Word-Stock

Grammar

Phonetics

II Inner history

The Middle English period was a time of unprecedentedly rapid development of the language. For the first three centuries English was only a spoken language, and as such had no norm and could develop without any restrain All the elements of the language changed fundamentally.

The stress is dynamic and fixed in the native words. But in the borrowed French words the stress was on the last syllable:

New consonant sounds developed in native words:

[ ƒ ] sh ip [tƒ] ch ild [dg ƒ] bri dg e

OE scip cild bryc3

The resonance of the consonants does not depend so much on the position of the consonant, and voiced consonants can appear not only in intervocal, but also in initial and other positions.

Vowels in unstressed position were reduced;

Old English Middle English

[ a, o, e, u ] > [ ə ]

These sounds were in the end of the world, and it neutralized the →difference between the suffixes – the main grammar means.

Old English Middle English

Genitive Singular ficsces fishes

Nominative Plural fiscas fishes

Vowels under stress underwent mainly quantitative changes.

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

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

1. analytical verb-forms (Chaucer: perfect – hath holpen (has helped); passive – engendered is (is born);

2. the use of prepositions for grammatical purposes (Chaucer: drought of March);

2. a fixed word-order began to develop.

In Middle English it underwent fundamental changes and became almost new. If in Old English the word-stock was almost completely native, in Middle English there were many borrowings. The principal sources of them were:

1. Scandinavian (those who came in the end of the Old English period) – over 500 words (take, give, sky, wrong, etc);

2. 2. French (the language of the Norman conquerors) – over 3500 words (governmet, army, battle, etc.);

3. Though the number of the French words is greater, all the Scandinavian words – common, colloquial, everyday, indispensable – entered the very core of the language, and their influence is very great. The French words are generally terms indispensable only in certain official spheres, but not colloquial.

The Scandinavian borrowings are intensive, the French borrowings – extensive.

1. the Scandinavians and the English were linguistically similar (both Germanic), the English and the French – different (Germanic and Romance languages);

2. the Scandinavians and the English were similar socially, the English and the French were different socially;

3. the Scandinavians and the English had similar culture, habits, customs, traditions; the English and the French – different

4. that is why the assimilation of the French words could not proceed so quickly and intensively as that of Scandinavian.

5. The principal means of inreaching vocabulary were thus outer means, i.e. borrowings.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11