031202.65 «Перевод и переводоведение».

Программу составили:

Максимова Т.Д., канд. филол. наук, профессор

Программа одобрена на заседании кафедры английского языка

Протокол № 1 от 29 августа 2011 г.

Зав. кафедрой англ. яз. проф. Трунова О.В.

Секретарь заседаний кафедры Базаленко Е.О.

Лист изменений к рабочей программе учебной дисциплины «История языка и введение в спецфилологию»

Год	Содержание изменений	№ протокола заседания кафедры, дата	ФИО / подпись преподавателя	ФИО / подпись зав. кафедрой
2012	изменения в списке литературы	протокол №1, 30 августа 2012	Максимова Т.Д	Трунова О.В

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение

высшего профессионального образования

«Алтайская государственная педагогическая академия»

Кафедра

Английского языка

Учебно-методический комплекс дисциплины

История языка и введение в спецфилологию

ТЕЗИСЫ И КОНСПЕКТЫ ЛЕКЦИЙ

Специальность

031202 .65 «Перевод и переводоведение»

(код) (наименование)

Барнаул

2012

LECTURE 1

EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE AND SCOPE OF LANGUAGE HISTORY

– The purpose of the subject of History of English is a systematic study of the language’s development from the earliest times to the present day.

– A study of the phonetic, grammar and lexical evolution of the language enables a man to understand the general trends in the development of English,

• A number of peculiarities which appear unintelligible from the modern point of view are found in the vocabulary, phonetic changes and grammatical structure of the language.

• Role of linguistic changes.

– History of the English language is closely connected with other disciplines

– The causes of the language changes can be of two kinds: external and internal

– Different Approaches to language Development: synchronic and diachronic

– Historic and linguistic conditions for the formation of the English language. Classification of Indo-European languages. The place of Germanic languages among them. Three groups of Germanic languages. English as a representative of the West Germanic group.

LECTURE 2

PHONETIC PECULIARITIES OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

– The Germanic languages in the course of their development acquired some specific properties which differentiated them as a brunch from the rest of Indo-European languages. These properties might have resulted either from the tendencies inherent (internal causes) or that was the influence of contacting languages belonging to non-Indo-European languages (external causes).

– Stress. In ancient IE the stress was free and movable. but in Late PG the stress became fixed on the first syllable, which was usually the root of the word.

– Consonants. They are similar to those of other I-E l-ges. But sometimes they differ. Grimm’s law expresses regular correspondences between consonants of Germanic and those of other I-E l-ges.

– E x c e p t i o n s: clusters of two voiceless fricatives were avoided in Germanic languages.

Verner’s law: voicing of fricatives when preceded by an unstressed vowel.

– The Second Consonant Shift: regular correspondences between the consonants in Common Germanic languages (first of all English) and High German dialects (dialects of Southern Germany).

Vowels. Two types of Ablaut: qualitative and qualitative.

Grammar. The main characteristics of Germanic and OE grammar: the synthectical types, form-building means, morphology and syntax.

LECTURE 3

ORIGIN OF THE OLD ENGLISH LANGUAGE, PERIODISATION AND PHONETIC CHANGES IN OLD ENGLISH

The history of the English l-ge is closely connected with the history of the nation.

Events of external history in the OE period.

Periodisation. Criteria of periodisation. The 3 periods: Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and New English and their main characteristics.

The connection of the chronological division with the linguistic situation: phonetic and morphological aspects.

Old English written records. Old English alphabet and pronunciation.

Phonetic structure of Old English.

Phonetic changes in stressed vowels: OE Breaking, Mutation, Palatalization, Lengthening. Changes in Old English consonant phonemes: voicing and devoicing of fricatives, Palatalization, Gemination, Metathesis, syncopation, simplification

LECTURE 4

THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NOUN, ADJECTIVE AND PRONOUN

The OE language was a synthetic language which means that all the principal grammatical notions were expressed by a change of the word. The grammatical means that the English language used were primarily a) suffixation, b) vowel gradation and use of suppletive forms.

The description of grammatical categories of the OE Noun: Gender, Number, Case.

The morphological structure of a noun: a Proto-Germanic consisted of 3 elements and an OE Noun had a two-part structure.

The role of stem-suffixes and the division of nouns into 3 groups of declension: vowel (strong), consonantal (weak) and root declension.

Old English pronouns. 4 main classes of pronouns were observed on OE: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. Other groups – relative, possessive, reflexive – were not fully developed yet

Personal pronouns OE personal pronouns had the grammatical categories of gender (M,N,F), number(sg., pl. and duel) and case ( 5 cases). Unlike nouns the homonymy in pronouns was not great.

