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3 PROS AND CONS OF ENGLISH.............................................................................................................4 PIDGINS AND CREOLES.....................................................................................................................4 Tok Pisin..............................................................................................................................4 SYNCHRONIC VS. DIACHRONIC LINGUISTICS..........................................................................................4 THE DISCOVERY OF SANSKRIT...........................................................................................................5 GRIMMS LAW...............................................................................................................................6 1...........................................................................................................................................6 2...........................................................................................................................................7 3...........................................................................................................................................7 VERNERS LAW..............................................................................................................................7 WHERE DOES ENGLISH COME FROM?............................................................................8 THE IE FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.........................................................................................................8 Indian...................................................................................................................................8 Iranian.................................................................................................................................8 Albanian...............................................................................................................................8 Armenian..............................................................................................................................8 Hellenic................................................................................................................................8 Italic.....................................................................................................................................8 Balto-Slavic..........................................................................................................................8 Celtic....................................................................................................................................8 Germanic.............................................................................................................................9 GENERAL FEATURES OF ENGLISH.....................................................................................................10 PERIODS IN HISTORY OF ENGLISH.....................................................................................................10 Old English (450 1150). Full infections..........................................................................10 Middle English (1150 1500). Levelled Inflections...........................................................10 Modern English..................................................................................................................10 THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD...............................................................................................10 ENGLAND BEFORE THE ROMANS......................................................................................................10 Consequences of the presence of Celts in England.............................................................11 THE ROMANS IN ENGLAND.............................................................................................................11 The Romanization. Latin in Britain....................................................................................11 THE GERMANIC CONQUEST.............................................................................................................12 The Germanic invasion......................................................................................................12 The Anglo Saxon Heptarchy............................................................................................12 THE CHRISTIANISATION OF ENGLAND................................................................................................12 THE VIKING ERA...........................................................................................................................13 OLD ENGLISH GENERAL FEATURES..............................................................................15 Pronunciation.....................................................................................................................15 Grammar............................................................................................................................15 Spelling..............................................................................................................................16 Stress in Old English..........................................................................................................16 The vowels..........................................................................................................................17 Diphthongs.........................................................................................................................17 Consonants.........................................................................................................................17 Vocabulary in Old English.................................................................................................17 Number in OE....................................................................................................................19 Gender ..............................................................................................................................19
Case...................................................................................................................................20 THE NOUN....................................................................................................................................21 Strong declensions.............................................................................................................21 Weak declensions...............................................................................................................22 THE PERSONAL PRONOUN................................................................................................................23 THE DEMONSTRATIVES...................................................................................................................23 THE ADJECTIVE.............................................................................................................................24 The possessive adjectives...................................................................................................24 Comparatives and superlatives..........................................................................................24 THE VERB...................................................................................................................................25 Present system....................................................................................................................25 Preterit system....................................................................................................................25 SYNTAX.......................................................................................................................................27 Differences between OE and todays English.....................................................................27 Negation in Old English.....................................................................................................28 Word order in OE...............................................................................................................28 MAIN DIALECTAL AREAS IN OLD ENGLISH........................................................................................28 THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD.......................................................................................29 EXTERNAL HISTORY.......................................................................................................................29 Linguistic communication in England 1066 1204...........................................................29 The loss of Normandy.........................................................................................................29 FRENCH REINFORCEMENTS AND THE REACTIONS AGAINST THE FOREIGNERS..............................................30 Reactions against the foreigners........................................................................................30 THE PROGRESSIVE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF ENGLISH.............................................................................30 GENERAL ADOPTION OF ENGLISH IN THE 14TH CENTURY.....................................................................31 GENERAL FEATURES OF MIDDLE ENGLISH.........................................................................................31 Features.............................................................................................................................31 The handwriting.................................................................................................................31 The alphabet.......................................................................................................................31 Spelling..............................................................................................................................32 French tradition in ME manuscripts: innovations..............................................................32 MIDDLE ENGLISH PHONOLOGY.......................................................................................................32 Devices for quantity...........................................................................................................32 Stress..................................................................................................................................33 Changes which affected vowels..........................................................................................33 Diphthongs.........................................................................................................................34 Vowels in Scandinavian words...........................................................................................34 Vowels in French Loanwords.............................................................................................34 Unstressed syllables...........................................................................................................34 MIDDLE ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY......................................................................................................35 Noun declensions...............................................................................................................35 The personal pronouns.......................................................................................................35 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD.....................................................................................37 GENERAL FEATURES.......................................................................................................................37 MODERN ENGLISH SPELLING...........................................................................................................37 The chaotic position of English spelling.............................................................................37 MODERN ENGLISH PHONOLOGY. THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT...............................................................37 MORPHOLOGY..............................................................................................................................38 The Noun............................................................................................................................38 Adjectives and adverbs.......................................................................................................39 Personal pronouns.............................................................................................................39 Uses of relative and interrogative pronouns......................................................................40 THE VERB...................................................................................................................................40
In Africa, English is used extensively (160 million people). Many nations have chosen English, as Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, etc.
Tok Pisin.
Pronoun system:
ENGLISH TOK PISIN Mi Yu Em
I You He/she/it
We You they
Mipella Yupella Ol
yumi
This reduction of grammar use to take problems of misunderstanding. The English language lost dual number much time ago, but in Tok Pisin still survives. The grammar is very simple: papa bilong mi would mean my father, and bilong would be the equivalent of of. However, there are rules. The vocabulary is mixed with the local language. It has fewer words and sounds. E.g. there is no distinction between [p] and [f] or between [s] and [ ]. Due to the simplicity of its vocabulary it takes a word and combines it with others to produce new words and meanings. E.g. pikini meri Marys daughter (pikini small); haus sik hospital. It has only three prepositions: bilong (of), long (lots of meanings) and wantaim (with). Subordination does not exist. They convert the complex sentence into two
simple sentences.
