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Borrowings from Latin and Greek in the period of Renaissance.

The mixed character of the English vocabulary facilitated an easy adoption of words from Latin. Many of these belong to certain derivational types. The most easily recognizable are the following:

  • verbs in –ate, derived from the past participle of Latin verbs of the 1st conjugation in -are: aggravate, irritate, abbreviate, narrate.
  • verbs in –ute, derived from the past participle of a group of Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation in –uere: attribute, constitute, pollute, and from the Latin deponent verb sequi with various prefixes: persecute, execute, prosecute.
  • verbs derived from the past participle of other Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation: dismiss, collect, affect, correct, collapse, contradict.
  • verbs derived from the infinitive of Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation: permit, admit, compel, expel, produce, also introduce, reproduce, conclude, also include, exclude.
  • adjectives derived from Latin present participles in –ant and –ent. verbs of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th conjugation: arrogant, evident, patient.
  • adjectives derived from the comparative degree of Latin adj. with the –ior suffix: superior, junior, minor.

 

It is often hard or even impossible to tell whether a word was adopted into English from Latin or from French. Thus, many substantives in –tion are doubtful in this respect.

 

38.Rise of definite and indefinite articles.

One of the directions of the development of the demonstrative pronouns se, seo, ??t led to the formation of the definite article. This development is associated with a change in form and meaning. In the manuscripts of 11&12th c. this use of the dem. pron. becomes more and more common.

In ME there arose an important formal difference between the demonstrative pronoun and the definite article: as a dem. pron., that preserved number distinctions, whereas as a def. art. – usually in the weakened form – it was uninflected.

The meaning and functions of the definite article became more specific when it came to be opposed to the indefinite article.

In OE there existed 2 words: an (numeral) & sum (indefinite pron.), which were often used in functions approaching those of the modern indefinite article. An was more colloquial, and sum – more literary and soon lost its functions.

In early ME an lost its inflection, and in the 13th c. the uninflected oon/one and their reduced forms an/a were firmly established in all regions.

39.Development of the English vocabulary in NE.

In addition to three main sources:Greek,Latin and French(French borrowings in NE have not been assimilated and retained foreign appearance to the present day) English speakers of NE period borrowed freely from many other lang.(Italian,Dutch,Spanish,German,Russian)

Italian-words relating to art –duet

Spanish-as a result of contacts with Spain in military-barricade

Russian-many technical terms came from Russian-sputnik

40.Why is English spelling different from it’s pronunciation?

The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms in ME resemble modern forms, though the pronunciation was different.



- In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn “” and the crossed d: “đ” were replaced by the digraph –th-, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] & [?]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u”: -w-;the ligatures ? & ? fell into disuse.

- Many innovations reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie&ch were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:] & [t∫] : e.g. OE ūt, ME out [u:t]; O Fr double, ME double [duble].

- The letters j,k,v,q were first used in imitation of French manuscripts.

- The two-fold use of –g- & -c- owes its origin to French: these letters usually stood for [dz] & [s] before front vowels & for [g]&[k] before back vowels: ME gentil [dzen’til], mercy [mer’si] & good[go:d].

- A wider use of digraphs: -sh- is introduced to indicate the new sibilant [∫]: ME ship(from OE scip); -dz- to indicate [dz]: ME edge [‘edze], joye [‘dzoiə]; the digraph –wh- replaced –hw-: OE hw?t, ME what [hwat].

- Long sounds were shown by double letters: ME book [bo:k]

- The introduction of the digraph –gh- for [x]& [x’]: ME knight [knix’t] & ME he [he:].

- Some replacements were made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: “o” was employed to indicate “u”: OE munuc> ME monk; lufu> love. The letter “y” – an equivalent og “i” : very, my [mi:].

 

41.The main historical events of ME and NE periods.

THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD

  • 1066-1075 William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and conquers England.
  • English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for record-keeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors write literature in French, not English. 1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now the only home of the Norman English.
  • 1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
  • 1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
  • 1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are writing in English.
  • 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings.
  • 1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. 1500-present THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD
  • 1500-1650 Early Modern English period. The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms.
  • 1616 Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English language.Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and pleasing combinations.
  • 1700s vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).
  • 17th-19th centuries British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around the world.
  • 19th-20th centuries Scientific and Industrial Revolutions.Development of technical vocabularies. English has gone from an island tongue to a world language.
  • 1945Becomes most widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.

 

 

42. What is meant by the outer and inner history of a language?

The internal(inner)history of English:all the aspects of the development of language structure,i.e.,the evolution of phonology,grammar,vocabulary and writing.

The external(outer)history of English:all non-structural factors.These factors are of varied nature beginning with political(the formation of states,wars),social(changes in social structure),economic(industrialization),scientific (new inventions requiring new 'special'languages) and ending with cultural(religion,literature,introduction of printing,cultural movements).

43. Comment on the position of French and En in the 12-13th c. England

After the Norman Conquest French language became very popular in England. Norman conquerors came to Britain as French speakers and bearers of French culture. Their tongue in Britain is often referred to as “anglo-French” or “Anglo-Norman”. For almost three hundred yearsFrench was the official lang. of administration: the king’s court, the law courts, the church, the army and the castle. It was also everyday lang. of many nobles, of he higher clergy and of many towns-people in the South. French, alongside Latin, was the language of writing. Teaching was conducted in French. A good knowledge of French would mark a person of higher standing giving him a certain social prestige.

For all that, England never stopped being an Engish – speaking country. The lower classes in the towns, and especially in the country-side, those who lived in the Midlands and North continued to speakEnglish, French was strange and hostile for them.

The struggle between French and English was bound to end in the complete victory of English. In the 13th c. only a few steps were made in hat direction. The earliest sign of the official recognition of English by the Norman kings was the famous PROCLAMATION issued by Henry III in 1258 to the councilors in Parliament. It was written in 3 languages: French, Latin and English.

44. What changes did the unstressed vowels undergo in ME? How did it affect grammatical endings?

In the Middle and NE periods the main character and directions of the evolution of unstressed vowels were the same as before: the unstressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions – their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality were neutralised.In the Middle English 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 [e/i] or rather [ę/i], the first variant being a neutral sound. Compare: OE fiscas ME fishes [`fijęs] Fisces

The occurrence of only two vowels [i] and [ę] in unstressed final syllables is regarded as an important mark of the ME language distinguishing it on the onehand, from OE with its greater variety of unstressed vowels, and on the other hand,from the NE, when this final [ę] was altogether lost. (Compare NE risen, tale.)Some of the new unstressed vowels were not reduced to the same degree asthe OE vowels and have retained their quantitative and qualitative differences, e.g.

NE consecrate [ei], disobey [o].These examples, as well as modern polysyllabic words like alternant with[o] and [o:], direct with [ai] and [i] and others show that a variety of vowels canoccur in unstressed position, although the most frequent vowels are [i] and [ę], thelatter confined to unstressed position alone, being the result of phonetic reductionof various vowels.These development show that the gap between the set of stressed andunstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in Middle and NE we need no longerstrictly subdivide the system of vowels into two sub-systems – that of stressed andunstressed vowels (as was done for OE), - even though the changes of the vowelsin the two positions were widely different and the phonetic contrast between thestressed and unstressed syllables remained very strong.

45. Development of analytical forms and new gram. categories of verbs in OE and ME.

Since the OE period the gramatical type of the language has changed: from synthetic or inflected language into a language of the analytical type.

many changes in the verb conjugation, such as the loss of some person and number distinctions or the loss of the declension of participles,

many developments of the morphological system and the growth of new grammatical distinctions.

The number of grammatical categories grew, as did the number of categorial forms within the existing categories (e.g. a new category of aspect, or the future tense forms within the category of tense).

The changes involved the non-finite forms too, for the infinitive and the participle developed verbal features; the gerund, which arose in the Late ME period as a new type of verbal, has also developed verbal distinctions: passive and perfect forms.


Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1680


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