Lecture 1.

The subject of the history of English.

A language can be studied synchronically and diachronically. In the synchronic approach a
language is regarded as a fixed unchangeable system, while in the diachronic approach every
linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or a step in the never ending evolution of the language. In
studying the history of the English Language we consider its phonetics, grammar and word-stock
diachronically.
However the diachronic and synchronic approaches can be combined; the development of
the language can be presented as a series of cross-sections, e.g. Old English, Middle English and
Modern English.
1. The history of the English language shows the ties of English with other Germanic languages
and languages of other groups, e.g. the French language.
2. The history of English is an important subsidiary discipline for the history of England and of
English literature, as it is based on the history of England, studying the development of the language
in connection with the concrete conditions in which the English people lived in several periods of
their history.
It is also connected with disciplines studying present-day English, i.e. theoretical phonetics,
theoretical grammar and lexicology. It shows phonetic, grammatical and lexical phenomena in
development, and states the origin of the present-day system.
3. The history of the English language establishes a tie between general principles of linguistics
and concrete facts of the contemporary English known to the learner. For example, the notion of
sound law familiar from introduction to linguistics is to be tested on the facts of the English
language history.
4. The knowledge of the history of English accounts for the essential features and a number of
peculiarities which appear unintelligible from the modern point of view. Let us mention a few of
them.
In studying the history of a language we are faced with a number of problems concerning the
causes of changes in the language. These causes may be of two kinds: external and internal. In the
first case the language is influenced by factors lying outside it or extra linguistic factors. Such
historical events as wars, conquests, cultural contacts, and the like can hardly fail to influence a
language more, especially its vocabulary. On the other hand, most changes in the phonetic structure
of a language and also in its grammatical structure are due to its internal causes.
It must also be noted that the evolution of a language is not even: it may be faster or slower,
besides, its various levels change at different rates. Thus, the word-stock seems to change rather
rapidly; the sound system of a language changes very slowly because it must carefully preserve the
contrast between phonemes essential for differentiation between morphemes. As the grammar
structure of the language provides general frames and patterns for the other systems of the language
it also changes very slowly.

Germanic Languages
The English language is one of the Germanic (Teutonic) languages as well as German,
Dutch, Frisian, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Flemish, Yiddish. They belong to the vast
Indo-European family of languages.
All Germanic languages are related through common origin and joint development at the
early stages of their history
The earliest period in the development of the Germanic groups dates back to prewritten
stages of human history. It is generally believed that at the beginning of the first millennium BC
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groups of tribes speaking the would-be Germanic dialects split from other West Indo-European
tribes. At that time the spoken dialects of the ancient Germanic tribes were very much alike. These
dialects are commonly known as Common (primitive) Proto Germanic. The Common Germanic
period lasted approximately till the beginning of our era. Our knowledge of ancient Germanic is
based on testimonies by Greek and Roman writers: the Greek traveler and astronomer Pytheas, who
lived in the 4th century BC; the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (23-79AD).
The migrations of the Germanic tribes in the 2nd-5th centuries AD led to the geographical
separation of tribal groups and, consequently, to the independent development of their tongues, e.g.
to the differentiation of Common Germanic. The earliest inscriptions in some Old Germanic
languages (dialects) are dated in the 3rd century.
All Germanic languages (old and new) are classified into 3 groups: North Germanic, East
Germanic, West Germanic. Here is the mutual relation between the classification of Germanic tribes
based on Pliny's work and that of Germanic languages based on analyses made by modern linguists:

Germanic tribes Germanic languages

Vindili East Germanic
Ingaevones
Istaevones West Germanic
Herminones
Hilleviones North Germanic

East Germanic
In the first century of our era several Germanic tribes from Scandinavia migrated south to
Northern Germany. There they formed the eastern subgroup of the tribes and represented East
Germanic languages. The most numerous of the East Germanic tribes were the Goths; the names of
the other tribes are the Vandals and the Burgundians. The Goths were the first of the Old Germanic
tribes to be Christianized. In the 4th century a West Gothic bishop made a translation of the Gospel
from Greek into Gothic. The Gothic language recorded in Ulfilas' Gospel has undergone very few
alterations since the Common Germanic period. It has enabled modern philologists to reconstruct
the essential features of the Common Germanic language.
Of the Old East Germanic languages only the Gothic language is well known. All the East
Germanic languages have been dead for many centuries.
All North Germanic and West Germanic languages have survived until our own times.

North Germanic
Ancient Germanic tribes in Scandinavia remained isolated for several hundred years. Up to
the 9th century their speech had very slight dialectal variation. Their tongue, known as Old
Scandinavian or Old Norse, retained many archaic traits of the Common Germanic language.
In the 9th century the Scandinavians started on their migrations. They settled in France,
occupied the greater part of Britain, colonized Iceland and Greenland and from there reached North
America. Usually the Scandinavians who settled overseas were assimilated by the native population
and adopted their tongues. In some of the new territories, however, the North Germanic dialects
survived (for instance, in Iceland). The major modern Northern Germanic languages are Icelandic
and Norwegian in the West and Danish and Swedish in the East.

West Germanic
The Germanic tribes of the western subgroup dwelt in the lowlands between the Oder and the
Elbe. Later they spread up the Rhine, to the highlands of Germany, and in other directions.
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 At the beginning of the migration period there were three principal groups of tribes: the
Franconians (the Istaevones), the High Germans (the Herminones), the Angels, the Saxons and the
Frisians (the Ingaevones).
In the Early Middle Ages the Franconians were the most numerous and powerful group of
tribes. In the 9th century their feudal state split into two - the bases of France and Germany. On the
territory of France the Franconian dialects were not preserved; in the lower basin of the Rhine they
developed into Dutch, the national language of the Netherlands, and Flemish, a dialect in Belgium.
Another subgroup of the West Germanic tribes - the High Germans lived in the highlands of
Germany. The High German dialects developed into the national languages of Germany, Austria,
and one of the official languages of Switzerland.
The High German dialects of the Middle Ages became the basis of the language of the Jews
termed Yiddish or New Jewish.
The third subgroup of the West Germanic tribes - the Angels, the Saxons and the Frisians
lived in the lowlands of Germany.
In the 5th century the Angels, the Saxons and the Jutes (a tribe from Jutland) began their
invasion of the British Isles. The West Germanic dialects of these tribes developed into the English
language. In later ages English was brought to North America, India, Australia, and some parts of
Africa.
The bulk of the Frisians stayed on the mainland, and their dialects have survived as the
dialect of the mainland, and their dialects have survived as the dialects of Friesland (in the
Netherlands).
The dialects of those Saxon tribes who stayed on the continent have always constituted an
important dialectal group in Germany (Low German).

Lecture 2
Essential Features of Germanic Languages
Phonetics
All Germanic languages (old and modern) have common linguistic features. It is generally
believed that the Germanic group of dialects developed their first specifically Germanic linguistic
traits during the first millennium BC (the Common Germanic period). In later ages Old Germanic
dialects lost some of their common features and developed new, individual traits.

STRESS IN GERMANIC LANGUAGES

One of the most important features of the Germanic group is the peculiar Germanic system of
word-stress which caused many later Germanic tendencies of development.
Originally stress in Germanic languages was free, that is different syllables of words could
be stressed - a system which was preserved in Slavonic and some other languages.
However, in the stage of the Common Germanic period word stress became fixed on the first
syllable (the root syllable). The other syllables (the suffixes and endings) remained unstressed or
weakly stressed. This system of fixed stress was preserved by all the Old Germanic dialects and
partially by the modern Germanic languages.
Nowadays in polysyllabic words the word stress generally falls on the root-morpheme, while
the suffixes and endings bear a weaker stress (e.g. 'earnestly, 'frightening, 'gathering).
The main kind of the word-accent used in Germanic languages was force or dynamic stress.
As it was a very heavy stress, it led to a marked contrast between the sounds in stressed and
unstressed positions and caused different development of those sounds.

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 Thus the Germanic sound system as a whole was affected by the stress. Moreover the
morphological structure of the Germanic words was influenced too; it was simplified, as the suffixes
and endings which bore a weaker stress were gradually weakened or lost. Compare Old or Middle
English verbs with New English verbs: OE - 'tellan; ME - 'tellen; NE - tell.

VOWELS
Tendencies of Vowel Development
The most important feature of Germanic vowel development was its dependence on the
Germanic word accent. In stressed position the contrast of long and short vowels was maintained. In
unstressed position the opposition of long vowels to short ones was neutralized.
The division of vowels into long and short in stressed syllables was supported by some
qualitative historical changes: short vowels generally tended to become more open, long vowels -
more closed.
During the Common Germanic period vowels changed both in quality and in quantity. The
two main qualitative changes were as follows:
1) Indo-European short "o" appeared as short "a" in Common Germanic;
2) Indo-European long "a" appeared as long "o" in Common Germanic:
IE. Germanic
Russ. ночь Germ. Nacht
Lat. frāter Goth. broÞar
During the Common Germanic period a few assimilative changes occurred in the Germanic
vowel system. These changes have been termed Common Germanic mutations or Common
Germanic breaking (or fractures).
Breaking concerned two pairs of vowels: e, i, and u, o.
e, i
An Indo-European "e" in the root syllable found its counterpart in Germanic "i", if it was
followed by. "i "', "j” or the cluster "nasal + consonant". It is quite obvious that a following "i" or "j"
tended (by assimilation) to turn a preceding "e" into "i".
Here are a few examples illustrating the assimilative change:
IE Germanic
Lat. medius OE midde (middle)
Lat. ventus OE wind (wind).
u,o
An Indo-European "u" found its counterpart in Germanic "u", if it was followed by "u" or
by the cluster "nasal + consonant", otherwise the Indo-European "u" found its counterpart in
Germanic "o".
e.g. IE Germanic
Sanskr. sunus OE sunu (son)

The Vowel System in Common Germanic

On the whole Germanic has preserved the pattern of the Indo-European vowel system, that
is a well-balanced system of long and short monophthongs:
COMMON GERMANIC VOWEL PHONEMES
short: i/e, e/i, a, o, u
long: ī, ē, ā, ō, ū
Consonants. Tendencies of Consonant Development
Like other Indo-European languages, the Germanic languages have noise consonants and
sonorants plosives (occlusives- смычные) and fricatives (constrictives – щелевые)), voiced and
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voiceless consonants. However Germanic consonants do not correspond to the same consonants in
other languages.
Germanic languages display regular correspondences of consonants with non-Germanic languages:
voiceless consonants occur instead of voiced, e.g. p // b, fricatives instead of plosives: f // p.

The First Germanic Consonant Shift

During the Common Germanic period almost all the consonants were altered. The most
important of these alternations is the First (Common) Germanic consonant shift. The earliest
statement of the shift was given in the work "German Grammar" by the great German linguist Jacob
Grimm (1785-1863). Accordingly the law is called Grimm’s law. It reads:
1. Indo-European voiceless stops (p.t.k) correspond to German voiceless fricatives (f, Þ, h)
IE Germanic
p > f
t > p
k > h

2. Indo-European voiced stops (b, d, g) correspond to Germanic voiceless stops (p, t, k)

IE Germanic
b > p
d > t
g > k

3. Indo-European voiced aspirated stops (bh, dh, gh) correspond to Germanic voiced stops
without aspiration (b, d, g)
IE Germanic
bh > b
dh > d
gh > g
Examples:
IE Germanic
Lat. pater p:f English father
Lat. trēs t:p English three
Lat. noctem k:h Goth. nahts
Russ. слабый b:p Goth. slepan
Lat duo d:t Goth. twai
Russ. иго g:k English yoke
Sanskr. bhrātar bh : b Goth. broÞar

Verner's Law
In some Germanic words there are consonants which do not fit into Grimm's law. In some
cases it is voiced stops, rather than voiceless fricatives that correspond in Germanic to IE voiceless
stops.
Compare:
IE Germanic
Lat. pater Goth.fadar
Greek dekas (ten) Goth. tigus
Germanic “d” and “g” correspond to Indo-European "t" and "k".
These phenomena were explained by the Danish scholar Karl Verner in 1877. Verncr's Law
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adds the following note to Grimm's law: if an Indo-European voiceless stop was preceded by an
unstressed vowel, the voiceless fricative which developed from it in accordance with Grimm's law,
became voiced and later this voiced fricative became a voiced stop. Thus in the Latin word "patér"
in which the voiceless stop "t" was preceded by an unstressed vowel the following changes
occurred: t > Þ (in accordance with Grimm's law); Þ > > d (in accordance with Verner's Law).
Verner's law affected one more voiceless fricative consonant "s": if the preceding vowel is
unstressed, ''s'' in Germanic languages becomes voiced - "z" (s > z).
The alteration of the Consonant system was a very slow process. The shift spread gradually
over the whole Common Germanic area. The general Indo-European pattern of the consonant
system was preserved in Germanic.
The Consonant System in Common Germanic
The Common Germanic system of consonants comprises noise consonants and sonorants.
Noise consonants are subdivided into plosives and fricatives.
Among the fricative consonants there is a further differentiation of voiced and voiceless
consonants.
COMMON GERMANIC CONSONANT PHONEMES
Labial Dental Velar
Pure Labio
velar
Plosive p l k kw
f θ ,s x xw
Voice-
less

,z γ γw
Fricative
Consonants

Voiced
Noise

Sonorants m n, l, r
Semivowels w j

Morphology
Word Structure in Germanic
The Early Common Germanic morphological structure of words was usually more
complicated than the word structure of written periods. There were fewer simple words, whose stem
was equal to the root. In Common Germanic the stem consisted of two basic components: the root-
morpheme and the stem-forming suffix. A third morpheme, the grammatical ending, was added to
the stem.
The Common Germanic *fiskaz-"fish" consisted of the stem *fiska and the grammatical
ending (Nominative Singular) -z; the stem *fiska comprised the root morpheme *fisk and the stem-
forming suffix -a. Stems could be built by different stem-forming suffixes: vowels, consonants or
their combinations. Thus there were vocalic stems (e.g., a-stems, i-stems) and consonantal stems
(e.g., n-stems, nd-stems).
The Early Common Germanic morphological structure of the word was gradually
simplified: the stem-forming suffix disappeared as a separate morpheme in the word structure. It
fused either with the root-morpheme or (most frequently) with the grammatical ending. Thus the
6
three basic components in the word structure were reduced to two: Common Germanic *fisk-a-z >
Gothic fisk-s.
This simplification was caused by the following: 1) during the Common Germanic period
many stem-forming suffixes lost their semantic significance; 2) the final syllable was the weakest
element of the word as it was commonly unstressed.
Thus the two morphemes (the stem-forming suffix and the grammatical ending easily
blended into one. Commonly, it was a new grammatical ending.