DUAL
PLURAL
SINGULAR
There are many different ways in which we can study a language: synchronic linguistics and diachronic linguistics.. Synchronic linguistics only analyses a language in a given period of time. Diachronic linguistics studies the evolution of a language. To achieve a good understanding of a language we must consider its autonomy, but without forgetting its history and evolution. Synchronic and diachronic methods complement each other. Synchronic linguistics has been always considered more important, but since the 1970s diachronic linguistics has also been paid attention. There are three main sources of variation in a language - Regional variations. The language spoken has variations depending on the zone it is spoken. - Social variations. Not all the social groups speak in the same way (young people, workers, businessmen, etc). - Style variations. The English used in a reunion with friends is not the same that we use when searching our first job. These variations were taken into account especially by William Labov. There are some reasons for studying the history of a language. For example, for the same reason we study History. It is also useful to know the story of our country, society, etc. Nowadays language is the product of what have previously happened in a society. E.g. we find words from other societies we consider superior in certain aspects (i.e. most of words referred to music come from Italian. Even sounds may be affected by this situation. I.e. garage /grId / (English pronunciation), /g ra / French pronunciation). Garage is a French word. If we use the French pronunciation we will seem more distinguished or more snob. French was considered a more elegant language. It is also useful to read an old document in the original language. The rules of a language are not fixed. What is correct today may be incorrect tomorrow, and vice versa. The study of the history of a language helps us to broaden our minds with regard to the use of our language or other. It also helps us to understand where irregularities and anomalies come from.
bn stn
Germanic
bein stein
When these correspondences were found, Scholars came to the conclusion that these words had to come from the same parent language. They saw that Old English (OE) corresponds to modern German ei. English father nephew Latin pater nepos
So Latin t, p correspond to English th, ph. These different languages also seem to come from the same origin. Linguistic reconstruction was done also. It helped to get the earliest forms possible. The proto-Germanic was the previous stage. In the case of Romance languages we have much more information than in the case of Germanic languages. We know that Latin is the origin of Romance languages.
Those languages (and others) were the same in older times. They would be only dialects of a Germanic language. Old High German is the proto-Germanic language spoken by the Germanic inhabitants of Austria, Switzerland and Central and Southern Germany. Old English could be said to be proto-Germanic as spoken in 8th 11th century by Anglo-Saxons. The normal process of linguistic change tends to splint up languages. When a group separate from the greater one becomes isolated, his language evolves independently, because in those times were no way to maintain constant contact with the great group. In the lathe 18th century the family relationship of European and Western Asia had not been properly worked out. It was known that there were basic differences between English, Dutch and German. Also that there was some relationship between Hebrew and Arabic and also among Romance languages. Scholars had taken a lot of time to establish relationships between languages, but the concept of an Indo-European language had not been grasped out. What led to this conclusion was the discovery of Sanskrit by Western scholars. Sir William Jones learned Sanskrit and realised that there were resemblances between Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. In 1786 he said that these languages were dissembled from a common ancestor. He went further saying that there were Celtic and Germanic languages, which came from the same source. English father English brother Gothic fadar Dutch broeder Old Norse fair Greek German Vater German Bouder Latin pater Sanskrit
Brthr
Sanskrit, a language of Ancient India, was one of the group. Indias literature reaches back much further than Latin and Greek. Sanskrit preserved features of a primary language than those of Greek and Latin. It also preserved a full system of declensions and conjugations. It became clearer that the inflections of these languages could also be traced to a common origin.
Grimms Law.
In making comparison among several languages that showed similarities, Rasmus Rask, a Dane, and Jacob Grimm, German, discovered in early 19th century the set of phonological correspondences now known as Grimms Law. There was a regular system of parallel sound changes from all the European and West-Asiatic languages. The discovery of the pattern was made through the close examination of a number of words, basic vocabularies of Indo-European languages. The family of languages that Jones postulated came be known as Indo-European (IE).
1.
INDO-EUROPEAN GERMANIC
*/t/ //
2.
INDO-EUROPEAN GERMANIC
Sanskrit
3.
INDO-EUROPEAN GERMANIC
Lithuanian English Dubus deep Latin labium dens duo decem granum genos lip tooth two ten corn kin
It must have taken place about 5th century BC with contact with non-Germanic population. Perhaps the contact was product of migration of Germanic peoples or due to the penetration of these peoples in Germanic territories.
Verners Law.
Some words in IE dont fit the Grimms law path (this affects only the first set). This anomaly was explained by Carl Verner in 1875:
Latin
pater
OE
Voiceless Indo-European in English became voiced fricative in German unless they were prevented by one of these three conditions: - Being the first sound in a word, - Being next to another voiceless sound, - Having the IE stress on the immediately preceding syllable. In proto-Germanic, voiceless fricatives became voiced when they were in a voiced environment and if the IE stress did not fell on the immediately preceding syllable. Verners law was obscured because after it had operated there was a stress shift to the first syllable of the root, disguising one of these three conditions:
IE
p
t k s
Grimms
>
> > >
Verners
>
> > >
then
> > > > // // West Germanic /d/ // /r/ Rhotacism
/f/
// [x], [h] [s]
//
// // [z]
Indian.
It seems that oldest literary texts preserved in any IE languages are the Vedas, the sacred books of India, about 1500 BC.
Iranian.
In the NW of India. It covers the great plateau of Iran. One group decided to settle there, while other continued to Russia and China, carrying its languages with them.
Albanian.
This is a small branch in the NW of Greece.
Armenian.
In the South Caucasus, Eastern end of the Black Sea.
Hellenic.
In Greece.
Italic
Italy. Here was Latin and the romance languages born.
Balto-Slavic.
