Lecture 4 The beginning of the English language

Lecture 4 The beginning of the English language 1. 2. 3. 4. Chronological Divisions in the History of English The brief characteristics of the periods in the development of the EL The British Isles before the Anglo-Saxon invasion The Anglo-Saxon invasion

Chronological Divisions in the History of English Old English Early OE (Prewritten OE) c. 450 - c. 700 OE (Written OE) c. 700 - c. 1066

Germanic invasion in the fifth century A. D. Latin, Old Norse (the language of the Viking invaders), especially the Anglo. Norman French of the dominant class after the Norman Conquest in 1066

1. 2. 3. 4. Main features the period in the language development Henry Sweet: “full endings” Spelling was phonetic Þ (thorn), ð (eth) and æ (ash); the Anglo -Saxons didn’t use v and j. There were long and short vowels and long and short consonants (geminates)

5. OE was an inflected language …. 9. No article, its function was performed by the demonstrative pronoun seō (that)

Major authors and literary works Beowulf , a mythological poem the floating legends of those times in one epic whole. Grendel’s mother (a water-troll) Dragon.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, starting in 787. Orosius, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Cura Pastoralis The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, a tenth century book of Anglo. Saxon poetry.

Middle English Early ME 1066 – c. 1350 ME (Classical ME) c. 1350 - 1475 Middle English and Early New Early NE English 1476 -c. 1660

The period of the Norman rule. Early ME starts with the Norman Conquest Classical ME was the time of the restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language.

Main features the period in the language development: 1. 2. 3. This period is often referred to as ‘the period of leveled endings’. … New vowels and consonants appeared : [ʧ, ʃ, ʤ]

4. Spelling was changed via the traditions of French scribes: sc sh, c[k’] ch, Þ, ð th.

5. The noun had only two cases – the common case and the possessive case. The adjective lost its case-system altogether. 6. There appeared some new analytical verb forms: Perfect, Continuous and Future. 7. The non-finite form of the Gerund appeared.

Major authors and literary works: G. Chaucer : Canterbury Tales John Wyclif

New English (Modern English ) Normalization period (Age of Correctness, c. 1660 – Neo-Classical c. 1800 period) Late NE or Mod E (including Presentday English) c. 1800…… since 1945…

Main features the period in the language development: 1. 2. 3. A lot of borrowed words from Latin, French, Italian in the Renaissance period. …. “the period of lost endings” - a further tendency to unify different forms of flexions:

the plural of nouns is generally formed by adding – es the third person singular of the verbs in the Present rather takes –es than –eth, more and more strong verbs take the endings –ed in the Past Indefinite and Past Participle, etc.

the categories of noun and verb take their modern shape 4. The neutral vowel of unstressed endings was lost: sorwe –sorw – sorrow.

5. As the result of the Great Vowel Shift modern long vowels and diphthongs appeared e. g. bite Chaucer’s pronunciation: [bi: t], Shakespeare’s pronunciation [beit], Present-day pronunciation [bait].

take Mid. E pronunciation [‘ta: ke], Mod. E [teik] 6. Spelling and pronunciation

Major authors and literary works: W. Shakespeare Among the most famous of his plays are tragedies of Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth Hamlet,

the comedies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, the Twelfth Night, and historical plays Richard III, and Henry V.

Works of Milton (1608– 1674) Allegory The Pilgrim’s progress by John Bunyan. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755).

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What did the type of declension in Germanic languages depend on? What groups of Germanic nouns belonged to strong declension? What group of Germanic nouns belonged to week declension? What are the root-stem nouns? How was the case system of the Germanic noun different from the IE one? There existed two types of declension of adjectives in Germanic: … …

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What is rhotacism? What are three groups of Germanic consonants that were changed, according to Grimm’s Law? (give their phonetic classification) When does the Old English period start? When does the Old English period end? According to K. Verner, what were the reasons for the “exceptions” in Grimm’s Law? What are the characteristics of a synthetic language?

Geoffrey Chaucer William Caxton

Iberians Mediterranean Claudius

Gaelic: Irish Scotch-Gaelic Bretonic: Wales Brittany

Hadrian’s Wall

Manchester Lancaster Rochester Leicester Derby Grimsby Whitby