Download Lectures on «Diachrony and Evolution of the Studied Language

Lectures on «Diachrony and Evolution of the Studied Language»
Lecture 1
Theme: Subject and aims of the course «Diachrony and Evolution of the Studied Language».
General notes on the notions of the course: the concept of the linguistic change, causes of the
language evolution, functions of the language The earliest historical data about Germanic tribes.
Ancient Germanic languages. Evolution of East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic
subgroups.
Diachrony and synchrony are two different and complementary viewpoints
in linguistic analysis: a diachronic approach considers the development and evolution of a
language through history. The word is built on the Ancient Greek words δια "through" and
χρόνος "time". Historical linguistics is typically a diachronic study.
A synchronic approach considers a language without taking its history into account. The
word is built on the Ancient Greek words συν "with" and χρόνος "time". Synchronic
linguistics aims at describing language rules at a specific point of time, even though they
may have been different at an earlier stage of the language. The concepts were theorized by
the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, professor of general linguistics in Geneva from
1896 to 1911, and appeared in writing in his posthumous Course in General
Linguistics published in 1916. In contrast with most of his predecessors, who focused on
historical evolution of languages, Saussure emphasized the primacy of synchronic analysis to
understand their inner functioning.
A language can be considered from different angles.
Social variation
Human language is a specific unique system. First of all, a language is a social phenomenon.
It is inseparably connected with the people who are its creators. It originates and develops in the
process of social interaction between the members of community. Society affects a language in
the sense that any important aspect of social structure is likely to have a linguistic counterpart.
People belong to different social classes, perform different social roles and carry on different
occupations. Their use of language is affected by their age, ethnic group and educational
background.
Temporal variation
Language is a very variable social phenomenon in the sense that it varies through time. Time
affects a language both in the long term and short term. Long term: English has changed through
the centuries; it has clearly distinguishable linguistic periods as Old English, Middle English, and
Elizabethian English. Short term: English changes within the history of a single person. This is
the most noticeable while children are acquiring their mother tongue, but it is also seen when
people learn a foreign language develop their style as adult speakers and writers.
Personal variation
People affect the language in the sense that an individual’s conscious or unconscious choices
and preferences can result in a distinctive or even unique style. Such variations in self expression
are most noticeable in those areas of language use where great care is being taken such as in
literature and humor. But the uniqueness of individuals, arising out of differences in their
memory personality intelligence social background makes distinctiveness of style inevitable in
everyone.
Regional variation
Geography affects language both within a country and between countries, giving rise to
regional accent and dialects. Intranational regional varieties have been observed within English
from the earliest days we say Scottish English, London English.
International varieties are more recent in origin, as we say American English, Australian English,
Indian English, African English and etc.
If we make a model of the uses of English so as to provide an abstract representation of
its central characteristics it becomes easier to see how it is used. We will have the following
model of the use of English.
Temporal Variation
Long
term
Short
term
Social
variation
Regional
variation
Personal variation
Next model will be the model of the structure of any language The language incorporates
three constituent parts: phonology –the pronunciation system of a language Phonological study
has two main aspects: the sound segments of the spoken language, which takes the form of
vowels and consonants; and various patterns of intonation, rhythm, tone of voice. Lexicon is the
vocabulary of a language. Grammar is the system of rules governing the construction of
sentences. Grammatical study is divided into main aspects: syntax, dealing with the structure and
connection of sentences; and morphology, dealing with the structure and formation of words.
Lexicon
Phonology
Grammar
English is a Germanic language which belongs to the Indo-European languages. The
Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows: English, German, Netherlandish
(known also as Dutch and Flemish), Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Frisian, Faroese,
Afrikaans (in the South African Republic) and Yiddish.
The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the
Proto-Germanic language (PG). PG is the linguistic ancestor or the parent language of the
Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related Indo-European languages sometimes
between the 15th and 10th century B.C.
PG is an entirely pre-historical language: it was never recorded in written form. It is
believed that at the earliest stages of history PG was fundamentally one language, though
dialectically coloured. In its later stages dialectal differences grew, so that towards the
beginning of our era Germanic appears divided into dialectical groups and tribal dialects.
The external history of the ancient Teutons around the beginning of our era is known
from classical writings. The first mention of Germanic tribes was made by Pitheas, a Greek
historian and geographer of the 4th century B.C., in an account of a sea voyage to the Baltic Sea.
Julius Caesar described some militant Germanic tribes – the Suevians – who bordered on the
Celts of Gaul in the North-East. In the 1st century A.D. Pliny the Elder, a prominent Roman
scientist and writer, in NATURAL HISTORY (NATURALIS HISTORIA) made a classified list
of Germanic tribes grouping them under six headings.
Toward the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end.
The Teutons has extended over a larger territory and the PG language broke into parts. PG split
into three branches: East Germanic (Vindili among them were the Goths, the Vandals and the
Burgundians in Pliny’s classification), North Germanic (Hilleviones) and West Germanic (which
embraces Ingveones, Istaveones and Herminones in Pliny’s list). Then these branches split into
separate Germanic languages: East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic.
Germanic languages
Old Germanic
languages
(with dates of
the earliest
records)
Modern
Germanic
languages
East Germanic
Gothic (4th c.)
Vandalic
Burgundian
North Germanic
Old Norse or Old
Scandinavian (2nd-3rd c.)
Old Icelandic (12th c.)
Old Norwegian (13th c.)
Old Danish (13th c.)
Old Swedish (13th c.)
No living
languages
Icelandic
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish
Faroese
West Germanic
Anglian, Frisian, Jutish,
Saxon, Franconian, High
German (Alemanic,
Thuringian, Swavian,
Bavarian)
Old English (7th c.)
Old Saxon (9th c.)
Old High German (8th c.)
Old Dutch (12th c.)
English
German
Netherlandish
Afrikaans
Yiddish
Frisian
All the Germanic languages of the past and present have common linguistic features. They
preserved many IE features in lexis as well as at other levels. The most ancient etymological
layer in the Germanic vocabulary is made up of words shared by most IE languages. They refer
to a number of semantic spheres: natural phenomena, plants, animals, terms of kinship, family
relations, parts of the human body, verbs, denoting basic activities of man, some pronouns and
numerals.
Lecture 2
Theme: The main historical events of the ancient period.
Celtic tribes and languages on the European continent and British Isles (1000 BC). Celtic
languages in modern Britain.
Modern man arrived in Britain before the last ice age but retreated to Southern Europe
when much of Britain was ice covered, with the remainder being tundra. At this time the sea
level was about 127 m (417 ft.) lower than it is today, so Britain was joined to Ireland and by the
area known as Doggerland to the continent of Europe. After the end of the last Ice Age (around
9500 BC), Ireland became separated from Britain; later (around 6500 BC), Britain was cut off
from the rest of Europe. By 12,000 BC Britain had been reoccupied, as shown by archaeology.
By around 4000 BC, the island was populated by people with a Neolithic culture. However, none
of the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain have any known surviving written language. No
literature of pre-Roman Britain has survived, so its history, culture and way of life are known
mainly through archaeological finds. The first significant written record of Britain and its
inhabitants was by the Greek navigator Pytheas, who explored the coastal region of Britain
around 325 BC. Ancient Britons were involved in extensive trade and cultural links with the rest
of Europe from the Neolithic onwards, especially in exporting tin, which was in abundant
supply. Located at the fringes of Europe, Britain received foreign technological and cultural
achievements much later than mainland areas did during prehistory. The story of ancient Britain
is traditionally seen as one of successive waves of settlers from the continent. Prior to the
Germanic invasion the British Isles were inhabited for at least fifty thousand years.
Archeological research has uncovered many layers of prehistoric population.
Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) Britain is the period of the earliest known occupation of
Britain by man. This huge length of time saw many changes in the environment, encompassing
several glacial and interglacial periods that greatly affected human settlement in the region.
Lower Palaeolithic (up to 250,000 years ago).There is evidence from bones and flint tools found
in coastal deposits near Happisburgh in Norfolk and Pakefield in Suffolk that a species of Homo
was present in what is now Britain around 700,000 years ago. At this time, southern and eastern
Britain was linked to continental Europe by a wide land bridge allowing humans to move freely.
The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by
tributaries that would later become the Thames and Seine. Reconstructing this ancient
environment has provided clues to the route first visitors took to arrive at what was then a
peninsula of the Eurasian continent. Archaeologists have found a string of early sites located
close to the route of a now lost watercourse named the Bytham River which indicate that it was
exploited as the earliest route west into Britain.
Around 500,000 years ago early peoples made hand axes and hunted the large native
mammals of the period. They drove elephants, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses over the tops of
cliffs or into bogs to more easily kill them.
The extreme cold of the following times is likely to have driven humans out of Britain
altogether and the region does not appear to have been occupied again until the ice receded. This
warmer time period lasted from around 300,000 until 200,000 years ago. This period saw flint
tools introduced, possibly by humans arriving from Africa. The more advanced flint technology
permitted more efficient hunting and therefore made Britain a more worthwhile place to remain
until the following period of cooling 352,000–130,000 years ago).
A final ice age covered Britain between around 70,000 and 10,000 years ago with an
extreme cold snap between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago (with the Last Glacial Maximum at
around 20,000 years ago). This may well have driven humans south and out of Britain altogether,
pushing them back across the land bridge that had resurfaced at the beginning of the glaciation,
possibly to a refuge in Southern France and Iberia. Sites such as Gough's Cave in Somerset dated
at 12,000 BC provide evidence suggesting that humans returned to Britain towards the end of
this ice age, right before the final thaw may have caused them to leave again and then return
repeatedly. The environment during this ice age period would have been a largely treeless
tundra, eventually replaced by a gradually warmer climate. Mesolithic (around 10,000 to 5,500
years ago).Around 10,000 years ago the ice age finally ended. Temperatures rose, probably to
levels similar to those today, and forests expanded further. By 9,500 years ago, the rising sea
levels caused by the melting glaciers cut Britain off from Ireland and by around 6500 to 6000 BC
continental Europe was cut off for the last time. . Humans spread and reached the far north of
Scotland during this period. Farming of crops and domestic animals was adopted in Britain
around 4500 BC at least partly because of the need for reliable food sources. Hunter-gathering
ways of life would have persisted into the Neolithic at first but the increasing sophistication of
material culture with the concomitant control of local resources by individual groups would have
caused it to be replaced by distinct territories occupied by different tribes. Other elements of the
Neolithic such as pottery, leaf-shaped arrowheads and polished stone axes would have been
adopted earlier.
The Neolithic (around 4000 – 2000 BC).The Neolithic was the period of domestication
of plants and animals, a more settled way of life which led to societies becoming divided into
differing groups of farmers, artisans and leaders. Forest clearances were undertaken to provide
room for cereal cultivation and animal herds
The settlement of Britain began in New Stone Age (Neolitic times) with tribal groups
coming from the Iberian Peninsula. They came by sea from about 4000 B.C. settling near the
coasts of south and west Britain as well as in Ireland. They brought with them the agricultural
methods which had been developed around the Mediterranean coasts, the raising of cattle and
planting of wheat. As the lowlands of Britain were still covered with forests, these settlers lived
on hills such as the chalk uplands of southern England. These tribes did not use metals yet, but
they made axes and arrowheads from flint which was mined in the chalk of Norfolk in East
Anglia. In this period the large stone circles of Stonehenge on the chalk plateau of Salisbure
Plane were begun constructing. This stone monument consists of concentric circles of stones. It
was used as observatory for planning the times of farming operations in a society with no
calendar. The construction of the earliest earthwork sites in Britain began during the early
Neolithic (c. 4400 BC – 3300 BC) in the form of long barrows used for communal burial and the
first causewayed enclosures, sites which have parallels on the continent.
The Middle Neolithic (c. 3300 BC – c. 2900 BC) saw the development of cursus
monuments close to earlier barrows and the growth and abandonment of causewayed enclosures
as well as the building of impressive chamber tombs such as the Maeshowe types. The earliest
stone circles and individual burials also appear.
The Bronze Age (around 2200 to 750 BC).This period can be sub-divided into an earlier
phase (2300 to 1200) and a later one (1200 – 700). From around 2,150 BC smiths had discovered
how to make bronze (which was much harder than copper) by mixing copper with a small
amount of tin. With this discovery, the Bronze Age arrived in Britain. Over the next thousand
years, bronze gradually replaced stone as the main material for tool and weapon making. Britain
had large, easily accessible reserves of tin in the modern areas of Cornwall and Devon in what is
now southwest England, and thus tin mining began. By around 1,600 BC the southwest of
Britain was experiencing a trade boom as British tin was exported across Europe. After about
2,000 B.C. farming people came from the east and south east, the present day France and
Belgium. They brought the use of bronze and a special kind of pottery. These people seem to
have mixed peacefully with the former settlers. After most of the British Isles had been
populated by these tribes, further settlers came from Rhine valley. They were successive tribes of
Celts. The earliest inhabitants whose linguistic affiliation has been established are the Celts. The
Celts came to Britain in the three waves and immediately preceded the Teutons. Celtic tribes
invaded Britain about 500 B.C. Economically and socially the Celts were a tribal society made
up of kins, kinship groups, clans and tribes; they practised a primitive agriculture, and carried on
trade with Celtic Gaul. The first millennium B.C. was the period of Celtic migrations and
expansion. Traces of their civilization are still found all over Europe. Celtic languages were
spoken over extensive parts of Europe before our era; later they were absorbed by other IE
languages and left very few vestiges behind.
The Bronze Age people lived in round houses and divided up the landscape. Stone rows
are to be seen on, for example, Dartmoor. They ate cattle, sheep, pigs and deer as well as
shellfish and birds. They carried out salt manufacture. The wetlands were a source of wildfowl
and reeds.
The Iron Age (around 750 BC – 43 AD)
In around 750 BC iron working techniques reached Britain from southern Europe. Iron
was stronger and more plentiful than bronze, and its introduction marks the beginning of the Iron
Age. Iron working changed many aspects of life, most importantly agriculture. Iron tipped
ploughs could churn up land far more quickly and deeply than older wooden or bronze ones, and
iron axes could clear forest land far more efficiently for agriculture. There was a landscape of
arable, pasture and managed woodland. There were many enclosed settlements and land
ownership was important. By 500 BC most people inhabiting the western British Isles were
speaking some form of Insular Celtic. Among these people were skilled craftsmen who had
begun producing gold jewellery, in addition to tools and weapons of both bronze and iron. Place
names and tribal names from the later part of the period suggest that a Celtic language was
spoken. Iron Age Britons lived in organized tribal groups, ruled by a chieftain. As people
became more numerous, wars broke out between opposing tribes. This was traditionally
interpreted as the reason for the building of hill forts, first had been built about 1,500 BC, hill
fort building peaked during the later Iron Age. There are over 2000 Iron Age hill forts known in
Britain. By about 350 BC many hill forts went out of use and the remaining ones were
reinforced.
