History of the English language 1. Language, its appearance, changes taking place in the evolution of a language.

A l-ge is a sys of conventional vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate. A l-ge develops together with community who speaks it and its changes are thus caused by alterations in human society. L-ge is never static, changes are constantly going on at all its levels. The nature of linguistic change is namely determined by the l-ge general characteristics and its functions of a l-ge in the society. 2. Language, a well structured system, its component elements. Factors influencing the changes in a language (internal and external). While studying the hist. of a l-ge we are faced with a number of problems concerning the reasons of changes in a l-ge. They can be of 2 types external and internal. In the first case l-ge is influenced by the factors lying outside it, or extralinguistic factors, social changes, wars, conquests, migrations, cultural contacts, trades and theylike can hardly influence a l-ge, predominately its vocabulary. On the other hand, many changes occur in the hist.of a l-ge which cannot be traced to any extralinguistic causes, the driving power in such cases within the l-ge itself. From the linguistic /./ of view, l-ge is an organized structure of interdependent components. The system of l-ge is made up of smaller systems- subsystems. They are interlinked and correlated trough a regular analogy, similarities and oppositions. As l-ge must always fulfill its functions, it can never stop being an organized structure of components. Consequently at all times the development of a l-ge is slow and gradual, however its evolution is not even, it may be faster slower and its various levels change at different rates. Linguistic changes- Interdependent/interrelated in that that a minor may be a cause of the changes in the same subsystem at different subsystems, the minor changes and the frame work of large ones. Interdependence between alterations in different linguistic levels can be exemplified by some facts from hist. of the Engl l-ge. Due to phonetic causes the unstressed final syllables of Engl words were gradually weakened and sometimes dropped. The phonetic development served as one factor that brought about the loss of some grammatical endings and such a way affected the morphological sys.of the l-ge. Every isolated change is a part of some general process of alteration and a manifestation of a general tendency of development.

3. Functions of a language. Types of languages (synthetical and analytical). The 2 main functions of a l-ge in the society- communicative /of communication and expressive/ of expression. These two functions determine its basic linguistic properties. An analytic language is a language that conveys grammatical relationships without using inflectional morphemes. The order of the words is strict, each member has its strict place. English is not totally analytic in its nouns as it does use inflections for number, e.g. "one day, three days; one boy, four boys". Synthetic languages are considered all the ind.eur.l-ges. They were expressed with the help of inflections, endings. The order of words is free.