Demonstrative pronouns There were 2 types of demonstrative pronouns in OE: þis – the prototypes of NE this and þæt – the prototype of NE that. They distinguished 3 genders in the singular and one form for all genders in the plural.

The pronoun þis had a clear demonstrative meaning. In the pronoun þæt the demonstrative meaning was considerably weakened. As the lexical meaning was weakened the grammatical meaning acquired a larger force and eventually the pronoun þæt developed into the definite article.

OE Adjectives. They had 3 genders and two numbers, and like pronouns they had 5 cases.

There were 2 ways of declining Adjectives: the definite (weak) declension and the indefinite(strong)declension.

The adjective took the indefinite forms if they had no determiners and when used predicatively. The definite forms were used with adjectives modified by determiners and in degrees of comparison.

Adjectives had 3 degrees of comparison (positive, comparative, superlative) made up synthetically: by means of suffixation, by means of vowel gradation as the result of palatal mutation, by means of suppletive forms

LECTURE 5

THE VERB SYSTEM IN OLD ENGLISH

Old English Verb Categories

The OE verb was characterized by 4 grammatical categories: Number –singular and plural, Person –made up of 3 forms, Mood – the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive with singular and plural forms in all of them, Tense–comprising the Present and Past (in the Indicative as well as in the Subjunctive).

Morphological Characteristics of OE Verbs. The majority of verbs in Germanic languages including OE fell into 3 groups according to the way they built their principal forms (stems), that is Inf.; Past sg.; Past pl.; Part. 2. These groups are: strong verbs, weak verbs and minor groups: suppletive, anomalous, preterite-present verbs. As the language distinguished the category of person, the verbs were conjugated.

Strong verbs

Strong verbs had 4 stems which were formed by means of vowel gradation (vowel interchange, grammatical ablaut) in the stems and by adding certain suffixes characteristic of each stem:

The suffix -an was used for the Inf., no ending for the Past sg., -on for the Past pl., -en for Part.2.

Strong verbs are usually divided into 7 classes, differing in the root vowel.

The vowel gradation was of 2 kinds: qualitative and quantitative. In some verbs vowel gradation was accompanied by consonant interchange

Old English weak verbs

OE weak verbs are relatively younger than the strong verbs. They reflect a later stage in the development of Germanic languages. They were an open class in OE, as new verbs that entered the language generally formed their forms on analogy with weak verbs. That is why the number of weak verbs in OE is much more than that of strong verbs.

Weak verbs had 3 principal forms: the Inf., the Past tense and Part 2. They formed their Past and Part2 by means of the dental suffix -d or -t. (but not vowel interchange as in strong verbs)

All the weak verbs are subdivided into 3 classes. The difference between them lies in 1) the ending of the Inf.; 2) the sonority of the suffix and 3) the sounds preceding the suffix.

The verbs of Class I are traditionally divided into 2 groups: regular and irregular verbs. In regular verbs the root vowel was mutated in all the 3 principal forms. The sign of irregularity of the weak verbs in OE was mutation only in the 1-st principal form (the Inf).

The verbs of Class II originally had the suffix oj(oi) and are known as ō-stems .

Class III verbs were made up of a few survivals of the PG æj(ai)-stems. In OE this suffix is no longer found. The suffix of the Past T. and Part2 is joined on to the root.

LECTURE 6

MINOR GROUPS OF VERBS IN OLD ENGLISH

– Suppletive verbs: bēon, wesan; ʒān. Suppletive verbs are verbs whose paradigm is made up of several roots. In other words suppletive verbs build up different forms from different roots.

Supplition is one of the oldest means of form-building. All IE languages have suppletive verbs.

– Anomalous verbs: willan, dōn būan. Anomalous verbs are verbs with irregular forms: They have some individual peculiarities. .

Willan with the meaning of volition, desire resembles the preterite-present verbs in meaning and function as it indicates an attitude to an action and it was often followed by an Inf. The form of the Past T. wolde is similar to the Past T scolde of the prêt.-pres. verb sculan. Eventually, on analogy with prêt.-pres. verbs it developed into a modal verb and later together with scullan – into an auxiliary verb.

The verb dōn combined the features of weak and strong verbs.

Like weak verbs it formed its Past tense with the help of a dental suffix (d) and had a vowel interchange (ō–y) and -n in Part 2 which is characteristic of strong verbs.

Peterite-Present verbs. In OE there were 12 preterite-present verbs. These verbs have a peculiar formation of basic stems and forms. Their Present Tense corresponds to the Past of strong verbs while their Past is derived from the Past weak verbs.