Variability of the Root-Morpheme, Gradation or Ablaut

The root-morpheme in Germanic languages is variable: its vowels and sometimes the
consonants in the root tend to vary. Vowel alternations in the root morpheme are usually called
gradation, or ablaut. The principal vowel gradation used in Indo-European languages can be shown
in Russian examples:
e-o: нести – носит, везу - возит - (the quality of the vowel)

In the following examples there is a difference in quantity: long vowels alternate with short
ones and with the reduced or zero-grade;
e.g., in Latin there are several verbs, which have a short "e" in their present stem (sedeō -
"sit", legō - "read"), but a long "e" in the perfect (sēdī, lēgī).
In Common Germanic gradation or ablaut was most frequently used in building the forms
of the so-called strong verbs. Gradation (ablaut) is still applied to differentiate between words and
forms:
e.g. Modem English: sing - sang - sung; choose - chose - chosen; sing - song
The origin of gradation has been a matter for discussion for about a century. The following
theory is the prevailing one. The three variants of a root are due to conditions of word accent: full
stress brings about the high degree; weakened stress - the medium degree, and unstressed position-
zero (the main type of gradation in Indo-European Languages).

General Survey of Form-building Means

In Common Germanic various means of form-building were employed, all of them being
synthetic means: sound alternations in the root morpheme and grammatical endings or suffixes.
Sound alternations were usually employed in combination with other means. Vowel
alternation was used more frequently than consonant alternation. Grammatical endings or suffixes
were the most widely used means of form building in all parts of speech. In contrast to endings,
grammatical prefixes were hardly ever employed. All these means are preserved by modem
Germanic languages to a various extent.

Parts of Speech in Common Germanic

Throughout history the following parts of speech could be found in the Germanic group:
the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the conjunction and the
preposition.
NOUN
The noun in Germanic was remarkable for the elaborate system of declensions which rested
on the Indo-European division of nouns into stems. The division into stems was transformed into a
new grammatical division: types of declension.
Different noun declensions in Germanic languages are referred to as:
1) vocalic stems: -a-, -o-, -i-,-u- (strong declension); 2) n-stems (weak 'declension); 3)
stems in other consonants: -s- and -r- stems; 4) root-stems, this is a peculiar type: these nouns never
7
had a stem-building suffix so that their stem had always coincided with their root.

OE N-STEM DECLENSION (SINGULAR)

Nominative heorte
Genitive
Dative heortan
Accusative
Besides the category of case (4 cases: Nominative. Genitive, Dative and Accusative) the
Common Germanic noun also had the grammatical categories of gender and number. Germanic
distinguished three genders: Masculine, Feminine arid Neuter and two numbers: Singular and Plural.
Adjective (and pronoun)
In Common Germanic the adjective and the pronoun were characterized by the same
grammatical categories as the noun, i.e. the categories of gender, number and case.
The peculiar characteristic of the adjective in Germanic was a twofold declension: the weak
(or definite) and the strong (or indefinite) declension (the endings mostly correspond to those of the
weak and the strong declensions of the noun). However declension of adjectives differs from that of
nouns in two ways:
1. every adjective is declined both according to the strong declension and to the weak
declension;
2. the strong declension of adjectives is a combination of substantial and pronominal
forms.

VERB
The Common Germanic Verb distinguished the following grammatical categories (in the
finite forms of the verb): the categories of number, person, mood (Indicative, Imperative arid
Conjunctive (Subjunctive), tense (present and past).
Aspect was shown most frequently by lexical rather than by grammatical means.
Voice did not exist in Common Germanic in the meaning known today.
Of the non-finite forms, Common Germanic had two: the Infinitive and Participles I and II.
Strong and Weak Verbs. In Common Germanic all the forms of the verb were built from
the principal forms or stems: the Present tense stem, the Past tense stems and Parliciple II.
According to the means of form-building used the main mass of Germanic verbs were divided into
two groups: strong verbs and weak verbs.
Strong Verbs. There were seven classes of strong verbs in Common Germanic; in each of
them a certain gradation series was used. Classes I - VI of strong verbs are traced back to the Indo-
European ablaut-series e/o and a/ā.
Verbs of Class VII had an alternation ē/ō (some verbs of class VII had no vowel
alternation but they shared many peculiarities with other strong verbs). These verbs (Class VII) were
characterized by reduplication, i.e. addition of an extra syllable consisting of the initial consonant
and the vowel "e" (spelt ai) in the past tense, both singular and plural.

Weak Verbs. In common Germanic weak verbs formed their Past tense stem and Participle
II by adding the dental suffix - to the stem of the Present Tense. There were three main classes of
weak verbs in Germanic which were distinguished by their stem-forming suffixes. In Gothic there
was also a fourth class.

Word-stock
8
 While regarding the Common Germanic word-stock we consider those words which are
found in most Germanic languages and which can be traced back to Common Germanic. Common
Germanic words or their descendants) constitute the most ancient part of the word-stock in modem
Germanic languages.
There are different etymological layers in the Common Germanic word-stock:
1. Common Indo-European words - the most ancient layer of the Germanic vocabulary;
2. Words found in Germanic and a few other Indo-European groups (Slavonic, Baltic etc.);
3. Specifically Germanic words (found in Germanic languages alone);
4. Borrowings (mainly from Latin and Celtic).
Word-Fomation
In all periods of history Germanic vocabulary could be divided into three types: simple, derived and
compound words.
Suffixes were most productive in building nouns, prefixes - in building verbs; word-composition
was most productive in nouns.

Lecture 3. Periods in the History of English

With reference to the history of English, which covers roughly 1600 years, it is customary to
divide it into three main periods: Old English (OE): 5th-11th centuries; Middle English (ME): 12th-
15th centuries; New English (NE): 15th-21st centuries.
The approximate dates fixing the boundaries between the three periods are very close to
important events in the social and political life of the country. 1100 follows close upon 1066, the
year of the Norman conquest, and 1500 is close to 1475, the year of the introduction of printing, and
1485, the year, when the Wars of the Roses came to an end which marked the decay of feudalism,
and the rise of capitalism in England.
However, it should be emphasized that such dates as 1100 and 1500 cannot be taken literally,
they are merely a convenient means of expressing the statement that by the end of the 11th and
again by the end of the 15th century changes in the language have accumulated to an extent which
makes it possible to state the beginning of a new period in its history.

Historical Background
The development of the English language began in the 5th century of our era, when groups of
West Germanic tribes settled in the British Isles. Prior to the Germanic invasions the British Isles
were inhabited by Celtic tribes. Celtic Britain was a province of the Roman Empire for almost four
hundred years.
In 55 BC the Romans under Julius Caesar landed in Britain (the next attempt was made in
43 AD under the emperor Claudis). The Romans subdued the Britons (the largest of the Celtic
tribes) and colonized the country. This colonization had a profound effect on the country. The Latin
language superseded the Celtic dialects. In the 4th century, when Christianity was introduced in the
Roman empire, it also spread among the Britons.
It was about mid-5th century that Britain was conquered by Germanic tribes: the Angles the
Saxons and the lutes. The conquest extended over a long period, the invasions lasted into the 6th
century. The Angles occupied most of the territory north, of the Thames (up to the Firth or Forth);
the Saxon - the territory south of the Thames and some stretches north of it. The Jutes settled in
Kent and in the Isle of Wight.
The invaders destroyed the civilization that had grown under the Romans. Gradually the
conquerors and the surviving Celts blended into one people. Germanic dialects spread all over
Britain with the exception of Wales, Cornwall and Scotland where the Celtic dialects survived.
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 Since the sett1ement of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain the ties of their dialects with the
continent dialects were broken and in its further development they went their own ways. It is at this
time, the 5th century, that the history of the English language begins.

Old English Dialects

The Germanic tribes, which conquered Britain formed seven separate kingdoms which
during four centuries struggled with one another for supremacy: Kent, Sussex. Essex, Wessex,
Mercia. East Anglia and Northumbria. In 828 the struggle came to an end with the decisive victory
of Wessex. The Wessex (or West Saxon) dialect became the principal dialect of Saxon group and
the written language of the time. Its earliest records date in the 9 th century. Three other dialects
spoken in Britain were Kentish, Mercian, Northumbrian.

Writings in Old English. Germanic Alphabets

Germanic tribes used three different alphabets for their writings: 1) The Runic alphabet; 2) Ulfila’s
Gothic alphabet; 3) the Latin alphabet.
In the earliest (Runic) alphabet each separate letter was called a rune. Each rune was used to

denote a separate sound, e.g. the rune е stood for sound [f], the rune m denoted the sound
[e].
The runes were angular due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in stone, done or wood.
These inscriptions were made on objects (tombstones, rings, amulets, coins, etc.). The oldest of the
runic texts is an inscription on a box made of whale bone called “Frank’s Casket” (шкатулка
Фрэнка), and a short text on a stone cross known as “The Ruthwell Cross” щадящий крест).
Next comes Ulfila's Gothic alphabet (4th century). This is the alphabet of Ulfila's Gothic
translation of the Gospel, a peculiar alphabet based on the Greek alphabet, with some admixture of
Latin and Runic letters.
The latest alphabet to be used by Germanic tribes is the Latin alphabet. Latin was the
language of the church, official writing and teaching in monastic schools. The British scribes
modified the Latin alphabet to some degree: they changed the shape of some letters (e.g. d, f, g);

added letters from the runic alphabet (e.g., the rune p "thorn" to indicate [θ] or [ð]).
The first English words written down with the help of Latin letters were names of place -
names inserted in Latin texts. Gradually Old English documents began to replace Latin ones. These
documents were written in the West-Saxon dialect. The West-Saxon dialect is also represented by
the works of king Alfred (849--900), he works of the abbot Aelfric (10th century) and sermons of
Wulfstan (early 11th century).
The greatest poem of the time was "Beowulf' (7th or 8th century) which is the oldest epic poem
in Germanic literature "Beowulf" is based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient
Germans. Other epic poems of the OE period are "The Wanderer" (странник, путник), "The
Seafarer" (мореплаватель), "Genesis" (происхождение), "Exodus" (исход).
The bulk of OE poetry is religious. The religious poems are commonly attributed to two early
Northumbrian poets Cædmon and Cynewulf.
OE poetry is characterized by a specific system of versification (alliterative verse) and some
peculiar stylistic device (circumlocution),
Besides poetry there is a great variety of OE prose texts. Among the prose works we should
first of all note the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles - a year-for-year account of the events in English
history, starting at 787. Then there are a number of texts associated with the name of King Alfred
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(9th century).
The work usually called King Alfred's Orosius is a long text based on the Historis adversus
paganos (A History against the Heathens) by the Spanish monk Paulus Orosius, 5th century. This
text is particularly valuable because of King Alfred's own original additions containing,
geographical information.
King Alfred (or his associates) other translations were: a book of instruction for parish priests
Cura Pastoralls (Pastoral care) by Pope Gregory I, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
(Ecclesiastical History of English people) written in Latin by Bede.
Among late OE texts we must mention the Homilies Lives of Saints, Latin Grammar of AElfric(lOth
century) and the Homilies of Wulfstan (early11th century), one of which, entitled Sermo Lupi ad
Anglos, that is, the Wulf’s Sermon of the English was especially famous.
All these works are of the highest value for the study of the Old English language.

Lecture 4
Old English Phonetics
Since the OE Language was made up of dialects descending from Common Germanic we can
regard its phonetic system as having developed from the Common Germanic system. The
differences between the two should be attributed to the changes that occurred in prewritten or Early
Old English.
Old English Word Stress
In OE dynamic or force stress was employed. Stress mostly fell on the first syllable of the
word (e. g. eadi ra = happier, hlāforde = "lord"). Word stress was fixed: it remained on the same
syllable in different forms of word. Polysyllabic words, especially compounds may have had
secondary stress besides NorÞmanna "northman". Words beginning with a prefix had their stress
either on the root syllable (words with inseparable prefixes, e.g., of dune “down”, eÞeode
“language”) or on the root syllable and the prefix. Suffixes and endings remained unstressed (mæ
den "maiden").
Old English Vowels
All OE vowels including diphthongs can be either short or long.
Monophthongs:
i, e, æ, a, å, o, u, y,
ī, ē, āe, ā, ō, ū, ŷ
Diphthongs:
ea, eo, io, ie,
ēa ēo īo īe
Practically every long vowel had a corresponding short vowel.
Changes of Stressed Vowels in Early Old English
In Early OE the vowels underwent a great number of changes. As far as stressed vowels were
concerned most of the changes were qualitative.
1. Splitting of Germanic "a" and" ã". The Common Germanic short "a" and the West Germanic
long "a" (corresponding to the Common Germanic "ē" split into a number of vowels in Old
English):
Ā
æ- ō

The principal direction of the changes a > æ- and ā > æ- is often called fronting or palatalization of
Germanic "a", " ā ", The other directions can be interpreted as positional exceptions or restrictions to
11
this general trend
ā
æ- ō

ā→æ-
O. High German sláfan slæ-pan sleep
ā→ō
O. High German mâno môna moon
2. Development of Germanic Vowel Combinations or diphthongs into long monophthongs or long
diphthongs. Some Common Germanic vowel combinations or diphthongs developed into long
monophthongs or long diphthongs in Old English: au > ēa; au/iu > ēo/īo; ai > ā.
All these changes occurred due to the partial weakening of the second element or the lengthening of
the first element.
Examples:
Old German dialects OE NE
au→ ēa
Goth. augo aē e Eye
eu/iu→ ēo/īo
Goth. diups dēop Deep
ai→ ā
Goth. ains ān One
3. Breaking (fracture) and diphthongization. Some OE vowels changed their quality due to the
influence of succeeding or preceding consonants. When a vowel stood after a palatal consonant or
when a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed short glides between them.
The glides, together with the original vowels, formed diphthongs.
Front vowels: i, e, æ developed into diphthongs before “h, l + consonant”, or “r + consonant". This
charige is commonly referred to as OE
Examples:
æ→ea
prewritten OE NE
* ærm earm arm
* æll eall all
Another change – diphthongization –occurred after palatal consonants [k’] spelt “c”, [sk’] spelt “sc”,
and [j] spelt “ ” e.g., prewritten scæmu > OE sceamu > NE scame.

4. Palatal mutation. In OE a vowel could also change its quality due to progressive assimilation
with vowels and semivowels in the following syllables as the organs of speech accommodated
themselves to the pronunciation of the next syllable. The most important and the most frequent type
of this assimilation is i-mutation(or i-umlaut, or palatal mutation), i.e. the fronting and narrowing of
vowels brought about by the vowel “i” or semivowel “j” in the following syllable. Practically all
vowels except the most close front vowels “e” and “i” could be palatalized.
Since the sounds “i” and “j” often appeared in the suffixes and endings, i.e. in final syllables they
often disappeared (due to the reduction of the final syllable)
Examples:
O. German dialects OE NE
a→e
Goth. sandjan sendan Send

12
ā→æ-
Goth. laisjan læ-ran Teach
u→y
Goth. fulljan fyllan Fill

Changes of Unstressed Vowels in Early Old English

Reduction of unstressed vowels. Some short vowels had been dropped in final unstressed
syllables already in prewritten OE. After long syllables (containing a long vowel) or a short vowel
followed by more than one consonant, the vowels "i" and "u" were regularly dropped in the ending:
OE werian > NE wear.
In Early OE the long vowels that stood in unstressed syllables originally had shortened, and thus the
opposition of long vowels to short ones was lost: prewritten *namōn > OE name > NE name.
The new short vowels coming from long ones (ō > a: namōn > nama) gradually weakened their
qualitative difference so that instead of eight short monophthongs distinguished in stressed position
we fmd only five in the unstressed one. The system of phonemes appearing in unstressed syllable:
e/i, a, o/u.
Examples: OE NE
talu tale
stane
Dat. Sg. stān stone
stana
Gen. Pl. stān stone
Old English Consonants. Unlike the vowels not all the OE consonant phonemes and their variants
were distinguished in OE spelling; in some cases one and the same letter was used to indicate two
variants. All the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants. The noise consonants were
divided into plosives and fricatives. There were voiced and voiceless plosives and fricatives.
However the difference between voiced and voiceless plosives was phonemic; the difference
Labial Dental Palatal Velar Pharyn-
alveolar gal

P l k’ sk’ k’
Voice
less

B d g’ g
Plosive

Voiced

f/v θ/ð x’ x H
Fricative

s/z (j) γ
Voiced
Voice
Noise

-less/
Consonants

Sonorants m n, l, r Ŋ
variant
of “n”
Semivowels w j

13
between voiced and voiceless fricatives was that between position variants f/v, θ/ð). The opposition
of velar and palatal consonants was an important feature of the OE consonant system:[kl- [k'], [g] -
[g']. Their contrast was or became phonemic during the OE period. OE consonants could also appear
as long or doubled: [pp], [nn], [bb], etc. Practically every short sound had a corresponding long one.

