ºANEXO II

1-RELIGION OF THE GERMANIC PEOPLE

Due to the early conversion to Christianity, we do not know much about
the religious practices of the Germanic people. Only Scandinavians
maintained their original religious beliefs until late Middle Ages, thus
there is a considerable amount of knowledge about their gods and myths
in comparison to the Germanic people. The latter had no druids or
sacrifices and their gods included Sun, Volcano and Moon.

There is evidence in English and German vernacular texts of the practice

of charms, which are short invocations aimed at solving problems of daily
life. These problems were connected with people’s and cattle’s illnesses,
interpersonal relations. For instance: one charm found had the power of
curing muscular strains and included the name of 7 deities. Another one
was a baptismal vow in the Saxon dialect. The postulant is encouraged to
renounce the Devil and 3 tribal gods.

In Old English there is a large number of texts dealing with charms and
magical practices, but they are not very revealing as regards to pre-
Christian religion. The poem Beowulf is of Scandinavian origin and we
can identify a remarkable number of Germanic symbols and images. E.g.
the battle of Beowulf against the monsters is paralleled with the fight of
Scandinavian heroes against the trolls.

Most of the information about Germanic religion comes from

Scandinavian literary sources. It is worth mentioning the manuscript
Elder Edda. There are 2 types: heroic and mythological. The mythological
poems present stories of Germanic gods, a cosmogony of the world, the
beginning and apocalyptic end of the ancient Scandinavian world, as well
as recommendations to lead a wise life. The Havamal is a collection of
aphorisms about daily life, wisdom, counselling and magic charms
attributed to Odin.
2-SOCIAL ORGANIZATION GERMANIC PEOPLE
The migrations of the Germanic people cannot be considered simple nomadic
wanderings, rather progressive spread of an agriculture-based lifestyle. They had a
loose political structure which favoured the migration of some groups, while others
stayed in the original homeland. These movements needed some leadership which
promoted the appearance of a noble class whose members were eligible for being
the kings of the community.
The way the tribal life was organised was very much reflected in the so-called
Germanic laws. The first compilation are the Leges Barbarorum written in Latin
and including technical notions of Roman law, which shows the Roman influence in
the Germanic legislation. For Germanic peoples, law was not devised by the king,
instead they were the result of fixed customs of the tribe. The Visigoths are an
exception since it’s the only Germanic people whose codes were established by
the king and the noble class without popular participation.
The laws were unwritten and were endowed with an ethical and moral attitude to
life. They were considered personal and belonging to each member of the
community. When the Germanic people took over former Roman provinces, after
the destruction of the Western Roman Empire, they did not impose their law on the
Roman citizens. Thus, the leges barbarorum do not reflect the existence of a legal
system as we understand today, they do not focus on issues that are taken for
granted; instead they dealt with questions such as migrations and conquests and they
were quite specific.

The Germanic social system distinguished between free and un-free individuals. The
first category includes the nobles and ordinary free men. There was also a third
category, half-free. These individuals could take part in certain transactions and get
married but had no political rights, they were not allowed to take part in the
assembly. The government was organised with a king, his council and a tribal
assembly. The king had the highest military and religious authority. The major
decisions affecting the welfare of the tribe, such as the election of king, declaration
of war, etc were decided by the assembly. The tribe was subdivided into clans that
were comprised of all the tribal members related by blood. Marriage involved the
purchase of the bride by the groom for a price. This money was not transferred to
the bride’s family but was kept by the husband to cover the needs of his wife.
Divorce existed but only the husband could divorce his wife and he might be
financially penalised by the tribe.

