The periods in the history of English. OE phonological system

ЛЕКЦИЯ 2

The historical development of a language is a continuous uninterrupted process without sudden breaks or rapid transformations. It is usual to divide the history of English into three main periods: Old English (ab. 450-1100), Middle English (1100-1500) and Modern English (1500-). It is a commonly accepted, traditional periodisation which is, of cause, a matter of convenience and the dividing lines between the periods are purely arbitrary.

The Old English period extends from the time of the partial conquest of Britain by various Germanic tribes in the 5-6^th c A.D. until the Norman conquest at the end of the 11^th century.

Old English is the language of the English in the early formative stage of the development of the English nationality.

Old English is a typical West-Germanic synthetic language as regards its phonology, grammatical structure and vocabulary. From the phonetical-morphological point of view the Old English language is defined as a period of full endings, i.e. any vowel could occur in an unstressed position.

The Middle English period extends from the beginning of the 12^th to the end of the 15^th c., i.e. from the Norman conquest until the disintegration of feudalism and the establishment of an absolute monarchy (the Wars of the Roses).

Middle English is the language of the English at the time of their emergence and consolidation as a nationality.

The Middle English period is a period of leveled endings, all unstressed vowels being leveled under the neutral [ə]-sound represented in spelling by e.

The principal features of the Middle English are: (a) the relatively rapid disintegration of the old inflections (esp. in the nominal parts of speech, i.e. the noun, adjective and pronoun), (b) the establishment of a more or less rigid word order, (c) the rise and spread of various analytical forms and constructions.

The vocabulary of Middle English adopted large numbers of Scandinavian, French and Latin loanwords.

The Middle English period is commonly subdivided into Early ME (1100-1250), ME of the Second Part or Central ME (1250-1400) and Late ME (1400-1500).

The Modern English period extends from the end of the 15^th c., i.e. from the disintegration of feudalism and the beginning of the development of capitalism, until the present day.

Modern English was originally the language of the English people in Britain during their emergence and consolidation as a capitalist nation in the 16-17^th c., and it has since spread to various other parts of the world

The stage from 1500 to 1650 (or 1700) is known as Early MoE. The EMoE stage witnesses a number of important changes in the vowels (The Great Vowel Shift). MoE may be described as a period of lost endings. The grammatical structure of the English language has become predominantly analytical and its vocabulary highly composite.

It is usual to refer to 19-20^th c. English as Contemporary English.

The traditional division of the history of English into three main periods has been accepted by Soviet linguists because it takes account of essential shifts in the phonetic and grammatical system of the language as well as of major changes in the social and political history of the English-speaking people.

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