4. History of Germanic languages, their parent language. The oldest l-ge is considered the Sanskrit. It appeared in India and then spread to Western Europe. The most ancient type of writing used by Germanic people was the runic writing based on the runic alphabet. The name of the letters- the runes. Initially it was made up of 24 symbols /Elder Futhark/, then- 16/Younger Futhark/. The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic (PG) language (also termed Common or Primitive Germanic, Primitive Teutonic and simply Germanic). PG is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th c. B.C. The would-be Germanic tribes belonged to the western division of the IE speech community. As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, the ancient Germans or Teutons moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of the Teutons. It is here that they developed their first specifically Germanic linguistic features which made them a separate group in the IE family. Towards the beginning of our era Germanic appears divided into dialectal groups and tribal dialects. Dialectal differentiation increased with the migrations and geographical expansion of the Teutons caused by overpopulation, poor agricultural technique and scanty natural resources in the areas of their original settlement. 5. Origins of the English language. Old English dialects, their appearance. The English language originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects which made part of West Germanic subgroup of Germanic group of languages. The Germanic group of languages is divided into 3 subgroups: East, West and North. In the east subgroup is the gothic language. The Gothic language was spoken by the majority of people. It is studied today by linguists. It is the earliest written language in the Germanic group. The Goths were the first of all Germanic tribes to be Christianized. Ulfilas the gothic bishop translated the bible from Greek to Gothic, it was written with silver and gold letters, it was first published in the 17 th century. In the North subgroup there are the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese. The modern languages of the West Germanic subgroup are: English, German, Dutch, Frisian, Afrikaans and Yiddish. The Old English had many dialects, the four main dialect forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as Anglian), Kentish, and West Saxon. Each of these dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Kentish (a dialect spoken in the area known now as Kent and in the Isle of Wight) has developed from the tongue of the lutes and Frisland. West Saxon was the main dialect of the Saxon group, spoken in the rest of England south of the Thames and the Bristol channel, except Wales and Cornwall.
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Mercian was a dialect derived from the speech of Southern Angels and spoken in the kingdom of Mercia. Northumbrian, another Anglian dialect, spoken from the Humber north to the river Forth. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mer cia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were successfully defended were then integrated into Wessex. The changes in the lingustic situation justify the distinction of the 2 historical periods. In Early Old English from 5th to the 7th centuries English language consisted of a group of spoken tribal dialects having neither a written nor a dominant form. At the time of written Old English the dialects had changed from tribal to regional; they possessed both an oral and a written form and were no longer equal; in the domain of writing the West Saxon dialect prevailed over its neighbours. Alongside Old English dialects a foreign language, Latin, was widely used in writing. 6. Celtic, Romanic and Germanic invasion of the British Isles. The island of Britain has not been successfully invaded since 1066 AD. Before that date, however, the island had been occupied by Rome, the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish. The first incursions by Julius Caesar into Britain in 55 and 54 BC. The dominant group in Britain were a Celtic people whose language is the ancestor of modern Welsh and Breton. When the British Celts were finally subdued by the Roman Emperor, Claudius, 43 A.D. ; Britain nominally became part of the Roman Empire, though it was not fully brought in line until 78 AD. under the governor Agricola. Roman influence never penetrated the culture of the British Celts the way it did their continental neighbors, and Rome's influence was negligible in the Pictish north and Celtic west. When Rome found itself under attack in the early fifth century the legions were recalled. Britain, after more than three centuries of dependence on Rome's military might, found herself vulnerable, first to the northern Picts, then to the Saxon mercenaries hired to defeat the Picts. According to legend, in 449 AD. the British overlord, Vortigern, invited the lutish brothers Hengist and Horsa into Britain to fight the Picts, offering them land in Kent as payment. A daughter of Hengist's was given in marriage to Vortigern, as part of the alliance. Although the lutes kept their bargain, insofar as they beat back the Picts, they also recognized the opportunity offered in the fertile soil and military weakness of Britain. In what was part invasion, part migration, the lutes sent across the sea to their families, and along with invading tribes of Angles and Saxons, the Germanic people managed to kill or displace the natives and occupy the country. Over the next one hundred years the invasions gave way to a period of settlement. The Celtic view of this period is immortalized in literature as the Arthurian cycle. The native Celts were either killed by the invaders, or pushed back into Wales, Cornwall, and across the English channel into Brittany, taking their Celtic language with them. The dominant language of southern Britain (now England, from Angle-land) came to be that spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. The three main dialects, Northumbrian, Mercian, and West Saxon, corresponded with the three major kingdoms that vied for ascendancy. The first to exert its influence was Northumbria, followed by Mercia and finally Wessex. It is the West Saxon dialect that is most often referred to as Old English and that was the most prominent dialect at the time ofthe Norman conquest in 1066. At the time ofthe original Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the fifth century, the language contained approximately 100 Latin words that had been taken into the language before the Anglo-Saxons left the continent, mainly terms dealing with trade or the military. By the time ofthe
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Norman Conquest, Old English had been further enriched by words drawn from ecclesiastical Latin brought in by the conversion of the English to Christianity by St. Augustine in 597 A.D In the mid eighth century a new wave of Northmen turned their attention toward England, this time the Danish Vikings. What began first as coastal raids developed into a full scale invasion by the middle of the ninth century during the ascendancy of the kingdom of Wessex. Although the Danes made great headway into England, they were pushed back into what became known as the Dane law by the West Saxon king, Alfred the Great, by the end of the ninth century. Partly because of the political supremacy of Wessex and partly due to the higly literate court of Alfred, the West Saxon dialect was the strongest English dialect at the opening of the tenth century. Much, but not all, of the Old English literature which survives, such as, Beowulf and The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles is in the West Saxon dialect. This trend continued until 1066 when Edward the Confessor died childless and William, Duke of Normandy landed in England to press. It was about mid-5th century that Britain was conquered by Germanic tribes. An old saying names the year 449 as the year of the conquest, and Hengest and Horsa as the two leaders of the invaders. The Britons fought against the conquerors for about a century and a half-till about the year 600. It is to this epoch that the legendary figure of the British king Arthur belongs. The conquerors settled in Britain in the following way. The Angels occupied most of the territory north of the Thames up to the Firth of Forth; the Saxons, the territory south of the Thames and some stretches north of it; the Jutes settled in Kent and in the Isle of Wight. Since the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain the ties of their language with the continent were broken, and in its further development it went its own ways. It is at this time, the 5th century that the history of the English language begins. Its original territory was England (in the strict sense) except Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde (a region in the north-west). These western regions the Britons succeeded in holding, and they were conquered much later: Cornwall in the 9th, Strathclyde in the 11 th, and in the 13th century. The Scottish Highlands, where neither Romans nor Teutons had penetrated, were inhabited by Picts and Scots. The Scots language, belonging to the Celtic group, has survived in the Highlands up to our own days. Ireland also remained Celtic: the first attempts at conquering it were made in the 12th century. 7. The subject and aims of the History of the English Language. When a child acquires first knowledge of his or her mother tongue, he usually takes all its peculiarities for granted: he has no Mother language to compare it with, and no genealogical principles to judge it by. Learning one's mother tongue is a natural process, which has been going on them since mankind care into being. Things are quite different with mastering a foreign language: when learning it (at whatever age) the student compares it to his mother tongue. He is often astonished to find great differences in the way ideas
