- •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.
Foreign influences on Old English
Old English had only main two sources of borrowing – Latin and Celtic
languages. By the end of the Old English period many new words were also taken
from the language of the Danes.
Celtic chiefly gave place names:
Place Names: Thames, Kent, York, Avon, Dover, Cumberland.
Loan Words: binn 'basket, crib,'crag, cumb'valley,'torr
'projecting rock,' dun'dark-colored,' etc.
Latin borrowings may be classified into three layers:
I. The Period of Continental Borrowing. (First to fifth centuries A.D. Around
fifty words came into the language through Germanic contact with Rome before
the invasion and settlement of Britain.).
a. War: camp(L. campus) 'battle,'pil(L. pilum)
'javelin,' straet (L. strata) 'road,' mil (L. milia) 'mile;'
b. Trade: ceap(L. caupo) 'bargain,'pund(L. pondo)
'pound,' win (L. vinum) 'wine,'
c. Domestic Life: cuppe(L. cuppa) 'cup,'disc(L.
discus) 'dish,' cycene (L. coquina) 'kitchen,'
d. Foods: ciese(L. caseus) 'cheese,'butere(L. butyrum)
'butter,' pipor (L. piper) 'pepper,'
e. Other: mul'mule,'pipe'pipe,'cirice'church.'
II. The Period of Celtic Transmission. (Latin words held over from the Roman
occupation of Britain which ended in 410A.D. Almost nothing remains outside a
few elements found in place names: ceaster(L. castra 'walled encampment') found
in names such as Dorchester, Winchester, Manchester, Lancaster, and wic(L.
vicum) 'village,' found in Greenwich, etc.
III. The Period of the Christianizing of Britain. (Seventh to tenth centuries
A.D. Examples below are given in modern form since most of these words have
altered only slightly in form.)
a. Religion: abbot, alms, altar, angel, anthem, candle,
collect, creed, deacon, demon, disciple, hymn, martyr,
mass, nun, offer, organ, palm, pope, priest, prime,
prophet, psalm, relic, rule, sabbath, temple, tunic.
b. Domestic Life: cap, sock, silk, purple, chest, sack.
c. Foods: lentil, pear, oyster, lobster, mussel, millet.
d. Plants: coriander, cucumber, fennel, ginger,
periwinkle, pine, aloes, balsam, cedar, cypress, fig,
savory, plant.
e. Learning: school, master, Latin, verse, meter, circe,
history, paper, title, grammatical, accent, brief (vb).
f. Other: ever, cancer, paralysis, plaster, place,
sponge, elephant, scorpion, camel, tiger, giant, talent.
Scandinavian borrowings occurred in mid-ninth to mid-eleventh centuries.
The initial influence was in the Danelaw, or the northern and eastern areas of
England settled by the Danes. Examples below are in modern form.)
a. Nouns: band, bank, birth, booth, bull, calf (of leg),
dirt, egg, fellow, freckle, guess, kid, leg, race,
root, scab, score, scrap, seat, sister, skill, skin,
skirt, sky, steak, trust, window.
b. Adjectives: awkward, flat, ill, loose, low, meek,
muggy, odd, rotten, rugged, sly, tattered, tight, weak.
c. Verbs: bait, call, cast, clip, cow, crave, crawl, die,
droop, gasp, get, give, glitter, lift, raise, rake.