periods.
- •III. Early History of British Isles
- •IV. Traces of the Roman Rule in Britain
- •V. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of Britain
- •VI. Scandinavian conquerors
- •VII. Norman conquest of England
- •Chronological List
- •1. Origin of English.
- •4. Traces of the Roman rule in Britain.
- •Middle English Dialects
- •Vocabulary of Middle English Period.
- •Rising of London dialect.
- •Book printing.
- •Forming national language (15-17 c.)
- •Spreading of English outside England. English in Scotland
- •Phonetic changes. Oe Fracture (Breaking),
- •Borrowings of oe period.
- •I. Middle English Alphabet.
- •II. Changes in Spelling Habits .
- •III. Changes in Consonants.
- •IV. Phonetic Changes. Vowels.
- •V. Types of me Literary Documents
- •I. Spreading of London dialect in the 15th century.
- •II. Phonetic changes
- •1. The Vowel Shift
- •2. Influence of "r"
- •3. Special cases
- •4. Other changes
- •III. Phonetic Changes. Consonants.
- •1. Development of [h]
- •2. Loss of [l] before [k,m,f,V]
- •3. [J] Merged with Preceding Consonant.
- •I. Old English period. Nouns.
- •1. Preliminary remarks
- •2. The categories of oe nouns
- •3. The category of declension
- •4. The System of Cases in oe period and types of Declension
- •II. Middle English Nouns
- •III. Case system in New English period
- •I.Strong Verbs.
- •II. Weak Verbs
- •IV. Categories of verbs in oe.
- •Conjugation of Verbs [kon’dzugei ∫ n]
- •VI. Me Verbs.
- •I. Oe Pronouns.
- •III. Oe Adjectives. Declension.
- •IV. Degrees of Comparison.
- •III. Seminars
- •Origin of English
- •1. Origin of English
- •Scandinavian Conquerors.
- •Additional information The Scandinavian Influence
- •IV. Oe Vocabulary oe vocabulary for
- •V. Tests
- •Variant II.
- •Variant III.
- •Variant IV.
- •VI. List of the examination questions in the English Language History
- •I. Theoretical problems.
- •Origin of English.
- •II. Practical problems.
- •Card № 1
- •Origin of English.
II. Middle English Nouns
The reduction of declension began still in OE period: many -i-stem and -u-stem nouns were influenced by the -a-stem and -o-stem nouns. In addition, some vacillation was already observed within the -a-declension and -o-declension. All this showed a reduction in the morphological system of noun. In the 11th - 13th centuries this tendency developed more intensively. Weakening of inflections is connected with leveling of unstressed endings.
In the Northern and Midland dialects differences of grammatical gender was already lost in the 11th and 12th centuries. The distinction of strong and weak declensions was lost. The typical OE weak declension ending -n- disappeared, and so the weak declension lost its typical characteristic feature. These changes began in the 12th century. Only two endings proved stable; the ending -es of the Genitive singular (masculine and neuter) -a-stem, and the ending -as the Nominative and Accusative plural masculine a-stems. The Genitive plural also took ending -es. In the course of the 12th century the es-ending spread to all nouns, with very few exceptions. Thus, the noun “name” (name) got the forms: Genitive singular – names, Nominative, Genitive and Accusative plural – names, the noun “tungue” (tongue) got the forms “tunges” in the same cases. Only a few nouns were not affected by this process. These nouns were the nouns which had mutation in the Nominative and Accusative plural (men, fet, ges).
In OE the category of number and the category of case were interwoven. In ME a radical change takes place in this respect: the expression of number is separated from that of case. So there is a great fundamental difference between the OE ending -as and the ME ending -es; while the OE -as- expressed number and case simultaneously, ME -es- expresses number alone and is not connected with any notion of case. This is an important innovation in ME.
In the course of time the system of case endings was reduced and changed by the system of prepositions and by the structure of a sentence in ME. These process took place simultaneously. It was in ME when the system of articles was formed. The articles which define nouns.
III. Case system in New English period
The two case system which was typical for Chaucer’s language has been preserved in NE (MnE). The sphere of the Genitive case has been restricted to nouns denoting living beings and some times notions, e. g.: year, month, week, day. With words denoting inanimate objects or abstract notions the Genitive has been generally replaced by the phrase “of + substantive (noun)”. Thus, for example, Chaucer’s phrase every shires ende now is replaced by the phrase the end of every shire. But in contemporary English there seems to be a tendency to extend the use of the Genitive, for example, in such phrases as the book’s fate. This is a problem to be dealt with in a theoretical grammar of the English language.
As far as written English is concerned, we must note the use of the apostrophe to denote the Genitive case. In the Genitive singular the apostrophe was first approximately used in 1680. Originally, it meant to denote omission of the letter e. Eventually it became a conventional sign of the Genitive case.
Using of the apostrophe in the Genitive plural dates from about 1780. In the plural form the apostrophe was of course a conventional sign of the Genitive case from the outset, since there was no vowel letter whose omission the apostrophe might have denoted.
Seminar 6.
The noun. The evolution of its morphological system in the Old English, Middle English and New English Periods
Old English Period. Nouns.
Preliminary remarks.
The Categories of OE nouns.
The Category of Declension.
The System of cases in OE period.
The most important changes in the system of nouns in ME period.
Case system in New English period.
-Great Vowel Shift;
-Influence of –"R";
-Special cases [u:], [i], [a:].
3. Phonetic changes. Consonants.
-Development of [h];
-Loss of [l] before [k, v, m, f];
-[j] merged with Preceding consonant.
4. Analyses of Chaucer's Prologue according the model (see Instructions for seminars).
Lecture 7
EVOLUTION OF THE MORPHOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE VERB IN OLD ENGLISH, MIDDLE ENGLISH AND EARLY NEW ENGLISH PERIODS.
Contents:
OE strong verbs.
OE weak verbs.
OE preterite – present verbs.
Categories of verbs in OE
Conjugation of OE Verbs.
ME and NE Verbs.
Evolution of the Morphological System of the Verb. OE period.
OE was a syntactic language. All the forms of the verb were syntactic.
Grammatical categories were expressed by suffixes and endings. There were several groups of the verbs in OE – strong, weak, preеterite – present, suppletive, mixed verbs.