The Late pre-Roman Iron Age (LPRIA).The last centuries before the Roman invasion
saw an influx of mixed Germanic-Celtic speaking refugees from Gaul (approximately modern
day France and Belgium) known as the Belgae, who were displaced as the Roman Empire
expanded around 50 BC. They settled along most of the coastline of Southern Britain between
about 200 BC and AD 43.
From around 175 BC, the areas of Kent, Hertfordshire and Essex developed especially
advanced pottery-making skills. The tribes of south-east England became partially Romanised
and were responsible for creating the first settlements, large enough to be called towns.
The last centuries before the Roman invasion saw increasing sophistication in British life.
About 100 BC, iron bars began to be used as currency, while internal trade and trade with
continental Europe flourished, largely due to Britain's extensive mineral reserves. Coinage was
developed, based on continental types but bearing the names of local chieftains. This was used in
south-east England. As the Roman Empire expanded northwards, Rome began to take interest in
Britain.
Celtic tribes and languages on the European continent and British Isles (1000 BC).
The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic,
was the central European Hallstatt culture (ca. 800-450 BC), named for the rich grave finds in
Hallstatt, Austria. By the later La Tène period (ca. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this
Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range of regions, whether by diffusion or migration: to
the British Isles (Insular Celts), the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici ), much of Central
Europe, (Gauls) and following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central
Anatolia (Galatians).
The earliest directly attested examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions,
beginning from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested only in inscriptions
and place-names. Insular Celtic is attested from about the 4th century AD in ogham inscriptions,
although it is clearly much earlier. Literary tradition begins with Old Irish from about the 8th
century. Coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as The Cattle Raid of Cooley, survive in
12th-century recensions. According to the theory of John T. Koch and others, the Tartessian
language may have been the earliest directly attested Celtic language with the Tartessian written
script used in the inscriptions based on a version of a Phoenician script in use around 825 BC.
The Gaelic branch has survived as Irish (or Erse) in Ireland, has expanded to Scotland as
Scotch-Gaelic of the Highlands and is still spoken by a few hundred people on the Isle of Man
(the Manx language). The Britonnic branch is represented by Kymric or Welsh in modern Wales
and by Breton or Armorican spoken by over a million people in modern France( in the area
called Bretagne or Britanny, where the Celts came as emigrants from Britain in the 5th c.);
another Britonic dialect in Great Britain, Cornish, was spoken in Cornwall until the end of the
18th c.
By the early 1st millennium AD, following the expansion of the Roman Empire and the
Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture had become restricted
to the British Isles (Insular Celtic), and the Continental Celtic languages ceased to be widely
used by the 6th century.
Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels, the Welsh and the Bretons of the
medieval and modern periods.
Latin "Gallus" might originally be from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name, perhaps borrowed
into Latin during the Celtic expansions into Italy of the early 5th century BC. Its root may be the
Common Celtic "*galno", meaning power or strength. Galli and Galatae most probably go with
Old Irish gal 'boldness, ferocity' and Welsh gallu 'to be able, power'. The Greek "Galatai" seems
to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which
gave us "Galli" (the suffix "-atai" is an Ancient Greek inflection).
Today, the term Celtic is generally used to describe the languages and respective cultures
of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and Brittany, also known as the Six Celtic
Nations. These are the regions where four Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent as
mother tongues: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton plus two recent revivals,
Cornish (one of the Brythonic languages) and Manx (one of the Goidelic languages). There are
also attempts to reconstruct the Cumbric language (a Brythonic language from Northwest
England and Southwest Scotland). 'Celtic' is also sometimes used to describe regions of
Continental Europe that claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language has survived; these
areas include the western Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Portugal, and north-central Spain (Galicia,
Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura). "Continental Celts" refers to the Celticspeaking people of mainland Europe. "Insular Celts" refers to the Celtic-speaking people of the
British Isles and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating
insular Celts from west Britain and so are grouped accordingly.
The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By the time
speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 400 BC, they were already split into several
language groups, and spread over much of Western continental Europe, the Iberian peninsula,
Ireland and Britain.
Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered to
have been spoken in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the Celtic languages to Iberia,
Ireland and Britain would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium BC, the
earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to ca. 500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the
separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages.
Celtic river-names are found in great numbers around the upper reaches of the Danube
and Rhine, which led many Celtic scholars to place the ethnogenesis of the Celts in this area.
Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the Celtic heartland was in southern
France. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts but that the Romans
referred to both as Gauls. It was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern
France.
Proto-Celtic language
The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the early European Iron Age. The earliest
records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul, the oldest of which
still predate the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions are Gaulish, appearing from the early La
Tène period in inscriptions in the area of Massilia, in the Greek alphabet. Celtiberian inscriptions
appear comparatively late, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from
about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions. Besides epigraphical evidence,
an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy. At the dawn of history in
Europe, the Celts then living in what is now France were known as Gauls to the Romans. The
territory of these peoples probably included the low countries, the Alps and what is now northern
Italy. Their descendants were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. Eastern Gaul was
the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organization was
similar to that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted
coinage, and texts with Greek characters are known in southern Gaul from the 2nd century.
Greek traders founded Massalia in about 600 BC, with exchange up the Rhone valley, but
trade was disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in Italy. The
Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a Gaul that was
mostly Celtic-speaking. Rome needed land communications with its Iberian provinces and
fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124-123 BC. Gradually Roman control
extended, and the Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina was formed along the Mediterranean
coast. The remainder was known as Gallia Comata - "Hairy Gaul".
In 58 BC, the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but were forced back by Julius
Caesar. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC, most of
Gaul had been overrun. In 52 BC, Vercingetorix led a revolt against the Roman occupation but
was defeated at the siege of Alesia and surrendered.
Following the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC, Caesar's Celtica formed the main part of Roman
Gaul. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the
north by the Seine and the Marne. Place and personal name analysis and inscriptions suggest that
the Gaulish Celtic language was spoken over most of what is now France.
Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts
acknowledged their presence in the Iberian Peninsula as a material culture relatable to the
Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. Since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th
century Celtic populations were rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could
easily be linked to that of Central Europe. Three divisions of the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula
were assumed to have existed: the Celtiberians in the mountains near the center of the peninsula,
the Celtici in the southwest, and the celts in the northwest.
Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences
were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement
saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.The Celts
in Iberia were divided into two main archaeological and cultural groups. One group was spread
out along Galicia and the Iberian Atlantic shores. They were made up of the Lusitanians (in
Portugal) and the Celtic region that Strabo called Celtica in the southwestern Iberian peninsula,
including the Algarve, which was inhabited by the Celtici, the Vettones and Vacceani peoples(of
central-western Spain and Portugal), and the Gallaecian, Astures and Cantabrian peoples of the
Castro culture of northern and northwestern Spain and Portugal.
The Celtiberian group of central Spain and the upper Ebro valley originated when Celts
(mainly Gauls and some Celtic-Germanic groups) migrated from what is now France and
integrated with the local Iberian people.
The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticization process in
the rest of the Peninsula. The process of celticization of the southwestern area of the peninsula
by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent
investigations about the Callaici in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to
understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.
In 391 BC Celts "who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great
strength and seized the territory that lay between the Appennine mountains and the Alps". The
Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) were inhabited
by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan. Later the Roman army was routed at the
battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.
At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman
forces and crushed.
The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the
Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland
Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining
independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.
The Celts also expanded down the Danube River and its tributaries. One of the most influential
tribes, the Scordisci, had established their capital at Singidunum in 3rd century BC, which is
present-day Belgrade, Serbia. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a density of
population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine.
Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and
Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their
geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic
language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD,
likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.
Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense celtic settlement.
The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic
artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia.
A celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava's mint is displayed on today's Slovak 5-crown coin. Celtic
tribes inhabited land in what is now southern Germany and Austria.Many scholars have
associated the earliest Celtic peoples with the Hallstatt culture. Boii, Scordisci and the Vindelici
are some of the tribes that inhabited Central Europe, including what is now Slovakia, Serbia,
Croatia, Poland and the Czech Republic as well as Germany and Austria.. Celts also founded
Singidunum present-day Belgrade, leaving many words in Serbian language (over 5000).
As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the other areas, one
current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact
rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and
western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.
There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were
employed in 283-246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to
overthrow Ptolemy II.
A large portion of the indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today may be
partially descended from the ancient peoples that have long inhabited these lands, before the
coming of Celtic and later Germanic peoples, language and culture. Little is known of their
original culture and language, but remnants of the latter may remain in the names of some
geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde, Tamar and Thames, whose etymology is unclear
but possibly derive from a pre-Celtic substrate (Gelling). By the Roman period, however, most
of the inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Britain were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic
languages, close counterparts to the Celtic languages spoken on the European mainland.
Historians explained this as the result of successive invasions from the European
continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries. The Book of
Leinster, written in the 12th century, but drawing on a much earlier Irish oral tradition, states that
the first Celts to arrive in Ireland were from Iberia. In 1946 the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly
published his extremely influential model of the early history of Ireland which postulated four
separate waves of Celtic invaders. It is still not known what languages were spoken by the
peoples of Ireland and Britain before the arrival of the Celts.
Celtic languages in modern Britain.
The Celtic languages are a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. During
the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and the North
Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the Black Sea and the Upper Balkan Peninsula, and
into Asia Minor (Galatia). Today, Celtic languages are limited to a few areas on the western
fringe of Europe, notably Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the peninsula of Brittany in France, and
Cornwall and the Isle of Man. Celtic languages are also spoken on Cape Breton Island and in
Patagonia. The spread to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times. Celtic languages
were spoken in Australia before federation in 1901. Some people speak Celtic languages in the
other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In all these
areas the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minorities although there are continuing
efforts at revival.
Six "living" Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial number of native
speakers are Welsh and Breton, descended from the British language of the Roman era, and Irish
and Scottish Gaelic, descended from the common Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic of the Early Modern
period.
The other two, Cornish and Manx, were extinct or near-extinct in the 20th century, and
are now "living" only as the result of language revival efforts, with a small number of children
brought up as bilingual speakers. Taken together, there were roughly one million native speakers
of Celtic languages.
Proto-Celtic divided into four sub-families:
1) Gaulish and its close relatives Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. These languages were
once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from Belgium to northern Italy.
They are now all extinct.
2) Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula in parts of modern Aragón, Old
Castile, and New Castile in Spain. Lusitanian, from Southern Portugal, may also have
been a Celtic language. These are now also extinct.
3) Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. At one time there were Irish on
the coast of southwest England and on the coast of north and south Wales.
4) Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, and possibly also Pictish
though this may be a sister language rather than a daughter of British (Common
Brythonic). Before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of Man in the 9th century there
may have been a Brythonic language in the Isle of Man.
Differences between the Goidelic and Brythonic languages arose after these split off from
the Continental Celtic languages. Other scholars (such as Schmidt 1988) distinguish between PCeltic and Q-Celtic, putting most of the Gaulish and Brythonic languages in the former group
and the Goidelic and Celtiberian languages in the latter. The P-Celtic languages (also called
Gallo-Brittonic) are sometimes seen (for example by Koch 1992) as a central innovating area as
opposed to the more conservative peripheral Q-Celtic languages.
The Breton language is Brythonic, not Gaulish. When the Anglo-Saxons moved into
Great Britain, several waves of the native Britons crossed the English Channel and landed in
Brittany. They brought with them their Brythonic language, which evolved into Breton – still
partially intelligible by modern Welsh and Cornish speakers.
In the P/Q classification scheme the first language to split off from Proto-Celtic was
Gaelic. It has characteristics that some scholars see as archaic but others see as also being in the
Brythonic languages (see Schmidt). With the Insular/Continental classification scheme the split
of the former into Gaelic and Brythonic is seen as being late.
The distinction of Celtic into these four sub-families most likely occurred about 900 BC
Celtic languages, since no Continental Celtic language has living descendants, such as QCeltic" is equivalent to "Goidelic" and "P-Celtic" is equivalent to "Brythonic".
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's own Celtic
languages and cultural traits have survived.
The six territories recognised as Celtic nations are Brittany (Breizh), Cornwall (Kernow),
Ireland (Éire), the Isle of Man (Mannin), Scotland (Alba), and Wales (Cymru). Limitation to
these six is sometimes disputed by people from Asturias and Galicia (including Northern
Portugal). Until the expansions of the Roman Republic and Germanic tribes, a significant part of
Western Europe was mainly Celtic.
Each of the six nations has its own living Celtic language. In Wales, Scotland, Britanny,
and Ireland, these have been spoken continuously through time, while Cornwall and the Isle of
Man have languages that were spoken into modern times but later died as spoken community
languages. In both of the latter regions, however, revitalization movements have led to the
adoption of these languages by adults and produced a number of native speakers.
Ireland, Wales, Brittany and Scotland contain areas where a Celtic language is used on a
daily basis – in Ireland the area is called the Gaeltacht, Y Fro Gymraeg in Wales, and in Brittany
Breizh-Izel. Generally these communities are in the west of their countries and in upland or
island areas. The term Gàidhealtachd historically distinguished the Gaelic-speaking areas of
Scotland (the Highlands) from the Lowland Scots-speaking areas. More recently, this term has
also been adopted as the Gaelic name of the Highland council area, which includes non-Gaelic
speaking areas. Hence, more specific terms such as sgìre Ghàidhlig ("Gaelic-speaking area") are
now used.
In Wales, the Welsh language is a core curriculum (compulsory) subject, which all pupils
study.[ Additionally, 20% of school children in Wales go to Welsh medium schools, where "they
are taught entirely in the Welsh language". In Ireland, 7.4% of primary school education is
through Irish medium education.
Lecture 3
The theme: The Roman occupation of Britain and its influence on different spheres of life
in Britain.
In the first century B.C. Gaul was conquered by the Romans. Having occupied Gaul,
Julius Caesar made two raids on Britain in 55 and 54 B.C. The British Isles had long been known
to the Romans as a source of valuable tin ore; Caesar attacked Britain for economic reasons – to
obtain tin, pearls and corn, -and also for strategic reasons, since rebels and refugees from Gaul
found support among their kinsmen. But these Caesar’s attacks failed. The Roman conquest of
Britain was a gradual process, beginning effectively in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, whose
general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Britannia. Between 55 BC and the 40s AD, the
status quo of tribute, hostages, and client states without direct military occupation, begun by
Caesar's invasions of Britain, largely remained intact. Augustus prepared invasions in 34 BC, 27
BC and 25 BC. The first and third were called off due to revolts elsewhere in the empire, the
second because the Britons seemed ready to come to terms.
Caligula planned a campaign against the British in 40 AD, but its execution was bizarre:
according to Suetonius, he drew up his troops in battle formation facing the English Channel and
ordered them to attack the standing water. Afterwards, he had the troops gather sea shells,
referring to them as "plunder from the ocean, due to the Capitol and the Palace", his invasion
attempt readied the troops and facilities that would make Claudius' invasion possible 3 years
later (e.g. a lighthouse was built by Caligula at Boulogne-sur-Mer, the model for the one built
soon after 43 at ancient Dover).
