History of english language

14. Quantative changes of vowels in the History of English

They are: 1. Because of the consonants [ss], [st], [ft], [nt], the vowel [a] became longer pla:nt, a:fter, mж ss. 2. Shortening of vowels – occurred in Early NE before single dental and velar consonants [T, d, t, k]. The long vowels subjected to this shortening – [e:] and [u:] – were changing, or had already changed under the Great Vowel Shift breeth – [brE:T – breT]. The long [u:] which became short before [k], and sometimes also before [t], was a product of the shift. Early ME lengthening of the vowels – before ld, nd, mb in open syllables. Shortening – before other consonant clusters. 1. Short vowels were lengthened before two homorganic consonants, a sonorant and a plosive [wi:ld], 2. All other groups of two or more consonants produce the reverse effect: they made the preceding long vowels short kepte-kept. 3. Short vowels became long in opensyllables [e], [a], [o], O:pqn, na:mq.

15. Major vowel changes in NE. Great vowel shift. Vocalisation of [r]

Extensive changes of vowels are one of the most remarkable features of English linguistic history. A variety of changes affected vowels in stressed syllables. The Great Vowel Shift, – which involved the change of all ME long monophthongs, and probably some of the diphthongs. The Great Vowel Shift is the name given to a series of changes of long vowels between the 14th and the 18th c. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were diphthongized. It affected regularly every stressed long vowel in any position. Some long vowels – [u:], [i:] and [a:] – broke into diphthongs [au] (хус – hause), [ai] (ликэ – like) and [ei] (take такэ), o: – u: (хо-who), – e: – i: – клэн – clean), au – O: (кауз-cause). As we see, the Great Vowel Shift did not add any new sounds to the vowel system; in fact, every vowel which developed under the Shift can be found in Late ME. [ou] (го – go) was preserved from ME. The pronunciation of all the words with these sounds was alerted. During the Shift even the names of some English letters werechanged: a: – ei, e: – i:, o: – ou, i: – ai, be: – bi:, ka: – kei. Changes of short vowels: only 2 short vowels out of 5 were altered: [a] – [ж] (man, that) and [u] – [0] (кумэн, come). The vocalization of [r] took place in the 16th or 17th c. In Early NE [r] was vocalized when it stood after vowels, either finally or followed by another consonant. [r] changed into the neutral sound, which was added to the preceding vowel as a glide forming a dipthong [TE:re – Deq]. Sometimes the only trace left by the loss of [r] was the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel [arm] – [a:m], [fOr – fO:]. If [r] stood in the final unstressed syllable after [q], the vocalization of [r] to [q] resulted in the survival of the ending [ri:dqrq – ri:dqr-raidq]. If the neutral [q] produced by the vocalization of [r] was preceded by a diphthong, it was added to the diphthong to form a sequence of sounds named «triphthong» [Su:r – Sauq]. O+r= O: for, a+r= a: bar; I, e, u+r =q: first, q+r= q brother/ long vowels i:+r=aiq shire, e:, E:+r= iq ear; E:+r= Eq there; a:+r=Eq hare, O:+r= Oq/O: floor; u:+r=auq flower. There developed a new set of diphthongs, and also triphthogs, with q-glides: [iq, Eq, uq, etc]; there arose a new central long monophthongs [q:]; the new long [a:] filled a vacant position in the system, since ME [a:] had been diphthongized under the GVS.

16. The OE consonant system. Grimm’s and Verners Laws, treatment of fricatives

The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th c. and are often called Grimm’s law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift. By the terms of grimm’s law voiceless plosives developed in PG into voiceless fricatives (Act 1) p-f, t – T, k-x, IE voiced plosives were shifted to voiceless plosives (Act 2) b – p, d – t, g – k and IE voiced aspirated plosives were reflected either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives (Act 3) bh – v, dh – D rudhira rauDs, gh – Y (or g) hostis – gasts. Verner’s law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm; s law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. According to verner’s law all the early PG voiceless fricatives [f, T, x] which arose under Grimm’s law, and also [s] inherited fromPIE, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. F-v – heafod – huvud, T-D, d pater, fadar, x – Y, g socrus – swaihro, s-z auris-auso. /////// PG voiced fricatives tended to be hardened to corresponding plosives while voiceless fricatives, being contrasted to them primarily as fricatives to plosives, developed new voiced allophones. The PG voiced [D] was always harderned to [d] in OE wasida – werede, The two other fricatives, [v] and [$] were hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals. 2. PG [z] underwent a phonetic modifications through the stage of [Z] into [r] and thus became a sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r]. This process, termed rhotacism, maize-mara-more. 3. Voiceless fricatives [f, T, x, s] and also those of the voiced fricatives which had not turned into plosives, that is, [v] and [$], were subjected to a new process of voicing and devoicing. In early OE they became or remained voiced intervocally and between vowels, sonorants and voiced consonants; they remained or became voiceless in other environments, namely, initially finally and next to other voiceless consonants. V – v, f hlaifs – loaves; f – v, f wulfos – wolves, T – T, D sauT – seeDd, $ – $, x dagos-daZs – days; s-s, z kaus – chose. Old English consonant system. The system consisted of several correlated sets of consonants. According to manner of articulation All the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants m, m:, w, n, n:, r, l, j, N. The noise consonants were subdivided into plosives and fricatives; plosives were further differenriated as voiced b, b:, d, d:, g’:, g, g: and voiceless p, p:, t, t:, k’, k’:, k, k:, the difference being phonemic. The fricative consonants were also subdivided into voiced v, z, D, $, $’, j and voiceless f, f:, x’, x’:, x, x:, h, s, s:, T, T: The most universal distinctive feature in the consonant system was the difference in length. Place of articulation: labial, labiodentals p, p:, b, b:, f, f:, v, m, m:, w/ forelingual (dental) t, t:, d, d:, s, s;, z, T, T:, D; n, n:, r, l/ mediolingual (palatal) k’, k’:, x’, x’:, j,$/ back lingual (velar) k, k:, g, g:, x, x: h.

