1

LECTURE 1.

INTRODUCTORY.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

List of principal questions:

1. The aim of the study of the subject

2. Inner and outer history of the language
3. Chief characteristics of the Germanic
languages
3.1. Phonetics
3.2. Grammar
3.3. Alphabet

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
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The aim of the study of the subject

It is well known, whether it is English, Russian, Kazakh or any

other, is a historical phenomenon. As such it does not stay
unchanged for any considerable period of time, or any time at all,
but it is constantly changing through out its history.
The changes affect all the spheres of the language: grammar
and vocabulary, phonetics and spelling. The changes that any
language undergoes are gradual and very slow but pronounced
enough if you compare the stages of its development within a
century or even half of a century. You can imagine that with the
passage of time the difference between different stages of the
development of the language grows and you will easily deduce that
if you speak of such a language as English the history of which
embraces over fifteen centuries you will have to analyze and explain
a great number of linguistic data characterizing the language at
different stages of its history.
The aims set before a student of the history of the English
language are as follows:
1. To speak of the characteristics of the language at the
earlier stages of its development;
2. To trace the language from the Old English period up to
modern times;
3. To explain the principal features in the development of
modern language historically.

To achieve those aims a student will have to known the

theoretical basis of the subject and to work with the text to apply
the theoretical knowledge to the practical analysis of English texts
at different periods of the language development.
The main purpose of studying the history of the language is to
account for the present-day stage of the language to enable a
student of English to read books and speak the language with
understanding and due knowledge of the intricate and complicates
“mechanism” they use.
We said that the history of any language is unbroken chain of
changes more or less rapid. But though the linguistic tradition is
unbroken it is impossible to study the language of over 15 centuries
long without subdividing it into smaller periods. Thus history of the
English language is generally subdivided conventionally into Old
English (5th – 11th century), Middle English (11 th – 15th century) and
New English (15th century – till now).
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2. Inner and outer history of the language
We are going to speak about the inner and outer history of the
English language. The outer history of the language is the events in
the life (history) of the people speaking this language affecting the
language, i.e. the history of the people reflected in their language.
The inner history of the language is the description of the changes
in the language itself, its grammar, phonetics, vocabulary or
spelling.
It is well known that the English language belongs to the
Germanic subdivision of the Indo-European family of languages.
The direct and indirect evidence that we have concerning Old
Germanic tribes and dialects is approximately twenty centuries old.
We know that at the beginning of AD Germanic tribes occupied vast
territories in western, central and northern Europe. The tribes and
the dialects they spoke at that time were generally much alike, but
the degree of similarity varied. It is common to speak about the
East Germanic group of dialects – mainly spoken in central Europe
– Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian; North Germanic group of dialects
– Old Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Swedish, Old Icelandic; and the
West Germanic group of dialects – the dialects of Angels, Saxons,
Jutes, Frisians and others, originally spoken in Western Europe.
The first knowledge of these tribes comes from the Greek and
Roman authors which together with archeological data, allows
obtaining information on the structure of their society, habits,
customs and languages.
The principal East Germanic language is Gothic. At the
beginning of our era the Goths lived on a territory from Vistula to
the shores of the Black sea. The knowledge of Gothic we have now
is almost wholly due to a translation of the Gospels and other parts
of the New Testament made by Ulfilas, a missionary who
Christianized the Gothic tribes. Except for some runic inscriptions
in Scandinavia it is the earliest record of Germanic language we
possess. For a time the Goths played a prominent part in European
history, making extensive conquests in Italy and Spain. In these
districts, however, their language soon gave place to Latin, and even
elsewhere it seems not to have maintained a very tenacious
existence. Gothic survived longest in the Crimea, where vestiges of
it were noted down in the sixteenth century.
North Germanic is found in Scandinavia and Denmark.
Runic inscriptions from the third century preserve our earliest
traces of the language. In its earlier form the common Scandinavian
language is conveniently spoken of as Old Norse. From about the
eleventh century on, dialectal differences become noticeable. The
Scandinavian languages fall into two groups: an eastern group
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including Swedish and Danish and a western group including
Norwegian and Icelandic. Of the early Scandinavian languages Old
Icelandic is much the most important. Iceland was colonilized by
settlers from Norway about A.D. 874 and preserved a body of early
heroic literature unsurpassed among the Germanic peoples. Among
the more important monuments are the Elder or Poetic Edda, a
collection of poems that probably date from the tenth or eleventh
century, the Younger or Prose Edda compiled by Snorri Sturluson
(1178 – 1241), and about forty sagas, or prose epics, in which the
lives and exploits of various traditional figures are related.
West Germanic is of chief interest to us as the group to which
English belongs. It is subdivided into two branches, High and Low
German, by the operation of a Second (or High German) Sound
Shift analogues to that described below as Grimm’s Law. This
change, by which West Germanic p, t, k, d, etc. were changed into
other sounds, occurred about A.D. 600 in the southern or
mountainous part of Germanic area, but did not take place in the
lowlands to the north. Accordingly in early times we distinguish as
Low German tongues Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old Frisian,
and Old English. The last two are closely related and constitute a
special or Anglo-Frisian subgroup. Old Saxon has become the
essential constituent of modern Low German or Plattdeutsch; Old
Low Franconian, with some mixture of Frisian and Saxon elements,
is the basis of modern Dutch in Nederland and Flemish in northern
Belgium; and Frisian survived in the Dutch province of Friesland, in
a small part of Schleswig, in the islands along the coast, etc. High
German comprises a number of dialects and is divided chronically
into Old High German (before 1100), Middle High German (1100 –
1500), and Modern High German (since 1500). High German,
especially as spoken in the midlands and used in the imperial
chancery, was popularized by Luther’s translation of the Bible into
it (1522 – 1532), and since the sixteenth century has gradually
established itself as the literary language of Germany.

3. Chief characteristics of the Germanic languages

The barbarian tribes – Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Franks,

Frisians, Teutons, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Scandinavians – lived
on the fringes of the Roman Empire. All these spoke Germanic
languages, which had distinctive characteristics of structure and
pronunciation which are reflected in its descendents.
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3.1. Phonetics

One of the most important common features of all Germanic

languages is its strong dynamic stress falling on the first root
syllable. The fixed stress emphasized the syllable bearing the most
important semantic element and to a certain degree later
contributed to the reduction of unstressed syllables, changing the
grammatical system of the languages.
The most important feature of the system of Germanic vowels is
the so-called Ablaut, or gradation, which is spontaneous,
positionally independent alteration of vowels inhabited by the
Germanic languages from the Common Indo-European period. This
ancient phenomenon consisted in alteration of vowels in the root,
suffix or ending depending on the grammatical form or meaning of
the word.
There are two types of Ablaut: quantitative and qualitative. The
qualitative Ablaut is the alteration of different vowels, mainly the
vowels [e]/ [a] or [e]/ [o]

Old Icelandic bera (to give birth) – barn (baby)

Old High German stelan (to steal) – stal (stole)
Cf.: Russian бреду (I stroll, I wade) – брод (ford, wade)
Latin tego (to cover, to close) – toga (clothes)
Qualitative Ablaut means the change in length of qualitatively
one and the same vowel: normal lengthened and reduced. A classic
example of the Indo-European Ablaut is the declension of the Greek
word “pater” (father):
[e:] [e] [-]
patēr patěr patros
(nominative case, (vocative case, (genitive case,
Lengthed stage) normal stage) reduced stage)

Ablaut in Germanic languages is a further development of Indo-

European alterations. Here we often find cases with both the
quantitative and qualitative ablaut. It should be also mentioned
that in the zero stage before sonorants an extra-short vowel [u] was
added:
Quantitative ablaut
Goth qiman (to come) – qums (the arrival)
Qualitative ablaut
OHG stelan (to steal) – stal (stole)
Quantitative + qualitative ablaut
 6
OE fīndan (to find) – fand (found, past tense) – fundan (past
participle)

Ablaut as a kind of an internal flexion functioned in Old

Germanic languages both in form- and word-building, but it was
the most extensive and systematic in the conjugation of strong
verbs.
Another phenomenon common for all Germanic languages was
the tendency of phonetic assimilation of the root vowel to the vowel
of the ending, the so-called Umlaut, or mutation. There were several
types of mutation, but the most important one was palatal
mutation, or i-Umlaut, when under the influence of the sounds [i]
or [j] in the suffix or ending the root vowels became more front and
more closed. This process must have taken place in the 5 th – 6th
centuries and can be illustrated by comparing words from the
language of the Gothic Bible (4th century) showing no palatal
mutation with corresponding words in other Germanic languages of
a later period:

Goth harjis OE here (army)

Goth dōmjan OE dēman (deem)
Goth kuni OE cynn (kin)
Traces of this tendency can be seen both in word-building and
form-building as a kind of internal flexion:

OHG gast (guest) – gesti (guests)

man (man) – mennisco (human)

Speaking about Germanic consonants, we should first of all

speak of the correspondence between Indo-European and Germanic
languages which was presented as a system of interconnected facts
by the German linguists Jacob Grimm in 1822. This phenomenon is
called the first Consonant Shift, or Grimm’s law.
The table below shows a scheme of Grimm’s law with the
examples from Germanic and other Indo-European languages.
However, there are some instances where Grimm’s law seems
not to apply. These cases were explained by a Dutch linguist Karl
Verner, and the seeming exceptions from Grimm’s law have come to
be known as Verner’s law.
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Indo-European Germanic
1 Act voiceless stops p t k voiceless fricatives f þ h

Lat. pater O.E. fæder (father)

Lat. tres Goth. þreis (three)
Greek kardia OHG herza (heart)

2 Act voiced stops b d g voiceless stops p t k

Rus. болото O.E. pōl (pool)

Lat. duo Goth. twai (two)
Greek. egon O.Icl. ek (I)

3 Act voiced aspirated stops voiced non-aspirated stops

bh dh gh bdg

Snsk. bhratar O.E. brōþor (brother)

Lat. frater
Snsk. madhu O.E. medu (mead)
Snsk. songha O.Icl. syngva (sing)

Verner’s law explains the changes in the Germanic voiceless

fricatives f þ h resulting from the first consonant shift and the
voiceless fricatives depending upon the position of the stress in the
original Indo-European word, namely:

Indo-European Germanic
ptks b ð/d g z/r

Gk. hepta Goth. sibun (seven)

Gk. pater OSc. Faðir O.E. fæder
Gk. dekas Goth. Tigus (ten, a dozen)
Snsk. ayas Goth. aiz, OHG ēr (bronze)

According to Verner’s Law, the above change occurred if the

consonant in question was found after an unstressed vowel. It is
especially evident in the forms of Germanic strong verbs, except the
Gothic ones, which allows concluding that at some time the stress
in the first two verbal stems fell on the root, and in the last two – on
the suffix:

O.E. tēon tēah tuзon toзen (to tug)

OSx. tiohan tōh tugun gitogan
Goth. tiuhan tauh tauhum tauhans
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O.E. cēosan cēas curon coren (to choose)

OIcl. kiósa kaus kørom kørenn
Coth. kiusan kaus kusum kusan

3.2. Grammar

One of the main processes in the development of the Germanic

morphological system was the change in the word structure. The
common Indo-European notional word consisted of the three
elements: the root, expressing the lexical meaning, the inflexion or
ending, showing the grammatical form, and the so-called stem-
forming suffix, a formal indicator of the stem type. However, in the
Germanic languages the stem-forming suffix fuses with the ending
and is often no longer visible, thus making the word structure a
two-element one. Nevertheless, it should be taken into account
when explaining the differences in the categorical forms of words
originally having different stem-forming suffixes.
It should also be mentioned that Germanic languages belonged
to the synthetic type of form-building, which means that they
expressed the grammatical meanings by changing the forms of the
word itself, not resorting to any auxiliary words.
The Germanic nouns had a well-developed case system with
four cases (nominative, genitive, dative and accusative); some
languages had elements of the instrumental and vocative cases and
two number forms (singular and plural). They also had the category
of gender (feminine, masculine and neuter) the means of form-
building were the endings added to the root/stem of the noun.
The Germanic adjectives had two types of declension,
conventionally called strong and weak. Most adjectives could be
declined both in accordance with the strong and weak type.
Agreeing with the noun in gender, case and noun, the adjective by
its type of declension expressed the idea of definiteness (weak
declension) or indefiniteness (strong declension), the meaning which
was later to become expressed by a grammatical class of words
unknown in the Common Germanic – the article.
The adjective also had degrees of comparison, the forms of
which were in most instances formed with the help of suffixes –
iz/ōz and –ist/-ōst, but there were also instances of suppletivism,
i.e. use of different roots for different forms – a means common for
many Indo-European languages:
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Goth leitils – minniza – minnists (little – less – least)

Rus. Хороший – лучше – лучший

The Germanic verbs are divided into two principal groups:

strong and weak verbs, depending on the way they formed their
past tense forms.
The past tense (or preterit) of strong verbs was formed with the
help of Ablaut, quantitative and qualitative. Depending upon the
phonetic root structure, the exact manifestation of Ablaut could be
somewhat different, and accordingly strong verbs were further
subdivided into classes.
Weak verbs expressed pretirite with the help of the dental suffix
–d/t. they also had stem-forming suffixes, depending on which they
fell into separate classes.
There were also a small group of highly frequent suppletive
verbs forming their forms from different roots, the same as in other
Indo-European languages:
Goth am (I/am) Rus. есть
was (I / was) был

The Germanic verb had a well-developed system of categories,

including the category of person (first, second, third), number
(singular and plural), tense (past, present, the latter also used for
expressing future actions). Mood (indicative, imperative and
optative) and voice (only in gothic – active and mediopassive). The
categorical forms employed synthetic means of form-building.

3.3. Alphabet

Although the people of the Germanic tribes were mostly

illiterate, some of the Germanic nations had their own mode of
writing, with a distinctive alphabet called runic, each letter of which
was called a rune. We know that runes were used to record early
stages of Gothic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, English, Frisian,
Frankish and various tribal tongues of central Germania and they
may also have supplied other Germanic languages without leaving
any evidence surviving till today. On archeological grounds the
earliest runes are dated to the second century AD. The script
continued in use in some regions throughout the Middle Ages and
into early modern times.
The early runes were not written, but incised – runic script was
designed for inscribing, at first on wood, which explains many of its
characteristics. Since runes were designed for incising in wood, the
 10
letter forms, in their earliest stages, eschew curves, which are hard
to cut in such a grainy material. Letters were made up of vertical
strokes, cut at right angles to the grain, and of slanting strokes
which mingle with the grain and be hard to distinguish, were
avoided.
Even the earliest examples of the script show there were
variations in some letter forms, so it is not possible to give a
standard pattern for the Germanic runic alphabet.
The earliest known runic alphabet had twenty-four letters
arranged in a peculiar order, which, from the values of its first
letters, is known as the futhark. In early times texts could be
written not only from left to right, but from right to left equally well.
Some texts could be even being written with alternate lines in
opposite directions. Even in left-to-right texts an individual letter
could be reversed at whim, and occasionally a letter might be
inverted. There was no distinction between capital and lower-case
letters.
The Roman equivalents for the Germanic runes given above are
only approximate, for the sounds of Early Germanic did not
coincide with those of Modern English.
It is unknown where and when runes were invented. The
obvious similarities with the Roman alphabet brought early
scholars to the belief that the script first appeared among Germanic
peoples living close to the Roman Empire, and that the runes were
an adaptation of the more prestigious alphabet. Early finds of rune-
inscribed objects in Eastern Europe (Pietroassa in Rumania,
Dahrmsdorf in central Germany and Kowel in the Ukraine)
suggested that runes may have been invented by Goths on the
Danube or beside the Vistula. This is further supported by the
similarity of occasional runes to letters of one or other of the Greek
alphabets. However, continued discovery of early runic texts in
various regions of Europe do not allow considering the matter of the
origin of runes conclusively proven.
Runes spread over the Germanic world and by 500 AD they are
found not only in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England but also in
Poland, Russia and Hungary, recording different Germanic
languages and being cut, stamped, inlaid or impressed on metal,
bone, wood and stone.
Runes were used for many centuries and in many lands,
gradually changing in their passage through time and space. In
England the script died out, superseded by Roman, somewhere in
the eleventh century; in Germany rather soon. In Scandinavia and
its colonies, however, runes continued well into the Middle Ages.
Nevertheless, the later runic inscriptions are of comparatively little
 11
interest, for there is plenty of other evidence for the state of the
language they record, whereas the early inscriptions are of great
importance to the linguist, for they record material for which there
is otherwise little or no evidence.

‫٭٭٭‬
Summary

Thus we may summarize the above discussion stating that the

principal features common to all the languages of the Germanic
area were:
 Fixation of the main stress on the initial syllable of the
word;
 The first, or Germanic sound shift affecting the Indo-
European voiceless and voiced stops and the spirant [s];
 Certain vowel changes;
 Reduction in the number of cases as compared to
Common Indo-European;
 Full development of the weak declension of the adjective
with particular categorical meaning;
 Development of a dental preterite and appearance of the
strong/weak verb distinction;
 A peculiar alphabet.
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LECTURE 2.

OLD ENGLISH. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

List of principal questions:

1. Outer history
1.1. Pre-Germanic history of Britain. The Celts
1.2. Anglo-Saxon civilization
1.3. Introduction of Christianity
1.4. Principal written records
2.1. Dialectical classification
2.2. The dialects in Old English
2.3 Old English written records
3. Inner history
3.1. Phonetics
3.2. Spelling
3.3. Grammar
3.4. Vocabulary

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
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1. Outer history
1.1. Pre-Germanic history of Britain
The Celts

Before Germanic invasion, Celtic tribes inhabited British Isles.

The first Celtic comers were the Gaels, but the Brythons arrived
some two centuries later and pushed the Gaels to Wales, Scotland,
Ireland and Cornwall taking possession of the south and east.
Then, after a considerable lapse of time somewhere about the 1 st
century B.C. the most powerful tribe, the Belgae, claimed
possession of south-east while part of the Brythons was pushed on
to Wales though the rest stayed in what is England today, and
probably gave there name to the whole country. Thus the whole of
Britain was occupied by the Celts who merged with the Picts and
Scots, as well as with the Alpine part of the population; the latter
predominantly in the West while the rest of the British Isles became
distinctly Celtic in language and the structure of the society. The
Gaelic form of the Celtic dialects was spoken in Caledonia (modern
Scotland) and Ireland, the Bretonic form in England and Wales. The
social unit of the Celts, the clans were united into large kinship
groups, and those into tribes. The clan was the main economic unit,
the main organizational unit for the basic activities.
The Celts came to Britain in three waves. Economically and
socially the Celts were a tribal society made up of kins, kinship
groups, clans and tribes. They practiced a primitive agriculture and
carried on trade with Celtic Gaul. The Celts created the great Iron
cultures. The Romans invaded the Celts partially, so in Ireland and
Scotland, Iron Age culture continued throughout the Roman and
Anglo-Saxon conquest.
The Celtic tribes started to populate Britain in about 500 B.C.
The Main wave of Celtic immigration began in about 300 B.C., from
France and Brittany; they brought the so-called sophisticated La
Tene culture to Britain. These people settled as miners and traders
in southern part of Britain and as horse-breeders and cattle
ranchers in the Highlands. In there farming they used a light
plough that merely scratched the surface of their fields so they had
to plough for the second time to deepen the furrow. The
introduction of the iron axe opened up new possibilities; woods
could be cleared and more areas put under cultivation.
A third wave of Celtic people came into southeast of Britain
after 100 B.C. and they were Belgае who moved to Britain before
the advancing Romans of Gaul. With arrival of the Belgic tribes to
Britain the heavy plough was introduced, drawn by oxen,
consequently the slopes of downs were used only as pastures, and
 14
fertile valleys were cleared from forests and the south east produced
enough grain and food. It was a primitive patriarchal society based
on common ownership of land. Afterwards the primitive tillage
started to improve and the social differentiation began to develop.
All these conditions provided the development of the class
distinctions, it helped the tribal chiefs to use the labour of the semi-
dependent native population. Alongside with the accumulation of
wealth the heads of clans and tribes started to use military forces to
rob other tribes.
Fortresses were built on the tops of the hills, in fact they were
tribal centers, and the first urban settlements began to appear in
the wealthier south east. Actually they were the settlements with
large groups of wattle-and-clay houses encircled by a sort of
fortified fence. Among the first mentioned Celtic urban settlements
are such as Verulamium, Camulodunum, Londinium.
At that time some continental Celts of Gaul who traded with
British Celts came over to Britain and settled in Kent contributing
to the civilization of that part of the island, teaching the local
population some useful arts.
The British craftsmen perfected their skill mostly in bronze
work and they tried to express their culture in circular shapes on
weapons, vases, domestic utensils, etc.
The Celts were good warriors. The most popular of the Celtic
armaments were war-chariots, which terrified the Celtic enemies
and made them run. The war-chariots were reliably to hold one
warrior standing up to drive and two more to do the fighting.
The war-chariot itself was a destructive force, the well-trained
horses trampling down the enemy and the wheels fixed with sharp
knives or swords, rotating with the wheel movement, a grave
menace to everything living that chanted to be in the way.
The first millennium B.C. was the period of Celtic migration and
expansion. Traces of the Celtic civilization are still found all over
Europe. Celtic languages were widespread almost all over Europe,
later they were absorbed by other Indo-European languages. The
Gaelic branch has survived as Irish (or Erse) in Ireland, has
expanded to Scotland as Scotch-Gaelic of the Highlands and is still
spoken by a few thousand people on the Isle of Man (the Manx
language). The Brittonic branch is represented by Kymric or Welsh
in Modern Wales and by Breton or Amorican spoken by over a
million people in France (in the area called Bretagne or Brittany,
where the Celts came as emigrants from Britain in the 5 th
century), another Britonic dialect in Britain, Cornish, was spoken in
Cornwall until the end of the 8th century.
 15

As we have already said, the forefathers of the English nation

belonged to the western subdivision of old Germanic tribes, and the
dialects they spoke later lay the foundation of English national
language.
The history of the English language begins in the fifth century
AD, when the ruthless and barbaric Germanic tribes of Angles,
Saxons and Jutes and Frisians, who up to that time had lived in
Western Europe between the Elbe and the Rhine, started their
invasion of the British Isles.
At the time of invasion Britain was inhabited by the so-called
“Romanized Celts”, that is, Celts who lived under the Roman rule
for over four centuries and who had acquired Roman culture and
ways of life and whose language had undergone certain changes
mainly in the form of borrowings from the Latin language.
The Celtic tribes, whose languages, the same as Germanic
belonged to the Indo-European language family, were at one time
among its most numerous representatives. At the beginning of our
era the Celts could be found on the territories of the present-day
Spain, Great Britain, Western Germany and Northern Italy. Before
that they had been known to reach even Greece and Asia Minor.
But under the steady attacks of Italic and Germanic tribes the Celts
had to retreat, so that in the areas where they were once dominant
they have left but the scantiest trace of their presence.
The Celts who first came to Britain gradually spread to Ireland,
Scotland and Isle of Man. Their languages are represented in
modern times by Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. A later wave of
Celtic tribes, having occupied for some centuries the central part of
England, was driven westwards by Germanic invaders, and their
modern language representatives are Welsh, Cornish and Breton.
The Romans invaded Britannia as it was then called in 55 – 54
BC when the troops of Julius Caesar and others conquered the
isles. No centralized government was formed, instead there existed
petty principalities under the control of local landlords. In 407 AD,
with the departure of the last Roman emissary Constantine
hostilities among the native tribes in Britain began anew. To
normalize the situation the local chieftains appealed to influential
Germanic tribes who lived on the continent inviting them to come to
their assistance, and in 449 the Germanic troops led by Hengest
and Horsa landed in Britain.
The Roman occupation of Britain left little mark on its future.
Most of what the Romans did perished after they left, so it is with
the Germanic tribes that the history of England truly begins.
 16
The invaders, or Barbarians, as they were generally called, who
came to the British Isles were representatives of a by far inferior
civilization than the Romans. A bulk of the invaders came from the
most backward and primitive of the Germanic tribes. They were an
agricultural rather than a pastoral people. Their tribal organization
was rapidly disintegrating.
The invaders came to Britain in hosts consisting not only of
warriors but also including laborers, women and children. They
plundered the country, took possession of almost all the fertile land
there and partly exterminated, and partly drove away the native
population to the less inhabited mountainous parts of the country –
Cornwall, Wales, Scotland. The rest of the natives became slaves to
the conquerors.
In view of the historical facts mentioned above it is quite clear
why the language of the invaders underwent so few changes under
the influence of the Celtic tongue as almost no normal intercourse
between the invaded and invaders was possible, the latter being
very few and far below socially.
It should be noted that nowadays the remnants of the Celtic
group of languages face the threat of complete disappearance
unable to survive in the competition with English. Cornish became
extinct already in the 18 th century, Manx – after the Second World
War. Scottish Gaelic is spoken only in the Highlands by about 75
thousand people, Irish – by half a million, the figures showing a
steady declining tendency, and their absolute majority of those
speaking these languages are bilingual, English being no less
familiar to them than their former native tongue. Although in recent
years a certain revival of nationalist sentiments helped to somewhat
arrest the decline, many linguists fear the inevitable disappearance
of the whole branch of the Indo-European language family.
We have very little indirect evidence about the beginning of the
Old English period – 5th – 7th centuries. The first written records
were dated as far back as the beginning of the 8 th century that is
why the 5th – 7th centuries are generally referred to as “pre-written
period”.
 17
The Latin Language in Britain

Among the other evidences of Romanization must be included

the rules of the Latin language. A great number of inscriptions have
been found, all of them in Latin. The majority of these proceed no
doubt from the military and official class and, being in the nature of
public records, were therefore in the official language. They do not
in themselves indicate a widespread use of Latin by the native
population. Latin did not replace the Celtic language in Britain as it
did in Gaul. Its use by native Britons was probably confined to
members of the upper classes and the inhabitants of the cities and
towns. Occasionally “graffiti” scratched on a tile or a piece of
pottery, apparently by the workman who made it, suggest that in
some localities Latin was familiar to the artisan classes. Outside the
cities there were many fine country houses, some of which were
probably occupied by well-to-do natives. The occupants of these
also probably spoke Latin. Tacitus tells us that in the time of
Agricola the Britons, who had hitherto shown only hostility to the
language of their conquerors, now became eager to speak it. At the
same time a Greek teacher from Asia Minor was teaching in Britain
and by A.D. 96 the poet Martial was able to boast that his works
were read even in this far-off island. On the whole, there were
certainly many people in Roman Britain who habitually spoke Latin
or upon occasion could use it. But its use was not sufficiently
widespread to cause it to survive, as the Celtic language survived,
the upheaval of the Germanic invasions. Its use probably began to
decline after 410, the approximate date at which the last of the
Roman troops were officially withdrawn from the island.

Britain’s Roman villas

Numerous monuments recall the 400 or so years (from A.D. 43

to the beginning of the fifth century) when Britain was part of the
Roman Empire. Ancient city walls, including fragments to the ones
that once defended London and Colchester, old roads like the Fosse
Way and Watling Street. The frontier defenses of Hadrian’s Wall.
The bastions at Portchester. An arched gateway at Lincoln. Bath’s
great bath. The theatre at Verulamium, near St. Albans. But it is at
the villas that one feels closest to the everyday life of Roman
Britain.
Some of the villas were small farms. Others were great houses.
They were well built, usually of one storey, and handsomely
decorated. Often they had large courtyards and spacious
 18
outbuildings – barns for storage, stables, shelter for pigs and cattle,
and living space for the laborers who worked on the estate.
The first villa was built here around A.D. 80 – 90. it was a
house of flint and mortar with, beneath ground level, a deep room,
used as grain store. The type of owner was a native farmer. Around
A.D. 180, however, the villa became the home of a Roman of
Mediterranean origin, a man of wealth who greatly extended the
house, adding kitchens and baths and turning the deep room into a
place of worship, decorated with a fresco painting of water
goddesses, part of which survived.
The eventual fate of most of the Roman villas of Britain remains
uncertain. But it is known that Lullingstone was destroyed by fire
early in the fifth century. Afterwards the hill-wash crept in form the
downs and covered the ruins, keeping them hidden for hundreds of
years until the middle of the 18th century, when excavations for a
deer fence revealed part of a mosaic floor. No further investigation
took place at the time, and it was not until 1949 that systematic
excavation of the site began.
In a similarly accidental way clues to the presence of the villas
at Rudston, Yorkshire, at Bignor, Sussex, and at Chedworth in
Gloucestershire were discovered.