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are expressed in the two languages, and if the learner is an adult person, he will often be struck by inconsistencies in the foreign language, illogicalities and contradictions in its structure. He will therefore quite naturally be inclined to ask, why is this so? In studying the English language of today, we are faced with a number of peculiarities which appear unintelligible from the modem point of view. These are found both in the vocabulary and in the phonetic and grammatical structure of the language. 8. The significance of studying History of the English Language, its connection with other disciplines. The purpose of the subject of history of the English language is the systemic study of the language development from the earliest times to the present day enabling the student to acquire a more profound understanding of the language of today. In the sphere of vocabulary, there is considerable likeness between English and German. Thus for example the German for some - zomen, winter vinter, foot foos, long lang, etc. on the other hand in certain cases English has something in common with French, for ex autumn autumni, modest modesti. In the phonetical structure of the language we can find facts in the relation of pronunciation and spelling which can not be explained from the modern point of view. Turning to grammar a lot of questions can be addressed, such as why the nouns man, foot, mouse, or other form their plural by changing their root vowel. History of the English language is connected with other disciplines. It is based on the history of England, studying the development of the language in connection with concrete conditions in which the people lived in several periods of their history. It is also connected with disciplines studying their present English, e.g. theoretical phonetics, grammar, lexicology, stylistics, etc. it shows how different linguistic phenomena developed and determines their origins of the present day system. 9. Two main approaches for studying linguistic phenomena (diachronic and synchronic), their importance. A language can be studied in various aspects and in learning Modern English. We examine all the aspects synchronically/diachronically, as they are available at the present time and consider/regard the language as a fixed unchangeable language. The synchronic approach may be compared to the diachronic approach in which no element of the language is treated as fixed. Every linguistic fact can be interpreted as a stage in the never ending evolution of the language. However the contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not marked in practice as it is in theory. In studying modern English we often have to address to history to explain present phenomena (spelling, unusual form of nouns, pronunciation etc.) that means that while investigating history of the language these 2 approaches are combined. Consequently the development of the language is presented as a series of synchronic cross section. 10. The phonological system in Old English. Vowel phonemes, their characteristic feature. Our knowledge of OE comes mainly from literature and the descriptions given in grammar textbooks of all times. The English language has gone through such changes in the course of time that we cannot read OE texts without a special study of the language. The EL has been the language of Britain a comparatively short period of time in old history. However the literature of the Anglo-Saxons is fortunately one of the richest and
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most significant of any preserved among the early Germanic tribes. The Germanic tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the jutes which invaded Britain in the middle of the 5 th century brought with them the runic alphabet. Ulfilas the gothic bishop translated the bible from Greek to Gothic, it was written with silver and gold letters, it was first published in the 17th century and was named Silver Code. The Sound system of OE differed from that of Latin and fill in the gaps some runes were preserved in the OE alphabet. In OE the general principle of word stress was to put strong stress on the first syllable of a word. In general the same rule was followed, but there were some exceptions to the rule, for example, in verbs formed by means of prefixes, the prefix remained unstressed, forbiden. In unstressed syllable long vowels were shortened but not reduced. There were long and short vowel phonemes: monophtong and diphtongs. Motophtongs were front (i, i:, e, e:, , :) and back (u, u:, o, o:, a, a:) Diphthongs (eo; iu; ao; ea). 11. Diphthongs, their types. Breaking and palatalization of vowels. Consonants. In OE there were variants of phonemes [k], [h], which were palatalized when they were followed front vowels as: nyht, hard, when followed or preceded by back vowels as: cumin, hus. Palatalization of vowels is the fronting of their articulation(the change of the sound from a back one to a front sound). Germanic a corresponds o OE a, ex: father-father; was-was. Germanic a: which developed from IE i: and was preserved in Gothic as i corresponds to OE , ex: slipan -shlafan-slpan-sleep. Before nasal consonants the Germanic a was not palatalized, it changed to a sound intermediate between a and o, ex: land-laond. a: before nasals developed into o: in OE, ex: Goth. mi:na OHG. ma:no OE mo:na. Germanic a was preserved in OE as i in 3 cases: 1. Before nasals; 2. In an unstressed position; 3. If there wasnt an i in the following syllable. In other cases it developed into e, ex: bindan bend, hilpan help. OE a: corresponds to the German diphthong ai, ex: OE sta:n G stain Mod E stone; a:n ains one. Diphthongs (eo; iu; ao; ea). All the diphthongs were falling that is the main syllabic element was there the first component. In OE there were long and short diphthongs. Long ones developed from Germanic diphthongs, while the development of short variants was due to some phenomena that took place in the English language in the 6th and 7th centuries. 1) OE ea: corresponds to Gothic au the first element was palatalized and the second dilabialized (not round the lips), ex: augo ea:ge eye; auso eare ear. 2) The German diphthongs eu and iu developed in OE in eo; iu; ao, ex: di us deoa deer; diups deop deep. Short diphthongs were the result of breaking and palatal mutation. Breaking is the change of a vowel into a diphthong under the influence of the following consonants: h; r; l.
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In OE in the 6th century the vowels a; e; i developed into short diphthongs when were followed by h; r; l +consonant. h influenced long and short vowels; r+cons influenced short vowels; l+cons influenced i. Palatal mutation is the change of a stressed vowel to a narrower or more front sound under the influence of i; j in the following syllable. In OE i; j that brought about palatal mutation after a long stressed syllable disappeared and after a short stress syllable i changed into e and j disappeared in all cases bringing about doubling of the consonant. Palatal mutation was a kind of assimilation. It took place approximately in the 6th century, as a result of this, palatal mutation a new sound appeared in OE which was later indicated by y, ex: goth flgan OE fullan. Palatal mutation took place in borrowed words too, ex: latin oleum OE ele oil. There are still traces of palatal mutation in Modern English: 1) A verb formed from the same root as the corresponding noun is created by vowel gradation, ex: food to feed; blood to bleed; tale to tell. The gradation developed in the following way. In Gothic the noun was fods the verb fodgan. In OE g influenced the root vowel o and turned into e so the OE forms were the noun fodan and the verb fedan. 2) A verb derived from the same root as the adjective is formed by means of vowel mutation, ex: full to fill. 3) The noun derived from the same root as the adjective has vowel gradation in the root as: strong strength; long length; There are traces in word formation of palatal mutation; plural of nouns: mouse mice; man men. In the forms of the verb: Goth inf talgan praterite talde; OE inf tellan prat talde. In the degree of comparison of adjectives: old elder eldest. 12. Lengthening and shortening of vowels. Lengthening of stressed vowels. Short vowels became long in the following cases: 1) When a nasal consonant was dropped out before a fricative: goth fimf OE fif; 2) When h fells out between vowels: Goth sehan OE seon; 3) In the 10th century short vowels became long in a stressed position before the following combinations of consonants: ld; nd; nb, ex: cild ci:ld; bindan bi:ndan. 13. Consonant shift. J. Grimms law. Voicing of consonants. C. Varners law. According to Grimms law first germanic sound shift: PIE p, t, k (voiceless plosives) b, d, g (voiced plocives) bh, dh, gh (voiced aspirated) German f, p, h (voiceless fricatives) p, t, k (voiceless plosives) b, d, g (voiced fricatives)

