Ответы к ГОСу по истории английского языка

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A short history of the origins and development of English

The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three

Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These

tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from

what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the

inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic

speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what

is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from Englaland

and their language was called Englisc - from which the words England

and English are derived.

Old English (450-1100 AD): The invading Germanic tribes spoke

similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old

English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native

English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old

English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in

Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water,

for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until

around 1100.

Middle English (1100-1500): In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke

of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England.

The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of

French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling

and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class

division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes

spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain

again, but with many French words added. This language is called

Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-

1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to

understand today.

Modern English

Early Modern English (1500-1800): Towards the end of Middle

English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel

Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From

the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around

the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that

many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of

printing also meant that there was now a common language in print.

Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also

brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed,

and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became

the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.

Late Modern English (1800-Present): The main difference between

Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late

Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal

factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need

for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one

quarter of the

5.1 Old English vowel changes

Sound changes, particularly vowel changes, took place in E at every

period of history. The change begins with growing variation in

prononunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numorous

allophones (-phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language).

There were 2 types of changes: modification of sets of vowels(palatal

mutation, diphtongosaion, bracking) and -independent changes Most

frequently the change will involve both types of replacement , splitting

and merging (+ex.1).

In an unstressed position only 5 short vowels could occur: a,e, i, o, u.

The OE sound system developed from the PG system. It

underwent multiple changes in the pre-written periods of history,

esp in Early OE.

The dev-nt of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of

separate vowels + also of the mod-n of entire sets of vowels.

7 long v: a, e, i, u, o, æ, ų

8 short v: a, e, i, u, o, æ, ų, a˚ (nasal)

4 short and long diphthongs ea, eo, ie, io

Tendency towards a symmetrical, balanced arrangement

In unstressed position – only 5 v: i,e,a,o,u

Breaking – when short v were followed by l+cons-t, r+cons-t,

h+cons-t - they produced short diphthongs

Early OE OE

l æ ea melkan>meolkan (to milk)

h æ: ea: æhta>ēohte (eight)

æ ea

e eo

r e eo herte>heorte (heart)

æ ea

Diphthongization

After

sk’: e→ie after palatal cons-ts short

æ→ea and long [e] + [æ] –into diph-s

k’ : e→ie w/ more front close vowel as

æ→ea their first element

j: æ→ea EarlyOE scæmu>OE sceamu

e→ie (shame)

Palatal mutation

Mutation – change of 1 vowel to another through the influence of a

vowel in the succeeding syllable.

“i-umlaut” (palatal mut-n)- the fronting and raising of vowels

through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following

syllable. Due to the reduction of final syllables. The conditions

which caused palatal mut-n ([i] or [j]) had disap-ed in most words

by the age of writing. These sounds were weakened to [e] or were

altogether lost (OE ān NE one; ān +iζ [r] >ˉæniζ-any)

The labialized front vowels [ų] + [y:] arose through palatal mutation

from [u]+ [u:] and turned into new phonemes (Cf: mūs →mˉųs)

“Velar-mutation” – found in some of the OE dialects. It was

caused by the influence of back vowels into diphth-s.

i>io hira>hiora>heora (their)

e>eo herot>heorat (hart - олень)

a>ea saru>searu (arms, meaning battles)

lengthening – short v followed by ld, nd, mb – become long OE cild

– Mod E child (children – 3 cons-s – doesn’t change)

i/j umlaut was the most imp process of the time:

1) Could affect all the v-ls + diphth-s except /i/

2) Produced 4 new phonemes (short æ, ų and long æ, ų)

It’s traces - in Mod E: man-men

Changes in unstressed v-ls

The dev-nt of v in unstressed syllables (final in particular) was dif-

nt from that of stressed syllables. In stressed position the # of v

had grown due to the appearance of new qualitative dif-nces. The

# of v-ls in unstr-d position has been reduced.

Some short v in final unaccented syllables were dropped after long

syllables (w/a long v or a short v + more than 1 cons-t) the v-ls [i] +

[u] were lost.

Diphth-s→monophth-s

Gt: ahtau → OE eahta (eight)

This process was completed during the earliest part of the OE period.

5.2 The history of the noun

OEL450-1150 ME:1150-1500 Modern E:1500-till now. 85% - tutonic

Voc is no longer in use. 10Century – scandinavian invasion. Then

Norman Invasion- 10000 borrowed words (75% is still in use). In ME :

general reduction of inflexion. 4 cases for sg and 4 cases for pl. -s and -es

– strong declention, -en – weak declention

The O.E.N had 2 grammatical or morphological categories: number and

case. N distinguished 3 genders, but this distinction was not a

grammatical category, it was a merely classifying feature accounting,

alongside other features, for the division of Ns into morphological

classes.