The Roman Twilight

The destruction of the Roman Empire was due to a unique

combination of internal and external causes.
For long the Empire persisted rather because of the absence of
any outside force powerful enough to attack it than from its own
strength. In the fourth century A.D. a serious of westward
migratory movements across the steppes of Asia and Europe forced
the Germanic tribes nearest to the Roman frontiers into motion. At
its heart we can trace the westward migration of the Huns, Mongol
tribes from Central Asia. At first these Germanic tribes were allowed
and even encouraged to enter the Empire, where they were
absorbed and partially Romanized. Gradually the hold of the central
government on outlying provinces was relinquished and one by one
they were overrun by barbarian tribes who set up independent
kingdoms of varying character – some largely Roman in culture and
language, others almost wholly barbarian.
Britain, as the most remote and among the most exposed of the
provinces, was among the earliest to fall away and lost most
completely its Roman character.
In 407 two events ended the long period of Roman occupation.
One was the departure of Constantine, with the bulk of the troops
 19
stationed in Britain, in an attempt to secure the Imperial purple.
The other was the crossing of the Rhine into Gaul of a host of
Germanic tribesmen who cut Britain off from the Roman world and
prevented the return or replacement of the departed legions. The
people of South and East Britain were left to improvise their own
government and defense against their never conquered kinsmen of
the more parts of the islands.

The Names “England” and “English”

The Celts called their Germanic conquerors “Saxons”

indiscriminately, probably because they had had their contact with
the Teutons through the Saxon raids on the coast. Early Latin
writers, following Celtic usage, generally call the Teutons in England
“Saxones” and the land “Saxonia”. But soon the terms “Angli” and
“Anglia” occur beside “Saxones” and refer not only to the Angles
individually but to the Teutons generally. Æthelbert , king of Kent,
is styled “rex Anglorum” by Pope Gregory in 601, and a century
later Bede called his history the “Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum” . in time “Anglia” became the usual terms in Latin texts.
From the beginning, however writers in the vernacular never call
their language anything but Englisc (English). The word is derived
from the name of the Angles ( O.E.Ængles) but is used without
distinction for the language of all the invading tribes. In the like
manner the land and its people are early called “Anglekynn” (Angle
kin or race of the Angles), and this is the common name until after
Danish period. From about the year 1000 “Englaland” (Land of
Angles) begins to take its place. The name “English” is thus older
than the name “England”. It is not easy to say why England should
have taken its name from the Angles. Possibly a desire to avoid
confusion with the Saxons who remained on the Continent and the
early supremacy of the Anglian kingdoms were the predominant
factors in determining usage.

1.2. Anglo-Saxon Civilization

The religious beliefs of the Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons and

Jutes) had reflected the primitive man’s fear of the
incomprehensible forces of nature. Their highest heathen deity was
Woden, the war god, since wars were so important things in those
Dark Times of European history. The elements were commanded by
Thor the god of thunder, Freia was the god of love and fertility, Tiu
commanded the darkness. The names they gave to the week showed
 20
which day was sacred to the Sun, the Moon and the Night, and
then it followed the day which devoted to the war god, then came
the thunder god and after this the love goddess – appeared on the
scene to restore the ravages of darkness and war and thunder,
followed by Saturn the god of agriculture and merry-making, and
then Sunday came again celebrating the life-giving Sun.
The Anglo-Saxons had no big cities, only scattered villages and
townships that is the Lord’s house surrounded with the wattle-and-
mud huts of the villages. The huts of the Anglo-Saxons were very
primitive made of wood and clay, with no chimney over the open
hearth but a hole in the roof to let the smoke out and to let the light
in. The hearth was usually nothing more complicated than just a
large flat stone in the middle of the earthen floor.
The lord’s house had a large yard with a lot of household
buildings. It was protected by a stout fence supplemented by a sort
of circular fortifications, or mound.
The interior of the lord’s house was that, a spacious hall where
the lord had his meal with his family and did a lot of entertaining,
received guests and spent a social life. The light came through the
small holes in the walls covered with oiled linen. The walls were
hung with bright patterned curtains, it was only a part of the hall
where the lord received the honoured guests, but other walls were
bare.
The hearth was nothing but a broad flat stone and the
blackened roofbeams were just as much the feature of the lord’s
hall. The food was very simple: salt meat, beef, pork or mutton,
eaten off big dishes with no forks, but knives were used to help the
fingers. Drinking was not mentioned at the early stage but it started
at a much advanced society. The drinking table manners were that
the Anglo-Saxons used drinking cups with rounded bottoms, to be
held in the drinker’s hands until quite empty. Their drinks were
mead, fermented honey, malt brewed ale. The Anglo-Saxons had
learned to make wine from Romans but it was sweetening with
honey because on the mainland the wine was too sour to have it.
The ladies did not stay too long at table but withdrew to their
part of the hall or to their room and the men stayed to drink more
until there nothing left to drink. The ladies welcomed all sorts of
wandering minstrels who would sing, play or tell stories.
After feast the guests stayed to sleep in the hall on the floor
keeping their weapons close by for emergencies. The family went to
their chambers.
When the Anglo-Saxons came to the British Isles they brought
nothing except runic writing. They had no literature, their writings
 21
were a proverb or magic formula carved upon some ornaments or
weapon in runes.
Long before the introduction of Christianity and even after, the
Anglo-Saxons used pagan- sounding charms. The charms were
practiced not only by professional witches and spellbinders whom
the Anglo-Saxons fully trusted in controlling the natural elements
and the Evil Spirit, but by ordinary peasants as well.
Here are some examples of the primitive charms: “Garmund,
thane of God, find the cattle and lead the cattle, and have the
cattle, and hold the cattle, and bring the cattle home…”

1.3. Introduction of Christianity

The introduction of Christianity played a great role in the

history of English. The first attempt to introduce the Roman
Christian religion to Anglo-Saxon Britain was made in the 6 th
century. In 597 a group of missionaries from Rome dispatched by
Pope Gregory the Great “St Augustine’s mission” first landed on the
shore of Kent. They made Canterbury their center and from that
town the now faith expanded the English kingdoms: Kent, East,
Anglia, Essex, Wessex and other places.
The new faith was supported from Ireland; they brought the
Celtic variety of Christianity to Northumbria.
The Celts had converted to Christianity long before the
Germanic tribes came to Britain, during the Roman occupation.
Less than a century practically all England was Christianized.
The Christian faith and church helped the English kingdoms to
unite and was the main factor in formation one centralized country.
The introduction of Christianity influenced greatly the growth of
culture and learning. Monasteries were founded all over the
country. The openings of monasteries, influenced the education,
many monastic schools were opened. Religious services and
teaching were conducted in Latin.
A high standard of learning was reached in the best English
monasteries, especially in Northumbria in early 8 th and 9th
centuries.
The most famous of all monasteries was the monastery of
Lindisfarne, founded by Aidan who had come to Britain with the
Irish missionaries, the monastery of Garrow, where the Venerable
Bede, the first English historian lived and worked.
During the Scandinavian invasion the monastery at Lindisfarne
was destroyed and most of Northumbrian culture came in decline at
that time. English culture shitted to the southern kingdoms, most
of all to Wessex, where a cultural florescence began during the reign
 22
of King Alfred (871-901). Since that time up to the end of the Old
English period Wessex remained the cultural center of England with
its capital at Winchester.

1.4. Principal written records of the Old English period

The principal written records that came to us through the

centuries date from as far back as the 8 th century. They were
written with the help of the so-called “Runic Alphabet”. This was an
alphabet of some 26 letters, the shape of which is quite peculiar:

[fuθark] or [fuθork]

We have already said that it is assumed the Runic alphabet was

composed by Germanic scribes in the I – III centuries AD and their
angular shape is due to the material those inscriptions were made
on – wood, stone, bone – and the technique of “writing” – the letters
were not written but carved on those hard materials. The word
“rune” meant “mystery”, and those letters were originally considered
to be magic signs known to very few people, mainly monks and not
understood by the vast majority of illiterate population. Among the
first Old English runic inscriptions we generally mentioned two: the
inscription on the so-called “Franks’ Casket” – small box made of
whalebone containing a poem about it, and the inscription on the
“Ruthwell Cross” – religious poem engraved on a stone cross found
in Scotland.
In 7th century the Christian faith was introduced and with it
there came many Latin-speaking monks who brought with them
their own Latin alphabet.
The Latin alphabet was used by the majority of the population
who could read and write. It ousted the runic alphabet. Latin
alphabet could not denote all the sounds in the English language,
for example, the sounds [w], [θ]. For that purpose some runes were
preserved – w, þ, or some Latin letters were slightly altered – ð to
denote the sounds [θ], [ð] together with the rune þ.
This alphabet that is a combination of the Latin alphabet with
runes and some other innovations is called “insular writing”, i.e. the
alphabet typical of the British Isles. The majority of Old English
records are written in this insular alphabet. The spelling in these
records is on the whole phonetic and reasonably consistent, so that
it is possible to learn much about the early pronunciation.
 23
2. Dialectal classification of Old English written records

2.1. The dialects in Old English

As we have already said, the onset of invasion by the members

of the four principal Germanic tribes: Angles, Saxons, Jutes and
Frisians – began about the middle of the fourth century and their
conquest of Britain was completed within the next century and a
half. By about AD 600 they established their separate kingdoms,
the principal among them being:
- Those formed by the Angles: Northumbria (north of the
river Humber), Mercia (in the center of England) and east
Anglia – central eastern part of England;
- Those formed by the Saxons – mainly to the south of the
river Thames: Wessex, Sussex and Essex;
- The one formed by the Jutes – Kent.

Only the Frisians did not form a separate kingdom, but

intermarried with the population belonging to different tribes.
The prevailing importance of these seven kingdoms gave to the
next two centuries the title Heptarchy. Gradually three of the seven
– Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria – began to establish some sort
of domination over their smaller neighbors. It was an important
step towards the achieving the eventual unity of England. Another
vital factor contributing to the unity was the introduction of
Christianity in England in 597 AD, and afterwards the spread of
Christianity and changes of the supremacy of this or that kingdom
follows almost the same course.
The Old English dialects are generally named after the names of
kingdoms on the territory of which the given dialect was spoken –
the Northumbrian dialect, the Mercian dialect, the Wessex dialect,
the Sussex dialect, the Kentish dialect.
Though the differences between the three types were later to
assume considerable importance, they were at first slight, and
records of the 8th and 9th centuries reveal that Englisc, as it was
collectively called, had by that time emerged as an independent
language. The virtually complete geographical separation of
England from the Continent was a factor favoring the further
development of those characteristic features that already
distinguished English from its parent Germanic languages.
Among the principal Old English dialects the most important for
us is the Wessex dialect, as the majority of Old English written
records that we have can be traced back to that dialect. But the
 24
prominence of the Wessex dialect is also based on other extra
linguistic criteria.
As it is known, efforts to unite England failed for a very long
period of time, because as soon as one kingdom became great it was
in the interest of the rest to pull it down. Some historians say that
the reason for that was the lack of the strongest possible motive
towards any union, namely, the presence of a foreign foe. Such
enemy appeared in the second half of the 8 th century, when the
Northmen, particularly the Danes, began their devastating raids on
the isles. At the beginning of the 9 th century, when the Danish
invaders destroyed in turn the dynasties of Northumbria, Mercia
and East Anglia, Wessex was left as the sole survivor, and its
leaders became the leaders of the emerging nation.
The most famous of all English kings, Alfred of Wessex, who
would later come to be called Alfred the Great, came to the throne
in 871 and is reputed to have been one of the best kings ever to rule
mankind. He successfully fought with the Danes who by that time
conquered most of eastern England and were moving southwards
towards Wessex. Alfred managed to stop the Danes, although
temporally, and in 878 signed a treaty with the Danish king
dividing England between them.
But Alfred’s true greatness lay not in his military, but peaceful
activity. He set aside a half of the revenue to be spent on
educational needs, established schools where the sons of the
nobility could be taught to read and write, brought in foreign
scholars and craftsmen, restored monasteries and convents,
published a collection of laws and enforced them. He also mastered
Latin and translated many books into Anglo-Saxon and ordered the
compilation of the first history book, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
which was continued for more than two centuries after his death.
All this allows saying that even had Alfred never fought a battle, he
would still deserve a place among the greatest rulers of history.
However, after the death of Alfred the Great in 901 the
supremacy of Wessex gradually began to decline, and for a time,
from 1017 till 1042, the throne was occupied by Danish kings.

2.2. Old English written records

Runic inscriptions

The word rune originally meant “secret”, “mystery” and they are
believed to be magic. There is no doubt that the Germanic tribes
knew the runic writing long before they came to Britain. The first
runes were found in Scandinavia. The runes were used as letters;
each symbol indicated a separate sound.
 25
The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic one, which cannot
be found in other Indo-European languages. The shape of preferred,
this is due to the fact that all runic inscriptions were cut in hard
material: stone, bone, wood.
The number of runes in different Old Germanic languages
greatly varied from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on
the mainland. Runes were used only for short inscriptions on the
objects in order to bestow some special power or magic on them and
they were not used in writing.
The two best known runic inscriptions in England are “Franks
Casket”, and “Ruth well Cross”. Both records are in Northumbrian
dialect.
The first English manuscripts were written in Latin letters. The
center of learning was monasteries and the monks were practically
the only literate people. The religious services were conducted in
Latin and the first English writings appeared in Latin letters.
English scribes modified the Latin script to suit their needs: the
shape of some letters was changed and new symbols which
indicated the English sounds, for which Latin had no equivalents,
were added.
The first English words were personal names and place names
inserted in Latin texts, and then came glosses and longer textual
insertions.
The first official documents were written in Latin, but later they
were written in local dialects, because not many people knew Latin.
Among the earliest insertions in Latin texts are pieces of poetry.
Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum written in Latin in
the 8 th c. contains an English fragment of five lines known as
“Bede’s Death Song” and a religious poem of nine lines, “Cadmon’s
Hymn” Old English poetry is mainly restricted to three subjects:
heroic, religious and lyrical. Most of poetry is believed to be
composed at that time when there was no writing and they existed
in oral form and handed down from one generation to another.
The greatest poem of the Old English period was Beowulf, an
epic of the 7th c. As some linguists and historians Consider this epic
was composed in the Mercian or Northumbrian dialect, but came to
the present time in West Saxon dialect. Beowulf consists of several
songs arranged in three chapters (over 3 000 lines in all). It is based
on old legends about the ancient Teutons. It depicts the life and
fight of the legendary hero Beowulf, some extracts of the epic
describes the real historical events.
In the 10th c. when the old heroic versus began to decline, some
new poems were composed which were the picture of the real
historical events. Among them were the chronicles: the battle of
 26
Brunanburh, the Battle of Maldon. They depicted the wars with the
Scots, the Picts and the invaders from Scandinavia.
Old English poetry is characterized by the so-called system of
versification Old Germanic alliterative verse. The structure of this
verse is this: the line is divided into two halves with two strongly
stressed syllables in each half and is bound together by the use of
the same sound at the beginning of two stressed syllables in the
line. The lines are not rhymed and the number of the syllables in a
line is pee.
There is another specification in Old English poetry: the use of
metaphorical phrases as hēapu-swāt – “war sweat” (blood). The
greatest written monument of the Anglo-Saxon poetry of that time
was the poem “Beowulf” that was created early in the 7th century
and had 3182 lines full not only of masterful descriptions and
dignified speeches but also of fine lyrical feeling which is in keeping
with the whole body of early Anglo-Saxon poetry.
The plot is simple enough: in the first part of the poem Beowulf,
a young hero of the Geats (a tribe that lived in the southern part of
Sweden), hears of a sea monster Grendel preying upon Hrothgar the
king of the Danes killing his warriors right after their feast in the
“middle hall” called Heorot. So he goes with his men to kill this
monster and free the Danes from the terror of the monster. He
mortally wounds him in the single combat with his bare hands and
then kills another, who is more terrible and much stronger than the
first. It is Grendel’s mother who wants to take revenge upon
Beowulf and the people for her son’s death. Beowulf kills the second
monster in her cave with the magic sword that he wrests from the
enemy. The poem symbolized a triumph of human courage over the
hostile forces of nature.
The second part of the poem greatly influenced by Christianity
after its introduction into the early Germanic society tells about
Beowulf where he is an aged king an ideal king of the tribal society
who peacefully and wisely rules the Danes. At that time appears a
fire-breathing monster that hoards the gold and a plenty of treasure
in a cave and becomes a grave menace for people. Gold is shown
here as a force which threatens the tribal society, that brings
discord and destruction. Desire of gold is the root of all evil and
Beowulf dies protecting his people from the great menace of gold
which is implied in the image of this monster.
Literary critics highly appreciate the aesthetic quality of
“Beowulf” considering it to be the masterpiece of the old Germanic
prose. Some of them think that this poem was written by one
author, probably acquainted with the traditions of the Latin epic
narrative. They concluded it on the bases of comparisons which
 27
were made on Virgil’s “Aeneid”. There was another opposite opinion,
classifying the poem as a sort of synthesis of the Germanic epics
and the topic of the Biblical stories, treating Grendel as a
descendant of Cain and making allusions to the struggle of God and
Satana in connection with hero’s struggle against evil forces.
The earliest sample of prose works are: the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles which are of no great importance as a literary work but
are of great interest for the linguists because they were written in
spoken language and they are much better than sophisticated
Translations from Latin.
The flourishing of learning and literature began in the times of
reign of King Alfred. He was a learned man and realized that culture
hat to be developed in mother tongue. He translated from Latin
books on geography, history, philosophy. One of his most important
contributions is the West Saxon version of Orosius’s World History
(Historiarum Adversus paganos Libri Septem “Seven books of
history against the heathens”). This is the description where the
Germanic languages were spoken, the story of two voyages which
were made one by Ohthere, a Norwegian, who sailed along the coast
of Scandinavia into the Write Sea and the other Wulfstan, a Dane,
who had traveled round the Baltic Sea. Another work is book for
instructions for priests Pastoral Care (Cura Pastoralis) by Pope
Gregory the Great.
Another outstanding writer of the Old English period was
Aelfric who created the alliterative prose work “The Lives of the
saints”. He was the first to translate from Latin some parts of the
Holy Bible. He was known also as educator he wrote a Latin
Grammar giving Old English equivalents of Latin forms and
constructions.
Wulfstan was the prominent late West Saxon author, was an
Archbishop of York in the early 11th c.

2. Inner history

During the period the language was developing very slowly .

3.1. Phonetics

The phonetics of the Old English period was characterized by a

system of dynamic stress. The fixed stress fell on the first root
syllable.
agāne (gone); зesēon (see); зaderian (gather)
 28
The vowels had the following characteristic features:

a) the quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its
position in the word. Under stress any vowel could be found, but in
unstressed position there were no diphthongs or long
monophthongs, but only short vowels [a], [e], [i], [o], [u].
b) The length of the stressed vowels (monophthongs and
diphthongs) was phonemic, which means that there could be two
words differing only in the length of the vowel:

metan (to meet, to measure) – mētan (to meet)

pin (pin) – pīn (pain)
God (god) – gōd (good)
ful (full) – fūl (foul)
c) There was an exact parallelism of long and short vowels:

Short: a o e u i æ y ea eo
Long: ā ō ē ū ī ǽ ý ēo ēa

The consonants were few. Some of the modern sounds were

non-existent ([∫], [з], [t∫], [dз]).
The quality of the consonant very much depended on its
position in the word, especially the resonance (voiced and voiceless
sounds: hlāf [f] (loaf) – hālord [v] (lord, “bread-keeper”) and
articulation (palatal and velar sounds: climban [k] (to climb) – cild
[k’] (child)), etc.
3.2. Spelling

The Old English spelling was mainly phonetic, i.e. each letter as
a rule denoted one sound in every environment. Note should be
taken that the letters f, s, þ, ð could denote voiced consonants in
intervocalic positions or voicless otherwise; the letter c was used to
denote the sound [k] (palatal or velar); the letter y denoted the
sound [ÿ] (similar to German [ü in the word Gemüt or in Russian
[ю] in the word “бюро”).
The letter з could denote three different sounds:
[j] – before or after front vowels [æ], [e], [i]:
Зiefan (give), Зēar (year), dæз (year)
[γ] – after back vowels [a], [o], [u] and consonants [l] and [r]:
Dæзas (days), folзian (follow)
[g] – before consonants and before back vowels [a], [o], [u]:
Зōd (good), зlēo (glee)
 29

3.3. Grammar

Old English was a synthetic language (the lexical and

grammatical notions of the word were contained in one unit). It was
highly inflected, with many various affixes. The principal
grammatical means were suffixation, vowel interchange and
supplition.

Suffixation:
Ic cēpe (I keep) – þu cēpst (you keep) – he cēpð (he keeps)

Vowel interchange:
wrītan (to write) – Ic wrāt (I wrote)

Supplition:

зān (to go) – ēode (went)

bēon (to be) – Ic eom (I am)

þu eart (you are)
he is (he is)

There was no fixed word-order in old English, the order of the

words in the sentence being relatively free.

3.4. Vocabulary

Almost all of it was composed of native words, there were very

borrowings.
Borrowings were mainly from Latin:
a) The forefathers of English, when on the Continent, had
contacts with the Roman Empire and borrowed words connected
mainly with trade:
cīese (cheese), wīn (wine), æpple (apple)
b) They borrowed Latin words from the Romanized Celts:
stræt (street), weall (wall), myln (mill)
c) Some borrowings were due to the introduction of
Christianity:
biscop (bishop), deoful (devil), munic (monk)
New words appeared as a result of two processes:
a) word derivation:
 30
fisc+ere = fiscere (fish – fisher)
wulle+en = wyllen (wool – woolen)
clæne+s+ian = clæsian (clean – to cleanse)
b) word composition:
sunne+dæз = Sunnandæз (sun + day = Sunday)
Mōna+dæз = Mōnandæз (moon + day = Monday)
 31

LECTURE 3.

MIDDLE ENGLISH. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

List of principal questions:

1. Outer history
Scandinavian Invasion
Effect of the Scandinavian Invasions
Norman Conquest
Effect of the Norman Conquest on the linguistic situation
1.3. Formation of the English national language
2. Inner history
2.1. Phonetics
2.2. Grammar
2.3. Word-stock

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
 32

1. Outer history

1.1. The Scandinavian Invasions in England

By the 8th c. Norwegian Vikings made their first attacks on

England. In the 9th century Wessex succeeded in consolidating all
the kingdoms into a unified country, which broke up the tribal
structure and advanced the feudalism society. But it was not
possible yet to call England to be the centralized state. The big
landowners were as strong as ever and separate regions retained
their political independence.
The invaders who in 793 started their predatory expeditions
with the ruthless destruction of the Lindisfarne abbey and
wholesale slaughter of the people who lived there. It was two
Scandinavian tribes Danes and Norwegians. Danes became the
invaders of England and the Norwegians invaded Scotland and
Ireland.
The Vikings were very skilful warriors and seamen; they were
brave, courageous and ferocious fighters. The green meadows, mild
climate, rich soil attracted the Vikings. They found the English
kingdoms weak and easy to invade. The Scandinavians could afford
to equip a huge host, transfer their activities to England launching
annual expeditions that inaugurated a whole epoch of slaughter
and suffering that lasted practically about three centuries. The
Danes surpassed the Anglo-Saxons in military skill and in military
equipment. They had improved weapons, long, high-speed ships,
iron axes, swords, iron helmets and firm shields and chain armour
while the Anglo-Saxons had knives and spears and far from being
protected with iron mesh could only boast leather covering.
The traditional date of the Germanic invasion on the British
Isles is 449-450 A.D.
The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic one, which cannot
be found in other Indo-European languages. The Vikings’ tactics
was very unusual, they knew tricks of lightning –speed attack,
getting where they wanted in their long ships with the high stern
and pointed bow, landing quickly, getting all the horses available
and attacking on horseback, building stockades and retreating
behind them if necessary to rally for new attacks.
The traditional date of the Germanic invasion on the British
Isles is 449-450 A.D.
The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic one, which cannot
be found in other Indo-European languages. The Vikings’ tactics
 33
was very unusual, they knew tricks of lightning –speed attack,
getting where they wanted in their long ships with the high stern
and pointed bow, landing quickly, getting all the horses available
and attacking on horseback, building stockades and retreating
behind them if necessary to rally for new attacks.
The Vikings’ armed forces attacked London and burned it up in
842 and in the year 850 they stayed to winter in England instead of
withdrawing. And in the sixties of the 9th century they founded their
first permanent settlements. Having founded the military
settlements and camps they started to invade the country, moving
to the depth of the island. In 871 they founded a fortified camp in
Reading that served them as a base for their further push.
The struggle of the English against the Scandinavians lasted
over 300 years; during this period the invaders occupied more than
half of England. At first there were small raids but by the 9 th
century. The raids increased and the Danes subdued Northumbria
and East Anglia, ravaged the eastern part of Mercia, and advanced
on Wessex. The Scandinavians came to England in large numbers
to settle in the new areas. They began to mix up with the English
people because they were of the came Germanic group. The
communication between the newcomers and the local population
was easy one because their languages were of the same group too.
The Viking incursions had destroyed many of monasteries in
the north and east of England, and it was in these monasteries in
particular that learning had flourished in the 8 th and in the 9th
centuries. That learning was based on knowledge of Latin. It is
therefore, understandable that Bede should be a famous author
who wrote in Latin, not in English. Other learned men of the pre-
Viking age – such as Aldhelm, Alcuin and Boniface – all used Latin
as their principal medium of written communication. England was
one place where the torch of learning was kept alight – but that
learning was Latinate. However, not all learning in England was in
Latin in that time. “Cadmon’s Hymn” and the runic inscriptions
with parts of The Dream of the Rood found on the Ruthwell cross
show that poetry in English was composed on religious themes in
Northumbria. In Mercia the poet Cynewulf wrote a number of
poems which are still extant in English, and translations such as
the Life of St Chad are extant. Although text written by English
scholars in Latin could be read all over Europe and therefore stood
a better chance of survival, texts written in any variety of English
where probably for local consumption and so easily have been lost
when the monasteries were destroyed.
The effect of the Scandinavian invasion on the English language
became manifest at a later date in the 12 th c. when the
 34
Scandinavian elements began to penetrate into the central dialects
of the Old English language.
The kingdom of Wessex resisted stubbornly. The King of
Wessex, Alfred (871-899) was at the head of that resistance. The
year 871 was called “Alfred’s great years of battles”. The Danes
encountered staunch resistance and finally they had to make a
truce with young king. After that period Scandinavians changed
their tactics they found new forms of invasion – such as settling
down to found kingdoms. That was done in Northumbria and East
Anglia. In 872 the Scandinavian attacks increased in strength and
number, so that in 878 Alfred with his armed forces were driven
into the Somerset marshes where they took refuge in the island of
Athelney. This place was the center of the guerillas and the place of
the beginning of the struggle for the national independence. At first
they fought against the outnumbered Scandinavian army, but then
the people began to join him in his marshy citadel and gradually
Alfred gathered a great force. After thorough preparations and
training the army Alfred started to learn the strategy and tactics of
the Danes to imitate them. The Saxons put to rout the Danes at
Ethandune.
In 878, the English concluded the peace treaty with the
Scandinavians. England was divided into two halves: the
northeastern half under Danish controls Dane lag and the
southeastern under the leadership of Wessex. Alfred the Great
made vigorous efforts to restore the country’s economy and build
up its military potential so as to secure it against invasions. Every
nobleman got a certain number of hides (hide estate sufficient to
support one family, measure of land about 100-120 acres) of land
to serve in the army. He built a lot of fortifications in key points
along frontier with permanent detachments of professional soldiers
to defend the country in case of the Scandinavian attacks. Later on
these fortified camps developed into towns.
The reconquest of the areas under the Danish control began in
the early 10th century but the Danish raids were renewed again and
in the early 11 th century the Scandinavians at the head of Sweyn
and Canute achieved the success. The English kingdoms had to pay
regularly large sums of money (Danegeld “Danish money”). Canute
was declared as king, and England became part of a great northern
empire, comprising Denmark and Norway. The rein of Canute was
marked by a growing unwillingness on the part of the thanes and
knights to continue as professional warriors and the king had to
create a permanent army of well-trained soldiers who were paid for
their service. Thus taxes for hired soldiers from the Anglo-Saxons
 35
peasants increased. Henceforth the English tax payers were in fact
supporting the permanent army.
It was during Canute’s rein that the Godwin family came to
power in England, that was, south- west of the line marking the
“Danelaw” territory.
After Canute’s death (1035) and then the death of his son (the
last one, childless, died in 1042] his kingdom broke up and
England regained political independence. The Godwin family
[Godwin held three of the six earldoms of the country] succeeded in
restoring the Old Saxon dynasty to the throne of England. Thus,
Edward, son of Aethelred was brought back from Normandy. Weak-
willed and undistinguished, he prepared the ground for the Norman
conquest of England.
With the founding of Scandinavian settlements the first place
names of Danish and Norwegian origins appeared. These names are
still found in different parts of England, Scotland Ireland and the
Isle of Man. There are 1,400 places, which bear the Scandinavian
names. Most of these are naturally in the north and the east of
England, the districts that were under Danelag (Danish Law) for it
was here the majority of invaders settled. The most common
Scandinavian elements in place names are: by “farm, village”. -
Coningsby “king’s village”, Denby “Danes ’ village”, Derby “animal
farm”, Ingleby “village of the English”, Sowerby, Surby “swampy
farm” – “homestead” – This element is chiefly Danish Bratoft “broad
homestead”, Wigtoft “homestead on the creek.
There are groups of names which include a compound names of
Norse – Gaelic background, or mixed Scandinavian – English” for
example: Kirkcolm “Columba’s church”, Kirkpatrick B. Patrick’s
church”, Kirkbride “St Bride’s church”.
The Scandinavian invaders were no further from the Anglo-
Saxons. They belonged to the Northern branch of the Germanic
people while the Anglo-Saxons were the western one, and the Goths
being the eastern one. They were gradually assimilated. The
Scandinavian words enriched the Anglo-Saxons vocabulary.
 36

1.2. Effect of the Scandinavian Invasions

Though the Scandinavian invasions of England are dated in the

OE period, their effect on the language is particularly apparent in
ME.
We may recall that since the 8th century the British Isles were
ravaged by sea rovers from Scandinavia, first by Danes, later by
Norwegians. By the end of the 9 th century the Danes had succeeded
in obtaining a permanent footing in England, more than half of
England was yielded to the invaders and recognized as Danish
territory – “Danelaw”.
While some of Scandinavians came to England, merely to
plunder and return their homeland, others made their permanent
home in North East England.
In the early years of the occupation the Danish settlements
were little more than armed camps. But gradually the conditions
stabilized and the Danes began to bring their families. The new
settlers and the English intermarried and intermixed, they lived
close together and did not differ either in social rank or in the level
of culture and customs. They intermingled the more easily as there
was no linguistic barrier between them. OE and O Scand belonged
to the Germanic group of languages and at that time were much
closer than their descendants are today.
The colonization and the intermixture of the newcomers with
their former foes continued from the 9th century during 200 years,
which witnessed diverse political events, the reconquest of Danelaw
under Alfred’s successors, the renewal of Scandinavian onslaughts
in the late 10th century under Sweyne, and the political annexation
of England by Denmark under Canute.