A vast area in Eastern Europe. There were two great groups: Baltic. Slavic. Their similarities are more important than their differences.
Celtic.
These languages form part of the most extensive languages at first time. In the beginning of the Christian era were found in Spain, the north of Italy, Great Britain and Gaul. The language of the Celts in Gaul which was conquered By Julius Caesar was called Gallic, but it was soon replaced by Latin. Nowadays we know very little about this language. Some scholars claim that the first Celts that come to Britain should have be driven to Ireland and from there to Scotland and the isle of Man by invaders. Their language has survived as Irish (Ireland), Scottish Gaelic Erse, Scotland), Manx (I. Of Man, extinguished in the 20th century). A second group of Celts were called Cymbric or Britannic. They were driven westwards from what is now England by the Teutons (Anglo Saxons, Jutes) in the 5th century BC. Some of them crossed to Britany, others stayed in Wales or went to the SW, to Cornwall. Cornish, spoken in Cornwall, was extinguished in 18th century. In Britany, their language was called Briton, and Welsh in Wales.
Germanic.
Germanic family has been subdivided into 3 different branches
Iceland was conquered by Norwegians in the 9 th century. It has preserved an important body of literature: Elder or Poetic Edda (poems 10 11th century) and Younger or prose Eddas, and also 40 sagas.
The languages of the High Germanic Branch suffered the 2nd sound shift about 600 AD. Old High German covers until 12th century, Middle High German until 14th Century and Modern until 16th century.
English
water pound gate (OE) tunge> tongue Wasser Pfund Gasse Zunge
German[kx] [k]
[t] [ts] [p] [pf]
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Celtic was the first tongue to be spoken in England, but another language came later, Latin, when the isle became part of the Roman Empire.
11
The Latin influence is slighter: CANDELA > candle, MAGISTER > mgester,
PSALMUS
> sealm
(psalm).
12
The Christianisation process was gradual and peaceful. The mission started in the south and a charismatic preacher, Aidan, founded in 635 the Celtic Church. He started the conversion of the north of England. Within 100 years of the landing of St. Augustine in Kent, all England was Christian. With the coming of Christianity also came the building of monasteries, the cornerstones of Anglo Saxon culture. They provided education in many subjects. Bede studied in Jarrow, and he wrote the chronicles that remained until today. Arithmetics, music or astronomy were taught. The new monasteries wrote in English. English benefited in a very large extent. It was enriched and powered with new words. Christianity gave English the capacity to express subtle ideas and more abstract thoughts. At this time, words from Latin and Greek were introduced, such as angel, psalm, disciple, etc. These words allowed to express more complex things. Christianity affected English mainly in 2 ways: 1. It gave English a large church vocabulary. It also introduced ideas from far away countries. It also stimulated the Anglo Saxons to apply existing words to new concepts. Words like preost, biscop,munuc, psalter or Sabbath were introduced. 2. English reinvented itself, giving old words new meanings: Latin spiritus sanctus > evangelium > Old English
This marked a new era for English. There were more flexibility and two ways of speaking: using Germanic or Latin words. By the end of 8th century the impact of Christianity made evolve culture and literature. The English faced the second great influence on the development of the English language: the coming of the Vikings.
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with a line from London to Chester. The Danes agree to accept Christianity, and Guthrum was baptised. This fact influenced in the eventual fusion of both peoples.
Ilustracin 1. The Danelaw. originally the body of law that prevailed in the part of England occupied by the
Danes after the treaty of King ALFRED with Guthrum in 886. It soon came to mean also the area in which Danish law obtained. The Danelaw had four main regions: NORTHUMBRIA; the areas around and including Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford; EAST ANGLIA; and the SE Midlands.
After Alfred was the sovereign of the SW of England he centred on Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. The capital was Winchester. The problem was that King Alfred had no power over the Dane territories. He felt that he needed the support of people living in other countries in the Danelaw district. He had to retain control over territories which were not him. He appealed the feeling of Englishness, using the English language as means of creating a national identity. He restored his kingdom and rebuilt the churches and schools. He used English and not Latin as the basis for education. He learned Latin to take part in the translations of some important texts. He describes his English language campaign in the preface to Cura Pastoralis. After the treaty, Guthrum went back to his own religion. Besides that, there were more invasions. Under the reign of Alfreds son, Edward the Elder, Danes were attacked and defeated (battle of Brunanburh). Most of the island was under English control. The next important battle was the battle of Maldon (991). The English lose their leader and the Danish forces marched again to England. In 1014 Svein and Knut drove the English king thelbert into exile. After that, he wae known as the Unready. The Danes got the throne. Eventually, Knut Became the king and England was controlled in the next years by Danish kings, Harald I and Hardicanute. The consequences of the Danish reign were that 1400 place names presented Scandinavian names. More than 600 presented the by ending ( -by: farm)Grimsby, Whitley, Rugby, Derby, etc; 300 of them had thorpe (village): Linthorpe, Scanthorpe; 300 had thwaite (isolated place): Satterthwaite; 100 presented toft (piece of ground): Eastoft, Lowestoft. These
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names are not uniformly distributed. English names present the patronymic son (Danish sen, e.g. Nielsen): Stevenson, Richardson. We must take into account that this civilization was very similar to the Anglo Saxon culture. Apart from battles, they got on well most of the time. Both languages were much interlinked. Words from Scandinavian: egg (OE g), skin, sky, skull, skir, window, sister, fellowt; skis typically Scandinavian. Adjectives: awkward,
-thorpe 23%
meek, odd, rotten, weak. Verbs: call, give, take, die, thrust. The borrowing of words was not limited to the exchange of words, but it extended to pronouns, prepositions or conjunctions, what is unusual. Pronouns: they, them, their (OE him, he, hiera). Other words: same, both, at, to(+infinitive), seemly, aloft, hence, are (3rd p.pl. V. to be).