Change into

According to Verners law, when the sounds [p, t, k] were not immediately preceded by a stressed vowel, they didnt change after Grimms law but as follows: [p] in [b]; [t] in [d]; [k] in [g].
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14. Three periods of history of the English language. H. Sweets division of History of English, the principle used by him. The historical development of a language is a continuous, uninterrupted process without sudden breaks or rapid transformations. Therefore any per iodization imposed on language history by linguists, with precise dates, might appear artificial. There are some periodizations of the history of English language. The author of the first scientific historical phonetic and grammar of English Language. H. Sweet suggested the periodization that corresponds to the morphological structure of different centuries. He called the Old English Period - 'The period of full endings, the M. E. P. - 'The period of reduced endings' , the New En. P. The period of lost endings.' But this per iodization is not full because it is not quite right to divide the logical features, but phonological or syntactical ones (they were not mentioned in the per iodization.) So, thus I consider that any periodization is based on some principles, but can't touch all the sides of the language. One of the prominent and well-known English scientists Henry Sweet worked out several periodisations of the history of English language. He suggested to single out the period of transition and tosubdivide the transitional stage between the Old and the Middle English Periods cover 1100-1200. H. Sweet reckoned 1200 to be the limning of the Middle English based on morphological phenomena the Middle English Period is considered to le the Period of Levelled English. Another periodization is extralinguistical. It's based on the historical events, which influenced on the English language. I must notice that this one is the most traditional. The commonly accepted traditional periodization divides English language history into three periods: Old English, Middle English and New English with boundaries attached to definite dates and historical effects affecting the language. Old English is connected with the German settle in Bri tain (5th century) and with the beginning of writing (7th century) and ends with the Norman Conquest (1066). Middle English begins with Norman Conquest end ends on the introduction of printing (1475). The Middle English period itself may be also divided into two smaller ones - Early Middle English and Late Middle English. Early Middle English covers the main events of the 14th century. It is the stage of greatest dialectal di vergence caused by the feudal system and by foreign influences-Scandinavian and French. The dialectal division of present-day English owes its origin to this period of history. Great changes of the language took place at all the levels, especially in lexis and grammar. Later 14th till the end of the 15th century is a time known as Late or Classical Middle English. This period umbra's the age of Chaucer, the greatest English medieval writer and forerunner of the English Renaissanu, and is characterized by restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and by literary flourishing, which has a stabilizing effect on language, so that the rate of linguistic changes was slowed down. At the same time the written forms of the language developed and improved. 15. OE morphology, its subject matter. The OE morphological structure of a word. To understand the grammatical and logical features of the Germanic group it is necessary to examine the morphological structure of the word. In all periods of history words in GL could be divided into 3 types according to the nr and character of their components- simple, derived and compound words. The root morpheme together with the word building affixes and some form building aff is called the stem. Sound alteration in the root mph: A characteristic feature of the G group of l-ges is the variability of the root mph which is rather changeable as far as vowels a concerned, that is why different vowels could be found in
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the same root mph at one and the same historical point. The dif between the variants as the root mph must be attributed to vowel alteration, which differentiate between gram forms of the wd. The earliest and most widely and systematically employed interchange preserved into G group from ancient Indo-Eur. was a vowel interchange called ablaut. It was a Common Indo-Eur.not a specific Germ feature it was found in other Indo-Eur l-ges too. /see-saw. This kind of vowel gradation is called qualitative, because only the quality of the vowel is changed. The other kind of ablaut known as quantitative is based on the quantity: long vowels alternate with short ones, and with the reduced or zero-grade, meaning that the vowel is neutral or lost. 16. Three types of words, their characteristic features. In all periods of history, words in Germanic language could be divided into 3 types, according to the number and character of their components: 1) Simple; 2) Derived; 3) Compound. The root morpheme together with the word building affixes and some form building aff is called the stem. The stem may be equal to the root, as in simple words may contain building affixes as in derived words or may have a more complicated structure, it can contain more than 1 root morpheme and word building affixes in addition. When we analyze the words from the diachronical point of view it is not easy to distinguish between 3 main structures because derived words could lose their affixes thus changing into simple ones while compound words could develop into derived if the 2nd root morpheme was transformed into a suff or joined with the root. It has been discovered that the early morph.str. of the wd was more complicated than the written period. In Common Germ the stem consisted of 2 basic components-the root mph and its stem forming suff. To these 2 elements a 3rd mph-the gramm ending- was added. Stem forming suff-s originally performed a wd building function, but sometimes a form building one. In later CG and in OG dialects the morph structure of the word was simplified- the stem suff disappeared as a separate mph in the wd structure. The 3 basic components were thus reduced to 2.