OE CONSONANTS

Сhanges of Consonants in Early Old English

In early Old English consonants underwent different kinds of changes: positional or
independent, qualitative or quantitative. The fricatives underwent the greatest number of qualitative
alterations in OE. Most consonants in certain positions underwent the greatest number of qualitative
changes, they could become longer.
Changes of Fricatives
1. Hardening. In Early OE voiced fricatives (v, ð, r) tended to be hardened to corresponding
plosives: v > b, ð > d, γ> g (after nasals and initially).
Examples: ð > d
O. German. dialects OE NE
O. Icel. faðir fæder' father
2. Voicing and Devoicing. The Common Germanic voiceless fricatives (f, θ, x, s) became voiced
between vowels or between vowels, sonorants and voiced consonants. The Common Germanic
voiced fricatives (þ and γ) that had not been hardened became voiceless at the beginning or at the
end of words or next to voiceless consonants.
Examples:
Goth. OE NE
f>v
wulfōs [f] wulfas Wolves
s>z
reisan [s] risan [z] Rise
γ>χ
baurgs [γ] buruh, burh [χ] Borough

3. Rhotacism. The Common Germanic [z] underwent the following change: [z]>[z] > [r] and
became a sonorant. This process is called rhotacism: Goth. maiza [z] > OE mara [r] > NE more.

Splitting of Velar Consonants

OE palatal consonants appeared as a result of some assimilative consonant changes. In Early
OE the consonants [k], [g], [χ], [γ] were palatalised before a stressed front vowel and sometimes
also after a front vowel unless followed by a back vowel. The combination [sk] was palatalized
without any positional restrictions. In other positions the consonants remained velar and thus two
contrasted sets arose. By the Middle English period the two sets had developed into different
sounds: [k], [g] were preserved, while [k']>[tƒ], [g'] > [d ]; [sk'] > [ƒ].
Example: before and after front vowels [k']: OE cild> NE child, [x']: OE niht > NE night; in other
positions [k]: OE cuppa > NE cup, OE bōc > NE book, [x]: OE hlāf > NE loaf, OE þūhte> NE
thought.
Quantitative Changes of Consonants
1. Gemination. In Early Old English most consonants could be lengthened before [j]. This process is
called gemination or doubling of consonants as it was shown in spelling by means of doubled letters.
14
Gemination of consonants before [j] occurred only after a short syllable. Eventually [j] disappeared.
Examples: prewritten fuljan > OE fyllan > NE fill, prewritten sætjan > OE settan > NE set.
2. Loss of Consonants. In some conditions consonants and semivowels were lost. Nasal sonorants
were regularly lost before fricative consonants·. In this process the preceding vowel was lengthened.
Examples: Gothic fimf> OE fif > NE five, Goth. kunþa > OB cūðe > NE could.
As shown above “j” was regularly lost in the suffixes before an unstressed vowel (see examples
above).
Other consonants were commonly weakened and lost in final position in OE. Compare:
O.I. dagr and OE dæ > NE day, Gothic harjis and OE here "army". Some fricative consonants
were lost between vowels and before some plosive consonants; as a result the vowels were
lengthened or diphthongs were formed, e.g. "fonhan > fōhan > fōan > OE fōn > (NE "catch").

Phonetic Changes and Word Structure

All the Early English vowel and consonant changes had a direct bearing on the development of
the morphological structure of the word. From the earlier stages of its history OE inherited vowel
alternation in the root-morpheme due to ablaut (vowel gradation). New instances of vowel and
consonant interchange resulted from numerous assimilative vowel changes: such as the
palatalization of [a] to [æ] and its positional restrictions; breaking and diphthongization after palatal
consonants, palatal mutation. The positional hardening of consonants, the voicing and devoicing of
fricatives, the palatalization of some velar consonants, the gemination and loss of consonants had
led to a number of sound alternations as well.
LECTURE 5
Old English Grammar
The main inflected parts of speech in OE, characterized by, certain grammatical categories
were: the noun, the pronoun, the adjective and the verb. The following form-building means were
employed: a) grammatical endings or suffixes; b) sound alternations in the root-morpheme; c)
prefixes and d) suppletive formations.
Nominal Grammatical Categories
The noun, the adjective, the pronoun (and the numeral) in OE had the grammatical categories
of gender, number and case. These categories were independent in the noun and dependent in the
adjective and the pronoun (they showed agreement with the corresponding noun).
Gender
Gender was represented by three groups of nouns: Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.Examples:
Masculine Feminine Neuter
OE widuwe widowe wif
NE widower widow wife
In OE there were noun-building suffixes which referred nouns to a definite gender. Nouns
originally formed with the help of the suffix-an belonged to the Masculine gender. However gender
was commonly shown by the forms of agreement of adjectives and pronouns modifying a noun.
Number
The OE nouns, adjectives and pronouns distinguished two numbers, the Singular and the
Plural; the personal pronouns of the first and second person had also forms of the Dual number to
denote two objects, e.g.
NOUN
Singular Plural
OE dæ dæ as
NE day days

15
 Pronoun
Singular Plural Dual NE

1st person ic wē wit I, we, we two

2nd person þu ē it thou, you, you two

Case
The category of case was represented by four cases in the noun, the noun-pronoun and some
cardinal numerals (from 1 to 3): Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. The Instrumental
Case was represented in the adjective and the participle), the adjective-pronouns and the ordinal
numerals. Nominative was primarily the case of the subject; the rest of the case forms were used as
objects, or adverbial modifiers. The Genitive case was mostly employed when a noun served to
modify another noun: e.g. OE þaes cynin es brōþur - NE that king’s brother.

The Noun
OE nouns were divided into several types of declension, known as "stems". However the
stem-suffixes cannot be distinguished in the nouns of written Old English.
Thus, the names a-stem, ō-stem, etc. merely point to the origin of the different paradigms.
According to the traditional view, we distinguish, in the first place, between strong declension
and weak declension of nouns. The strong declension includes nouns with vocalic stems: a-stems, ō-
tems, u-stems and i-stems (ja-and wa-stems, jō-and wō-stems being variants within the two former
groups). The weak declension comprises n-stems-only. There are also stems ending in other
consonants: r-stems, nd-stems, and "root-stems" which had never had any stem-suffix and whose
root was equal to the stem.
Some stems were confined to one or two genders only: a-stems were only Masculine and
Neuter; o-stems were always Feminine. Other stems included nouns of any gender.
Every declension was characterized by a specific set of case endings. Within the declensions
there were further differences between the endings of different genders. Most OE nouns belonged to
the s-stems, a-sterns and n-stems. Traces of the paradigms of a-stems, n-stems and root-stems are
found in Modem English. Most case-forms were distinguished through the endings; sometimes in
addition to or instead of the endings sound alternations were used (e.g. see Dative singular "mēder",
"m s"). The plural ending -as (a-stems, Masculine, Nominative and Accusative) and the ending -es
(a-stems, Masculine, Genitive Singular), began to be added to nouns, originally belonging to other
declensions, already in Old English.
Of special interest is the group of root-stems which employed a vowel interchange as a regular
means of form-building (compare, fōt, Masculine, Singular and fēt, Nominative Plural). The
interchange arose due to palatal mutation in the form which had-i-in the ending: the pre-written
*fotiz (Nom. pI.) and *foti (Oat. sing.) became *fētiz and *fēti: eventually they were shortened to
fēt when the ending was dropped.
On the whole there were only eight endings employed in the noun paradigms: -a, -e, -u, -as, -
es,-wn (and the zero inflection). Some endings were associated with one case form only: -es was the
ending of Masculine a-stems in the Genitive Singular. Some endings were alike in all the paradigms:
-a and -urn in the Genitive and Dative Plural. In all the declensions the form of the Nominative
plural coincided with that of the Accusative Plural; in some paradigms the Nominative and
Accusative forms in the Singular were alike too.
On the whole the system of declensions in OE lacked consistency and precision. This fact
played a certain role in the reconstruction of the declension system in later ages.

16
 The Pronoun
There are several types of pronoun in OE: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative
and relative.Personal pronouns. In OE there are besides singular and plural personal pronouns, also
dual pronouns for the 1st and 2nd persons. The personal pronouns of the 3rd person distinguished
between three genders.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS. Singular.
1st person 2nd person 3rd person
Masc. Fem. Neut.
N. ic Þū hē hēo hit
G. mīn Þin his hire his
D. mē Þē him hire him
A. mē, mec þē, þec hine hie hit
Dual
1st person 2nd person
N. Wit it
G. Uncer Incer
D. Unc Inc
A. unc,uncit inc,incit
Plural
1st person 2nd person 3rd person
N. Wē Ē hīe, hī, h , hēo
G. Ūre Ēower hiera, hira, hyra, hiora
D. Ūs Ēow him
A. ūs, ūsic ēow, ēowic hē, hī, h ,hēo
The Genitive case forms were used both as objects and as attributes; e.g. OE hīs mōdor NE his
mother. Thus they constituted possessive pronouns.
Demonstrative Pronouns. There were two demonstrative pronouns in OE: se "that" and es "this".
They were declined like adjectives and thus had a five-case system, including the Instrumental case.
Demonstrative pronouns took specific pronominal endings in the Genitive Plural (-r) and in the
Dative Singular (-m).
The Adjective
The OE adjective was characterized by the categories of case, number and gender. The
adjective agreed with the noun in all these categories and had 2 types of declensions: weak and
strong (almost any adjective could be declined according to the strong and to the weak declension).
Adjectives in the comparative and superlative degrees were declined' as weak; weak forms
were also used when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun.

DECLENSION OF ADJECTIVES
Strong Declension

Singular Plural

Masculine Neuter Feminine Masculine Neuter Feminine

N. blæc “black” blæc blacu N. blace blacu blace
G. blaces blæces blæcre G. blacra blacra blacra
D. blacum blacum blæcre D. blacum blacum blaca
A. blæcne blæc blace A. blace blacu blaca
17
Instr. blace blace -

Weak Declension
Singular Plural

Masculine Neuter Feminine

N. blace “black” blace Blace blacan
G. Blacan blacan Blacan blæcra, blacena
D. Blacan blacan Blacan blacum
A. Blacan blacan Blacan blacan

Degrees of Comparison. Most OE adjectives formed degrees of comparison. The regular

means used in building the comparative and superlative degrees were the suffixes -ra and -est/ost
combined with the change of the root-vowel or without it.
Examples:
Form-building Positive Comparative Superlative NE
means
suffixes Soft softra softost soft

suffixes plus blæc blecra blacost black

vowel alternation long lengra lengest long

suppletive forms Ōd betera betst good

l tel l ssa l st little
micel māra m st much
The Verb
The Finite Forms
The Finite forms of the OE verb had the following grammatical categories: number, person,
mood, tense.
Number. There were two numbers in the finite forms of the OE verb: singular and plural.
Singular and plural forms were always contrasted.
Person. The forms of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person were distinguished only in the Singular of the
Present Tense, Indicative Mood; in the Past Tense, Indicative Mood only the 2nd person-forms were
distinguished. In the Plural the difference was altogether lost; nor was it shown in the Subjunctive
Mood.
Tense. There were two sets of tense forms in OE: the Present tense forms and the Past tense
forms. The Present tense referred the action to the present or future. The Past tense referred the
action to the past without differentiating between prior or non-prior actions.
Mood. The category of Mood was constituted by the Imperative, the Indicative and the
Subjunctive moods. However in some forms of the Past tense the difference between the moods was
lost. The Subjunctive mood presented events as unreal or probable and it was often used in indirect
speech to describe events of which the speaker was not absolutely certain.
The Non-Finite Forms. There were two non-finite verb forms in OE: the Infinitive and the
Participle.
The Infinitive. The Infinitive was a verbal noun and had no verbal categories. It had some
isolated case-forms corresponding to the Nominative and the Dative case of nouns:

18
uninflected form inflected form
(Nominative case) (Dative case)
OE helpan OE to helpenne NE help
The Participle. The Participle had both the verbal and nominal categories. Participle I was
opposed to Participle II through voice and tense differences. Participle I (maciende "making") was
present and active. Participle II was past and passive when built from transitive verbs ( e)macod
"made") and it was past and active when built from intransitive verbs (ā ād "gone").
Like adjectives, Participles I and II could be declined as weak and strong and had the categories
of case, number and gender.

Morphological Classification of Verbs

OE verbs were divided into two large groups according to the way they built their principal
forms, i.e. the group of strong verbs and the group of weak verbs.
The two groups differed in the following:
- the strong verbs were characterized by vowel gradation in the four principal forms (the
Infinitive, the Past tense (2 forms) and Participle II); they had no ending in the Past tense
forms;
- the weak verbs did not change the root-vowel, had 3 principal forms (the Infinitive, the Past
tense (one form) and Participle II); they added the dental suffix -d in the Past tense form and
Participle II and the ending-e in the Past Tense form.
Besides the two major groups of verbs there existed some other groups which either combined
the traits of the strong and weak verbs or were altogether anomalous.
Strong Verbs. OE strong verbs are divided into seven classes, according to vowel gradation. In
some classes vowel alternations were accompanied by a consonant interchange: 2nd and 5th classes:
[z] -[s] - [r]; [ð] – [θ] -[d].
Class I. In Class I (i-class) the gradation vowel was combined with "i" in the root. As a result
we find long vowels in the first two forms and “i” in the 3rd and the 4th forms (the zero grade).

