History of English

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Lecture 1

Subject and Aims of the History of English. Its Ties with Other Disciplines.

Germanic Language in the System of Indo-European Family of Languages

1. History of English in the systemic conception of English

Learning one’s mother tongue (first language, native language) is a natural process.

When a child acquires first knowledge of his or her mother tongue, s/he usually takes all its

peculiarities for granted as s/he has no other language to compare with. Things are quite

different with mastering a foreign language: when learning it the student compares it to his/her

mother tongue and is often astonished to find great differences in the way ideas are expressed

in the two languages, and if the learner is an adult person, he or she will often be struck by

inconsistencies in the foreign language, illogicalities, and contradictions in its structure. Thus,

any student of English is well aware of the difficulties of reading and spelling English. The

written form of the English word is conventional rather than phonetic. The values of Latin

letters as used in English differ greatly from their respective values in other languages, e.g.

French, German or Latin. Cf.:

bit – [bit] full correspondence between Latinthree letters – three sounds letters and English sounds

bite – [bait] no correspondence between the vowelsfour letters – three sounds and their graphic representation: the

final e is not pronounced, but conventionally serves to show that thepreceding letter i has its English alphabeticvalue which is [ai], not [i] as in other languages

knight – [nait] the letters k and gh do not stand for six letters – three sounds any sounds but gh evidently shows

that i stands for [ai]

This illogicality can be explained by the history of English sounds and spelling. Without

going into details, suffice it to say that at the time when Latin characters were first used in

Britain (7th c.) writing was phonetic: the letters stood, roughly, for the same sounds as in Latin.

Later, especially after the introduction of printing in the 15th c., the written form of the word

became fixed, while the sounds continued to change. This resulted in a growing discrepancy

between letter and sound and in the modern peculiar use of Latin letters in English. Many

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modern spellings show how they were pronounced some four or five hundred years

ago, e.g. in the 14th c. knight sounded as [knix’t], root as [ro:t], tale as ['ta:lə].

In the sphere of vocabulary, there is considerable likeness between English and German.

Thus, for example, the German for summer is Sommer, the German for winter is Winter, the

German for foot is Fuß, the German for long is lang, the German for sit is sitzen, etc. On the

other hand, in certain cases English has something in common with French, as the following

examples will show: English autumn – French automne, English river – French rivière,

English modest – French modeste, etc. These similarities are easily observed by anyone having

some knowledge of German or French. But we cannot account for them if we remain within

the limits of contemporary English; we can only suppose that they are not a matter of chance

and that there must be some cause behind them. These causes belong to a more or less remote

past and they can only be discovered by going into the history of the English language.

As far as grammar is concerned, it can only be noted that the history of the language

will supply explanations both for the general, regular features of the grammatical structure and

for its specific peculiarities and exceptions. It will explain why English has so few inflections;

how its “analytical structure” arose – with an abundance of compound forms and a fixed word

order; why modal verbs, unlike other verbs, take no ending –s in the 3rd p.sg.; why some nouns

add –en or change the root-vowel in the plural instead of adding –s (e.g. oxen, feet) and so on

and so forth.

All the above-mentioned phenomena are traced back to a distant past and they cannot be

accounted for without a study of history.

Thus knowledge of the history of English should be an integral part in the training of a

teacher of the language.

1.1. The aims and the purpose of the study of the subject

The purpose of this course is a systematic study of the language’s development from the

earliest times to the present day. Such study enables the student to acquire a more profound

understanding of the language of today. Besides, history of English is an important subsidiary

discipline for history of England and of English literature.

Another important aim of this course is of a more theoretical nature. While tracing the

evolution of the English language through time, the student will be confronted with a number

of theoretical questions such as the relationship between statics and dynamics in language, the

role of linguistic and extralinguistic factors, the interdependence of different processes in

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language history. These problems may be considered on a theoretical plane within the

scope of general linguistics. In describing the evolution of English, they will be discussed in

respect of concrete linguistic facts, which will ensure a better understanding of these facts and

will demonstrate the application of general principles to language material.

One more aim of this course is to provide the student of English with a wider

philological outlook. The history of the English language shows the place of English in the

linguistic world; it reveals its ties and contacts with other related and unrelated languages.

1.2. Connection of the subject with other disciplines

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 the concrete

conditions in which the English people lived in the several periods of their history. It is also

connected with disciplines studying present-day English, viz., theoretical phonetics, theoretical

grammar, and lexicology. It shows phonetic, grammatical, and lexical phenomena as they

developed, and states the origin of the present-day system.

2. Sources of Language History

The history of the English language has been reconstructed on the basis of written

records of different periods. The earliest extant written texts in English are date in the 7 th c.; the

earliest records in other Germanic languages go back to the 3rd or 4th c. A.D. However, we have

relatively few texts from that time, and the texts we do have do not cover all types of language.

For example, we do not have many examples of everyday speech, domestic language or the

dialects of particular areas. This means that whatever generalization we do make about Old

English, we always have to bear in mind the gaps in our data, and the fact that we are

interpreting the past, not objectively describing it.

The development of English, however, began a long time before it was first recorded. In

order to say where the English language came from, to what languages it is related, when and

how it has acquired its specific features, one must get acquainted with some facts of the pre-

written history of the Germanic group.

Certain information about the early stages of English and Germanic history is to be

found in the works of ancient historians and geographers, especially Roman. They contain

descriptions of Germanic tribes, personal names and place-names. Some data are also provided

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by early borrowings from Germanic made by other languages, e.g. the Finnish and the Baltic

languages. But the bulk of our knowledge comes from scientific study of extant texts.

2.1. Writings in early English

Both poetry and prose have survived in manuscript form since Old English times, though

hardly huge amount of either. One must bear in mind that at that time literacy was a scarce

facility, confined mostly to clerics. The copying of books was carried out by hand, and

producing and owning any manuscript was a costly business reserved for the privileged few.

Moreover, it was not self-evident that works should be written in English at all, since Latin

was the language of learning.

English was the first of the European languages of the time to develop a respectable

written prose tradition. Much of the Old English prose that survives is translated from Latin,

such as King Alfred’s translations of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People

(completed around 731 AD), Pope Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis, Boethius’

Consolation of Philosophy, and Orosius’ history. Parts of the Old Testament, some of the

Psalms and the Gospels were translated into Old English. Thus, most of the prose we have

from this period is religious in nature. However, a few fragments of prose fiction do survive,

including Apollonius of Tyre, Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle and Wonders of the East.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was also most likely instigated by King Alfred. It survives

in seven manuscript versions and is a continuous record of annual events, starting with the first

landing of Julius Caesar (55 BC) and ending with the coronation of Henry II in 1154. But no

one knows exactly when, or by whom, it was started, though the oldest chronicle, the Parker

Chronicle, indicates that it may have been started in 891.

There is also a considerable body of religious prose writing from Abbot Ælfric and

Bishop Wulfstan.

There also survive a number of genealogies, glossaries to Latin works, laws, charters,

letters, leech books and herbal catalogues.

The 30,000 lines of Old English poetry that survive today come down to us from the

tenth and eleventh centuries, and are for the most part contained in four manuscripts:

1) The British Museum manuscript of Beowulf and Judith which is part of the 17th-century

(Robert) Cotton manuscript collection, and which is referred to as MS Vitellius A 15. It

also contains several prose texts.

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2) The Bodleian manuscript, called Junius XI after Franz Junius, who gave the

manuscript to Oxford University in the 17th c. This manuscript includes Genesis, Exodus,

Daniel, and Christ and Satan.

3) The Exeter Book or Codex Exoniensis at Exeter Cathedral, which contains a large

collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry dating approximately from 970 to 990; there are also

two later editions. The main text contains 123 pages with the originals of Phoenix,

Julian, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Widsith, Deor, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife’s

Lament and The Husband’s Message. It also contains a number of maxims, Maxim I, and

The Cotton Gnomes (Maxims II).

4) The Vercelli Book, Codex Vercellis, from the cathedral library of Vercelli, Italy. This

manuscript contains The Dream of the Rood, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles, and

Address of the Soul to the Body. In it are also found a number of prose homilies and the

Life of Guthlac.

3. General notes on the language study

3.1 The definition of the language

At first sight, it seems to be very easy to give the definition of the language. According to

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, language is a system of communication by

written or spoken words, which is used by the people of a particular country or area. From the

linguistic perspective, language is a semiotic system. It is a system of communication units and

rules of their functioning.

Language is a social phenomenon. It originated in the society, serves the society, is one

of the most important features of the society and cannot exist without the society.

3.2 The functions of the language

It should be mentioned that there is no exact number of the language functions. Taking

into consideration all the functions named in different linguistic works, it is possible to single

out 25 functions of the language. But mainly, the functions of the language are divided into

nominal and functional. Among the functional functions, we can name communicative,

cultural, and so on. Yu. Stepanov, in his turn, singles out three functions of the language:

nominative (semantics level), syntactic (syntactics level), and pragmatic (pragmatics level).