1.3. The Norman Conquest

For a short time England was part of an Anglo-Scandinavian

Empire under Canute but after 1042 Norman influence increased
under Edward the Confessor who promised the succession to
William of Normandy.
When Edward died early in 1066, the Saxon “Assembly of Wise
Men” [“the Witeagemot” it means “Council of the Wisest”, the
members were big landowners, thanes, bishops, the king was
supposed to ask their advice on important decisions of the state.]
declared Harold king. William, the duke of Normandy, cousin to
 37
Edward the confessor, declared himself heir to the throne of
England. Having got the support and the agreement to the right of
the throne from the Pope of Rome he started preparations for the
English campaign in order to sweep the Saxon dynasty forever.
The Normans were the same Northmen who had invaded
Britain three centuries earlier. They had assimilated the local
people, who were Romanized Gaul Celts by origin, borrowed their
language and culture, their advanced civilization, so that the Duke
of Normandy headed an already complex society, which was
situated in the north of France. Being fully under the influence of
Rome, Normans exercised its cultural influence to the benefit of
Norman civilization. Church architecture had reached an advanced
stage in Normandy.
The Norman army was much better equipped than the English
one. The tactics of the Anglo-Saxons did not change since Alfred the
Great’s time. They used the great axes and horses to cover great
distances. The core of the Saxons army consisted the housecarls,
the ordinary people consisted the other part of the army, which was
less equipped and worse trained, wished they had been at home to
harvest their crops. The Normans had a very effective cavalry and a
great number of bowmen, shooting from the safe distance, to let the
arrows down hitting the less protected portions of their opponents’
bodies. It was in this manner that Harold, the king of England shot
in the eye.
Harold’s acceptance of the Witenagemot’s offer of the crown,
was taken by William as sacrilege (he had made Harold’s swear he
would support his claim to the throne) and he appealed to all
European knights to get on the march against oath breaker. He
promised them land and opportunities of plunder.
On September 28, 1066, William of Normandy landed near
Hastings. The last Anglo-Saxon king Harold, who a few days earlier
had defeated a Norwegian army at Stamford Bridge, in Yorkshire
hurried south. On October 14 William marched out of his camp and
attached. In six hours fighting the Anglo-Saxon host was crushed
and Harold slain. It was the last successful invasion of England.
The strong centralized government imposed by thousand
Continental adventurers, distributed Anglo-Saxon estates among
Norman barons and their French followers.
The Great Council replaced the Anglo-Saxon Witan (Cora
Regis). The majority of English nobles were killed and exiled.
William took their lands and redistributed them among his
Norman nobles on terms of feudal military service. The Norman
Conquest tied England dynastically, commercially and culturally to
the Continent. Many of the ties were beneficial, but England was
 38
also committed to an ultimately futile struggle for control of France,
which delayed attempts to unity the British Isles.
William the Conqueror installed his followers in castles
strategically placed against invasion and revolt. Northumbria was
laid waste as a penalty for rebellion. Four fifths of All England’s
land changed ownership. As a result of the conquest the English
church was more closely linked with Rome and increased its powers
Norman bishops were appointed and special over the church and
limited interference from Rome. French became the language of the
upper classes and Latin the language of the people.
The English village economy was not greatly affected by the
Conquest. The Domesday Book, an inquiry into the nature and
value of all land herd of the king, was a remarkable and ambitions
survey of England conducted by William in 1086 to assess the land,
livestock, and population of the country. It is far from complete. It
does not cover most of the northern counties, or large town such as
London, Bristol and Winchester.
The arrival of the Normans added surprisingly little to the
existing place names of the British Isles. There is little significance
in the distribution of the few Norman-French names that survive,
for they were symbols of class rather than of geographical language
units.
Whatever the actual number of Normans settled in England it is
clear that the members of the new ruling class were sufficiently
predominant to continue to use their own language. This was
natural at First, since they knew no English, but they continued to
do so for a long time to come.

1.4. Effect of the Norman Conquest

on the linguistic situation

The Norman Conquest was not only a great event in British

political history but also the greatest single event in the history of
the English language. Its earliest effect was a drastic change in the
linguistic situation.
The Norman conquerors of England had originally come from
Scandinavia (North, Norman). About one hundred and fifty years
before they had seized the valley of the Seine and settled in that
area which was henceforth known as Normandy? They were swiftly
assimilated by the French and in the 11th century came to Britain
as French speakers and bearers of French culture. They spoke the
Northern dialect of French, which differed in some points from
central, Parisian French.
 39
Their tongue in Britain is often referred to as “Anglo-French” or
“Anglo-Norman”, but may just as well be called French, since we
are less concerned here with the distinction of French dialects than
with the continuous French influence upon English, both in the
Norman period of history and a long while after the Anglo-Norman
language had ceased to exist. In the early 13 th century, as a result
of lengthy and inefficient wars with France John Lackland lost the
French provinces, including the dukedom of Normandy. Among
other consequences the loss of lands in France cut off the Normans
in Britain from France, which increased the decline of the Anglo-
French language.
The most immediate consequence of the Norman domination in
Britain is to be seen in the wide use of the French language in
many spheres of life. For almost three hundred years French was
the official language of administration: it was the language of the
king’s court, the law courts, the church, the army and the castle.

1.4. Early Middle English dialects

The regional ME dialects had developed from respective OE

dialects.
The following dialects can be distinguished in Early ME.
The Southern group included the Kentish and the
Southwestern dialects. Kentish dialect was a direct descendant of
the OE dialect known by the same name, though it had somewhat
extended its area. The South Western group was a continuation of
the OE Saxon dialects, not only West Saxon, but also East Saxon.
The East Saxon dialect was not prominent in OE but became more
important in Early ME, since it made the basis of the dialects of
London in the 12th and 13th centuries. Among the dialect of this
group we may mention the Gloucester dialect and the London
dialect, which must have been an influential form of speech at all
times.
The group of Midland (“Central”) dialects – corresponding to
the OE Mercian dialect – is divided into West Midland and East
Midland as two main areas, with further subdivisions within: South
– East Midland and North – East Midland and North – West
Midland.
In ME the Midland area became more diversified linguistically
than the OE Mercian kingdom occupying approximately the same
territory: from the Thames in the South to the Welsh speaking area
in the West and up north to the river Humber.
The Northern dialects had developed from OE Northumbrian.
In early ME the Northern dialects included several provincial
 40
dialects, e.g. Yorkshire and the Lancashire dialects and also what
later became known as Scottish.
The earliest sign of the official recognition of English by the
Norman kings was the famous Proclamation issued by Henry III in
1258 to the Councilors in Parliament. It was written in three
languages: French, Latin and English affected English more than
any other foreign influence before or after. The early French
borrowings reflected accurately the spheres of Norman influence
upon English life; later borrowings can be attributed to the
continued cultural, economic and political contacts between the
countries.
The French influence added new features to the regional and
social differentiation of the language. New words, coming from
French could not be adopted simultaneously by all the speakers of
English, they were first used in some varieties of the language,
namely in the regional dialects of Southern England and in the
speech of the upper classes, but were unknown in the other
varieties. This led to growing dialectal differences, regional and
social. Later the new features adopted from French and extended to
other varieties of the language.
It was also the everyday language of many nobles, of the higher
clergy and of many towns’ people in the South. The intellectual life,
literature and education were in the hands of French speaking
people, French, alongside Latin, was French and boys at school
were taught to translate their Latin into French instead of English.
For all that, England never stopped being an English –
Speaking country. The bulk of the population held fast to their own
(language) tongue: the lower classes in towns, and especially in the
country-side, those who lived in the Midlands and up the north,
continued to speak English and looked upon French as foreign and
hostile. Since most of the people were illiterate, the English
language was almost exclusively used for spoken communication.
At first the two languages existed side by without mingling.
Then, slowly and quietly, they began to permeate each other. The
Norman barons and the French town-dwellers had to pick up
English words to make them understood, while the English
began to use French words in current speech. A good knowledge of
French would mark a person of higher standing giving him a certain
social prestige. Probably many people became bilingual and had a
fair command of both languages.
These peculiar linguistic conditions could not remain static.
The struggle between French and English was bound to end in the
complete victory of English, for English was the living language of
 41
the entire people, while French was restricted to certain social
spheres and writing. Yet the final victory was still a long way off.

5. Formation of the National language

There were several causes contributing to the use of the dialect
of East Midland and particularly the dialect of London as Standard
English. In the first place, as а Midland dialect the English of this
region occupied в middle position between the extreme divergences
of the north and south. In sounds and inflections it represents а
kind of compromise, sharing some of the characteristics of both its
neighbors. In the second р1асе, the East Midland district was the
largest and most populous of the major dialect districts. А third
factor was the presence of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge,
in this region. These two universities had developed into important
intellectual cent- res. By far the most influential factor in the rise of
Standard English was the importance of London as the capital of
England. It was the seat of the court, the center of social and
cultural activities of the country. We should say that the history of
Standard English is almost a history of London English.
In the latter part of the 15th с. the London standard had been
accepted, at least in writing, in most parts of the country. Caxton,
the first English printer, in his numerous translations used the
current speech of London, and the books gave а currency to London
English that assured its rapid adoption as well. In confirming the
establishment of London English as а specific literary standard for
the rest of the country, Chaucer’s writings exercised а certain
influence.
In the Modern English period, the beginning of which is usually
placed at 1500, some new conditions came into р1ау. The new
factors were the printing press, the rapid spread of popular
education, the increased communication and means of
communication, and the growth of what may be called social
consciousness.
The printing press was а powerful force for promoting а
standard form of language and spreading that language throughout
the country. The education was making rapid progress among the
people and literacy was becoming much more common. Literacy
meant contact with written texts in English (the standard, speech of
London). In other words, as а result of popular education the
printing press was able to exert its influence upon the
establishment of the standard national form of English.
 42
The changes in the class structure of England affected the
1inguistic situation precisely at the time when the standard form of
the national language was being definitely established.
The beginnings of the modern period saw the growth of social
consciousness. It is every one’s natural tendency to identify himself
with а certain social group with the efforts to adopt the standards of
grammar and pronunciation peculiar to this group.
In the Middle Ages the development of English took place under
conditions which, because of the Norman Conquest, were largely
peculiar to England. But by the close of the Middle English period
the language faced three great problems like the other important
European languages: (1) recognition in the fields where Latin had
for centuries been supreme, (2) the establishment of а more
uniform orthography, and (3) the enrichment of the vocabulary.
Although Latin had the advantage of universal currency, so that
the educated all over Europe could freely communicate with each
other, both in speech and writing, the recognition of English in this
field was assured as the real force, behind the use of English was а
popular demand of all sorts of men in practical life to use the
national language in all social and cultural spheres.
The spelling of the modern languages in the Middle Ages had
attempted with fair success to represent the pronunciation of
words, and this is true of English in spite of the fact that Norman
scribes introduced considerable confusion when they tried to write
a language which they imperfectly knew. The confusion was
increased when certain spellings became conventional while the
pronunciation slowly changed. To many people it seemed that
English spelling was chaotic. For instance, in one of Greene's Coney
catching pamphlets (1591), we find 'соnеу' spelled 'cony', 'connу',
'соnуе', 'соniе' 'соnniе', 'соni', 'cuny' 'conny,' 'cunnie'. But in spite of
all variety of spelling, by 1550 many of the features of English
spelling were clearly becoming established.
In order to appreciate the importance of the Renaissance in
enriching the English vocabulary it is worth while to count new
words added at this time. А calculation based, upon the data
available in the Oxford Dictionary gives а figure somewhat above
12,000. About half of the total number has become а permanent
part of the language. Most of the new words entered English by way
of the written language they are а striking evidence of the new force
exerted by the printing press and the rapid spread of popular
education. The mobility of English workers in the 16 th с. was the
chief social factor, besides the expansion of education, which
affected the language. We know that the enclosure of farm lands,
the depopulation of villages, the closing down of monasteries and
 43
the dissolution of feudal households cast adrift а large number of
people who were not only made homeless and workless; they were
also subject to severe punishment by the state for being so. Some of
them, those who became citizens of London under- world -
developed а jargon of their own. By the way, the same phenomenon
can be observed in the history of all major European languages.
Other social changes had а more limited influence on the
language. Thus, the increased trade and cultural exchange with
other countries enriched the language with new words and new
turns of expression.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the rise of experimental science
and the rationalist trend in philosophy, both of them of course
socially conditioned. contributed a strong additional influence
reinforcing the tendency to regularity in language.
One of the achievements of early 17 th -century scholarships was
the translation of the Bible into English (1611) by а commission of
scholars. The outcome of their labours was not merely а more
accurate version but it was also а document of Early Modern
English that entered every family in England to be read and listened
to every day or so. The intellectual tendencies are seen quite clearly
in the 18th century efforts to standardize, refine, and fix the English
language.
Today the linguistic situation in England is such that there is a
divergence between the English officially used and taught in the
schools, and, the various forms of native speech current among
many people. This situation can be observed in the Early Modern
English period as well. The regional forms of Middle English include
the native Lowland English of Scotland, the Northern dialects, the
Southern English dialects and town dialects such as Cockney and
Scouse of Liverpool.
The Lowland English of Scotland in its literary form as Literary
Scots was used first in the 15th с. by an important school of writers
who carried on Chaucer's literary tradition in the North. Scottish
poets of the 15th and early 16th c. wrote in two contrasting styles: а
fairly simple one and an artificial style decorated with the learned
terms of poetic diction. In the second part of the 18 th century Robert
Burns wrote in this grammatical form of Middle English and made
it extremely popular; Sir Walter Scott used it in dialogue passages
in his famous historical novels.
The dialects in the North of England have had no such literary
tradition in modern times as that enjoyed by the Scottish. The
reasons lie of course in the quite, different social and political
conditions. Vanished and forgotten by most were the days of
Richard Rolle who in the 14 th с. wrote lyrical prose in the Yorkshire
 44
dialect. For Northern English we have а curious body of songs,
which have come down to us from the mid-19 th с. а period of bitter
proletarian struggles in the mining and textile industries.
А few of the most striking characteristics of Southern Middle
English, persisting into the 16 th and 17th centuries, were used by
dramatists of that time to represent а kind of generalized rural
speech. Among the modern English writers it was Thomas Hardy
who used scraps of local dialect in his stories about the Southwest
region he called Wessex (cf. the speech of Tess of the D’Ubervilles).
In the Southeast, the dialect, which has attracted most
attention in literary treatments, is the dialect of London speech
known as Cockney. Dickens as spoken by the uneducated first
recorded Cockney in "Pickwick Раpers"; and G.В. Shaw's play
"Pygmalion" clearly portrays the sосiа1 implications"- of the
contrast in speech using this kind of Cockney side by side with
Standard English. Cockney is an urban dialect; no 1еss а dialect
than that of Devon shire or Yorkshire. The same words may be said
about Scouse - the dialect of Liverpool speech.
It is to be noted that in the neighboring island of Ireland, the
English language has had a special history. When Ireland was
reduced to the status of an English colony, to political and
economic oppression there was added a harsh discrimination
against the native Irish tongue. Ireland is a classical example of a
situation in which national oppression was related to linguistic
discrimination. The modified form of English spoken in Ireland is
termed Anglo-Irish.
Despite the pressure of Standard English regional speech lives
on in Dover and Inverness, Newcastle and Bristol. Different types of
English are spoken and the form of speech that is often called
King's or Queen's English is not always in general use. The broadest
forms of regional speech are local dialects. Historically these are
developments of the parent tongue and are as 'correct' in their own
areas as Standard English. Through the Middle English period
(1100-1500) many forms of the language were acceptable. Writers
had no standard spelling system to guide them and so tried to spell
phonetically, writing their words as they were pronounced locally.
In the 16th century the growing social importance of the court of
London increased. The scholarly influence of the universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, and the establishing printing in London
exerted a combined pressure towards a standard form of English.
Although the local speech of London and the South-east
Midlands became increasingly important throughout the 16 th
century. It was still influenced by the speech of nearby areas.
Provincial pronunciations were accepted from time to time and
 45
resulted in different pronunciations for spellings that had become
standard: thus daughter and laughter, which at one time rhymed,
now have quite different vowel sounds.
Writers about 1600 began to be very conscious of the variants
in the language and to set out arguments for what was 'right' and
'wrong'. Early dictionary makers strengthened the growing belief
that one type of English was 'better' than others.
From the time when the language of the South-east Midlands
became predominant as the speech of the upper and edl1cated
classes, the speech of the ordinary people of the area continued to
develop separately as a local dialect. The north and west, which
were outside the area of great prestige, had also continued their
separate speech development.
The modern local dialects of all these areas and not merely
slipshod versions of Standard English, but the products of
linguistic history, often more regular in their forms and
development than the standard language.
Various factors combine to weaken local speech traditions and.
it is increasingly difficult to find in any community lifelong natives
who use only local language habits. It is uncertain whether dialects
will survive modern pressures towards standardization but for the
moment fascinating variants in sounds and words are used by the
people of different areas (Cf., for instance, she - -sheer, shur, shoo,
shay, oo, her; I am - I bin, I is, I be, I are; children — baims, bairns,
weans, children; to brew (tea) - mask, mash, wet, soak, make, draw,
dame, scald, steep).
1.6. Roman Church influence on civilization culture and
literature
Christian ideology was predominant in feudal Europe, and England
was no exception to the rule. The feudal system was interested in
strengthening of the Christian religion, a lot of monasteries were
opened, and a lot of beautiful churches were built. The majority of
the cathedrals and monasteries were built late in the 11 th and in the
12th centuries by French architects and craftsmen in the so-called
Romanesque style. They were very large and solid with a tall central
part. The arches were round with lots brickwork decorations,
ornament, beak-head edges and chevron design. The building
seemed to be weight down to the ground by solidity of its round-
arched shape.
The Gothic style in architecture followed the Romanesque one. It
was introduced as it had been before, from Romanic countries, first
of all from France. It was a style harmoniously blending
architecture, sculpture and pictorial art. Gothic architecture was
 46
born out of the experiences gained during the final phases of
Romanesque architecture. The new architects took over many
features of late Romanesque architecture, subjecting them,
however, to a new idea of structural lightness, less massive, and
demanding more sophisticated forms. Gothic architecture
endeavoured to organize the space of the basilica into a unity, in
which the significance of the walls minimized, and the building was
raised to soaring heights, stressing the vertical principal throughout
in the compositional rhythm of all the parts of the structure. The
final and predominant aim was the attainment of imaginary space,
elevating human’s mind into the supernatural sphere.
The 12th century marked the beginning of a great movement in
religious construction in the form of cathedrals, which proved the
greatest design achievement of the age.
Art historians usually distinguish three periods of Gothic
architecture in England. An early English cathedral produced an
impression of soaring into the air. Salisbury cathedral is usually
shown as an example of pure English Gothic.
Later in the 13th century the so-called Perpendicular Gothic was
introduced with a lot of parallel-placed tall perpendicular shapes
and lines emphasizing the upward directed movement of the
structural rhythm.
The 11th – 13th centuries were remarkable for glass-staining.
Stained glass with religious themes usually pictures of Saints, etc.
was an important element of Gothic church architecture. Pictorial
art at that time was often represented by miniature painting and
drawing. The 14th century is considered to be the so-called
“Decorated Gothic” where the pure Gothic outlines are marred.
During the reign of the first Norman kings three languages
existed side by side within the kingdom: Latin as the language of
the clergy and the learned, French as the language of nobility and
power and the language of polite intercourse and English as the
language of the ordinary people. Latin was the language used in
nearly all public documents for it was the language of Western
Christendom and as such made many contacts possible.
The English or, rather, the Anglo-Norman literature of the 11 th –
13th centuries reflected the complex linguistic situation: church
literature was Latin; the so-called chivalric poetry was
predominantly French while folklore continued to develop in Anglo-
Saxon. The language of the common people could not but have
words and expressions penetrating from the language of the upper
classes, French and Latin.
Thus without losing its native basis, English borrowed a lot of
words from those languages, getting a rich sets of synonyms to
 47
denote the subtlest shades of meaning or impressions to express
the subtlest twist of thought.
The flourishing of feudal culture and the crusades meant
contacts with other cultures. English literature could profit by the
poetical achievements of other nations.
Church literature was didactic in keeping with the scholastic
philosophy of the time it preached asceticism, neglect of earthy
existence, preparation for the better world. Didactic poems like
“Poema Morale” (ab. 1170, anonymous) or a manual teaching how
to avoid sin called “Handlyng Synne” translated from French by
Robert Mannyng early in the 14th century characterized this sort of
literature.
Chivalric poetry in French at first and later in English was
represented by versified romance. Contrary to the Anglo-Saxon epic,
it is not self-sacrifice for the good of the people but defence of
individual honour and dignity, individual interest that is in the
center of attention. King Arthur, the hero of the Celtic anti-Saxon
struggle of the 6th century transformed into a hero of knightly
literature. The poem was at first written in French in 11 th – 13th
centuries then it was translated into English in the 13 th century.
Such knightly poems came to present times as “Arthur”, “Arthur
and Merlin”, “Lancelot of the Lake”, “Morte d’Arthur” and a few
others.
As it concerned to the folklore it was oral and did not all
survived.
The 12th century was the time when the oldest English university
was founded in Oxford (1167) to remain the principal center of
science and learning. It had a great influence on the development of
English culture and science.
In 1209 another university was established in Cambridge. The
clerical influence on the universities was very strong. Being founded
on the basis of the churches medieval universities became the
centers of resistance and struggled for the autonomy. The
townsmen and the scholars “the Town and Gown” in the phrase of
the time, were two hostile camps, sometimes at war sometimes
allies at the time of the Civil war.
All this period the cultural influence of France never ceased.
French monks, the religious orders of Franciscans, Dominicans,
Carmelites came in the 13th century. Among these monks were the
first educated people, who lighted the torch of knowledge in the
darkness of the medieval scholastic logics. They made theology the
center of all their philosophical searching and made the deduction
as their main method of investigation. Their idea was that the
earthy life is regarded to be the preparation for eternity.
 48
Robert Grosseteste (died in 1253) the Bishop of Lincoln, was one
of the Franciscan monks who actively came out in favour of the
monarchy restriction. One of his followers was Roger Bacon (ab.
1214-1292), a great English thinker and philosopher with whose
name the beginning of natural sciences in England is inseparably
connected. He remarked that science at medieval period tended to
encyclopedic form. The follower of the scholastic science Thomas
Aquinas (1225-1274) stated that the most proper method of
cognition is scholastic methods of deduction and reference to
authorities made the thing dead for the scientists turned away from
facts of changing life which doomed science to failure. Albert
Magnus one of Roger Bacon’s teachers had seen the deficiencies of
that approach and must have imparted the skepticism to Bacon.

2. Inner history

The Middle English period was the time of rapid development of

the language. For the first three centuries English was a spoken
language, and as such had no norm and could develop without any
restrain. All the elements of the language changed fundamentally.

2.1. Phonetics
The stress is dynamic and fixed in the native words. But in the
borrowed French words the stress was on the last syllable:
Licour [li′ku:r], nature [na′tu:r], etc.

New consonant sounds developed in native words:

ME [∫] ship [∫t] child [dЗ] bridge

OE scip cild brycз

The resonance of the consonant does not depend so much on

the position of the consonant, voiced consonants can appear not
only in the intervocalic, but also in initial and other positions.
Vowels in the unstressed position were reduced:
 49
Old English Middle English

a
o e [ә]
e
u

These sounds were in the end of the word, and it neutralized

the difference between the suffixes – the main grammar means.
Compare:

Old English Middle English

Genitive Singular fisces fishes
Nominative Plural fiscas fishes

Vowels under stress underwent mainly quantitative changes. In

Middle English we observe a rhythmic tendency, the aim of which to
obliterate overlong and over short sequences. The tendency is to
have in the word one long vowel + one consonant or one short vowel
+ two consonants.