Three years later, in 43, possibly by re-collecting Caligula's troops, Claudius mounted an
invasion force to re-instate Verica, an exiled king of the Atrebates. Aulus Plautius, a
distinguished senator, was given overall charge of four legions, totalling about 20,000 men, plus
about the same number of auxiliaries.
The main invasion force under Aulus Plautius crossed in three divisions. The port of
departure is usually taken to have been Boulogne, and the main landing at Rutupiae
(Richborough, on the east coast of Kent). Richborough has a large natural harbour which would
have been suitable, and archaeology shows Roman military occupation at about the right time.
British resistance was led by Togodumnus and Caratacus, sons of the late king of the
Catuvellauni, Cunobelinus. A substantial British force met the Romans at a river crossing
thought to be near Rochester on the River Medway. The battle raged for two days. The British
were pushed back to the Thames. The Romans pursued them across the river causing them to
lose men in the marshes of Essex; one division of auxiliary Batavian troops swam across the
river as a separate force.
Togodumnus died shortly after the battle on the Thames. Aulus Plautius halted and sent a
message for Claudius to join him for the final push. Cassius Dio presents this as Plautius needing
the emperor's assistance to defeat the resurgent British, who were determined to avenge
Togodumnus. However, Claudius was not a military man. Claudius's arch says he received the
surrender of eleven kings without any loss, and Suetonius says that Claudius received the
surrender of the Britons without battle or bloodshed.It is likely that the Catuvellauni were
already as good as beaten, allowing the emperor to appear as conqueror on the final march on
Camulodunum. Cassius Dio relates that he brought war elephants and heavy armaments which
would have overawed any remaining native resistance. Eleven tribes of South East Britain
surrendered to Claudius and the Romans prepared to move further west and north. The Romans
established their new capital at Camulodunum and Claudius returned to Rome to celebrate his
victory. Caratacus escaped and would continue the resistance further west. Campaigns under
Aulus Plautius focused on the commercially valuable southeast of Britain.
Late in 47 the new governor of Britain, Ostorius Scapula, began a campaign against the
tribes of modern day Wales, and the Cheshire Gap. The Silures of south east Wales caused
considerable problems to Ostorius and fiercely defended the Welsh border country. Caratacus
himself was defeated in the Battle of Caer Caradoc and fled to the Roman client tribe of the
Brigantes who occupied the Pennines. Their queen, Cartimandua was unable or unwilling to
protect him however given her own truce with the Romans and handed him over to the invaders.
Ostorius died and was replaced by Aulus Gallus who brought the Welsh borders under control
but did not move further north or west, probably because Claudius was keen to avoid what he
considered a difficult and drawn-out war for little material gain in the mountainous terrain of
upland Britain. When Nero became emperor in AD 54, he seems to have decided to continue the
invasion and appointed Quintus Veranius as governor, a man experienced in dealing with the
troublesome hill tribes of Asia Minor. Veranius and his successor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus
mounted a successful campaign across Wales, famously destroying the druidical centre at Mona
or Anglesey in AD 60. Final occupation of Wales was postponed however when the rebellion of
Boudica forced the Romans to return to the south east. The Silures were not finally conquered
until circa AD 76 when Sextus Julius Frontinus' long campaign against them began to have
success.
Following the successful suppression of Boudica, a number of new Roman governors
continued the conquest by edging north. Cartimandua was forced to ask for Roman aid following
a rebellion by her husband Venutius. Quintus Petillius Cerialis took his legions from Lincoln as
far as York and defeated Venutius near Stanwick around 70. This resulted in the already
Romanised Brigantes and Parisii tribes being further assimilated into the empire proper.
Frontinus was sent into Roman Britain in 74 AD to succeed Quintus Petillius Cerialis as
governor of that island. He subdued the Silures and other hostile tribes of Wales, establishing a
new base at Caerleon for Legio II Augusta and a network of smaller forts fifteen to twenty
kilometres apart for his auxiliary units. During his tenure, he probably established the fort at
Pumsaint in west Wales, largely to exploit the gold deposits at Dolaucothi. He retired in 78 AD,
and later he was appointed water commissioner in Rome. The new governor was Gnaeus Julius
Agricola, made famous through the highly laudatory biography of him written by his son-in-law,
Tacitus.
Arriving in mid-summer of 78, Agricola found several previously defeated peoples had
re-established their independence. The first to be dealt with were the Ordovices of north Wales,
who had destroyed a cavalry ala of Roman auxiliaries stationed in their territory. Knowing the
terrain from his prior military service in Britain, he was able to move quickly to defeat and
virtually exterminate them. He then invaded Anglesey, forcing the inhabitants to sue for peace.
The following year he moved against the Brigantes of northern England and the Selgovae along
the southern coast of Scotland, using overwhelming military power to re-establish Roman
control. Details of the early years of the Roman occupation in North Britain are unclear but
began no earlier than 71, as Tacitus says that in that year Petillius Cerialis (governor 71 – 74)
waged a successful war against the Brigantes whose territory straddled Britain along the SolwayTyne line. Tacitus praises both Cerialis and his successor Julius Frontinus (governor 75 – 78),
but provides no additional information on events prior to 79 regarding the lands or peoples living
north of the Brigantes. However, the Romans certainly would have followed up their initial
victory over the Brigantes in some manner. In particular, archaeology has shown that the
Romans had campaigned and built military camps in the north along Gask Ridge, controlling the
glens that provided access to and from the Scottish Highlands, and also throughout the Scottish
Lowlands in northeastern Scotland. In describing Agricola's campaigns, Tacitus does not
explicitly state that this is actually a return to lands previously occupied by Rome, where Roman
occupation either had been thrown off by the inhabitants, or had been abandoned by the Romans.
Roman occupation was withdrawn to a line subsequently established as one of the limes
of the empire (i.e. a defensible frontier) by the construction of Hadrian's Wall. An attempt was
made to push this line north to the River Clyde-River Forth area in 142 when the Antonine Wall
was constructed. However, this was once again abandoned after two decades and only
subsequently re-occupied on an occasional basis. The Romans retreated to the earlier and
stronger Hadrian's Wall in the River Tyne-Solway Firth frontier area, this having been
constructed around 122. Roman troops, however, penetrated far into the north of modern
Scotland several more times. Indeed, there is a greater density of Roman marching camps in
Scotland than anywhere else in Europe as a result of at least four major attempts to subdue the
area. The most notable was in 209 when the emperor Septimus Severus, claiming to be provoked
by the belligerence of the Maeatae tribe, campaigned against the Caledonian Confederacy. He
used the three legions of the British garrison (augmented by the recently formed 2nd Parthica
legion), 9000 imperial guards with cavalry support, and numerous auxiliaries supplied from the
sea by the British fleet, the Rhine fleet and two fleets transferred from the Danube for the
purpose. According to Dio Cassius, he inflicted genocidal depredations on the natives and
incurred the loss of 50,000 of his own men to the attrition of guerrilla tactics before having to
withdraw to Hadrian's Wall. He repaired and reinforced the wall with a degree of thoroughness
that led most subsequent Roman authors to attribute the construction of the wall to him. It was
during the negotiations to purchase the truce necessary to secure the Roman retreat to the wall
that the first recorded utterance, attributable with any reasonable degree of confidence, to a
native of Scotland was made (as recorded by Dio Cassius). When Septimus Severus' wife, Julia
Domna, criticised the sexual morals of the Caledonian women, the wife of a Caledonian chief,
Argentocoxos, replied: "We consort openly with the best of men while you allow yourselves to
be debauched in private by the worst". The emperor Septimus Severus died at York while
planning to renew hostilities, but these plans were abandoned by his son Caracalla.
Later excursions into Scotland by the Romans were generally limited to the scouting
expeditions of exploratores in the buffer zone that developed between the walls, trading contacts,
bribes to purchase truces from the natives, and eventually the spread of Christianity. The degree
to which the Romans interacted with the island of Hibernia is still unresolved amongst
archaeologists in Ireland. The successes and failures of the Romans in subduing the peoples of
Britain are still represented in the political geography of the British Isles today, with the modern
border between Scotland and England running close to the line of Hadrian's Wall.
Druids oppose landing of Romans
By Claudius’s time, no foreign territory was deemed immune to conquest. The recently
enthroned Claudius needed to consolidate his authority, and a massive invasion force was
mustered under the command of Aulus Plautius. The Romans swept rapidly through south-east
England, brutally eliminating whatever resistance they encountered, which wasn’t much. A tribal
chieftain, Caratacus, retreating tactically from the early Roman capital Camulodunum
(Colchester) to south Wales, managed to put up enough of a fight for the Romans to spare his life
after he was captured and brought to Rome. There was also continued resistance in Wales,
largely led by Druid priests.
After Caratacus, the next spirited fightback was a decade later, when the widowed tribal
queen, Boudicca, spearheaded a combined rebel force of her own Iceni people and the
neighbouring Trinovantes. They burned down three major southern towns, including the newly
founded Londinium. When this coalition army was annihilated, Boudicca swallowed poison to
avoid the indignity of capture.
During the decades of the 70s and 80s, the Romans extended their sway over the island,
pushing north-westwards from their southern base. They caused panic and terror wherever they
arrived, but their presence also led to the founding of many towns and cities, such as Bath,
Lincoln, Chester and York, connected by long, straight roads like Watling Street and Fosse Way.
The push eventually crossed into Scotland, but the further north the imperial forces penetrated,
the less appetite they appeared to have for hanging on to the new territories won.
After a prolonged general withdrawal from the Scottish outposts, the emperor Hadrian
ordered the construction of a defensive wall across the border in AD 122, from Carlisle to
Newcastle. Although the wall was never finished, it marked the northern border of what was by
then a continent-wide empire. In 138, Hadrian’s successor Antonius Pius ordered a new wall to
be built across Scotland, pushing the boundary further north again, but in due course this too was
abandoned, and the wall Hadrian had ordered once again became the British Rubicon.
The local nobility survived by reaching accommodations with Roman power. Wholesale
Romanisation of local culture and customs was the price paid for a relatively peaceable
coexistence with the occupying power. Despite the popular image, most ordinary people
probably remained fairly untouched by the conquest. Life at the most primitive level continued
unscathed, but by the third century, Britain was booming under Roman tutelage. Wool and grain,
animal skins, and metals such as silver and tin, underpinned a flourishing export trade.
When the end came, Britain was far from being the ruthlessly oppressed colony suddenly
breaking the chains of its bondage. It had established its own economic and political traditions
within the Empire, even electing its own rulers, either from within the Roman military ranks or
not.
By AD 410, the date usually given for the end of the Roman era, the Empire was riddled
with internal conflicts and weakened by attacks in its own heartland. As the British at last stood
up to it, rejecting the idea of government from the heart of the continent, they had sensed –
correctly – that the Romans had neither the resources nor the administrative will to hold on to
Britain. A celebrated letter from the Roman emperor Honorius gave the command to withdraw
troops, warning the British that they would have to look to their own defence.
Boudica (pronounced /ˈbuːdɨkə/; also spelled Boudicca), formerly known as Boadicea
/boʊdɨˈsiːə/ and known in Welsh as "Buddug" [ˈbɨ̞ ðɨ̞ ɡ][1] (d. AD 60 or 61) was a queen of a
Celtic tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.
Boudica's husband Prasutagus, ruler of the Iceni tribe who had ruled as a nominally
independent ally of Rome, left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman Emperor in
his will. However, when he died his will was ignored. The kingdom was annexed as if
conquered, Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped, and Roman financiers called in their
loans.
In AD 60 or 61, while the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was leading a
campaign on the island of Anglesey in north Wales, Boudica led the Iceni people, along with the
Trinovantes and others, in revolt. They destroyed Camulodunum (modern Colchester), formerly
the capital of the Trinovantes, but now a colonia (a settlement for discharged Roman soldiers)
and the site of a temple to the former emperor Claudius, which was built and maintained at local
expense.
In A.D.43 Britain was again invaded by Roman legions under Emperor Claudius and
Britain became part of the Roman Empire. Britain was totally conquered except for Scotland
(and other parts beyond Hadrian’s Wall, a long stone wall built about 121 A.D. during the reign
of the Emperor Hadrian to protect the province from the inroads of the Celtic Scots and nonIndo-European Picts, the Celtic tribes of Caledonia. The Romans subdued the Britions and
colonized the country establishing a great number of military camps which eventually developed
into English cities. Under the emperor Domitian, about 80 A.D. they reached the territory of the
modern cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The Roman occupation of Britain lasted nearly 400 years; the province was carefully
guarded: about 40,000 men were stationed there. Two fortified walls ran across the country, a
network of paved Roman roads connected the towns and military camps. Scores of towns with a
mixed population grew along the Roman roads – inhabited by Roman legionaries, civilians and
by the native Celts; among the most important trading centres of Roman Britain was London.
The Roman occupation came to an end in the early 5th c. In A.D. 410, the Roman troops were
officially withdrawn to Rome by the emperor Constantine. This temporary withdrawal turned out
to be final, because the Empire was breaking up due to internal and external causes, - particularly
the attacks of barbarian tribes (including the Teutons) when Rome itself was threatened by an
incursion of the Goths under king Alaric in this very year 410 the city of Rome was captured by
the Goths. The other cause was the growth of independent kingdoms on former Roman
territories. The expansion of Franks to Gaul in the 5th c. cut off Britain from the Roman world.
The Britons had to rely on their own forces in the coming struggle with Germanic tribes.
Four centuries of Roman occupation had a profound effect on the country, had meant farreaching Romanization, or Latinization, of life in Great Britain, including Christianization of its
inhabitants and the establishment of Latin, besides Brittonic( a sub-branch of Common Celtic
from which Welsh, Cornish and Breton are said to have been derived), as the language of
administration and law as well as of the Church and at least the second language of the upper
strata among the urban and rural population of Roman Britain. Romanization of distant Britain
was more superficial than that of continental provinces (e.g. Gaul and Iberia, where the complete
linguistic conquest resulted in the growth of new Romance languages, French and Spanish.
After the departure of the Roman legions the richest and most civilized part of the island,
the south-east, was laid waste. Many towns were destroyed. Constant feuds among local
landlords as well as the increased assaults of the Celts from the North and also the first Germanic
raids from beyond the North Sea proved ruinous to the civilization of Roman Britain.
Lecture 4
Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain and formation of English language. The migration of
Angles, Saxons Jutes, Frisians on the British island and formation of Anglo-Saxon states.
The Scandinavian conquest of Britain and its role in the history of the English language.