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3.3 The structure of the language

The evolution or historical development of language is made up of diverse facts and

processes. In the first place, it includes the internal or structural development of the language

system, its various subsystems and component parts. The description of internal linguistic

history is usually presented in accordance with the division of language into linguistic levels.

The main, commonly accepted levels are: the phonemic level (phoneme), the morphemic

(morpheme), the lexemic level (lexeme), the sememic level (sememe), the syntaxemic level

(syntaxeme), the textemic level (texteme), and the discoursemic level (discourse).

3.4 The language classification principles

Within the field of linguistics, three different approaches to language classification are

used.

Genetic (genealogical) classification categorizes languages according to their descent.

Languages that developed historically from the same ancestor language are grouped together

and are said to be genetically related. This ancestor may be attested (that is, texts written in this

language have been discovered or preserved, as in the case of Latin), or it may be a

reconstructed protolanguage for which no original tests exist (as is the case for Indo-

European).

Although genetically related languages often share structural characteristics, they do not

necessarily bear a close structural resemblance. For example, Latvian and English are

genetically related (both are descended from Indo-European), but their morphological structure

is quite different. Of course, Latvian and English are very distantly related, and languages that

are more closely related typically manifest greater similarity.

On the other hand, it is also necessary to recognize that even languages that are totally

unrelated may be similar in some respects. For example, English, Thai, and Swahili, which are

unrelated to each other, all employ subject-verb-object word order in simple declarative

sentences.

For this reason, another approach to language classification is useful. Known as

linguistic typology (typological classification), it classifies languages according to their

structural characteristics, without regard for genetic relationships. Thus, typologists might

group together languages with similar sound patterns or, alternatively, those with similar

grammatical structures.

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Finally, areal (geographical) classification identifies characteristics shared

by languages that are in geographical contact. Languages in contact often borrow words,

sounds, morphemes, and even syntactic patterns from one another. As a result, neighboring

languages can come to resemble each other, even though they may not be genetically related.

Thus, according to the genetic classification, the English language can be described like this:

Family Indo-European

Branch West Indo-European

Group Germanic group

Sub-group West Germanic

Language English

According to the typological principle, languages are classified into synthetic, analytic,

and agglutinating languages. A synthetic language is characterized by many inflectional

affixes. An analytic language would contain only words that consist of a single (root)

morpheme. In such a language there would be no affixes, and categories such as number and

tense would therefore have to be expressed by a separate word. An agglutinating language has

words that can contain several morphemes, but the words are easily divided into their

component parts (normally a root and affixes). In such languages, each suffix is clearly

identifiable and typically represents only a single grammatical category or meaning.

3.5 Synchrony and diachrony in the language study

A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English we

regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level – phonetics, grammar or

lexis – synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features or their

tendencies to change. The synchronic approach can be contrasted to the diachronic. When

considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-

ending evolution of language. In practice, however, the contrast between diachronic and

synchronic study is not so marked as in theory: we commonly resort to history to explain

current phenomena in Mod E. Likewise in describing the evolution of language we can present

it as a series of synchronic cross-sections, e.g. the English language of the age of Shakespeare

(16th – 17th c.) or the age of Chaucer (14th c.).

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4. The comparative-historical method

The comparative-historical method is widely used to study the history of the language.

It helps to reconstruct language phenomena of the past, which are not recorded in the earliest

extant written texts. If two or more languages contain words with the same root, it is possible

to assume that these words are of the same origin. Thus, at the beginning of the 19 th century it

was proved that there was a remarkable likeness between certain languages now called Indo-

European. These languages have much in common both in the vocabulary, phonetic, and

grammatical structure. For example,

English brother

German Bruder

Latin frater

Ukrainian брат

4.1 The stages of the comparative-historical method

Dr. Yuriy O. Zhluktenko distinguishes the following stages of the comparative-historical

method:

1. Comparison of sounds and morphemes in the related languages. It is supposed that these

units are of the same origin.

2. Determination of natural correspondences between the compared elements.

3. Determination of approximate chronological correlations between the compared

phenomena.

4. Reconstruction of the archaic form, so-called “archetype”. At this stage, the phonetic

peculiarities of the language development and the possible effect of analogy are taken into

account.

4.2 The principles of the comparative-historical method

The principles of the comparative-historical method are as follows:

1. The compared language units should be genetically related.

2. The compared units should be meaningful. It means that a comparison is made not between

separate sounds, but between meaningful words or morphemes, which contain these sounds.

3. One should ascertain that the sound similarity in the compared words is not accidental, but

regular.

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4. It should be proved that the sound correspondences, which we trace as regular,

could be really caused by the development of one archaic sound.

5. Semantic correspondence. Even if the sound correspondences are natural, the semantic

correspondences between the compared words or morphemes should be analyzed.

4.3 The drawbacks of the comparative-historical method

Despite all the merits, the comparative-historical method has its drawbacks:

1. It is impossible to precisely date the phenomenon reconstructed with the help of the

comparative-historical method.

2. This method cannot completely reconstruct the language under study.

3. This method can be used only to analyze those phenomena, which are similar in the

compared languages, but it is not good for different phenomena.

4. This method makes it possible to explain only the results of the language divergence, but it

does not explain the results of the language convergence.

5. This method cannot be used to study languages with amorphous structure or isolating

languages, that is, languages, which have no affixes, case or number conjugation, etc.

6. This method does not apply data of other sciences.

5. The Germanic group of languages

The late 18th-century discovery that Sanskrit (an ancient language of India) was related

to Latin, Greek, Germanic, and Celtic revolutionized European linguistic studies. This

discovery led to several decades of intensive historical-comparative work and to important

advances in historical linguistics during the 19th century. By studying phonetic

correspondences from an ever-increasing number of languages, linguists eventually ascertained

that most of the languages of Europe, Persia (Iran), and the northern part of India belong to a

single family, now called Indo-European.

The vast Indo-European family of languages, to which most of the languages spoken in

Europe belong consists of several branches, of which the Germanic languages are one.

Nowadays Germanic languages are spoken in many countries: German (in Germany,

Austria, and partly in Switzerland), Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic,

English.

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In ancient times the territory of Germanic languages was much limited. Thus,

in the 1st c. AD Germanic languages were only spoken in Germany and in territories adjacent

to it, and also in Scandinavia.

Germanic languages are classified into three groups: (1) East Germanic, (2) North

Germanic, (3) West Germanic.

East Germanic languages have been dead for many centuries. Of the old East Germanic

languages only one is well known, namely, Gothic.

All North Germanic and West Germanic languages have survived until our own time.

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Lecture 2

The Formation of the English National Language. Periods in the History of the

English Language

One of the most characteristic features of a nation is the national language, which rises

above all the territorial and social dialects and unites the whole nation. Usually a national

language develops on the basis of some territorial dialects, which under certain historical,

economic, political, and cultural conditions become generally recognized as a means of

communication.

The English national language has developed on the basis of the dialects of London,

which can be easily explained by the fact that after the Norman Conquest London became the

political, cultural center of England and its economic center as well.

1. Territorial dialects of the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasion

The Germanic tribes who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th century spoke closely

related tribal dialects belonging to West Germanic subgroup. Their common origin and their

separation from other related languages as well as their joint evolution in Britain transformed

them eventually into a single language, English. Yet, at the early stages of their development in

Britain the dialects remained disunited. Thus, Old English was not entirely uniform language.

Not only are there differences between the language of the earliest written records and that of

the later literary texts, but the language differed somewhat from one locality to another. We

can distinguish four dialects in Old English times: Kentish, an offshoot of the Jutes who settled

in Kent; West Saxon, spoken south of the Thames; Mercian, spoken from the Thames to the

Humber (except in Wales, of course, where (Brythonic) Celtic was still spoken); and

Northumbrian, spoken north of the Humber (hence the name), excluding Scotland, where,

again, (Gaelic) Celtic was spoken. Since Mercian and Northumbrian share common features

not found in West Saxon and Kentish, they are sometimes spoken of together under the name

Anglian, because most of the Germanic tribes north of the Thames were the Angles.

Unfortunately we know less about them than we should like since they are preserved mainly in

charters, runic inscriptions, a few brief fragments of verse, and some interlinear translations of

portions of the Bible. Kentish is known from still scantier remains and is the dialect of the

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Jutes in the southeast. The only dialect in which there is an extensive collection of texts

is West Saxon, which was the dialect of the West Saxon kingdom in the southwest. Nearly all

of Old English literature is preserved in manuscripts transcribed in this region. The dialects

probably reflect differences already present in the continental homes of the invaders. There is

evidence, however, that some features developed in England after the settlement. With the

ascendancy of the West Saxon kingdom, the West Saxon dialect attained something of the

position of a literary standard, and both for this reason and because of the abundance of the

materials it is made the basis for the study of Old English. Such a start as it had made toward

becoming the standard speech of England was cut short by the Norman Conquest, which

reduced all dialects to a common level of unimportance. And when in the late Middle English

period a standard English once more began to arise, it was on the basis of a different dialect,

that of the East Midlands.