Infinitive Past Sing. Past Plur. Participle II

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Ī ā i i
wrītan “write” wrāt writon writen
Class II. In Class II (u-class) the gradation vowel was combined with "u". As a result we find
long diphthongs in the first two forms and "u" in the 3rd form.
Infinitive Past Sing. Past Plur. Participle II

(1) (2) (3) (4)

ē ēa u o
bēodan “offer” bēad budon boden

Classes III - V. In Classes III -V the gradation vowel was followed by consonants. Thus the vowels
in the first two forms were short. The verbs of Class III contained consonant combinations (sonorant
or "h" plus a plosive).
Hence three variants were distinguished in Class III.
Class IV
Infinitive Past Sing. Past Plur. Participle II NE

19
E æ o
stelan stæl st lon steal steal
Class VI. In class VI the underlying gradation series is the Indo-European quantitative ablaut o
- ō, modified to a-ō in Germanic.
Infinitive Past Sing. Past Plur. Participle II

A ō ō a
faran “go” for foron faren
Class VII. Most vowel interchanges in Class VII resulted from the doubling of the root
("reduplication") in the Past tense stems. That is why the Past tense stems had a long monophthong
or a long diphthong in the root.
Infinitive Past Sing. Past Plur. Participle II

hātan “call” hēt hēton hāten

feallan “fall” feoll feollon feallen
cnēawan cnēow cnēowon cnāwen

Weak Verbs. There were three classes of weak verbs in OE which built their Past tense forms
by adding a dental suffix -d or -t to the Present tense stem and the ending -e.
The form of Participle II was built only by adding the dental suffix.
Class I (verbs of i-stems), There were several variants of Class I verbs depending on whether they
added the suffix directly to the stem or had a vowel before it. The irregular weak verbs of Class I
besides the dental suffix had a vowel alternation.
Class I
Infinitive Past Sing. Participle II

-an/ -ian -de/-ede/-te -ed/-d-/-t

dēman “deem” dēmde dēmed
cēpan “keep” cēpte cēped
werian “wear” werede wered
tellan tealde teald
Class II (verbs of ō-stems). The verbs of Class II were originally built with the help of the stem
suffix ō; They had lost ō in the Infinitive but retained its traces in the other principal forms: -ode, -
od.
Class II
Infinitive Past Sing. Participle II
-ian -ode -od
lufian (love) lufode lufod
Class III (verbs of a-stems). In OE verbs of Class III added the dental suffix directly to the last
consonant of the root and doubled the consonant in the Infinitive.
Infinitive Past Sing. Participle II
-an -de -d
libban "live" lifde lifd

Suppletive and AnomalousVerbs. The verb dōn, NE do, willan NE will, ān, NE go and
bēon NE be combined both ways of form- building - that of strong and weak verbs. The verbs ān

20
and bēon had suppletive forms.
Examples:
Infinitive Past Sing. Participle II
dōn “do” dyde dōn
bēon “be” wæs, w ron bēn

Preterite-Present (or Past-present) Verbs. The Present Tense forms of the preterite-present
verbs correspond to the past of strong verbs, while their past is derived according to the past of weak
verbs.
Thus, in OE the present tense of the verb wītan "know" is wāt for the singular and witon for the
plural, while its past is wisse or wiste. Its present thus corresponds to the past of class I strong verbs
(compare: wrāt - writon), while its past is derived on the pattern of weak verbs (wisse < *wit-te).
In OE there were twelve preterite-present:
OE ā NE own, "ought"; OE cunnan, NE can;
OE dear, N dare; OE sculan, NE shall; OE ma an, NE may;
OE mōt, NE must; OE wītan, NE know; OE du an, "be fit"; OE unnan "wish"; OE ðuran "need";
OE munan "remember"; OE eneah "be enough".

Lecture 6
Old English Word-stock
Etymology
The bulk of the OE word-stock was made up of native words, loanwords or borrowings
constituted but a small part of the vocabulary.
Native words in OE were not homogeneous. They included:
1. Common Indo-European Words which comprised a considerable portion of the OE vocabulary
and denoted the most important notions and things indispensable in everyday life; e.g. OE brōþor >
NE brother, OE twā > NE two.
2. Specifically Germanic Words going back to the Common Germanic period appeared when the
ancient Germanic tribes formed an independent linguistic group. These words denote notions
referring to the sea, nature and everyday life; e.g. OE hand > NE hand, OE dēop > NE deep.
3. West Germanic Words which have parallels only in the West Germanic languages: OE rēat >
NE great, OE scēap > NE sheep;
4. Specifically Old English Words. These words do not occur in any other known languages and
refer to the Old English period proper: OE brid > NE bird, OE wimman > NE woman.
Borrowings were mainly made from Latin and Celtic. The majority of them were adopted into
OE through personal intercourse. Some of them entered the language through writing. Loan-words
denoted things of everyday life or other important notions.
The adoption of Latin words had begun long before the first Germanic tribes came to Britain.
A considerable number of Latin words were borrowed already in Late Common Germanic. The
Latin loan-words of the second period came into English through the dialects of the Celtic tribes in
the British Isles. Those were mostly names of Roman settlements. Many of them have survived as
place-names orheir parts: Lancaster (Lat. Castra, OE ceaster "a military camp"; Bridport (Lat.
Portus, OE port, NE port).
The third layer of Latin words entered Old English in the 6th and 7th centuries when the
population of Britain was converted to Christianity. Latin was the language of the Church. Latin also
influenced the formation of the so-called "translation loan-words", i.e. words made from the material
of the native language on the pattern of Latin words, e.g.: OE dæ1nimend "participle" lit. "taker of
parts" (Lat. participium).
21
 In OE there was a considerable number of Latin borrowings with the suffix - arius denoting
nomina agentis. Eventually the suffix -arius was singled out and became one of the most productive
suffixes in English: OE sutere < Latin sutor "shoemaker", OE scōlere < Latin scholāris - NE scholar.
The Celtic element in the OE word-stock is very small, e.g. OE dun > NE down "hill" (O. Irish dun):
OE cumb > NE dial: comb "a small valley" (Welsh cum). The word cumb is also found in some
place-names: Duncombe, Batcombe.

Word-Formation
Depending on the morphological structure of the word all OE words were divided into simple,
derived and compound. Many of the OE simple words appear to have been derived or compound
having later undergone the process of simplification of their morphological structure. Thus, OE
hlāford > NE lord, a compound word of hlaf and weard, appears to be simple already in OE, having
lost its connection with the component parts, both in form and meaning. In OE words were derived
by means of affixation and sound alternations. The majority of sound alternations found in OE were
vowel alternations going hack either to Into-European ablaut (gradation) or to OE umlaut (palatal
mutation). Vowel gradation was most frequently used in differentiating verbs and nouns of the same
root together with a suffix: OE sprecan > NE speak, OE spr ce > NE speech.
Vowel alternations due to palatal mutation served to differentiate various parts of speech
coming from the same root:
a) nouns and verbs; OE dōm > NE doom, OE dēman > NE deem;
b) adjectives and verbs: OE full> NE full - OE fullan - NE fill;
c) nouns and adjectives: OE lon > NE long, OE len þu > NE length;
d) nouns of the same root: OE od > NE god, OE yden "goddess";
c) adjectives of the same root: OE weorþ > NE worth, OE wyrþi > NE worthy.
In OE affixation was subdivided into suffixation and prefixation.
Prefixation was most frequently used to derive verbs. Only negative prefixes were productive
in the formation of nouns and adjectives. The most productive OE prefixes were as follows:
ā-: OE ā -bīdan - "abide"
bc-: be-feallan - "befall",
for-: for-sacan - "forsake",
fore-: fore- ān - "precede",
e-: e-rinnan - "run together",
mis-: mis-cweþa - "speak incorrectly",
un-: un-rīpe - "unripe".
Many prefixes in OE lost their original concrete meaning and developed a very general
meaning.
Suffixation was most productive in nouns. OE suffixes used to build nouns were subdivided into
suffixes of concrete nouns and suffixes of abstract nouns. One of the most productive suffixes of
concrete nouns was-ere, borrowed from Latin - arius: OE dōmere "judge".
Other productive suffixes of nomina agentis were: -estre: OE bæcestre "woman baker", -en: OE mæ
den > NE maiden.
Productive suffixes of abstract nouns were as follows: un : OE huntun > NE hunting; -aþ, -
oþ: OE huntoþ - "hunting", -nes, -nis; OE blindnes> NE blindness; - þ:
lengvþu > NE length, -u: OE hætū > NE heat.
OE suffixes -ede, -en, -i , -isc, -sum were used to build adjectives: OE hocede - "curved", OE
wyllen > NE woollen, OE mihti > NE mighty, OE wyrpi > NE worthy; OE cildisc > NE childish.
22
 A number of OE suffixes developed from root morphemes of compound words: -dōm, –hād, -
scipe, -full, -leas, -līc (OE wīs-dōm > NE wisdom, OE dræ -lic > NE daily).
OE compound words (nouns, verbs and adjectives) were made up either by combining two
roots or stems with or without a connecting vowel or by combining two words after the pattern of a
free combination. Thus they were divided into two groups: primary compounds and secondary
compounds.
Primary compound nouns included nouns formed after the pattern: noun-stem + noun-stem
(OE winter - tid. NE winter-tide), adjective stem + noun stem (OE mid-niht, NE midnight); verb-
stem + noun-stem (OE bæc - hus "bakery").
Primary compound adjectives were built by combining: 1) noun – stem + adjective-stem (OE
ār – fæst "merciful"); 2) adjective - stem + adjective-stem (OE wīd - al "wandering").
Primary compound verbs were formed after the following patterns:1) noun stem + verb stem;
(OE d l+niman "take part"); 2) adjective stem + verb-stem (OE ful-fyllan, NE fulfill).
Secondary compounds go back to free syntactical combinations. They were commonly built
after the pattern: "Noun-stem modified by another noun in the Genitive case": (OE r des-man
"councillor").

Spheres of Usage in OE Word-stock

The OE word-stock was not homogeneous either stylistically or semantically. The following
spheres of usage in OE can be singled out: 1) stylistically neutral words, 2) poetic words, 3) learned
words. The majority of OE words were neutral in their stylistic colouring. These words which were
commonly polysemantic denoted objects of everyday life and were used to form new derivatives
und compounds as well as phraseological units. It is to note worthy that the bulk of common words
were of native origin. Examples:
OE wisian v – обучать, руководить;
OE wra0 adj. – разгневанный.
There were a number of words in OE used only in poetry. Most of these words went out of use
in ME. Examples: OE hild (poetic), OE fecht (common), NE fight. The OE poetic vocabulary was
characterized by a wealth of synonyms. Thus, there were 37 words denoting a warrior in Beowulf
(e.g. beorn, rinc, etc.).
Learned words were the words connected with religion and learning. The majority of these
words were borrowed from Latin or translated (translation-loans). Examples of learned words: OE
ma ister - NE master; OE declīnun - NE declension.

Lecture 7

Middle English. Historical Background of the Middle English Period.

The Formation of the National Literary English Language

The second main period in the history of the English language is the Middle English period
which covers the 12th-15th centuries. During this period the English language was influenced by
different economic, social and political factors. Among the most important political events were the
Scandinavian Conquest and the Norman Conquest.

The Scandinavian Conquest

Scandinavian inroads into England had begun as early as the 8th century. In the late 9th
century the Scandinavians (the Danes) occupied the whole of English territory north of the Thames.
23
In 878 King Alfred made peace with the invaders (Wedmore peace). The territory occupied by the
Scandinavians was to remain in their power; it was henceforward called Danelaw. In 1013 the whole
country fell to the invaders. Scandinavian power in England lasted until 1042, when it was
overthrown, and the power of the Old English nobility was restored under the king Edward the
Confessor. The Scandinavian conquest had a considerable effect on the English language. The
Scandinavian dialects spoken by the invaders belonged to the North Germanic languages and their
phonetic and grammatical structure was similar to that of Old English. Close relationship between
English and Scandinavian dialects made mutual understanding possible. The result was a blending
of Scandinavian and English. Influence of Scandinavian dialects made itself felt in two spheres: the
word-stock and morphology.

The Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest of England began in 1066. That year King Edward the Confessor died.
Harold, son or Earl Godwin, was proclaimed king of England. William, Duke of Normandy, who
had long claimed the English throne, assembled an army with the help of Norman barons, landed in
England, and routed [rautid – обратил в бегство, нанес поражение] the English troops under King
Harold near Hastings on October 14, 1066. In the course of a few years the Normans became
masters of England.
One of the most significant consequences of the Norman domination in Britain was the use of
the French language In many spheres of British political and social life. However the lower classes
held fast to their own tongue. Thus the English language and the French language coexisted and
gradually permeated each other. In the latter half of the 14th century victory of English became
evident.
The victory of English was due to the rise of social layers that spoke it - the gentry (люди из
благородного сословия) and the town bourgeoisie. However the three hundred years of French
domination in many spheres of life considerably affected the English language: its word-stock,
phonetic structure, alphabet and spelling.

Middle English Dialects. Rise of the London Dialect

The Middle English language was made up of a number of local dialects. There were three
main groups of dialects in Middle English: Northern (OE Northumbrian), Midland (Средняя
Англия) (OE Mercian), and Southern (OE West Saxon).
A special position among the dialects belonged to the dialect of London, which after the
Norman conquest became the capital of England. By the end of the 14th century the London dialect
which had developed from several dialects became influential in other parts of the country.
London's geographical position was favourable for a quick growth of its political importance and its
role as the birth-place of a nationa1 language. London's role as a trade centre attracted many people
from different parts of the country and paved the way for elements of other dialects to penetrate into
London English. Thus, the London dialect which became the base of the national English language,
was a complex formation. It contained East Midland and Southern features. The London dialect is
represented in the works of the following authors (14th century): Adam Davy, John Gower, John
Wycliffe, Geoffrey Chaucer (his most important work is his "Canterbury Tales"). Geoffrey Chaucer
is the greatest English writer before the age of Shakespeare. Chaucer wrote in a dialect which
coincided with that used in documents produced in London shortly before his time and for a long
while after. He made masterly use of the London dialect and set up a pattern of the literary language
to be followed in the 14th and 15th centuries known as classical Middle English; in the 15th and
16th centuries it became the basis of the national standard form of the written language.
24
 Changes in the Spelling System
During several centuries after the Norman conquest the business of writing was in the hands of
French scribes. Thus, many of the changes in the English spelling system were due to French
influence. Several OE symbols fell into disuse: the two runes þ ("thorn") and p ("wen") and the letter
3, which were replaced by th, w, g respectively. The ligature æ (двойная буква) also comes into
disuse. A number of new letters were introduced: k, v, q (in the digraph qu), J, the digraph gh, etc.
A few alternations must have been purely ornamental (the use of the letters y and w at the end
of words with the same sound values as i and u).