Pronunciation.
OE
bn rp hlig ft fr hs
, thorn as th in thorn , eth as th in the , // c (a, o, u) /k/ c (e, i) as c in Cesare (it.) sc as sh in should
Most of the vocabulary of OE is Germanic. A huge part of it has disappeared, as a consequence of the Norman conquest. In many cases it was replaced by Latin or French words. 85% of OE words are no longer in use, and the words that survived are basic words such as prepositions, auxiliary verbs and pronouns, i.e. cld, man(n), wf, etan (eat) drincan, etc.
Grammar.
Old English is a synthetic language, that is, it indicates the relation of words in the sentence by means of inflections. In modern English, the subject and the object have no case endings (analytic), but it happened in Old English.
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Spelling.
We have to differentiate two types of spellings: the runes and the Roman symbols. The runes were brought to England by the Germanic tribes. The system is quite simple. Some of the Germanic tribes already had their own alphabet, and the runes were made to decorate in the earliest stages of Germanic languages. The first runes are from the 2nd century AD. They were not designed for writing, but to engrave or to inscribe. The earliest forms of reading or writing imply to interpret the incised runes. The first system was incised on wood, but they are also found in metal, stone or bone. The material on which the runes were inscribed determined their shape. They are formed, basically, for a vertical stroke and additional arms: . The original Germanic rune row had 24 symbols, the futhark. We dont know the origin of these runes, but wherever they were created, in the 6th century they spread throughout many counties of Europe. The Germanic tribes may need the runes for commercial and political uses. Their social structure was so simple that they didnt need to send messages or doing things that required writing. The runes were a ritual or magic set of characters (run = mystery). Runes had magical properties. The rune masters gave each rune a magical value, and they were used to predict the future, taking decisions, etc. Every rune had a name and represented a concept and a sound Out of Scandinavia, runes disappeared quickly. In Britain the Roman alphabet replaced them about 11th century. In Scandinavia they were used even after the middle Ages. The futhark was not the only rune row used in England, they used other similar system called futhork, which had 31 symbols. The Dream of the Rood is a poem written in runes in the Northumbrian dialect. This poem was found in a cross, which seem to be the author of the poem and tells the story of a crucifixion from its point of view. When runes were replaced by the Roman alphabet, they developed they own variation, the Roman Hand. It was a variation used until the Norman conquest. The Insular Hand was used in Irish Gaelic, and the modifications were done by the Irish.
wi-fohtan
The stress is placed after the prefix, in the first syllable of the verb itself.
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The vowels.
Old English vowels are very easy to pronounce, although the spelling is not fixed. There are 7 vowels, which may be short or long, and 3 diphthongs. SHORT LONG Vowels in unstressed syllables were pronounced clearly in order to be able to differentiate the different cases.
a // e i o u y //
Diphthongs.
o / eo a / ea e / ie
Consonants.
All consonants were pronounced. Nowadays this doesnt happen. In Old English there are no silent consonants, and even g and k before consonant are pronounced. Also the double consonants are pronounced as double consonants. However, there are some exceptions: - The h has three different pronunciations: o Initial: aspirated /h/. o h + e, i: as ch in al. mchten. o h + a, o, u; + consonant; + diphthong:/x/. - Other variations affects to digraphs f, s and : /f/, /s/ // voiceless F, S, /v/, /z/, // c and g: + a, o, u C, G + e, i as c in it. Cesare. sc is pronounced as sh in should. Exception: the verb ascian, /askjan/. cg is pronounced as dg in edge. /k/, /g/ Between voiced sounds. The doubling of a consonant implies a voiced sound. Always in initial and final position and when in contact with a voiceless consonant.
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A small percentage of words is still present in Modern English but, after all, they are basic elements present in everyday English such as prepositions, conjunctions, etc. These words changed their sound, their spelling and in some cases, the meaning. This small percentage is much more used than 60% of words that came from Latin. Old English made an extensive use of compounds, whereas Modern English prefers borrowing words from foreign languages instead of creating new ones. In Old English the phenomenon of borrowing didnt exist so they built new words by joining two or three already existing. Old English was a self-sufficient language just because of this fact, but some borrowings were needed. In the 11th century there were loans from Latin, Greek (through Latin), Scandinavian, French (before the Norman conquest) and Celtic. In any case, Old English preferred its own words. It had two main ways of building words:
COMPOUNDS OF ADJECTIVES
In the compounds, the case ending goes at the end of the second element. Sometimes there can be found a compound of three elements. In this case, the case ending is present in the last element of the compound. We often find in Modern English a compound in which the elements of the compound are borrowings from Latin or Greek, such as microphone or television. This kind of words is usually linked to Medicine, Biology or Chemistry. This is a different kind of English called English for Science and Technology EST-. Here, most of the words are formed by non-English terms, but by Latin or Greek ones. A compound contains a metaphor or an image. Old English is very rich in metaphors and images. E.g.: b weg (bath way, instead of sea)
Affixing. Prefixing.
The adding of elements before the original word is a very useful resource, particularly in the formation of new verbs. Some common prefixes: - wi- : its meaning depends on the context. It has two main meanings: against or away.
wicesan: to choose against (cosan: to choose): reject. wisprecan: to speak against (sprecan: to speak): contradict.
- g-: Attached to a pronoun or an adverb., it generalizes the meaning of the word. Its meaning is every: ghw: everybody (hw: now) ghwr: everywhere (hwr: what) - ge-: together. It is found also in past participles of verbs and it expresses the perfective aspect of the action. - on- / an-: negative sense. onbindan: to unbind (bindan: to bind).
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Suffixing.