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3.-HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH FIELD.
Historical linguistics is the branch of linguistics concerned with the study
of language change and stability; the reconstruction of earlier stages of
languages; the discovery and implementation of research methodologies.
The main point differentiating descriptive from historical linguistics is
that the former describes a particular stage of the language. Historical
linguistics tries to address why languages look the way they do, how the
changes they have experienced can show how they relate to each other,
whether a parent language can be propounded for different languages.
Linguists studying diachronic changes must go back in time to stages in
the language where the differences between the old and the current form
are distinctly different. Those stages are known are dead languages.
Linguists must rely on written evidence which has survived in the form of
manuscripts. When texts are not found, inscriptions on stones or pieces of
jewellery can help as a starting point in the reconstruction of a language.
An expert in diachronic linguistics contrasts texts from different periods.
These texts reveal aspects about the state of the language in distinct
stages of the language. Since a diachronic analysis always follows a
synchronic analysis, SYNCRO PRECEDES DIACRHORNIC. it can be
regarded as dependant on it.
Bynon states that linguistic change through the confrontation of different
texts would not explain linguistic evolution. There are 2 factors that
have stood in the way of linguistic variation. The first factor is that
synchronic studies use idealisations of a language in order to describe
it bc the variation existing in a specific moment is too large to be
apprehended in a synchronic grammar. The variation depends on
aspects such as dialects, gender, social class and age. The second
factor is the belief that the way languages are transmitted is
responsible for a majority of linguistic changes. The life of speakers is
limited then a new generation has to learn the language again. The
acquisition process by children has been claimed to play a relevant
role in variation. The use of word forms such as volvido instead of
vuelto resembles linguistic developments across time. Bynon thinks
that to attribute linguistic change to the improper learning of the
language by children gives a simplistic view of diachronic
phenomena.
Although the mistakes made by children may anticipate linguistic
variation, speakers of a language are not aware of this phenomenon. The
strategy for the study of linguistic change: one has to focus on the
different grammars that result from the study of different time spans in
the evolution of a language and then contrast them which the description
of other related languages. Linguistic variation must be approached as a
phenomenon that cannot be separated from sociological factors.
Geographical space implying contact between unrelated languages, plays
an important role.

4.-ORIGINS
It has its origins in the contrastive study of Greek and Latin carried out in
the renaissance period and the search of scholars for a parent language of
the other languages of the world. The origins dates back to the 19 th
century, when Sanskrit, the ancestor of most northern Indian languages
was the object of scientific analysis in Europe. Its analysis found that
despite the geographical and cultural differences between Sanskrit, Greek
and Latin some similarities could still be identified. The only explanation
for these correspondences was the existence of genetic links among these
languages. It was stated that Greek and Latin bore more systematic
similarities than could have been produced by chance or massive
borrowing.+ One of the great achievements of 19th century linguists was
the acknowledgement of the ubiquity of linguistic change. The second
major achievement was the development of the comparative method..
The development of comparative linguistics did not take earlier bc
the Greeks were not sufficiently acquainted with other languages and
people had to learn that languages change. When some change was
identified it was considered a type of decay. The third reason is that
Greeks never compared words cross-linguistically, a technique which
was solidly established in India.+
Languages evolve in a way that makes it impossible to identify any
correspondence. It takes 6000-8000 years when 2 languages split for them
to lose remnants of their common past. The historical linguist is a kind of
archaeologist, who explores the remains of dead languages to define its
history and attempts a reconstruction of their ancestry. The comparison
between languages can be developed in relation to any of the different
aspects of a language: sounds, grammar or vocabulary. A common
procedure was the comparison of cognates, which allowed historical
linguists to identify certain patterns which signalled that all these words
came from the same ancestral parent language.

5.-THE COMPARATIVE METHOD

This method was developed within the framework of Comparative Linguistics,

also known as Comparative Grammar or Comparative Philology. The Comparative
Method was basically developed in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, and
then it was used in the analysis of other language families. The basis of this method
is above all, the regular principle of phonological change. This principle was
introduced as a linguistic rule by the Neogrammarians. At the beginning, the
Neogrammarians' hypothesis endured strong opposition on the part of some school,
since, until they entered the linguistic scene, phonological changes had not been
considered rules, but tendencies. Nevertheless, it was finally accepted as a common
procedure in the study of linguistic change and the classification of language
families. Patterns in phonological changes were studied in terms of sound laws
(such as Grimm's law and Verner's Laws, both developed in connection with
Germanic languages). It is also worth mentioning Saussure's Laryngeal Theory
hypothesized for the Indo-European.
In the Comparative Method we can identify the following steps:
1) The isolation of a set of cognates.
2) A number of phonological correspondences can be extracted.
3) The comparative method in historical linguistics is concerned with the
reconstruction of an earlier language or earlier state of a language on
the basis of a comparison of related words and expressions in different
languages or dialects derived from it