The 5th century A.D. was the beginning of the period of the migration of considerable
numbers of Germanic tribesmen, the beginning of large scale invasion of Britain from the east
and south by Germanic war-bands who, in course of time, established a number of Germanic
kingdoms in various parts of the conquered country. The invaders from the 5th and the following
centuries came from various West Germanic tribes referred to as Angles, Saxons, Frisians and
Jutes. About the middle of the century these West Germanic tribes overran Britain and, for the
most part colonized the island by the end of the century, though the invasion lasted in the 6 th c.
A.D. too. The story of the invasion was told by Bede (673-735), a monastic scholar who wrote
the first history of England, HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORIUM.
According to Bede the invaders came to Britain in A.D. 449 under the leadership of two
Germanic kings, Hengist and Horsa; they had been invited by a British king, Vortigern, as
assistants and allies in a local war. The newcomers soon dispossessed their hosts, and other
Germanic bands followed. The invaders came in multitude, in families and clans, to settle in the
occupied territories; the conquest of Britain was not a migration of entire continental Germanic
tribes but a process which involved numerous, and often probably, mixed bands of many
continental tribes. The Britons fought against the conquerors for about a century and a half till
about the year 600.
The conquerors settled in Britain in the following way:
The Angles occupied most of the territory north of the river the Thames up to the Firth of
Forth in Scotland. The Saxons, the territory south of the Thames; the Jutes settled in Kent and in
the Isle of Wight. Since the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain their language ties with
the continent were broken, and its further development went its own way. It is at this time, the 5th
century A.D. that the history of the English language begins. Its original territory was England in
the strict sense.
The direct evidence about the language of the early Germanic settlers in Britain is almost
non-existent before 700 A.D. However, the great bulk of the writings that have survived from the
Old English period do not go back further than the tenth and eleventh centuries. The England of
the Old English period was not one kingdom. The country was divided into seven separate
kingdoms; Kent, Essex(East Saxons, the capital - London), Sussex(South Saxons), Wessex(West
Saxons), Mercia(Angles), Nortumbria (Angles) and East Anglia, but only three, namely
Nortumbria, Mercia and Wessex, developed into powers of major importance, which exercised
supremacy over all England. The conquest of Britain by Anglo-Saxons was completed by the
end of the seventh century. Members of various Germanic tribes were brought into contact with
Celtic –speaking Britons. The speech of the population, living in the country, was a hybrid
Anglo-British intermixture. The Old English speech community was heterogeneous. The main
point to note is that these kingdoms actually spoke different languages based on the grammars,
vocabularies and pronunciations of the original Germanic languages of the different tribes. The
people who came across the sea to conquer and settle in the country, brought their North-Sea
Germanic tribal dialects along with them. These dialects formed a kind of ‘natural basis’ of the
‘insular dialects’. This partly explains the very great dialectal differences that exist in the
relatively small geographic area represented by modern day England. In the ninth century
Wessex, the strongest among seven kingdoms, won the victory in their struggle for supremacy.
Winchester, the capital of Wessex, became the capital of England. In 871 the King of Wessex,
King Alfred, became the major leader, the King, who ruled the whole country. West Saxon
dialect, as a regional dialect, developed primarily in the South West of England, dominated at
that period of the development of the English language. The spread of this standardized form of
West Saxon, its knowledge and use in writing throughout England in the tenth and eleventh
centuries was greatly facilitated by the political and cultural supremacy of Wessex during most
of this period and the unification of England under a single crown. There are a lot of texts,
records, written in West Saxon dialect found from that time.
A new language-contact situation arose when, in the last third of the ninth century,
Viking war-bands from Denmark and Norway began the systematic occupation of English
territory and the settlement of occupied areas in various parts of the country. This resulted in a
Scandinavian-speaking community of some considerable size coming into existence in the period
of Viking dominions. It was only in the battle at Edington (Wiltshire) in 878, when King Alfred
won the Danes that prevented the Danes or Norsemen from becoming lords over all England and
forced them to conclude a peace treaty. The Treaty of Wedmore practically meant the division
of England into two parts. The Vikings promised to leave Wessex and to accept Christianity.
The northern and eastern territories already belonged to the Danes. This area was called the
Danelaw. The number of people of the Scandinavian stock who became permanent occupants of
the conquered territory was considerable. Naturally, the massive settlement that the
Scandinavians undertook led to the extensive use of the Norse tongue in the area of the Danelaw,
and we can see evidence of it even today through its influences on the English language.
Scandinavian vocabulary penetrated nearly every area of the English language. Most words of
Scandinavian origin in English are concrete everyday words. A few examples are given here:
nouns -bank, birth, booth, egg, gift, husband, law, leg, root, score, sister, skin, sky, skirt, trust,
wing, window; adjectives - awkward, flat, happy, ill, loose, low, odd, sly, ugly, weak, wrong;
verbs – to cast, clip, crawl, cut, die, drown, gasp, give, lift, nag, scare, sprint, take, want, the
present plural of ‘to be’ are; pronouns both, same, they, them and their.
The facts that even the Norse pronoun ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ were accepted into
English is remarkable; it is very unusual that grammatical items are borrowed. This suggests that
there was extensive contact between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings and a gradual integration
of the two groups. It can be difficult to recognize the Scandinavian words since the languages are
so closely related. For example, the Old English word for ‘take’ was niman, but in late Old
English tacan is found. The Old Norse word was taka, which shows that it must have been
borrowed from the Scandinavians. In the same way, the word ‘law’ was originally oe but a later
recording is lagu, which comes from the Old Norse. In fact, judging by the large number of
Scandinavian words in the legal area, the Vikings had a considerable impact upon the law and
order of the Anglo-Saxons. The Scandinavian peoples brought not only their laws and customs
to the Danelaw, but their view on law and legal custom was to a great extent acknowledged by
all of England.
Lecture 5
The problem of chronological division of the periods in the history of the English language.
The main three periods which are distinguished in the history of the English language: Old
English, Middle English, Modern English.
Whenever we have to deal with a long stretch of time in the history of the country, or of a
culture, we naturally tend to divide this stretch of time into some periods. This division must not
be arbitrary: it must be based on a set of features agreed in advance and serving to distinguish
one period from the other. With reference to the history of English language which covers
roughly 1300 years, different features might be taken as aground for such division. The English
scholar Henry Sweet (1845-1912), the author of a number of works on the English language and
on its history, proposed the following division of the history of English language according to
the state of unstressed ending.
The first period –Old English – the period of full endings. This means that any vowel
may be found in an unstressed ending. For example, the word singan means ‘sing’, we have at
the end vowel a or the word sunu means ‘son’ we have at the end vowel u.
The second period - Middle English is the period of leveled endings.
Old English singan - singen Middle English, sunu - sune Middle English.
The third period is Modern English period, the period of lost endings. This means that
ending is lost altogether, we have sing and son.
This division is based on a feature both phonetic (weakening and loss of unstressed vowel
sounds) and morphological (weakening and loss of grammatical morphemes).
Now we must define the chronological limits of each period. These are approximately the
following: the Old English period begins about 700A.D. (the time to which the earliest writing in
English belongs) and lasts till about 1100 A.D.
The Middle English period lasts in the period between 1100 and till 1500 (including the
15th century transitional period).
The Modern English period begins about 1500 and lasts till our own times. Within
Modern English period it is customary to distinguish between Early Modern English
(approximately 1500-1660), and Late Modern English (approximately from 1660 till our times).
These dates are very close to important events in the social and political life of the country: 1100
follows close upon 1066, the year of Norman Conquest at the Battle of Hastings, when the Duke
of Normandy, William the Conqueror, defeated King Harold and became the king of England.
The Norman Invasion of England in 1066 brought French into England. This led to the unusual
situation, in which the common people spoke one language (English), and the aristocrats spoke
another (Norman French).The two languages gradually began to mix into what we now call
Middle English
and the year 1500 is close to 1485, the year when
the war of Roses came to an end, which marked the decay of feudalism and the rise of capitalism
in England. The end of the 15th century is also the time when the English nation arises. The Early
Modern English Period coincided with the Renaissance, the time of discoveries and learning, the
time of introduction of printing. The loss of most inflectional endings in the 15th c. was the main
feature of the Modern English.
According to the famous author of the textbook “A History of the English Language”
T.A.Rastorguyeva, the history of the English language is subdivided into seven periods differing
in \linguistic situation and the nature of linguistic changes.
I
Early OE (also: Pre-written OE)
450 - 700
II
OE (also: Written OE)
700 - 1066
III
IV
Early ME
ME (also: Classical ME)
1066 - 1350
1350 - 1475
V
Early NE
1476 - 1660
}
OLD ENGLISH
}
MIDDLE ENGLISH
EARLY
ENGLISH
NEW
VI
Normalisation Period (also: Age
of Correctness, Neo-Classical 1660 - 1800
period)
}
VII
Late NE, or Mod E (including
1800 - …
Present-day English)
NEW ENGLISH (also:
MODERN ENGLISH)
Lecture 6
The main historical events of Middle Age period.
The Norman Conquest of England and its influence on all spheres of life. The social
structure of England in XII c. – XV c.
The colonization and the intermixture of the Scandinavians with Anglo-Saxons
continued from the 9th c. on, during two hundred years, which witnessed diverse political events.
After Canute’s death, Denmark’s king, in1042, after the collapse of his empire, the new English
king, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), who had been reared in France, brought over many
Norman advisors. He paved the way for Norman infiltration long before the Norman Conquest.
The government of the country at that time was in the hands of Anglo-Saxons lords, headed by
the powerful Earl Godwin of Wessex. In 1066, after Edward’s Confessor death, the Elders of
England proclaimed Harold Godwin the king of England. As soon as the news reached William
of Normandy, he mustered a big army by promise of land and plunder ( one third of his soldiers
were Normans, others, mercenaries from all over Europe) and, with the support of the Pope,
landed in Britain.
The Normans were by origin a Scandinavian tribe (Norman - Northman). In the 9th
century they began inroads on the northern coast of France and occupied the territory on the both
shores of the Seine estuary. Under a treaty concluded in 912 with the Norman chief Rollo, the
French king Charles the Simple ceded to the Normans this stretch of the coast, which since then
was called Normandy. During the century and a half between the Normans’ settlement in France
and their invasion of England they had undergone a powerful influence of French culture.
Mixing with the local population, they adopted the French language and in the middle of
the11th.century, in spite of their Scandinavian origin, they were bearers of French culture and of
the French language
In 1066, on October14, William, Duke of Normandy, who had long claimed the
English throne, routed the English troops under king of England Harold Godwin, who was killed
in the battle of Hastings. The English were defeated. The Norman Conquest of England began in
1066. It proved to be a turning point in English history and had a considerable influence on the
English language. In the course of a few years military occupation was completed and the
Normans became masters of England. The ruling class of Anglo-Saxon nobility vanished almost
completely; some of them perished in battles, others were executed. This nobility was replaced
by Norman barons, who spoke French, namely its Norman dialect. William the Conqueror
(1066-1087) conducted a relentless policy of subjugation, devastation and almost depopulated
Northumbria and Mercia, which tried to rise against the conquerors. Most of the lands of AngloSaxon lords passed into the hands of Norman barons. William’s own possession comprised about
one third of the country. All posts in the church, in the government, in army were given to
persons of French culture. About 200000 French people crossed the Channel to make their home
in Britain. Immigration was easy, since the Norman kings of Britain were also dukes of
Normandy and about a hundred years later, took possession of the whole western half of France,
thus bringing England into still closer contact with the continent. French monks, merchants,
soldiers, teachers, craftsmen flooded the south-western towns of England seeking for a new field
of activity. This influx lasted for about two centuries. During three hundred years the ruling
language of England was French. It was the language of the administration, the court, the
government, the church, the army. The English language was reduced to lower social sphere: the
main mass of peasantry and townspeople spoke English. The intellectual life, literature,
education were in the hands of French speaking people. French was the language of writing. But
most of the English people were illiterate, continued to speak English and looked upon French as
foreign and hostile. The struggle between two languages for supremacy lasted all through three
centuries as English was the living language of the entire people and French was restricted to
certain social spheres. As a consequence of the Norman Conquest, political and economic power
became concentrated in the hands of a small group of great feudal landlords, feudal aristocracy,
which included the king himself, the landlords among the clergy- the archbishops, bishops, and
the superiors of the more important abbeys.
Three hundred years of the domination of French affected English more than any other
foreign influence before and after. The Norman Conquest put an end to the dominating position
of the West Saxon literary language.
Lecture 7
Formation of English as the Language of the State and Literature. The struggle between
English and French languages. The London Dialect.
The domination of the French language in England came to an end in the course of the
14th c. The victory of English was predetermined and prepared for by previous events and
historical conditions.
Little by little the Normans and English drew together and intermingled. In the 14th c.
Anglo-Norman was a dead language; it appeared as corrupt French to those who had access to
the French of Paris through books, education or direct contacts. The number of people who knew
French had fallen; Anglo-Norman and French literary compositions had lost their audience and
had to be translated into English. Towards the end of the 14th c. the English language had taken
the place of French as the language of literature and administration. English was once more the
dominant speech of all social classes in all regions. It had ousted French since it had always
remained the mother tongue and only spoken language of the bulk of the population.
It may be interesting to mention some facts showing how the transition came about. In
1362 Edward III gave his consent to an act of Parliament ordaining that English should be used
in the law courts, since “French has become much unknown in the realm”. This reform, however,
was not carried out of years to come: French, as well as Latin, continued to be used by lawyers
alongside English until the 16th c. Yet many legal documents which have survived from the late
14th and 15th c. are written in English: wills, municipal acts, petitions. In 1363, for the first time
in history, Parliament was opened by the king’s chancellor with an address in English.
In 1399 King Henry IV used English in his official speech when accepting the throne.
In 1404 English diplomats refused to conduct negotiations with France in French, claiming that
the language was unknown to them. All these events testify to the recognitions of English as the
state language.
Slowly and inevitably English regained supremacy in the field of education. As early as
1349 it was ruled that English should be used at schools in teaching Latin, but it was not until
1385 that the practice became general, and even the universities began to conduct their curricula
in English. By the 15th c. the ability to speak French had come to be regarded as a special
accomplishment, and French, like Latin, was learnt as a foreign language. One might have
expected that the triumph of English would lead to a weakening of the French influence upon
English. In reality, however, the impact of French became more apparent. As seen from the
surviving written texts, French loan-words multiplied at the very time when English became a
medium of general communications. The large-scale influx of French loans can be attributed to
several causes. It is probable that many French words had been in current use for quite a long
time before they were first recorded. We should recall that records in Early ME were scarce and
came mostly from the Northern and Western regions, which were least affected by French
influence. Later ME texts were produced in London and in the neighbouring areas, with a mixed
and largely bilingual population. In numerous translations from French – which became
necessary when the French language was going out of use – many loan-words were employed for
the sake of greater precision, for want of a suitable native equivalent or due to the translator’s
inefficiency. It is also important that in the course of the 14th c. the local dialects were brought
into closer contact; they intermixed and influenced one another: therefore the infiltration of
French borrowings into all the local and social varieties of English progressed more rapidly.