Adding elements at the end of the word. - -end: Found in nouns to express the agent of the action. - -hd: Forms masculine nouns. - -ig: It creates adjectives, like y in Modern English. - -lic: Firstly it was used as a noun, meaning body, but later on it started to be used as a suffix, so it lost its original meaning. Like ly in Mod English. - -lice: Like ly in Mod English. - -sum: Sometimes like some. - -an: coming from.
Number in OE.
In OE we find a third category for number, apart from singular and plural, that is the dual. We only suspect that this category must have been used throughout the language but the truth is that, in the texts studied there is only a remain of the dual form in the 2 nd and 3rd person singular, so we dont know it for sure. OE speakers distinguished between one thing (singular), two things (dual), and more than two things(plural). The dual form disappeared in the Middle English period, although it is still present in poetry in forms like thou or thee.
Gender .
OE presents grammatical gender, that is, nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter, without a necessary concordance with the natural gender the noun presents. Eg: wf is grammatically neuter in OE, although its natural gender is feminine (woman). Grammatical gender disappeared in the Middle English period and turned natural gender. We must take grammatical gender into account when translating OE. Adjectives and nouns must agree in gender, number and case:
*it
It is difficult to get to know the gender of each noun in OE. We can use a dictionary or searching clues in the text. We can also consult a list of suffixes - Adult male humans or animals use to be masculine:
o o o o o o o
-
o o o o o
Case. Nominative.
It works as subject, Subject complement (atributo) and in direct speech (vocative).
Cynewulf benan Sygebriht his rices Subj (nom) V Oi Genit. He is ordfrume and ende Sub. V Cs (Nomin) (Nom)
Accusative.
As Direct Object, object of preposition, adverbial of time and subject of infinitive.
And wunodon r ealne one winter Adv Adv (acc) And stayed there all the winter.
Genitive.
Possesion, adverbials of time, partitive genitive, number + gen. pl.
Be his hlfordes hse Gen by his Lords _____ XXX scilinga Gen. p. 30 schellings
Some verbs have Od in genitive (rigen genitivo): beniman (deprive) brcan (enjoy) nesian (visit)
Dative.
It indicates the instrumental function, the means by which an action is performed. Is also object of the preposition.
Tdum At times
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Some adjectives require the dative case: - eli (similar) - hold (loyal) - lof (dear) - nah (near) and also some verbs: - andswarian (answer) - elifan (believe) - helpan (help) - hiersumian (obey) - lcian (please) - yncan (think) The dative of possession is used sometimes when expecting genitive.
The noun.
Its inflections distinguish between singular and plural. The case system ia far more simple than eg. Greek or Latin (no Ablative, no Locative, no Vocative, no Instrumental). There are two groups of declensions: vowel declensions or strong, whose stem ends in vowel, and consonant declensions, or weak, whose stem ends in consonant.
Strong declensions. A-stem (temas en a). Masculine hundNo m Acc Gen Dat SINGULAR Shund INGULAR hund hundes hunde PLURAL PLURAL hundas hundas hunda hundum
/a/ is the sound of the stem in proto-germanic. The name has some historical significance, because we do not find this sound in OE.
Germanic OE Nom. *wulfaz wulf Acc. *wulfan This declension was extended to other nouns. This one is the most extended. Some declensions adopted their endings from this one. In present day English, it only remains the possesive (genitive singular, -es). The s ending for plural comes from the Nom. Pl (-as). These two endings (-as, -es) merged in / / when people became to forget case endings and used more and more prepositions. The apostrophy () helped to differentiate, in ME, whether the ending / s was the old es (Gen. sing)ending or as (Nom. pl.). The apostrophy indicated Gen. sing.
Z-stem (Temas en z)
Neuter cildSINGULAR No cild m cild Acc cildes Gen cilde Dat PLURAL cildru cildru cildra cildrum
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They add r in the plural, before the ending: IE Germanic | | /s/ /s/ /z/ /z/
G. Law V. Law voicing stress shift rhotacism
OE /r/
Masculine, feminine, neuter oxNo m Acc Gen Dat SINGULAR oxa oxan oxan oxan PLURAL oxan oxan oxena oxum
There is a change in the root vowel in Nom. pl. and Dat. sing. Dat. sing.: * fti > fti > ft. Nom. pl. : * ftiz > ftiz > ft. The front vowel -i has fronted the root vowel. This phenomenon is called front mutation or umlaut. The rest of Germanic languages also suffered this change. German does something different, indicating the umlaut with the dieresis: Mann, Mnner, Fu, Fe. Feminine nouns present this mutation also in gen. sing. This phenomenon is NOT a mark of plurality.
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-stem (Temas en )
Feminine lufSINGULAR No lufu m lufe Acc lufe Gen lufe Dat PLURAL lufa lufa lufa lufum
In Nom. sing. There is no ending after long syllables. We find no ending after short vowel followed by a consonant.
ic m mn m
Singular
w s re s
Dual
2ND PERSON
g ow ower ow
3RD PERSON
Plural
The demonstratives.
They work as definite articles (the), but also as demonstratives (this, that). There is also instrumental case. Singular Masculine Feminine Neuter There are two main patterns of demonstratives: 1) s, so, t. It is fully inflected. The plural has no differentiation among genders. The original Nom. masc. and fem. were originally e,
Plural
s, se one s m , on,
so re re ---
t t s m , on,
ra m ---
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eo. This form survived until today as the. The t form evolved to that nowadays. It originally was neuter only, but later it was used with every gender. 2) es, os, is. This paradigm was less important. The neuter form is survived until today as this. As in the previous model, the neuter form was widened.
The adjective.
It agreed with the noun in gender, number and case. They adopted the weak declension when after s, os, is (dem) and after a possessive. They added a an in every cases except in the nominative. In the fem. except Nom. and Acc. The plural had no instrumental case. The strong declension was used when the demonstrative was NOT preceded by any demonstrative or possessive. The an ending is NOT used, there is an ending for each case. The plural forms are common for the three genders. In Gen. and Dat. There is no Instr. in plural.