2. The dialects of the period of the Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest put an end to the supremacy of Wessex and its dialect. With the

Norman Conquest French became the official language of the country, and those dialects

spoken during the Germanic invasion were of local importance.

Traditionally we isolate five major dialects of that time: Northern, Midland, East

Anglian, South-Eastern, South-Western. The Northern dialect area of Middle English extends

from the middle of Yorkshire to Scotland. The Midlands area, which extends from London to

Gloucestershire, is traditionally split into East Midlands and West Midlands. East Anglian is

posited as a separate dilect area, as a number of texts display markedly different forms from

those found in East Midlands dialects. The South-Eastern dialects cover an area that is closely

related to the extent of Kentish in the Old English period, while the South-Western dialect area

correlates with the OE West Saxon region, and dialectologists occasionally also separate out a

Middle South dialect area.

3. The development of the dialect of London into a national language

The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language in Late

ME and also the main source and basis of the Literary Standard, both in its written and spoken

forms.

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The history of London extends back to the Roman period. Even in OE times London

was by far the biggest town in Britain, although the capital of Wessex – the main OE kingdom

– was Winchester. The capital was transferred to London a few years before the Norman

conquest. London eventually became the commercial and cultural capital, and it clearly had a

central role to play in the emergence of a standard dialect in Britain. However, the dialect that

developed into standard is not simply the London dialect. It had both East Midlands elements

and southern elements. But gradually East Midlands elements took the upper hand, so that the

London dialect had comparatively few elements from other dialects.

There were some other factors that contributed to the development of the English

national language. The popularity of Geoffrey Chaucer helped a great deal in the development

of the London dialect into a literary language. Chaucer’s literary language, based on the mixed

(largely East Midland) London dialect, is known as classical ME; in the 15 th and 16th c. it

became the basis of the national literary English language.

Of greatest linguistic consequence was the activity of John Wycliff. His most important

contribution to English prose was his translation of the Bible completed in 1384. It was coped

in manuscript and read by many people all over the country. Written in the London dialect, it

played an important role in spreading this form of English.

A major reason for the standardization of the London dialect was the introduction of

printing by William Caxton in 1476. Caxton probably did more to standardize English in his

time than any other individual, since it was expedient for him to edit the works he printed to

resolve the dialect variants in order to gain the broadest readership possible for his

publications. Strong dialectal traits disappeared from written works by the mid-15 th c. and by

the end of the 17th c. most orthographical variants had been standardized.

Periods in the History of the English Language

1. Henry Sweet and his division of the history of English

Each of the periods is marked by a set of specific features of phonology, grammar, and

vocabulary, and may be also defined in these terms. Henry Sweet classified them as the Period

of Full Endings, which means that any vowel may be found in an unstressed ending (e.g. OE

sunu), the Period of Levelled Endings, which means that vowels of unstressed endings were

leveled under a neutral vowel [ə] represented in spelling by the letter e (e.g. OE sunu – ME

sune), and the period of Lost Endings (e.g. NE sun).

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2. Historical periodization as offered by B. Khaimovich

According to B. Khaimovich, the history of the English language is divided into three

periods: Old English, Middle English, and New English. As landmarks separating the three

periods, he uses very important events, which had a great influence on the history of English:

The Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 5th century is taken as the beginning of the Old

English period.

The Norman Conquest of the 11th century is regarded as the beginning of the Middle

English period.

The introduction of printing in the 15th century is the beginning of the New English

period.

3. T. Rastorguyeva’s periodization of the English language

According to T. Rastorguyeva, the history of English is divided into the seven periods:

I Early OE (also: Pre-written OE) c. 450 – c. 700

II OE (also: Written OE) c. 700 – 1066

III Early ME 1066 – c. 1350

IV ME (also: Classical ME) c. 1350 – 1475

V Early NE 1476 – c. 1660

VI Normalization Period c. 1660 – c. 1800

(also: Age of Correctness,

Neo-Classical period)

VII Late NE, or Mod E c. 1800 . . . . . .

(including Present-day English) since 1945 . . . .

4. The division of the history of English as suggested by V. Arakin

Arakin’s periodization is a traditional one because it is based on the extra linguistic,

which means that periodization connotes the character of the society speaking the language.

So, he divided the history of English into the following periods:

the Ancient English Period dated between the first centuries AD and the 7 th – 8th c. This

is the period of the languages of the Old English tribes;

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the Old English Period dated between the 7th and 11th c. This is the period of the

language of the establishing English nationality. The end of this period is marked by the

Norman Conquest of England;

the Middle English Period dated from the beginning of the 12th c. to the 15th c. This is

the period of the language of the established English nationality transforming gradually

into the nation. The end of this period is marked by the Wars of Roses (1455-1485);

the New English Period dated from the end of the 15th c. to present. It is subdivided into

two periods: a) the Early New English Period – the period of establishing standards of

the national language; and b) the Late New English Period – the period of the

established standards of the national language.

5. The periods of the development of English as offered by A. Markman and E. Steinberg

The American linguists A. Markman and E. Steinberg also admit that it is not possible

to precisely divide the history of the English language into periods. In their periodization they

use the dates of written documents. As it is impossible to determine the exact date of the

earliest Old English texts, the beginning of the Old English is recognized as 450 AD, when the

Germanic tribes landed on the island. The year of the last chapter of the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle, 1154, is regarded as the end of the Old English Period. The end of the Middle

English Period coincides with the death of the famous writer Thomas Malory – 1471, which is

also the time of the introduction of printing in England and Caxton’s activities. The Early New

English Period (1500 – 1700) is the period of England’s two prominent poets – William

Shakespeare and John Milton. The year of 1700, which is the year of John Dryden’s death, is

recognized as the end of the Early New English Period.

6. David Burnley’s periodization of the history of English

According to David Burnley, the history of English is divided into:

Old English (700 – 1100)

Early Middle English (1100 – 1300)

Later Middle English (1300 – 1500)

Early Modern English (1500 – 1800)

Modern English (1800 – 1920)

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Lecture 3

Common Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages

1. Phonetic peculiarities of the Germanic languages

Although the history of the English language begins in the 5th century (with the Anglo-

Saxon invasion of Great Britain) and the earliest written documents belong even to a later date,

the comparative-historical method makes it possible for us to reconstruct some of the phonetic

features which characterized the speech of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes before the invasion.

1.1. The First Consonant Shift

On the basis of observations made by Rasmus Rask in 1818, Jakob Grimm codified the

correspondences between certain consonants in the Germanic languages and those in Sanskrit,

Latin, and Greek in 1822. Following the genealogical classification of languages, the

Germanic languages diverged from the other Indo-European languages as a result of the

operation of the First Consonant Shift (“First Germanic Sound Shift”), which is often called

Grimm’s Law. The essence of Grimm’s law is that the quality of some sounds changed in all

Germanic languages while the place of their formation remained unchanged.

As proved by Grimm, all the Indo-European stops seem to have gradually changed in

Old Germanic. Correspondences between Indo-European and Germanic consonants may be

grouped under three categories:

1) The Indo-European voiceless stops [p, t, k] and their aspirated parallels [ph, th, kh] changed

to corresponding spirants, i.e. the labial [p] and [ph] changed to the labial [f], the dental [t]

or [th] changed to the dental [θ], and the velar [k] or [kh] changed to the velar [h] (originally

pronounced as [x] in the Ukrainian хата).

Examples:

p (ph) > f U п’ять, Gk pente, G fünf, E five

t (th) > θ U три, L trēs, Gt Þrija, E three

k (kh) > h Gk kunos, L canis, G Hund, E hound

2) The Indo-European voiced stops [b, d, g] became voiceless [p, t, k].

Examples:

b > p U слабий, E sleep; U болото, E pool

d > t U два, E two; U вода, E Water

g > k U іго, E yoke

17

3) The Indo-European aspirated voiced stops [bh, dh, gh] correspond to Germanic voiced

stops without aspiration [b, d, g].

Examples:

bh > b Skt bhrātar, E brother

dh > d Skt vidhavā, E window

gh > g Skt vāhanam, E wagon

There are some exceptions to Grimm’s law. For example, the Indo-European [p, t, k]

remained unchanged after the sound [s]. E.g. U стояти, E stand.

Certain apparent exceptions to Grimm’s law were explained by a Danish linguist Karl

Verner in 1877.