As with other foreign influences, the impact of French is to be found, first and foremost,
in the vocabulary. The layers and the semantic spheres of the French borrowings reflect the
relations between the Norman rulers and the English populations, the dominance of the French
language in literature and the contacts with French culture. The prevalence of French as the
language of writing led to numerous changes in English spelling. The dialects of this Middle
English, the 14th and 15th.c.period of time, were divided into the Southern group, including
Kentish, and the South-Western dialects, the Midland group with its minute subdivisions and the
Northern group. The most important event in the changing linguistic situation was the rise of the
London dialect as the prevalent written form of language.
The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language in Late ME
and also the main source and basis of the Literary Standard, both in its written and spoken forms.
The history of London extends back to the Roman period. Even in OE times London was by far
the biggest town in Britain. The Early ME records made in London – beginning with the
PROCLAMATION of 1258 – show that the dialect of London was fundamentally East Saxon; in
terms of the ME division, it belonged to the South-Western dialect group. Later records indicate
that the speech of London was becoming more mixed, with East Midland features gradually
prevailing over the Southern features. The change of the dialect type and the mixed character of
London English can be explained by the history of the London population. In the 12 th and 13th c.
the inhabitants of London came from the south-western districts. In the middle of the 14th c.
London was practically depopulated during the “Black Death” (1348) and later outbreaks of
bubonic plague. It has been estimated that about one third of the population of Britain died in the
epidemics, the highest proportion of deaths occurring in London. But in 1377 London had
already over 35000 inhabitants.
Most of the new arrivals came from the East Midlands: Norfolk, Suffolk, and other
populous and wealthy counties of Medieval England, although not bordering immediately on the
capital. As a result the speech of Londoners was brought much closer to the East Midland
dialect. The official and literary papers produced in London in the late 14th c. had east Midland
features. The London dialect became more Anglian than Saxon in character .This mixed dialect
of London, which had extended to the two universities in Oxford and Cambridge ousted French
from official spheres and from the sphere of writing.
Lecture № 8
The Evolution of the English vocabulary from Old English till nowadays.
Old English was almost a purely Germanic language. The full extent of O.E. vocabulary
is not known. Modern estimates of the total vocabulary of O.E. range from about thirty thousand
words to almost one hundred thousand. It consisted of native words inherited from ProtoGermanic or formed from native roots and affixes. Native OE words can be subdivided into a
number of etymological layers coming from different historical periods. The three main
historical layers in the native OE words are: 1) common Indo-European words, 2) common
Germanic words, 3) specifically OE words.
1) Words belonging to the common Indo-European layer constitute the oldest part of the
OE vocabulary. They go back to the days of the IE parent language before the extension over the
wide territories of Europe and Asia and before the appearance of the Germanic group. They were
inherited by Proto-Germanic and passed into Germanic languages of various subgroups
including English. Among these names there are names of natural phenomena, plants, animals,
agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship. For example: modor –
mother, fader-father, sunu-son,broder-brother, dohter-daughter; parts of the human body: fot-
foot, heorte-heart, nose, lip, nazl-nail, beard-beard; plants: treow-tree, birch, corn; animals: ealhelk, sawan-sow, swine, cow, goose; heavenly bodies sun, moon, star; time of the day; day, night;
numerous adjectives; neowe-new, long, riht-right, red, glad, sad; the numerals from one to
hundred; verbs: tear, sit, stand, eat, lie, bear, be, know; personal and demonstrative pronouns.
2) The common Germanic words include words which are shared by most Germanic
languages but do not occur outside the group. Common Germanic words originated in the
common period of Germanic history, i. e. in PG when the Teutonic tribes lived close together.
Semantically these words are connected with nature, with the sea, everyday’s life; ; parts of the
human body; head, hand, arm, finger, bone; animals: bear, sheep, fox, calf; plants: oak, fir,
grass; names of natural phenomena; rain, frost,; seasons of the year; winter, spring, summer;
landscape features; sea, land, sand, earth; human dwellings and furniture; house, room, bench;
sea-going vessels: boat, ship; adjectives; green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good;
verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, sing, find, starve, answer, make, give, drink.
3) Specifically OE words - the third etymological layer of native words can be defined as
words which do not occur in other Germanic or non - Germanic languages. These words are few,
stand alone in the vocabulary system of Indo-European languages: OE brid –NE bird, OE
clippian-NE call, boy, girl, lord, lady, man, woman, wife, child, daisy, always, live, meat, sleep
and etc.
Foreign Element in the Old .English vocabulary.
Borrowed words constituted only a small portion of O.E. vocabulary – all in all about six
hundred words- they are of great importance for linguistic study. The borrowings reflect contacts
of English with other tongues. O.E. borrowings came from two sources: Celtic and Latin.
Borrowings from Celtic.
The influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight. Abundant borrowings from Celtic
are found in place-names. The O.E kingdoms Kent, Deira, Bernicia derive their names from the
names of Celtic tribes. The names of York, the Downs have been traced to Celtic sources.
Various Celtic designations of river, water were understood as proper names – Avon-Evan- in
Celtic means water, The Thames, meaning Dark River, The Dover also came from Celtic. Some
elements frequently occurring in Celtic place names can help to identify them: comb- deep
valley in Batcombe, Duncombe. London means the town of the wild one. Many Celtic names
with Celtic elements are hybrids. The Celtic component combined with a Latin or a Germanic
component make a compound place-name; e.g.
Celtic plus Latin: Man -chester, Win-chester, Lan-caster, Glow-cester, Wor-cester. Celtic
plus Germanic: York - shire, Salis - bury, Devon-shire ,Canter-bury.
Outside of place names Celtic borrowings in OE were very few: no more than a dozen. Examples
of common nouns are OE binn (NE bin or crib), OE cradol (NE cradle) , bratt –(NE cloak) ,
loch dial. lake
Latin influence on the Old English Vocabulary. Latin borrowings.
Latin was not the language of a conquered people. It was the language of a higher
civilization; a civilization from which the Anglo-Saxons had much to learn. The contact with that
civilization, at first commercial and military, later religious and intellectual, extended over many
centuries and was constantly renewed. It began long before the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain
and continued throughout the Old English period. Chronologically they can be divided into two
layers:
1)
the oldest layer words taken over either directly from the Romans before the
Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain; 2) The second layer: words concerning religion and the church,
taken over after the introduction of Christianity which began in 597.
The first layer рere belongs, on the one hand, names of objects of material culture, and on
the other hand, names of products bought from Roman merchants, for example: wine from Latin
vinum, butter from Latin butyrum, plum from prunus, cheese from Latin caseus, pipor-pepper
from Latin piper. Roman contribution to building can be perceived in words like O.E. cealkchalk, O.E.coper- NE copper, tile, wall, street. A group of words relating to domestic life is
exemplified by O.E. cytel-kettle, disc-dish, cuppe-cup, pyle -pillow. The second layer consists of
words which directly or indirectly belong to the sphere of religion and church. They are O.E.
biscop -bishop, cleric- churchman-clericus, apostol- apostle- apostolus, devil, monk, candle,
minster, angel, priest. The amount and variety of the borrowings show the extent of
Christianity’s impact on seventh-century Anglo-Saxon society. The linguistic result of the
Scandinavian’s influence was threefold. Many general words entered the language; nearly
1,000 words became a part of Standard English. There are a lot of Scandinavian place names in
England. The most remarkable influence is the forms of the verb “to be” and personal pronouns.
Lecture 9.The Development of the Phonetic structure of English.
Old English is so far removed from Modern English that one may take it for entirely
different language this is largely to the peculiarities of its pronunciation.
The system of vowel phonemes has undergone drastic changes in the course of English
linguistic history. The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of
separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The vocalic system in OE
included 2 subsystems: monophthongs, diphthongs. The major factor in OE was a category of
quantity vowels. It means that all OE vowels, including diphthongs, could be both long and
short. Though the total number of phonemes has practically remained the same, their distinctive
features and the principles of their opposition in the system have altered. The system of OE
vowels consisted of 7 short and long monophthongs and 4 diphthongs.
OLD ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM
Monophthongs
u ful y wynn æ
a
e
i
o
short
man
set
sit
God
joy
long
i:
wid
u: hus y:
a:
e:
o:
æ:
ham
he
Mod.E.wide
good
house
ryman
Mod
E.home
diphthongs
ea earm arm
eo eorl earl
ie
io
ea: eare ear
eo: beor beer
ie:
io:
The new system came with Anglo-Saxon tribes. In most cases these new processes
represent the result of influence of the next sounds and are called the combinatory changes.
Phonetic Changes in OE.
1. OE Fracture of vowels (Breaking)преломление
OE fracture was the earliest phonetic process which took place in the first half of the VI th
century. OE fracture is the diphthongization of short vowels before certain consonant clusters,
namely short vowels were diphthongised before the consonant. Short vowels æ and е were
diphthongised: æ turns into ea before combinations r + consonant, l + consonant, h + consonant,
and before h at the end of a word. The vowel [æ ] >[ ea] underwent fracture. For example: æ >ea
before r+ consonant ærm - earm, , before h + consonant æhta –eahta, before l + consonant
æld-eald, before h at the end of a word sæh-seah.
The vowel e turns into eo before combinations r+consonant, l + velar consonant c and h,
before h at the end of a word. For example: e > eo before r+ consonant herte – heorte –heart ;
[e] > [eo] in OE derc – deorc, NE dark. L+consonant melcan-meolcan-milk ; L+h selh -seolh –
seal; feh –feoh. The phonetic essence of fracture is that the front vowel is partially assimilated to
the following hard consonant by forming a glide, which combines with the vowel to form a
diphthong. Fracture was most consistently carried out in the West Saxon dialect, in other
dialects, such as Mercian, fracture in many cases did not occur. In these dialects the vowel æ ]
>[ a],there were the following variants of words arm, ald, ahta, sah.
2. Palatalization
OE vowels also changed under the influence of the initial palatal consonants: c, g and the
cluster sc. For example: sc > sh O.E scort –sceort –short . k,g’,sk,into sounds closed to
affricates dz..ch,sh. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ]
turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu >
sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed
but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to
conform to the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after
palatal consonants”. It is observed in the Wessex dialect. æ – ea: scæl >sceal>shall ; a > ea
scacan>sceacan. o >eo: scort> ceort; e > ie : зefan>зiefan
3. Contraction – (стяжение.
The vowels contracted into 1 when they were separated by h and h disappeared. For example:
eh+a=eo (sehan – seon); ih+a=eo (tihan- teon); ah+a=ea (slahan – slean). oh+a=o: (fohan – fon)
4 . Mutation or i-Umlaut.
By mutation or i-Umlaut, we mean a change of vowel, sound alteration, caused by partial
assimilation to the following vowel. It is thought to have taken place during the 7th century. Imutation is the most important type of mutation. Some English word pairs had the effects of a
phonological change which took place over 1,200 years ago. They are the following words:
goose-geese; tooth-teeth; man - men; mouse-mice; hale- health; doom-deem; full-fill; wholeheal; fall-fell; blood -bleed; foul-filth; long-length; food-feed; strong – strength; broad-breadth;
old -elder. Not all forms affected by i-mutation have survived into modern English. In Old
English, the plural of book was bec, but this has not come into Modern English as beek, we have
in Modern English books.
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the
succeeding syllable. There were 2 types of mutation: i-Umlaut mutation (palatal mutation) and
Back mutation (guttural)-гортанный.
1) i-Umlaut - under its influence vowel moves ahead or narrowed.
æ > e: sætjan – settan, tælian – tellan; o>e ofstian – efstan, ō >ē dōmian – dēman, u > y
fullian - fyllan , u > y cuþ- cŷþþan. Changes in diphthongs: ea > ie, ea > ie :, eo > ie, eo: > ie:.
2) Back mutation – U-Umlaut it is caused by back vowels (a, o, u). In Wessex dialect it
takes place only before consonants r, l, p, f, m. a>ea saru – searu, i>io hira – hioru, e>eo herot –
heorot. The words which begin with wi – mutation occurred without dependence from the
subsequent consonant: widu – wiodu. U-umlaut was optional (facultative) and i-umlaut was the
main
Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic,
underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they
split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:]
– is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be
interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or
[ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a
back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early
OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with
the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were
reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:]. Towards the end of OE quantitative vowel
changes occurred. Early Middle English is mainly characterized by positional quantitative
changes of monophthongs; at the same time profound independent changes affected the system
of diphthongs: OE diphthongs were monophthongised and lost, and new types of diphthongs
developed from vowels and consonants.
Quantitative Vowel Changes in Late Old English and Early Middle English
Phonetic
Change
Old English
Middle English
Modern English
conditions
illustrated
Before sonorant
Vowels become
cild
child[ t i: ld]
child
plus plosive(ld,
nd, mb)
Before other
consonant
sequences
In open syllables
long
findan
climban
cold
feld
fundon
Vowels become
short
Vowels become
long and more
open
find
climb
cold
field
found(Past of f
goldind)
gold
fedde
mette
finden[fi:nd n]
climben
cold
field[fe:ld]
founden
[fu:nden]
gold[go:ld]
fedde[fedde]
mette[mette]
mete
stelan
macian
talu
nosu
mete[me:t ]
stelen
maken[ma:ken]
tale[ta:le]
nose[no:ze]
meat
steal
make
tale
nose
Fed
met
The OE close labialized vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early Middle English.
Development of Old English Diphthongs in Early Middle English
Change
Examples
Examples
illustrated
Old English
Middle English
OE
ME
(ME)
ea:
e:
East
east[e:st ]
eo:
e:
Deop
deep[de:p]
ea
a
Earm
arm [arm]
eo
e
Heorte
herte[ hert ]
ie
i
Nieht
night[nix;t]
ie:
i:
hieran
heren[he:r n]
Monophthongs
Short
Examples
Pin, bit, kin
Long
Examples
Examples
Modern English
east
deep
arm
heart
night
hear
Middle English Vowels (the Age of Chaucer, Late 14 c.)
Diphthongs
i
u
a
o
e
[ai.] day, [oi] joye- joy
this but can oft
men
[ui] joinen – Mod.E join
[iu] newe
i:
e:
u:
a:
o:
e:
[eu] fewe - Mod.E few
Ryden, sweete, houre, name, good
[au].lawe, [ou] growe
The study of Middle English phonology is made increasingly difficult by the intricate
dialect situation. There were 6 dialects in Middle English: Northern, West Midland, East
Midland, East Anglia, Southern and Kentish. Long vowels were the most changeable and
historically unstable group of English sounds. At all times they displayed a strong tendency to
become narrower and to diphthongize, whereas short vowels displayed a reverse trend towards
greater openness. Late Middle English period is characterized by qualitative changes of all
vowels. These changes are known as the “Great Vowel Shift” which involved the change of all
Middle English long monophthongs, and some of the diphthongs. The Great Vowel Shift is the
name given to a series of changes of long vowels between the 14th and the 18th centuries.