In the Pre-Old Germanic languages there used to be 3 aspects: the continuous, momentaneous & resultative.

The Continuous aspect presents actions as developing in time, without reference to any completion.

The Momentaneous aspect presents the action as heading towards complition.

The Resultative aspect presents the action as completed and having brought about a new stage of things

The Preterite-Present verbs originated from the so-called resultative aspect.

Preterite-present verbs signify the present result of a past action. Most of the preterite-present verbs did not indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb in the Infinitive. In other words, they were used like modal verbs, and 6 of them eventually developed into modern modal verbs: NE ought, dare, shall, can, may, must

LECTURE 7

THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD. OUTER HISTORY

1. The dates and the main characteristics of the Middle period.

2. The Scandinavian Invasion. The division of the country into 2 parts: the south-western part remained English under the rule of King Alfred and the north-eastern part was to be Scandinavian

3. The influence of the Scandinavian invasion on the language: word-stock, phonetics, grammar.

4. The relative ease of the mutual penetration was conditioned by several factors:

1) there existed no political or social barriers between Scandinavians and the English as the Scandinavians did not form the ruling class and lived on an equal footing with the English;

2. there were no cultural berries. They had approximately the same habits, customs: due to their common origin both of the nations were Germanic;

3. both languages developed form the same source – Common Germanic, the word-stock of both the languages and the grammatical systems were similar in essence.

– Norman Conquest. In 1066 King Edward the Confessor died, and the Norman Duke William invaded England. Iin the battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 he managed to defeat King Harold and proclaimed himself King of England.The Norman Conquest had far-reaching consequences for the English people and the English language.

• The Norman Conquest had its advantages. 1.It united England to Western Europe opening the gates to European culture and institutions, theology, philosophy and science. 2. The Normans created a strong medieval monarchy which was gradually to complete the unification of England. 3. The 13^th century witnessed the appearance of the first Parliament, or a council of barons, which later was changed to a National Parliament.

– The Norman conquerors, though German by origin, were French by their language, habits and customs. They were a people and a class that stood aloof from the conquered English. For more than 2 centuries the English country was ruled by English speaking kings and nobility and the French language was the state language of the country.

• Eventually after a prolonged struggle the English language got ascendance over French and again became the state language of the country. The language spoken and written by the English continued to develop in accordance with tendencies already active before the conquest.

– The English language emerged after the struggle, but it came in a different position. Its vocabulary was enriched by French words and its grammatical structure underwent l changes