The Formation of the National Literary English Language

The formation of the national English language, or Standard English, is considered to date
from the period between the 15th and the 17th centuries. The unification of the country and the
progress of culture led to this development. Towards the end of the 15th century the period of feudal
disunity in Britain came to an end, and Britain became a centralized state. The contacts of England
with other nations became closer, and new contacts were made. The English language was spread to
new geographical areas (North America, India, Australia).
In the 15th and 16th centuries there existed conditions in Britain for the formation of the
national literary English language. The victory of capitalism over feudalism was linked up with the
consolidation of the British people into a nation and the unification of the regional dialects into a
national language.
These centuries are marked by a general efflorescence of culture in Western Europe. The
universities at Oxford and Cambridge became the centres of new learning in England. The first book
in the English language was printed in 1476 by the first English printer William Caxton. Among the
earliest publications were the poems of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, the works of John
Lydgate and Trevisa. Thus the first printers fixed and spread the written form of English. The form
of the language used by the printers became the standard form of literary English recognized
throughout the country. The written form was accepted as standard earlier than spoken form. During
the 17th century the gap between the written and the spoken language became narrower. With the
spread of education more people learned to speak in the way prescribed by grammars and textbooks.
The basis of the spoken standard was the tongue of London. The social source of the spoken
standard was the tongue of the middle class of London. However it should be borne in mind that the
spoken standard of the literary language could never be as stable and fixed as the written standard. It
has always been changing under the influence of non-standard forms of the language.
The tendency to regularize and correct the language is seen in the early prescriptive grammars
of the 16th-17th centuries as well as in the works of the great lexicographers of the 17th-18th
centuries. John Wallis, 17th century grammarian, was the first to break the Latin tradition in
interpreting English grammar. In the late 17th century the Royal Society (Королевская академия
наук) appointed a special committee for "improving the English tongue". In 1712 Jonathan Swift,
the great writer, drew up a detailed proposal for "Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the
English Tongue "by setting up a body of well informed persons who would fix the obligatory rules
of usage.
The publications of Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" in 1755 is the most
important linguistic event of the 18th century. Johnson fixed the English spelling, pronunciation and
defined the meanings of words.
Samuel Johnson, Nathaniel Bailey and other 18th century lexicographers led the foundations of
English lexicography and paved the way for the great dictionaries of the modem times.

25
 Lecture 8
Middle English Phonetics
The English sounds have changed very considerably in the times that have elapsed since the
OE period. The changes have affected not only the pronunciation of separate words but the entire
system of phonemes and the word-stress.
Word-Stress in Middle English and Early New English
In the 13 th-16th centuries the system of word-stress in English was considerably altered: the
position of stress became relatively free and its phonological application widened. In ME stress
could fall not only on the first syllable of the words or the root-morpheme but also on the syllables
following the root - morpheme or on the second syllable of the root, e.g. ME vertu [ver`ty:] or
[ve`tju] > NE virtue; ME condiciuon [kondisi'u:n] > NE condition.
During the ME period many words were borrowed from French or later from classical or
contemporary languages. In the beginning these - loan words retained the original position of the
stress, but gradually the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word as the loan-words
were assimilated by the English language. This shift is usually termed "the recessive tendency".
Thus in disyllabic words stress was shifted from the second to the first syllable: ME vertu [ve'tju] >
NE virtue[`və:tju]; in words of three and more syllables stress could be shifted the syllable
immediately preceding: ME condicioun [kəndı`sjun] > NE condition [kən`diƒn].
In polysyllabic words the rhythmic tendency was quite evident. This tendency required a
regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Due to the rhythmic tendency, a secondary
stress arose at a distance of one syllable from the original stress; ME disobeie [dizo'bei] > NE
disobey [`disəbei].
Some alternations in the position of stress are associated with morphological factors: stress
was not shifted to the prefixes of many verbs borrowed in Middle English or Early New English in
spite of the recessive tendency which conformed to the native morphological regularity in the word-
stress (to keep verb prefixes unstressed): NE im'prison, en'gender (производить, рождать, родить).
The position of stress could sometimes serve as a distinctive feature differentiating between
verbs and nouns: NE discord n ['disko:d] and discord v [dis'ko:d] .

Changes of Unstressed Vowels in Middle English and Early New English

In the ME period the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As
compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position (representing three
phonemes [e/i] [a] and [o/u], ME reduced them to two short vowels (representing one phoneme [e/i]
or rather [o/i], the first variant being a neutral sound):
OE fiscas, fisces > ME fishes ['fiƒəs], OE talu > ME tale ['ta:lə].
In the NE period the final sound [ə] was lost.
As a result of the shifting of word-stress in ME and early NE and other phonetic changes new
unstressed vowels developed from stressed ones. Some of the new unstressed vowels retained their
quantitative and qualitative differences: NE `consecrate [ei] (посвящать, церк. освятить). These
developments show that the gap between the set of stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed.

Changes of Stressed Vowels

Not a single OE long vowel or diphthong has remained unaltered in the course of history, only
a few short vowels have not altered at all. In OE the prevailing type of changes of stressed vowels
were assimilative changes affecting the quality of the vowel. In ME quantitative vowel changes
appear to have assumed greater importance. These were positional changes, which affected many
vowels and led to an alteration in the phonological load of vowel quantity. The ME and the Early
New English periods saw important qualitative vowel changes. The regular qualitative changes of
26
all the long vowels between the 14 and the 17 centuries are known as the Great vowel shift.
All the changes in vowel quantity can be interpreted as manifestations of a sort of rhythmic
tendency - to achieve a certain average uniformity in the length of the syllable - either by shortening
a vowel before a consonant cluster or else by lengthening the consonant after a short vowel.

Changes in Vowel Quantity in Early New English

Certain consonant clusters in Early NE brought about the lengthening of the preceding vowel;
they were [ss], [st], [ft], [nt] and mainly affected the vowel: ME blast [blast] >NE blast [bla:st]; ME
after [aftэr] > NE after [a:ftə].
The reverse quantitative change-shortening of vowels-occurred before certain dental or alveolar
consonants and before [k]: ME breeth [briθ] > NE breath [breθ], ME book [bu:k] > NE book [buk].
In the course of history the quality of stressed vowels has changed even more considerably than
their quantity. The long vowels displayed a strong tendency to become narrower and to be
diphthongised, whereas the short vowels showed a certain trend towards greater openness.
The vowels [y] and [y:] were found in all the OE dialects up to the 9tb century, when they were
replaced by [e, e:] in Kentish and were confused with [iə] and [ie] in West Saxon.
In Early ME [y] and [y:] > developed into [e], [e:] or [i], [i:]; in the South- Western part of England
the two vowels merged with [u] and [u:]:
OE fyllan > ME fellen [felən] > NE fill (Kentish); OE fyllan > ME fullen [fyllən], [fullən] (South
Western); OE mys > ME mees [me:s] > NE mice (Kentish).
In OE there existed along open front vowel [æ:] In ME it became slightly narrower in all the
dialects: OE stræt > ME street[strε:t] > NE street .
Another, and a more obvious development in this direction was the narrowing of OE [a:] to ME
[o:] in all the dialects except the Northern: OE stān> ME stoon, stone, [sto:n(ə)] > NE stone.
In ME short vowels became more open. The OE open [o] or the nasalised [o] was reflected in
ME as [a] and only in the West Midlands as [ə].
Most of the NE words going back to the OE words with the vowel [ ] or [o] have [a]: NE
man, sand, and, can; some words, however, especially those ending in [ŋ] should be traced to West
Midland, and have [o]; > NE song, pond, fond, from.

Monophthongisation of OE diphthongs
The most important of the Early ME qualitative changes was the loss of OE diphthongs. The
OE language had long diphthongs [ēa], [ēo/io], [īe] and short diphthongs [ea], [eo/io], [ie].
Towards the end of the OE period all the OE diphthongs began to merge with monophthongs: OE
[īe] and [ie) mingled with OE [y:] and [y]; the long OE diphthong [ēa] coalesced with the long OE
[æ:] and did not differ from it in later modifications; the short [ea] merged with [æ] and shared its
further development; and the dialectal variants [eo/io] and [ēo/īo] fell together with the
monophthongs [e:/i:], [e] and [i] respectively.

THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

The great vowel shift is the name given to a series of English long vowels between the 14 th and 17th
centuries. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were diphthongized: OE [e:] > NE
[i:]; OE [ε:] > NE [e:]> NE [i:]; OE [o:]> NE[u:]; OE [u:] > NE [au]. The narrowest long vowels in
OE [u:] and [i:] developed respectively into [au] and [ai]. It is important to note that the Great
Vowel Shift was not followed by any spelling changes: the modification in the pronunciation of
words was not reflected in their written forms. The gap between the spoken and the written form of
word grew and the English spelling system became more conservative and conventional than before.
The values of letters have considerably changed, e.g. before the shift the letter “i” stood for [i] and
27
[i:], after the shift it indicated two sounds distinctly different in quality: [I] as in bit and [ai] as in
bite: the letter “e” stood for [i:] and [e].

The Great Vowel Shift

Change illustrated Examples
ME (Intermediate NE ME NE
stage)
i: (ei) ai time[‘timə] time
e: i: kepen[ke:pэn] keep
ε: (e:) i: street[strε:t] street
α: (ε:) ei maken[‘ma:kэn’] make
: (o:) ou stone[sto:nэ] stone
o: u: moon[mo:n] moon
u: (ou) au mous[mu:s] mouse

Changes of Short Vowels in Early New English

In Early New English only two short vowels (out of five) underwent distinct alterations.
1. ME [a] is reflected as [æ] in the NE vowel system: ME that [ðat] > NE that [θæt].
The more obvious change of the ME [a] or [æ] came about when it was preceded by the semi-vowel
[w]. Under the influence of this labialised sound the vowel developed a variant which finally
merged with another phoneme [ ]. The short [ ] resulting from this development and [ ] inherited
from Middle and OE fell together in NE: OE wæs > NE was [was] > NE was [w z]: OE wæter >
ME water ['watэr] > NE water ['w tэ].
2. ME short [u] lost its labial character and became [Λ] (except in some dialectal forms): ME hut
[hut] > NE hut [hΛt]; ME comen ['kumэn] > NE come [kΛm], but: ME putten ['puttэn] > NE put
[put].

Development of Consonants and Associated Vowel Changes

Development of sibilants and affricates
One of the most important consonant changes in the history of English was the appearance of
affricates and sibilants, lacking in the OE period. The new type of consonants arose from the OE
palatal plosives [k'], [g'] and [sk]. Examples:
OE [k'] > ME [tƒ]: OE cild > ME child> NE child;
OE [g'] > ME [d ]: OE ec e > ME edge> NE edge;
OE [sk] > ME [ƒ]: OE fisk> ME fish> NE fish.
Another development accounting for the appearance of new sibilants and affricates in the
English language Dates from the Early New English period and is connected with primarily with the
phonetic assimilation of borrowings due to which some clusters of two consonants fused into a
single consonant. The clusters: [sj] > [ƒ], [zj] > [ ], [tj] > [t ƒ] , [dj] > [d ]:
ME condicioun [kondi'sju:n] > NE condition;
ME plesure [ple'zju:r] > NE pleasure;
ME nature [na'tjurэ] > NE nature;
ME souldier [soul'djэr] > NE soldier.

Treatment of Fricative Consonants in Middle and Early New English

In OE the pairs of Fricative consonants [f] and [v], le] and [t], [s] and [z] were treated as
positional variants or allophones; their use depended on phonetic conditions - in intervocal position
28
they appeared as voiced fricatives, otherwise they were voiceless. In ME and in Early NE these
allophones became independent phonemes. The first pair to change into phonemes was [f] and [v]:
ME veyne ['veinэ] > NE vein; ME feine ['feinэ] > NE feign.
In the 15 th or 16th century the fricatives were once again subjected to voicing under certain
conditions. Henceforth they were pronounced as voiced if they were preceded by an unstressed
vowel and followed by a stressed one.
In ENE the medial voiceless [s] before a stressed vowel and after an unstressed one became
[z], while the final fricative [s] preceded by a stressed vowel remained voiceless. In ENE "'fishes"
the final [s] preceded by the unstressed [э] became voiced.
The ENE voicing affected a number of monosyllabic words: the fricatives became voiced in
many form-words, which bear no sentence stress: ME the [θe] > NE the [ðэ], ME this [θis] > NE
this [ðis]. Due to the ENE voicing the endings in the plural forms of nouns, the form of the
possessive case, the form of the 3rd person singular of the verbs in the present tense indicative mood
became voiced.

Vocalisation and loss of сonsonants

The vocalization of the OE velar and palatal fricatives [j], [γ], [x'], [x] dates from different
periods of history. In the transition period from OE to NE the voiced consonants [j], [γ] between and
after vowels developed into [i] and [u] respectively. They fused with the preceding stressed vowels
into diphthongs or made the preceding short vowels long. OE dæ > ME day [dai] > NE day; OE fu
el > ME fowel [fu:əl] > NE fowl.
In late ME the other two consonants [x'] and [x] turned into [i] and [u] respectively; they
formed glides of diphthongs or lengthened the preceding vowel: OE niht > ME night [nix't] > ENE
[ni:t] > NE night. In the course of the vocalisation there developed a number of diphthongs with [i] -
glides, namely the ME diphthongs [ei] and [ai] (which later fell together into NE [eI] and a number
of diphthongs with [u]- glides, namely the ME and ENE diphthongs [oυ] and [aυ].

Development of [r] and Associated Vowel Changes

The sonorant [r] began to influence the preceding vowels already in Late ME. One of its early
effects on the vowels was that it made the preceding vowel more open and retracted; the cluster [er]
changed to [ar] toward the close of the ME period: ME [klerk] > ENE [klark] > NE clerk.
The change of [er] > [ar] did not affect all the words with the given sounds: ME serven ['servэn] >
NE serve. The vocalisation of [r] came about later and was a more universal process.
In Early NE the sonorant [r] was vocalised in the position after vowels, either finally or when
followed by another .consonant. Losing its consonantal character [r] changed into the neutral sound
[э], which was added to the preceding vowel as a glide thus forming a diphthong: ME there [ðε:r] >
NE there [ðεə]. In the course of the vocalisation of [r] there appeared new long monophthongs [з:]
and [ :]: ME port [port] > NE port [p :t], and new diphthongs with [ð]- glides and triphthongs: ME
shour [ƒu:r] > NE shower [ aυэ].

Loss of Long Consonants and Simplification of Some Consonant Clusters

It is believed that during the ME period the consonants lost their quantitative distinctions, as
the long or double consonants disappeared: OE settan> ME setten > ['setэn] > NE set. Another kind
of simplification of consonants is to be found in consonant clusters. One of the consonants, usually
the first was dropped:
OE [xl] > ME [1]: OE hlæne > ME leene [lε:nэ] > NE lean.

29
 Lecture 9
Middle English Grammar
Changes in the Nominal System and in the Verb System
Since the OE period the very grammatical type of the language has changed: from what could
be termed a largely synthetic or inflected language, English has developed into a language of the
analytical type with analytical means of word connection prevailing over synthetic ones. The syntax
of the word group and of the sentence came to play a more important role in the language than the
morphology of the word. In OE all the grammatical forms were built synthetically. In Middle and
New English there appeared many forms built in the analytical way: with the help of auxiliary
words. In the synthetic forms of the ME and the Early NE periods the means of form-building
employed were the same as before: inflections, sound interchanges and suppletive forms. However
their application in the language was generally reduced. Inflections, or grammatical suffixes and
endings continued to be used in all the inflected (or "changeable") parts of speech. It is notable,
however, that in NE all the vowels in the grammatical endings were reduced to the neutral [ə] and
many consonants were levelled to [n] or lost. Different endings were replaced by one and the same
ending by analogy.
In the Early NE period most of the old endings were dropped. Compare OE locian to ME loken
with the ending [ən] and NE look, where [ən] has been dropped. As far as the тew analytical ways
of form-building are concerned they were not equally productive in all the parts of speech:
compound forms built with the help of auxiliary words were very numerous in the verb system,
whereas in the nominal system they were confined to the adjective.
In this respect as well as in many others the nominal and the verbal systems developed in
widely different ways.