17. The general features of the OE noun declension system. The peculiarities of the a-, n, r–and root – stem declensions

The most remarkable feature of OE nouns was their elaborate system of declensions, which was a sort of morphological classification. The total number of declensions exceeded 25. All in all there were only 10 distinct endings and a few relevant root-vowel interchanges used in noun paradigms; yet every morphological class had either its own specific endings or a specific succession of markers. The OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: 1. The stem-suffix, 2. The gender of nouns 3 genders, a derivation suffix reffered a noun to a certain gender, 3. The phonetic structure of the word, 4. Phonetic changes in the final syllables. In the first place, the morphological classification of OE nouns rested upon the most ancient grouping of nouns according to the stem-suffixes. Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, i-stems, of consonants (n-stems), of sound sequences (-ja-stems, – nd-stems). Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had zero-suffix; they are usually tered root-stems and grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants. A-stems included MASC. and NEUt. Nouns. The forms in the a-stem declension were distinguished through grammatical endings (including zero ending). In some words inflections were accompanied by sound interchanges: nouns with the vowel [ж] in the root had interchanged [a],

18. Preterite-present verbs in OE and their further development

In OE there were twelve preterite-present verbs (the had indicative, subjunctive moods; sin, pl, 3 persons, present and past tense). Six of them have survived in Mod. E – owe, ought, can, dare, shal, may, must. Most of the preterite-presentsdid not indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb, an Infinitive which followed the preterite-present. In other words, they were used like modal verbs, and eventually developed into modern modal verbs. In ME and early NE several preterite-present verbs died out. The surviving verbs lost some of their old forms and grammatical distinctions but retained many specific peculiarities. They lost the forms of the verbals which had sprung up in OE and thedistinctions between the forms of number and mood in the Present tense. In NE their paradigms have been reduced to two forms or even to one. Now dare has – s ending in the 3rd person and Past form dared.

19. The anomalous verbs in OE and their further development

Among the verbs of the minor groups there were several anomalous verbs with irregular forms. OE willan (past wolde) was an irregular verb with the meaning of volition and desire; it resembled the preterite-presennts in meaning and function, as it indicated an attitude to an action and was often followed by an Infinitive. Eventually willan became a modal verb, like the surviving preterito-presents, and, together with sculan developed into an auxiliary. Some verbs combined the features of weak and strong verbs. OE dLn formed a weak Past tense with a vowel interchange: and a Participle in – n: don-dyde-Zedon. Two OE verbs were suppletive. OE ZAn, whose Past tense was built from a different root: ZAn-eLde – Ze-Zan. BeLn. In ME verb willan was used as a modal verb expressing volition. In course of time it formed a system with shall, as both verbs, shall and will began to weaken their lexical meanings and change into auxiliaries. ZAn – in ME it acquired a new Past tense wente, which came from an entirely different verb, OE wendan

20. The sources of Modern English verb groups

The proportion of strong and weak verbs in the language has considerably altered in the course of history. The OE strong verbs reduced by over two thirds, constitute a small group of verbs in present day English: they belong to non-standard verbs, which include nowadays many more verbs coming from various sources. Several groups of modern non-standard verbs have developed from the weak verbs class 1. Nowadays they employ various form-building devices: the dental suffix, vowel and consonant interchanges. These are verbs like sellan – salde/ sellen-solde. Another group of weak verbs became irregular in Early ME as a result of quantitative vowel changes. In verbs like OE cepan, the long vowel in the root was shortened before two consonants in the Past and Participle 2. The long vowel in the Present tense stem was preserved and was altered during the GVS, keep-kept. 3 Verbs like OE settan, with the root ending in a dental consonant, added the dental suffix without the intervening vowel [e] – OE sette. When the inflections were reduced and dropped, the three stems of the verbs – Present, Past and Part. 2 fell together set-set-set; put-put-put, cast-cast, cast. The final – t of the root had absorbed the dental suffix.

21. Changes in the verb conjugation in ME and NE

Many markers of the grammatical forms of the verb were reduced, leveled and lost in ME and Early NE: the reduction, leveling and loss of endings resulted in the increased neutralization of formal oppositions and the growth of homonymy. Infinitive – OE-findan – ME finden – early NE find; Present tense ind. M. s. 1st – finde – finde – find, 2nd fintst-findest-findest, 3rd fint – findeth-findest; plural findaD – finden-find; Subjunctive – sin – finde-finde-find; pl. finden-finden-find; imperative OE-sg find, pl findaD; ME finde – early NE find; Participle 1 – findende – finding – finding, Past tense ind, sin 1st fond – fand, found, 2nd funde-founde-found, 3rd fond – fand – found, pl fundon – founden – found|| subj OE s, pl fundefunden – ME founde – early NE – found|| Participle 2 (Ze) fundon – founden – found. ME forms of the verb are represented by numerous variants, which reflect dialectal differences and tendencies of potential changes. The intermixture of dialectal features in the speech of London and in the literary language of the Renaissance played an important role in the formation of the verb paradigm.

22. The history of the verbal grammatical categories in English

In OE there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. In many respects they were closer to the nouns and adjectives than to the finite verb: their nominal features were far more obvious than their verbal features,