17. Form building and word building. Ways of forming new words. Form building means: All the old IE l-ges were synthetical, so they showed the relation between words in a sentence by adding inflections and changing the stem rather than by wd order. 1. Various means of form-building were employed, all of them being synthetical, such as sound alteration. At the beginning it was applied to vb late. It spread to other parts of speech it stood 2 nd among the form building means in OE. 2. Gram endings or suff-s were the most widely used in all parts of speech both alone and in combination with other means. The formation of the gram. end. was a very complicated process fused with a stem-suff. and both elements together were reduced. 3. In contrast to endings, gram pref were hardly ever employed. They were confined to the verb sys used to mark participle II in order to express a perfetic meaning associated with the cat of aspect. 4. Another means of form building is supplitive- the creation of a form of one and the same wds from diff.roots or stems, the differences are seen for beyond alteration. In Germ it was restricted to some personal pron, and verb. - . Later a new kind of forms analytical developed in addition to synthetical ones. The tendencies to analytical form building was very strong. It functioned in all the subgroups of G and is an important distinguishing mark in the group. Nowadays the proportion of synthetical and analytical form in the l-ge of a group varies. 18. The division of words into classes in OE (declinable and non-declinable). The GL is a group of IE fam. It has approximately the same division of wds into parts of speech as other groups. The following parts of speech could be found through the history ( the noun, the adj., the num.) declinable parts of speech; (the vb, adv, conj, prep) non declinable. 19. The grammatical categories of the noun and adjective. All inflected parts of speech were characterized by certain gram categories: the noun, pron and adj in CG had the gram cat of gender, nr, case. The adj had in addition the cat of degree of comparison. The GL had 3 genders: fem, masc and neutral, which sometimes didnt correspond to the natural gender or sex. As to the cat of nr, it should be said that there were had 3 nr: sing, pl and dual. Thus Gothic, OE, OIcelandic, had some dual forms of personal pron, the Gothic l-ge had dual vb forms that agreed with these pronouns. Perhaps the dual nr existed in CG but it was not preserved for a long time. Germ had lost a nr of cases which was equal to 7 or 8 in ancient IE. CG must have kept the original nr of cases, other dialects increased the nr adding vocative or instrumental to nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. The peculiar charact.of adj in G differed from the IE lang by having twofold declension: they were inflected for case, nr and gender and could be declined according to weak and strong declension. In the 1 st case they had the same endings and stems nouns.
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20. The OE Verbal system, the grammatical categories of the verb. The verbs in OE possessed the following grammatical categories: person, number, tense, mood, aspect. Voice as a verbal characteristic was not connected with all the system and was only expressed in Part II. Part I expressed the Active Voice and Part II the Passive Voice. The OE verbal system include finite forms of the 1 st, 2nd and 3rd persons singular and plural, and non-finite forms: the Infinitive, Part I and II. There was no Gerund in OE. The verbs were subdivided into strong and weak, according to the form of the Past tense. A small group of past present verbs was classed besides possessing features typical of both strong and weak verbs (modal verbs today). There were 2 tenses in OE the Present and the Past(Preterite). Present forms were used to express the future with the help of lexical means such as adverbs of time. The verbs sculan and willan in OE were verbs with full meaning and were not used for forming future tenses, they formed modal predicates. At the close of the OE period and the beginning of the Middle English these verbs lost their lexical meaning and became auxiliaries used for expressing futurity. In some cases these verbs have kept their original meaning even in the Modern English: I am willing. There were no perfect or continuous forms in OE but the continuous which was originated later, existed and was widely used. The use of the verb to be with Part I formed a compound predicate, the form of Part I depended of the subject (it agreed with the subject in number, gender and case). Even in OE this combination was often close to the Modern English continuous form. Gradually Part I lost the agreement with the subject, getting a greater connection with the finite forms and the whole combination of the verb to be+Part I turned into an analytical form. The pattern haban+Part II meant that the subject owned a thing ha ving a certain feature, as a result of an action performed upon it. Then it acquired the meaning of result of an action. Part II lost agreement with the object it stopped being an attribute to the object, its ties with the verb haban strengthened and so they merged into an analytical form the Perfect form. Continuous form of beon - wasan with Part II of intransitive verbs expressed the state of the subject, as a result of the action performed. This construction left traces in Modern English in such p hrases as he is gone, but later the verb was an was no longer used, the use of haban becoming universal. The verb had 2 numbers : singular and plural and 3 persons. There was no dual number in the OE verb and if the pronoun was in the dual number, the verb was in the plural. One of the most distinctive feature of Germanic language was the division of the verbs according to the means of form building. All the forms of the verb were built from the principle forms or stems: 1. The Present tense stem; 2. The Past tense stem; 3. Participle II.

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21. Finite and non-finite forms of the verb. The finite forms can and could fulfill the function of a predicate agreed with the subject of a sentence. Through this agreement, it made the category of number and person, could show the relation of the action towards reality through the contrast of Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive forms, making in such a way the category of mood. Reference of the action to time, within the Indicative and Subjunctive moods, by Present and Past forms made up the category of tense, aspect distinctions such as Perfect and Non-Perfect were shown very irregularly, more by lexicon than the grammatical means. That is why aspect could not be considered a grammatical category at that period of time. Referring to voice it didnt exist in common Germanic. In the meaning and form as it is today it is the opposition of Active-Passive. In Old German dialects voice distinctions preceded in different directions. Gothic developed forms of medio passive, showing that the subject was not the active doer of the action. Compare I dress I am dressed. The North Germanic subgroup developed Reflexive forms. In most dialects of the Western subgroup regular distinctions developed much later with the help of analytical forms. In the way of Non-finite/impersonal forms (verbals, verbids), the difference between the Participle I and Participle II can be determined and interpreted as that of voice. Participle I expressed active meaning, Participle II was active only for the forms of intransitive verbs, for transitive verbs it was passive. There existed only 2 forms of Non-finite: the Infinitive, a kind of verbal noun, and Participle I and II, were verbal adjective agreed with the noun they modified in case, number and gender. Later the number of grammatical category of the verbs grew, the number of forms of each category increased and became more complicated. 22. The Infinitive and Participle I and Participle II. The Infinitive is a descendant of the noun formed from a verb stem. The Infinitive was meant to name an action and in ancient time used to have declension. 2 forms of the Infinitive existed in OE: 1. The Nomonative case drincan and 2. The Dative case to drincenen. The Dative form was always used with the preposition to and expressed purpose or direction of the action. E.g. He eoda to drincenen. Later in Middle English these 2 forms coincided, the preposition to changed into a particle pertaining to the Infinitive. After the use of to was never admitted before the Infinitive. Part I was always connected with active meaning in OE, for ex: drincende one who is drinking. In OE it was closer to the adjective than in Modern English, it depended in form on the noun it modified. It began to develop the ability to take an object or to be defined by an advert at the end of the OE period. In the course of its development it acquired new verbal properties and lost those of adjective. Part II of intransitive verbs usually had an active meaning whereas that of transitive a passive one. Part I and II like an adjective had the category of gender, number and case and were declined like adjectives. Gerund had double nature as well it is a verb form and has the characteristic features of a noun.
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23. The category of aspect and voice in OE. There were 2 aspects in the OE verb the perfective and the imperfective, ex don-do, gidon to have done. Aspect was lexico-grammatical since it was expressed by prefixes, the later being often used for changing the lexical meaning of the verb at the same time, ex, stean to beat, ofstean to kill. The prefix in these cases was a word-building element. Aspect in OE was unstable as a grammatical category. Not all the verbs possessed it. There were no pairs of correlative form distinguished by aspect. From this point of view it is formed with the prefix e, so that expresses completion of an action, but there were forms without it. Only sometimes this prefix indicating the termination of an action and in such a way approached to the meaning of an aspect, ex the word cuman never appears with this prefix, this means that forms without this prefix could express an perfective action. The grammatical category of voice, there was no system of the Passive Voice in OE. There were combinations of the verbs beon and wasan with Part II which were often used, they were nominal predicates. 24. The category of mood. The conjugation of verbs in 3 moods. The category of Mood was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. There were a few homonymous forms, which eliminated the distinction between the moods: Subj. did not differ from the Ind. in the 1st p. sg Pres. Tense here, deme and in the 1st and 3rd p. in the Past. The coincidence of the Imper. and Ind. Moods is seen in the pl locia, dema. The subjunctive mood was rather often used in OE because it was applied in indirect speech. Only the simple forms of the Subjunctive were in existence. Although should and would+infinitive existed, they still kept their lexical meanings and only in Middle English they began to lose their full meaning and turned into auxiliars. Number Singular Plural Indicative finde findap Imperative find findap Subjunctive finde finden Infinitive to find