Let us compare the Latin words frāter, māter, pater with their Old English equivalents

broþor, modor, fæder. In accordance with Grimm’s law the sound [t] in all the Latin words

should have corresponded to the sound [θ] (written þ) in all the Old English words. As it was,

only the word broþor showed the regular consonant-shift [t > θ]. In the two other words we

find the voiced stop [d].The explanation given by K. Verner is that if an Indo-European

voiceless stop was preceded by an unstressed vowel, the voiceless fricative which developed

from it in accordance with Grimm’s law became voiced, and later this voiced fricative became

a voiced plosive (stop). That is p, t, k > b, d, g. Latin pater has a Germanic correspondence

fæder because the stress in the word was on the second syllable, and so voiceless plosive was

preceded by an unstressed vowel.

Verne’s law explains why some verbs in Old English changed their root consonant in

the past tens and in Participle II – originally, these grammatical forms had the stress on the

second syllable. Hence the basic forms such as sniðan (to cut) and weorðan (to become) were

sniðan – snað – snidon – sniden; weorðan – wearð- wurdon – worden.

1.2. Vowels

The Germanic languages are also marked by some peculiarities in the development of vowels

as compared with other Indo-European languages.

a) Stressed vowels.

1) The IE. ā (long [a]) > Gc. ō (long [o])

E.g. L māter, OE mōdor; U брат, OE brōþor.

2) The IE short [o] > Gc. short [a]

E.g. R гость, Gt Gasts.

18

Thus, the Indo-European vowels [a] and [o] got mixed in the Germanic languages.

The IE long vowels [ō] and [ā] were both reflected as [ō] in the Germanic languages. The IE

short vowels [o] and [a] were both reflected as [a].

b) Unstressed vowels.

Unstressed vowels underwent a gradual process of shortening and slurring until many of them

were lost altogether. This process has continued with different intensity in different Germanic

languages during all the investigated part of their history. Its results can be seen even in the

oldest Germanic record.

1.3. The doubling of consonants

All the consonants, except [r], were doubled (in spelling) or lengthened (in pronunciation)

between a short vowel and the sound [j] (sometimes [l] or [r]),

E.g. Gt saljan, OE sellan, E sell Gt bidjan, OE biddan

But: Gt fōdjan, OE fēdan

1.4. Rhotacism

In the final position the Germanic [z] was lost in the West-Germanic languages while it

changed to [s] in the East-Germanic, and to [r] in the North-Germanic ones.

E.g. Gt dags, OE dæg, G Tag

In the middle position of the word Germanic [z] remained in Gothic and changed to [r]

in the West-Germanic and North-Germanic languages. The change [z > r] is called rhotacism.

E.g. Gt maiza, OE mara, G mehr Gt batiza, OE betera

1.5. Germanic fracture (or breaking)

This is the process of formation of a short diphthong from a simple short vowel when it is

followed by a specific consonant cluster. Thus,

a + r+cons., l+cons. => ea

æ + h+cons. => ea

e + h final => eo

Gt hargus, OE heard (hard)

Gt nachts, OE neaht (night)

Old Frisian herte, OE heorte (E heart)

19

1.6. The second consonant shift

The Germanic consonant shift is called the first to distinguish it from a second consonant shift,

which occurred in High German dialects (that is, dialects of Southern Germany). This second

shift may be illustrated by the following examples:

Common Germanic High Germanic

Gt badi (bed) Bett

OE bedd

OE dōn (do) tun

OE pōl (pool) Pfuhl

OE hopian (hope) hoffen

Gt taihun (ten) zehn

Gt itan (eat) essen

The full table of correspondences would appear to be the following:

Common Germanic High Germanic

Initially and after a After a vowelconsonant

b p pd t tg k kp pf ft z [ts] sk kh ch [x]

The second consonant shift occurred between the 5th and 7th centuries AD, gradually

spreading from South to North. A few hundred years later, between the 8th and 12th centuries,

one more change took place, which gave the German consonants system its present shape. As

we have seen, the common Germanic d developed into t in High German; as a result the

German consonant system had no d-sound. Now a new d appeared, coming from the common

Germanic þ.

Common Germanic High Germanic

Gt þreis (three) drei

Gt þu (you) du

Gt broþar (brother) Bruder

20

2. Some common grammatical features of Germanic languages

2.1. Form-building Means

Like other old IE languages, both PG and the OG languages had a synthetic

grammatical structure, which means that the relationships between the parts of the sentence

were shown by the forms of the words rather than by their position or by auxiliary words. In

later history all the Germanic languages developed analytical forms and ways of word

connection.

In the early periods of history the grammatical forms were built in the synthetic way: by

means of inflections, sound interchanges and suppletion.

The suppletive way of form-building was inherited from ancient IE, it was restricted to

a few personal pronouns, adjectives, and verbs.

The principle means of form-building were inflections.

The wide use of sound interchanges has always been a characteristic feature of the

Germanic group. This form-building (and word-building) device was inherited from IE and

became very productive in Germanic. In various forms of the word and in words derived from

one and the same root, the root-morpheme appeared as a set of variants. The consonants were

relatively stable, the vowels were variable.

2.1.1. Ablaut

Ablaut or vowel gradation is an independent vowel interchange unconnected with any

phonetic conditions; different vowels appear in the same environment, surrounded by the same

sounds.

Vowel gradation did not reflect any phonetic changes but was used as a special

independent device to differentiate between words and grammatical forms built from the same

root.

Ablaut was inherited by Germanic from ancient IE. The principal gradation series used

in the IE languages – [e ~ o] – can be shown in Russian or Ukrainian examples: нести ~

ноша. This kind of ablaut is called qualitative, as the vowels differ only in quality. Alternation

of short and long vowels, and also alternation with a “zero” (i.e. lack of vowel) represent

quantitative ablaut.

The Germanic languages employed both types of ablaut – qualitative and quantitative –

and their combinations.

21

2.1.2. Word-structure

Some changes in the morphological structure of the word in Late PG account for the

development of an elaborate system of declensions in OG languages, and for the formation of

grammatical endings.

Originally, in Early PG the word consisted of three main component parts: the root, the

stem-suffix, and the grammatical ending. The stem-suffix was a means of word derivation, the

ending – a marker of the grammatical form. In Late PG the old stem-suffixes lost their

derivational force and merged with other components of the word, usually with the endings.

The word was simplified: the three-morpheme structure was transformed into a two-morpheme

structure. The original grammatical ending, together with the stem-suffix formed a new

ending.

The simplification of the word structure and the loss of stem-suffixes as distinct

components was facilitated or, perhaps, caused by the heavy Germanic word stress fixed on the

root.

2.1.3. Types of Stems

Most nouns and adjectives in PG and also many verbs had stem-forming suffixes;

according to stem-suffixes they fell into groups or classes: a-stems, i-stems, ō-stems, etc. This

grouping accounts for the formation of different declensions in nouns and adjectives, and for

some difference in the conjugation of verbs.

Thus, in OG languages there are the following types of substantive stems:

1) Vocalic stems: -a-, -ō-, -i-, -u- stems. Declension of these substantives has been called

strong declension.

2) n-stems. Declension of these is called weak declension.

3) Stems in other consonants: -s- and -r- stems.

4) Root-stems. This is a peculiar type: these substantives never had a stem-building suffix,

so that their stem had always coincided with their root.

2.1.4. Strong and Weak Verbs

The verb system of OG languages consists of different elements. The main mass of

verbs are strong verbs and weak verbs. Besides these two large groups, there are also the

preterite-present verbs, with a peculiar system of forms, and a few irregular verbs, which do

not belong to any of the preceding groups.

22

The terms strong and weak were proposed by J.Grimm. The strong verbs built

their principal forms with the help of root vowel interchanges plus certain grammatical

endings; they made use of IE ablaut with certain modifications due to phonetic changes and

environment.

The weak verbs are a specifically Germanic innovation, for the device used in building

their principal forms is not found outside the Germanic group. They built the Past tense and

Participle II by inserting a dental suffix -d- (-t-) between the root and the ending.

3. Germanic Vocabulary

Germanic vocabulary has inherited and preserved many IE features in lexis as well as at

other levels. The most ancient etymological layer in the Germanic vocabulary is made up of

words (or more precisely roots) shared by most IE languages. They refer to a number of

semantic spheres: natural phenomena, plants and animals, terms of kinship, verbs denoting

basic activities of a person, some pronouns and numerals; in addition to roots, the common IE

element includes other components of words: word-building affixes and grammatical

inflections.

Words which occur in Germanic alone and have no parallels outside the group

constitute the specific features of the Germanic languages. Semantically, they also belong to

basic sphere of life: nature, sea, home, life. Like the IE layer the specifically Germanic layer

includes not only roots but also affixes and word-building patterns.

