Historycal background of ME.

The Scandinavian Conquest of England was a great military and political event, which also influenced the English language. Scandinavian inroads into England had began as early as the 8^th century. The Anglo-Saxons offered the invaders a stubborn resistance, which is seen in the narrations of Chronicle. In the late 9^th century the Scandinavian had occupied the whole of English territory north of Thames. In 878 king Alfred made peace with the invaders. The territory occupied by the Scandinavian was to remain in their power. The northern and eastern parts of England were most thickly settled by Scandinavians. In the late 10^th century war in England was resumed, and in 1013 the whole country fell to the invaders. England became part of a vast Scandinavian empire in Northern Europe. The Scandinavian conquest had far-reaching consequences for 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 OE. They had the same morphological categories, strong and weak declension of substantives, of adjectives, of verbes. Close relationship between English and Scandinavian dialects made mutual understanding without translation quite possible.

The Norman conquest of England began in 1066. It proved to be the turning-point in English history and had a considerable influence on the English language. The Normans were by origin a Scandinavian tribe. In 9^th century they began inroads on the northern coast of France and occupied the territory on both shores of the Seine estuary. Mixing with the local population and adopting the French language and in the mid-11 century, in spite of their Scandinavian origin, they were bearers of French feudal culture and of the French language. In 1066 king Edward the Confessor died. William, Duke of Normandy, who had long claimed the English throne, assembled an army with the help of Norman barons, landed in England, and rooted the English troops. William confiscated the estates of the Anglo-Saxon nobility and distributed them among the Norman barons. All posts in the church, from abbots upwards, were giving to persons of French culture. Frenchmen arrived in England in great numbers. During the reign of William the Conqueror about 200 000 Frenchmen settled in England.

During several centuries the ruling language in England was French. It was the language of the court, the Government, the courts of laws, the English language was reduced to a lower social sphere. The relation between French and English was different from that between Scandinavian and English: French was the language of the ruling class. Under the circumstances, with two languages spoken in the country, they were bound to struggle with each other, and also influenced each other. This process lasted for three centuries the 12^th – 14^th. Its results were twofold: the struggle for supremacy between French and English ended in favour of English, but its vocabulary was enriched by a great number of French words.

46. History of word-formation, 15^th-17^th c.

The growth of the E. vocabulary from internal sources – through word-formation and semantic change – can be observed in all periods of history. In the 15-17^th c. its role became more important though the influx of borrowings from other languages continued. Word formation fell into 2 types:

Word derivation and word composition.

The means of derivation used in OE continued to be employed in later periods: Suffixation, the most productive way: most of the OE product. Suffixes have survived, many – added from internal and external sources.

Prefixation was less productive in ME, but later, in Early NE its productivity grew again.

Many OE prefixes dropped out of use: a-,tō-,on-,of-,ze-,or-. In some words the prefix fused with the root:OE on-zinna > ME ginnen > NE begin. The negative prefixes mis- & un- produced a great number of new words:ME mislayen, misdemen(NE mislay, misjudge). OE un- was mainly used with nouns and adjectives: Early NE: unhook, unload.

Also, foreign prefixes were adopted by the English lang. as component parts of loan-words:re-, de-, dis-. Sound interchanges and the shifting of word stress were mainly employed as a means of word differentiation, rather than as a word-building means.

47. Spelling changes in ME and NE. Rules of reading.

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 “ђ” and the crossed d: “đ” were replaced by the digraph –th-, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] & [ð]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u”: -w-;the ligatures æ & œ 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 hwæt, 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:].

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 924