1. When did the Modern English period begin?

(1 point)
2. Which of the following three languages was the last to make it to the British Isles? (1)
Latin
Anglo-Saxon
Celtic
3. Which of the following properties distinguish Germanic languages from their relatives? (2)
Fixed root initial stress
Fixed word order
Rich system of nominal inflections
Weak past tense
4. English has incorporated loan words from Celtic, from Romance, and from other Germanic languages.
Rank the three families with respect to the number of loans they have supplied. (2)
Most English loan words come from languages.
Relatively fewer loans come from . languages.
Very few loans come from languages.
5. Name the four stages in the development of a standard. (2)
6. Give an example of an English sound change by which a consonant was weakened (2)
7. Name two reasons why the French language failed to establish itself permanently in England? (2)
8. Which nodes in the family tree of Indo-European languages do you have to cross if you want to get
from English to Italian (2)
9. What were the two plural endings that were still productive in Middle English? (2)
10. Explain the term grammaticalisation, and illustrate what the process does to the meaning and the
phonetic shape of words by describing the emergence of the going-to future (2)
11. Identify the Romance loanwords in the following passage (2):
is ilk bok es translate
Into Inglis tong to rede
For the love of Inglis lede,
Inglis lede of Ingland,
For the commun at understand.
12. Look at the stressed vowels in the words underlined in the following passage:
Weping and wayling, care and other sorwe
I know ynogh, on even and a-morwe.
For wel I woot, it fareth so with me:
I have a wyf, the worste that may be;
For thogh the feend to hire ycoupled were,

She wolde hym overmacche, I dar wel swere.

What is the name of the sound change involved in giving them their Modern English
pronunciation? (1)

What vowels did care, over, and wyf have in Middle English? (2)

13. Translate the following Middle English passage (2):

I have a wyf, the worste that may be;
For thogh the feend to hire ycoupled were,
She wolde hym overmacche, I dar wel swere.

14. Translate the following Old English passage (2):

a com of more
Grendel gangan:

under misthleoum
Godes yrre br!

misthleo cover of mist

yrre wrath

What is the word order in the second sentence? (1) How does it differ from the Modern English word
order? (1)
15. Look at the following pairs of English and German cognates: axe Axt, cat Katze, mat Matte, was
war, what was.

What are the English counterparts of German /a/? (1)

In what phonological environment is the English counterpart of German /a/ a back rather
than a front vowel? (2)
Taking into account that spelling is usually more conservative than pronunciation, what
may the common ancestor of the corresponding vowels have been? (2)

16. Explain the way in which pronouns of address are used in the following scene from Romeo and Juliet,
in which Juliets father flies into a rage, because Juliet does not want to get married to Prince Paris. (4)

CAPULET (to Juliet)

Fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,
To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
LADY CAPULET (to her husband)
Fie, fie! what, are you mad?
JULIET
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
CAPULET
Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face!
LADY CAPULET (to her husband)
You are too hot.