In addition to native words the OG languages share some borrowings made from other

languages. Some of the early borrowings are found in all or most languages of the group;

probably they were made at the time when the Germanic tribes lived close together as a single

speech community, that is in Late PG. A large number of words must have been borrowed

from Latin prior to the migrations of West Germanic tribes to Britain. These words reflect the

contacts of the Germanic tribes to Britain. These words reflect the contacts of the Germanic

tribes with Rome and the influence of the Roman civilization on their life; they mostly refer to

trade and warfare.

23

Lecture 4

Phonetic Changes in the Old English Period

1. The Main Features of Old, Middle, and Modern English

Old English is said (technically) to begin in 449 AD with the invasion of Kent by

Hengest and Horsa, although we place its start at 500 AD, since it must have taken one

or two generations – at least – for it to develop its distinctive character; we do not have

the first manuscript attestations of English until about 700 AD. We know that the

Anglo-Saxons spoke West Germanic, a sister dialect to Old High German, Old Frisian,

Old Low German, Low Saxon, and Old Low Franconian.

Several very important features characterize OE:

1) Old English was synthetic, or fusional, rather than analytic or isolating.

2) The noun, verb, adjective, determiner and pronoun were highly inflected.

Consequently, word order was not as rigid as in Present-Day English.

3) There were weak and strong declensions of nouns and adjectives.

4) There were also weak and strong conjugations of verbs.

5) The vocabulary of OE was overwhelmingly Germanic in character

(approximately 85 per cent of the vocabulary used in OE is no longer in use in

Modern English).

6) Word formation largely took the form of compounding, prefixing, and suffixing;

there was relatively little borrowing from other languages.

7) Gender was grammatical (dependent on formal linguistic criteria), not logical or

natural (contingent on sex).

During the Middle English period a number of very significant changes became

more and more visible in the English language. The major changes from Old to Middle

English are the loss of inflections, and with it the development of more fixed word

order. As in the Old English period, language contact led to borrowing, but its scale was

far greater during this period than it had been before.

By the Early Modern Period the structure of the standard language was very close

to its structure in Present-Day English. There were still some significant changes to

come, such as the Great Vowel Shift, but with regard to short vowels, consonants,

24

morphology and syntax, changes were slight. What is noticeable to a present-day

reader of Early Modern English is its comparative variability. In the period of 1500 to

1700, there was considerable free variation of forms in comparison with Present-Day

English. This is hardly surprising in a language that was only just beginning to be

accepted as a legitimate medium of communication in science, the arts, and

administration. By 1700, however, English had stabilized and texts written after that

period are remarkably easy for a modern reader to comprehend. Since that time, while

some changes in the structure have indeed occurred, they are comparatively minor in

nature. Unlike in the Early Modern English period, in Present-Day English, there are

few changes in phonology and even fewer in morphology and syntax, with major

changes taking place in the lexical stock of English.

2. Old English Phonetics

OE is so far removed from Modern English that one may take it for an entirely different

language; this is largely due to the peculiarities of its pronunciation.

The survey of OE phonetics deals with word accentuation, the systems of vowels

and consonants and their origins. The OE sound system developed from the PG system.

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

OE.

2.1. OE Consonants

From the following chart we see that the consonants of Old English were very similar to

those of Modern English:

Bilabial Labio-dental

Inter-dental

Alveolar Alveo-palatal

Velar

Voiceless stop p t kVoiced stop b d gVoiceless affricate tVoiced affricate dFricative f θ s hNasal m nLateral lRetroflex rSemivowel w j

25

The differences between this set of consonants and that of modern English are

essentially orthorgraphic in nature, as some graphemes can represent a variety of

sounds:

1) The consonants w, b, d, m, l, t and p were all similar to their counterparts in

Modern English.

2) OE r was not like retroflex /r/ of British or American English, but was trilled.

3) sc and cg were pronounced [ ] and [ ] respectively: disc ‘dish’ was pronounced [

] and ecg ‘edge’ was pronounced [ ]. Since /sk/ becomes [ ] in OE, all OE

words that pronounce sc as [sk] are clearly loans from Scandinavian.

4) The fricatives f, þ, ð and s each represented two separate sounds:

f þ,ð s

f v θ ð s z

Voicing was predictable by context; that is to say whenever the sound in question

was between voiced sounds it was itself voiced: ceosan – [ ] ‘choose’.

Elsewhere it was unvoiced.

5) The sound spelled with the letter <n> was either [n] or, before [g] and [k], the

velarized nasal [ ]: singan – [ ] ‘to sing’.

6) The sounds represented by the letter <h> were: [h] initially, including the

clusters /hl-/, /hr-/, /hw-/, [x] after back vowels, and [x’] after front vowels: ham –

[ ] ‘home’; leoht – [ ] ‘light’; hlaf – [ ] ‘loaf’; miht – [ ] ‘might,

could’.

7) The sound spelled with the letter <c> was either [k] before a consonant or back

vowel or [ ] next to a front vowel: ceosan – [ ]; clæne [ ] ‘clean’.

8) Similarly, <g> was either [j] before or between front vowels and finally after a

front vowel: ; or [g] before consonants, back vowels and

front vowels resulting from umlaut.

9) <cg> was pronounced as [ ] in medial or final position: brycg ‘bridge’.

10) OE had phonemically long consonants so that bed ‘prayer’ contrasts with

bedd ‘bed’.

11) OE had a number of consonant clusters that are no longer in the language. As

well as /h/ clusters discussed above, there were /kn/ and /gn/, which are no longer

26

pronounced as [kn] and [gn], but whose origin remains visible in the modern

spellings knee and gnaw.

2.2. Vowels

The symbols representing vowels in classical Old English were usually monofunctional,

i.e. each letter corresponded to a certain sound. Vowel-length was often (but not

always) denoted by a slanting stroke (a), but we shall use the traditional sign (a).

Monophthongs: short

long

Diphthongs: short

Long

2.2.1. Changes of stressed vowels

a) Palatal Mutation

This is the name given to a kind of regressive assimilation caused by the sounds [i] and

[j] in the 6th century. Under the influence of [i] or [j] the vowels of the preceding

syllable moved to a higher front position.

E.g. [ā] > [æ] OE

[æ] > [e] Gt. badi || (corresponds to) OE. bedd

[ō] > [ē] Gt. dōmjan || OE. dōm, dēman (E. doom, to deem)

[ū] > [y] OHG. kuning || OE. cyning

ēa > īe OE. eald but ieldra (E. old – elder)

ēo

The palatal mutation has left many traces in Modern English. The ensuing vowel

interchange serves now to distinguish:

27

1) different parts of speech: doom – to deem, food – to feed, blood – to bleed, full

– to fill, Angles – English, long – length;

2) different forms of a word: tooth – teeth, foot – feet, mouse – mice, old – elder.

b) Velar Mutation

This is another regressive assimilation called forth by the velar vowels [u, o, a]. It took

place in the 7th – 8th centuries and was of comparatively small importance for the further

development of the English language. Under the influence of [u, o, a] the front vowels

[i, e, æ] of a preceding syllable were usually diphthongized.

As we see, the assimilation was partial, since only part of the front vowels

became velar. But after the sound [w] full assimilation occurred.

E.g. OE. widu > wudu (E. wood)

OE. werold > worold (E. world)

c) The Diphthongization of Vowels after Palatal Consonants

After the palatal consonants [j] (written ) and [k`] (written c) most vowels were

diphthongized into [ie, io, eo, ea]. It was a long process which continued up to the 9th

century, but it did not take place in some of the Old English dialects. Later on these

diphthongs were usually monophthongized again.

E.g.

d) The Lengthening of Short Vowels before Certain Consonant Combinations

Before the combinations (ld, nd, mb), i.e. a sonorous consonants plus a homorganic

voiced plosive, not followed by a third consonant, short vowels were lengthened,

apparently in the 9th century, though graphically it was often marked much later.

E.g.

28

2.2.2. Changes of unstressed vowels

a. Unstressed long vowels were gradually shortened in all the Germanic languages. In

English this process was completed during the earliest part of the Old English period.

All the long vowels became short, and all the diphthongs were monophthongized in an

unstressed position.

b. Unstressed vowels often fluctuated, which is seen from their representation in

spelling.

Comp. OE. woruld, worold;

c. The weakening of unstressed vowels took shape of changes such as the change of [ ]

to [e], [u] to [o], etc.

d. Very often the weakening resulted in the loss of the unstressed vowel. After long

syllables it occurred earlier and much more often than after short ones.

e. Sometimes new unstressed vowels developed, especially before r, l, n.

In spite of the long process of weakening, the OE final unstressed syllables contain

various vowels – a, o, u, e, i.

In comparison with the later stages of its development, Old English strikes one as a

language with developed endings, which justifies the name given it by the well-known

English philologist H.Sweet – ‘the period of full endings’.