LECTURE 8

SPELLING IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of words in Late ME resemble their modern forms though the pronunciation of the words is different. In the course of ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling: some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress, others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and diagraphs. Reasons and ways of spelling changes: a)the influence of the French scribal tradition Replacement of runic letters þ, ð and other OE letters æ, ӡ The use of letters j, k, v and q in imitation of French manuscripts The two-fold use of g and c. – The tendency of a wider use of diagraphs sh, dӡe, ck, gh . Some replacements were made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: the letter o was employed for short u when u stood close to n, m, v, for they were all made of vertical strokes and were difficult to distinguish in handwritten texts Sometimes y was put at the end of a word for purely ornamental reasons, so as to finish the word with a curve, e LECTURE 9 PHONETIC CHANGES IN MIDDLE ENGLISH Changes in unstressed vowels. – The important change in ME is called neutralization of unstressed vowels, as well as weakening, leveling, reduction. The tendency became especially strong in ME in respect of unstressed vowels in final syllables. In OE there were 5 short vowels in an unstressed position. In ME they were reduced to mostly e > [ǝ] and sometimes i[i]. Later this neutral vowel was lost. The weakening of unstressed vowels also affected morphology: the system of declension and conjugation. Changes in stressed vowels 1. Rising of new phonemes. It took place in XII-XIIIc. – In Early ME the long OE ā was narrowed to ǭ. This was an early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer. This tendency was intensified in late ME when all long vowels changed in that direction. 2. Monophthongization All OE diphthongs were monophthonzised in ME. OE long e̅a changed into long open ę̄ which was often spelt as ea. OE long e̅o changed into long close ẹ̄ which was often spelt as ee. OE long i̅o & i̅e yielded long ī OE short io & ie yielded i & e . OE short ea > a OE short eo > e 3. Growth of new diphthongs As all OE diphthongs were monophthongised and lost, new diphthongs developed from vowels in combinations with consonants. The palatal fricative ʒ [j] & [ɣ] are vocalized. In the combination with the preceding vowel they yield diphthongs of a new type: diphthongs ending in i [i] and ending in w [u]. 4. Lengthening The neutralization of unstressed vowels, which made the vowels shorter in their pronunciation, destroyed the rhythm and led to the lengthening of short stressed vowels. There appeared a new tendency: a short vowel in an open stressed syllable was lengthened. 5.Shortening. Lengthening in ME was parallel to shortening. a) A cluster of two or more consonants made the preceding vowel short: b) A long vowel was also shortened before one consonant but in three-syllable words. – Evolution of consonants in Middle English. English consonants were on the whole more stable than vowels. A large number of consonants have remained unchanged though all the historical periods. The most important development in OE consonants during the ME period were the growth of new sets of sounds, i.e. the affricates [ʧ, ʤ] and sibilants [ʃ, ʒ]; the new phonological treatment of fricatives. Both changes added a number of consonant phonemes to the system. On the other hand, some consonants were lost (k’) or vocalized (ɣ,j), which affected both the consonant and the vowel system. So the phonetic changes in ME displayed a few tendencies: Long vowels tended to become narrower and diphthongised. Short vowels tended to greater openness. Qualitative and quantitative changes were intertwined. In Early OE the prevalent type of vowel changes mainly affected the quality of vowels. In ME the quantitative changes took the upper hand. LECTURE 10 PHONETIC CHANGES IN NEW ENGLISH Vowels Unstressed vowels The distinguishing mark of NE is that the neutral sound [ǝ] is dropped. When the ending e survived only in spelling, it was understood as a means showing the length of the vowel in the preceding syllable. Sometimes it was added even to the words where the length was already indicated by another device Stressed vowels Qualitative changes. 1. The Great Vowel Shift. Early NE witnesses the greatest event in the history of English vowels – the Great Vowel Shift. This name is given to a series of changes of long vowels between the 14,15 – 18 centuries. During this period all the long stressed vowels became closer (more front) or diphthongized. These changes can be defined as independent as they were not caused by any phonetic conditions in the syllable or in the word. 2. The second important process which had a profound effect on the vowel system was vocalization of r. This accounts for the appearance of many new long monophthongs and new diphthongs. The combination of the vowels with a vocalized r gave rise to a) the new long monophthongs [ɜ: a: o:] and b) the new diphthongs [ɛǝ, iǝ] 3. Formation of new short phonemes. Only 2 short vowels out of five underwent certain alterations: a > æ, u > ^ Quantitative changes in NE reflect in shortening and lengthening of vowels. 1. Shortening of long vowels. There are two stages of shortening. 1) The first shortening took place in the 16c. and subjected 2 long vowels: [ę̄] and [u:] which became short before the dental [θ] & [ð] and also before [n] & [v]. 2) The second shortening took place in the 18th c. and affected the long vowel [u:] which became short before [k] and sometimes before [t]. 2. Lengthening of short vowels. Lengthening took place in the short vowel [a] before the consonants ss, ft, nt. Consonants The most important developments in ME were the growth of new sets affricates and sibilants and the new phonological treatment of fricatives – Vocalization and loss of consonants This process affected a few consonants : x’, x,& r. 1. Loss of [x ]before [t] .The palatal fricative [x’] before [t] is lost, and the preceding vowel is lengthened. 2.. Loss of [x] after [u] In ME the velar consonant [x] causes the appearance of the glide [u] after the vowel, which is regularly shown in spelling. 3. Vocalization of r. Vocalization of r accounts for the appearance of many new long monophthongs and new diphthongs.The sonorant [r] began to produce a certain influence upon the preceding vowels in late ME. [r] made the preceding vowel more open and retracted. Vocalization of [r] had a profound affect on the vowel system: there developed a new set of diphthongs and also triphthongs there developed a new central long monophthong [ǝ:]; the long [a:] filled a vacant position in the system; the new [o:] merged with [o:] resulting from the contraction of ME [au] > [o:] – Voicing In early NE all the allophones of the fricatives became independent phonemes. Voicing of fricatives took place in unaccented positions. Structural words were unstressed, that’s why voicing affected articles, pronouns, auxiliaries, prepositions. Since notional words are logically accented, the voiceless pronunciation of fricatives is preserved (theatre, theme) – Growth of sibilants and affricates This process is connected with the phonetic assimilation of lexical borrowings. The clusters sj, zj, tj, dj through the reciprocal assimilation in unstressed position regularly changed into [ʃ , ʒ, ʧ ,ʤ]. The final syllables became unstressed, the vowels were reduced and sometimes dropped; the sounds merging with the final syllable became less distinct. As a result some sequences of consonants fused into single consonant phonemes.

LECTURE 11

NOUNS IN MIDDLE AND NEW ENGLISH

– The grammatical category of GENDER was lost in Early ME.