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25. Seven classes of strong verbs, their characteristic features. Strong verbs are verbs with vowel gradation (the change of the vowel in the root morpheme). The strong verbs had 4 forms: the Infinitive; Past Singular; Past Plural and Participle II. There were 7 classes of strong verbs in OE dialects (according to the vowel change): Class 1 2 a)before a nasal+consonant b)before l+consonant 3 c)before r/h+consonant 4 5 before a consonant other than nasal 6 7 The Infinitive i: (wri:tan) e:o (ce:osan) i (drincan) e (helpan) eo (weorthan(become) e (beran) e (cwepan(say)) a (faran(go)) a: (ha:ten) Past Singular a: (wra:t) e:a (ce:as) a (dranc) ea (healp) ea (wearth) (br) (cwp) o: (fo:r) e: (he:t) Past Plural i (writon) u (curon) u (druncon) u (hulpon) u (wurthon) : (b:ron) : (cw:pon) o: (fo:ron) e: (he:ton) Participle II i (writen) o (coren) u (druncen) o (holpen) o (worthen) o (boren) e (cwepen) a (faran) a: (ha:ten)

26. Weak verbs and Praterite-present verbs. Supplitive forms of verbs. Weak verbs (regular today) formed the past tense stem and Part II adding a dental suffix to the stem of the present form without any modification of the root morpheme. They were grouped into 3 classes and had 3 forms: the Infinitive, Past tense, Participle II. Class a)verbs with long root vowel in i b)verbs with short root vowel followed by r to 1. save c)short root vowel followed by other consonant without r to push 2.the suffix oga changed into ian 3.the verbs of this class corresponded to the gothic verbs with the suf ai, this suf is no longer found, the suf of past stem and part II is joined to the root. Infinitive hieran nerian cnyssan lufian habban Past Tense Part II hierde hiered nerede cnysede lyfode hfde nered cnysed lyfod hfd

Today are 3 classes of regular verbs by pronunciation: [t] liked; [d] played; [id] added. Praterite present verbs. There was a group of verbs in Germanic languages in which the present tense forms had developed from the past of strong verbs. During the process of development a certain change in meaning took place: while their past is derived according to the past of weak verbs. There were 12 Past Present verbs in OE. They denoted states and processes as well as modal meaning, necessity, possibility, ability. They fall in 6 classes and had the following forms: the Infinitive, Present Singular, Present Plural, Past, Participle II. Though not all these verbs had the form of Participle II.
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In OE Supplitive forms were a relic of the IE language. There were 2 supplitive verbs in OE: beon to be and gan to go. The Supplitive verbs are those including different root in their system of conjugation. There were 2 in infinitives both meaning to be beon and weasan. Each of them had their present forms and common past forms. Present Singular eon eart is Present Singular beo best bip Present Singular ga gaston gaston Past Singular wear waere weas Past Singular wear waere weas Past Singular eode eodist eode

I Weasan II III

Plural sint syndon sin Plural beop

Plural waeron

Beon

I II III

Plural waeron

Gan

I II III

Plural gap

Plural

Irregular verbs differ from all other verbs in that that they derive their forms from different roots that is the system of their conjugation is based on supplitivity. Present Singular do dest dep Present Singular wille willt wil(l) Present Singular sceal(l)an sceald scealan Past Singular dyde dydest dyde Past Singular wolde woldist wolde Past Singular sceolde sceoldest sceolde