2.2. Grammar

The grammar system in Middle English gradually but very

quickly changed fundamentally: Old English was a synthetic
language, Middle English at the end of the period – an analytical
language. The principal grammatical means of Old English were
preserved, but were no longer principal. At the end of Middle
English the analytical means, which began to develop in Middle
English, are predominant. They are:

1. Analytical verb-forms (Chaucer: perfect – hath holpen (has

helped); passive – engendered is (is born) ;
2. The use of prepositions for grammatical purposes (Chaucer;
drought of March);
3. A fixed word-order began to develop.
 50

Some grammatical features viewed diachronically

The changes in English grammar may be described as general

reduction of inflections. Thus in early Middle English only two
methods of indicating the plural remained fairly distinctive the -s or
-es from the strong declension and the -en (as in ox- en) from
the weak. In the adjective the reducing of forms had even greater
consequences. Partly as а result of the sound-changes, partly
through the extensive working of analogy, except for а few archaic
forms, the adjective had become an uninflected word by the close of
the Middle English period. The decay of inflections which brought
about such а simplication of the noun and the adjective made it
necessary to depend less upon formal indications of gender, case,
and (in adjectives) number, and to rely more upon word order and
the use of prepositions to make clear the relation of words in а
sentence. Apart from some leveling of inflections and weakening of
endings with the general tendency (for example), the -an of the OЕ
infinitive became
-en and later -е: OE drifan - МЕ driven - drive), the principal
changes in the verb during the Middle English period were serious
losses suffered by the strong conjugation. This conjugation,
although including some of the most important verbs in the
language, was relatively small as compared with the large and
steadily growing body of weak verbs. Today more than half of the
OE strong verbs have disappeared completely from the standard
language. When we subtract the verbs that have been lost
completely and the eighty-one that have become weak, there remain
just 68 the OE strong verbs in the language today. To this number
may be added 13 verbs, which are conjugated in both ways or have
kept one strong form. These figures indicate how extensive has been
the loss of strong verbs in the language.
One of the consequences of the decay of inflections was the
elimination of grammatical gender. With the disappearance of
grammatical gender the idea of sex became the only factor in
determining the gender of English nouns.
It should be pointed out that by making English the language
mainly of uneducated people the Norman Conquest made it easier
for grammatical changes to go forward unchecked. Beyond this it is
not to be considered а factor in them, towards the close of the
Middle English period the language had undergone much
simplification of its inflections, but its grammar was still English.
 51
English grammar in the 16th and early 17th centuries is marked
more by the surv1val of certain forms and usages that have since
disappeared than by any fundamental developments. The great
changes that reduced the inflections of Old English to their modern
proportions had already taken place. The only inflections in the
noun were those marking the plural and the possessive singular.
Since the adjective had already lost all its endings, so that it no
loner expressed distinctions of gender, number, and case, the chief
interest of this part of speech is the modern period is in the forms of
the comparative and superlative degrees. In the 16 th century.
these were not always precisely those now in use. For instance, а
double comparative or superlative is fairly frequent in the work of
Shakespeare and his contemporaries: more larger, 'most boldest, or
Mark Antony’s. “This was the most unkindest cut of all”. The chief
development affecting the adjective in modern times has been the
gradual settling down of usage so that monosyllables take -er and
-est while most adjectives of two and more syllables take 'more and
'most'. The 16th сentury. saw the establishment of the personal
pronoun in the form which it has had. ever since In attaining the
result three changes were involved: the disuse of 'thou, thy, thee';
the substitution of 'уоu' for 'уе' as а nominative case; and the
introduction of 'its' as the possessive of 'it'. Another noteworthy
development of the pronoun in the 16th c. is the use of 'who' as а
relative.
English grammar in the 18th century. is marked by the
development of Continuous Tense Forms. It is а commonplace that
English is distinctly more varied and flexible in some of its verbal
expressions than other modern languages. Thus where German
says "ich singe", English may say ""I sing, I do sing," or "I am
singing"„ The do-forms are often called emphatic forms, and this
they sometimes are; but their most important uses are in negative
and interrogative sentences
(I don’t sing, do you sing?). The forms with 'to be common use is to
indicate an action as in progress at the time implied by the
auxiliary. The wide extension of the use of continuous forms one of
the most important developments of the English verb in the modern
period. The chief factor in their growth is the use of the participle as
а noun governed by the preposition 'on' (he burst out on laughing)
This weakened to 'he burst out а-laughing' and finally to 'he burst
out laughing' In the same way 'he was on laughing' became 'he was
а-laughing' and 'he was laughing'. Today such forms are freely used
in all tenses (is laughing, was laughing, will be laughing, etc.).
The extension of such forms to the passive (the house is being
built) was an even later development. It belongs to the very end of
 52
the 18th с. The construction 'the man is on laughing' was capable
also of a passive significance under certain circumstances. Thus
'the house is on building' can only suggest that the house is in
process of construction This use is found from the 14 th с. on, and
its weakened form can be met today' In the last years of the 18 th с.
we find the first traces of the modern expression 'the house is being
built'. The combination of 'being' with participle II to form а
participial phrase had been in use for some time. The history of the
new continuous passive shows that its grammar is not fixed, that it
will change in the future as it has changed in the past.
The gerund, which came into being in Middle English,
developed further in Modern English; it was gradually more and
more clearly separated. From the verbal noun in -ing. In Modern
English analytical gerund forms appear: the perfect and, the
passive gerund.
The mood. System developed in Modern English mainly towards
creating more precise means of expressing modal meanings, and, in
this connection, towards growth of analytical verb forms, Thus, in
the sphere of the subjunctive, use of the pattern 'should/would
plus infinitive' gradually grew in main clauses of а conditional
sentence.
The category of aspect seems to have arisen only in the Modern
English period. In Modern English a continuous aspect was
gradually formed, ехрrеssed by a very obvious morphological
pattern (be plus participle I). Verbal forms lacking this pattern
became а system of common aspect. It is hard to state a definite
point at which the category of aspect came into being, as the
process developed slowly, and even as late as the 19 th c. it was still
possible to use forms of the common aspect to denote an action as
in progress at а definite moment.
The system of perfect forms, which had arisen in Old English
and developed in Middle English, goes on spreading in the modern
period. Thus in Shakespeare’s text there is а fully developed system
of perfect forms. The perfect forms of the continuous aspect (has
been writing, had been writing, will have bee writing) appeared only
after the formation of the continuous aspect.
 53

The number of French words, which was borrowed by English,

was great. There is nothing comparable to it in the previous or
subsequent history of the language. Two stages can be observed,
an earlier and, а later, with the year 1250 as the borderline. The
borrowings of the first stage differ from. Those of the second in
being much less numerous, being more likely to show peculiarities
of Anglo-Norman phonology, and, especially, in the circumstances
that brought about their introduction (Roughly 900 in number). The
largest single group of words was associated with the church;
another single group was associated with а French-speaking
society.
(1) The Normans became masters of England, and they
remained masters for а sufficiently long time to 1еаvе а deep
impress on the language. It is true that they left the old words 'king'
and 'queen' intact, but apart from these пеаг1у all words relating to
government and. to the highest administration are French:
government, govern, administer, crown, state, empire, realm, reign,
authority, sovereign, majesty, tyrant; oppress , court, parliament,
assembly, treaty, alliance, tax, revenue, tally, exchequer; subject,
treason, traitor, rebel, exile, liberty; office, chancellor, treasurer,
marshal, governor, councilor, minister, warden, mayor, coroner;
noble, nobility, peer, prince, princess, duke, duchess, count,
countess, marquis, baron, page, squire, courtier, sir, madam,
mistress, vassal, peasant, slave.
(2) as ecclesiastical matters were also chiefly under the control
of the upper classes; there are many French words connected with
the church, such as religion, service, trinity, savior, virgin, saint,
relic, abbey, cloister, friar, clergy, parish, sacrifice, homily, altar,
miracle, preach, pray, prayer, sermon, feast; rule, lesson, save,
'blame, order, nature; virtue, vice, duty, grace, charity, cruel, chase,
desire, jealousy, pity, mercy, discipline, piety, mystery, immortality,
vicar, hermitage; crucifix, image, sanctuary, creator, savior, Ха1th,
heresy, temptation, damnation; solemn, devout, preach, chant,
confess, adore.
(3) The upper classes, as a matter of course, took into their
hands the management of military matters; there is а host of
French military terms, many of them of very early introduction.
Such are war, peace, battle, arms, armour, mail, lance, dart,
cutlass, banner, ensign, assault, siege, defence, ambush, retreat,
guard, soldier, officer, sergeant, lieutenant, chieftain (captain' and
colonel' аrе later), troops, navy, enemy, company, force, march.
Some words which are now used very extensively outside the
 54
military sphere were without any doubt: at first purely military,
such as challenge, danger, escape, aid, prison, gallant, etc.
(4) Another natural consequence of the power of the Norman
upper classes is that most of the terms pertaining to the law are of
French origin, such as justice, just, judge; suit, sue, plaintiff and
defendant, plea, plead, summon, cause, assize, session, attorney,
fee, accuse, crime, felony, damage, dower, heritage, property, real
estate, tenure, penalty, injury, privilege. Some of these are now
hardly to be called technical juridical words, and there are others
which belong still more to the ordinary vocabulary of everyday life,
but which were undoubtedly at first introduced by lawyers at the
time when procedure was conducted, entirely in French; for
instance, case, marry, marriage, prove, fault, heir, male and.
female, while 'defend' and 'prison' are common to the juridical and
the military worlds. There are many French verbs associated with
legal processes: sue, implead, accuse, indict, depose, blame, arrest,
seize, pledge, arrant, assail, condemn, convict, award, distrain,
imprison, banish, acquit, pardon, the names of many crimes and
misdemeanors are French: felony, trespass, arson, fraud, libel,
slander perjury, adultery, and many others. Suits involving
property brought into use such words as property, estate,
tenement, chattels, bounds, tenant, dower, legacy, patrimony,
heritage, heir, executor, etc.
(5) The upper classes set the standard in fashion, meals, dress
and social life. The words 'fashion' and 'dress' are themselves
French, as are apparel, gown, robe, саре, cloak, frock, veil,
petticoat, lace, pleat, embroidery, button, kerchief, garter; satin,
taffeta, fur, beaver, ermine; jewel, ornament, brooch, ivory, enamel,
topaz, garnet, ruby, emerald, sapphire, pearl, diamond, etc. The
superiority of the French cuisine can be shown by such words as
dinner and supper, feast, repast, mackerel, sole, perch, bream,
sturgeon, salmon, sardine, oyster; venison, beef, veal, mutton, pork,
bacon, sausage, etc. One could have pottage, toast, biscuit, cream,
sugar, olives, salad, lettuce, and for dessert almonds and many
fruits, including raisin, fig, date, grape, orange, lemon, cherry,
peach, or а confection, pastry, tart, jelly. The verbs roast, boil, stew,
fry, grate, and mince describe various culinary processes, and
goblet, saucer, cruet, plate, platter suggests French refinements in
the serving of meals. It was а popular remark by Sir Walter Scott in
'Ivanhoe' that has been often repeated that while the names of
several animals in their lifetime are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep,
swine, boar, deer), they appear on the table with French names
(beef, veal, mutton, port, bacon, brawn, venison). The use of the
French words here is due to the superiority of the French cuisine.
 55
(6) А variety of new words suggests the innovations made by the
French in domestic economy and social life. Improvements in
domestic arrangements were implied in such words as recreation,
jollity, leisure, рlеаsure, dance, revel, lute, music, melody, chess,
checkers, conversation, parlor, wardrobe, closet, pantry, scullery;
chase, tournament, pavilion, sport, cards, dice, асе, deuce, trey,
size, etc.
(7) The French were the teachers of the English in most things
relating to art; not only such words as art, beauty, colour, image,
design, figure, ornament, to paint, but also the greater number of
the more special words of technical significance are French: arch,
tower, pillar, porch, column, aisle, choir, chapel, cloister, palace,
castle, manor, mansion, etc. One cannot fail to be struck with the
difference between the more elementary occupations (such as
English baker, miller, smith, weaver, shoemaker, fisherman,
shepherd. and others) and the more fashionable ones (French tailor,
mason, painter, carpenter, butcher, and joiner).
(8) Literature is represented by the word itself and by poet,
rime, prose, romance, lау, story, chronicle, tragedy, соmedy,
prologue, preface, title, volume, chapter, paper, pen, parchment;
and learning is represented by study, grammar, logic, geometry,
compilation, noun, gender, clause, and many more. Among the
sciences medicine has brought in the largest number of early
French words still in common use, among them being the word
medicine itself, ch1rurgy, physician, surgeon, apothecary, malady,
pain, ague, palsy, gout, leper, paralytic, plague, pestilence,
anatomy, anatomy, remedy, ointment, balm, alkali, poison.
(9) One has only to glance over а misсе11аneous list of words -
nouns, adjectives, and verbs - to realize how universal was the
French contribution. For instance, nouns which were already in
English by 1300: action, adventure, affection, age, air, bucket,
bushel, business, calendar, cheer, city, coast, country, courage,
coward, cruelty, damage, deceit, debt, envy, error, face, fame, fault,
flower, folly, force, grief, glutton, harlot, hour, jest joy, malice,
manner, marriage, metal, mischief, mountain, noise, number,
ocean, opinion, order, pair, people, реr11, person, рiесе, point,
poverty, powder, quality, quart, rage, reason, river, scandal, seal,
season, sign, sound, spirit, square, strife, substance, sum, task,
tavern, tempest, unity, use, vision, waste. The same universality is
shown in the adjectives: able, active, actual, am1sble, amorous,
barren, blank, brief, calm, certain, chief, clear, common, contrary,
courageous, courteous, соу, cruel, curious, debonair, double, eager,
easy, faint, feeble, fierce, final, firm, foreign, frail, frank, gay, gentle,
gracious, hardy, hasty, honest, horrible, innocent, jо11у, large,
 56
liberal, luxurious, malicious, mean, moist, natural, nice, obedient,
original, perfect, pertinent, plain, poor, precious, principal,
probable, proper, рurе, quaint, real, rude, safe, savage, scarce,
second, secret, simple, single, sober, solid, special, stout, strange,
subtle, sudden, sure, tender, treacherous, universal, usual. А list of
the verbs borrowed at the same time shows equal diversity.
Examples are: advance, advice, aim, allow, approach, arrange,
arrive, betray, carry, change, chase, close, commence, complain,
conceal, consider, continue, count, cover, cry, deceive, declare,
defeat, defer, defy, delay, desire, destroy, embrace, enclose, endure,
enjoy, enter, err, excuse, flatter, flourish, force, forge, form, furnish,
grant, increase, inform, join, lmgu1sh, marry, mount, move,
murmur, muse, nourish, obey, oblige, observe, pass, рау, pinch,
please, practice, praise, prefer, proceed, propose, prove, purify,
pursue, quash, quit, receive, refuse, rejo1cе, relieve, remember,
reply, rob, satisfy, save, serve, spoil, strive, succeeded, suppose,
surprise, tempt, trace, travel, tremble, wait, waste, wince, Finally,
the influence of French may be seen in numerous phrases and
turns of expression, such as to take leave, to draw near, to hold
one’s peace, to do justice, on the point of, according to, subject to,
at large, in vain, without fail. In these and other phrases, even
when the words are English the pattern is French.
The calculations of French words show that the total number of
borrowings adopted during the Мiddle English period was slightly
over ten thousand, of these about 75 per cent are still in current
use.
It must not be thought that the extensive modification of the
English language caused by the Norman Conquest had made of it
something else than English. It had absorbed several thousand
French words as а natural consequence of а situation in which
larger numbers of people were for а time bilingual and then
gradually turned from the habitual use of French to the habitual
use of English. It had lost а great many native words but basic
elements of the vocabulary were still English.

ТНE PROBLEM OF SPELLING PRONUNCIATION

The spelling of Middle English is much more phonetic than that

of Modern English. The trouble was not merely that English spelling
was bad, for it is still bad today, but that there was no generally
accepted system that every one could conform to. In short, it was
 57
neither phonetic nor fixed. The confusion was increased when
certain spellings gradually became conventional while the slowly
changed. And here we must confine ourselves to а few observations
about the importance of sound-changes and their representation in
writing.
In considering the changes in pronunciation which English
words underwent passing from Old to Middle English we may say
that qualitatively they were slight. Changes in the consonants were
rather insignificant, as they have always been in English. Some
voiced consonants became voiceless, and. vice versa, and
consonants neither were occasionally lost nor were they’re much
alteration in the quality of vowels in accented syllables. Most of the
short vowels, unless lengthened, passed over into Middle English
unaltered. The Old English diphthongs were all simplified, and all
diphthongs in Middle English are new formation. If the quality of
Old English vowels did not change much in passing into Middle
English, their quantity or length was subject to considerable
alteration. All these changes in length are little noticeable in the
spelling.
When we come to the vowel changes in Modern English we see
the importance of the factors that determined the length of vowels
in Middle English. All Middle English vowels, which were long,
underwent radical alteration in passing into Modern English, but
the short vowels, in accented syllables, remained comparatively
stable. So far as the short vowels are concerned it is clear that а
person today would have little difficulty in understanding the
English of any period, of the language.
The situation is very different when we consider the long
vowels. In Chaucer's pronunciation these had still their so-called
'continental' value, as for instance Modern German vowels. But in
the 15th с. all the long vowels gradually became raised and those
that could not became diphthongs. These major vowel changes from
about 1350 mark the shift from Middle English to Modern English,
and they are usually termed the Great Vowel Shift. It will be noticed
that the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for the rather disorganized
use of the vowel symbols in English, spelling. The spelling of
English had become fixed in а general way before the shift and
therefore did not change when the quality of the long vowels
changes. Consequently English vowel symbols no longer correspond
to the sounds, which they once represented in English and. still
represent in the other modern languages in which vowels have their
'continental' value accurately represented by well fixed symbols.
Norman scribes introduced some confusion in English spelling
even before the Great Vowel Shift when they tried to write а
 58
language that they imperfectly knew and carried over habits that
they had formed in writing French. In some cases а further
confusion in spelling arose when letters were inserted in words
where they were not pronounced (like the -b- in debt or doubt)
because the corresponding word in Latin was so spelled (debitum,
dubitare), or in other cases (for example, the -gh- in delight, tight)
by analogy with words similarly pronounced (light, night) where the
-gh- had formally represented an actual sound [х].
All in all spelling was one of the problems that the English
language began consciously to face in the 16 th c. During the period
from 1500 1о 1650 it was fairly settled. Mention should be made of
the fact that the detailed history of English spelling has yet to be
written.
Before 1798 the system of polite language, which had developed
in the 18 century, was under strain. It can be highlighted only four
of them. According to W. Blake the first is freeing up of restrictions
on newsprint and copyright. The second is the American Revolution
leading to the independence of the former American colonies. The
third is the French revolution and the impetus that provide for
democratic movements and the inevitable backlash from those who
wanted to preserve conservative values and social standards. The
fourth is the discovery by Sir William Jones that Sanskrit was
related to Latin and Greek as well as possibly other European
languages. These events became associated with other
developments which took place during the 19 th century to put the
old system under pressure.[Blake, 273]
In the 18th century copyright law was uncertain, but the fear of
prosecution under the law inhibited many printers from publishing
material for that they thought they could be put in prison. In 1774
the limits of copyright were clarified and it became far easier to
publish material that might previously have been considered
suspect. This is not immediately stop the prosecution of those who
published material to which the government took exception, and
during the Napoleonic wars various acts restricted liberty and
freedom of expression. However, the end of the copyright and the
general availability of newsprint meant that many cheap editions
were issued so that those who could read might have better access
to reading matter other than the Bible.
During the 19th century circulating libraries grew in importance
and there was a growth in literacy. Newspapers became more
widespread, and in 1835 the repeal of the newspaper stamp duty
meant that newspapers came down in price and could reach a
wider audience.
 59
It should be pointed out that there is another theoretical
approach to the problem under discussion. This theory says that
the generally accepted view that English orthography bears little
relation to English phonology is in fact quite false. The
pronunciations of words are quite generally predictable from their
spelling. Moreover, quite aside from pronunciation, this
orthography preserves information about the history and meaning
of words that is of great value in human communication.
As R. Burchfield states that of all the main languages of the
world none is widely disseminated and more subtly sliced and
severed than English, and all within the space of only 1500 years.
From the diversity of the earliest records of the Anglo-Saxons it can
be assumed that it already divided into a multitude of linguistic
subgroups using different modes of pronunciation, grammar and
usage even though they remained mutually intelligible. [Burchfield]
In the period since 1800 most of the observable changes to
received pronunciation have been brought by Mitford factor – in
other words by sociological change and not by phonetic change.
They include the substitution of [ei] for [i:] in words like deity,
homogeneity and spontaneity; and the replacement of a soft g in
gynaecology by a hard one.
This is not to deny that there are quite а few no phonological,
no phonetic spellings in English. Clearly, there is some orthography
that is of no value. Standard spelling persists over the decades and
centuries. The resistance of standard spelling to change reflects,
rather, an important fact of historical linguistics. The underlying
phonological spellings of language that are represented by
alphabetic writing systems are themselves quite resistant to
change. And the complicated interaction between Modern English
orthography and pronunciation is а striking example such
resistance.
 60
LECTURE 4.

NEW ENGLISH. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

List of principal questions:

1. Outer history
1.1. Emergence of the nation
1.2. Establishment of the literary norm
1.3. Geographical expansion of the English language
2. Inner history
2.1. Phonetics
2.2. Grammar
2.3. Word-stock

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
 61
1. Outer history

1.1. Emergence of the nation

th
The 15 century is a border-line in the history of the English
people. In 1485 there ended the War between the Roses. The end of
the war meant the end of feudalism and the beginning of the new
economical and political stage of the English society capitalism. It
was a transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. An
absolute monarchy was established, the first absolute monarch
being Henry Tutor. It meant a real unification of the country,
political and economic, resulted in the development of capitalism
and made it evitable that one nation and one national language be
established.
The first king of this period, Henry VII (1485 – 1509)
strengthened the monarchy and provided the revenue imperative for
its very existence. During his reign commerce and shipbuilding
were encouraged, and the material wealth of the country increased.
New lands – Newfoundland and Nova Scotia – were discovered.
Following in his steps, his son, Henry VIII (1509 – 1547) broke away
from the ecclesiastical influence of Rome, made himself head of the
Church of England and of the State and transferred the property of
the monasteries to himself. Dozens of large ships were built, trade
continued to develop, and new territories were drawn into it. It was
during the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI (1547 – 1553), that
trade with Muskovy or Russia, as we call it today, was opened up.
The long reign of Elisabeth I (1558 – 1603) was one the most
remarkable for the country, its progress in the discovery and
colonizing field tremendously. Queen Elisabeth’s reign was also
particularly rich in learning – it was the age of Shakespeare,
Sydney, Spencer, Beckon, Marlowe and many other famous names.
Nevertheless, the evident achievements in foreign policy, trade
and culture did not put an end to the controversy of various
powerful forces in the country. Another problem which was to have
far-reaching consequences was that of whether sovereignty lay with
monarch or Parliament advocating the interests of the new
developing classes of society. The strife between the Crown and
Parliament was aggravated by religious differences. The
development of the country required more regular revenue, and
forced the Crown to raise taxes, which met with disapproval from
Parliament.
In the XVII century Charles I (1625 – 1649) for over a decade
ruled without Parliament, but had finally to reach a compromise,
according to which the powers of Parliament were greatly extended.
Hence force one legal system was to apply to the king and his
 62
subjects alike, and no taxation was to be raised without
Parliament’s consent. However, when Parliament demanded further
concessions, denied the king control of the army, a crisis followed
which is now known under the title of the Great Rebellion. The
Crown lost the ensuing war, Charles I surrendered and was
executed, and for over a decade the country was ruled by
Parliament alone, the most notable leader of that time being Oliver
Cromwell. Granted the title of Lord Protector, he was a virtual
dictator of the nation, heavily relying on the Army and disillusioning
Parliament which had first brought him to power.
After the death of Oliver Cromwell the Army and Parliament
were unable to agree on a government, and the restoration of
monarchy that followed in 1660, when the son of the executed king,
Charles II, was invited to return to the throne, was more a
restoration of Parliament than of the king himself. Charles II, who
during the time of Cromwell lived in exile in France, brought with
him from the Continent a keen interest in scientific development,
culture and arts, together with a considerable influence of the
French language spoken by his supporters.

1.2. Establishment of the literary norm

As we have said, in the New English period emerged one nation

and one national language. But the English literary norm was
formed only at the end of the 17 th century, when the first scientific
English dictionaries and the first scientific English grammar. In the
17th and 18th centuries there appeared great number of grammar
books whose authors tried to stabilize the use of language. Thus
Samuel Johnson, the author of the famous Dictionary (1755), wrote
that he preferred the use of “regular and solemn” pronunciation to
the “cursory and colloquial”. Many famous writers also greatly
contributed to the formation of the English language, and among
them, first and foremost, the great Shakespeare.

Early New English (15th – beginning of the 18th century) – the

establishment of the literary norm. The language that was used in
England at that time is reflected in the famous translation of the
Bible called the King James Bible (published in 1611). Although the
language of the Bible is Early Modern English, the author tried to
use a more solemn and grand style and more archaic expressions.
A great influence was also connected with the magazine by
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele called The Spectator (1711 –
 63
1714), the authors of which discussed various questions of the
language, including its syntax and the use of words.

Late New English – since the 18th century.

If the gradual acceptance of a virtually uniform dialect by all

writers is the most important event in the emergence of Modern
English, it must be recognized that this had already gone a
considerable way before 1500, and it was undoubtedly helped by
Caxton’s introduction of printing in 1477. The fact that the London
dialect was used by him in his translations and prefaces, and that
Chaucer’s works were among the books he published, led to its
rapid diffusion throughout the country. But the adoption of a
standard of spoken English was a slower process. It was not until
Elizabeth’s time that the language of the court came to be generally
recognized as the best form of spoken English; and as late as the
18th, and even the early 19th century country gentlemen in their
occasional visits to polite society in London were not ashamed to
use dialect.
Nevertheless, despite the persistence of wide varieties in
pronunciation, the basic phonetic changes that distinguish Modern
English from Middle English are profound, though they are not
reflected in a similar modification of spelling. The early printers,
whose practice was to prove of decisive importance for the future,
derived their spelling from the Middle English scribes (a fact that
largely accounts for the difficulty of English spelling today). The
most important of theses changes was that affecting the sound of
vowels and diphthongs, with the result that the “continental values”
of Middle English were finally replaced by an approximation to
modern pronunciation. Lesser changes also occurred in the
pronunciation of consonants, though some of these have been
restored by conscious, and often mistaken, attempts to adapt
pronunciation more closely to the received spelling.
 64

Geographical expansion of English in the 17th – 20th centuries

and its effect on the language

Up to the 17th century the English language was spoken by

the people who lived only on the British Isles (at that time of
William the Conqueror there were about 2 million people), but even
there in the far-away mountainous parts of the country the people
preserved their own Celtic dialects very long into the New English
period. Thus in Cornwall the local dialect, Cornish died out in the
18th century. In Wales there arose a tendency to revive the local
Celtic language. In 1893 the Welsh University was founded, and in
1961 the number of those speaking Welsh amounted to 650
thousand. In Ireland through centuries a struggle against English
was fought. It reached its climax in 1916 with the Irish rebellion. In
1922 the Irish Free State was formed and in 1949 the new state –
Eire – left the Commonwealth of Nations. Now Eire occupies the
whole but the northern part of Ireland, which is a part of Britain.
The number of people rose from 300 thousand to over 600
thousand, but the majority speak English.
The penetration of the English language to other parts of the
globe mainly began in the 16 th century together with the expansion
of British colonialism. The 16th century was an age of great
adventurers, and England’s progress in the discovery and
colonialized field was tremendous. The first Virginian colony was
founded; Drake circumnavigated the globe; the East India Company
was established and English seamen left their mark in many parts
of the world. In 1620 the famous ship The Mayflower reached North
America in the region which is now the state of Massachusetts. This
marked the beginning of English in the New World.
The 18th century witnessed the coming of English to India where
nowadays the language is widely spread, although its sphere is
limited to large cities and a certain social layer, and in today’s India
English is a state language together with the native languages of
Hindi and Urdu.
In the 18th century England conquered Canada. During the 19 th
century the colonization of Australia took place. In the 20 th century
English penetrated into South Africa.