– The category of case and number were presented in a modified shape.In Modern English the number of CASES was reduces from 4 to 2.

– In 1680 the apostrophe came into use in writing to denote the Gen.sg and in 1780– the Gen. pl.

– The Common case acquired a very general meaning, which was made more specific by the context, prepositions, the meaning of the verb predicate, the word order.

In ME the system of DECLENSION became more regular and uniform. Homonymous forms in the OE noun paradigms caused neutralization of the grammatical opposition; similar endings employed in different declensions disrupted the grouping of nouns into morphological classes. The noun declensions tended to be re-arranged on the bases of gender.

– There were different dialectal variations but on the whole the Masc. & Neuter nouns of all vowel stems (strong declension) began to take the inflections after the a-stems of the Masc. gender, while the Fem. nouns of all declensions passed over to the weak declension and began to take ‘en’ in the pl.

Later the majority of nouns took the endings of OE Masc. a-stems: (e)s in the Gen. sg. and (e)s in the plural irrespective of case.

A small group of nouns, former root-stems, employed a root-vowel interchange to distinguish the forms of number.

– The grammatical category of NUMBER proved to be the most stable of all the nominal categories. Two numbers have been preserved through all the historical periods.

In Late ME the ending ‘-es’ was the prevalent marker of nouns in the pl.

In the XVc. only few nouns take the suffix –en in the plural: children, eyen, horsen, housen,oxen

The plural ending –es underwent several phonetic changes: the voicing of fricatives and the loss of unstressed vowels in final syllables.

The OE suffix -an for the pl. (which was used for n-stem nouns) changed in accordance with the general tendencies for the reduction of unstressed vowels into -en. It was widely spread in southern dialects – Kentish and south-west, where it spread even to some nouns which refferred to other stems.Later -en in all dialects was substituted by -es

The ME pl. ending ‘-en’ lost its former productivity and is found nowadays only in ‘oxen’, ‘children’ & ‘brothren’, (poetic) ‘kine’ (cow). In OE the words ‘children’ and ‘brothren’ belonged to the es–stems with ‘-ru’ in the plural.

The small group of OE nouns with homonymous forms of the sg. & pl. has been reduced to 3 ‘exceptions’ in Modern English: ‘deer’, ‘sheep’, ‘swine’.

In the course of time most nouns of this group gradually passed on the main type formation of plural forms with the help of –(e)s. This happened with the words ӡe̅ar, Þinӡ

The group former root-stems has survived as exceptions : man-men, tooth-teeth, goose-geese and the like.

The nouns wife-wives, wolf-wolves and the like have retained consonant interchange.

LECTURE 12

THE VERB IN MIDDLE ENGLISH AND NEW ENGLISH

– There were two tendencies in the development of the verb in M& NE: it underwent considerable simplifying changes, which affected the synthetic forms and it became far more complicated owing to the growth of new analytical forms and new grammatical categories.

The decay of OE inflections, which transformed the nominal system, also affected the conjugation of the verb. Many markers of the grammatical forms of the verb were reduced and lost in ME & Early NE. It resulted in the increased growth of homonymy.

– The NUMBER distinctions were not only preserved but became more consistent and regular. The differences in the forms of PERSON were still in use, though they became less variable. The OE ending of the 3d p.sg. merged into a single ending (e)th which later was displaced by –es.

The ending –(e)st of the 2d p.sg. became obsolete together with the pronoun thou. The replacement of thou by you/ye eliminated the distinction of person in the verb paradigm (with the exception of the 3d p.sg. in the Pr. Tense).

– There were also changes in the morphological classes of verb. The OE division into classes of weak and strong verbs was completely rearranged and broken up.

STRONG VERBS

In strong verbs the seven classes of the OE verbs underwent grammatical and phonetic changes. In ME the final syllables of the stem like all final syllables, were weakened. In NE most of them were lost. The OE endings –an,–on, –en were all reduced to –en in ME. In the following period the final –n was lost, but sometimes it was preserved in Part.2, probably to distinguish the Participle from other forms.

Due to phonetic changes vowel gradation in Early ME was considerably modified. The phonetic changes made the interchange less consistent.

The most important change in the system strong verbs was the reduction in the number of stems from 4 to 3, by merging of the two past tense forms Since the 15^th c. a single stem was used for all the forms of the Past Tense.

One of the most important events in the history of strong verbs was their transition into the group of weak verbs. In ME & Early NE many strong verbs began to form their Past and Part.2 with the help of the dental suffix instead of the vowel gradation. Therefore the number strong verbs decreased.