The Noun
Changes in the Grammatical Categories
In the Early Middle English period the noun lost the grammatical category of gender. In
Chaucer's time gender is a lexical category, like in Modem English: nouns are referred to as "he" or
"she" if they denote human beings and as "it" if they denote animals or inanimate things. The two
other categories of the noun case and number, were preserved in a modified shape, In ME the
number of cases in the noun paradigm was reduced from four to two cases. Already in OE the forms
of the Nominative and the Accusative case were not distinguished in the plural and in some stems
they coincided also in the singular. These case-forms ceased to be distinguished altogether in Early
Middle English. The form of the Dative (with -e) fell together with the former Nominative-
Accusative into the Common case (the same as in Modem English). Only the Genitive case was kept
distinctly separate from the other cases. However its sphere of application has gradually narrowed:
in contrast to OE, the Genitive case in Middle English was no longer used as an object, its only
syntactical function being that of all attribute. The Common case has acquired a very general
meaning which was made more specific by the context, prepositions, the meaning of the verb-
predicate, the word order.
The category of number proved to be the most stable of the grammatical categories of the noun.
The countable nouns have preserved the distinction of two numbers. The syncretism of cases was a
slow process that took many hundred years.

Declension Types in Middle English

In ME the declension system was gradually rearranged and became more regular and uniform.
In the Southern dialects the declensions were rearranged in accordance with gender and largely
under the influence of n-stems, while in the North and in the Midlands gender distinctions were soon
30
forgotten, the most frequent endings and Midland dialects being those of the former a-stems.
The genitive case of all nouns was marked by ”es”, both in the singular and in plural. (The
apostrophe was introduced in the 17-th century).
The plural forms of nouns in the ME had the ending – es [әs] which goes back to the plural
ending-as as of a-stems. This ending underwent a number of phonetic changes due to the voicing of
fricatives and the loss of [ә] in unstressed final syllables, e.g. ME wolves [wulvz] > [wulvәz]>
[wulvz> NE wolves; ME books [bu:kәz] > [buks]>NE books; ME dishes > [di⌡әs] > di⌡iz] > NE
dishes.
The Middle English plural ending –en goes back to the OE plural ending –an of a-stems. Later
it has been preserved only in NE “oxen” , “brethren” and “children”.
The formation of the plural by means of a root vowel alternation comes from the former root-
stems: OE fot, fet > ME foot, feet.
Some ME nouns did not change for the plural: ME swine, sheep, deer. These nouns came from
the neuter a-stem with a long root-syllable, which added no plural ending in OE.

The Pronoun
In OE personal pronouns had three genders (in the 3-rd person), four cases, three numbers in
the 1-st and 2-nd persons. In ME and Early NE personal pronouns underwent some simplifying
changes.

Lexical replacement in the personal pronouns

The OE feminine pronouns of the 3-rd person, e.g. heo was replaced by the ME “sho” or “she”.
However, the oblique case from OE heo, ME “hir” > NE her has been retained to the present day.
The pronoun of the 3-rd person plural OE “hie” was replaced by the Scandinavian borrowing
“they”. The form of the oblique case NE them>NE them and the possessive their ousted (austid -
вытеснила) the earlier native English “hem” and “heora” (built from OE hie). The form of the 2-nd
person plural, ye and you, was generalized both as singular and plural, while ME thou became
obsolete.
Grammatical changes
The category of number was brought into conformity with the corresponding category of nouns: the
forms of dual number of the 1-st and 2-nd person went into disuse.
As for the category of case it underwent great changes too: the forms of the Dative and the
Accusative cases fell together into one form of pronouns, used as an object; therefore we call it the
objective case in ME like in Modern English. The two-case system (Nominative and Objective) is
now regarded embracing all the personal pronouns, it and you having homonymous forms. The
forms of the Genitive case of the personal pronouns split from the personal pronouns into a separate
group of pronouns called possessive. The ME my and mine, thy, thyne, his, her etc. like other
attributes no longer agree with the noun they modify.
One new pronoun was added to the set of possessive pronouns: the possessive pronoun its
corresponding to it, formed on the analogy of other possessive pronouns, replaced the OE Neuter
his.

Other Classes of Pronouns

In ME there developed one more class of pronouns - reflexive. They developed on the basis of
the oblique case forms of the OE personal pronouns. For instance, the pronoun myself combines a
possessive pronoun, ME and NE my, with self: the pronoun themselves is a combination of the
objective case them with the plural of self, selves. The other classes of pronouns: interrogative,
relative, indefinite and demonstrative, displayed great changes too. All the inflected pronouns lost
31
some grammatical distinctions. For instance, the ME demonstrative pronouns retained only number
distinctions (hi OE these pronouns had five cases, three genders and two numbers). The Singular
forms of the ME demonstrative pronouns - that and this, NE that, this had developed from the ME
Nominative and Accusative forms of the Neuter gender, singular of respective OE pronouns Þæt,
Þes: the plural forms - ME those and thes, NE those, these - had descended from the OE plural
forms of demonstrative pronouns. The development of the OE demonstrative pronoun se, seo, Þæt
"that" led to the formation of the definite article.
In ME there had arisen a formal difference between that used as a demonstrative pronoun and
retaining number distinctions and the used as the definite article and having no number distinctions.
Bearing no sentence stress the newly formed article had weakened its form to the (pronounced as
[θэ]) in ME. The indefinite article developed from the numeral and indefinite pronoun OE ān, ME
oon, NE one. In ME the indefinite article had the forms a and an.

The Adjective
The adjective has lost all its grammatical categories except the degrees of comparison. Already
in OE the agreement of the adjective with the noun became looser and in the course of the 12th
century it was almost lost.
The only difference between the forms of the Middle English adjective was the inflection -e,
which was added to build the plural in the strong declension and to mark the weak forms of both
numbers.
DECLENSION OF ADJECTIVE IN ME:
Number ME NE
Strong Weak
Singular Good goode
good
Plural Goode goode

The least stable of the grammatical categories of the adjective were gender and case: they had
disappeared already by the end of the 12th century. The distinctions between the singular and plural
forms and also the weak and strong forms were lost in the 15th century.

Degrees of Comparison
The formal means employed to build up the· forms of the degrees of comparison have
considerably altered. In OE the forms of the comparative and the superlative degree were synthetic:
they were built by adding the suffixes - -ra and est/-ost to the form of the positive degree.
Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an alternation of the root vowel; a few adjectives had
suppletive forms. In ME the suffixes had been weakened to -er, and -est, and the alternation of the
root-vowel became far less frequent than before and gradually fell into disuse. The most important
innovation in the adjective system in the ME period was the growth of analytical forms of the
degrees of comparison. In ME, when the phrases with more and most became more and more
common, they were preferred with monosyllabic. or disyllabic adjectives (contrary to the modem
usage). The synthetic and analytical forms of the degrees of comparison were used indiscriminately
until the 17th and 18th centuries when the modem standard usage established itself and was
recommended as correct.

The Verb
Changes in the Verb Conjugation
Unlike the morphology of the nouns and adjectives which in the course of history has become
32
much simpler, the morphology of the verb on the whole has been greatly enriched. In some respects,
however, the verb conjugation has become regular and uniform. In ME the inflections were reduced
or levelled out by analogy and in N'E many of them were dropped. In the ME paradigm, just like in
the OE one the verb bad different forms of the two numbers both in the present and past of the
indicative and subjunctive moods.
In Early NE the inflection -en (ME loken, NE look) was dropped both in the plural indicative
and plural subjunctive (as well as in the infinitive). The plural forms fell together with the singular
forms in the past tense and in the present tense (except the 3rd person of the indicative mood).
The differences in. the forms of person were maintained but had become less varied in ME.
The OE ending -aō of the 3rd person singular used in class 2 of the weak verbs, in ME was reduced
to -eth. All the verbs now added -eth, -th irrespective of class. The second ending of the 3rd person -
es was a new marker, first recorded in the Northern dialects. In the 18th century there arose a
stylistic difference between the endings -es and -eth; the former was more colloquial. The mark -est
of the 2nd person singular in the past and in the present was ultimately lost. The formal difference
between moods was also greatly obscured: many forms of the indicative and subjunctive moods
became homonymous.

Strong Verbs
All types of verbs existing in OE - strong, weak, preterite - present, and irregular were
preserved in ME. However, some verbs changed from the strong conjugation to the weak, and some
others from tbe weak to the strong. In ME the number of the strong verbs was greatly reduced.
The changes in the strong verbs which occurred since the OE period are these:
1. Both the infinitive ending -an and the past plural ending -on were weakened to -en(n).
2. The OE prefix 3e- was reduced to y-. In most dialects, however, the prefix has disappeared by the
14th century.
3. In ME more and more verbs lost the differences in the root-vowels between the four stems, e.g.
the verb chēsen in class II.
4. The number of stems was reduced from four to three during the transition to New English: the
two past tense stems were replaced by one. In ME risen the past tense singular rose was generalised
as the past tense stem, while risen, the past plural, was lost (NE rise, rose).
Weak Verbs
In ME weak verbs displayed a strong tendency towards regularity and system. The two classes
of weak verbs could still be distinguished. As for Class III it was not numerous and was easily
influenced by other classes: the verbs of class III either joined the other classes of weak verbs (e.g.
ME liven (Class I), NE live), or became irregular (e.g. ME haven, NE have).

CLASSES OF WEAK VERBS IN ME

Infinitive Past Singular Past Plural Participle II
Class I
Dēmem deemde demed deem
Class II
Looken lookede looked look

The verbs of the OE Class II with a long syllable and without a vowel before the dental suffix
in the past like de man retained this peculiarity in ME: they added -de in the past tense without the
intermediate "e" and had -ed in Participle lI.
The verbs of Class II marked by the endings -ode, -od in OE, weakened them to -ede, -ed in
ME. The differences between the classes in ME were very slight. The vowel [ə] in final syllables
33
became unstable and was soon lost. This reduced the number of principal forms in the weak verbs
from three to two. Several groups of modern non-standard verbs have developed from the weak
verbs of Class I: ME tellen, tolde - NE tell, told. Another group of verbs became irregular due to the
phonetic changes (mainly Great Vowel shift). This group has attracted a number of verbs from
others classes - sleep, weep (formerly strong verbs of Class VII).
The Simplification of the Infinitive and the Participles
The general trend of the evolution of the Infinitive and the participles in ME can be defined as
gradual loss of nominal features and acquisition of verbal features.
The infinitive had lost its inflected form by the ME period: OE wrītan and tō writanne > ME writen
> NE write. The preposition tō which was placed in OE before the inflected infinitive to show the
meaning of direction or purpose, lost its prepositional force and changed into the formal sign of the
infinitive. The two participles lost their case, gender arid number distinctions and also the weak and
strong declensions in the same way as the adjective. The ME Participle I in-ing (sleeping/-e)
coincided in form with the verbal noun, which was formed in OE with the help of the suffixes -ung
and -ing; but ME had retained only one suffix: -ing (sleeping).
The form of Participle II in ME was built differently by the weak a...d strong verbs. In the weak
verbs the form of Participle II had a dental suffix and usually did not differ from the Past tense stem,
e.g. ME bathed Past tense and Participle II. In the strong verbs it was marked by the ending -en and
by a specific gradation vowel in each class. This ending was preserved by many verbs in Modem
English: shaken, forgotten.

Lecture 10
Development of New Grammatical Forms and Categories of the Verb in Middle English.
Syntactical Changes in Middle English and Early New English.
Analytical Forms. In ME the verb system was greatly enriched by the development of
analytical forms and new grammatical categories. The tendency to develop analytical forms
manifested itself since an early period of history. However, the final establishment of analytical,
verb-forms and their inclusion in the verb-system date from a later period ME and for some forms -
early NE. We can regard them as part of the verb’s stem only when they have become regular sets
opposed to other sets and used to express uniform grammatical meanings.
Numerous analytical forms were built on an analogy with the forms that arose from the free verb-
groups.
The Future Tense
In OE the category of tense consisted of two members, the present and the past. The present
tense form could denote both a present and a future action. Alongside this device there existed
another way of expressing future happenings namely periphrases with verbs of modal meaning (OE
sculan > NE shall, OE ma3an > NE may, OE willan > NE will) followed by an infinitive.
In ME the use of the phrases with shall and will became increasingly common: the modal
meaning of these words grew weaker. Thus we may regard the periphrases with shall and will as a
more or less standard .way of denoting future events in Late Middle English.
New Forms of the Oblique Mood
The analytical forms of the oblique mood go back to combinations of modal verbs with the
infinitive. Already in OE the modal verbs sculan, willan and ma an (NE shall, will, may) were often
used in the forms of the subjunctive mood sceolde, wolde, mihte - with a following infinitive. In ME
many more phrases of similar character came into use. ME bid, deign, let, grant, have lever, ben
lever with various infinitives.
The Interrogative and Negative Forms with "do"
The Early New English period saw the establishment of new grammatical meanings: the
34
interrogative and negative forms of the present and past tenses of the indicative mood built with the
help of the auxiliary verb do.
In ME the verb do was commonly used to express a causative meaning. In Early New English
the causative meaning passed to the phrase with make, while do did not seem to affect the meaning
of the sentence at all and occurred in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences; it was
particularly frequent in poetry. The use of do in poetry is to be attributed to rhythm, while in prose
and in the spoken language its use was explained by the fixed word order and the development of
numerous analytical forms.
Development of New Grammatical Categories of the Finite Verb
The Category of Voice
In OE the category of Voice could hardly be included in the list of verbal grammatical
categories.
The passive form developed from the combination of OE verbs bēon (NE be) and weorðan (NE
become) with Participle II of transitive verbs. In Early NE the latter verb was less common than the
verb been: soon weorðen was replaced by numerous new link - verbs which had developed from
notional verbs (ME becomen, geten, semen, etc., NE become, get, seem).
In NE ben with Participle II of transitive verbs was transformed into an integral verb form
capable of expressing an action (as well as a state) and used in different tense forms; furthermore be
with Participle II is more regularly accompanied by a prepositional phrase denoting the doer of the
action; the prepositions with and by gradually became the established norm.
From the present and past tenses the passive voice spread to other subsystems of the verb, including
the newly formed perfect, the analytical forms of the oblique mood and the continuous forms.
The Category of Time-Correlation
The ME period saw the development of the perfect forms. Like other analytical forms the
perfect forms originally developed from free word-groups: the OE verb habban > ME haven> NE
have, a direct object and Participle II of a transitive verb, which served as an attribute to the object;
another source of the perfect forms was the phrase consisting of the link verb bēon with Participle II
of a few intransitive OE verbs. By the ME time the participle in both these constructions had lost its
forms of agreement with the noun and in the construction with have Participle II was moved closer
to the finite verb. Gradually the verb have came to be used not only with the participles of transitive
verbs, but also with numerous intransitive verbs. For a long time the perfect forms were more or less
synonymous with the simple past forms and denoted merely a past action. Gradually the perfect
forms came to indicate prior actions, while the non-perfect forms did not imply the idea of priority
and referred an event directly to a time period.
The Category of Aspect
The development of the grammatical category of aspect in the English verb is linked up with
the growth of the continuous forms. The continuous forms established themselves in the language
later than any of the analytical forms described above. The category of aspect became a part of the
verb system much later than the first continuous forms appeared in the language, probably in ENE.
It is believed that the continuous forms developed from the confusion of the following phrases: a)
the verb be with a preposition and a verbal noun; b) the verb be + Participle I. The appearance of
perfect and passive forms in the continuous aspect date from a still later period. (The perfect forms -
in the 17th and 19th centuries, the passive form - in the 19th century).
Development of Verbal Categories in the Non-Finite Forms
In ME and ENE the system of verbals was transformed due to the addition of analytical forms,
the strengthening of verbal features and the growth of an entirely new non-finite form, the gerund.
The gerund goes back to three sources: 1) the OE verbal noun, which had the suffix -ung or ing; 2)
Participle I; 3) the infinitive, which in OE was a kind of verbal noun.
35
The syntactical functions of the verbal noun, the infinitive and the participle overlapped, as they
could all stand after a verb as part of a verb pattern. In addition, the verbal noun and Participle I in
NE coincided in form. The formal confusion of the forms led to the use of the direct object with the
verbal noun. This purely verbal feature - the direct object - as well as the subsequent loss of the
article transformed the former verbal noun into the gerund in the modem meaning of the term. In
ENE the gerund began to distinguish voice and tin1e correlation.
Syntactical Changes in ME and ENE
In OE which was a highly inflected language it was possible to show the connection between
words in word groups and sentences by means of synthetic devices; analytical ways of word-
connection were of less importance. Accordingly the word order in the sentence was relatively free.
On the other hand the structure of the sentence was relatively simple. In the ENE period, while the
nominal· system was undergoing its most important changes, many noticeable alterations occurred
in the structure of word groups: noun patterns and verb patterns. Both kinds of patterns acquired
greater stability based on syntactic or semantic connections. The sentence structure changed in the
direction of greater uniformity; universal standard patterns replaced the earlier variety. The structure
of the sentence became more complicated.