During this period all the long vowels became closer or were diphthongized.
Changes Illustrated
Middle English - Modern
The Great Vowel Shift
Examples
Middle English
Examples
Modern English
i:
e:
ei
o:
u:
au
ai
i:
u:
au
:
a:
time[ti:m]
kepen
maken
moon
mous
cause
time [taim]
keep
make
moon
mouse
cause
The Great Vowel Shift did not add any new sounds to the vowel system of the English
language. The effect of the Great Vowel Shift may be seen very clearly in the English names of
many of the letters of the alphabet. A, B, C and D are pronounced /eɪ, bi, si, di in today's English,
but in contemporary French they are /a, be, se, de/. The French names (which the English names
are derived from) preserve the English vowels from before the Great Vowel Shift. By contrast,
the names of F, L, M, N and S (/ɛf, ɛl, ɛm, ɛn, ɛs/) remain the same in both languages, because
"short" vowels were unaffected by the Shift.
Shortening of long vowels at various stages produced further complications. ea is again a
good example, shortening commonly before coronal consonants such as d and th, thus: dead,
head, threat, wealth etc. (This is known as the bred–bread merger.) oo was shortened from [uː] to
[ʊ] in many cases before k, d and less commonly t, thus book, foot, good etc. Some cases
occurred before the change of [ʊ] to [ʌ]: blood, flood. Similar, yet older shortening occurred for
some instances of ou: country, could. Some theories attach the cause of the shift to the mass
migration to the south-east part of England after the Black Death, where the difference in accents
led to certain groups modifying their speech to allow for a standard pronunciation of vowel
sounds. The different dialects and the rise of a standardised middle class in London led to
changes in pronunciation, which continued to spread out from the city. The sudden social
mobility after the Black Death may have caused the shift, with people from lower levels in
society moving to higher levels. Another explanation highlights the language of the ruling class:
the medieval aristocracy had spoken French, but, by the early fifteenth century, they were using
English. Because English spelling was becoming standardised in the 15th and 16th centuries, the
Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling.
The OE consonant system consisted of the following sounds:
Place of articulation
Labial,
Forelingual
Mediolingual Back lingual
labiodental
(dental)
(palatal)
(velar)
Manner of articulation
Noise
plosive
p
p:
t
t:
k’
k’:
k
k:
consonants
b
b:
d
d:
g’:
g
g:
fricative
f
f:
s s:
x’
x’:
x
x: (h)
v
z
Sonorants
m
m:
n
n:
j
( )
w
r
l
The OE consonants were subdivided into Labial [p, b ,m, f, v], Dental [t, d. n, s, z,r, l ],
Velar[c, h, ] Sonorants [m, n, l], Plosives [p, b, t, d, k, g]
Some consonants letters denoted different sounds in different positions. Letter C in OE
for instance denoted two different phonemes, according to its different environment. In some
words it denoted the phoneme [k], which remained [k] in Middle English and Modern English as
well. For example,OE caru –cearu - care; cyning –king. In other cases it denoted the phoneme [c]
or even [ ] which appears as [ ] denoted by the digraph ch in Modern English.
The letter f denoted both the voiceless [f] and the voiced [v]. Both consonants were
dependent on the environment: voiced [v] could only appear on voiced environment. For
example: afre[ever], fif [fife] in Modern English five. The same holds true concerning the
pairs[s]and [z].
Lecture 10. The Evolution of the English Grammar from Old English till nowadays. The
parts of Speech. The Noun
Old English was a synthetic or inflected type of language; it showed the relations
between words mainly with the help of simple grammatical forms. The distinguished parts of
speech in OE were the following: the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the
adverb, the preposition, the conjunction and the interjection. Inflected parts of speech possessed
certain grammatical categories. Grammatical categories were subdivided into nominal
categories, found in nominal parts of parts of speech and verbal categories found chiefly in the
finite verb.
There were five nominal grammatical categories in OE: number, case, gender, degrees of
comparison and the category of definiteness/ indefiniteness. Each part of speech had its own
peculiarities.
The OE noun had two grammatical categories: number and case. Nouns distinguished
three genders, but gender was not a grammatical category; it was merely a classifying feature
accounting for the division of nouns into morphological classes. The category of number
consisted of two members: singular and plural There were five major cases: nominative,
genitive, dative, accusative, and instrumental. The nominative case indicated the subject of the
sentence. It was also used for direct address or could serve as a predicative. The accusative
indicated the direct object of the sentence. It was never distinguished in the plural, or in a neuter
noun. The genitive case indicated possession. The meanings of the Genitive case were very
complex and can only be grouped under the headings “Subjective” and “Objective” Genitive.
Subjective Genitive is associated with the possessive meaning and the meaning of origin.
Objective Genitive is associated with what is termed “partitive meaning” .The dative case
indicated the indirect object of the sentence. It was the chief case used with prepositions, e.g. on
morзenne ‘in the morning’. The instrumental case indicated an instrument used to achieve
something. During the Old English period, the instrumental was falling out of use, having largely
merged with the dative. Only pronouns and strong adjectives retained separate forms for the
instrumental.
Morphological classification of nouns. Declensions. Historically, the OE system of
declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the
phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in the final syllables. Stem-suffixes could
consist of vowels (vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, i- stems), of consonants (consonantal stems, e.g.
n-stems), of sound sequences, e.g. -ja-stems, -nd-stems. Some groups of nouns had no stemforming suffix or had a “zero-suffix”; they are usually termed “root-stems” and are grouped
together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants, e.g. OE man, bōc. OE nouns
distinguished three genders: Masc., Fem. and Neut. Sometimes a derivational suffix referred a
noun to a certain gender and placed it into a certain semantic group, e.g. abstract nouns built with
the help of the suffix –þu were Fem. – OE lenзþu, hyhpu(NE length, height),suffix - ere were
Masc. – OE fiscere, bocere(NE fisher, “learned man”). The following nouns denoting human
beings show, however, that grammatical gender did not necessarily correspond to sex: alongside
Masculine and Feminine nouns denoting males and females there nouns with “unjustified”
gender, for example: OE wif,neutral gender(NE wife)OE maзden Neutral gender(NE maiden,
maid) OE wifman, wimman Masculine (NE woman, originally a compound word consisting of
two roots whose second component OE man was Mascular + with. OE widuwa, Masculine
(‘widower’) –OE widowe, Feminine (NE widow). Masculine and neuter words generally share
their endings. Feminine words have their own subset of endings. The plural does not distinguish
between genders. The division into genders was in a certain way connected with the division into
stems, though there was no direct correspondence between them: some stems were represented
by nouns of one particular gender, e.g. ō-stems were always Fem., and others embraced nouns of
two or three genders. Other reasons accounting for the division into declensions were structural
and phonetic: monosyllabic nouns had certain peculiarities as compared to polysyllabic;
monosyllables with a long root-syllable differed in some forms from nouns with a short syllable.
The majority of OE nouns belonged to the a-stems, ō-stems and n-stems.
Old English nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have their own
endings. In general, weak nouns are easier than strong nouns, since they had begun to lose their
declensional system. Strong (a,o,i,u –stem). A-stem and its variation ja&wa – m,n. O-stem –
jo&wo –f noun. I-stem – m,f,n. U-stem – m,f. j,w –appeare before inflexion. Weak decl – n –
m,f,n. es –n. room-stem (Root-stem formed some cases not by an inflexional ending, but by the
chance of the root vowel due to mutation)-no form suffixes. Sound of donation inner flexion.
Mutation was used to define number and gender of noun. Primary compound (both parts in Nom.
case) adj+noun. Secondary comp.noun (the 2-nd part in Gen Case.)=noun+noun, verb+noun.
Middle English period. English Noun had no gender at that period of time. 2 groups exist
in ME in plural form. The one is the former a-declension and n-declension, which of former
feminine noun (weak declension). The root-declension had lost some words, but it continued to
exist. The noun in Middle English period had two cases: the Common and Possessive. The weak
declension had no case forms at all. Noun was rejected into reduction of their flexion. All vowels
endings –e-. OE a-stem, became the productive type. Grammatical gender was lost and
difference between Weak and Strong declension disappeared. (-n)/: -s- became for Pl all nouns
(for G). Some nouns retain Pl with o-inflexions. For root-stem nouns their mutated forms were
used only in Pl. Weak decl. –n- express the Pl.
The rise of the articles in English Causes: 1.loss of strong & weak declensions of
adjectives - articles were employed to show definiteness & indefiniteness.
2.word order: It is a book. The book is interesting. Definite articles -> mascul, singular "se"
Indefinite article -> an (= one)(numeral). It had 5 case declension -> in. Middle English cases
were lost, 13th century an > oon/one -> a/an
Lecture 11.The evolution of the adjective from Old English till nowadays
There were five nominal grammatical categories in OE: number, case, gender, degrees of
comparison, and the category of definiteness/indefiniteness. The noun had only two grammatical
categories proper: number and case. The adjective had the maximum number of categories –
five. The number of members in the same grammatical categories in different parts of speech did
not necessarily coincide: thus the noun had four cases, Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and
Accusative, whereas the adjective had five (the same four cases plus the Instrumental case).
The adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent
grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with
the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a predicative. Like nouns, adjectives had three
genders and two numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in
addition to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instrumental. It was used when the
adjective served as an attribute to noun in the Dative case expressing an instrumental meaning –
e.g.: lytle werede ‘with (the help of) a small troop’.
Most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and to the
strong declension. The formal differences between the declensions, as well as their origin, were
similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and weak declensions arose due to the use of
several stem-forming suffixes in PG: vocalic a-, ō-, u- and i- and consonantal n-. Accordingly,
there developed sets of endings of the strong declension mainly coinciding with the endings of astems of nouns for adjectives in the Masc. and Neut. and of ō-stems – in the Fem.
The difference between the strong and the weak declension of adjective was not only
formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adjective did not belong to a certain type of
declension. Most adjectives could be declined on both ways. The choice of the declension was
determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of
comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used
predicatively and when used attributively without any determiners, e.g.: pā menn sindon
ōde
‘the men are good’ mid hnescre beddin e ‘with soft bedding’
The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative
pronoun or the Gen. case pronouns.There existed a certain semantic contrast between the strong
and weak forms: the strong forms were associated with the meaning of indefiniteness (roughly
corresponding to the meaning of the modern indefinite article), the weak forms – with the
meaning of “definiteness” (corresponding to the meaning of the definite article). Therefore the
weak forms were regularly used together with demonstrative pronouns.
Like adjective in other languages, most OE adjectives distinguished between three
degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means used to form
the comparative and the superlative from the positive were the suffixes –ra and –est/ost.
Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel. The root-vowel
interchanges in long, eald,
go back to different sources. The variation [а~æ] is a
purely phonetic phenomenon; retraction of [æ] before the back vowel in the suffix –ost is not
peculiar to the adjective. The interchange in long and eald is of an entirely different nature: the
narrowed or fronted root-vowel is regularly employed as a marker of the comparative and the
superlative degrees, together with the suffixes. The mutation of the root-vowel was caused by iumlaut in Early OE. At that stage the suffixes were either –ira, -ist or –ora, -ost. In the forms
with –i- the root vowel was fronted and/or made narrower; later –i- was lost or weakened to –e- but the mutated root-vowel survived as an additional formal marker of the comparative and
superlative degrees.Some adjectives had parallel sets of forms: with and without a vowel
interchange. These sets could arise if the adjective had originally employed both kinds of
suffixes; or else the non-mutated vowel was restored on the analogy of the positive degree and
other adjectives without sound interchanges.
The adjective ōd had suppletive forms. Suppletion was a very old way of building the
degrees of comparison (it can be illustrated by the forms of adjectives in other IE languages: G
gut, besser, bester R хороший, лучше.
In the course of the Middle English period the adjective underwent greater simplifying
changes than any other part of speech. It lost all its grammatical categories with the exception of
the degrees of comparison. By the end of the OE period the agreement of the adjective with the
noun had become looser and in the course of Early Middle English it was practically lost. The
decay of the grammatical categories of the adjective proceeded in the following order. The first
category to disappear was gender, which ceased to be distinguished by the adjective in the 11th c.
In ME the degrees of comparison could be built in the same way, only the suffixes had been
weakened to –er, -est and sound interchange of the root vowel was less common than before.
Since most adjectives with sound alternation had parallel forms without it, the forms with an
interchange soon fell into disuse. For example, ME long, lenger, longest and long, longer,
longest. The alternation of root-vowels in Early Modern English survived in the adjective old,
elder, eldest, where the difference in meaning from older, oldest made the formal distinction
essential. Other traces of the old alternation are found in the pairs farther and further and also in
the modern words nigh, near and next, which go back to the old degrees of comparison of the OE
adjective neah ‘near’, but have split into separate words. The most important innovation in the
adjective system in the Middle English period was the growth of analytical forms of the degree
of comparison. The new system of comparisons emerged in Middle English, but the ground for it
had already been prepared by the use of the OE adverbs ma, bet, betst, swipor – ‘more’, ‘better’,
‘to a greater degree’ with adjectives and participles. It is noteworthy that in ME , when the
phrases with ME more and most became more and more common, they were used with all kinds
of adjective, regardless of the number of syllables and were even preferred with mono- and
disyllabic words. Double comparatives were banned as illogical and incorrect in the 18th c. It
appears that n the course of history the adjective has lost all the dependent grammatical
categories but has preserved the only specifically adjectival category – the comparison. The
adjective is the only nominal part of speech which makes use of the new, analytical, way of
form-building
The adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent
grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with
the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a predicative. Adjectives had three genders and
two numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the
four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adjective served as an
attribute to a noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning.
Adjectives can be declined either strong/weak.
Historically adjective is a younger class of words as compared to noun & it has borrowed
many inflections from nouns & pronouns. Declensions (unlike nouns adjectives could be
declined both ways):1. strong A-stem, O-stem, when adjective was used attributively without
any determined (articles, demonstrative & possessive pronouns) when used predicatively 2.
weak N-stem, when an adjective was preceded by demonstrative pronoun or genitive case. Some
adjectives were declined always strong.
The endings of adjectives showed agreement between noun and adjective. There were a
lot of anonymous forms -> inflections were lost & adjective became an unchangeable part of
speech. Gender- first category to disappear (11th century) Cases: 1.instrumental case fell
together with dative (end of OE)
2. all other cases disappeared by the end of 13th
century
The difference between the strong and weak declension of adjectives was not only formal
but also semantic. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the
syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun
determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used
attributively without any determiners. The weak form was employed when the adjective was
preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns.
Degrees of comparison Most OE adjectives distinguished between three degrees of
comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means used to form the
comparative and the superlative from the positive were the suffixes –ra and –est/-ost. Sometimes
suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel.