‫٭٭٭‬
 65
Now about 300 million people speak English as their native
language in various parts of the globe, and many times that – as a
second language. To foretell the future of any language, English
among them, is of course impossible, but the mere fact of its wide
diffusion throughout the world is a guarantee that it will continue
to change and develop.

Cultural Development in the 14th Century

In the long run, the Norman kings did much to centralize power
and unite England into a state, preparing the ground for the decay
of feudalism, bourgeois development and the beginning of the
nation. The unifying English language, the growth and influence of
the bourgeois, religious “heresies” undermining the catholic church,
this bulwark of feudalism - all these were signs of the time. The
appearance of the House of Commons (1343) heralded future
developments.
There were big changes in the material life of the population. Life
was safer and more comfortable for the rich than it was in the early
Norman period when the wealthy families had to live in the dark of
the fortress-homes, with little light, less convenience. Now palaces
and castles were built with spacious halls illuminated by wide
windows lots of light pouring in.
The farms and cottages of the poor people were buit of logs or
planks, the floors were usually bare earth and the roof made of
thatch: the walls might be made of mud and timber.
There was progress in letters as well. John Wycliffe translated the
Bible from Latin into English creating actually the beginning of
English prose.
The development of the national language was greatly promoted by
the works and creative activities of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
an outstanding poet, “father of English literature”. His works paved
the way for English Renaissance literature. His realistic approach
his optimism and folk-spirit made that everfresh masterpiece of his
“Canterbury Tales” immortal. It depicts the England of the 14 th
century. It is the source not only of lively satisfaction but of
authentic information as well. Influenced by Italian Renaissance
literature, particularly by Boccaccio, Chaucer rises above his Italian
teacher in lifelikeness.
Son of the ordinary tradesman, Chaucer rose to high court
positions, traveled on diplomatic business, but died in poverty.
When Henry IV came to the throne, his father, Duke of Lancaster
 66
who replaced the last Plantagenet on the throne of England used to
be Chaucer’s patron, the aging poet sent him a poem entitled
“Complaint to My Empty Purse”. The king took the hint and
increased Chaucer’s small pension, but it was too late-the great
poet did not use the money to enjoy.

PRE-RENAISSANCE CULTURE
Compared to the preceding and the following centuries, the 15 th
century was comparatively barren. At that time tere were no great
poets and writers no great masterpieces were created. The most
important book of that time was “Morte de’Arthur” written by
Thomas Malory, a Yorkist nobleman. It was one of the last chivalric
romances of the king’s Arthur cycle, a swan song of the nobility.
But folklore flourished all long through the 15 th century. Many
of them were printed (at that time Caxton started printing]. Some of
them are ballads of Robin Hood, who had to leave his oppressors
and come to Sherwood Forest where very soon other good and
honest outlaws gathered to proclaim Robin Hood their leader and
begin a life full adventure for justice and nobleness.
Other ballads were historical; many of them described the
brinkmanship between England and Scotland.
By the end of the 15th century new forces were beginning to work in
English culture. The Oxford University was becoming the center of
learning, science and culture. The professors of the university
started to discover the antique authors.

ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
Renaissance is the epoch of Humanism and the Revival of
Learning born in Italy after revival of the culture and science of Italy
and the whole western world. The human being, the beauty and the
joy of this life were now the center of attention.
In England three main stages of this process could be
distinguished: the early stage of the end of the 15 th century and the
first half of the 16th century and the later stage coinciding with
reign of Queen Elizabeth and the life-span of Shakespeare. The
period after Shakespeare’s death and to the beginning of the
puritan revolution was the time of decline of the Renaissance and
the crisis of Humanism.
The earlier Tudor period was a time of transition from the late
medieval to Renaissance culture. The new architecture imported
from Italy had little in common with the Gothic style. With the
interest to classics there came a tendency to the ancient forms and
 67
styles in architecture and art. It was in early 16 th century that the
influence of the Italian Renaissance architecture was really felt in
England in the pure classical lines of Inigo Johnes the example of
this style was the Whitehall palace. Christopher Wren, a very
outstanding architect used the classic forms with great purity and
correctness. After the great fire of London he rebuilt a great number
of churches, cathedrals, palaces, houses of the rich people of
London. St. Paul’s cathedral is a good example of this style.
Architects and painters were invited from Italy and other western
countries. Many of them, though being foreigners were allowed to
enrich British culture and are generally treated by historians as the
founders of the English school of painting, as for instance Hans
Holbein Junior, an outstanding German painter. He depicted all
details of the sitter’s appearance. His portraits were so realistic,
that they expressed the sitter’s character, his thoughts, and his
inner life. English portrait painting started from Hans Holbein
Junior’s works. The wealthy houses were soon filled with portraits
of ancestors often painted by provincial painters imitating Holbein.
Rubens and Van Dyck, the great Dutchmen are also revered as
creators of English painting for they were attracted by the English
titles and agreed to be treated as English painters.
One of the most famous representatives of the English Renaissance
culture was Thomas More, lawyer, scholar, writer, and statesman.
His great work was “Utopia” published in Latin in 1516, a scathing
satire on feudalism and the emerging capitalism, on the government
and society of England.
The description of contemporary England with all the evils of
poverty for the many and luxury for the few is made in striking
contrasts to the island of “Utopia” where there is not private
ownership of land and industrial tools, where community of goods,
a national system of education, the rule of work for all. More does
not condemn the feudal system, sad assurance that the new
system, based on money is no smaller evil. He looks forward the
new fair social society with no exploitation, equal rights to all
members of the society.
The second stage of Renaissance in England was the age of the
theater. In the first period it was the time of “morality play” and the
“mystery play”. The theater reflected the reality of those days,
showing the political antagonism of the society. There were also
plays by classical Greek and Roman tragedians staged by university
students. The first theaters were mobile. The actors staged their
plays on the squares, markets, taverns and roadside inns.
 68
In 1576 the first theater was built in London by a group of actors
and soon theaters appeared everywhere – rough and primitive
structures, roofless and curtainless, seating some thousand people.
The third stage of Renaissance epoch was characterized by
increasing decay of drama.

2. Inner history

The speed of the development of language was lesser than in

Middle English. The language developed quickly at the beginning of
this period and slower – at the end (with the exception of the word
stock which develops equally quickly during the whole period).
When the literary norm was formed, it, being always very
conservative, prevented the change of the language that is why the
speed of the development slowed down.

2.1. Phonetics
2.1.1. The system of stress

In native words the stress is fixed and falls on the first root
syllable (as in Old English and Middle English). Some of the
borrowed words were not fully assimilated phonetically, that is why
the stress falls on another syllable, and those fully assimilated have
the stress on the first root syllable, like in native words.
Native English words are short – they have one or two syllables,
that is why it is a norm, a rhythmic tendency of the language to
have one stress syllable and one stress one => in borrowed words
there developed a system of two stresses.
Sometimes the stress is used to differentiate the words formed
from the same root by the process called conversion (to pro'duce -
'produce).

2.1.2. Consonants

a) A new [З] was introduced in borrowed words. Otherwise the

changes were not as great as in Middle English.
b) Vocalization of consonants (some consonants in some
positions were vocalized – they disappeared, influencing the
preceding vowel).
Example: [r] disappeared at the end of the words and before
consonants changing the quantity of the vowel immediately
preceding it:
 69
Middle English New English
For [for] [fo:]
Form [form] [fo:m]

2.1.3. Vowels

a) In the unstressed position the vowels that were leveled in

Middle English generally disappeared at the end of the words. Some
of them preserved for phonetic reasons only, where the
pronunciation without a vowel was impossible.

Old English Middle English New English

-as -es [z] dogs

[s] cats
[iz] dresses

b) All Middle English long vowels underwent the Great Vowel

Shift (in early New English, 15th – 18th century). They became
narrower and more front. Some of them remained monophthongs,
others developed into diphthongs.

Middle English New English

he [he:] [hi:] e: => i:

name [na:me] [neim] a: => ei

2.2. Grammar

In new English it did not change fundamentally. The main

changes are the strengthening of analytical features of the
language:
a) in many cases empty grammatical words are used (form-
words);
b) Analytical forms of Middle English are preserved, and in
addition to them in New English non-finite analytical forms appear
(in Middle English only finite forms could be analytical);
c) A fixed word-order is established.
 70

2.3. Word-stock

The vocabulary is changing quickly. Many new words are

formed to express new notions, which are numerous.
Ways of enriching vocabulary:
1. Inner means (conversion: hand => to hand);
2. Outer means: the sources here are numberless, as English
has not only direct, but also indirect (through books, later – TV,
radio, internet) contacts with the entire world.
In the beginning of the Early New English period (15 th – 16th
century) – the epoch of the Renaissance – there appeared many
borrowings from Greek, Italian, Latin.
In the 17th century is the period of Restoration => borrowings
came to the English language from French (a considerable number
of these words being brought by Charles II and his court).
In the 17th century the English appeared in North America =>
borrowings from the Indians’ languages were registered.
In the 18th century the English appeared in India => borrowings
from this source came to the English language (but these words are
not frequent, for they denote some particular reality of India,
example: curry).
In the 19th century the British colonizers appeared in Australia
and New Zealand => new borrowings follow (kangaroo, etc.)
At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century the British
appeared in Africa, coming to the regions formerly colonized by the
Dutch => borrowings from Afrikaans and Dutch appeared.
Old English and Middle English Russian borrowings were
scares – the contacts between the countries and their peoples were
difficult. In New English there more borrowings: sable (very dark),
astrakhan, mammoth; in the 20th century – Soviet, kolkhoz,
perestroika, etc.
 71
LECTURE 5.

List of principal questions:

1. OLD ENGLISH VOWELS
Origin of Old English vowel phonemes
Changes in Old English vowel phonemes
Breaking
Palatal mutation
Effect of palatal mutation upon grammar and word-stock

2. OLD ENGLISH CONSANANTS

Dependence of the quality of the consonant phoneme upon its
environment in the word
Grimm’s law, Verner’s law

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 72
1. OLD ENGLISH VOWELS

1.0. There were the following vowel phonemes in Old English

Monophthongs diphthongs
a æeiouy ea eo
ā ǽēīōūý ēa ēo

As we see in Old English there existed an exact parallelism

between long vowels and the corresponding short vowels. Nor only
monophthongs but even diphthongs found their counterparts which
differed from them not only in quality but also in quantity. Thus we
may say that in the system of vowels both the quality and the
quantity of the vowel was phonemic. All the diphthongs were falling
diphthongs with the first element stronger than the second, the
second element being more open than the first.
Examples:
Monophthongs diphthongs

ā – a: stān – dagas ēo – eo: cēosan – heorte

(choose) (heart)

ǽ - æ: dæd – dæg ēa – ea: cēas – eald

(chose) (old)

ō – o: gōd – god
(god) (good)

ī – i: wrītan – writen
(write) (written)

1.1. Origin of Old English vowel phonemes

All Old English vowel phonemes can be traced back to Common

Germanic vowel phonemes. Old English monophthongs are, as rule,
a further development of some Common Germanic monophthongs.
For example:
Old English from Common Germanic

[æ] [a]
dæз dags
 73
[i] [i]
bindan bindan
[o] [u]
coren cusan, etc.

Some Old English monophthongs developed from Common

Germanic diphthongs:
Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)

[ā] [ai]
rās rais

Old English long diphthongs are a result of some further

development of Common Germanic diphthongs, though in the
course of history the quality of the diphthong may have undergone
a change:

Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)

cēosan (choose) kiusan
cēas (chose) kaus

Old English short diphthongs originated from monophthongs:

Old English from Common Germanic

eald (old) *ald

heorte (heart) *herte

1.2. Changes in Old English vowel phonemes

1.2.0. The changes that took place in the prehistoric period of

the development of the English language and which explain the
difference between Old English and Common Germanic vowels of
two types: assimilative changes and independent (non-assimilative)
changes.
Independent changes do not depend upon the environment in
which the given sound was found. They cannot be explained but
they are merely stated.
 74
Common Germanic Old English

ai > ā
a > æ, etc.

Assimilative changes are explained by the phonetic position of

the sound in the word and the change can and must be explained.
Among the many phonetic assimilative changes which took place in
the prehistoric period of the development of the English language
and which account for the discrepancy between the Old English
and the Common Germanic vowel system the most important are
breaking and palatal mutation.

1.2.1. Breaking
The process of breaking took place in the 6 th century. It affected
two vowels – [æ] and [e] when they were followed by the consonants
[r], [i], [h] generally followed by another consonant.
The resulting vowel was a diphthong (hence the name
“breaking” – a monophthong “was broken” into a diphthong),
consequently the process may be summed up as diphthongization
of short vowels [æ] and [e] before certain consonant clusters.
For example:
æ > ea before r + consonant ærm > earm (arm)
l + consonant æld > eald (old)
h + consonant æhta > eahta (eight)
h final sæh > seah (saw)

e > ea before r + consonant herte > heorte (heart)

lc + consonant melcan > meolcan (milk)
lh + consonant selh > seolh (sael)
h final feh > feoh (cattle)

1.2.2.Palatal mutation

The qualitative change of Old English vowels that experts call

palatal mutation, or I – mutation, occurred somewhere during the
6th – 7th centuries. The process affected Germanic words where a
vowel in a stressed syllable was immediately followed by the sound
[i] or [j] in the next syllable. Almost all vowels, both diphthongs and
monophthongs, in the context described above became further
forward and higher, or more palatal and more narrow, with the
 75
exception of [e] and [i] which could go no further. This may be
described as a kind of vowel harmony – a natural process affecting
many modern languges: the vowels mutate, the change being
caused by their partial assimilation to the following vowel (or semi-
vowel).
Monophthongs

a>e strangiÞu > strengÞu (strength)

æ > ea tælian > tellan (to tell)
ā > æ hālian > hælan (to heal)
o >e ofstian > efstan (to hurry)
o >ē domain > dēman (to deem)
u >y fullian > fyllan (to fill)
ū >y cūÞian > cyÞan (to announce)

As a result of palatal mutation new phonemes entered the vowel

system in Old English – the vowel phoneme [y] and the vowel
phoneme [y], the result of the mutation of [u] and [u], respectively.
Ea > ie ealdira > ieldra (elder)
ēa > īe зelēafian > зelīefian (to believe)
eo > ie afeorrian > afierran (to remove)
ēo > īe зetrēowi > зetrīewe (true)

1.2.3. Effect of palatal mutation upon grammar and word-

stock
Though palatal mutation was a phonetic process it left traces in
Old English grammar and word-stock.
Grammar: as a result of the process of palatal mutation there
appeared vowel gradation in the system of the declension of nouns
(root-stem declension). In the system of adjectives we have vowel
gradation in the degrees of comparison, in the system of verbs vowel
gradation is found in Old English irregular weak verbs.
Word-stock: Palatal mutation resulted in vowel interchange as a
word building means.
Adjective Verb
Ful (full) fyllan (fill)
Noun Verb
Dom (doom) dēman (deem)
Verb Verb
Sittan (sit) settan (set)
 76
1. OLD ENGLISH CONSONANTS

The Old English consonant system consisted of some 14 consonant

phonemes denoted by the letters

P, b, m, f, t, d, n, s, r, l, Þ (), c, З, h.
The consonant system in Old English manifested the following
peculiarities.
1. The relative small number of consonant phonemes – only 14
phonemes.
2. The absence of affricates and fricative consonants which we
now find in the language such as [t], [d], [], []
3. Dependence of the quality of the phoneme upon its
environment in the word.
If the first two points require no particular explanation, the last
point calls for a special comment.

Dependence of the quality of the consonant phoneme upon its

environment in the word
Among the 14 consonant phonemes that existed in Old English
there were at least 5 that gave us positional variants which
stand rather wide apart.
1. The phonemes denoted by the letters f, Þ, or s are voiced or
voiceless depending upon their phonetic position. They are
generally voiced in the so called “intervocalic position’ that is
between vowels and voiceless otherwise.
For example:

Half [f] – hlaford [v]

(bread) (lord, originally hlafweard – bread-keeper)
Зos – Зoses [z]
(goose, Nom. Sing.) (Gen. Sing.)

2. The phoneme denoted by the letter c also gave at least two

variants – palatal [k’] and velar [k]. in the majority of cases it
was velar consonant and palatal generally before the vowel i
compare:

cild (child), scip (ship) where c denotes the palatal consonant [k’]
and such words as
can (can), climban (climb)
 77
when the letter c denotes the corresponding velar variant of the
phoneme [k].

3. Similar remarks can be made about the phoneme denoted by

the letter З: we have the voiced velar plosive variant [g] of it
at the beginning of the word before back vowels or
consonants or in the middle of the word after n:
Зod (good), Зretan (to greet, to address) Зanзan (to go),

The voiced velar fricative variant [] in the middle of the word

between back vowels:
Daзas (days),
The voiced palatal fricative variant [j] before and after front
vowels:
Dæз (day) Зear (year).

The system of consonant phonemes that we observe in Old

English involves certain peculiarities that are typical of the
majority of Germanic dialects which set them (those Germanic
dialects and old English among them) apart from the majority of
the Indo-European languages. Those peculiarities were mainly
accounted for by two linguists – Jacob Grimm and Karl Verner,
hence they are generally referred to as “Grimm’s law” (or the
first Germanic consonant shift) and “Verner’s law”

Grimm’s law and Verner’s law

Grimm’s law explains the correspondence between certain

groups of Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. Those
correspondences involve three sets of Germanic consonants,
consequently they generally speak of three stages of Grimm’s
law. But we shall speak here about only one stage which is the
simplest to explain and the most consistent – the Germanic
consonants [f], [ө]. [h]. And the correspondent consonants [p],
[t], [k] we find in similar phonetic environment.
The essence of this stage of the first Germanic consonant shift
is following:
The voiceless plosive consonants [p], [t], [k] of Indo-European
languages other than Germanic shifted in Germanic languages
into the voiceless fricative consonants [f], [ө], [h]. it was a non-
assimilative change which presumably affected Germanic
languages at the beginning of the first millennium AD.
Examples:
 78
Russian Greek Old
English

Пена fama (foam)

Пять fiv (five)

Три ðrie
Ты þū
Кров, кровля hrōf
kardia heorte
octo eahta
The specific peculiarities of consonants constitute the most
remarkable distinctive feature of the Germanic linguistic group.
Comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals
regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic
consonants. Thus we regularly find [f] in Germanic where other IE
languages have [p]; cf. e.g., E full, R Fr plein; wherever Germanic
has [p], cognate words in non-Germanic languages have [b] (cf. E
pool, R). Consonants in Germanic look “shifted” as compared with
the consonants of non-Germanic languages. The alterations of the
consonants took place in PG, and the resulting sounds were
inherited by the languages of the Germanic group.
The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a
phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19 th c. and are often
called Grimm’s Law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic
consonant shift.
By the terms of Grimm’s Law voiceless plosives developed in PG into
voiceless fricatives (Act I); IE voiced plosives were shifted to
voiceless plosives (Act II) and IE voiced aspirated plosives were
reflected either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives (Act
III).
 79

Another important series of consonant changes in PG was

discovered in the late 19th c. by Danish scholar, Carl Verner. They
are known as Verner’s Law. Verner’s Law explains some
correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict
Grimm’s Law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions.
According to Verner’s Law all the PG voiceless fricatives [f, θ, x]
which arose under Grimm’s Law and also [s]inherited from PIE,
became voiced between vowels if the proceeding vowel was
unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained
voiceless. The voicing occurred in early PG at the time when the
stress was not yet fixed on the root-morpheme. The process of
voicing can be shown as a step in succession of consonant changes
in prehistorically reconstructed forms; consider, e.g. the changes of
the second consonant in the word father
PIE early PG late PG
Pater > faθar > fa’ ðar > > faðar
Verner's Law accounts for the appearance of voiced fricative or
its later modifications [d] in place of the voiceless [θ] which ought to
be expected under Grimm’s Law. In late PG, the phonetic conditions
that caused the voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted to
the first syllable.

Voicing of Fricatives in Proto-Germanic (Verner’s Law)

PIE PG NON-GERMANIC GERMANIC

Old
Present-day

P f>v Lat. caput Gt haubiÞ Sw

huvud G Haupt
O.Icel haufoÞ NE head
OE heafod [v]

t θ > ð,d Sanscr. Satam Gt hund, O Icel hundarð, G

hundert, Sw
 80
R cто OE hund hundrate
NE hundred
L pater Gt fadar [ð],
Sanscr pitā
 81
LECTURE 5.

OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR. THE NOMINAL SYSTEM

List of principal questions

1. General survey of the nominal system

2. The noun
2.1. Gender
2.2. Number
2.3. Case
2.4. Homonymity of forms in Old English and its
influence on the further development of noun forms
3. The pronoun
3.1. Personal pronouns
3.2. Other pronouns
4. The adjective
4.1. Declension of adjectives
4.2. Degrees of comparison of adjectives

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 82
1. Old English grammar

The Old English language was a synthetic language which

means that all the principal grammatical notions were expressed by
a change of the form of the world in the narrow meaning of the
term.
The grammatical means that the English language used were
primarily
a) suffixation
b) vowel gradation
c) suppletive forms.
Old English was a highly inflected language. The abundance of
inflections resulted from the fact that the paradigm of
declension and the paradigm of conjunction were formed by
many grammatical categories and there was more than one
declension in the system of declension and more than one
conjugation in the system of conjugation due to the splitting of
the once uniform paradigm in accordance with the original
structure of the word.

2. General survey of the nominal system

There were five declinable parts of speech in Old English

(among the non-finite forms of the verb the infinitive was also
declined): the noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the numeral, the
participle. The nominal paradigm in Old English was characterized
by the following grammatical categories.
As we can see, the paradigms of different parts of speech had
the same number of grammatical categories but theses parts of
speech were different in the number of categorical forms composing
a given grammatical category. Hence the system of forms of each
part of speech requires special consideration.
 83
Grammatical categories of declinable parts of speech

Catego
ries Gender Number Case

Parts of
speech
Noun + + +
Pronoun + + +
Adjective + + +
Numeral + + +

2. The noun

The Old English noun paradigm was composed by the following

grammatical categories: gender, number, case.

2.1. Gender

The category of gender was formed by the opposition of three

gender-forms: masculine, feminine and neuter. All nouns, no
matter whether they denote living beings, inanimate things or
abstract notions belonged to one of the three genders.
The subdivision of Old English nouns in accordance with their
grammatical gender is traditional, the correspondence between the
meaning of the word and its grammatical gender being hard to
trace.
Some nouns denoting animals were also treated as neuter, such
as cicen (chicken), hors (horse), etc.
The grammatical gender did not always coincide with the
natural gender of the person and sometimes even contradicted it
(thus, for instance, the noun wifman (woman) was declined as
masculine).
Compare stān (stone, masculine), bān (bone, neuter), cwen
(queen, feminine) which belong to different genders but have similar
forms.
More examples:
 84
Masculine

male beings lifeless things abstract notions

fæder (father) hlāf (bread) stenc (stench)
sunu (son) stān (stone) fǽr (fear)
cyning (king) hrōf (roof) nama (name)

dōm (doom)

Feminine

female beings lifeless things abstract notions

Mōðor (mother) tunge (tongue) trywðu (truth)
Dohter (daughter) meolc (milk) huntinз (hunting)
Cwēn (queen) lufu (love)
Зōs (goose)

Neuter

living being lifeless things abstract notions

cicen (chicken) ēaзe (eye) mōd (mood)
hors (horse) scip (ship) riht (right)
mæзden (maiden)

2.2. Number

The grammatical category of number was formed by the

opposition of two categorical forms: the singular and the plural.

Nominative Singular Nominative Plural

Fisc (fish) fiscas
Ēaзe (eye) ēaзan
Tōð (tooth) tēð
Scip(ship) scipu

2.3. Case
 85
The old English noun formed its paradigm by the opposition of
three genders, two numbers and four cases. Thus, presumably, the
noun had twenty-four word-forms.
On the whole the same phenomenon could be observed in
Common Germanic. In the course of the development of Old
English, however, the original paradigm had undergone great
changes due to the fusion of the original stem suffix and the
original grammatical ending into one element which from the point
of view of Old English is to be regarded as a grammatical ending. As
a result of that fusion nouns that are known to have had different
stem suffixes originally in Old English acquired materially different
endings in the same case, for example:

Nominative plural

a-stem ō-stem n-stem

stān-as (stones) car-a (care) nam-an (names), etc.

The original stem suffixes were formed both by vowels and by

consonants. Thus there were two respective principal groups of
declensions in Old English: the vowel declension (“strong”
declension) and the consonant declension (“weak” declension).
The vowel (strong) declension comprises four principal
paradigms: the a-stem, the ō-stem, the u-stem and the i-stem
paradigm.
The consonant declension comprises nouns with the stem
originally ending in –n, -r, -s and some other consonants.
In rare cases, however, the new form is constructed by adding
the ending directly to the root. It is these words that formed the so-
called root-stem declension.

Declensions in Old English

Declension Vowel (strong) stem Consonant Root
(weak) stem stem
Case and
number
a ō u i N r
Nom. Sing. s
stān caru sunu nama fæder fōt
Nom. Plur. wine lamb (foot)
(stone) (care) (son)(wine) (name) (father) fēt
Stanas cara suna (lamb) (feet)
wine Naman fæderos
 86
(Stones)(cares)(sons) lamb
(wine)

Vowel-stems. Declension of a-stem nouns

This type of declension consists of the masculine and the neuter
genders of Old English nouns. As a rule those are common everyday
words that formed the very core of the word-stock, such as:

hlāf (bread), hwǽrte (wheat), hors (horse), fisc (fish), scip (ship),
etc.

As seen from the table, the paradigm of the a-stem nouns is

characterized by the homonymity of the Nominative and Accusative
case-forms. The rest of the forms retain their endings. The
difference between the genders of the nouns is clearly seen from the
different endings in the Nominative and the Accusative plural, i.e.
-as for the masculine and -u for the neuter. Nouns which had a long
stem syllable had the zero ending in the Nominative and the
Accusative Plural (such as scēap (sheep), land (land), etc.).

Consonant stems. Declension of n-stem nouns

The consonant declensions consisted of nouns with the stem

originally ending in –n, -r, -s and other consonants. Declensions of
the stems other than –n are not analyzed here as nouns belonging
to them are few and show a tendency to fall under other
declensions.

Declension of a-stem nouns

G Masculine Neuter
ender
Case
Singular
Nominative fisc (fish) scip (ship)
Genitive fisces scipes
Dative fisce scipe
Accusative fisc scip
Plural
Nominative fiscas scipu
Genitive fisca scipa
 87
Dative fiscum scipum
Accusative fiscas scipu

The n-stem class was formed by nouns of all the three genders,
such as nama (name) – masculine, tunge (tongue) – feminine, eaзe
(eye) – neuter.

Declension of n-stem nouns

Gender Masculine Feminine Neuter

Case
Singular
Nominative nama (name) tunge (tongue) eaзe (eye)
Genitive naman tungan eaзan
Dative naman tungan eaзan
Accusative naman tungan eaзе
Plural
Nominative naman tungan eaзan
Genitive namena tungena eaзеna
Dative namum tungum eaзum
Accusative naman tungan eaзan

The n-stem was the most important among all the consonant
stem declensions. This class of nouns was composed of common
words. The group was very extensive in Old English and like the a-
stem declension it exhibited a tendency to spread its forms over
other declensions.
The original stem-suffix –n may be observed in the majority of
case forms, but very often the grammatical ending had been
dropped in the pre-written period; this phenomenon gave rise to a
well-marked homonymity of the noun forms of the declension. Five
case forms of the masculine and the feminine genders – all the
Singular with the exception of the Nominative and the Nominative
and the Accusative plural are homonymous, in case of neuter
nouns only four forms are homonymous, as the Accusative case of
neuter nouns is homonymous to the Nominative.
Gender oppositions in this declension are also not distinct, the
masculine nouns being different from the feminine only in the
Nominative and the Accusative Singular.