There are linguists who claim that the reconstructed forms are the result of
comparing attested cognates, but they are often unpronounceable and cannot be
taken as bearing a 100% correspondence to the linguistic reality of Indo-European.
It is taken for granted within this framework that languages at some point are born
from a parent language and this view poses the question of what happens with the
parent language as their descendants rise. The belief that once 2 languages have split
from their common ancestor they will diverge until they do not bear any
resemblance. There is not just one single direction for the evolution of 2
languages. They can also converge if social or historical developments
stimulate contact again, particularly if the languages happen to be
geographically close.
6-THE WAVE THEORY
the German linguist Johannes Schmidt propounded the existence of what
is known as Wave Theory. he proposes changes would spread as waves in
the water from a politically or historically important centre and, as with
waves, not all the changes have to reach the same area. This explains the
fact that when two languages are compared, there exists a certain
correlation between geographic distance and the influence that one
specific change has. The farther an area is, the less consequential a
specific change will be.++++
The ideal case consists of a linguistic territory that has not been disturbed
by external influences. A centre appears, which can be political,
commercial, cultural. Some innovations occur which only reach part of
the territory where the language is spoken, while the rest of the territory is
ruled by the pre-existent centre. It turns out that isoglosses will start to
rise until, the speakers of the 2 territories will lose mutual intelligibility,
and 2 different languages remain. ++
Not all linguistic changes lead to divergence between languages. After 2
languages have become independent, they can start sharing certain
features. If the territory where they are spoken becomes integrated under
a political force with a single administrative and cultural centre, some
isoglosses will start to disappear and common traits will be shared. Also
innovations which apply to the totality of the new territory will promote
the convergence of the 2 languages. The spreading of common traits is
not limited only to languages that are previously related; it can also occur
with languages that are geographically close, whether related or not.++
Bynon concludes that the situation presented by the family-tree is of
continuity in the course of time, since the evolution of language is
presented in an ideal temporal-spatial frame. It is what
this author calls a relative chronology of the changes that a language is
likely to undergo, but it does not deal with actual innovations which take
place in real time and space. Vandeloise distinguishes between historical
and logical time, logical time is idealized historical time. He uses this
distinction to explain the path semantic evolution followed. His starting
point is this postulate: Words evolve from a simple toward a complex
meaning. However, for him, logical and historical time do follow
parallel routes: Indeed in historical time a word can simplify itself, either
by fusion of two usages or because one of its usages becomes obsolete. I
believe however that the preceding postulate keeps a statistical value and
that logical time roughly parallels historical time. Therefore, considering
Vandeloise's arguments it is understandable why the family-tree has
become common in the representation of linguistic evolution. However,
when more emphasis is placed on how variation is determined by
geographical or social factors, the Wave Theory should be used

7.-THE NOTION OF PROTO-LANGUAGE

A proto-language is a hypothetical reconstruction of the earlier form of a

language. No written records exist of a proto-language and its
reconstruction draws upon the comparison of related words and
expressions of the different languages that derived from it. The proto-
language is the ancestral parent language of all the derived languages.
The extent to which a proto-language can be reconstructed with more or
less accuracy depends on the evidence available to linguists.

8-LINGUISTIC-GENEALOGIES
There exist two basic ways in which languages can be classified:
typologically and genetically. A typological classification of languages
is based on similarities in the linguistic structure. Typological
classifications have been particularly frequent in the structuring of
unwritten languages. When scholars observe that these languages could
also be grouped on genetic grounds the genetic structure is preferred.
Genetic classifications of language lead to the establishment of
language families which consist of language stocks that are considered to
be related by common origin bc of cognates in vocabulary.
Phylum: this category encompasses a number of language families and
very often the term phylum is equated with that of language family and
both terms are often used interchangeably. Occasionally one can come
across a family that is made up of just one language, the label for this is
language isolate. Once a genetic classification has been established, a
typological classification can be superimposed to observe the variation in
linguistic type within the same phylum or language family.
There are 3 main types of languages: isolating, agglutinative and
inflectional. In isolating languages words are typically made up of a
single morpheme- classical Chinese and Vietnamese. In agglutinative
languages, words consist of a series of morphemes, each of them
represents a single grammatical category, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish.
When it comes to inflectional languages, a single morpheme in one word
may represent several grammatical categories. Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.