2n
d
They derive from the genitive form of the pronoun. They are always declined weak. Singular Equiv. my mn your n / (dn) hise, hire, his,
his
r
3
d
Dual
1
t d
2n 3r
d
Plural
1
t d
2n 3r
d
Comparative ealdra > ieldra eongra > ingra langra > lengra strangra > strengra heahra > hierra
Superlative ealdest> ieldest geongest > gingest langest > longest strangest > strengest heahest > hehst
Meaning
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The Verb.
There are distinctions of number, tense and person. Numbers: singular and plural; tenses: present, past (preterit), no future, because the present tense covers the present and future. The preterit tense covers some fields today occupied by different tenses. OE verbs are classified in 2 conjugations: weak and strong. Not all weak verbs are regular. Weak and strong verbs differ in the preterit form. If a t or d ending (dental) is found, then the path will be weak. Strong verbs form their past tense by varying the vowel of the stem (gradation). There is also mood distinction: indicative, subjunctive and imperative. In the present system there is also infinitive and participle.
Present system.
Indicative ic h, ho, hit w / g / h Subjunctive Singular Plural Imperative Singular Plural Infinitive Simple Inflected Present Participle WEAK: cpan cpe cpest cpe cpa cpe cpen cp cpa cpan to cpenne cpende STRONG: helpan helpe hilpst hilp helpa helpe helpen help helpa helpan to helpenne helpende
Preterit system
Indicative ic h, ho, hit w / g / h Subjunctive Singular Plural WEAK: cpan cpte cptest cpte cpton cpte cpten STRONG: helpan healp hulpe healp hulpon hulpe hulpen
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Past Participle
gecped
geholpen
Weak verbs have 3 main parts on which the rest are built (strong verbs present 4): - Infinitive: cep-, help- 1st, 2nd, 3rd p.s. of the preterit indicative: cept-, healp. In weak verbs, the whole preterit system is built on the stem of this part. - (Strong verbs only) Preterit plural: hulp- . The rest of the preterit system was built taking this as the basis. - Past participle: gecped, geholpen. We find on the 2nd p.s. pres. ind. () the ending est. The -t is not part of the original ending. The usual way to use it was cpes > cepesu > cepestu > cepest. The thas remained as a kind of enclitic form of . The subjunctive may be found also in main and subordinate clauses. If found on main clauses, it expresses wishes and commands:
God helpes s (may God help us) Ne ho hundas cpe (She does not keep the dogs).
- Infinitive endings: NOT INFLECTED o an o ian
o n
INFLECTED A relic from when the infinitives were declined. Used when the infinitive had a noun function, as todays gerund. It expressed gerund:
Participle endings:
PRESENT PARTICIPLES
-ende -nde
PAST PARTICIPLES
ge-_____-en (strong verbs) geholpen ge-_____-d, -t (weak verbs) gecped (OE) g- > gi- > ii > i > (Mod. E) .
Most of the OE verbs were weak. They formed the preterit and past participles, containing a-t (after a voiced sound) or a d (after a voiceless one).
Gradation.
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STRONG VERBS. There are 7 classes of strong verbs, attending on the particular vowel alternations in the root.
Class
Infinitive
Preterit singular
Preterit plural
Past Participle
Class I Class II
drfan cosan
Class III helpan Class IV beran Class V ClassVI Class VII sprecan faran feallan
The verb to be is the only that has kept the distinction between preterit sing. and preterit pl.: was / were. Many dialects of English do not use de form were, bu this is non-standard English. Some verbs, specially bon, present many irregularities: Present Indicative
ic on / bo eart / bist h, ho, hit is / bi w sindan / beo g sint / beo h sind / veo
Syntax
Differences between OE and todays English.
Nouns, adjectives and most pronouns had fuller inflections than their modal developments did, so we find a lot of case endings. They serve to indicate the function in a sentence. Adjectives agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify. Adjectives were also inflected in the so-called weak and strong declensions. OE uses the genitive case in many circumstances that would present an of phrase:
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OE uses the passive voice. They were built in a different way: using the simple infinitive with a passive sense:
She ordered that he should be taught There is another alternative for the passive voice, using the indefinite pronoun man:
In OE, we find very often parataxis. It involves the joining of sentences by means of coordinating conjunctions The surface structure is very simple. Sometimes we find yuxtaposed sentences, what is not so frequent in todays English.
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London, at that time, was a very commercial city, but it had not come to be the capital then. The Lordsprayer in Old English.
Fder re e eart on heofnum S in nama gehlgod T becume n rce Gewur n willa opn eoran Sw sw on heofnum Urne gedghwmlican half syle s to dg And forgyf s re gyltas Sw sw w forgyfa rum gyltendum And ne geld s on costnunge Ac ls s of yfele. Slice.
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vassals who had lands in both parts to serve one king or the other. The king of England, as a reaction, send the French to France to dispossess them of their lands. Around the mid 13th century all nobility of England was English.
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Features.
Vowels at the end of a word were levelled to e. The sound was a very relaxed vowel, [ ].
The handwriting.
In OE there were 2 types of writing, the runes and the Roman alphabet, the insular hand. The insular hand was replaced by a new type of writing, around 1150, the Carolingian minuscule. the letters were more angular and differentiated. Around 1430 was established another handwriting, the Chancery hand, which started in London and became the official system. The manuscripts written in this new type were the Early Chancery Proceedings.
The alphabet.
After the Norman conquest the scribes continued using the previous alphabet:
a b c d e f h i k l m n o p r s t u $ (winn) x y
By the end of the 14th century there were additions and modifications to this alphabet:
abcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz
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Spelling.