Declension of root-stem nouns

 88

Root-stems require special consideration. This class was not

extensive and stood apart among other Old English nouns due to
peculiarities of form-building which was partly retained in Modern
English.
Unlike other classes the root-stem nouns such as man (man,
masculine), mūs (mouse, feminine) originally had no stem-suffix and
the grammatical ending was added directly to the root. As the result
of that in the Dative Singular and the Nominative and the
Accusative Plural the root-vowel had undergone palatal mutation
due to the [i] – sound in the grammatical ending of theses forms.
Later the ending was dropped and vowel interchange remained the
only means of differentiating the given forms in the paradigm. The
feminine nouns with the short root had the ending -u in the
Nominative and the Accusative Singular, and -e in the Nominative
and the Accusative Plural. The endings of the rest of forms are built
up on analogy with those of the a-stems, hence the difference
between genders can be observed only in the Genitive Singular – -es
for the masculine, -e for the feminine.

Declension of root-stem nouns

Masculine Feminine
Gender
Case
Singular
Nominative man (man) mūs
Genitive mannes mūse
Dative man mýs
Accusative man mūs
Plural
Nominative men mýs
Genitive manna mūsa
Dative mannum mūsum
Accusative men mýs
 89
2.4. Homonymity of forms in Old English and its influence
on the further development of noun forms

In the prehistoric period of the development of the English

language each case had an ending typical of its uninflected form. In
the course of the development of the English language, however,
due to various semantic and phonetic changes different cases began
to develop similar endings within one and the same paradigm; this
phenomenon gave rise to the well-marked homonymity of case-
forms in English. The twenty four word-forms which built up the
noun paradigm had but nine materially different endings. The most
distinct among them are:
-es – genitive singular, masculine and neuter
-a/ena – genitive plural, all genders
-um – dative plural, all genders
-as – nominative and accusative plural, masculine

As for the rest of the forms their mutual homonymity is

considerable. For example, nouns with the stem originally are
ending in –a show gender differences only in the plural, all the
forms in the singular but the nominative being homonymous,
irrespective of gender and case differences.
The existence of different endings of nouns grammatically alike
and homonymous ending of nouns grammatically different testifies
to a certain inadequacy of the morphological devices of the Old
English noun to show the relation of the noun to other words in the
sentence and a need for the development of new means to denote
the grammatical meanings formerly denoted morphologically.

Reference table of the principal grammatical noun

suffixes in Old English

Gender Masculine Feminine Neuter

Case a i u ō i u a i n
n n
Singular
Nominative - e u/o u - u/o - -/e e
Genitive a e es es an
Dative es es a e e a e e an
Accusative an an - e e
 90
e e a e e a
an an
- e a e -/e a
an an
Plural
Nominative as e/es a e a a u/o u an
Genitive ana n a a ena
Dative a a a a a a um um um
Accusative ena ena u/o/- u an
um um um um um um
um um
as e/as a a e a
an an

3. The pronoun

The following classes of pronoun were to be observed in Old

English: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative
and indefinite pronouns.
The system of declension of the pronoun was not the same for
all the classes. It has at least two subsystems that should be
singled out: the declension of personal pronouns on the one hand
and the declension of other pronouns. Although the grammatical
categories of each subsystem were the same, i.e. gender, number,
case, the number of the categorical forms composing those
categories was different.

3.1. The personal pronoun

The Old English personal pronoun similar to the Old English

noun had the grammatical categories of gender, number and case.

Gender

Three genders could be distinguished in the pronominal

paradigm: masculine, feminine and neuter, but different forms for
different genders were found only in the third person singular, the
rest of the forms being indifferent to gender.

Masculine feminine
neuter

Nom. Sing. Hē (he) hēo (she)

hit (it)
 91
Nom. Plur. hī (they)

Number

The category of number differs from that of the noun as in the

first and second person we find three categorical forms: singular,
dual and plural, for instance:

Singular dual Plural

Ic (I) wit (two of us) wē
(we)

Case

The category of case is built up the opposition of four

categorical forms, similar to those of the noun: Nominative,
Genitive, Dative, Accusative.
Unlike the Old English noun, the paradigm of which was
composed of forms that mainly differed in the ending, the paradigm
of the Old English personal pronouns is built up by suppletive
forms and the homonymty of pronominal forms is not great. We find
it only in the Dative and the Accusative cases.

Declension of the personal pronoun Ic

Singular Dual Plural

Number
Case
Nominative ic wit wē
Genitive mīn uncer ūser, ūre
Dative mē unc ūs
Accusative mec, mē unc ūsic, ūs

3.2. Other pronouns

All Old English pronouns with the exception of personal

pronouns with the exception of personal pronouns were declined
almost alike. They expressed the grammatical categories of gender
(three forms: masculine, feminine and neuter), number (two forms:
singular and plural) and case, which was built up by five categorical
forms: the nominative, the Accusative, the Dative, the Genitive and
the Instrumental, different from the Dative only in the singular.
 92
If we compare the paradigm of these pronouns with those of the
noun and the personal pronoun we cannot but take notice that they
differed in number of the categorical forms composing the category
of number.
The personal pronoun unlike the rest of the pronouns and the
noun possessed three categorical forms composing the category of
number.
All the other pronouns unlike the personal pronoun and the
noun had five cases.

Declension of the demonstrative pronoun sē

Number Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Case Singular Singular Singular
Nominative sē (that) sēo (that) Þæt Þa
Genitive Þæs þǽre Þæs Þāra
Dative þǽm þǽre þǽm þǽm
Accusative þone þā þæt þā
Instrumenta þý, þon þý
l

2. The adjective
4.1. Declension of adjectives

The paradigm of the adjective is similar to that of the noun and

the pronoun, i.e. it compromises Gender, Number, and Case.
The grammatical category of case was built up by five forms: the
Nominative, the Accusative, the Dative, the Genitive and the
Instrumental.
There were two ways of declining adjectives – the definite and
the indefinite declension. The adjective followed the definite
declension mainly if the noun if modified had another attribute – a
demonstrative pronoun, and they were declined as indefinite
otherwise.
The grammatical suffixes – forms of cases mainly coincided with
those of nouns with the stem originally ending in a vowel or -n, yet
in some cases we find pronominal suffixes example, in the Genitive
Plural, in Dative Singular, etc.
 93

Declension of adjectives

Decl Indefinite (strong) Definite (weak)

ension
Case
Nominative Зōd (good) Зōda
Genitive Зōdes
Dative Зōdum
Accusative Зōdne Зōdan
Instrumental Зōde
Nominative Зōde Зōdan
Genitive Зōdra Зōdra
Dative Зōdum Зōdum
Accusative Зōde Зōdan

4.2. Degrees of comparison

The adjective in Old English changed its forms not only to show
the relation of the given adjective to other words in the sentence
which was expressed by the gender, number and case of the
adjective, but also to show the degree of the quality denoted by the
adjective, i.e. the forms of the adjective in Old English could
expressed degrees of comparison.
The degrees of comparison were expressed, the same as all
other grammatical notions, synthetically, namely:
a) by means of suffixation:
heard – heardra – heardost (hard)
b) by means of vowel gradation plus suffixation:
eald – ieldra – ieldest (old)
c) by means of suppletive forms
Зōd – bettra – betst (good)

the first means being unquestionably the most common.

Both suffixation and the use of suppletive forms in the
formation of the degrees of comparison are original means that can
be traced back to Common Germanic. But the use of vowel
interchange is a feature which is typical of the English language
only and was acquired by the language in the pre-historic period of
its development.
The origin of vowel gradation in the forms
eald – ieldra – ieldest
 94
is a result of the process of palatal mutation which the root-
vowel ea underwent under the influence of the original stem-
forming suffix –i, ie.

Positive Comparative
Suppletive
degree degree degree

eald ieldra
ieldest

ealdira ealdist

ealdira > ieldra ealdist >

ieldest

A similar case is observed with strong (strong), long (long) etc.

‫٭٭٭‬

Summary

A careful study of the systems of declensions of nouns,

pronouns and adjectives shows that the pronominal and adjectival
paradigms are more developed, they are richer in the number of
word-forms. The homonymity of forms although existing (especially
in the declension of the definite adjective) is not so pronounced and
the oppositions between word-forms are more evident.
There were three kinds of declensions – noun, pronoun (with
two subdivisions) and adjective. They had the same grammatical
categories, the main difference being in the quantity of the
categorical forms of number (three number-forms in personal
pronouns) and case (four case-forms – nouns, five case-forms –
personal pronouns and adjectives).
The subdivision within the system of each part of speech was
based on the difference in the material forms (the nouns – based on
the original stem-suffix, the pronoun – the number of categorical
forms, the adjective – strong and weak declensions with the
functional difference.
 95

LECTURE

OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR. THE VERBAL SYSTEM

List of principal questions:

1. General survey of finite and non-finite forms of the verb
2. Grammatical categories of the finite forms of the verb
Person
Number
Tense
Mood
3. Morphological classification of verbs
Strong verbs
Weak verbs
Irregular verbs

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка.
М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского
языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 96
1. General survey of finite and non-finite forms of the verb

The verb-system in Old English was represented by two sets of

forms: the finite forms of the verb and the non-finite forms of the
verb, or verbals (Infinitive, Participles). Those two types of forms –
the finite and the non-finite – differed more than they do today from
the point of view of their respective grammatical categories, as the
verbals at the historical period were not conjugated like the verb
proper, but were declined like nouns or adjectives. Thus the
infinitive could have two case-forms which may conventionally be
called the “Common” case and the “Dative” case.

Common case Dative case

wrītan (to write) to writenne (so that I shall write)
cēpan (to keep) to cepenne (so that I shall keep)
drincan (to drink) to drincenne (so that shall I drink)

The so-called Common case form of the Infinitive was widely

used in different syntactical functions, the Dative case was used on
a limited scale and mainly when the Infinitive functioned as an
adverbial modifier of purpose, i.e.

Ic зā tō drincenne (I go to drink)

The participle had a well-developed system of forms, the

declension of the Participle resembling greatly the declension of
adjectives. The one typically “verbal” grammatical category of the
participle was the category of tense, for example:

Present tense Past tense

wrītende writen
cēpende cēpt
dricende druncen

2. Grammatical categories of the finite forms of the verb

As we have already said the system of conjugation mainly

embraced the finite forms of the verb as the non-finite forms were
not conjugated but declined. The system of conjugation of the Old
English verb was built up by four grammatical categories, those of
person, number, tense and mood.
 97

2.1. Person

There were three person forms in Old English: first, second and
third. For example:
First person – Ic wrīte
Second person – þu writes
Third person – hē wrīteð

But we have distinct person forms only in the Indicative mood,

the Imperative and the Oblique mood forms reflecting no person
differences and even the Indicative mood forms changing for person
only in the Singular, the plural forms being the same irrespective of
person, for example:

Present tense Indicative Past tense Indicative

Wē

Зē } wrītað } wrīton
Hīe

2.2. Number

The grammatical category of number was built up by the

opposition of two number forms – singular and Plural

Ic wrīte (singular)
Wē wrītað (plural)

2.3. Tense
The grammatical category of tense was represented by two
forms: Present tense and Past tense, for example:

Present Past

Indicative Ic wrīte Ic wrāt

Oblique ic wrīte Ic write
 98

There was no Future tense in Old English, future events were

expressed with the help of a present tense verb+ an adverb denoting
futurity or a combination of a modal verb (generally) sculan (shall)
or willan (will)+ an Infinitive, for example:

Wille ic āsecзan mǽrum þeodne ǽrende.

(I want to tell the glorious prince my mission)

2.4. Mood

There were three mood forms in Old English: Indicative,

Imperative and Oblique, for example:

Indicative Imperative Oblique

Þu cepst cēp cēpe

The Indicative Mood and the Imperative Mood were used in

cases similar to those in which they are used now but the Oblique
mood in Old English differed greatly from the corresponding mood
in New English. There was only one mood form in Old English that
was used both to express events that are thought of as unreal or as
problematic – today there are two mood forms to denote those two
different kinds of events, conventionally called the Subjunctive and
the Conjunctive.
The forms of the Oblique Mood were also sometimes used in
contexts for which now the Indicative Mood would be more suitable
– to present events in the so-called “Indirect speech”:

Hē sǽde þæt land sie swiþe lanз.

(He said that that land is very long/large).

3. Morphological classification of verbs

 99
LECTURE 6

CHANGES IN THE PHONETIC SYSTEM IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

AND NEW ENGLISH

1. Changes in the phonetic system in Middle English

Vowels in the unstressed position
Vowels under stress
Qualitative changes
Quantitative changes
Consonants
2. Changes in the phonetic system in New English
Vowels in the unstressed position
Vowels under stress
Qualitative change
Quantitative changes
Consonants
3. Changes in alphabet and spelling in Middle and New
English

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского
языка. М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.2 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История
английского языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 100

Changes in the Phonetic System in Middle English

1.1. Vowels in the unstressed position

All vowels in the unstressed position underwent a qualitative

change and became the vowel of the type of [ə] or [e] unstressed.
This phonetic change had a far-reaching effect upon the system of
the grammatical endings of the English words which now due to the
process of reduction became homonymous. For example:
- forms of strong verbs
Old English writan – wrāt – writon – written
with the suffixes –an,-on,-en different only in the vowel
component became homonymous in middle English:
written – wrōt – written
- forms of nouns
Old English Nominative Plural a-stem fiscas
Genitive Singular fisces
Middle English for both the forms is fisces;
Or
Old English Dative Singular fisce
Genitive Plural fisca
Middle English form in both cases is fisce.

1.2. Vowels under stress

1.2.1. qualitative changes

- changes of monophthongs
Three long monophthongs underwent changes in Middle English:

Old English Middle English New English

ā>ō stān stōn stone
bāt bōt boat

ǽ>ē slǽpan slēpen sleep

ў>ī fўr fīr fire

The rest of the monophthongs presenting their original quality, for

the example:
 101

Old English Middle English

ē [ē] tēþ teeth

ō [ō] tōþ tooth
ū ūt out
ī tīma time

out of the seven principal Old English short monophthongs:

a,e,o,I,u,æ,y – two changed their quality in Middle English thus [æ]
became [a] and [y] became [i], the rest of the monophthongs
remaining unchanged, for example:

Old English Middle English

þæt that
wæs was
first first
but:
tellan tellen
hors hors
singan singen
putan putten

- changes of diphthongs

all Old English diphthongs were contracted (became monothongs)

at the end of the old English period.

Diphthongs

Old English Middle English

ēo > ē dēop deep
ēa > ē brēad bread

eo > e seofon seven

ea > a eald ald

But instead of the former diphthongs that had undergone

contraction at the end of the Old English period there appeared in
Middle English new diphthongs. The new diphthongs. The new
 102
diphthongs sprang into being due to the vocalization of the
consonant [j] after the front vowels [e] or [æ] or due to the
vocalization of the consonant [γ] or the semi-vowel [w] after the back
vowels [o] and [a]. For instance:

Old English Middle English

dæз > dæз > dai

weз > weз > wei
grēз > greз > grei
draзan > drawen > drauen
āзan > 8wen > ouen
boзa > bowe > boue

Thus in Middle English there appeared four new diphthongs: [ai],

[ei], [au], [ou].

1.2.2. Quantative changes

Besides qualitative changes mentioned above vowels under stress
underwent certain changes in quantity.

- lengthening of vowels
The first lengthening of vowels took place as early as Late old
English (IX century). All vowels which occurred before the
combinations of consonants such as mb, nd, ld became long.

Old English Middle English

New English

[i] > [i:] climban climben

climb
Findan finden
find
Cild cild
child

[u] > [u:] hund hound

hound

The second lengthening of vowels took place in Middle English (XII –

XIII century). The vowel [a], [o] and [e] were affected by the process.
This change can be observed when the given vowels are found in an
open syllable.
 103
Old English Middle English
New English

a>ā talu tale

tale
e>ē sprecan speken
speak
o>ō hopian hopen
hope

- Shortening of vowels
All long vowels were shortened in Middle English if they are found
before two consonants (XI century).

Old English Middle English

New English

cēpte cepte
kept
wīsdōm wisdom
wisdom

Through phonetic process the lengthening and the shortening of

vowels mentioned above left traces in grammar and word-stock.
Due to it vowel interchange developed in many cases between:
- different forms of the same word;
- different words formed from the same root.
For instance:
Middle English [i:] – [i] child children
[e:] – [e] kepen but kept
[i:] – [i] wis wisdom

1.3. Consonants

The most important change in the consonant system that can be

observed if we compare the Old English and Middle English
consonant system will be the development of the fricative
consonant [∫] and affricates [t∫] and [dз] from old English palatal
consonants or consonant combinations thus:

[k’] > [∫t] cild child

 104
Benc bench
cin chin
cincen chicken

[sk’] > [∫] scip ship

Sceal shall

[g’] > [dз] bryc bridge

Thus we can notice that variants of some Old English consonant

phonemes developed differently. For example:
The phoneme denoted in Old English by the letter c had two
variants: [k] – hard and [k’] – palatal, the former remaining
unchanged, the latter giving us a new phoneme, the phoneme [t∫ ].
The phoneme denoted by the letters “g’ or “c “ and which existed in
four variants: [g’], [g] – in spelling “c “ and [j], [γ] – in spelling “g” had
the following development:
[g’] > [dз] bridge
[j], [γ] were vocalized: dæз > dai, зiet > yet,
boЗa > boue, draзan > drauen
[g] remained unchanged: зōd > good
Special notice should be taken of the development of such
consonant phonemes that had voiced and voiceless variants in Old
English, such as:
[f] – [v] in spelling f
[s] – [z] in spelling s
[θ] – [ð] in spelling ð,þ
They became different phonemes in Middle English.

‫٭٭٭‬

Summary – Middle English

1. Leveling of vowels in the unstressed position.

2. No principally new monophthongs in the system of the
language appeared, but the monophthongs of the [o] and [e]
type may differ: they are either “open” – generally those
developed from the Old English ā (stān > stōn) or “close” –
developing from the Old English ō (bōk > bōk (book))
3. The sounds [æ] and [y] disappeared from the system of the
language.
4. There are no long diphthongs.
 105
5. New diphthongs appeared with the glide more close than the
nucleus (because of the origin) as contrasted to Old English
with the glide more open than the nucleus.
6. No parallelism exists between long and short monophthongs
different only in their quantity.
7. The quantity of the vowel depends on its position in the word.
(a,o,e – always long in an open syllable or before ld, mb, nd.
All vowels are always short before two consonants, with the
exception of ld, mb, nd).
Only in one position – in a closed syllable before one
consonant vowels of any quantity could be found (wīs but pig).
New affricates and the fricative [∫] appeared in the system of
the language.
8. The resonance (the voiced or the voiceless nature) of the
consonants ([f], [v], [s], [z] and [θ],[ð]) became phonemic.

2. Changes in the phonetic system in New English

2.1. Vowels in the unstressed position

Vowels in the unstressed position already produced in Middle

English to the vowel of the [ə] type are dropped in New English if
they are found in the endings of words, for example:

Old English Middle English

New English

nama name
name [neim]
wrītan writen write
[rait]
sunu sone
son [sлn]

the vowel in the endings is sometimes preserved – mainly for

phonetic reason:
wanted, dresses
- without the intermediate vowel it would be very difficult to
pronounce the endings of such words.
 106

2.2. Vowels under stress

2.2.1. Qualitative changes

- changes of monophthongs

All long monophthongs in New English(XV – XVII century)

underwent a change that is called The Great Vowel Shift.
Due to this change the vowels became narrower and more front.
Thus:

Middle English New English

[ā] > [ei] make make

[ē] > [i:] see see
[ō] > [ou] ston stone
[ō] > [u:] roote root
moon moon
əəə

two long close vowels: [ū] and [ī] at first also became narrower and
gave diphthongs of the [uw] or [ij] type. But those diphthongs were
unstable because of the similarity between the glide and the
nucleus.
Consequently the process of the dissimilation of the elements of the
new diphthongs took place and eventually the vowels [ī] and [ū]
gave us the diphthongs [ai] and [au] respectively. For instance:

Middle English New English

[ū] > [au] hous house

[ī] > [ai] time time

Influence of the consonant “r” upon the Great Vowel Shift

When a long vowel was followed in a word by the consonant “r” the
given consonant did not prevent the Great Vowel Shift, but the
resulting vowel is more open, than the resulting vowel in such cases
when the long vowel undergoing the Shift was followed by a
consonant other than “r”. For example:

[ei] but [εə] fate but fare

 107
[i:] but [iə] steep but steer
[ai] but [aiə] time but tire
[u:] but [uə] moon but moor
[au] but [auə] house but hour

As a result of the Great Vowel Shift new sounds did not appear, but
the already existing sounds appeared under new conditions. For
example:

The sound existed the sound

appeared
Before the Shift after the Shift

[ei] wey make

[u:] hous moon
[i:] time see, etc.

Two short monophthongs changed their quality in New English

(XVII century), the monophthong [a] becoming [æ] and the
monophthong [u] becoming []. For instance:

Middle English New English

[a] > [æ] that that

[u] > [] cut cut

However, these processes depended to a certain extent upon the

preceding sound. When the sound [a] was preceded by [w] it
changed into [o]. Compare:

Middle English New English

[a] > [æ] that that

[a] > [o] was was

(but: wax [wæks])

Where the sound [u] was preceded by the consonants [p], [b] or [f],
the change of [u] into [] generally did not take place, hence:

bull, butcher, pull, push, full, etc.

 108
But sometimes even the proceeding consonant did not prevent the
change, for instance:

Middle English New English

[u] > [л] but [but] but [bлt]

Two out of the four Middle English diphthongs changed in New

English, the diphthong [ai] becoming [ei] and the diphthong [au]
contracted to [O:] For example:

Middle English New English

[ai] > [ei] dai day

[au] > [o:] lawe law

2.2.2. Quantitative change

Among many cases of quantitative changes of vowels in new English

one should pay particular attention to the lengthening of the vowel,
when it was followed by the consonant [r]. Short vowels followed by
the consonant [r] became long after the disappearance of the given
consonant at the end of the word or before another consonant:

Middle English New English

[a] > [a:] farm farm
[o] > [o:] hors horse

When the consonant [r] stood after the vowels [e], [i], [u], the
resulting vowel was different from the initial vowel not only in
quantity but also in quality. Compare:

Her
Fir [ε:]
Fur

or [h] before [t]: might, night, light.

2.3. Consonants

The changes that affected consonants in New English are not

numerous. They are as follows.
 109
a. Appearance of a new consonant in the system of
English phonemes – [з] and the development of the
consonants [dз] and [t∫] from palatal consonants.
Thus Middle English [sj], [zj], [tj], [dj] gave in New English
the sounds [∫], [з], [t∫ ], [d∫]. For example:
[sj] > [∫] Asia, ocean
[zj] > [∫] measure, treasure
[tj] > [t∫] nature, culture, century
[d] > [d] soldier
Note should be taken that the above-mentioned change took place
in borrowed words, whereas the sounds [t∫], [dз], [∫] which appeared
in Middle English developed in native words.
b. Certain consonants disappeared at the end of the word
or before another consonant, the most important
change of the kind affecting the consonant [r]:

Farm, form, horse, etc.

c. the fricative consonants [s], [θ] and [f] were voiced after
unstressed vowels or in words having no sentence
stress – the so-called “Verner’s Law in New English”:
possess, observe, exhibition; dogs, cats; the, this, that,
there, then, though, etc.

Summary – New English

The changes that affected the vowel and the consonant system in
New English were great and numerous.
Vowels – qualitative changes:

1. Difference of vowels in the unstressed position at the end of

the word.
2. Changes of all long vowels – the Great Vowel Shift
3. Changes of two short vowels: [a] > [æ] or [o] and [u] > [ ].

Vowels – Quantitative changes:

4. Changes of two diphthongs: [ai] > [ei], [au] > [o:].

5. Lengthening of vowels before [r] – due to the vocalization of
consonants.

Consonants:
 110
6. Appearance of the consonant [з] and the consonants [t∫], [dз]
in new positions.
7. Disappearance or vocalization of the consonant [r].
8. Voicing of consonants – Verner’s Law in New English.
9. Positional disappearance:
r vocalized at the end of the word: far
w before r write
k before n knight
h before t light

3. Changes in alphabet and spelling in Middle and

New English
As we remember, the Old English spelling system was mainly
phonetic. Strictly phonetic spelling means that every sound that
every sound is represented by only one distinct symbol and no
symbol represents more than one sound. However, the 13 th and 14th
centuries witnessed many changes in the English language,
including its alphabet and spelling. As a result of these
modifications the written form of the word became much closer to
what we have nowadays.
In Middle English the former Anglo-Saxon spelling tradition was
replaced by that of the Norman scribes reflecting the influence of
French and often mixing purely phonetic spelling with French
spelling habits and traditions inherited from old English. The
scribes substituted the so-called “continental variant” of the Latin
alphabet for the old “insular writing”. Some letters came into
disuse, replaced by new means of expressing the sounds formerly
denoted by them – thus the letter þ (“thorn”) and p (“wen”), being of
runic origin, unknown to the Norman scribes, disappeared
altogether. Some letters, already existing in Old English but being
not very frequent there, expanded their sphere of use – like the
letter k. New letters were added – among them j, w, v and z. many
diagraphs – combinations of letters to denote one sound, both vowel
and consonant – appeared, mostly following the pattern of the
French language.
The following letters disappeared:
Þ, ð [ð/θ] replaced by th: þat – that
З [g, j] g зod – god
or y Зear – year
æ [e] e lætan – leten (let)

p [w] w
 111

the following letters were introduced:

g for [g] in god and [d ] in siege
j for [d ] in words of French origin: joy, judge
k for [k] instead of c before front vowels and n:
drincan – drinken, cnawan – knowen.
v for [v] instead of f as a separate phoneme:
lufu – love [luva] until the 17th century reform v was an
allograph of u, the two letters often being interchangeable: over –
ouer, love – loue.
q for [k] (followed by u) in quay
or [kw] in cwen – queen to replace Old English cw
z for [z] as a separate phoneme: zel (zeal) although sometimes [z]
is still rendered by s: losen (lose), chesen (choose).
The following digraphs appeared:
consonant diagraphs:
ch for sound [t ] cild – child
dg [dЗ] bryc – bridge
gh [χ] riЗt – right
th [ð, þ] þencan – thinken
moðor – mother
sh [∫] scip – ship
ph [f] in words borrowed from Latin:
phonetics
ch [k] in words borrowed from Latin:
chemistry

vowel diagraph – to show the length of the vowel:

ea [e] mete – meat

ee [e] fet – feet
oa [o] fot – foot
ie [e:] feld – field
ou/ow [u:] hus – hous, tun – town

Some changes were made for ease of reading and for a better
visual image of the word:
k instead of c boc – book
y i by, my
w u now
In the final position for better visual separation of words
better
Besides, y and w were considered more ornamental than I and
u at the end of the word, allowing to finish it with an elegant curve.
 112
o instead of u cumen – come
on3unnen – begonne
sunu – sone
lufu – love
munuc – monk
Close to letters consisting only vertical strokes, such as u/v, n,
m

The New English period witnessed the establishment of the

literary norm presupposing a stable system of spelling. However,
the spelling finally fixed in the norm was influenced by many
factors, objective and subjective in character, preserving separate
elements of different epochs and showing traces of attempts to
improve or rationalized it.
In New English with the revival of learning in the 16 th century a
new principal of spelling was introduced, later to be called
etymological. It was believed that, whatever the pronunciation, the
spelling should represent to the eye the form from which the word
was derived, especially in words of Latin or Greek origin. Thus, the
word dett borrowed from French dette was respelled as debt, for it
could be traced to Latin debitum, dout borrowed from French
douter – as doubt from Latin dubitare.
However, the level of learning at that age was far from perfect,
and many of the so-called etymological spellings were wrong. Here it
is possible to mention such words as:
ME ake (from OE acan) result as ache from a wrongfully
supposed connection with Greek achos;
ME tonge (from OE tunge) respelt as tongue on analogy with
French langue, Latin lingua;
ME iland (from OE igland) respelt as island from a wrongfully
supposed connection with French isle, Latin insula;
ME scool borrowed in OE from Latin and always written with
sc- (OE scool) respelt as school, because in Latin the sound [k] in
words of Greek origin was rendered as ch;
ME delit borrowed from French delit came to be spelt with the
mute diagraph –gh- on analogy with light – delight, etc.
At the same time, the major phonetic changes of the period and
first of all, the Great Vowel Shift, found practically no
corresponding changes in spelling. This resulted in the present day
system where one sound can be denoted in several ways, for
instance:
 113
LECTURE 7

CHANGES IN THE NOMINAL SYSTEM IN MIDDLE ENGLISH AND

NEW ENGLISH

List of principal questions:

1. General survey of grammar changes in Middle and New

English.
2. The noun
Middle English
Morphological classification
Grammatical categories
New English
Morphological classification
Origin of irregular noun forms
Grammatical categories
3. the adjective
4. The pronoun
5. The article

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского
языка. М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История
английского языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 114
1. General survey of grammar changes in Middle English and
New English

The grammar system of the language in middle and new

English periods underwent radical changes. As we remember, the
principal means of expressing grammatical relations in Old English
were the following:

- suffixation
- vowel interchange
- use of suppletive forms,
all these means being synthetic.
In middle and New English many grammatical notions formerly
expressed synthetically either disappeared from the grammar
system of the language or came to be expressed by analytical
means. There developed the use of analytical forms consisting of a
form word and notional word, and also word order, special use of
prepositions, etc. – analytical means.
In Middle and New English we observe the process of the
gradual loss of declension by many parts of speech, formerly
declined. Thus in Middle English there declinable parts of speech:
the noun, the pronoun and the adjective, against five existing in Old
English (the above plus the infinitive and the participle). In New
English the noun and the pronoun (mainly personal) are only parts
of speech that are declined.