9.-THE NEOGRAMARIANS
Despite the regularity attested in phonological changes there remain
exceptions that have led linguists to speak of tendencies instead of rules.
The fact that Grimm's law explaining the First Germanic Consonant
Shift presented exceptions seemed to confirm that phonological
developments should not be placed under rules but should be considered
as tendencies. However, the linguist Karl Verner found an explanation for
those apparent exceptions to Grimm's Law and showed that they were
conditioned by the phonological environment. This proved that every
Germanic word had evolved in a predictable regular way. This
demonstration of regularity in phonological change encouraged a group
of young German linguists to publicly defend the view that this kind of
change is always regular and the apparent exceptions were for which no
explanation was yet found. As mentioned earlier, this position came to be
known as the Neogrammarian hypothesis. Most of these linguists were
working at the University of Leipzig. Pejoratively, they were called by
other fellow linguists YOUNG GRAMMARIANS. . By the end of the
nineteenth century, the Neogrammarian Hypothesis had become part of
what could be described as the orthodoxy in Historical Linguistics..
Among the factors that can account for the successful reception of the
neogrammarian hypothesis in the linguistic community are the rigorous
methodology employed in their analysis and the scientific concern that
this hypothesis held. An example of this interest in approaching language
change can be identified in their attitude towards exceptions that were
apparent and it was a linguist’s work to find the rules that were behind
those apparent exceptions.
10.-INTERNAL RECONSTRUCTION
The method of Internal Reconstruction supplements Comparative
Linguistics in the reconstruction of earlier forms of a language. It focuses
on the analysis of irregular linguistic patterns and its main tenet is that
they had developed from earlier regular forms. This method has risen
from the structuralist approach to language. In Latin we have forms such
as honos-oris ororator-oris, which may lead one to believe that the
regular form of the genitive singular of honos was honosis, but at some
point intervocalic /s/ became /r/. Thus the reason why it is called internal
in that it is not necessary to examine other languages to reconstruct the
earlier stages of a given language.
A further example of the application of the internal method in the
reconstruction of earlier forms of a language is provided by trask and it
involves English past participles. The original forms of the participles
showed the –en pattern since they were strong verbs, but by analogy with
weak verbs the regular forms in –ed displaced the original strong pattern.
Curiously the adjectival form was not affected by this analogical
development. Taking into account that English displays a large number of
adjectives derived from verbs that show the –ed ending, this fact can be
considered a strange development.

PREGUNTAS EXAMENES

OLD ENGLISH
.

. þā
.

The two leading linguistic schools structuralism and generativism, have

hindered historical linguistic analyses. True or false

ANEXO
1. define the notion of protolanguage
2. what factors can account for the successful reception of the
neogrammarian hypothesis in the linguistic community
3. Method of Internal Reconstruction
4. The comparative method was basically developed in the
reconstruction of a protolanguage. Which one.
5. what distinction can be made between the notions of language
family and phylum
6. Historical Linguistics: Origins and Objectives
7. Main objectives of the research field of Historical Linguistics
8. what was the first compilation of the Germanic laws ? written in ?
9. 2 factors that have stood in the way of the study of linguistic
variation
 10. the hypotheses every sound change takes places according to
exceptionless laws is to be attributed to
11. linguistic genealogies
12. 3 types of language-typological classification
13. language family, phylum and language isolate
14. agglutinative language, example

OLD ENGLISH
1. Name of the Germanic tribes that conquered England -. The
Germanic tribes that conquered England were the Jutes, Saxons, and
the Angles. It seems possible that the Jutes and the Angles had their
home in the Danish peninsula, the Jutes in the northern half and the
Angles in the south. The Saxons were settled to the south and west
of the Angles. A fourth tribe, the Frisians, occupied a narrow strip
along the coast from the Weser to the Rhine
2. Principal language of East Germanic
3. periods in the history of the English language
4. Self-explaining compound. Provide an example
5. Dialects and characteristics of Old English
6. the resourcefulness of the old English and self-explaining
compounds
7. It is impossible to say how much the speech of the Angles differed
from that of the Saxons and that of the Jutes. The differences were
certainly slight.
8. West Germanic is divided into 2 branches? What are their names?
What development determined this division? High and Low
German by the operation of the Second Sound-Shift analogous to
that described as Grimm’s Law
9. What declensions we found for adjectives in Old English and when
they were used. Provide an example of each case.
An important feature of the Germanic languages is the development of a
twofold declension of the adjective: one, the strong declension, used with
nouns when not accompanied by a definite article or similar word (such
as a demonstrative or possessive pronoun), the other, the weak
declension, used when the noun is preceded by such a word. Thus we
have in Old English god mann (good man) but se goda mann (the good
man
 dialects of old English
 case system of the old English noun
 the Germanic conquest
 In old English the distinction between the dual and the plural was
disappearing from the pronoun.
 Why is it hard to determine whether a particular clause is
independent or subordinate in Old English? Bc the words that do the
subordinating are often ambiguous. Thus, old English the beginning
of a clause can be either an adverb translated ‘then’ and introducing
an independent clause, or a subordinating conjunction, translated
‘when’ and introducing a dependent clause. Similarly, can be
translated as ‘there’ or ‘where’, þonne as ‘then’ or ‘when. In each
pair the first word is an adverb, and the style that results from
choosing it is a choppier style with shorter sentences, whereas the
choice of the second word, a conjunction, results in longer sentences
with more embedded clauses
 Characteristics that English shares with all the Germanic languages.