Lecture 12. The evolution of the pronoun
Pronouns in OE were subdivided into following categories: personal (Modern English I, you),
demonstrative (this, that), interrogative (who, which), possessive (my, his), indefinite (one,
some), negative (no+body).
OE pronoun fell under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative,
interrogative and indefinite. As for the other groups - relative, reflexive – they were not fully
developed and were not always distinctly separated from the four main classes. The grammatical
categories of the pronouns were either similar to those of nouns (in “noun-pronouns”) or
corresponded to those of adjectives (in “adjective pronouns”).
Personal pronouns
Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved most of the inflectional
complexity of Old English and Middle English. OE personal pronouns had three persons, three
numbers in the 1st and 2nd person (two numbers- in the 3rd) and three genders in the 3rd person.
Declension of Personal pronouns
First person
Case
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Singular
ic
min
me
mec, me
Dual
wit
uncer
unc
uncit
Plural
we
ūre, ūser
us
usic, us
Second person
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
pu
pin
pe
pec, pe
it
incer
inc
incit, inc
e
eower
eow
eowic, eow
Third person
Singular
M
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
he
his
him
hine
Plural
F
heo, hio
hire, hiere
hire, hiere
hie, hi, hy
N
hit
his
him
hit
All genders
hie, hi, hy, heo
hira, heora, hiera, hyra
him, heom
hie, hi, hy, heo
Demonstrative Pronouns
There were two demonstrative pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE that, which
distinguished three genders in the sg and had one form for all the genders in the pl. (see next
table) and the prototype of this with the same subdivisions: pes Masc., peos Fem., pis Neut. and
pas pl. They were declined like adjectives according to a five-case system: Nom., Gen., Dat.,
Acc., and Instr. (the latter having a special form only in the Masc. and Neut. sg).
Declension of se, seo, pæt
Case
Singular
Plural
M
N
F
All genders
Nom.
se, se
pæt
seo
pa
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Instr.
pæs
pæm, pam
pone
py, pon
pæs
pæm, pam
pæt
py, pon
pære
pære
pa
pære
para, pæra
pam, pæm
pa
pæm, pam
Interrogative pronouns
Interrogative pronouns - hwa, Masc. and Fem., and hwat, Neut., - had a four case
paradigm ( NE who, what). The instrumental case of hwat was used as a separate interrogative
word hwy ( NE why ). Some interrogative pronouns were used as adjective pronouns, e.g. hwelc,
hwæper.
Indefinite pronouns were a numerous class embracing several simple pronouns and a
large number of compounds: an and its derivative æniz (NE one, any); nan, made up of an and
the negative particle ne ( NE none); nanpinz, made up of preceding and the noun ping (NE
nothing); nawiht/nowiht/noht (‘nothing’ , NE not), hwæt – hwuzu ‘something’ and many others.
Pronouns of different classes – personal and demonstrative – could be used in a relative
function, as connectives. The demonstrative se in its various from and the personal pronoun he,
either alone or together with a special relative particle pe could join attributive clauses, e.g.:
Se pe me zehælde se cwæð to me ‘he who healed me, he said to me’.
The development of grammatical categories in pronouns in Middle English period
In Early Middle English period the OE Feminine pronoun of the third person singular
heo was replaced by she. The new Feminine pronoun, Late Middle English she was first
recorded in the North Eastern regions and gradually extended to other areas. In the course of
Middle English period another important lexical replacement took place: the OE pronoun of the
3rd person plural hie was replaced by the Scandinavian loan – word they. Like the pronoun she, it
came from the North-eastern areas and was adopted by the mixed London dialect. They ousted
the Nom. Case, OE hie, while them and their (coming from the same Scand. loan) replaced the
oblique case forms: OE hem and heora.
One more replacement was made in the set of personal pronouns at a later date – in the
th
17 or 18th c. Beginning with the 15th c. the plural forms of the 2nd person –ye, you, your – were
applied more and more generally to individuals. The forms thou, thee, thine became obsolete,
thou can be found only in poetry, in religious discourse.
The OE genitive case of pronouns turned into a new class of pronouns- possessive. Some
possessive pronouns had two variant forms in ME: myne/my, our/ours.
The OE oblique case – forms of personal pronouns and the ME possessive pronouns gave
rise to one more type of pronouns- reflexive. Reflexive pronouns developed from combination of
some forms of personal pronouns with the adjective self. Their origins are obvious from their
modern structures: e.g. myself, ourselves consist of the Genitive case or possessive pronoun and
the component self; himself, themselves contain the Objective case of personal pronouns as their
first components.
Demonstrative pronouns were adjective – pronouns; like other adjectives, in OE they
agreed with the noun in case, number and gender and had a well-developed morphological
paradigm. In Early Middle English the OE demonstrative pronouns se, seo, pat and pes, peos, pis
– lost most of their inflected forms; out of seventeen forms only two left. The ME descendants of
these pronouns are that and this, the former Nom. and Acc. Cases, Neutral Singular, which
served now as the sg of all cases and genders. Each pronoun has respective plural form, which
made up a balanced paradigm of forms opposed through number.
Sg this
Pl thise /these (NE this --- these)
that
tho/those
(NE that --- those)
Other Classes of Pronouns
(Interrogative, Indefinite, Relative)
The other classes of OE pronouns – interrogative and indefinite – were subjected to the
same simplifying changes as all nominal parts of speech. The paradigm of the OE interrogative
pronoun hwu was reduced to two forms – who, Nom. case, and whom, the Obj. case. The
Genitive case of OE hwa, hwat – hwas- developed into a separate interrogative pronoun,
similarly with the Genitive Case of personal pronouns --- Me and NE whose. OE hwi, the former
Instrumental Case of the same pronouns continued to be used as a separate pronoun why.
OE hwelc, ME which widened its application. It began to be used with relation not only to
persons but also to things. OE hw per, ME whether was used as an interrogative pronoun in the
meaning which of the two, but later was mainly used as a conjunction.
Most Indefinite pronouns of the OE period simplified their morphological structure and
some pronouns fell out of use. The indefinite pronoun ān lost its inflection and in the 13th c. its
reduced forms an/a were firmly established in all regions. In Modern English this form of the
indefinite pronoun is used as the indefinite article. OE nan-pin became nothing. New types of
compound indefinite pronouns came into use – with the component – thing, - body, -one, etc.
Lecture 13. The evolution of the English verb
The OE verb
The OE verb was characterized by many peculiar features. Though the verb had few
grammatical categories, its paradigm had a very complicated structure. Verbs fell into numerous
morphological classes. All the forms of the verb were synthetic. Analytical forms appeared later.
The non-finite firms had little in common with the finite forms.
Grammatical categories of the Finite Verb in OE
The verb-predicate agreed with the subject of the sentence in two grammatical
categories: number and person. Its specifically verbal categories were mood and tense. Finite
forms regularly distinguished between two numbers: singular and plural. The category of Person
was made up of three forms: the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd person. The category of Mood was
constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. The category of Tense in OE consisted
of two categorical forms: Present and Past. The use of Subj. forms conveyed a very general
meaning of unreality or supposition. In addition to its use in conditional sentences and other
volitional, conjectural and hypothetical contexts Subjunctive Mood was common in other types
of construction: in clauses of time, clauses of result and in clauses presenting reported speech.
The meanings of the tense forms were also very general, as compared with later ages and with
present-day English. The forms of the Present tense were used to indicate present and future
actions. The Past tense was used in a most general sense to indicate various events in the past.
There were no categories of Aspect and Voice. In OE the category of Aspect was expressed by
the regular contrast of verbs with and without the prefix зe-; verbs with the prefix had a
perfective meaning while the same verbs without the prefix indicated a non-completed action,
e.g. feohtan – зefeohtan ‘fight’ – ‘gain by fighting’. it has been shown that the prefix зe- in OE
can hardly be regarded as a marker of aspect, it could change the aspective meaning of the verb
by making it perfective, but it could also change its lexical meaning, e.g. beran – зeberan ‘carry’
– ‘bear a child’. It follows that the prefix зe- should rather be regarded as an element of wordbuilding, a derivational prefix of general meaning. It is important to note that in OE texts there
were also other means of expressing aspective meanings: the Past or Present Participle. The
phrases with Participle I were used to describe a prolonged state or action, the phrases with
Participle II indicated a state resulting from a previous, completed action. The passive meaning
was frequently indicated with the help of Participle II of transitive verbs used as predicatives
with the verbs beōn(NE ‘be’) and weorðan ‘become’.
Grammatical categories of the Verbals
In OE there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. The
Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories. Being a verbal noun by origin, it had a sort of
reduced case-system: two forms which roughly corresponded to the Nom. and the Dat. cases of
nouns – beran – uninflected Infinitive (“Nom.” case) tō berenne or tō beranne – inflected
Infinitive (“Dat.” case) Like the Dat. case of nouns the inflected Infinitive with the preposition tō
could be used to indicate the direction or purpose of an action. The uninflected Infinitive was
used in verb phrases with modal verbs or other verbs of incomplete predication.
The Participle was a kind of verbal adjective which was characterized not only by
nominal but also by certain verbal features. Participle I (Present Participle) was opposed to
Participle II (Past Participle) through voice and tense distinctions: it was active and expressed
present or simultaneous processes and qualities, while Participle II expressed states and qualities
resulting from past action and was contrasted to Participle I as passive to active, if the verb was
transitive. Participle II of intransitive verbs had an active meaning; it indicated a past action and
was opposed to Participle I only through tense. Participles were employed predicatively and
attributively like adjectives and shared their grammatical categories: they were declined as weak
and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case.
Gerund appears in the 17th century. OE verbal noun with suffix —ung, -ing and Participle1
overlapped; verbal noun later turned into Gerund and could 1) take direct object (for example:
buying the book) - verbal feature; 2) be preceded by article or possessive pronoun – nominal
feature. The gerund can be traced to three sources: the OE verbal noun in -uns and -ins, the
Present Participle and the Infinitive. In OE the verbal noun derived from transitive verbs took an
object in the Genitive case, which corresponded to the direct object of the finite verb. The
syntactic functions of the verbal noun, the infinitive and the participle partly overlapped.
This verbal feature — a direct object as well as the frequent absence of article before the -ingform functioning, as a noun — transformed the verbal noun into a Gerund in the modern
understanding of the term. The nominal features, retained from the verbal noun, were its
syntactic functions and the ability to be modified by a possessive pronoun or a noun in the
Genitive case.
OE Strong verbs
The majority of OE verbs fell into two great divisions: the strong verbs and the weak
verbs. Besides these two main groups there were a few verbs which could be put together as
“minor” groups. The main difference between the strong and weak verbs lay in the means of
forming the principal parts, or “stems” of the verb. The strong verbs formed their stems by
means of ablaut and by adding certain suffixes; in some verbs ablaut was accompanied by
consonant interchanges. The strong verbs had seven classes and four stems, as they distinguished
two stems in the Past Tense – one for the 1st and 3rd person, singular Indicative Mood, the other
– for the other Past tense forms, Indicative and Subj. The weak verbs derived their Past tense
stem and the stem of Participle II from the Present tense stem with the help of the dental suffix d- or -t-; normally they did not interchange their root vowel, but in some verbs suffixation was
accompanied by a vowel interchange. Minor groups of verbs differed from the weak and strong
verbs. Some of them combined certain features of the strong and weak verbs in a peculiar way
(“preterite-present” verbs); others were suppletive or altogether anomalous.
Strong Verbs The strong verbs in OE are usually divided into seven classes. Classes
from 1 to 6 use vowel gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series modified in different
phonetic conditions in accordance with PG and Early OE sound changes. Class 7 includes
reduplicating verbs, which originally built their past forms by means of repeating the rootmorpheme; this doubled root gave rise to a specific kind of root-vowel interchange, e.g.. maitan
–maimait –maimatum –maitans(‘chop’).
Strong verbs indicated tense by a change in the quality of a vowel. OE had about 300
strong verbs. The 1 class – i class; the 2 class--u-class. The 3, 4 classes - the gradation was
caused by consonant (breaking), 6- qualitative-quantitative ablaut; 7 class –reduplication of the
root-morpheme. The principal forms of all strong verbs have the same endings irrespective of
class: -an for the Infinitive, no ending in the Past singular stem, -on in the form of Past plural, en for Participle II, e.g. writan –wrat – writon - writen.
OE Weak verbs
The number of weak verbs in OE by far exceeded that of strong verbs. Weak verbs form
their Past and Participle2 by addition of a dental suffix (d/t) –love, loved. Weak verbs form the
majority of Old English verbs. There are three major classes of weak verbs in Old English. The
first class displays i-mutation in the root. The verbs of Class I usually were i-stems, originally
contained the element [-i/-j] between the root and the endings. The verbs of Class II were built
with the help of the stem-suffix -ō, or -ōj and are known as ō-stems. Class III was made up of a
few survivals of the PG third and fourth classes of weak verbs, mostly -ǽj-stems.
Each weak verb is characterized by 3 basic forms: Infinitive, Past and a Participle II.
The 1st class of weak verbs is formed either from noun, or from other verbs. In regular
verbs the root vowel in all forms subjected to mutation under the influence -i in suffix. The
verbs with long root vowels -i disappears irrespective of which consonant stood before it, e.g.
dēman-dēmde-dēmed – (Mod.English deem).
There are 11 irregular verbs in the 1st class. Their irregularity consist that they have
suffix only in the 1-st form - the infinitive and present tense, and it means, that umlaut was only
in 1-st form, that is the 1st form distinguished from the second and the third by quality of the
root vowel. (tellan, tealde, teald-to tell).
The 2nd class –o-class. This o –is preserved before the dental suffix in Past and
Participle2. The 2nd class has - oja -in the infinitive and –o- in Past. The vowel is not
mutated(locian - locoed – locod - Mod.English –look).
The 3rd class contained few verbs: habban-hæfde-hæfd (have), libban-lifde-lifd (live),
secзan-sæзde/sæde-sæзd/ (say). The dental suffix is joined immediately to the root. In the
present there was –j-, but the 2nd and 3rd person singular show no trace of –j-.
OE minor groups of verbs
Among the verbs of the minor groups there were several anomalous verbs with irregular
forms. Two OE verbs were suppletive зan, whose Past tense was built зan-eode - зe зan( Modern
English go). The other OE suppletive verb (beon, wesan –root be, es,wes, Mod.English be) is a
verb which creates different grammatical categories by means of root vowel(be,es,wes). The
most important group of these verbs was 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.
Among the verbs of the minor grours there were several anomalous verbs with irregular
forms. OE willan was an irregular verb with the meaning of volition and desire; it resembled 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, зe-bun like a strong verb.
The evolution of analytical forms.
In OE there were no analytical forms; they appeared in ME in all Germanic languages and
consisted of two elements; 1) a verb of broad semantics (to be, to have) and high frequency; 2)
non-finite forms (Inf., Participle I/II). They are Perfect, Passive. Future, Cont, Do-forms.