Don

I II III

Plural dop

Plural dydon

Willan

I II III

Plural wallap

Plural woldon

Sculan

I II III

Plural sculon

Plural sceoldan

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27. The Scandinavian invasion, its influence on the further development of the English language. English monastic culture was to be seriously disturbed (like that in Ireland as well) because of developments in Scandinavia. In the 8th century the Scandinavians became expansionist and began raiding neighbouring coasts. Initially, this just consisted of marauding and plundering of places of wealth and they always returned back to home base. In time, the Scandinavians became more adventurous and, with the efficient and seaworthy boats which they had, succeeded in making the crossing over the North Sea to Scotland. This was a qualitative change which was to have lasting consequences for the peoples of the British Isles. From this point onwards the Scandinavians are known as Vikings, a term deriving either from Frisian wic settlement or Old Norse vik bay. The earliest attacks were on Lindisfarne and Jarrow in 793-4. Here the monasteries with their ornamental riches attracted the raiders. They plundered and killed indiscriminately there and elsewhere, e.g. on the island of Iona, a centre of Hiberno-Scottish culture. Very soon the Vikings became the scourge of Ireland and the entire north of England. The early Viking raids were carried out by Norwegians. In the course of the 9th century the Danes joined in, beginning with a series of attacks on the east coast of England in 835. With the Danes the first historical Viking figures of the invasions come to the fore with the sons of Ragnar Lothbrk who were responsible for the razing of Sheppey in Kent to the ground. By the mid 9th century they had gained a firm foothold on Kent and East Anglia. The resistance to the Danes in the beginning was disorganised and, given the ease of the conquest, they decided to settle permanently in England. This was the first step in the establishment of the so-called Danelaw which was the area in eastern and north-eastern England of the time which was under Danish rule. The Danes were never to leave England entirely. Military incursions into England which were started from Denmark were to stop but those Danes who remained in England were finally assimilated into the English population. Military resistance to the Danes is personified by King Alfred the Great. He was born in Wantage in 849 and by 871 had begun to engage himself in the war against the Danes. For fifteen years (871-886) Alfred waged war against the intruders and succeeded in maintaining Wessex free from Viking influence. The ups and downs of the military struggle with the Danes are described in detail in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, particularly in the section known as the Parker Manuscript, named after a bishop in whose possession the manuscript was for some time. In the years 886 to 892 Alfred was able to devote his energies to non-military matters, chiefly to educational reform and cultural matters in general, such as the translation of religious works. In 892 the Danes took on Alfred once more (after several decades of plundering in northern France). The latter, however, succeeded in defending Wessex and English Mercia and in 896 the Danes (consisting of both the Norman and the East Anglia Danes) reconciled themselves to being confined to the Danelaw. Some of them returned to France and others settled down eventually. Three years later, in 899, Alfred, the greatest of Anglo-Saxon kings, died. The influence of Scandinavian in Britain and Ireland can be seen by examining placenames which are of Viking origin. In England these are mostly in the Danelaw. In Scotland they are found on Shetland and Orkney as well as the north-west of the mainland with the offshore islands. In Ireland the influence was greatest along the
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east coast where the Vikings found many towns at the estuaries of rivers, e.g. Waterford, Wexford and to a large extent Dublin itself. The long-term linguistic effect of the Viking settlements in England was threefold: over a thousand words eventually became part of Standard English; numerous places in the East and North-east of England have Danish names; and many English personal names are of Scandinavian origin. Scandinavian words that entered the English language included landing, score, beck, fellow, take, busting, and steersman.The vast majority of loan words did not appear in documents until the early 12th century; these included many modern words which used sk- sounds, such as skirt, sky, and skin; other words appearing in written sources at this time included again, awkward, birth, cake, dregs, fog, freckles, gasp, law, moss, neck, ransack, root, scowl, sister, seat, sly, smile, want, weak, and window from Old Norse meaning "wind-eye". Some of the words that came into use are among the most common in English, such as to go, to come, to sit, to listen, to eat, both, same, get, and give. The system of personal pronouns was affected, with they, them, and their replacing the earlier forms. Old Norse influenced the verb to be; the replacement of sindon by are is almost certainly Scandinavian in origin, as is the third-person-singular ending -s in the present tense of verbs. There are more than 1,500 Scandinavian place names in England, mainly in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (within the former boundaries of the Danelaw): over 600 end in -by, the Scandinavian word for "village" or "town" for example Grimsby, Naseby, andWhitby; many others end in -thorpe ("farm"), -thwaite ("clearing"), and toft("homestead"). The distribution of family names showing Scandinavian influence is still, as an analysis of names ending in son reveals, concentrated in the north and east, corresponding to areas of former Viking settlement. Early medieval records indicate that over 60% of personal names in Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire showed Scandinavian influence. 28. The three subgroups of the Germanic languages. The expansion of English. The English language originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects which made part of West Germanic subgroup of Germanic group of languages. The Germanic group of languages is divided into 3 subgroups: East, West and North. In the east subgroup is the gothic language. The Gothic language was spoken by the majority of people. It is studied today by linguists. It is the earliest written language in the Germanic group. The Goths were the first of all Germanic tribes to be Christianized. Ulfilas the gothic bishop translated the bible from Greek to Gothic, it was written with silver and gold letters, it was first published in the 17 th century and was named Silver Code. In the North subgroup there are the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese. The modern languages of the West Germanic subgroup are: English, German, Dutch, Frisian, Afrikaans and Yiddish. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian and Yiddish. English
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originated in England and is now widely spoken on six continents. It is the primary language of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and various small island nations in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. It is also an official language of India, the Philippines, Singapore, and many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa. English is the first choice of foreign language in most other countries of the world, and it is estimated that a third of the worlds population, some two billion persons, now use English. IN a general view of the fortunes of the English language since Shakespeares time, one of the first things to strike an observer is the world-wide expansion of its use. At the beginning of the seventeenth century it was, with slight exceptions, confined to England. The exceptions were Ireland, where English colonisation had begun in the previous century, and Scotland, where literary English was already influencing the speakers of a tongue descended from the old Northumbrian dialect. Even to-day, English does not completely occupy the whole of the United Kingdom. Celtic exists in Ireland, in Wales and in the Scottish Highlands, while, in the Channel islands, Norman-French has by no means disappeared. Till into the eighteenth century, Cornish survived in Cornwall, and Norse in Orkney and Shetland. Outside the British isles, the language has followed the flag, and is spoken all over the empirein Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Africa, and in the East and West Indies. Beyond the boundaries of the empire, it possesses a vigorous life and literature among many millions in the United States of North America. Since in those regions English was planted at different times and has been subjected to varying influences, the types of language, especially as spoken, differ from standard English and from one another. The vocabulary, in particular, is notably dissimilar. Strange objects, new conditions of life, have either added native words, or caused special adaptations of old words or extensions of meaning. Sometimes, also, as in the United States, the language is splitting into dialects. To discuss all these varieties of English as well as the numerous dialects in Britain, with their chequered history during the last three centuries, would be impossible here, for want of space, if for no other reason. We must, accordingly, restrict ourselves to the standard literary language, which is everywhere practically homogeneous. Its principal changes we shall now consider under the three divisions of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. 29. Factors conditioning the formation of the national English language and its development into a literary one. After the process of unification of the diverse Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 878 by Alfred the Great, there is a marked decline in the importance of regional dialects. This is not because they stopped existing; regional dialects continued even after that time to this day, as evidenced both by the existence of middle and modem English dialects later on, and by common sense - people do not spontaneously develop new accents when there is a sudden change of political power. In the course of the 15th century the London literary language gradually spread all over the country, superseding local dialects. Spoken English in various parts of Britain gradually approaches the literary norm and differences between the norm and popular speech tend to become obliterated. This process has been carefully studied by the eminent British scholar Henry Cecyl Wyld. According to this classification written documents of the 15th century can be classified into three types:
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1. those written in the more London literary language; 2. those written in a more or less pure local dialect; 3. those written basically in the London literary language but bearing some traces of local dialects. This classification cuts right across another classification that according to the kind of documents: 1. official documents 2. literary text 3. private letters. London documents of the former half of the 15th century are poems by Thomas Occleve, official London papers, and also official documents from other towns. The literary language is also found in letters written by kings, queens, ministers, and other officials. In some texts written basically in London English occasional influence of local dialects is found. These are poems by John Lydgate (1370-1451), showing East Midland influence, prose works by Sir John Fortescue, with slight traces of South-Western dialects; prose works by John Capgrave (1393-1464) with elements of East Midland dialects. In the private letters of John Shilingford, Mayorr of Exeter in Devonshire, written in 1447-1450, there are only slight traces of the local South-Western dialect. The fact that a Devonshire man, writing private letters to his friends also living in Devonshire, does not use the local dialect but the London literary language, is eloquent proof of the authoritative position London English had acquired by the middle 15th century. The formation of national language was greatly fostered by two events of the late 15th century. 1) The most significant event of the period was the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order. They came to an end in the battle of Bosworth, when Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor, who became king of England as Henry VII. The political result of this prolonged struggle was the rise of an absolute monarchy. This meant a high degree of political centralization and thus contributed to centralization in language as well, that is, to predominance of the national language over local dialects. 2) Another great event was the introduction of printing. Printing was invented in Mayence (Germany) by Johann Gutenberg in 1438. From Mayence printing spread to Strasburg, then to Italy and to the Netherlands. In the town of Bruges, in Flanders, the Englishman William Caxton (1422-1491) became acquainted with this art. He published the first English printed book, The Recuyeil of; the Histories of Troy) in Bruges. Returning to England, he founded j the first English printing office in London in 1476 and in 1477 1 appeared the first book to be printed in English, namely, The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. The spread of printed books was bound to foster the normalization of spelling and also of grammatical forms.

