- •Subject and Aims of the History of English. Its Ties with Other Disciplines. Germanic Language in the System of Indo-European Family of Languages
- •1. History of English in the systemic conception of English
- •1.1. The aims and the purpose of the study of the subject
- •1.2. Connection of the subject with other disciplines
- •2. Sources of Language History
- •2.1. Writings in early English
- •3.3 The structure of the language
- •3.4 The language classification principles
- •3. General notes on the language study
- •3.1 The definition of the language
- •3.2 The functions of the language
- •3.5 Synchrony and diachrony in the language study
- •4. The comparative-historical method
- •4.1 The stages of the comparative-historical method
- •4.2 The principles of the comparative-historical method
- •4.3 The drawbacks of the comparative-historical method
- •5. The Germanic group of languages
- •The Formation of the English National Language. Periods in the History of the English Language
- •1. Territorial dialects of the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasion
- •2. The dialects of the period of the Norman Conquest
- •3. The development of the dialect of London into a national language
- •Periods in the History of the English Language
- •1. Henry Sweet and his division of the history of English
- •2. Historical periodization as offered by b. Khaimovich
- •3. T. Rastorguyeva’s periodization of the English language
- •4. The division of the history of English as suggested by V. Arakin
- •5. The periods of the development of English as offered by a. Markman and e. Steinberg
- •6. David Burnley’s periodization of the history of English
- •Common Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages
- •1. Phonetic peculiarities of the Germanic languages
- •1.1. The First Consonant Shift
- •1.2. Vowels
- •1.3. The doubling of consonants
- •1.4. Rhotacism
- •1.5. Germanic fracture (or breaking)
- •1.6. The second consonant shift
- •2. Some common grammatical features of Germanic languages
- •2.1. Form-building Means
- •2.1.1. Ablaut
- •2.1.2. Word-structure
- •2.1.3. Types of Stems
- •2.1.4. Strong and Weak Verbs
- •3. Germanic Vocabulary
- •Phonetic Changes in the Old English Period
- •The Main Features of Old, Middle, and Modern English
- •2. Old English Phonetics
- •2.1. Oe Consonants
- •2.2. Vowels
- •2.2.1. Changes of stressed vowels
- •2.2.2. Changes of unstressed vowels
- •Changes in the Middle English Orthography and Phonology
- •1. Changes in the Orthographic System
- •2. Major Changes in the Sound System
- •2.1. The Consonants
- •2.2. Consonant Changes from Old to Middle English
- •2.3. Vowels in Stressed Syllables
- •2.4. Vowels in Unstressed Syllables
- •2.5. The Formation of Middle English Diphthongs
- •The Old English Morphology
- •1. The Old English Noun.
- •2. The Old English Pronoun
- •3. The Old English Adjective
- •4. The Old English Adverb
- •5. The Numeral in Old English
- •6. The Old English Verb.
- •The Middle English Morphology
- •1. Middle English as a Period of Great Change.
- •2. The Middle English Noun.
- •3. Articles.
- •4. The me Adjective.
- •5. The me Adverb
- •6. The me Pronoun
- •7. The me Verb
- •7.1. Strong and weak verbs
- •The New English Morphology and Changes in the System of English Syntax
- •1. New English Morphology
- •2. Old English Syntax.
- •3. Middle English Syntax
- •4. New English Syntax
4.3 The drawbacks of the comparative-historical method
Despite all the merits, the comparative-historical method has its drawbacks:
1. It is impossible to precisely date the phenomenon reconstructed with the help of the comparative-historical method.
2. This method cannot completely reconstruct the language under study.
3. This method can be used only to analyze those phenomena, which are similar in the compared languages, but it is not good for different phenomena.
4. This method makes it possible to explain only the results of the language divergence, but it does not explain the results of the language convergence.
5. This method cannot be used to study languages with amorphous structure or isolating languages, that is, languages, which have no affixes, case or number conjugation, etc.
6. This method does not apply data of other sciences.
5. The Germanic group of languages
The late 18th-century discovery that Sanskrit (an ancient language of India) was related to Latin, Greek, Germanic, and Celtic revolutionized European linguistic studies. This discovery led to several decades of intensive historical-comparative work and to important advances in historical linguistics during the 19th century. By studying phonetic correspondences from an ever-increasing number of languages, linguists eventually ascertained that most of the languages of Europe, Persia (Iran), and the northern part of India belong to a single family, now called Indo-European.
The vast Indo-European family of languages, to which most of the languages spoken in Europe belong consists of several branches, of which the Germanic languages are one.
Nowadays Germanic languages are spoken in many countries: German (in Germany, Austria, and partly in Switzerland), Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic, English.
In ancient times the territory of Germanic languages was much limited. Thus, in the 1st c. AD Germanic languages were only spoken in Germany and in territories adjacent to it, and also in Scandinavia.
Germanic languages are classified into three groups: (1) East Germanic, (2) North Germanic, (3) West Germanic.
East Germanic languages have been dead for many centuries. Of the old East Germanic languages only one is well known, namely, Gothic.
All North Germanic and West Germanic languages have survived until our own time.
Lecture 2
The Formation of the English National Language. Periods in the History of the English Language
One of the most characteristic features of a nation is the national language, which rises above all the territorial and social dialects and unites the whole nation. Usually a national language develops on the basis of some territorial dialects, which under certain historical, economic, political, and cultural conditions become generally recognized as a means of communication.
The English national language has developed on the basis of the dialects of London, which can be easily explained by the fact that after the Norman Conquest London became the political, cultural center of England and its economic center as well.