2. The noun
2.1. Middle English

1.1.1. Morphological classification

In Old English there were three principal types of declensions:

a-stem, n-stem and root-stem declension, and also minor
declensions: i-stem, u-stem and others. These types are preserved
in Middle English, but the number of nouns belonging to the same
declension in Old and Middle English varies. The n-stem
declension though preserved as a type has lost many of the nouns
belonging to it while the original a-stem declension grows in
volumes, acquiring new words from the original a-stem, root-stem
declensions, and also different groups of minor declensions and
also borrowed words. For example:
 115
Old English
Middle English

a-stem singular stān singular

stōn
plural stānas plural
stōnes

n-stem singular nama singular

name
plural namen plural
namen
root-stem singular bōc (book) singular book
plural bēc plural
bookes
Borrowed singular corage
(courage)
plural
corages

1.1.2. Grammatical categories

There are only two grammatical categories in the declension of

nouns against three in Old English: number and case, the category
of gender having been lost at the beginning of the Middle English
period.

Number

There are two number forms in Middle English: singular and

plural. For example:

Old English Middle English

Singular fisc fish

stān stōn
nama name

Plural fiscas fishes

stānas stōnes
naman names
 116
Case

The number of cases in Middle English is reduced as compared

to Old English. There are only two cases in Middle English:
Common and Genitive, the Old English Nominative, Accusative and
Dative case having fused into one case – the Common case at the
beginning of Middle English.
For example:

Old English Middle English

Nominative stān nama

Accusative stān naman } → Common case stōn
name
Dative stāne naman
Genitive stānes naman → Genitive case stōnes
names

Thus we see that the complicated noun paradigm that existed

in Old English was greatly simplified in Middle English, which is
reflected in the following:

1) reduction of the number of declensions;

2) reduction of the number of grammatical categories;
3) reduction of the number of categorical forms within one of
the remaining grammatical categories – the category of case.

2.2. New English

The process of the simplification of the system of noun

declension that was manifested in Middle English continued at the
beginning of the New English period.

2.2.1. Morphological classification

In Old English we could speak of many types of consonant and

vowel declensions, the a-, -n, and root-stem being principal among
them. In Middle English we observe only these three declensions: a-
stem, n-stem, root-stem. In New English we do not find different
declensions, as the overwhelming majority of nouns is declined in
 117
accordance with the original a-stem declension masculine, the
endings of the plural form –es and the Possessive –s being traced to
the endings of the original a-stem declension masculine, i.e.:

Old English Middle English

Nominative & Accusative Common Plural

Plural ending - as ending - es

Genitive Singular
ending - es Genitive Singular
ending -s

of the original n-stem and root-stem declensions we have in

New English but isolated forms, generally referred to in modern
grammar books as exceptions, or irregular noun forms.

2.2.2. Origin of modern irregular noun forms

All modern irregular noun forms can be subdivided into several

groups according to their origin:
a) nouns going back to the original a-stem declension,
neuter gender, which had no ending in the nominative
and accusative plural even in Old English, such as:

sheep – sheep (OE scēap – scēap)

deer – deer (OE dēor – dēor )
b) some nouns of the n-stem declension preserving their
plural form, such as:
ox – oxen (OE oxa – oxan)

c) the original s-stem declension word

child – children (OE cild – cildru)

In Middle English the final vowel was neutralized and the

ending –n added on analogy with the nouns of the original n-stem
declension. This shows that the power of the n-stem declension was
at the time still relatively strong.

d) remnants of the original root-stem declension, such as:

 118
foot – feet (OE fōt – fēt)
tooth – teeth (OE tōð – tēð)

e) “foreign plurals” – words borrowed in early New English

from Latin. These words borrowed were borrowed by
learned people from scientific books who alone used
them, trying to preserve their original form and not
attempting to adapt them to their native language.
Among such words are:
Datum – data, automaton – automata, axis – axes, etc.

It should be noted that when in the course of further history

these words entered the language of the whole people, they tended
to add regular plural endings, which gave rise to such doublets as:
molecula – moleculae and moleculas,
formula – formulae and formulas,
antenna – antennae and antennas,
the irregular form being reserved for the scientific style.

2.2.3. Grammatical categories

The category of gender is formal, traditional already in Old

English: in Middle English and New English nouns have no
category of gender.
The category of number is preserved, manifesting the difference
between singular and the plural forms.
The category of case, which underwent reduction first to three
and then to two forms, in New English contains the same number
of case-forms as in Middle English, but the difference is the number
of the nouns used in the Genitive (or Possessive) case – mainly
living beings, and the meaning – mainly the quality or the person
who possesses something.

The boy’s book

A women’s magazine
A two mile’s walk

Inanimate nouns are not so common

The river’s bank

The razor’s edge
 119
In Modern English, however, we observe a gradual spreading of
the ending -s of the Possessive case to nouns denoting things,
especially certain geographical notions, such cases as “England’s
prime minister” being the norm, especially in political style.

3. The adjective

Only two grammatical phenomena that were reflected in the

adjectival paradigm in Old English are preserved in Middle English:
declension and the category of number.
The difference between the Indefinite (strong) and the Definite
(weak) declension is shown by the zero ending for the former and
the ending –e for the latter, but only in the singular. The forms of
the definite and the indefinite declension in the plural have similar
endings.
For instance:

Singular Plural

Indefinite a yong squire

yonge
Definite the yonge sonne

The difference between number forms is manifested only in the

Indefinite (strong) declension, where thee is no ending in the
singular but the ending -e in the plural.
In New English what remained of the declension in Middle
English disappeared completely and now we have the uninflected
form for the adjective used for all purposes for which in Old English
there existed a complicated adjectival paradigm with the two
number-forms, five case-forms, three gender-forms and two
declensions.
As we have seen above, all grammatical categories and
declensions in Middle and New English disappeared. Contrary to
that degrees of comparison of the adjective were not only preserved
but also developed in Middle and New English. For example:
 120
Degrees of Comparison

Degree
Positive Comparative Superlative

Period
Old English heard heardra heardost
Middle hard hardre hardest
English hard harder hardest
New English

Old English eald ieldra/yldra ieldest

Middle ald eldre eldest
English old elder eldest
New English

Old English Зōd betera betst

Middle Зood bettre best
English good better best
New English

It should be noted, however, that out of three principal means

of forming degrees of comparison that existed in old English:
suffixation, vowel interchange and suppletive forms, there remained
as a productive means only one: suffixation, the rest of the means
seen only in isolated forms. At the same time there was formed and
developed a new means – analytical, which can be observed in such
cases encountered, for instance, in the works of J. Chaucer, as:

Comfortable – more comfortable.

2. The pronoun

In old English all pronouns were declined, and the pronominal

paradigm was very complicated. In Middle English the system was
greatly simplified and nowadays what remained of the pronominal
declension is mainly represented by the declension of the personal
pronoun and on a small scale – demonstrative and interrogative
(relative).

Case
 121

The four-case system that existed in Old English gave way to a

two-case system in Late Middle English and in New English. The
development may be illustrated by the following scheme of the
pronominal paradigm.

Personal Pronouns

Old English Middle English New

English

Nominative Ic → Nominative I → Nominative

I
Accusative mec
Dative mē } Objective me → Objective
me
Genitive mīn

Possessive Pronouns → mine →

mine

Gender

As a grammatical phenomenon gender disappeared already in

Middle English, the pronouns he and she referring only animate
notions and it – to inanimate.

Number

The three number system that existed in early Old English

(singular, dual, plural) was substituted by a two number system
already in late Old English.

5. The article

The first elements of the category of the article appeared already

in Old English, when the meaning of the demonstrative pronoun
was weakened, and it approach the status of an article in such
phrases as:

Sē mann (the mann), sēo sǽ (the sea), þæt lond (the land)
 122

However, we may not speak of any category if it is not

represented by an opposition of at least two units. Such opposition
arose only in Middle English, when the indefinite article an
appeared.
The form of the definite article the can be traced back to the old
English demonstrative pronoun sē (that, masculine, singular), which
in the course of history came to be used on analogy with the forms
of the same pronoun having the initial consonant [θ] and began to
be used with all nouns, irrespective of their gender or number.
The indefinite article developed from the Old English numeral
ān. In Middle English ān split into two words: the definite pronoun
an, losing a separate stress and undergoing reduction of its vowel,
and the numeral one, remaining stressed as only other notional
word. Later the indefinite pronoun an grew into the indefinite article
a/an, and together with the definite article the formed a new
grammatical category – the category of determination, or the
category of article.

‫٭٭٭‬
Summary

The system of the declinable parts of speech underwent

considerable simplification, at the same time developing new
analytical features:
1. Reduction in the number of the declinable parts of speech.
2. Reduction in the number of declensions (whatever is
preserved follows the a-stem masculine).
3. Reduction in the number of grammatical categories.
4. Reduction in the number of the categorical forms (the
category of number of personal pronouns and case – all
nominal parts of speech).
5. Formation of the new class of words – article.
 123
LECTURE 8

CHANGES IN THE VERBAL SYSTEM IN MIDDLE AND NEW

ENGLISH

List of principal questions:

1. Non-finite forms (verbals)
2. Morphological classification of verbs in Middle English and
New English
2.1. Strong verbs
2.1.1. Classes of strong verbs
2.1.2. Principal forms of the strong verbs
2.2. Weak verbs.
2.2.1. Classes of the weak verbs.
2.3. Origin of modern irregular verbs.
3. Grammatical categories of the English verb.

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского
языка. М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.2 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История
английского языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 124
1. Non-Finite forms (verbals)

A comparison of the verbals in Old English and in Middle

English and New English shows that the number of verbals in Old
English was less than that in Middle and New English. At the end of
the Middle English period a new verbal developed – the Gerund, in
addition to the Infinitive and the Participle existing already in old
English. The gerund appeared as a result of a blend between the
Old English present Participle ending “-ende” and the Old English
verbal noun ending in “-inge”. From the verbal noun the Gerund
acquired the form (the ending “-inge”), but under the influence of
the Participle it became more “verbal” in meaning.
In the process of English history the Verbals are gradually
shifting from the system of declension into the system of
conjugation thus in old English the verbals existing at the same
time: the infinitive and the participle could be declined. In the
course of language history (already at the end of the Old English
period) and the participle (in Middle English) lost their declension.
And at the end of the Middle and New English they acquired
elements of conjugation – the grammatical categories of order,
voice, and aspect (the infinitive) and the grammatical categories of
order and voice (the participle and the gerund). The Old English
preposition tō preceding the Dative case of the infinitive loses its
independent meaning and functions simply as a grammatical
particle showing that the Verbal is the Infinitive.
But even in Modern English we can find such contexts where
the form of the verbal is active, though the meaning is passive.
The book is worth reading
The coats needs ironing

or the non-perfect form expresses order, i.e. is used to express

events that took place prior to the action of the finite form of the
verbs:

I remember doing
I thanked him for brining the happy tidings.

Such phenomena reflect the previous stage of the development of

the English language, when the given verbals were indifferent to
voice and order.
 125

2. Morphological classification of verbs in Middle English and

New English
2.0. The subdivision of Old English verbs into strong and weak is
preserved with modifications in Middle English.

2.1. Strong verbs

2.1.1. Classes of the strong verbs

In New English, however, the original regularity that was

observed in the group of strong verbs in Old English and partly in
Middle English is no longer felt due to the following:
1) Splitting of original classes into subclasses, for example:

Old English New

English

rise – rose – risen

First class rīsan – rās – rison – risen

Bītan – bāt – biton – bitten
bite – bit – bitten

2) Some strong verbs of one class entering another class.

Thus, the Old English verb of the 5 th class:
Sprecan – spræcon – sprǽcon – sprecen

passed into the 5th class in Middle English with the forms:

speken – spak – speken – spoken

on analogy with such verbs as:

stelen – stal – stelen – stolen
 126
3) Passing of some strong verbs into the group of weak
verbs and (rarely) vice versa. For example:

Old English New English

I class gripan to grip

glidan to glide
II class crēopan to creep
Lēoзan to lie

III class climban to climb

Helpan to help

IV class bacan to bake

wæcnan to wake

The contrary process, as we have already said, is quite rare:

Old English New English

hŷdan to hide
wærian to wear

4) But some weak verbs acquired only some features of

the strong verbs, like the Old English weak verb
scēawian – Modern English show, showed, but shown.

2.1.2. Principal forms of the strong verbs

The strong verbs in Old English had four principal forms, for
example:

writan – wrāt – writon – written (to write)

bindan – band – bundon – bunden (to shake)

In Middle English, however, they exhibited a marked tendency

to have the same vowel in both the forms of the past tense, thus
gradually reducing the number of the principal forms to three. In
New English we have only three principal forms in verbs originally
belonging to the group of strong verbs:

write – wrote – written

 127

The vowel that is preserved in the past tense is generally traced

back to the vowel of Old English past tense singular. For example:

Old English Middle English

New English

I class wrāt wrōt

wrote (to write)

II class scōc shōk

shook (to shake)

But sometimes it is the vowel of the original past tense plural:

Old English bitan – bāt – biton – bitten

Middle English bitten – bot – bitten – bitten
New English bite – bit – bitten

with the past tense form deriving its vowel from the past tense
plural form of the verb.
Sometimes the vowel of the past tense form was borrowed from the
form of the past participle:

Old English stelan – stæl - stǽlon –stolen

Middle English stelen – stal – stelen – stolen
New English steal – stolen – stolen

2.2. Weak verbs

As we have said above the number of strong verbs was

diminishing in Middle English and New English mainly due to the
passing of some strong verbs into the weak conjugation. Weak
verbs, however, were becoming more and more numerous, as they
not only preserved in Middle and New English almost all the verbs
that were typical of the group in Old English, but also added to
their group the majority of borrowed verbs and about seventy
originally strong, and also such verbs as:

to call
to want Scandinavian borrowings
to guess
 128
to pierce
to punish French borrowings
to finish

to contribute
to create Latin borrowings
to distribute

Alike strong verbs many weak verbs became irregular in the

course of history, especially weak verbs of the first class. This
irregularity was mainly conditioned by qualitative and quantitative
changes that many weak verbs underwent in Middle and new
English. For example:

Old English cēpan – cēpte – cēpte – cēpt

Middle English kēpen – kepte – kept
New English keep – kept – kept

As we see the Old English weak verb of the first class became
irregular due to the quantitative change – shortening of the vowel in
the second and third forms in Middle English (before two
consonants – for example, pt), thus acquiring quantitative vowel
interchange. This quantitative interchange was followed by
qualitative in New English after the Great Vowel Shift, which only
the vowel of the first form, being long underwent, the short vowel of
the second and third forms retaining their quality.

2.2.1. Classes of the weak verbs

In Old English there were two principal classes of the weak

verbs. In Middle English some verbs that did not become irregular
lost the class difference and we have but one class of verbs going
back mainly to the weak verbs of the second class.
For instance:
Old English II class lufian – lufode – lufod (to love)
Middle English loven – lovede – luved

2.2.2. Principal forms of the weak verbs

 129
In Old English there were three principal forms of the weak
verbs, for instance:

cēpan – cēpte – cēpt (to keep)

lufian – lufode – lufod (to love)

In Late Middle English – Early New English, with the loss of the
final -e in the second form the second and the third form became
homonymous, thus we speak of three principal forms of such verbs
as to love or to keep mainly on analogy with original strong verbs,
and also because of the existing tradition as no Modern English
regular verb, originally belonging to the weak conjugation, shows
any trace of difference between the second and the third forms.
Thus in New English due to different phonetic process and
changes on analogy the two principal groups of verbs that existed in
Old English, strong and weak, gave us two principal groups of
Modern verbs: regular and irregular, neither of which is directly
derived from either of the Old English groups of strong and weak
verbs.

2.3. Origin of modern irregular verbs

In Old English most verbs were regular, although there were a

number of irregular ones. In Middle English not only the few Old
English irregular verbs were preserved, but also new irregular verbs
appeared. This was due, first of all, to the disappearance of the
division of verbs into strong and weak, most strong verbs losing
their regular pattern of conjugation and thus becoming irregular.
Another source of irregular verbs was the 1 st class of weak verbs
the irregularity of which was due to several reasons. In addition to
the examples given above we can show three groups of verbs
originally belonging to the 1st class of weak verbs, which later
became irregular:

a) verbs with a long root vowel, the root ending in -t or -d:

Old English mētan – mētte – mētt

Middle English meten – mette – mett
New English meet – met – met

In Middle English the root vowel of the second and the third
forms is shortened due to the rhythmic tendency of the language
requiring the shortening of all vowels if followed by two consonants.
The vowel interchange in Middle English is quantitative only.
 130
In New English the long root vowel in the first form due to the
Great Vowel Shift is changed qualitatively, so now we have both
quantitative and qualitative vowel interchange in the verb.

b) verbs with a long root vowel, the root ending in a consonant

other than -t or -d:

Old English cēpan – cēpte – cēpt

Middle English kepen – kepte – kept
New English keep – kept – kept

In Middle English the dental suffixation of the 2 nd and 3rd forms

is supplemented with a quantitative vowel interchange similar to
that explained above, and in New English we have both vowel
interchange (quantitative and qualitative) and suffixation as form-
building means.

c) verbs with a short vowel, the root ending in -t or -d:

Old English settan – sette – sett

Middle English setten – sette – sett
New English set – set – set

No changes took place in the root vowel, the ending disappeared

due to the final reduction of unstressed vowels, and now the verb
forms its forms without any material manifestation.
Even in the 2nd class of weak verb examples of irregularity can
be found. One of them is the verb to make.

Old English macian – macode – macod

Middle English maken – makede – maked
New English made – made – made

The middle syllable of the 2 nd and the 3rd forms was lost, making
the verb irregular.
Still another source of irregular verbs may be found in some
loan words borrowed into the language in Middle and New English.
Although most borrowed verbs formed their forms in accordance
with the weak verbs of the 2nd class, some of them are irregular.
Here it is possible to mention Scandinavian strong verb borrowings
which preserve their original vowel interchange and thus are
nowadays irregular, as:
 131
give – gave – given
take – took – taken
get – got – gotten

Another irregular loan word is the French borrowing to catch

(caught, caught) which is irregular, forming its forms on analogy
with the verb to teach (taught, taught).
Thus, among New English regular verbs there may be
encountered either native words (almost all Old English weak verbs
of the 2nd class and some Old English strong verbs having lost their
irregularity and forming their forms on analogy with the weak verbs
of the 2nd class, such as to help, to bake, etc.) or borrowings
(almost all loan verbs).

3. Grammatical categories of the English verb

In Old English the verb had four categories: person, number,

tense and mood.
In Middle English and New English there gradually developed
three more grammatical categories – order, voice and aspect.
These grammatical categories used a new grammatical means
for the formation, namely, analytical forms. These analytical forms
developed from free word combinations of the Old English verbs
habban, beon/wesan + an infinitive (or participle). The way of the
formation of those analytical forms was the following:
In the free word combination habban, beon/wesan + an
infinitive (or participle) the first element was gradually losing its
lexical meaning, and the second – its grammatical one, thus tending
to become notionally and grammatically inseparable, idiomatic.
The category of order was the oldest, formed already in Middle
English from the Old English free combination habban + past
participle.

Hīe hæfdon hīera cyninз āworþēnne

(They had already overthrown their king)

The younge sonne hath in the Ram his halve course y-runne
(the young sun has run its half-course in the Ram)

The same idea of order is sometimes still expressed with the

help of the combination to be + participle II, going back to the Old
English bēon + past participle:
This gentleman is happily arrived.
Now he is gone.
 132

The category of voice appeared out of free combination of

weorþan (beon) + past participle:

Old English hē wēarþ ofslæзen

(He was slain)
Middle English engendered is the flour
(The flower is generated [born])

The category of aspect was formed in Middle English on the

basis of the free combination of bēn (beon) + present participle:
Singinge hē was … al the dai
(he was singing all the day)

The grammatical categories of tense and mood which existed in

Old English acquired new categorical forms.
The Old English present and past tense forms were
supplemented with a special form for the future tense which
appeared in Middle English out of the free combination of Old
English modal verbs “sculan” and “willan” with the infinitive. This
free combination of words was split into two groups: in the first,
remaining free, the modal meaning is preserved:

You shall do it – necessity

I will do it – volition

The category of mood in Old English was represented by three

mood forms, one for each of the moods (indicative, subjunctive,
imperative). The subjunctive in Old English did not show whether
the events were probable or contrary to fact, but it had two tense
forms – past and present, which in the course of language history
developed into two subjunctive moods:

- I/he be present – out of the Old English present tense form of

the subjunctive mood
- I/he were present – out of the Old English past tense form of
the subjunctive mood.
The difference between these two subjunctive moods now is in
the shade of probability, and not in the tense, the second one
denoting events which are contrary to fact.
In addition to that at the end of Middle English and the
beginning New English two more subjunctive mood forms appeared
making use of the analytical form building means:
 133
- I/he should be present – to show events which are probable,
though problematic
- I should be present
} – to show imaginary events, contrary to fact
I would be present

Here should and would are the subjunctive mood forms of the
Old English sculan and willan.

‫٭٭٭‬
Summary

Thus the system of conjugation in Middle English and New

English is becoming more and more complicated:

1. New non-finite forms appeared (the gerund).

2. Conjugation of verbals and disappearance of their nominal
categories.
3. New grammatical forms are formed.
4. The already existing grammatical categories acquire new
forms.
5. the predominant regularity of the verbs and their
conjugation in Old English gives way to many diverse
irregularities.
 134
LECTURE 9

ENGLISH VOCABULARY

List of principal questions:

1. Old English
1.1. General characteristics
1.2. Means of enriching vocabulary
1.2.1. Internal means
1.2.2. External means

2. Middle English
2.1. General characteristics
2.2 Means of enriching vocabulary
2.2.1. Internal means
2.2.2. External means

3. New English
3.1. General characteristics
3.2 Means of enriching vocabulary
3.2.1. Internal means
3.2.2. External means

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского
языка. М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.2 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История
английского языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 135
1. Old English

1.1. General characteristics

The vocabulary of Old English was rather extensive. It is said to

have contained about 50 000 words. These words were mainly
native words. They could be divided into a number of strata. The
oldest stratum was composed of words coming from the Common
Indo-European parent tongue.
Many of these words were inherited by English together with
some other Indo-European languages from the same common
source, and we shall find related words in various Indo-European
languages. Compare:

Old English New English Latin Russian

mōþor mother mater мать

niht night nox ночь
nēowe new novus новый
beran bear ferre брать

Another layer, relatively more recent, was words inherited by

English and other Germanic languages from the same common
Germanic sources. You will find them in many languages, but only
those belonging to the Germanic group. Compare:

Old English New English German

eorðe earth Erde

land land Land
sǽ sea See
grēne green grűn
findan find finden

The third stratum, and not very extensive, was made up of

words that existed only in English, for instance, the word clypian
(to call), the root preserved somewhat obsolete words yclept
(named).
The vocabulary was changing all the time, old words becoming
extinct and new words entering the language, enriching it.
 136
As it is known, there are two principal ways of enriching the
vocabulary of a language: internal means – those that are inherited
in the language itself, and external means, which result from
contacts between peoples. The English – speaking people of that
period mainly used internal means of enriching the vocabulary to
adapt their language to the expression of more varied or new
notions.

1.2. Means of enriching vocabulary

While creating new words the English language, as we have

mentioned above, principally resorted to its own, internal means:
word derivation, primary affixation and vowel interchange, and
word composition.

1.2.1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary

- word derivation
In Old English affixation was widely used as a word-building
means.
There were very many suffixes, with the help of which new
nouns, adjectives, adverbs and sometimes verbs were formed, for
instance:
- noun suffixes of concrete nouns:
-ere fisc + ere (fisher)
-estre spin + estre (spinster) } denoting the doer of the
action
-inз cyn + inз (king)

- noun suffixes of abstract nouns:

-ð trēow + ð (truth)
-nis зōd + nis (goodness)
-scip frēnd + scip (friendship)
-dōm frēo + dōm (freedom)
-hād cild + hād (childhood)

- adjective suffixes
-iз īs + iз (icy), bys + iз (busy)
-isc Engl + isc (English), Frens + isc (French)
-ful car + ful (careful)
-lēas slæp + lēas (sleepless)
 137

Prefixes were used on a limited scale and they generally had a

negative meaning:

for- for + Зiefan (forgive)

mis- mis + dæd (misdeed)
un- un + cūð (uncouth)

Vowel interchange:

Noun Verb

Sonз (song) singan (to sing)

Dōm (doom) deman (to deem)

- Word composition
Word composition was a well-developed means of enriching
vocabulary in Old English. For instance:
Nouns
sǽ + man (seaman), gold + smið (goldsmith),
monan +dæз (Monday), sunan + dæз (Sunday)
Engla + land (land of Angles)

Adjective
īc + ceald (ice-cold)

1.2.3. External means of enriching

vocabulary

As we understand, borrowings into a language are a result of

contacts with other nations. The Germanic tribes had but few
contacts with other nations at the beginning of A.D., consequently
the number of borrowed words in Old English was not great. The
main borrowings that we can single out in Old English were Latin
and Celtic borrowings.

- Latin borrowings

The first Latin borrowings entered the language before the

Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians invaded
 138
the British Isles, i.e. at the time when they still lived on the
continent. Due to trade relations with their southern powerful
neighbour – the Roman Empire – Germanic tribes learned a
number of products that had been unknown to then, and,
consequently, their names. So the first stratum of borrowings is
mainly words connected with trade. Many of them are preserved
in Modern English, such as:

pound, inch, pepper, cheese, wine, apple, pear, plumb, etc.