WEAK VERBS

The evolution of the weak verbs in ME and Early NE reveals a strong tendency towards greater regularity and consitency. There took place some rearrangements between the classes and the number of classes. The number of classes was reduced to 2.

ME verbs of Cl.1 took the ending -de for the past, and -ed for Part.2.

OE verbs of Cl. 2 were marked by -ede for the Past and -ed for Part.2 This class was constituted by OE verbs ending in -ode,-od in the Past &Part.2 which weakened in ME into -ede, -ed.

OE verbs of Cl.3 they either joined other classes of weak verbs e.g. OE libban > ME Cl.1 or became irregular e.g. OE habban > ME haven.

The number of main stems was also reduced in ME because in Late ME the vowel [e] in unstressed medial or final syllables became very unstable and was lost. This change led to the elimination of distinctions between the 2^nd and 3d principal forms which reduced the number of stems in weak verbs from 3 to 2.

The dental suffix –d/t proved to be very productive in all historical periods. Practically all borrowed verbs and all the newly-formed verbs in ME & NE built their Past T and Part2 on the model of weak verbs.

MINOR GROUPS OF VERBS

They underwent multiple changes in ME and Early NE. Phonetic changes affected their forms, and semantic changes affected their functions.

Several preterite-present verbs died out. The surviving verbs lost some of their old forms and grammatical distinctions but retained many specific peculiarities. In NE their paradigms have been reduced to two forms or even one. (can – 2 gr. forms, must – 1 gr. form).

There remained 11 preterite-pres. verbs in ME, and 6 (or 7) in NE: can, may, must, ought, dare, shall which also gave rise to the verb should.

The OE anomalous verb willan, though not a prêt.-pres. verb by origin, acquired many features typical of this group. In ME it was commonly used as a modal verb expressing volition. In the cause of time it formed a system with shall, as both verbs shall and will (and also should and would) became weakened in their lexical meanings and changed into auxiliaries.

SUPPLETIVE VERBS

The two ME verbs ben and gon preserved the system inherited from OE. The verb ben owes its variety of forms not only to suppletion but also to the dialectal divergence in OE. The OE verb ӡān remained a suppletive verb, though its OE Past (eolde) was replaced by a new form wente which came from an entirely different verb – OR verb wendan.

ANOMALOUS VERBS

The forms of the anomalous OE verbs dōn underwent changes due to the general tendencies of the ME & NE periods. The OE anomalous verb willan acquired many features typical of a prêt.-pres verbs.

LECTURE 13

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERBAL CATEGORIES IN MIDDLE AND NEW ENGLISH

In the course of history the verb system was enriched by the development of analytical forms and new grammatical categories.

All the analytical forms are new forms. All the synthetic forms are direct descendants of OE forms. Analytical verb forms have developed from free groups of words where each word had its own grammatical and lexical meaning.

Formation of the category of ASPECT

In OE there existed pairs of verbs in which one of them could have the prefix ӡe- or ā- Very often they showed a completed action. But they cannot be treated as prefixes forming up a grammatical category of perfective aspect. The use of the prefixes as means of expressing aspect distinctions did not become more systematic in passing from OE to ME either. Gradually they fell into disuse and only the context could show whether the action was completed or not.

The Modern English Aspect based on the opposition of continuous and non-continuous forms (is writing : writes) takes root in Middle English.

The continuous form as a means of expressing the continuous aspect goes back to the OE free phrase b e¯on/wesan + Part. 1 (form). Another OE phrase that might have been a source of the continuous form beon/wesan + verbal noun (idea)

So the first pattern(the participle construction) expressed the idea of STATE and the second one (the prepositional construction) – the idea of PROCESS.

In the 15^th & 16^th с. the participle construction was often confused with a synonymous prepositional phrase. By that time Part 1 was built with the help of –ing. The uneven development of the Continuous forms gave rise to numerous theories about their origin.

Only in the 18^th c. the Continuous forms acquired a specific meaning of their own and made up a new grammatical category – the category of ASPECT

The category of time correlation. The origin of perfect forms

The perfect form which in Mod.E is claimed to express the category of ‘Time Correlation’ (‘Temporal Relation’) originates from the phrase habban + dir. obj. + past Part.

In OE the verb habban sometimes had a direct object followed by the Past Participle of a transitive verb. The Past Part., having the function of a predicative adjective, agreed in gender, number and case with the direct object.

Originally this formation habban + dir. object + Part2 meant that the subject possessed a thing having a certain feature that resulted from an accomplished action.

Very often the primary meaning of the verb ‘habban’ was weakened and the whole phrase practically expressed an action completed before a given time.