 The northumbrian and Mercian dialects are found in the region

south of the thames settled by the angles.

 What conclusions have investigators reached about old English

syntax now in relation to earlier editors

 Which celtic leader is reported to have entered into an agreement

with the jutes. Terms and conditions. Vortigern is reported to have
entered into an agreement with the jutes to assist the celts in driving
out the picts and scots and to receive as rewards the isle of thanet

 The adjective, definite article and personal pronoun old English
 Old English syntax
 The noun and grammatical gender
 Origin, position and periods
 Inflectional system of the old English personal pronoun
 Typical position of the finite verb in subordinate and main clauses
 Old English pronunciation
  Relationship between anglo-saxon invaders and native populations
 Where is north Germanic found
 Case system of the noun
 Definite article, main features and potential functions
 Weak conjugation of verbs
 Inflection of the definite article
 The case system noun was simpler than latin and others bc
 How does old English grammar resemble modern german
How do runic inscriptions provide- Scandinavia earliest record of a
Germanic language we possess

 The noun


 4 old English dialects and where they were

 How old English bent old words to new uses


MIDDLE ENGLISH
1. The verb in middle English
2. attempts to arrest the decline of French
3. The rise of Standard English
4. the rivalry between England and France: French reinforcements
5. middle English syntax
6. knowledge of English among the upper class
7. the reaction against foreigners and the growth of national…
8. the use of French the attitude towards English
9. the use of English in writing
10. the pronoun in middle English
11. the Norman settlement
12. increasing ignorance of French in the 15th century
13. the loss of grammatical gender
14. English and French in the 13th century
15. the use of French, the attitude towards English
 16. the pronoun.
17. the diffusion of French and English
18. the noun
19. French reinforcements
20. circumstances promoting the continued use of French until the
beginning of the 13th