The catergory of number consisted of 2 members, sg and pl. Nouns had 4

cases:Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc.

Every noun belong to one of the several declention types which made up

the noun-system in OE. In historic tymes the choice of the Ns belonging

to these types was not determined by any visible cause, it was fixed.

However, in prehistoric times all OE Nshad had a suffix between the root

and the inflectional ending , which made up clearly defined groups: the

parts of the word comprising root and stem-suffix is called the stem. In

prehistoric E. here existed the following stems: a-stem & 4 variations /ja/

& /na/ - masculine and neutral Ns: o-stem (/jo/ /wo/); i-stem – all 3

genders; u-stem – masc. Fem.; n-stem – 3 genders; r-stem – mas, fem.;

es-stem – neut.

A special type was so called root stem, which formed some cases not by

an inflexional ending, but by the change of the root vowel due to

mutation, The stem-vowels had dissapeared by the time of the earkies OE

writings. They had merges with the ending proper Ns, which had

belonged to stems containing /j/ or /i/ always had a mutated root-vowel in

other respects, the inflexions of stems in /a/ /ja/ /wa / and /i/ had

practically merged. The main variation consist in the presence of final e

or its absence in the Nom and Acc sg, in /ja/-stems, /j/ may appear in the

same cases.

The presence or absence of /e/ in masc Ns, as well as that of /u/ in fem

and /?/ of neut Ns depends upon the quantaty of the root-syllable.

Namely, the vowel is found after a short root-syllable.

The patterns of declention types or given in such a way as to show the

resemblance of dif types as mentioned above; with that purpose one

ending is given for srveral stems.

5.3 The history of the personal pronoun.

OE PersProns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern Prns:

personal, demonst, interrogative and indefinite. As for the other groups –

relative, posessive and reflexive they were as yet not fully developed and

were not always distinctly separated from the 4 main classes.

OE PersPrns had 3 persons, 3 number in the 1

and 2

and 2 numbers in

the 3

p. and 3 genders in the 3

In OE while Ns consistently distinguished between 4 classes, PerPrns

began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of Dat case of thr

Prns of the 1

and 2

p. were frequently used instead of the Acc. It's

important to note, that the Gen case of PrsPrns had 2 main applications

like other oblique cases (косв падеж). It couls be an object, but for more

frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a

posessive prn. (ex. Sunu min, his fэder – my son his father)

The grammatical characteristics of these forms were not homogeneous.

The form of the 1

and 2

– min, ure and others – were declined like adjs

to show agreement with the Ns they modified, while the forms of the 3

behaved like Ns. They remained uninflected and didn't agree with the Ns

modified.

5.4. The system of Old English verbs. Old English strong verbs

The O.E V. was characterised by many peculiar features. Though the V

had few grammatical categories , its paradigm had a very complicated

structure: V fell into numerous morphological classes and employed a

variety of form-building means.

Categories: number_person, mood and tense.

The conjugation (спряжение) of verbs shows the means of form-

building used in the OE verb system. Most forms were distinguished with

the help of inflectional endings or grammatical suffixes; one form- Partic.

II – was sometimes marked by a prefix; many verbs made use of vowel

interchanges in the root; some verbs used consonant interchanges and a

few had suppletive forms. The OE verb is remarkable for its complicated

morphological classification which determined the application

(применение) of form- building means in various groups of verbs. The

majority of OE verbs fell into 2 great divisions: the strong and the weak

verbs. Besides these two main groups there were a few verbs which could

not be put together as “minor” groups.

The main difference between the strong and the weak verbs lay in the

means of forming the principal parts, of the “stems” of the verb. There

were also a few other differences in the conjugation.

All the forms of the verbs, finite (личный) as well as non- finite, were

derived (произошли) from a set of “stems” or principal parts of the verb:

the Present tense stem was used in all the Present tense forms, Indicative,

Imperative and Substantive, and also in the Present Participle and the

Infinitive; it is usually shown as the form of the Infinitive; all the forms

of the Past tense were derived from the Past tense stems; the Past

Participle had a separate stem.

The strong verbs formed their stems by means of vowel gradation and

by adding certain suffixes; in some verbs gradation was accompanied by

consonant interchanges.

There were about 300 S.V. in O.E. Some of them dropped out of use

owing to changes in the vocabluary,while most of the remaining V,

became weak. They r usually devided into 7 classes: classas 1 – 6 use

vowel gradation, class 7 includes reduplicating verbs, which originally

built their past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme. All the

S.V. have the same endings irrespective of class: -an for the Inf., no

ending in the Past sg stem, -on in the form of Past pl, -en in Part.II

(markers: the zero ending in the record stem and -en in Part.II r found

only in S.Vs and should be as their specific characteristics). 1 and 3

classes were the most numerous of all (appr. 60000)