During the OE period the verb ‘habban’ loses its lexical meaning and by the ME period turns into an auxiliary one. The Past Part., in its turn, loses its forms of agreement with the object and syntactically becomes connected with the verb ‘habban’. Thus the whole phrase develops into an analytical form.

The Perfect forms of intransitive verbs originally had the verb b e¯on/wesan as its first component [be¯on / wesan + dir. obj. + Part.2(intr. v.)]; the phrase expressed a state which the subject acquired as a result of its own action. That was most frequent with verbs of motion.

In the beginning the main function of the Perf. forms was to indicate a completed action, ‘perfectivity’, rather than ‘priority’. Towards the age of Shakespeare, the contrast between the Perf. and non-Perf. forms became more obvious.

The Category of Tense

It is believed that Germanic languages originally had more tenses, but gradually they lost them except for these two: the present and past. The lost synthetic tense forms were gradually replaced by new analytical formations.

One of these formations arose from OE free phrase denoting future actions: sculan/willan + Inf.

The meaning of futurity is combined with the strong meaning of volition, obligation. Later their original meanings are weakened to such a degree that these phrases denote the idea of futurity.

The development of the future form belongs to the ME period when the verbs ‘willen’ and ‘shal’ gradually lost their primary lexical meanings of volition and necessity and became auxiliaries. The whole formation became the principal means of indicating future actions in any context.

The rule of the use of ‘shall’ or ‘will’ depending on the person was first formulated by John Wallis in 1655 and taught at schools as obligatory in 18^th and 19^th c. Nowadays it has become a mark of British E. In Am. E ‘will’ has completely ousted ‘shall’

The Category of Mood

In OE the moods fell into 3 divisions: the Indicative, the Imperative and the Subjunctive.

The Ind .M. was used to state actions as real. The Imper. M. was used to denote commands and requests. The Subj. M. showed that the action was considered by the speaker as possible, desirable, doubtful or conditional. It was widely used insubordinate clauses. The Subj. M. was also used in Inderect speech, including Inderect questions.

In ME, as in OE, the Subj. M. was quite frequent in subordinate clauses. It was used to express different shades of doubt, wishes, supposition, etc. In subordinate clauses of unreal condition the Past Subj. was used to express an unreal condition referring to the present. The Past Perf. Subj. was used to express an unreal condition referring to the past. In principal clauses the construction wolde + Inf (Perf. or non-Perf.) was used.

In the NE period the analytical forms of the Oblique Moods gradually gained ground while the synthetic forms of the old Subj. fell into disuse. After the 17^th c. the Cond M. expressed by the analytical form should/would + Inf displaced the synthetic forms of the Subj. M. in the principal clauses in complex sentences with subordinate clauses of unreal condition.

The Origin of the Passive Voice

In OE there existed the free phrase b e¯on / weorþan + Past Part. (tr. verb)

The verbs be¯on and weorþan are link verbs. The Past part. with the link verb forms a compound nominal predicate. In the first phrase the subject possesses a quality, the result of the action performed on it. In the second case the subject acquires a certain characteristics expressed by the Past Part. Later on this semantic difference between the two phrases disappeared and they both came to have a passive meaning.

In ME weorþan came into disuse. The verb be¯on gradually turns into a pure auxiliary verb and together with the Past Part. merge an analytical form of the verb denoting not only state but an action performed upon the subject of the sentence.

So in ME the Passive forms were regularly contrasted to the active forms both formally and semantically. The verb had acquired a new grammatical category – the category of Voice.

In NE the Passive Voice continued to grow. New types of passive constructions whose subject corresponded to indirect and prepositional object appeared.

LECTURE 14

SYNTAX IN MIDDLE AND NEW ENGLISH

The decay of the inflectional system was accompanied by the growth of the functional load of the syntactical means of word connection. The most obvious difference between the 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. The structure of the sentence and the word phrase, on the one hand, became more complicated, on the other hand – more stabilized and standardized. Noun phrases comprise a dependant component and a head-word.

By Late ME agreement in N Phr had practically disappeared. In Shakespeare’s time the noun patterns became fixed syntactic frames in which every position had a specific functional significance.

The Simple Sentence

In the course of history the structure of the simple sentence in many respects became more orderly and more uniform.

In ME and Early NE, when most of the endings were leveled or lost, the relationships between the parts of the sentence were shown by their relative position, environment, semantic ties, and by a more rigid syntactic structure. No position could remain vacant..

As compared with OE the subject and the predicate of the sentences became more varied in meaning.

The use of several negations continued throughout the ME period. Gradually double negation went out of use. Multiple negation was banned as illogical: it became a strict rule of English grammar.