1.-Say is this is true or false and justify: by the end of the 12 th century a
knowledge of French was often found among the members of the
nightly class. Among the knightly class, French seems to have been
cultivated even when the mother tongue was English. In the reign of
Henry II a knight in England got a man from Normandy to teach his
son French. The ability to speak French was expected among this class
may be inferred from an incident between the abbey of Croyland and
the prior of Spalding. Four supposed knights were called to testify that
they had made a view of the abbot. They were neither knights nor
holders of a knight’s fee, and the abbot testified that they had never
come to make a view of him. The chronicler adds that “the third one of
them did not so much as know how to speak French
2.-What process did old English strong verbs undergo in the middle
English period? Nearly a third of the strong verbs in Old English seem to
have died out early in the Middle English period. In any case about ninety
of them have left no traces in written records after 1150. Some of them
may have been current for a time in the spoken language, but except
where an occasional verb survives in a modern dialect they are not
recorded. Some were rare in Old English and others were in competition
with weak verbs
of similar derivation and meaning which superseded them. In addition to
verbs that are not found at all after the Old English period there are about
a dozen more that appear only in Layamon. more than a hundred of the
Old English strong verbs were lost at the beginning of the Middle English
period. Today more than half of the Old English strong verbs have
disappeared completely from the standard language. The weak
conjugation offered a fairly consistent pattern for the past tense and the
past participle, whereas there was much variety in the different classes of
the strong verb. At a time when English was the language chiefly of the
lower classes and largely removed from the restraining influences of
education and a literary standard, it was natural that many speakers
should apply the pattern of weak verbs to some which were historically
strong. In none of the many verbs which have thus become weak was the
change from the strong conjugation a sudden one. Strong forms continued
to be used while the weak ones were growing up, and in many cases they
continued in use long after the weak inflection had become well
established. While the weak forms commonly won out, this was not
always the case. Many strong verbs also had weak forms. that did not
survive in the standard speech, while in other cases both forms have
continued in use.
3.-Did William the Conqueror make an effort to learn English himself –
At the age of 43 that he might understand and render justice in the
disputes between his subjects, but his energies were too completely
absorbed by his many other activities to enable him to make much
progress. And also bc he wanted to promote the belief that he was the
authentic successor of the old English kings and in the light of his use of
English alongside of Latin, to the exclusion of French in his charters.
4.-In early Middle English only two methods of indicating plural
remained fairly distinctive. Can you explain them? The –s or –es from the
strong masculine declension and the –en (as in oxen) from the weak.
5.-What does the appearance of numerous manuals for learning French in
the second half of the 13th century show? That the French language was
losing its hold on England in the measures adopted to keep it in use and
the tendency to speak English was becoming constantly stronger even in
the church and universities.
6.-Apart form some levelling of inflections and the weakening of endings,
the principal changes in the verb during the middle English period were
the serious losses suffered by the weak conjugation. JUSTIFY IT.
7-Did William the Conqueror feel closely attached to England? To the
end of his life William the Conqueror seems to have felt more closely
attached to his dukedom than to the country he governed by right of
conquest. Not only was he buried there, but in dividing his possessions at
his death he gave Normandy to his eldest son and England to William, his
second son. Later the two domains were united again in the hands of
Henry I.
8.-What development proceeded in a remarkable parallel course with the
loss of grammatical gender in English? The weakening of inflections and
the confusion and loss of the old gender.
9.-When strong verbs became weak, one of their forms was more
tenacious and stayed longer in use.
In none of the many verbs which have thus become weak was the change
from the strong conjugation a sudden one. Strong forms continued to be
used while the weak ones were growing up, and in many cases they
continued in use long after the weak inflection had become well
established. Thus oke as the past tense of ache was still written
throughout the fifteenth century although the weak form ached had been
current for a hundred years. In the same way we find stope beside
stepped, rewe beside rowed, clew beside clawed. In a good many cases
the strong forms remained in the language well into modern times. Climb,
which was conjugated as a weak verb as early as the thirteenth
century, still has an alternative past tense clomb not only in Chaucer and
Spenser . Low for laughed, shove for shaved, yold for yielded, etc., were
still used in the sixteenth century although these verbs were already
passing over to the weak conjugation two centuries before. While the
weak forms commonly won out, this was not always the case. Many
strong verbs also had weak forms (blowed for blew, knowed for knew,
teared for tore) that did not survive in the standard speech, while in other
cases both forms have continued in use (cleft—clove, crowed—crew,
heaved—hove, sheared— shore, shrived—shrove).

10.-Why might the bishop Wulfstan be subjected to Norman disdain at

least in part? Bc he was a simple and untutored man, ignorant of the
French language and unable to assist in the king’s councils.
11.-Two stages can be observed in the transference of French words into
the English language. The year that stands as the approximate dividing
line and describe these 2 periods. 1250 The borrowings of the first stage
differ from those of the second in being much less numerous, in being
more likely to show peculiarities of Anglo-Norman phonology, and,
especially, in the circumstances that brought about their introduction.
When we study the French words appearing in English before 1250,
roughly 900 in number, we find that many of them were such as the lower
classes would become familiar with through contact with a French-
speaking nobility. The largest single group among the words that came in
early was associated with the church, where the necessity for the prompt
transference of doctrine and belief from the clergy to the people is
sufficient to account for the frequent transfer of words. those who had
been accustomed to speak French were turning increasingly to the use of
English. Whether to supply deficiencies in the English vocabulary or in
their own imperfect command of that vocabulary, or perhaps merely
yielding to a natural impulse to use a word long familiar to them and to
those they addressed, the upper classes carried over into English an
astonishing number of common French words. In changing from French
to English they transferred much of their governmental and administrative
vocabulary, their ecclesiastical, legal, and military
terms, their familiar words of fashion, food, and social life, the
vocabulary of art, learning, and medicine.

12-What consequences had the levelling of forms on the weak declension

of adjectives in Middle English?

13-Why was French still cultivated in the 15th century in England?

14.-Why is it evident that after the Norman Conquest English survived

for a considerable amount of time in the monasteries?