The rise of Perfect forms
1.habbant (transitive verb)/ beon (intransitive verb) +Participle II
beon in ME ceased to be used, so as not to confuse Perfect with Passive.
2. In ME also Infinitive and Participle acquired Perfect forms.
The rise of Passive forms
In OE the finite verb had no category of Voice. The analytical Passive forms developed from OE
verb phrases consisting from OE verb beon(NE be) and weorÞan(‘become’) and Participle II of
transitive verbs
1. beon/ weorÞ (died out in ME) +PII of transitive verbs. The Pass. Inf., consisting of beon plus
Part. II, is found in OE texts. In Middle English period weorÞan was replaced by numerous new
link-verbs which had developed from notional verbs. In ME bēon –ben + Past Participle
developed into analytical form. 2. Passive constructions were often used with prepositions: of,
from, mid, with, by. Two were selected by/with to show the doer of the action and the
instrument.
The rise of the Future forms
1. Analytical
Future Tense forms developed from OE verbs Sculan/willan"+inf.
2.In 13-14 cent. — Future Tense forms became very common "willan/scullan were completely
interchangeable.
3.In 17 th cent. John Wales established a rule - 'shall" – first person, will" - 2/3 person
4.present day tendency “will” is used with all persons
The rise of the Continuous Forms
OE "beon" +PI - denoted a quality of a lasting state of the subject. In Early ME this form fell
into disuse. In the 15 th cent. there were two forms to show continuous aspect (be+PI/ be
+preposition "on"). In the 18cent. Cont. forms were well established. 19th cent - Cont. forms
appear in Passive*, before this time such forms were considered clumsy.
The rise of the do-forms1. do-forms (do-periphrasis) appeared in Past and Present in Indicative
Mood. 2. do-forms were used in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences and freely
interchanged with simple forms, without do (16-17 cent) ( for example: Did you hear this/ Heard
you this? don't know/ I know not; I do like ice cream/ I like ice-cream)3. 17 cent, do-forms were
found only in negative and interrogative sentences.
The evolution of Participle and Infinitive
Participle I had an active meaning and expressed a process or quality simultaneous with the
events described by the predicate of the sentence. Participle II had an active or passive meaning
depending on the transitivity of the verb, and expressed a preceding action or its results in the
subsequent situation.
Participle I coincided with the verbal noun, which was formed in OE with the help of the
suffixes -ung and -ing, but had preserved only one suffix, -ing, in ME. (The fusion of the
Participle with the verbal noun was an important factor of the growth of a new verbal, the
Gerund, and played a certain role in the development of the Continuous forms.
Participle 2. In ME the weak verbs built Participle II with the help of the dental suffix -(e)d, -t,
the strong verbs — with the help of vowel gradation and the suffix -en. Strong verbs -4 grades(1the form of the inf, 2-Preterit Sg, 3-Pret. Pl, 4-Partic2)
Weak verbs -3 grades (1-inf, 2-Pret, 3-P2).
Participle I - suffix -ende (ex. OE berende, ME bering. NE bearing) Participle II - suffix en{strong verbs), and -t,-d according to the type of verb (weak verbs) and commonly marked by
prefix -3e. in OE: active voice (ex. segan) and passive voice (ex.seboren). In OE Participle I
and Participle II were used predicatively and attributively (like adj.) and agreed with noun in
number, Gender, case. Participle I and Participle II lost number, Gender, case in ME.
Infinitive. loss of dative case (ME) (ex. OE Nomin.: writan, Dative: to writanne; ME: to written,
NE: to write, ("to” is a formal sign). The preposition to, which was placed In OE to show
direction or purpose, lost Its prepositional force and changed into a formal sign of the Infinitive.
In ME the Infinitive with to does not necessarily express purpose. In order to reinforce the
meaning of purpose another preposition was used for.
The evolution of Strong verbs
The seven classes of OE strong verbs underwent multiple grammatical and phonetic changes. In
ME the final syllables of the stems were weakened, in Early NE most of them were lost.
1.The OE endings •an, -on, and -en (of the 1st, 3rd and 4th principal forms) were all reduced to
ME -en; consequently in Classes 6 and 7, where the infinitive and the participle had the same
gradation vowel, these forms fell together. In Classes 1 and 3 it led to the coincidence of the 3rd
and 4th principal forms. 2. There were phonetic changes in root of verbs. The major factor is
lengthening of root the vowel: in the 4 and 5 class because the syllable is opened, also in the 3
class - where after n goes d – (findan-> fiindan). The 4 and 5 class in ME began to merge in
favour of the 4-th class.
Early NE. Formation of a paradigm from 3 forms comes to the end. The 1st class - has the form
of Past Singular in all verbs, except bite. The 2nd class has the form of plural. In the 3d class it
is differently, basically the form of plural find-found-found, but ring-rang-rung. The 4 and 5
class has vowel of Participle II, and these classes completely coincide. In 6 and 7 class singular
and plural of Past Tense were identical.
2) presence/absence of the suffix of Participle II
The unaccented inflection of infinitive was lost already in the ME, and Participle II in ME was:
Зe-treden, зe-writen, зe-funden.
As a result, Early NE has the form without prefix. Remains: speak-spoken, find-found, but ringrung. The 3d class has rejected a prefix and the form of Past and Participle II coincided, as well
as at weak verbs. Participle II has no suffix. There were kept some distinction in the 5th class:
British English get/forget - got/forgot, American English gotten/forgotten.
One of the most important events in the history of the strong verbs was their transition into weak.
In ME and Early NE many strong verbs began to form their Past and Participle II with the help
of the dental suffix instead of vowel gradation. Therefore the number of strong verbs decreased.
In OE there were about three hundred strong verbs. Some of them dropped out of use owing to
changes in the vocabulary, while most of the remaining verbs became weak. Out of 195 OE
strong verbs, preserved in the language, only 67 retained strong forms with root-vowel
interchanges. The changes in the formation of principal parts of strong verbs extended over a
long period — from the 12th to'18th c.
The evolution of weak verb.
ME verbs of Class I took the ending -de in the past without an intermediate vowel before the
dental suffix — and the ending -ed in the Past Participle.
Several groups of modern non-standard verbs have developed from the weak verbs of Class I. (1)
Verbs like OE sellan and tacan had an interchange in the root caused by palatal mutation in the
Present tense stem and its absence in the other stems (Past tense salde/sealde, tahte.) In ME and
NE they preserved the root-vowel interchange, though some of the vowels were altered due to
regular quantitative and qualitative vowel changes: ME sellen — solde ME I'so:ld]> NE sold
[sould]), techen — taughte; NE sell — sold, teach — taught.
(2) Another group of weak verbs became irregular in Early ME as a result of quantitative vowel
changes. In verbs like OE cepan, fedan, metan the long vowel in the root was shortened before
two consonants in the Past and Participle II; OE cepte> ME kepte ['kepta]. The long vowel in the
Present tense stem was preserved and was altered during the Great Vowel Shift, hence the
interchange[ i : ~ e ] , NE keep — kept, feed — fed.
(3) Verbs like OE settan, with the root ending in a dental consonant, added the dental suffix
without the intervening vowel [e ] — OE sette.
When the inflections were reduced and dropped, the three stems of the verbs — Present, Past and
Participle II fell together: NE set —set — set;
Class 2 formed a basis of the future irregular verbs. The verbs of Class 2, which were marked by
-ode, -od in OE, had weakened these endings to -ede, -ed in ME. In Late ME the vowel [e] in
unstressed medial and final syllables became very unstable and was lost. This change eliminated
the differences between the two classes and also the distinctions between the 2nd and 3rd
principal forms.
3. All borrowings (unique loan word take from Scandinavian remains in the 6 class,). Class 3
was destroyed. We have 2 classes by the end of this process:
1. Regular (on the basis of weak) or “standard” verbs;
2. Irregular or non-standard verbs: 1) all remained strong verbs 2) weak verbs of the 1st class
irregular 3) weak verbs of the 1st class with devocalization in the end 4) 2 remained verbs of the
3d class - have, say. The number of non-standard verbs in Modern English is not large, about
200 verbs. They constitute an important feature of the language. Most of them belong to the
basic layer of the vocabulary. They preserved the distinction between three stems in all English
verbs.
The evolution of anomalous verbs
Several preterite-present verbs died out. The surviving verbs lost some of their old forms and
grammatical distinctions but retained many specific peculiarities. They lost the forms of the
verbals which had sprung up in OE and the distinctions between the forms of number and mood
in the Present tense. In NE their paradigms have been reduced to two forms or even to one.
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.
OE зan has had a most unusual history. In OE its Past form was built from a different root and
had a weak ending: eode; its Part. II ended in -n, similarly with strong verbs (ie)^dn. In ME the
verb acquired a new Past tense wente, which came from an entirely different verb, OE wendan
(ME wenden, NE wend). Its OE Past form wente had entered the paradigm of goon (NE go,
went), while wend acquired a new past form wended. Thus the verb go remained a suppletive
verb, though its OE Past was replaced by a new form (this is a rare instance of suppletion
appearing at a relatively recent period of history).
The evolution of word-formation.
Ways of formation - word formation fell into two types: word derivation and word composition.
Word Derivation
Suffixation has always been the most productive way of deriving new words, most of the OE
productive suffixes have survived, and many new suffixes have been added from internal and
external sources.
The development of prefixation was uneven: in ME many OE prefixes fell into disuse; after a
temporary decline in the 15th and 16th c. the use of prefixes grew again; like suffixes, Early NE
prefixes could come from foreign sources.
The Early NE period witnessed the growth of a new, specifically English way of word derivation
— conversion (also known as "functional change"), which has developed into a productive way
of creating new words.
Sound interchanges
In OE they served as a supplementary means of word differentiation and were mostly used
together with suffixes. In ME and Early NE sound interchanges continued to be used as an
accompanying feature together with other derivational means. The role of sound interchanges
has grown due to the weakening and loss of many suffixes and grammatical endings.
Word Stress
The role of stress in word-building has grown in ME and Early NE in consequence of the same
changes namely the weakening and loss of final syllables.
Prefixation
During the ME period prefixes were used in derivation less frequently than before. OE prefixes
were productive means of forming verbs from other verbs. The simple and derived verb were
synonymous. Consequently the prefix could be easily dispensed with. Instead of the OE pairs of
synonyms, differing in the prefix, ME retained only the simple verb. Native Prefixes - Many OE
verb prefixes dropped out of use, e.g. a-, to-, on-. The negative prefixes mis- and un- produced a
great number of new words. OE un- was mainly used with nouns and adjectives, seldom with
verbs; New formations in ME are unable, unknowen, in Early NE — unhook, unload and others;
Borrowed Prefixes- In Late ME, and in Early NE new prefixes began to be employed in word
derivation in English: French, Latin, and Greek. com- and sub-. French and Latin. Between the
years 1200 and 1500 English borrowed many French words with the prefix re-, e.g.: ME redressen, re-formen. Re- was separated, as an element of the word.
The verb prefixes de- and dis- of Romance origin (French and Latin) entered the English
language in many loan-words, e.g.: ME destructive, discomforten.
Suffixation
Suffixation has remained the most productive way of word derivation through all historical
periods. Though some of the OE suffixes were practically dead, many new suffixes developed
from native and foreign sources. Native suffixes - suffixes:)Several OE suffixes of agent nouns end (friend), -ere(fiscere) were lost as means of derivation; in ME -end, -en, -estre occur as
inseparable parts of the stem.
The old suffixes of abstract nouns -ap, -op, -p, had long been dead in ME. The suffix -ness was
equally productive in all historical periods. It was mainly used with adjectival stems, irrespective
of their origin: ME derkness, NE narrowness, (native stems); ME cleerness, NE politeness
(borrowed stems). New suffixes derived from noun root morphemes - A new suffix -man,
developed from a root-morpheme in ME. Borrowed Suffixes - borrowed suffixes entered the
English language with the two biggest waves of loan-words: French loans in ME and classical
loans in Early NE. French loan-words with the suffix –able (agreeable). In Late ME the suffix able began to be used in adjective derivation — at first with Romance stems —admittable. The
French suffix -ess produced many derivatives in ME, as it had replaced the native -estre; e.g.:
ME authoress. The suffix -or (from Fr) resembled the native suffix –er.
Lecture 14. The evolution of syntax.
OE
The syntax of Old English was much more flexible than modern English because of the
declensions of the nouns. The case endings told the function of the word in the sentence, so word
order was not very important. But as the stress began to move to the first syllable of words, the
endings were not pronounced as clearly and began to diminish from the language. So in modern
English, word order is very important because we no longer have declensions to show case
distinctions. Instead we use prepositions. The general word order was subject - verb - object,
but it did vary in a few instances:1. When an object is a pronoun, it often precedes the verb. 2.
When a sentence begins with an adverb, the subject often follows the verb. 3. The verb often
comes at the end of a subordinate clause.
ME
Syntax was stricter and more prepositions were used. New compound tenses were used, such as
the perfect tenses, and there was more use of the progressive and passive voice. The use of
double negation also increased as did impersonal constructions. The use of the verbs will and
shall for the future tense was first used too. Formerly, will meant want and shall meant obliged
to.
The most obvious difference between OE syntax and the syntax of the ME and NE periods is
that the word order became more strict and the use of prepositions more extensive.
In ME is used the direct word order. But in the sentences which began with adjunct
(обстоятельственное) word, it was indirect word order. The synthetical word order gradually
disappears. The word order in ME is not so fixed, as in NE, but has important meaning. Then a
direct word order becomes obligatory. The indirect word order begins to be used in questions.
The auxiliary word do is entered, which was fixed in questions and negations.
Sentences.
In OE is distinguished part of the sentence, as in the modern language: the main and minor
clause.
In ME The word order from a rhetorical category becomes syntactic. A subject is absolutely
obligatory member of the sentence. If it is absent there is a formal subject. The model with a
formal subject “there” is traced already in OE.
In Early NE the simple sentence develops basically on a way of ordering of all rules connected
with an arrangement of all members, questions and negation.
The evolution of Gerund
Gerund appears in the 12th century. OE verbal noun(отглагольное сущ)with suffix —ung, -ing
and P1 overlapped(частично совпад); verbal noun later turned into Gerund and could 1) take
direct object (ex. buying the book) - verbal feature; 2) preceded by article or possessive pronoun
– nominal(именной)feature.
The gerund can be traced to three
sources: the OE verbal noun in -uns and -ins, the Present Participle and the Infinitive. In OE the
verbal noun derived from transitive verbs took an object in the Gen. case, which corresponded to
the direct object of the finite(личных) verb. The syntactic functions of the verbal noun, the
infinitive and the participle partly overlapped.
This verbal feature — a direct object as well as the frequent absence of article before the -ingform functioning, as a noun — transformed the verbal noun into a Gerund in the modern
understanding of the term. The nominal features, retained from the verbal noun, were its
syntactic functions and the ability to be modified by a possessive pronoun or a noun in the Gen.
case.