The second stratum of words was composed of loan Latin words

that the German tribes borrowed already on British soil from the
Romanized Celts, whom they had conquered in the 5th century.
Those were words connected with building and architecture, as
the preserved nowadays:

title, wall, wall, mill, etc.

They denoted objects which the Germanic invaders encountered

on the British Isles.
The third stratum of Latin loan words was composed of words
borrowed after the introduction of the Christian religion. They are
generally of a religious nature, such as the present-day words:

bishop, devil, apostle, monk.

As Latin was the language of learning at the time, there also

entered the language some words that were not directly
connected with religion, such as:

Master, school, palm, lion, tiger, plant, astronomy, etc.

- Celtic borrowings

The Celtic language left very few traces in the English language,
because the Germanic conquerors partly exterminated the local
population, partly drove them away to the less fertile
mountainous parts of the country, where they were not within
reach of the invaders. The Celtic-speaking people who remained
on the territory occupied by the Germanic tribes were slaves, and
even those were not numerous. It is small wonder therefore that
the number of Celtic loan words was limited. Among the few
borrowed words we can mention:
 139
Down (the downs of Dover), binn (bin – basket, crib, manger),

Some Celtic roots are preserved in geographical names, such as:

Kil (church – Kilbrook), ball (house – Ballantrae), esk (water – river

Esk)
and some others.

2. Middle English

2.1. General characteristics

An analysis of the vocabulary in the Middle English period

shows great instability and constant and rapid change. Many words
became obsolete, and if preserved, then only in some dialects: many
more appeared in the rapidly developing language to reflect the
ever-changing life of the speakers and under the influence of
contacts with other nations.

2.2. Means of enriching vocabulary in Middle English

2.2.1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary

Though the majority of Old English suffixes are still preserved

in Middle English, they becoming less productive, and words
formed by means of word-derivation in Old English can be treated
as such only etymologically.
Words by means of word-composition in Old English, in Middle
English are often understood as derived words.

2.2.2. External means of enriching vocabulary

The principal means of enriching vocabulary in Middle English

are not internal, but external borrowings. Two languages in
succession enriched the vocabulary English of that period – the
Scandinavian language and the French language, the nature of the
borrowings and their amount reflecting the conditions of the
contacts between the English and these languages.

- Scandinavian borrowings

The Scandinavian invasion and the subsequent settlement of

the Scandinavians on the territory of England, the constant
 140
contacts and intermixture of the English and Scandinavians
brought about many changes in different spheres of the English
language: word-stock, grammar and phonetics. The relative ease of
the mutual penetration of the languages was conditioned by the
circumstances of the Anglo-Scandinavians contacts.
Due to contacts between the Scandinavians and the English
people many words were borrowed from the Scandinavian language,
for example:

Nouns: law, fellow, sky, skirt, skill, egg, anger, awe, bloom,
knife, root, bull, cake, husband, leg, wing, guest, loan, race

Adjectives: big, weak, wrong, ugly, twin

Verbs: call, cast, take, happen, scare, hail, want, bask, gape,
kindle

Pronouns: they, them, their

The conditions and the consequences of various borrowings

were different.
1. Sometimes the English language borrowed a word which it
had no synonym. These words were simply added top the
vocabulary. Examples: law, fellow
2. The English synonym was ousted by the borrowing.
Scandinavian Taken (to take) and callen (to call) ousted
the English synonyms niman and clypian, respectively.
3. Both the words, the English and the corresponding
Scandinavian, are preserved, but they became different in
meaning. Compare Modern English native words and
Scandinavian borrowings:

Native Scandinavian
borrowing
Heaven sky
Starve die

4. Sometimes a borrowed word and an English word are

etymologically doublets, as words originating from the
same source in Common Germanic.
Native Scandinavian
borrowing
shirt skirt
shatter scatter
 141
raise rear

5. Sometimes an English word and its Scandinavian doublet

were the same in meaning but slightly different
phonetically, and the phonetic form of the Scandinavian
borrowing is preserved in English, having ousted the
English counterpart. For example, modern English to
give, to get come from the Scandinavian gefa, geta, this
ousted the English giefan and gietan, respectively.
Similar English words: gift, forget, guild, gate, again.
6. There may be a shift of meaning. Thus, the word dream
originally meant “joy, pleasure”; under the influence of the
related Scandinavian word it developed its modern
meaning.

- French borrowings

It stands to reason that the Norman Conquest and the

subsequent history left deep traces in the English language, mainly
in the form of borrowings in words connected with such spheres of
social and political activity where French-speaking Normans had
occupied for a long time all places of importance. For example:
- Government and legislature:
government, noble, baron, prince, duke, court, justice, judge,
crime, prison, condemn, sentence, parliament, etc.
- military life:
army, battle, peace, banner, victory, general, colonel,
lieutenant, major, etc.
- religion:
religion, sermon, prey, saint, charity, etc.
- city crafts:
painter, tailor, carpenter, etc. (but country occupations
remained English: shepherd, smith, etc.)
- pleasure and entertainment:
music, art, feast, pleasure, leisure, supper, dinner, pork, beef,
mutton, etc. (but the corresponding names of domestic animals
remained English: pig, cow, sheep)
- words of everyday life:
air, place, river, large, age, boil, branch, brush, catch, change,
chain, chair, table, choice, cry, cost, etc.
- relationship:
aunt, uncle, nephew, cousin.
 142

The place of the French borrowings within the English

language was different:

1. A word may be borrowed from the French language to

denote notions unknown to the English up to the time:
Government, parliament, general, colonel, etc.
2. The English synonym is ousted by the French borrowing:

English French
micel large
here army
ēa river
3. Both the words are preserved, but they are stylistically
different:

English French
to begin to commence
to work to labour
to leave to abandon
life existence
look regard
ship vessel

As we see, the French borrowings are generally more literary

or even bookish, the English word – a common one; but
sometimes the English word is more literary. Compare:
Foe (native, English) – enemy (French borrowing)

4. Sometimes the English language borrowed many words

with the same word-building affix. The meaning of the
affix in this case became clear to the English-speaking
people, and they began to add it to the English words,
thus forming word-hybrids. For instance: the suffix –
ment entered the language within such words as
“government”, “parliament”, “agreement”, but later there
appeared such English-French hybrids, such as
fulfillment, amazement
The suffix –ance/-ence, which was an element of such
borrowed words as “innocence”, “ignorance”, “repentance”,
now also forms words-hybrids, such as hindrance
A similar thing: French borrowings “admirable”,
“tolerable”, “reasonable”, but also:
 143
Readable, eatable, unbearable.

5. One of the consequences of the borrowings from French

was the appearance of the etymological doublets.
- from the Common Indoeuropean:

native borrowed

fatherly paternal

- from the Common Germanic:

native borrowed

yard garden
ward guard
choose choice

- from Latin:

Earlier later
(Old English borrowing) (Middle English
borrowing)
Mint money
Inch ounce

6. Due to the great number of French borrowings these

appeared in the English language such families of words,
which though similar in their root meaning, are different
in origin:

native borrowed

mouth oral
sun solar
see vision

7. There are calques on the French phrase:

 144
It’s no doubt Se n’est doute
Without doubt Sans doubte
Out of doubt Hors de doute

3. New English

3.1. General Characteristics

The language in New English is growing very rapidly, the

amount of actually existing words being impossible to estimate.
Though some of the word existing in Old English and Middle
English are no longer used in New English, the amount of new
words exceeds the number of obsolete ones manifold.
Both internal means and external means are used for the
purpose of enriching vocabulary, and the importance of either of
them is hard to evaluate.

3.2. Means of enriching vocabulary in New English

3.2.1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary

The principal inner means in New English is the appearance of

new words formed by means of conversion. Usually new words are
formed by acquiring a new paradigm and function within the
sentence. Thus, book (a noun) has the paradigm book – books.
Book (a verb) has the paradigm book – books – booked – booking,
etc. (the book is on the table – He booked a room)
Similarly:
Man (n) – man (v)
Stone (n) – stone (v) – stone (adj.)
(as in “a stone bench”), etc.

3.2.2. External means of enriching vocabulary

Very many new words appear in New English due to borrowing.

It is necessary to say here that the process of borrowing, the
sources of loan words, and the nature of the new words is different
from Middle English and their appearance in the language cannot
be understood unless sociolinguistic factors are taken into
consideration.
 145
Chronically speaking, New English borrowing may be
subdivided into borrowings of the Early New English period – XV-
XVII centuries, the period proceeding the establishment of the
literary norm – in the XVIII-XX centuries, the period which is
generally alluded to as Late New English.
- Early New English borrowings (XV – XVII centuries)

Borrowings into the English language in the XV – XVII centuries

are primarily due to the political events and also to the cultural
and trade relations between the English people and peoples in
other countries. Thus, in the XV century – the epoch of
Renaissance, there appeared in the English language many
words borrowed from the Italian tongue:
Cameo, archipelago, dilettante, fresco, violin, balcony, gondola,
grotto, volcano;
In the XVI century – Spanish and Portuguese words such as:
Armada, Negro, tornado, mosquito, renegade, matador
And also Latin (in the language of culture of that period), for
instance:

- verbs, with the characteristic endings-iate, -ute ;

aggravate, abbreviate, exaggerate, frustrate, separate, irritate,
contribute, constitute, persecute, execute, etc.
- adjectives ending in -ant, -end, - ior, -al:
arrogant, reluctant, evident, obedient, superior, inferior,
senior, junior, dental, cordial, filial.

As a result of numerous Latin borrowings at the time there

appeared many etymological doublets:

Latin

strictum

(direct ) strict strait (through

French)

Siniorem
 146

Senior sir

Factum

Fact feat

In the XVII century due to relations with the peoples of America

such words were borrowed as:
Canoe, maize, potato, tomato, tobacco, mahogany, cannibal,
hammock, squaw, moccasin, wigwam, etc.

French borrowings – after the Restoration:

Ball, ballet, billet, caprice, coquette, intrigue, fatigue, naïve.

- Late New English borrowings (XVIII – XX centuries)

- German: kindergarten, waltz, wagon, boy, girl

- French: magazine, machine, garage, police, engine, nacelle,

aileron

- Indian: bungalow, jungle, indigo

- Chinese: coolie, tea

- Arabic: caravan, divan, alcohol, algebra, coffee, bazaar,

orange, cotton, candy, chess

- Australian: kangaroo, boomerang, lubra

- Russian: borzoi, samovar, tsar, verst, taiga, sputnik, lunnik,

glasnost, perestroika, etc.

In New English there also appeared words formed on the basis

of Greek and Latin vocabulary. They are mainly scientific or
technical terms, such as:

telephone, telegraph, teletype, telefax, microphone, sociology,

politology, electricity, etc.
 147
LECTURE 12

ETHYMOLOGICAL STRATA
IN MODERN ENGLISH

List of principal questions:

1. General characteristics
2. native element in Modern English
2.1. Common Indo-European stratum
2.2. Common Germanic stratum
3. Foreign element in Modern English
(borrowings)
3.1. Latin element
3.2. Scandinavian element
3.3. French element
4. Word-hybrids
5. Etymological doublets
6. Sources of the new words in modern English

Literature
1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the
English language. M., 2003.
2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского
языка. М., 2000.
4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История
английского языка. СПб., 1998.
6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.
 148
1. General characteristics

The English vocabulary of present-day English reflects as no

other aspect of the language the many changes in the history of the
people and various contacts which the English people had with
many nations and the countries. The long and controversial history
of the people is reflected in its vocabulary and especially in the
number of loan words in it, different in origin and time of their
entering the language and the circumstance under which the
acquisition of the foreign element took place. So large is the number
of foreign words in English that it might at first be supposed that
the vocabulary has lost its Germanic nature.
However, the functional role of the native element: the nations
expressed by native words, their regularity and frequency of
occurrence, lack of restrictions to their use in written and oral
speech of different functional styles, proves that the Germanic
element still holds a fundamental place, and the English vocabulary
should be called Germanic.

2. Native element in Modern English

English native words form two etymological strata: the Common

Indo-European stratum and the Common Germanic stratum.

2.1. Common indo-European stratum

The words forming this stratum are the oldest in the

vocabulary. They existed thousands of years B.C., at the time when
it was yet impossible to speak about separate Indo-European
languages, as well as about various nations in Europe. Words of the
Common Indo-European vocabulary have been inherited by many
modern Indo-European languages, not only Germanic, which is
often a possible proof of these words belonging to the Common
Indo-European stratum. Compare:

English Latin Russian

mother mater мать

brother frater брат
night nox ночь
be fieri быть
stand stare стоять
two duo два
three tres три
 149
ten decem десять

2.2. Common Germanic stratum

There are also words inherited from Common Germanic.

Common Germanic is supposed to exist before it began splitting
into various subgroups around the 1st century B.C. – 1st A.D. these
words can be found in various Germanic languages, but not in
Indo-European languages other than Germanic.

English Germanic Swedish

man Mann man

earth Erde jord
harm Harm harm
green grün grőn
grey grau grā

The occurrence or non-occurrence of corresponding words in

related languages is often a proof of their common origin. But,
certainly, the word could be borrowed from the same source into
different languages, especially if we speak about languages in
modern times.

3. Foreign element in Modern English (borrowings)

As we know, borrowed words comprise more than half the

vocabulary of the language. These borrowings entered the language
from many sources, forming consequently various etymological
strata. The principal ones here are as follows:
- the Latin element
- the Scandinavian element
- the French element

3.1. Latin element

The first Latin words entered the language of the

forefathers of the English nation before they came to Britain. It
happened during a direct intercourse and trade relations with the
peoples of the Roman Empire. They mainly names of household
items and products:
 150

Apple, pear, plum, cheese, pepper, dish, kettle, etc.

Already on the Isles from the Romanized Celts they borrowed

such words as:

Street, wall, mill, tile, port, caster (camp – in such words as

Lancaster, Winchester).

Words of this kind denoted objects of Latin material culture.

Latin words such as:

Alter, bishop, candle, church, devil, martyr, monk, nun, pope,

psalm, etc.

were borrowed after the introduction of the Christian religion

th
(7 century), which is reflected in their meaning.
The number of these words inherited from Old English is almost
two hundred.
We mentioned these words as Latin borrowings in the sense
that they entered English from Latin, but many of them were Greek
borrowings into Latin, such as:

Bishop, church, devil

and many others.

Another major group of Latin borrowings entered English with
the revival of learning (15th – 16th centuries). Latin was drawn upon
for scientific nomenclature, as at the time the language was
understood by scientists all over the world, it was considered the
common name-language for science. These words were mainly
borrowed through books, by people who knew Latin well and tried
to preserve the Latin form of the world as much as possible. Hence
such words as:

Antenna – antennae, index – indices, datum – data, stratum –

strata, phenomenon – phenomena, axis – axes, formula – formulae,
etc.

Very many of them have suffixes which clearly mark them as

Latin borrowings of the time:
- verbs ending in –ate, - ute: aggravate, prosecute
- adjectives ending in –ant, -ent, -ior, -al: reluctant, evident,
superior, cordial.
 151

These word-building elements together with the stylistic sphere

of the language where such words are used are generally sufficient
for the word attribution.

3.2. Scandinavian element

Chronologically words of Scandinavian origin entered the

language in the period between the 8 th and the 10th centuries due to
the Scandinavian invasions and settlement of Scandinavians on the
British Isles, with subsequent though temporary union of two
important divisions of the Germanic race. It is generally thought
that the amount of words borrowed from this source was about
5000, though some linguists surmise that the number could have
been even greater, but due to the similarity of the languages and
scarcity of written records of the time it is not always possible to
say whether the word is a borrowed one or native, inherited from
the same Common Germanic source.
Such words may be mentioned here, as:

They, then, their, husband, fellow, knife, law, leg, wing, give,
get, forgive, forget, take, call, ugly, wrong.

As we said, words of Scandinavian origin penetrated into the

English language so deeply that their determination is by no means
easy. However, there are some phonetic/spelling features of the
words which in many cases make this attribution authentic
enough. These are as follows:
- words with the sk/sc combination in the spelling, as:

sky, skin, skill, scare, score, scald, busk, bask

(but not some Old French borrowings as task, scan, escape)

- words with the sound [g] or [k] before front vowels [i], [e], [ei],
in the spelling I, e, ue, ai, a (open syllable) or at the end of the
word:

give, get, forgive, forget, again, gate, game, keg, kid, kilt, egg,
drag, dregs, flag, hug, leg, log, rig.

There are also personal names of the same origin, ending in –

son:

Jefferson, Johnson
 152

Or place names ending in –ly, thorp, -toft (originally meaning

“village”, “hamlet”):

Whitly, Althorp, Lowestoft

These places are mainly found in the north-east of England,

where the Scandinavian influence was stronger than in other parts
of England.
3.3. French element

The French element in the English language is a large and

important one. Words of this origin entered the language in the
Middle and New English periods.
Among Middle English borrowings we generally mention earlier
borrowings, their source being Norman French – the dialect of
William Conqueror and his followers. They entered the language in
the period beginning with the time of Edward the Confessor and
continued up to the loss of Normandy in 1204.
Later Middle English borrowings have as their source Parisian
French. The time of these borrowings may be estimated as end of
the 13th century up to 15000.
These words are generally fully assimilated in English and felt
as its integral part:

Government, parliament, justice, peace, prison, court, crime,

etc.

Many of these words (though by no means all of them) are

terms used in reference to government and courts of law.
Later Middle English borrowings are more colloquial words:

Air, river, mountain, branch, cage, calm, cost, table, chair.

The amount of these Middle English borrowings is as estimated

as much as 3,500.
French borrowings of the New English period entered the
language beginning with the 17th century – the time of the
Restoration of monarchy in Britain, which began with the accession
to the throne of Charles II, who had long lived in exile at the French
court:
 153
Aggressor, apartment, brunette, campaign, caprice, caress,
console, coquette, caravat, billet-doux, carte blanche, etc.

Later also such words appeared in the language as:

Garage, magazine, policy, machine.

It is interesting to note that the phonetics of French borrowings

always helps us to prove their origin.
These phonetic features are at least two: stress and special
sound/letter features. Concerning the first (stress), words which do
not have stress on the first syllable is a prefix are almost always
French borrowings of the New English period. Words containing the
sounds [∫] spelled not sh, [dз] – not dg, [t∫] – not ch and practically
all words with the sound [З] are sure to be of French origin:

Aviation, social, Asia, soldier, jury, literature, pleasure,

treasure.
4. Word-hybrids

The extensive borrowing form various languages and

assimilation of loan words gave rise to the formation in English of a
large number of words the elements of which are of different origin –
they are generally termed word-hybrids.

English French
be- - cause because
a- - round around
a- curse accurse
out cry outcry
over power overpower
fore front forefront
salt cell(ar) saltcellar
false hood falsehood

French English
hobby horse hobbyhorse
scape goat scapegoat
trouble some troublesome
plenty -ful plentiful
aim -less aimless
re- take retake
 154
English Scandinavian
par- take partake
bandy leg bandy-legged

French Scandinavian
re- call recall

Latin French
juxta- position juxtaposition

5. Etymological doublets

Etymological doublets are words developing from the same word

or root, but which entered the given language, in our case English,
at different times of through different channels. Classifying them
according to the ultimate source of the doublets we shall receive the
following:

Ultimate source Modern doublets

Period and channel

Common Indo-European

‫٭‬pater fatherly
native

Common Germanic

‫٭‬gher- yard native

garden M.E.
French borrowing

6. Sources of the new words in modern English

As it is to be expected in the light of the English disposition to

borrow words from other languages in the past, many of the new
words have been taken over ready-made from French, Italian,
Spanish, and many other languages. It should be noted that the
wholesale borrowing of words from other languages did not meet
 155
with universal favour in the past. The strongest objection to the new
words was on the score of their obscurity. The opposition to obscure
new words was at its height in the middle of the 16 th с. but at the
end of this century it had largely spent its force. By this time
borrowing had gone so far that the attack was rather directed at the
abuse of the process of borrowing than at borrowing itself. The use
of unfamiliar words could easily be overdone. The attitude of most
men seems to have been one of compromise. Indeed the surprising
thing about the movement is the number of words that seem now to
be indispensable. Many of such borrowings are in such "common
use today that it is hard for us to realize that some hundred years
ago they were so strange and obscure as to be a subject of
controversy.
In entering the language, some words retained their original
forms and others underwent changes. Sometimes the same word
has been borrowed more than once in the course of time. А word
when introduced а second time often carries а different meaning.
There are some things about language that we cannot explain. One
of them is why certain words survive while others, apparently as
good, do not. For instance, in Shakespeare's day no one could have
told whether one should sау "effectuous, effectfu1, effectuating,
effective, or effectual". Two of these five options have survived. It
was necessary for time to do the sifting
Sixteenth-century purists objected to three classes of strange
words, which they characterized as "ink horn terms, oversea
language, and Chaucerisms″. For the foreign borrowings in this
period were by no means confined to learned words from Latin and
Greek. The English vocabulary at this time shows words taken from
more than fifty languages, the most important of which (besides
Latin and Greek) were French, Italian, and Spanish. In order to
appreciate the importance of the Renaissance in enriching the
English vocabulary it is worth to form some idea of the number of
new words added, at this time. А calculation gives а figure
somewhat above 12,000. About half of the total number has
become а permanent part of the language.
In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his famous dictionary in
two volumes. It exhibited the English vocabulary much more fully
than had ever been done before. It offered а spelling that could be
accepted as standard, it supplied thousands of quotations
illustrating the use of words. In the latter half of the 18 th century we
find the beginning of the modern doctrine that "every language has
its peculiarities; they are established by usage, and whether right or
strong, they must be complied with" (Chesterfield). At the same time
we see strong attempts to reform the vocabulary and further
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objections to foreign borrowings in the 18 th and 19th centuries. Most
of the words criticized are still in use, and. these misguided efforts
to ban them show the futility of trying to interfere with the natural
course of linguistic history. The expansion of the British empire
which began towards the end of the 16 th century and reached its
height in the end of the last century is to be seen in the vocabulary
New colonies mean new experiences, new activities, new products,
all of which are in time reflected in the language. Thus, one of the
reasons for the cosmopolitan character of the English vocabulary
today is seen to be the multitude of contacts the English language
has had other languages in widely scattered parts of the world.
The most striking thing about our present-day civilization is
probably the part, which science and technology have played in
bringing it to pass. In every field of science, pure and applied, there
has been need in the last hundred years for thousands of new
terms. The great majorities of these are technical words known only
to specialist, but а certain number of them in time become familiar
and pass into general use.
А second source of new words is represented in the practice of
making self-explaining соmpounds, one of the oldest methods of
word-format1on in the Engl1sh language. Of recent origin are
"teenage, teen-ager, know-how, lipstick, speedboat, searchl1ght",
etc' The same method may be employed in forming words from
elements derived from Lat1n and Greek, and this has long been а
favourite source of scientific terms. А few minutes spent in looking
up recent scientific words in any dictionary will supply а lot of
illustrations of th1s common method of English word-formation.
Another method of enlarging the vocabulary is by appending
familiar prefixes and suffixes to existing words on the pattern of
similar words in the language, Thus in the period under discussion
there have appeared "transcontinental, trans-Siberian, transliterate,
transformer" etc.
А considerable number of new words must be attributed to
invention or coinage, Thus а trade mark like "Kodak" seems to be
pure invention, while "nylon" contains recognizable elements "New
York" and "London". Another source from where many English
words have been derived in the past the names of persons and
places. Cf. such words as "sandwich, boycott, lynch, raglan,
quisling" etc.
It is necessary to say something about the way in which words
gradually change their meaning. Words can undergo extension of
meaning, narrowing of meaning, degeneration and regeneration. By
extension of meaning it meant the widening of а word's signification
until it covers much more that the idea originally conveyed. The
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tendency 1s sometimes called generalization. The opposite tendency
is for а word gradually to acquire а more restricted sense or to be
chiefly used in one special connection. Degeneration of meaning
may take several forms; the opposite process is known as
regeneration. Thus the word "lovely" (worthy to be loved) is now an
example of extension of meaning; "doctor", "thank" and "to park" are
cases of narrowing of meaning; cases of degeneration of meaning
are words for а woman's under-clothes (degraded euphemisms:
"smock" (18th century), "shift, chemise" (19th century),
th
"combinations, step-ins" etc (20 century); examples of regeneration
are "smock" (an outer garment) in the 20 th century, "snob" and
"sham" (former slang words) in the 19th century.
The greatest dictionary of any language in the world - The
Oxford English Dictionary - (the first volume appeared in 1884 and
the last one in 1933) - treats more 250,000 main words of the
English language embracing the Old, Middle and Modern periods
and exhibiting the history of each word — its forms, its various
spellings, and all its uses and meanings, past and present. The
last-named feature is shown by а full selection of quotations from
the whole range of English writings. The influence of this great
publication has been far-reaching and its authority is recognized
throughout the world. Another great dictionary meeting the
requirements of the English-speaking world is Webster's New
International Dictionary, which contains 600,000 entries.
We have seen, then, how Modern English has developed а
vocabulary of great extent and richness, drawn from many
languages of the world. The Renaissance period is noted for its great
influx of vocabulary, making the vocabulary of English perhaps the
largest of and language. Thus English has extensive resources to
satisfy various kinds of users and various goals.
It goes without saying, that the frontiers of language advance
more precipitously in vocabulary than in any other area, and the
introduction of new words – and of new meanings for old ones -
reflects developments and innovations in the world at large and in
society.
In the late 1980s on the wider international scene it was the era
of 'perestroika'. М.Gorbachev's reforms so captured the Western
imagination that the two key Russian terms (glasnost and
perestroika) developed wider metaphorical meanings in English and
were used with English adjectival endings (glasnostian and
perestroikan).
Reflecting its continuing vigour, the financial sector remains а
prodigal coiner of neologisms (circuit breaking, fan clubs, foothold
buying, rocket scientists, tin parachutes, etc.). Nor far behind
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wealth as а word-creator comes computing (electronic virus,
phantom bug, earcon, exput, etc.). AIDS has а strong impact,
lexically as well as socially (condomania, homophobia, Lyme
disease). The verbal turnover in the pop scene is as frentic as ever
(beach music, goth, sceed-metal, psychobilly, etc.) Crime is as
innovative ever (death star, survivalist, home pаrо1е, receiver-
dialler, etc.).
The perennial urge to euphemism is as marked as ever.
Weapons of unparalleled destructive capacity have become "assets",
spying on one's business rivals is "competitor analysis", and if
something gets worse is "disimproves", (cf. also downsizing,
physically different, etc.).
The bread-and-butter routes to the formation of new words in
Modern English are compounding and the addition of prefixes and
suffixes, and especially blending, in which parts of two distinct
words are joined together to form а third (e.g. affluence + influenza
= affluenza, fertilize + irrigation = fertigation, magazine + catalogue
= magalog). Next in popularity to blends is the omnipresent
acronym (Erops, Hero, NIC, PINC, etc.). Conversion - the
reallocation of а word to а different part of speech - continues
vigorously, producing mainly verbs, from nouns and adjectives
(feeder, flan, gender, office, rear-end, silicone, source, stiff, wide)
but also transforming verbs into nouns (spend). А related
phenomenon, typically originating in American English, is the
reversal of а verb from transitivity to intransitivity and vice versa
(air, commit, lag). Currently thriving affixes include -aholic
(clothesahc1ic, milkaholic), -ati (jiazzerati, numerati), cross- (cross-
marketing, cross-selling), -eur (arbitrageur. conplomerateur), -ie,
'an obsessive enthusiast (Cuppie, winie), -ism/
-ist (fattyism, genderist), must-(must-buy, must-see), and -nomies
(Reaganomics). Backformation ( words coined by removing an affix
from an existing word) includes "accreditate", "bezzle", "flake",
"gram" and "tack".
English continues to borrow words from other languages.
This does not happen only between different languages, but
also between varieties of the same language. The best known
instance of this is the borrowing of American English words and
meanings into British English (cf. advance man, gofer, honcho, off-
limits, patsy, preschooler).