Changes in the Sentence Structure. Word Order.

In OE the word order was relatively free. Owing to the relative freedom in the word order in
statements, the formal difference between a question and a statement was obscured. The question
was usually marked by full or partial inversion, while the statement could have an inverted word
order too.
In ME and ENE, with the inflectional endings levelled and dropped, the relation of words to other
words in the sentence was shown through other means: by position, environment and semantic
connections. The place of a noun before and after a verb began to show that the given noun was the
subject and an object; a preposition signalled that the noun was an adverbial modifier, an attribute or
a prepositional object.
Every position of the sentence had a certain functional significance: the sentence pattern
developed into a fixed frame, where syntactical functions were determined by position. In this frame
every position had to be filled. The fixation of word order was a slow process. Some features of the
sentence structure were introduced consciously by the prescriptive grammars of the 17th and 18th
centuries which attempted to establish a logical sentence.

Parts of the Sentence

As compared to OE the subject of the sentence became more varied in meaning, as well as in
the form of expression. The place of the subject was filled not only by a notional subject but also by
the formal it. The subject began to denote not only the active doer of the action or a thing
characterized by a certain property, but also the recipient of the action with the passive voice and the
subject of a state or feeling with verbs like grieve, like. The types of predicates have on the whole
become more numerous and varied: they include the group-verb predicates with stereotyped phrases
and phraseological units, and an increased number of link-verbs.
Syntactical Complexes
One of the most outstanding developments in Late ME and Early NE was the growth of what is
now termed syntactical complexes or predicative constructions. Already in OE we find the earliest
instances of the Accusative with the Infinitive used with verbs of physical perception. In Late ME
and in New English the Accusative with the infinitive and the Accusative with the participle spread
to an increasing number of verbs of various meaning, and new kinds of complexes arose: the for-
phrase with the infinitive; the Nominative with the infinitive; the Nominative with the participle; the
36
Nominative Absolute; the gerundial complexes and complexes consisting of two nominal elements
following a verb with adjectives or nouns as the second component.
The Development of the Complex Sentence
A variety of complex sentences with different types of subordinate clauses are recorded in OE
manuscripts although sequences of simple sentences are usually preferred and the borders between
the compound and complex sentences are indistinct. The means of connecting clauses into a
complex in OE lacked precision: there were no relative pronouns except the connective Þe which
could join various types of clauses. In ME and in New English there arose many new conjunctions
and other connective words (both coordinating and subordinating): both ... and, because, when, that.
Of special importance was the rise of relative pronouns largely dating from the ME period: they split
from demonstrative pronouns, e.g. that, and also from the interrogative ones: who, which, whose,
(the spheres of application of these pronouns were differentiated as late as the 18th and 19th
centuries).

Lecture 11
The Vocabulary in Middle and New English
Throughout the history of the English language - since the 5th century up to modem times - the
English word-stock has been constantly changing. The changes in the vocabulary were due to the
extralinguistic and linguistic causes. The changes in the English vocabulary resulted in its numerical
growth, the development of the system of word formation and the semantic structure of the words.
The replenishment of the English vocabulary was carried out by internal means (derivation,
word composition and other less important processes) as well as by borrowing foreign words.
The ME period was characterized by the influx of a great number of Scandinavian and French
words. The character of loan-words of Scandinavian origin as well as of a great number of French
borrowings adopted in ME is distinctly different from that of loan-words of later times. Most of the
earlier loan-words, adopted in the course of a close personal intercourse of two peoples speaking
different languages, were words of everyday use; whereas borrowings of the Renaissance period
were distinctly of a "learned" character. Alongside the borrowing of words from other languages and
the formation of many new words from the native elements there developed another tendency - the
loss of words.
Loss of Words
During the Middle and New English periods many words which had once been in current use,
gradually became obsolete. The loss of words can be accounted for both by reasons of social history
and by linguistic reasons. It is common knowledge that when words lose their significance and come
to denote out-of-date notions they gradually go out of use and become obsolete. Some of them are
preserved in the language as historical terms. For instance, in the laws of the Anglo-Saxon kings
there was a legal term "wer" or "wer- eld" denoting the price which could be claimed from the killer
by the relatives of the killed man. With the loss of the custom the word dropped out of use as well.
With the decay of the feudal system and the establishment of capitalist relations feudatory
dependence was abolished and with it the words pertaining to the feudal organisation of society
went out of use. Of the words denoting different degrees of vassalage: "lagmen", "radmen", "thain",
etc., only "thane" is preserved in Modem English as a historical term. Among the words which were
lost in ME were some religious terms, e.g. OE blōt "sacrifice", OE blōtan "to sacrifice". The English
language is known as being extremely rich in synonyms. No language can preserve words absolutely
identical in meaning for long. It is therefore quite natural that when a great number of synonyms
appear a struggle ensues (insjus – следует) which results in the loss of some of them unless they
develop new meanings or are differentiated in some other way. For instance, in OE there were
numerous synonyms denoting names of animals and words denoting parts of the body: OE "hors"
37
and “mearh" - NE "horse"; OE "feax" an "h r" - NE "hair". In the course of time the difference
between these synonyms grew vague. So that in the age of writing' most of them were used
indiscriminately. Gradually one of the synonyms ousted the other words from the language. Thus
from the above groups of-- synonyms only one word has survived: "horse" and "hair".

Loan-Words in Middle English. Scandinavian Loan-Words

In ME a great number of Scandinavian words were adopted as a result of the Scandinavian
invasion. Scandinavians settled in the North-East of Britain. It is noteworthy that more than 1.400
place-names in those areas may be traced to Scandinavian sources: Appleby, Derby, Grimsby (the
element -by is traced to O. Scand. byr- "town", "village"); Clydesdale, Danesdale (the element -dale
is traced to O. Scand. "dale", "valley"). In the region of Danelaw the Danes must have introduced
their- own laws which is evidenced by a number of legal terms among the earliest Scandinavian
borrowings "law" (Late OE la u), Late OE ūtla a > NE "outlaw'" and some others which are now
obsolete.
Another group of borrowings comprises terms pertaining to war such as Late OE riÞ "peace",
liÞ "fleet", orrest "battle". To the earliest borrowings belong also such names of persons as Late OE
husbonda > NE husband, Late OE feola a > NE fellow. Most of the later loan-words denote
common and familiar notions and everyday things: ME bagge > NE bag, ME lege> NE leg; ME
tacen > NE take. Among the Scandinavian loan-words we find semi-auxiliary words which are, as a
rule, npt borrowed from foreign languages. Pronouns: ME thei, thai > NE they: ME theym, theim >
NE them: ME theire, NE their. Prepositions: ME fro > NE fro; ME til> NE till.
Since Scandinavian and English were cognate languages whose word-stocks contained very
many common roots, it is often difficult to identify a Scandinavian borrowing. However, some
specific phonetic changes that occurred in these two languages since the Common Germanic time
may serve as criteria for referring a word to Scandinavian borrowings. For example, in OE the
consonant cluster [sk] was palatalised in the prewritten period and by Middle English it developed
into the sibilant [ƒ]: OE scip [skip] > ME ship [ƒip] > NE ship. Whereas in the Scandinavian
dialects palatalisatlon did not take place at that period and [sk] was preserved. Therefore, words with
[sk] which' appeared at the time of the Scandinavian invasion or shortly afterwards can be identified
as Scandinavian borrowings: sky, skirt, skin, skill.
In OE the Germanic initial fricative [γ] and plosive [k] were palatalized before front vowels
already in the pre-written period. In the Scandinavian dialects palatalisation in this position did not
take place, but the initial fricative [γ] developed into the corresponding plosive [g]. Therefore we
may conclude that words containing [g] or [k] before front vowels must have been borrowed from
the Scandinavian dialects: get, give, kid etc.
French Loan-Words
After the Norman Conquest a great number of French words found their way into the English
language. It is customary to distinguish two sets of French borrowings in the period after the
Conquest: the words borrowed in the 11 th and 12th centuries directly from the language of the
conquerors, the Anglo-Norman dialect of French and the later set representing borrowings from the
Central French dialect. Among the words borrowed in the earlier period we find: ME prisun > NE
prison; ME castel > NE castle, ME werre > NE war. The majority of French words were recorded in
the second half of the 12th century and during the 14th century. Unlike words of Scandinavian
origin, that had been borrowed in the process of close intercourse of the two peoples of equal social
rank, French words were borrowed by the upper classes of English society after the Conquest The
French borrowings belonged to various semantic spheres of the English word-stock:
Government: govern, government, assembly, council, etc.
Law: judge, justice, advocate, accuse, jury, etc.
38
Millitary terms: army, arms, battle, enemy, captain, etc.
Church: abbey, clergy, confession, preach, religion, etc.
Architecture: castle, cellar, garret, pillar, etc.
Arts and Literature: art, colour, copy, music, paint, etc.
Trades: butcher, carpenter, draper, grocer, etc.
Grades of aristocracy: baron, count, duke, page, etc.
Pastimes: cards, chess, conversation, dance.
Furniture and household articles: basin, chair, couch, lamp, etc.
Miscellaneous: advice, air, arrive, cry, dinner, lesson, pay, etc.
The influence of Scandinavian and French upon the English word-stock was different both from the
point of view of the number of borrowed words and their character.
Social (extralinguistic) Reasons for the Difference
The Scandinavian settlers and the native population did not differ much socially. The majority
of the Scandinavian settlers did not belong to the ruling class. The English and the Danes lived side
by side, intermarried, so that often both languages, Scandinavian and English, were spoken in one
and the same family. The religion, the social order and many of the customs of the Scandinavians
were in the main the same as those of the English, and so was the level of culture of both peoples.
Therefore, the words borrowed by the English did not denote any new ideas, they were in many
cases just new names for old notions. The Normans, on the contrary, represented the feudal ruling
circles. This is clearly brought out by the character of borrowings: many of the French words
denoted new things and customs brought by the Normans from the continent and introduced in
England .
Linguistic Reasons for the Difference
Other reasons for the differences between the Scandinavian and French influences upon
English are to be found in the different relations of these languages to English.
English and Old Scandinavian were closely related languages belonging to different subgroups of
the Germanic languages (West and North). Consequently, the people had no great difficulty in
understanding each other, which led to the mingling of the languages. As a result, Scandinavian
words of everyday character easily penetrated into the English language. The relation between
English and French was of a different nature. These two languages belonged to different groups of
the Indo-European family and had so little in common that the people could not understand each
other unless they knew both languages. As a result, French arid English never mingled, they
coexisted as separate languages in the country.
In contrast to Scandinavian borrowings French words were adopted not only through oral
intercourse, but, perhaps to a greater degree, through literary channels, which accounts for a great
number of French borrowings of a purely literary character.
Loan-Words in New English Loan.
Words from Classic Languages - Latin and Greek·
In NE the most important contributions to the English word-stock were made by languages of
the Romance and Germanic groups. The 15th century in Europe was marked by the Renaissance
movement, which among other things, resulted in a steady stream of borrowings from classic (Latin
and Greek) languages. The borrowing of Latin words was greatly facilitated by numerous French
loan-words adopted earlier, which in many respects resembled later Latin borrowings. Latin
borrowings can be generally classified into abstract words of general application and scientific
terms: Abstract notions: aspiration, conception, communication, idea, illusion, liberation, memory,
etc.
So great was the Latin influence during the Renaissance that quite a number of earlier French
borrowings were reshaped into closer resemblance with their Latin originals. Thus, ME avocat,
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aventure were - accurate renderings of the French words from which they were taken. But under the
Latin influence “d” was inserted in these words: NE advocate, adventure (Lat. advocatus,
adventura).
Greek loan words were not as numerous as Latin borrowings. They were mostly scientific terms:
analysis, cosmos, lexicon, phrase, philosophy, etc. After the Renaissance period scholars continued
to draw upon Latin and Greek to mark new advances -made in science and especially in engineering.
e.g. Chemistry: creosol (Gr.), acetic, silica (Lat.);
Physics: anode, cathode (Gr.), frequency, nucleus (Lat.);
Medicine: diagnosis, psychiatry (Gr.), bacillus, bronchitis (Lat.);
Technical terms: diode, triode (Gr.), projector, radiator (Lat.).
Italian Loan- Words
Italy, the source of the Renaissance movement, yielded many words to European languages,
including English. At the time of the Renaissance there was a growing interest in Italian literature,
art and music. The words borrowed from Italian represented those spheres of activity which aroused
the greatest interest.
Arts and literature: bust, costume, studio, improvise, sonnet, stanza, etc.
Architecture: balcony, corridor, fresco, portico.
Music: aria, allegro, duet, piano, solo, trio, sonata, etc.
Miscellaneous words: ballot, carnival, umbrella, volcano, etc.
French Loan-Words
In the 17th and 19th centuries France was in the forefront of the cultural and political life in
Western Europe. French was the language of diplomacy and aristocratic society. French words were
used in state correspondence, in memoirs and private letters and especially in translation of French
writers. The bourgeois revolution in France in the late 18th century had a great impact on other
peoples and many French words connected with it were borrowed into English as well as into other
languages: aristocrat, -commune. In the 19th century many more French words were adopted mainly
through the language of newspapers and magazines:
Military terms: brigade, corps, manoeuvre,platoon (`плэтун - взвод).
Diplomacy and social life : attache, communique, picnic, secretariat.
Commerce: commerce, currency, finance.
Arts and literature: billet, ensemble, genre, pastel.
Fashion In dress, food, and drink: beret, cravat, champaign, soup, menu, restaurant.