29

Lecture 5

Changes in the Middle English Orthography and Phonology

During the Middle English period a number of very significant changes became more

and more visible in the English language. The major changes from Old to Middle

English are the loss of inflections, and with it the development of more fixed word

order. As in the Old English period, language contact led to borrowing, but its scale was

far greater during this period than it had been before.

1. Changes in the Orthographic System

One of the consequences of the Norman Conquest was the French influence on English

spelling. Those letters which the French did not employ gradually went out of use. They

were the letter æ, ð, þ, з.

New letters were introduced such as g, j, k, q, v.

Many digraphs and combinations of letters came into use, such as th, sh, ch, gh,

ph, dg, ck, gu, qu, ou, or ow.

E.g. OE. wiþ – ME with; OE. fisc – ME fish; OE niht – ME night.

It became usual to mark the length of a vowel by doubling it, especially in closed

syllables.

Thus ee and oo were used to denote [ē] and [ō].

E.g. OE swēt – ME sweet; OE зōd – ME good.

Sometimes the sound [ē], chiefly in French borrowings, was denoted by the

digraphs ie or ei.

Many letters changed their signification.

The letter u, for instance, which had denoted only one sound in OE, [u], was

employed after the French fashion to denote also the labial front vowel [ü] formerly

expressed by y. E.g. bysiз, ME busy.

The letter c began to signify not only the sound [k] as in OE cōc, but also, in

accordance with French usage, [s] before the letters i, e, y. So, OE cēpan, could no

longer be written with the letter c, for it would be read [sēpən]. It became necessary to

employ the letter k in similar cases. E.g. keepen, king.

30

The letter k was not unfrequently substituted for c in other cases. E.g. OE

bōc – ME book. Sometimes after short consonants the sound [k] was denoted by the

digraph ck. E.g. OE bæc, ME back.

The letter o came to be used not only for the sound [o], but also for the sound [u].

All these spelling changes wakened the more or less phonetic character of the OE,

orthography. They gave rise to fluctuations in the graphic presentations of sounds and

words. In OE the sound [e:], for instance, had only one graphic equivalent, the letter ē.

In ME [e:] could be represented by e, ee, ei, ie. In OE, the word fisc had only one

spelling. In ME, it could be written fish, fysh, fish, fisch, fyssh, fysch.

2. Major Changes in the Sound System

2.1. The Consonants

Consonantal changes in the system are slight during this period, which is a

characteristic feature of English. Certain voiced consonants became voiceless and other

voiceless consonants became voiced; consonants could occasionally also be lost

completely. Thus, /w/ was lost before a following /o/ if it came after another consonant:

OE swa > ME so (so); OE hwa > ME ho (who). In addition, ME lost consonant clusters

beginning with /h/, so that hring became ring and hrof became rof (> roof).

Significantly, both of these consonants were glides among which change was limited to

the feature of voice.

2.2. Consonant Changes from Old to Middle English

In the following table the first group of examples represents forms which lost initial h-

preceding a resonant (l, n and r); the second set shows the loss of a final consonant; the

third shows the simplification of the cluster /sw/, while the last pair reflects the voicing

of voiceless consonants in some dialects:

Old English Middle English Meaning

31

2.3. Vowels in Stressed Syllables

There was also little change in the vowels in stressed or accented syllables. Most of the

short vowels, unless lengthened, passed unchanged into ME. But short æ was lowered

to [a] and y was unrounded to i (OE cræft > ME craft; OE brycg > brigge, bridge). The

other short vowels a, e, i, o, u remained unchanged, as in OE catte > cat; bedde > bed;

scip > ship; folc > folk; full > ful.

Amongst the long vowels, the most important change was the raising and

rounding of long a > o: OE ban > ME bon (‘bone’), bat > bot (‘boat’). [y:] was

unrounded to [i:]: OE bryd > bride, fyr > fir (‘fire’).

Long e in ME represented two sounds:

(1) Long e (long a in West Germanic) appears as long e in ME, unchanged from OE

(except in West Saxon): slepan > slepen.

(2) In many words æ was a sound resulting from the i-umlaut of a. This was a more

open vowel, appearing in ME as e (OE clæne > clene, dælen > delen (‘deal’).

Other OE vowels preserved their quality in ME: medu > mede (‘mead’); fif > fif

(‘five’); bok > bok (‘book’); hus > hus (‘house’).

OE diphthongs were all simplified and all the diphthongs of ME are new

formations resulting chiefly from the combination of a simple vowel with the following

consonant ([j] or [w]), which vocalized. Though the quality did not change in ME, the

quantity of OE vowels underwent considerable change. OE long vowels were shortened

late in the OE period or early in ME when followed by a double consonant or by most

combinations of consonants. The changes are not noticeable in spelling, but they are

very significant, since they determine the development of these vowels in later stages.

2.4. Vowels in Unstressed Syllables

The general obscuring of unstressed syllables in ME is a most significant sound change,

since it is one of the fundamental causes of the loss of inflection. Before the end of OE,

every unstressed /a/, /e/, /o/ and /u/ tended to become an <e> in spelling, presumably

pronounced as /ə/ (schwa): OE oxa > ME oxe; OE foda > ME fode. Unstressed /i/, on

the other hand, remained unchanged. When /ə/ was final in ME it was eventually lost,

32

hence the modern forms ox, food; often the <e> was retained in spelling, though it was

not pronounced. Certain endings in which /ə/ was followed by a consonant, especially

the possessive and plural –es and preterite –ed, regularly syncopated, so that here,

too, /ə/ is lost (e.g. botes > boats). Exceptions are sounds ending in a sibilant, e.g.

busses, vases, etc., or verbs ending in an alveolar sound (wedded, wetted), where [ə] or

[i] is still encountered in modern forms.

2.5. The Formation of Middle English Diphthongs

This phenomenon involves changes in the consonants as well, as the glides [w] and [j]

and the voiced velar fricative develop into the second member of the new diphthongs.

Source New OE ME Meaning

33

Lecture 6

The Old English Morphology

1. The Old English Noun.

Nouns in Old English had the categories of number, gender, and case.

Gender in OE is grammatical, not logical or natural. This means that nouns and

pronouns followed different patterns of declension as a function of linguistic

characteristics of the words. Thus wif ‘wife’ is a neuter noun and mann ‘man’ is a

masculine noun, and wifmann ‘woman’ is therefore masculine also, as dictated by the

second element of the compound. The switch to logical gender occurred partly because

of the attrition of the system of inflections, though it actually began in the OE period

and was complete by the end of Middle English. It has been suggested on the basis of

recent work in corpus linguistics that feminine nouns kept their gender longer than

masculine or neuter nouns, and this is perhaps the reason why in Modern English ‘she’

is occasionally still used to refer to inanimate nouns such as names of countries, ships

and the like.

There are two numbers: singular and plural.

There are four cases in the noun systems depending on the grammatical function

of the noun. The nominative case was used primarily for subjects, the accusative case

for direct objects, the genitive case for possessives; and the dative case was used

primarily for indirect objects, but had other functions as well.

Nouns in OE are divided into either vocalic or consonantal stems, depending on

the element in which the noun-stem originally ended. There are four vocalic stem -a, -o,

-u and -i, though the vowel itself was often lost in OE, the declension being actually

inherited from an earlier form of Germanic. The i-stems, e.g., wine ‘friend’, for the most

part joined the masculine a-nouns and the two are therefore treated together below. The

largest group of consonantal stems was marked by the presence of n in Indo-European;

other minor groups of nouns included r- and nd- stems. Among vocalic stems,

masculines consist of a-stems (and old i-stems), neuters of a-stems and feminines of o-

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stems, while u-stems were either masculine or feminine. Consonant stems

could be any of the three genders.

2. The Old English Pronoun

There are several types of pronouns in OE: personal, possessive, demonstrative,

interrogative, definite, indefinite, negative, and relative.

In OE, as in Gothic, there are besides singular and plural personal pronouns, also

dual pronouns for the 1st and 2nd persons, which are used to refer to a pair of people, e.g.

a married couple. All three persons and genders are preserved in the singular. OE has

also four cases in the pronouns, still distinguishing the dative and accusative forms,

which fell together by Middle English, producing what is in Modern English often

referred to as the ‘objective case’.

As for possessive pronouns, these are derived from the genitive case of the

personal pronouns of all persons and numbers. The possessive pronouns min, þin,

uncer, incer, ure, eower are declined in the same way as strong adjectives. The

possessive pronouns his, hire, and hiera are unchanged. Besides, there is the reflexive

possessive pronoun sin, which is also declined in the way of strong adjectives.

There are two demonstrative pronouns in OE: se ‘that’ and þes ‘this’. The

meaning of this pronoun is often weakened, so that it approaches the status of an article,

e.g. se mann ‘the man’, seo sæ ‘the sea’, þæt lond ‘the land’.

The interrogative pronouns hwa ‘who’ and hwæt ‘what’ have only singular forms.