Word Order

In ME and Early NE the order of words underwent considerable changes. It has become fixed and direct: S-P-O. Stabilization of the word order took many hundred years: In the 17^th and 18^th c. the word order in the sentence was generally determined by the same rules as operated in English today.

Compound and Complex Sentences

The growth of the written forms of English and the advance of literature in Late ME and Early NE caused further development of the Compound and Complex sentences. The difference between these two types of sentences becomes more evident and the use of connectors – more precise. More regulations are introduced during the period of normalization. In the 16^th-17^th c. the structure of the sentence became more complicated which was also tied up with flourishing of literature.

MIDDLE ENGLISH AND NEW ENGLISH VOCABULARY

The vocabulary in the ME period shows great instability and constant and rapid changes. Many words became obsolete; a lot of them reflected the ever-changing life of the speakers and were under the influence of contacts with other nations.

1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary.

Internal sources of vocabulary growth became less important in ME. It might have been due to great expansion of foreign words (especially French). Beginning with the 15 c up the 17 c. the role of internal sources became more important though the stream of words from other languages continued. The word formation fell into two types: word derivation and word composition.

Word derivation

Word derivation implies affixation which could be of two types: suffixation and prefixation.

The majority of OE suffixes was still preserved in ME but they were becoming less productive.

The development of prefixes was uneven.

Among OE noun suffixes there were some new items, which had developed from root-morphemes. The ME language witnessed other means of word differentiation such as sound interchange, word stress and there developed a specifically English way of word derivation – conversion which has developed into a productive way of creating new words.

Sound interchange

New vowel alterations in the root could arise as a) a result of qualitative changes of vowels in Early ME; b) as a result of weakening and loss of many suffixes and grammatical endings. (If these elements were dropped, sound interchange turned out to be the only means of distinction between some pairs of words)

Word stress

The weakening and loss of final syllables also caused the growth of role of stress in word-building in ME. The shifting of word-stress was commonly used in derivatives of borrowed words:

It is in full accordance with OE practice, when verb prefixes were not stressed, while the corresponding nouns took the stress on the first syllable. This distinction was important in words having no other differences.

Conversion

Conversion was a new means of word derivation which arose in Late ME and grew into a most productive, specifically English way of creating new words. The word is transformed into another part of speech with an identical initial form: NE house – to house .After the loss of endings and suffixes a large number of English verbs and nouns became identical in form:

In Late ME this pattern began to be applied by analogy in creating new words, mainly verbs from nouns. In present-day English conversion has grown into one of the most productive ways of word-building. Their part of speech belonging is determined by their syntactical position.

Word composition

Many compound words recorded in OE texts went out of use in ME. In ME word compounding was less productive than in OE, but in Early NE its productivity grew. As before, compounding was more characteristic of nouns and adjectives than of verbs.

Semantic changes in the vocabulary

Semantic changes are commonly divided into widening and narrowing of meaning and into metaphoric and metonymic shifts. Sometimes semantic changes are combined with formal changes. There were instances of narrowing: OE deer (animal) > NE deer (олень) and instances of widening: OE sloӡan (a battle cry of Scottish clans) > slogan

2. External means of enriching vocabulary

The principal means of enriching vocabulary in ME and NE are not internal, but external – borrowings. Two languages in succession enriched the vocabulary of the English language of the time – the Scandinavian language and the French language.

––– Scandinavian borrowings

The constant contacts and intermixture of the English and the Scandinavians brought about many changes in different spheres of the English language: phonetics, grammar and word-stock. The relative ease of the mutual penetration of the languages was conditioned by their common origin.

The conditions and consequences of various borrowing:

1. The English language borrowed a word for which it had no synonym.

2. The English and the borrowed words were preserved, but they ware different in meaning.

3. A borrowed word and an English word became etymological doublets, as words originating from the same source in Common Germanic.

4. An English word and its Scandinavian doublet were the same in meaning but slightly different phonetically,

5. There was a shift of meaning.

––– French borrowings

• The Norman Conquest left deep traces in the English language, mainly in borrowings. Most of them were connected with the spheres of social and political activities.

• The place of the French borrowings within the English language was different:

1. A French word was borrowed to denote notions unknown to the English: government

2. The English synonym is ousted by the French borrowing: E.micel–Fr. large

3. Both words are preserved, but they are stylistically different: E. to begin –Fr.to commence

4. Sometimes French suffixes entered the system of word-building means, and they began to be added to English words, thus forming English-French hybrids: government.

5. One of the consequences of the borrowings from French was the appearance of etimological doublets: native fatherly – borrowed paternal ( from Common I-E).

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