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30. The influence of the Norman Conquest in the development of the vocabulary. The Middle English period (1150-1500) was marked by momentous changes in the English language, changes more extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. Some of them were the result of the Norman Conquest and the conditions which followed in the wake of that event. Others were a continuation of tendencies that had begun to manifest themselves in Old English. These would have gone on even without the Conquest, but they took place more rapidly because the Norman invasion removed from English those conservative influences that are always felt when a language is extensively used in books and is spoken by an influential educated class. The changes of this period affected English in both its grammar and its vocabulary. They were so extensive in each department that it is difficult to say which group is the more significant. Those in the grammar reduced English from a highly inflected language to an extremely analytic one. Those in the vocabulary involved the loss of a large part of the Old English word-stock and the addition of thousands of words from French and Latin. At the beginning of the period English is a language that must be learned like a foreign tongue; at the end it is Modern English. Finally, the influence of French may be seen in numerous phrases and turns of expression, such as to take leave, to draw near, to hold one's peace, to come to a head, to do justice, or make believe, hand to hand, on tfie point of, accordlng to, subject to, at farge, by heart, in vain, without fail. In these and other phrases, even when the words are English the pattern is French. These four lists have been presented for the general impression which they create and as the basis for an inference which they clearly justify. This is, that so far as the vocabulary is concerned, what we have in the influence of the Norman Conquest is a merging of the resources of two languages, a merger in which thousands of words in common use in each language became partners in a reorganized concern.It will be observed that the French words introduced into English as a result of the Norman Conquest often present an appearance quite different from that which they have in Modern French. This is due first of all to subsequent developments that have taken place in the two languages. Thus the OE feste passed into Middle English as feste, whence it has become feast in Modern '"'English, while in French the s disappeared before other consonants at the end of the twelfth century and we have in Modern French the form fete. The same difference appears in forest-foret, hostel-hotel, beast-bete, and many other words. The difference is not always fully revealed by the spelling but is apparent in the pronunciation. Thus the English words judge and chant preserve the early French pronunciation of j and ch, which was softened in French in the thirteenth century to [z] and [s] as in the Modern French juge and chant. Therefore we may recognize charge, change, chamber, chase, chair, chimney, just, jewel, journey, majesty, gentle, and many other words as early borrowings, while such words as chamois, chaperon, chiffon, chevron, jabot, rouge, and the like, show by their pronunciation they have come into the language at a later date.

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