The interrogative pronoun hwilc ‘which’ is declined as a strong adjective.

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As for definite pronouns, here we find the pronouns gehwa ‘every’, gehwilc

‘each’, ægþer ‘either’, ælc ‘each’, swilc ‘such’ and se ilca ‘the same’.

The negative pronouns nan and nænig, both meaning ‘no’, ‘none’, are also

declined as strong adjectives.

3. The Old English Adjective

The OE adjective is especially interesting for a variety of reasons. First, there are

two sets of forms, termed ‘strong’ and ‘weak’: the strong endings are used when the

adjective is not accompanied by a marker of definiteness – in this case an article or a

demonstrative or possessive pronoun; the weak endings occur when the adjective is

preceded by a determiner.

Second, the cases of the adjective preserve a greater degree of formal

differentiation than do the cases of the noun; this is especially true of the strong

adjective, in both numbers. In addition, the adjective preserves five distinct cases (i.e.,

preserving a separate instrumental, something that is no longer obvious in the noun).

The so-called qualitative adjectives were inflected for the degrees of comparison.

The ending of the comparative degree was usually –ra, of the superlative –ost.

E.g. heard – heardra – heardost.

A few adjectives had comparative and superlative forms from a different oot from

that of the positive (suppletivity).

E.g. god – betera – betst

yfel – wyrsa - wyrst

mycel – mara – mæst

lytel – læssa – læst

4. The Old English Adverb

The adverb in Old English was inflected only for comparison. The comparative

was regularly formed with –or and the superlative with –ost.

E.g. hearde ‘severely’ – heardor – heardost

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The most productive adverb- forming suffix was –e. By origin it was the

ending of the instrumental case, neuter of the strong declension of adjectives. The

adverbialization of this case form produced many adverbs of adjectival nature.

E.g. deop – deope, lang – lange

OE adjectives formed from nouns with the help of the suffix –lic (E.g. freondlic

‘friendly’, cræftlic ‘skillful’) could further form adverbs by adding –e (freondlice,

cræftlice).

Gradually a great number of adverbs in –lice were formed, and –lice was

regarded as an adverbial suffix which could be used beside or instead of –e. E.g. hearde

and heardlice. Later –lice developed into –ly.

5. The Numeral in Old English

Old English had a system of numerals of common Indo-European origin. Derived

numerals have suffixes that, in phonetically modified form, are found in present-day

English, the numerals twa and ðrie had three genders, cardinal numerals from 1 to 4

might be declined and numerals from 20 to 100 were formed by placing units first and

then tens.

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6. The Old English Verb.

The inflection of the verb in the Germanic languages is much simpler than it was in

Indo-European times. A comparison of the Old English verb with the verbal inflection

of Greek or Latin will show how much has been lost. Old English distinguished only

two simple tenses by inflection, a present and a past, and except for one word, it had no

inflectional forms for the passive as in Latin or Greek. It recognized the indicative,

subjunctive, and imperative moods and had the usual two numbers and three persons.

A peculiar feature of the Germanic languages was the division of the verb into

two great classes, the weak and the strong, often known in Modern English as regular

and irregular verbs. These terms, which are so commonly employed in modern

grammars, are rather unfortunate because they suggest an irregularity in the strong verbs

that is more apparent than real. The strong verbs, like sing, sang, sung, which represent

the basic Indo-European type, are so called because they have the power of indicating

change of tense by a modification of their root vowel. In the weak verbs, such as walk,

walked, walked, this change is effected by the addition of a “dental”, sometimes of an

extra syllable.

The apparent irregularity of the strong verbs is due to the fact that verbs of this

type are much less numerous than weak verbs. In Old English, if we exclude

compounds, there were only a few over 300 of them, and even this small number falls

into several classes. Within these classes, however, a perfectly regular sequence can be

observed in the vowel changes of the root. Nowadays these verbs, generally speaking,

have different vowels in the present tense, the past tense, and the past participle. In

some verbs the vowels of the past tense and past participle are identical, as in break,

broke, broken, and in some all three forms have become alike in modern times (bid, bid,

bid). In Old English the vowel of the past tense often differs in the singular and the

plural; or, to be more accurate, the first and third person singular have one vowel while

the second person singular and all persons of the plural have another. In the principle

parts of Old English strong verbs, therefore, we have four forms: the infinitive, the

preterite singular (first and third person), the preterite plural, and the past participle. In

Old English the strong verbs can be grouped in seven general classes. While there are

variations within each class, they may be illustrated by the following seven verbs:

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I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

The origin of the dental suffixes by which weak verbs form their past tense and

past participle is strongly debated. It was formerly customary to explain these as part of

the verb do, as though I worked was originally I work – did (i.e., I did work). More

recently an attempt has been made to trace these forms to a type of verb that formed its

stem by adding -to- to the root. Here it is sufficient to note that a large and important

group of verbs in Old English form their past tense by adding –ede, –ode, or –de to the

present stem, and their past participles by adding –ed, –od, or –d. Thus fremman (to

perform) has a preterite fremede and a past participle gefremed; lufian (to love) has

lufode and gelufod. It is to be noted, however, that the weak conjugation has come to be

the dominant one in the English language. Many strong verbs have passed over to this

conjugation, and practically all new verbs added to English are inflected in accordance

with it.

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Lecture 7

The Middle English Morphology

1. Middle English as a Period of Great Change.

The Middle English period 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 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.

2. The Middle English Noun.

The distinctive endings -a, -u, -e, -an, -um, etc. of Old English were reduced to <e>/[ə] by the

end of the twelfth century. In the noun there is one inflectional relic left in the singular, the

genitive -es, while one form serves for all in the plural:

OE ME

Sing. Plur. Sing. Plur.

N stan stan-as ston ston-es

A stan stan-as ston ston-es

G stan-es stan-a ston-es ston-es

D stan-e stan-um ston ston-es

But it should be mentioned that in early Middle English only two methods of indicating

the plural remained fairly distinctive: the -s or -es from the strong masculine declension and

the -en (as in oxen) from the weak. And for a time, at least in southern England, it would have

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been difficult to predict that the –s would become the almost universal sign of the plural

that it has become. Until the thirteenth century the -en plural enjoyed great favor in the south,

being often added to nouns which had not belonged to the weak declension in Old English. But

in the rest of England the -s plural (and genitive singular) of the old first declension

(masculine) was apparently felt to be so distinctive that it spread rapidly. Its extension took

place most quickly in the north.

3. Articles.

Although the articles are closely connected with nouns, they are separate words with particular

lexical meanings and grammatical properties.

It was during the Middle English period that the articles were isolated from other classes

of words and became a class of words by themselves.

The definite article is an outgrowth of the OE demonstrative pronoun sē. The

suppletivity observed in Old English was lost. The sound [s] of the OE nominative case,

singular, masculine (sē) and feminine (sēo) was replaced by the sound [θ] on the analogy of the

oblique cases (þæs, þæm, þone, etc.). With the development of ēo > ē, the forms þē and þēo

fell together as þē, later spelt the.

The neuter form þæt, ME that, retained its full demonstrative force, while the was

weakened both in meaning and form. Gradually they became two different words.

The lost all gender, case and number distinctions, and became entirely uninflected.

The indefinite article has developed from the OE numeral ān (‘one’), whose meaning

sometimes weakened to “one of many”, “some” even in OE. The weakening of the meaning

was accompanied by the weakening of the stress. The long [ā] was shortened in the unstressed

ān, so that ān > an. Later the unstressed [a] was reduced in pronunciation to [ə]. The

consonant [n] was usually lost before consonants but retained before vowels.

4. The ME Adjective.

In the adjective the leveling of forms had even greater consequences. Partly as a result of the

sound-changes, partly through the extensive working of analogy, the form of the nominative

singular was early extended to all cases of the singular, and that of the nominative plural to all

cases of the plural, both in the strong and the weak declensions. The result was that in the weak

declension there was no longer any distinction between the singular and the plural: both ended

in -e (blinda > blinde and blindan > blinde). This was also true of those adjectives under the

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strong declension whose singular ended in –e. By about 1250 the strong declension had

distinctive forms for the singular and plural only in certain monosyllabic adjectives which

ended in a consonant in Old English (sing. glad, plur. glade). Under the circumstances the only

ending which remained to the adjective was often without distinctive grammatical meaning

and its use was not governed by any strong sense of adjectival inflection. Although it is clear

that the -e ending of the weak and plural forms was available for use in poetry in both the East

and West Midlands until the end of the fourteenth century, it is impossible to know the most

usual status of the form in the spoken language.

5. The ME Adverb

Adverbs in the ME period are changed phonetically, like all other parts of speech, yet

there were some other changes.

All primary adverbs existed in their slightly modified form – theer (there), then, ofte

(often) etc.