It was based on the Anglo-Saxon tradition. French and Latin traditions were introduced by Anglo-Norman migrations. All influences combined gave as a result a large lack of regularity in the spelling. After 14th century a kind of normalization was introduced. Manuscripts were copied by scribes whose dialect was different and they introduced their own dialectal forms: - The was replaced by ea, e, a. - The was replaced by . - The winn $ was replaced by u, uu, or w. - The was replaced by g if plosive. In the North can also be found at the end of words instead of a mark of plural (-s). - - The clusters ght, ht (cht in the North) did not suffered changes in pronunciation, although they come from the OE tradition. - The letter k was an innovation, it was very rare in English. It was preferred before e, i, n, l because writing a c was more difficult to read:
cniht knight
-
cwean
queen
hw became wh by metasthesis:
hwt what
Latin influences.
i for j in initial position: justice iustice u for v in any position: love loue [luv ] v for u in initial position.
OE ft ME feet
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OE good ME good
It was only a change in spelling. Other devices were, in open syllables, the weak and final e indicating the length of the preceding vowel:
OE nam ME name (macron is not necessary). The final e is not ethimological. The doubling of consonants was used to show the shortness of the preceding vowel:
OE mte ME mtte.
This device is still present in Modern English.. In the North, the length of the vowel was indicated in [ai], [oi] and [ui] by reducing them to [a:], [o:] and [u:]. The spelling was conserved, but not the writing:
guid /gu:d/
In the South and the West Midlands the [ui] spelling was used to indicate the [] sound.
Stress.
There were two kinds of words in ME: Germanic (Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian) and Latin words (Latin and French). The type of stress in Germanic words did not differ away words. It was in the root syllable. Words of French origin had to adapt themselves to the Germanic stress. French words use to have the stress at the end of the word. Pattern Example Evolution Result X (X) table no changes table XX cit ci,t city XXX corage corage XXX general general* * The vowel in the middle used to drop.
OE sinkan ME sinken
The OE was retracted to a in the 11th century. This phonological change took place earlier than the written one Long stressed vowels did not change their sound, but their spelling:
OE stn /sta:n/ ME stone /st :n/ The OE suffered a complex evolution. In most of the dialects of the Midlands we see
2 different vowels of different openings:
[e:] < *West Germanic [a] written e Mod. E. ee [open e:] < * West Germanic [ai] written e Mod E. ea The OE y [] also changed, depending on the dialect:
1. West Midlands and South West: u, ui []. 2. North and East Midlands: unrounding of [] > [i] written i, y. 3. South East (Kentish dialect): lowering into [e], written e. 33
OE cynn
Most of todays standard English come from the East Midlands dialect.
Diphthongs.
From the 10th century, the diphthongs ea, eo were reduced to [open e:] and e []. There was also a reversed process, which created new diphthongs: 1. Vocalization of palatal g after , e, i: OE d > dai, day; OE we > wei,
wey.
2. Development of a vowel before [x], []: a. u[x] u-glide b. i[] i-glide 3. Creation of the diphthongs au, ou, ei before[x], []: OE dohtor douhter. 4. Vocalization of the velar g after a, o in the middle of the word. a. ag au; dragan drauen b. [a:]g ou; gan ouen c. [o:]g ou, ow; bga boue, bowe
Unstressed syllables
Unstressed vowels are all weakened. The transformation involves 2 stages: 1. Levelling to e of final vowels: OE tungan > tungen 2. From the 12th century the final e became / / and then dropped in the spelling. Depending on the words, changer come sooner or later: OE whanne > whan. Along the 13th century (North) or 14th (rest) the e was dropped in two- and three-syllable words. the first in being affected were disyllables with a short radical vowel.
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root: stn- endings Nom . Acc. Gen. Dat Plur al stn stn stone(s) stone stone(s) -----e(s) -e -e(s)
root: end- endings ende ende endes ende endes -e -e -es -e -es
endings -e -e -e -e
nmen(e) -en(e)
Uses of the cases: The Norman dialects tended to use Type I; he Midlands, types II and III; the South of the Thames, types I, II and III. Southern speakers tended to be more conservative. As time went by, type III merged with type II, tending to disappear. A little bit later Type II merged with type I, by silencing the final e:
Nom. stn Acc. stn Plural: stone(s) Gen. stone(s) Dat. stn
Notes: - ich was used in the South, and ik in the North. - The forms , are older than thou and thee. - is older that y. - to, tw, andte are eclitic, used after a word ending. - * This form you IS NOT the origin of the modern you.
Masculine
Neuter
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1. heo, hue, ho, ha, hi 2. h, ch, sch 3. sch, sh, s hire, hir, hure PLURAL Midlands EI, E heom, hem
hit, it, a
Object Acc. hine, hin Dat.him North Subject AI, AY, THAI Object
AIM, THAIM, THANE
Acc. hit, it Dat. him South hy, heo, ho, he, ha, a Acc. hi, hise, his, hes, hies, es Dat. heom, hem, hm, ham
Singular notes: - a, it and ha are the unstressed forms. - In fem. sing., 2 are the forms of the Northern and Scots dialects and the North Midlands. - In fem. sing., 3 are the East Midlands forms. sch is older than sh. s disappeared. Plural notes: - THESE FORMS are the SCANDINAVIAN ones, and these other forms the native ones. - aim, and thaim came from Old Norse. All the native forms disappeared.