15.-How can books and treatises shed some light on how English and
French were used in the 13th . Books and treatises, such as the Ancrene
Riwle and the various thirteenth-century works on husbandry, when we
know the individuals for whom they were written, or the social class, at
least, to which they belong, shed some light on the problem. From the
thirteenth century on, something can be gleaned from the proceedings of
the courts, where the language in which a man testifies is occasionally
noted.

16.-How did the introduction of printing in 1476 influence the

dissemination of English? From the beginning London has been the
centre of book publishing in England. Caxton, the first English printer,
used the current speech of London in his numerous translations, and the
books that issued from this press and from the presses of his successors
gave a currency to London English that assured more than anything else
its rapid adoption.

17.-In general terms explain the diffusion of English and French in the
15th century. French was the language of the court and the upper class,
English the speech of the mass of the people.

18.-A remarkable number of strong verbs died out early in the ME, some
of them may have been current for a time in the spoken language, are they
recorded?

19.-Normal prelates were gradually introduced into all important

positions in the church.

20.-What was the direct consequence of the levelling of inflections in

Middle English?

21.-In early middle English only two methods of indicating the plural
remained fairly distinctive. Can you explain them?

22.-Did william’s coronation win immediate recognition

23.-Was it possible after 1450 to determine with any precision the region
in which a given work was written in England.
24.-The influx of French words was…
25.-Who was the only old English bishop that retained his office until the
end of the conqueror’s reign

26-By about 1250 the strong declension had distinctive forms for the
singular and plural, only in certain adjectives. Indicate the features.
Are self-explaining compounds still in force in English today?
compounds. These are compounds of two or more native words
whose meaning in combination is either self-evident or has been rendered
clear by association and usage. In Modern English greenhouse, railway,
sewing machine, one-way street, and coffee-table book are examples of
such words. Words of this character are found in most languages, but the
type is particularly prevalent in Old English, as it is in modern German.
Where in English today we often have a borrowed word or a word made
up of elements derived from Latin and Greek, German still prefers self-
explaining compounds. The capacity of English nowadays to make
similar words, though a little less frequently employed than formerly, is
an inheritance of the Old English tradition, when the method was well-
nigh universal. As a result of this capacity Old English seems never to
have been at a loss for a word to express the abstractions of science,
theology, and metaphysics, even those it came to know through contact
with the church and Latin culture.
27. relationship between anglo-saxon invaders and native population
What information do we have about the Normans in the lower walks of
life who came into England with William’s army? Many of them
doubtless remained in the island, and their number was increased by
constant accretions throughout the rest of the eleventh
century and the whole of the next.

 What percentage of old English strong verbs had already

disappeared in the early middle English period. Did this process
stop there.

 Why does break have a past participle broken when it should have
been breken? Break belonged originally to the fifth class of
strong verbs, and had it remained there, would have had a past participle
breken. But in Old English it was confused with verbs of the fourth class,
which had o in the past participle, whence our form broken. This form has
now spread to the past tense.

28. the hundred years’ war is probably to be reckoned as …

29. how can we know that in early middle English the –en plural
enjoyed great favour in the south
30. why was the levelling of inflections obscured in the written
language in middle English. Example of one inflection retained
in the spoken language in some places
31. how did the black death affect the development of English
32. the form “pis” came to be used early in middle English for all
genders and cases of the singular with the exception of one
geographical area. Which one
33. processes by which members of the lower classes came into
England with the Norman conquest
34. in the 13th century the upper class had stopped speaking French,
continued for the most part to speak French, did not have
knowledge of English, French became the dominant language in
England.
35. what regulations were adopted by the monasteries of Canterbury
and Westminster to promote the use of French
36. knowledge of French among the middle class
37. which dialect of middle English became the basis for standard
English.
38. 3 great inundations of foreigners into England
39. how the decay of inflections affected the expression of gender
40. although indirectly some influence on the loss of inflections and
the consequent simplification of English grammar is attributable
to the use of French. True or false
41. what 2 methods of indicating the plural in nouns remained fairly
distinct
 French influence on the vocabulary

How the losses of strong verbs took place in the middle

English
At the beginning of the 14th century English was once more known by
everyone. How do we know that

Forms of the 3rd person plural of the pronoun they, their, them

But eve looked at the forbidden apple and it seemed fair to her
And it took it to enjoy the sight
And took lust towards it
And took and ate the fruit and gave it to her husband
Look how the holy scriptures tell
And how full of details it narrates how sin began
Thus sin went before and made way to evil lust
And the deed came thereafter that all human kind feels.