Secondary adverbs, formerly made from the adjectives by means of adding the suffix –e

were also in use, but with the gradual loss of the final –e in ME the distinction between

adjective and adverb was lost, and a new phenomenon appeared – it started the so-called

adverbial use of adjectives.

At the same time there appears a new and very productive way of forming adverbs –

adding the suffix –ly. The very suffix was not quite new. It goes back to Old English suffix –

lice, but earlier it was limited in use. Now quite distinct adverbs were made this way. Native

adjectives as well as borrowed took it freely, and such formations very soon become prevalent

in the language.

6. The ME Pronoun

All pronouns in ME with the exception of the personal ones lose the categories of

gender and case, some lose their number – that is, agreeing with nouns they simplified their

paradigm according to the changes in the system of the noun.

The loss was greatest in the demonstratives. Of the numerous forms of sē, sēo, þœt we

have only the and that surviving through ME and continuing in use today. A plural tho (those)

survived to Elizabethan times. All the other forms indicative of different gender, number, and

case disappeared in most dialects early in the Middle English period.

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In the personal pronoun the losses were not so great. Most of the distinctions that

existed in OE were retained. However the forms of the dative and accusative cases were early

combined, generally under that of the dative (him, her, hem). In the neuter the form of the

accusative (h)it became the general objective case, partly because it was like the nominative,

and partly because the dative him would have been subject to confusion with the corresponding

case of the masculine. One other general simplification is to be noted: the loss of the dual

number.

7. The ME Verb

The verb retained nearly all grammatical categories it had possessed in OE: tense,

mood, person, number. Only the category of aspect was lost. The most important feature of the

history of the verb in ME was the development of analytical forms to express new grammatical

meanings.

1. The syntactical combinations of OE sculan (E. shall) and willan (E. will) with the

infinitive developed into analytical forms of the future tense. As a result, the

grammatical category of tense came to be represented not by binary oppositions

‘past – present’, but by ternary oppositions ‘past – present – future’.

2. Combinations composed of different forms of OE habban (E. have) and participle II

of some verb developed into a set of analytical forms known as the perfect forms.

3. Word-combinations comprising different forms of OE bēon/wesan (E. to be) and the

past participle of another verb developed into a set of analytical forms of the passive

voice.

7.1. Strong and weak verbs

The two morphological types of verbs – strong and weak – were, on the whole, well

preserved in ME. Only the number of weak verbs was constantly increasing at the expense of

the newly borrowed and the newly created verbs, whereas the number of strong verbs was

diminishing. Some of them became obsolete, others became weak.

Sometimes the distinctions between different classes of verbs were obliterated. For

instance, the suffix –ode of the weak second class was reduced to –ede and coincided with the

–ede suffix of the first class.

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The suffixes of the infinitive (OE –an), the past tense plural (OE –on) and the past

participle of strong verbs (OE –en) became homonymous (ME –en). Therefore the forms of the

past tense plural and the past participle of the strong verbs often coincided.

E.g. OE writon, writen.

ME written, writen.

7.2. The Non-finite Forms of the Verb

The two forms of the infinitive (OE wrītan and (tō) wrītenne) gradually coincided (ME

wrīten). The preposition tō came to be used not only with infinitive of purpose but in other

cases as well. By degrees it lost its lexical meaning and became a mere sign of the infinitive. It

did not penetrate only into certain word-combinations, such as the combination of a modal

verb and the infinitive, where the infinitive never expressed purpose.

The ending of participle I (OE wrītende) was different in various dialects. In the north it

became –ande (perhaps under Scandinavian influence). In the central regions it was –ende. In

the south it narrowed to –inde. It was in the south that the suffix –ing was first used as the

ending of the present participle. Later it spread to other regions as well.

Lecture 8

The New English Morphology and Changes in the System of

English Syntax

1. New English Morphology

The range of the possessive case of nouns has been narrowed. It has come to be used

almost exclusively with nouns denoting living beings. As a spelling device the apostrophe was

introduced in the 18th century.

The personal pronoun of the second person plural (ye, you) and the corresponding

possessive pronoun (your) have gradually ousted the corresponding singular pronouns (thou,

thee, thine) from everyday usage. The form of the objective case (you) has ousted the

nominative case form (ye).

The possessive pronouns my, mine, which were originally but phonetic variants have

acquired different combinability and consequently different functions. This distinction has

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become relevant and has spread to other possessive pronouns to which the suffix –s

has been added. Hence the forms her and hers, our and ours, your and yours, their and theirs.

The pronoun hit has lost its initial h, the form its was introduced in the 17th century.

The adjective has lost all its inflexions but those of the degrees of comparison. The

current distribution of synthetic and analytic forms of comparison has been established.

The verb has lost the ending of the infinitive and all the inflexions of the present tense

but that of the third person singular. The latter has acquired the form -(e)s (from the northern

dialects) instead of the southern -(e)th. The form of the second person singular (e.g. speakest)

has been lost or become archaic.

The four basic forms of the strong verbs have been reduced to three, most verbs (except

to be) losing the distinction between the past tense singular and the past tense plural.

The so-called ‘continuous’ and ‘perfect continuous’ forms of the verb have developed

from former syntactical combinations of the verb to be and participle I of some notional verb.

The infinitive, gerund and participle have developed analytical ‘perfect’ and ‘passive’

forms. The infinitive has also developed ‘continuous’ forms.

2. Old English Syntax.

The syntactic structure of a language is usually closely connected with its morphology.

In a highly inflected language a word mostly carries with it indications of its class, of its

function in the sentence, of its relations to other words. It depends but little on its position in

the sentence, and it may do without special function words. With the loss of inflections the

dependence of the word grows. Much of the difference between the Old English and the

Modern English syntax is of that nature.

The order of words in a sentence was comparatively free in OE as contrasted with the

rigid word order of Modern English.

The comparative freedom of word order was felt not only in the predicative word

combination but in other combinations of words, too. It is by no means rare to find modifiers

following their nouns instead of preceding them. Prepositions, which usually preceded the

nouns or pronouns they governed, often followed them, sometimes at a considerable distance.

In OE the inflections played a much greater role in the indication of syntactical relation

between words in a sentence or group than in Modern English.

Grammatical agreement and government were of much greater importance in OE than

in Modern English.

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The subject of a sentence or clause was frequently unexpressed in OE.

In OE usage of multiple negation was perfectly normal.

The OE interrogative pronouns hwœt ‘what’, hwilc ‘which’, hwa ‘who’ etc. were not

used as relative pronouns. Relative clauses were usually introduced by the invariable þe, alone

or with a demonstrative pronoun.

OE complex sentences often involved correlation. There were many sets of correlative

elements in OE; among the commonest were þa (…þa) … þa, þonne… þonne, swa … swa.

The subjunctive mood was an additional means of indicating subordination in OE

complex sentences. It is mostly found in clauses of condition, concession, cause, result,

purpose, in indirect questions, though it was by no means rare in independent sentences or

principal clauses.

In OE texts we often come across certain verbal phrases which have proved of great

importance in the development of the grammatical structure of English. The analytical forms

of the verb, so typical of Modern English, derive from those Old English verbal phrases, so

that the latter might be called analytical form in embryo.

3. Middle English Syntax

In Middle English the word order was less pliable than in OE, but not so rigid as in

Modern English. The number of sentences with direct word order was growing at the expense

of those with inverted or synthetic word order.

The weakening and loss of inflections resulted in the weakening and loss of agreement

and government. The tendency grew to place the modifiers as closely as possible to the words

which they modified.

The widespread use of prepositions in Middle English was another remarkable

development in the language. In OE most prepositions had governed the dative case. With the

disappearance of the dative case prepositions came to be used freely with the common case of

nouns.

The Old English system of relative and correlative elements (þe, þa, etc.) was replaced

by new relatives developed from OE interrogative and demonstrative pronouns: who, what,

which, that, etc.

The single negative began to be used in the 14 th century, particularly in the north,

though the cumulative negation was still widely spread.

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4. New English Syntax

The order “subject – predicate – indirect object – direct object” has been established. As

a result, the position of a noun shows whether it is the subject or the object, and in the latter

case whether it is direct or indirect.

In most questions inversion has become the rule, i.e. the verb is placed before the

subject. Owing to the abundance of analytical forms of the verb and of compound predicates

this inversion usually does not break the established word-order since only a part of the

predicate (the auxiliary, modal, or linking verb) is moved, the notional part of the predicate

remaining in its fixed position after the subject.

In order to carry through the above principles of word order it was necessary to find

means of splitting the few synthetic forms of the verb that still remained in the language, such

as write, writes and wrote. This has been done with the help of special auxiliaries do, does, did.

One of the characteristic features of the New English period has been the development

of structural substitutes (there, it, one, do and others), as in There is a man there (structural

subject).

The development and extensive use of infinitival, gerundial and participial complexes is

another remarkable feature of New English syntax.

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