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The printing press helped many people could read. The first economic consequence was that the books were cheaper, so many more could afford buying books. Up until those days only the privileged classes could afford buying books, which were handwritten and very expensive. There also were more schools along England, and many people learned to read their mother tongue. Learned people could read and understand books in Latin and Greek, but many people wanted to know more about everything, so many translations appeared. [faltan apuntes 22 marzo 2001]
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- ME [a:] fronted [:] raised [ :] closed [e:] diphthong. [eI] - ME [ :] closed [o:] diphthong. [ou] / [ ] - ME [o:] raised [u:]. There are some exceptions in which the vowel is shortened and centered. e.g. flood, blood. - ME open [ :] raised and closed [e:] raised [i]. There are some exceptions, very few, in which [ ] has been diphthongised to [ I]: great, steak. - ME [e:] raised and closed [i:]. - ME [u:] diphthong. [ou] fronted [eu] lowered [au]. - ME diphthong. [eI]: central. and relaxed [ I] lowered [aI] [falta ]
Morphology
There was the necessity to have a homogeneous language to communicate and keep written records. The Government tried to establish a standards language. The phonological changes were the most important (The Great Vowel Shift). But these changes involved also morphological changes.
The Noun.
By the end of the ME period, the es ending extended to all nouns as a mark of a caseless plural suffix and also as a mark of genitive. As a result of this, most of the nouns had two forms, with or without s (- es): sister, sisters. The use of the apostrophy for the genitive appeared a bit later (17th century): Gen: sisters, sisters But there were several nouns which did not use the s as a p`lural form, the irregular plurals: 1. The umlaut plurals (vowel mutated plurals): foot, feet; man, men. 2. n plurals: ox, oxen, child, children, brother, brethren. These plurals were more spread in the South, as s ones were in the North. Some authors did not avoided plurals like eye, eyen, today disappeared and written with s. 3. Uninflected plural forms. Some of them come from the OE period: deer, sheep, swine, kind (today kinds), etc. The names of a number of animals with s became uninflected by analogy with the others: fish, fowl. These plurals were also applied to non English animals: buffalo, antelope.
Genitive constructions.
1. His genitive: Augustus his daughter; Art not thou Poines his brother. The origin of this genitive is the belief that the s was a variant for the possessive his (whisch was wrong).This is because the possessive drops the h in pronunciation. They were so convinced that they even applied his to female: Mrs. Sand his maid. There were some variants like is and ys. This genitive is the more usual with proper names, specially ending in sibilant. 2. Group genitive: The Wife of Baths Tale. the mark of genitive is attached to the last word, Baugh and Cables book. 3. Uninflected genitive. In Early Mod. English occurred in a number of special cases. In words ending in s or preceding words ending in s or [s]: for conscience sake, for God sake. There are a very limited number of words in todays English with this genitive: The Lady Day, the Lady Chapel. In some forms of Black English we find constructions like my brother car.
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Personal pronouns.
This system uses to be more conservative than nouns or adjectives: 1st person 2nd person 3rd person SINGULAR SINGULAR Masculine Subject Object I me PLURAL Subject Object we us thou thee PLURAL ye you he, a him SINGULAR Feminine she her PLURAL they them Neuter hit, it hit, it
The possessives.
1st person SINGULAR Attrib. Nominal Attrib. Nominal my mine PLURAL our ours 2nd person SINGULAR thy thyne PLURAL your yours 3rd person SINGULAR Masc. Femin. Neuter his his her hers PLURAL their theirs his, it his, its
From the 18th century English grammar demands different forms for nominal and attributive uses. His is the exception, used for both purposes. When the distinction between the forms my / mine, etc, was phonological, there was a confusion about where the [i] belonged to: mine uncle my nuncle. The loss of the 2nd p.s. ( thou, thee, thy, thine ) created a gap, not repaired. The loss started with the change in the use of the thou / ye forms in the 13th century. From this time, ye / you forms started to be used with a singular meaning in circumstances of politeness, by French influence, specially from the tu / vous forms. English aristocracy imported the use of the French forms to English.
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English has now lost these differences, these th- forms were decreasingly in use. Shakespeare is the exception: QUEEN.- Hamlet, thou hast thy Father much offended. HAMLET.- Mother, you have my father much offended. The yeform died in Early Modern English. The th forms became more rare and disappeared definitely in the 18th century. However, these forms still survive in poetry or in religious writings (e.g. in the Lords prayer). A third possibility are the dialects (e.g. in Yorkshire), specially the form thee. The neuter has two forms, hit, and it. Hit was the stressed form and it the unstressed one. His was the neuter form for the possessive in the early years of Mod. English: But value dwels not in particular will, it holds his estime and dignite WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE This created ambiguity and his was replaced by of it, thereof or it. Lately the form its was created, and then the apostrophe disappeared. Since the th- forms were lost, English has lost alittle of capadity to differentiate between singular and plural. The form youse is used in Irish English for the plural among the lower classes. The form you uns (you ones) is used in Scottish English to express plurality. The form you all seem to have been created in the southern states of the US. This one is more respectable than the others. From the17th century many speakers differentiated between you was and you were. Now, the form you was is considered archaic or non-standard. The 3rd p.pl. has no native English forms. These forms are Scandinavian. the only native form which survives is hem, with the form em unstressed. this form does NOT come from them, but from a native English form.
The Verb.
The number of strong verbs decreased. They became weak or disappeared. The verb to be was an exception. The difference between regular and irregular is not the same difference than between weak and strong. The final e was dropped: ich sitte I sit sitten sitte sit The Early Mod. English maintained a number of personal endings: Present I sit thou sittest, sitst he / she / it sitteth, sits we, you, they sit Preterit I sat thou sat, sattest, satst he / she / it sat we, you, they sat
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We may find the different alternatives simultaneously, but from the 17 th century onwards the rest disappeared. Some verbs retained the th ending: doth, hath. The ending s seems to be of northern origin. We can find this ending even in 1 st or 2nd person, or even in 3rd p.pl., although this is colloquial non-standard usage. The -est, -st endings in 2nd p.s. preterit were dropped in the 16th century.
The preterit 2nd p.pl. was were, until the 16th century. The rest of the forms were more modern.
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