Spanish Loan-Words
After the colonization of vast regions of North and South America Spain became one of the
richest countries in Europe. When England and Spain came into close contact, Englishmen adopted
some words from Spanish connected with their commercial and political relations and words
reflecting their armed conflicts:
Naval and Military terms: armada, grenade, parade.
Commerce: cargo, sherry (светлое или темно-коричневое сладкое или несладкое крепкое вино
из Испании).
Miscellaneous words: guitar, junta, renegade.

Portuguese Loan-Words
By the 16th century Portugal had established colonies in India and on the coasts of East and
West Africa. It was in these regions that English sailors and merchants came into contact with
Portuguese settlers, learnt new words from them and brought them back to England. Among the
Portuguese loan words we find: buffalo, port (wine), tank, veranda, zebra.
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 German Loan-Words
Loan-words from the German language reflected the achievements attained in Germany in
various branches of science and culture. Thus, a great number of mineralogical and geological terms
in English are of German origin, for the Germans were noted for their skill in mining:
cobalt, nickeI, zink, etc. A peculiarity of German loan-words on the whole was not only their
terminological character, but also the fact that many of them were translation-loans: the English
people adopted the new notions but in many cases used their own word material to name them. This
is especially true of philosophical and political terms. Thus, many terms were borrowed into
English: class struggle (Germ. Klassenkampf), thing-in-itself (Germ. Ding an sich), world market
(Germ. Weltwarkt). During World War II a number of German words entered the English
vocabulary: blitzkrieg, nazi, führer, and some others.

Dutch Loan -Wards

The majority of the Dutch borrowings are connected with navigation and painting, reflecting
Dutch eminence in these spheres of activity:
Nautical terms: dock, reef.
Terms of Painting: landscape, sketch.
Loan-Words from the Russian Language
The Russian words borrowed into English before 1917 reflect specific features of Russian life:
Grades of aristocracy: boyar, tsar.
Nature: steppe, taiga, tundra.
Money: kopeck, rouble.
Drink: kvass, vodka.
Miscellaneous words: shuba, troika.
After that period the number of borrowings from Russian greatly increased: soviet, bolshevik,
komsomol, activist, kolkhoz, etc. The majority of Russian loan words are translation-loans:
collective farm, Five-Year Plan, hero of labour, palace of culture.
As a result of diverse contacts of England with other countries of the world throughout its
history the English vocabulary has been greatly enriched due to borrowings from foreign languages.
The native English words constitute the core of the English vocabulary. They are the words in active
use.

Lecture 12
Word Formation in Middle and New English
Internal Means of the Growth of the English Word-stock. The replenishment of the English
vocabulary was carried out not only by external, but also by internal means, that is by various
processes of word formation and change of meaning. In every period of the English language history
the principal word-building means were word derivation and word composition. However in the
course of time considerable changes took place within the system of word derivation and word-
composition.
Changes in the system of word-formation in the English language since the OE period.
Word Derivation. In OE word derivation was represented by affixation and sound alternations.
Sound alternations as a word-building means had become non productive by the age of writing. No
new words were coined with the help of sound alternations either in Middle or New English. As in
OE period, prefixation in ME and NE was most productive in the formation of verbs, whereas
suffixation was more characteristic of nominal parts of speech. However, since the OE period the
system of affixation has suffered considerable changes. Some OE affixes (especially prefixes) in the
course of time became non-productive or disappeared. At the same time the system of affixation was
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replenished by a considerable number of new affixes which either developed on the basis of native
root-morphemes or were borrowed from foreign languages.

Prefixation
OE Prefixes in Middle and New English. As far as the OE period some English prefixes
developed very general vague meanings and were used mostly to intensify the meaning of a verb so
that in many cases the meaning of simple words and derivatives did not differ.
In ME such prefixes gradually lost their productivity and were no longer used to form new words:
e.g. the OE prefixes for- and to- in the words "forbrecan", "tobrecan". The old prefixes remained,
however in those words which distinctly differed in meaning from words without prefixes. Thus, OE
"cuman" and "becuman" were synonyms used in the meaning "arrive". In ME "becumen" developed
a new meaning '''agree'' and "accord · with", "suit" and lost its old meaning. Thus by the NE period
the simple and the derived verbs were no longer synonymous which accounts for the preservation of
both verbs in the language. Other examples are: "behold" - "hold" - "forecast" - "cast", "foresee"
-"see”.
Many OE derived words turned into simple ME words due to the reduction of the form of the OE
prefix; e.g. OE "and- swam" (a derived word with the prefix and-) > ME "answere” > NE "answer",
Of all the OE prefixes only the negative prefixes mis- and un- and also the prefix be- were most
frequently used throughout Middle English forming new words both from native and borrowed
stems. These prefixes have remained productive in New English as well, e.g. be-: befriend, belittle,
beseech: un-: unfreeze, undress, unable: rols-: misname, misfire, mispronounce. New Prefixes
Borrowed in Middle and New English. In the 14 - 17th centuries many new prefixes were borrowed
into English from foreign languages.
Among French and Latin loan-words there were numerous derivatives built up by prefixation.
When the number of borrowed words with the same prefix was large enough to make their
morphological structure transparent, the foreign prefix was isolated and began to be employed for
the formation of new words from native and borrowed stems. Among the prefixes which found their
way into English as parts of French or Latin loan-words we find: dis-, en-/em, in-/im-, non- and re-.
The earliest derivatives formed in the English language with the help of these prefixes were
recorded at the end of the ME period: disbelieve, enwrap, impocket, non-usage, renew, rebuild.
In early New English some more prefixes were borrowed from Greek and Latin. The use of Latin
and Greek prefixes was restricted to scientific and political terminology.
Prefixes of the Greek Origin: anti- (antibody, anticlimax); ex(exbishop ).
Prefixes of the Latin Origin: co- (coexist, copartner); extra- (extranatural, extra-curricular); pre-
(pre-classical, pre-elect); ultra- (ultra-violet, ultra-fashionable).
New Prefixes Which Developed from Prepositions and Adverbs.
Another group of new prefixes developed from native prepositions and adverbs. In OE the
prepositions or adverbs ofer-, ut- upp-, under- (NE over-, out-, up-, under-) were used in making
new words, e.g. ut-land "foreign country", up-land "up country".
Already in OE the first element of such compounds sometimes lost its adverbial force, thus
approaching or even assuming the nature of a prefix in Modern English the prefixes out-, over-, and
under- are the most productive: outline, outvote, overheat, overdose, underground, undervalue.
Development of Verb-Adverb Combinations. In OE there were numerous verbs built by
what is often called "separable prefixes", i.e. prefixes which in certain forms (the infinitive, the
participle, finite forms in subordinate clauses) preceded the stem of the verb and in the other forms
were separated and placed after the verb. The main function of these OE "separable prefixes" was to
specify the direction of the action expressed by the verb, e.g. OE gān "go" - ūtagān "go out".
Gradually these locative "prefixes" came to be placed after the verb in all its forms. It should be
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noted that not only OE "separable prefixes" turned into post-positional adverbs, but also some
adverbs which had never been used as "separable prefixes": away, down, forth. The development of
the verb-adverb combinations was connected with the position of the Germanic stress on the first, or
root syllable. The locative prefixes, when used in their primary meaning, were strongly stressed,
which must have contradicted the general law of the stress and, therefore, the stressed prefixes were
separated and placed in the new position after the verb. . .
It is also believed that the Scandinavian influence might have promoted the development of the new
structural type, for in the Scandinavian dialects the combination of a verb with a locative adverb was
very common.
Suffixation
Old English Suffixes in Middle and New English. The OE suffixes of concrete nouns -nd, -
en, and some suffixes of abstract nouns –aÞ/-oÞ, -Þ, -t, -u were no longer employed in Middle
English for the formation of new words.. Other OE suffixes remained productive throughout the ME
period and preserved their productivity up to modern times forming new words both from native and
borrowed stems. However the OE suffixes that are still productive in the present-day English
language have undergone considerable changes either in the range of their application or in their
lexical meaning or sometimes in both. For example, OE -isc was originally used in forming
adjectives from nouns:
OE cildisc > NE childish. In ME this suffix was combined with adjective stems, especially those
denoting colour: ME redische > NE reddish; ME blewysch > NE bluish.
One of the most productive suffixes -er was used in OE for the formation of new words from
noun- and verb-stems. In later ages it was also combined with adjective-stems, e.g. foreigner,
fresher. Some suffixes developed new meanings and became polysemantic or even homonymous.
Thus, the suffix -er in Old and Middle English was used to form nomina agentis, whereas in Early
New English it developed a new meaning - that of an instrument or an implement. E.g., boiler "one
who boils" (16th c) and boiler "a vessel in which any liquid is boiled" (18th c.). The OE suffix -isc >
NE -ish when combined with noun-stems, had the meaning "characteristic of' (ME folisch > NE
foolish; ENE feverish); but when it came to be combined with adjective-stems it began to denote a
weakened degree of the quality indicated by the stem (ME elowissche > NE yellowish).
New Suffixes Borrowed in Middle and New English. Since the end of the ME period
extensive use has been made of foreign suffixes borrowed from French, Latin and Greek. Some of
the borrowed suffixes were employed for word-building already in Middle English, but most of
them grew productive only in the Early New English period.
Many of the borrowed suffixes from the very beginning were restricted in use to scientific and
technical terminology, e.g. -ist, -ism, -ate and some others. Similar to prefixes, some of the
borrowed suffixes turned out synonymous to native or other foreign suffixes which necessitated
some differentiation in their use. For example, the suffixes -ness (native) and -(i)ty (Fr.) had the
same meaning of some quality, but they differed in their use. Firstly, the application of the borrowed
suffix was restricted by scientific and technical terminology, whereas the native suffix had a wide
range of application. Secondly, -(i)ty could be combined only with adjective sterns of Latin and
French origin, while the native suffix -ness was not restricted in this respect.
Words. Already in OE new suffixes were developing from the second components of compound
words. This process continued in ME and resulted in the appearance of suffixes: -dom, -hood, -ship
(noun-building ,suffixes); -ful, -less, -ly, (adjective-building suffixes).
In the New English period all the adjective-building suffixes were likewise frequently used in the
making of new words, but the noun-building suffixes -hood, and -ship became less productive and
their usage more restricted.
Examples of derivatives with the suffixes: ful- -less, -ly; -dom, -hood, -ship in ME: harmful, skilful,
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sleepless, joyless, sickly, masterly, sheriffdom, dukedom, manhood, masterhood, hardship,
fellowship; in NE: hopeful, successful, dreamless, motionless, elderly, hourly, boydom, churchdom,
motherhood, sainthood, ownership, courtship.
Conversion.
Conversion implies the formation from a word belonging to one part of speech of a new word
belonging to a different part of speech without any changes in the initial form of the word, but
through a change in its paradigm. It is usually assumed that the levelling of forms which resulted
from the general decay of the OE inflectional system gave rise to this new means of word
derivation. After the loss of the final unstressed syllables the initial forms of the verb (the infinitive)
and that of the noun coincided in a great number of words containing the same root: OE andswarian
(v) > ME answere > NE answer; OE andswaru (n) > ME answere> NE answer.
As a word-building means conversion made itself evident since the end of the 13th century,
rapidly growing numerically towards the close of the 14th century. Since that time conversion has
become one of the major means of forming new words in English. In all times conversion was
employed mostly for the formation of verbs from nouns and nouns from verbs.

Word Composition
In OE compound words were formed either by combining two or more stems after a definite
structural pattern without any connecting sound (primary compounds) or appeared as a result of
semantic and structural isolation of free syntactical phrases (secondary compounds). In a small
group of compound words the stems were joined by a connecting element. These ways of word
compounding have been preserved through the history of the English language though their
structural patterns have been constantly changing. .The OE type of compound words with a
connecting element (Late OE -e-) did not prove productive and only occasional compounds were
formed in Middle English: ME penny-knyfe > NE pen-knife. However, in the NE period some other
sounds came to serve as connecting elements: -s-, -o-, -i-.
Asyntactic Compounds
Asyntactic compounds (termed 'primary" in reference to OE word compounding) in Middle and
New English, as well as in OE, were mostly nouns and adjectives, compound verbs being much less
numerous. Not all the earliest types of compound nouns, remained productive throughout the history
of the English language.
Another development of the ME period was the emergence of compounds built after the
patterns "noun-stem + verb-stern" (simple or derived), e.g. ME huswerminge > NE house-warming;
ME coke - fyghtynge > NE cock-fighting.
The only type that was productive in all periods of the English language, was the one built after
the pattern "noun-stem + noun-stern": OE winter-tide> NE winter-tide; ME spryng-flood > NE
spring-flood.
Compound Adjectives
Compound adjectives of the a syntactic type were built in ME after various patterns which go
back to OE, but not all of them have been preserved ,in ME. For example, the OE pattern "adjective
stem + adjective stem" (OE wīd - al "wandering") did not gain much productivity in ME.
Another pattern of compound adjectives "noun-stem + participle-stem" found as early as Old
English (OE frum-sceapen "first formed") was not freely used until the NE period, but has become
highly productive since the 19th century; ENE heart-broken, NE poverty-stricken. Only the pattern
"noun-stem + adjective-stem" (OE īscalde > NE icecold) was commonly used in all periods and
became especially productive in NE: ME coldblake > NE coal-black.

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 Вопросы по дисциплине “История языка и введение в спецфилологию”
1. The Subject of the history of the English language.
2. Germanic languages. Characterize East Germanic dialect.
3. Germanic languages. Characterize North Germanic dialect.
4. Germanic languages. Characterize West Germanic dialect.
5. Main word-building means in Common Germanic.
6. Stress in Germanic languages.
7. Tendencies of vowel development in Common Germanic.
8. The first Germanic consonant shift (Grimm’s law).
9. Verner’s law.
10.Word structure in Common Germanic.
11.Gradation in Germanic languages.
12.Grammatical categories of the Common Germanic Verb.
13.The difference between Strong and Week Verbs in Common Germanic.
14.Periods in the history of English.
15.Writings in Old English. Germanic Alphabets.
16.Old English Word Stress.
17.Changes of vowels in Early Old English.
18.Changes of consonants in Early Old English.
19.Nominal grammatical categories in Old English.
20.Declensions of the noun in Old English.
21.The system of pronouns in Old English.
22.The categories of the adjectives. Degrees of comparison.
23. Grammatical categories of the verb in Old English.
24.Morphological classification of verbs in Old English.
25. Old English word-stock.
26.Word-formation in Old English.
27.Historical background of the Middle English Period.
28.The formation of the national literary English language.
29.Word – stress in Middle English period.
30.Changes of stressed and unstressed vowels in OE.
31.The Great Vowel Shift.
32.Changes in the Nominal Middle English system.
33.Changes in the Verb Middle English system.
34. Development of new grammatical forms and categories of the verb in Middle
English.
35.Syntactical changes in Middle and Early New English.
36.Loan words in Middle English.
37.Loan words in New English.
38.Word derivation (prefixation and suffixation) in Middle and New English.
39. Asyntactic and syntactic compounds in Middle and New English.
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40.Conversion and word composition in Middle and New English.

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