SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 6

1. New words in the English language in the last two hundred years have been appearing as a result of:

a) dominance of English in the world

b) establishment of the status of English as an international scientific language

c) discoveries and inventions in all areas of science

2. Which means of word formation are used nowadays?

a) compounding b) borrowing c) affixation

d) inversion of sounds in order e) shortening of words

3. Appearance of such words as netizen, tree hugger, wannabe, pathography, nutraceutical is the result of

a) development of science b) intercultural relations c) shift in interests

4. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) includes all English words

a) since 1150 and up to now

b) since 1800 and up to now

c) modern and rare words and phrases

5. The work on the first OED started in

a) 1879 b) 1150 c) 1937

6. The first OED was completed in … and had a total of … words.

a) 1989: 41, 800 b)1900; 4, 180 c) 1928; 414,800

7. A third OED planned for 2010 is to include:

a) more examples of words b) more details on each word's history c) slang words

8. 'Received Pronunciation' is

a) the accent of standard English in England

b) the accent of standard English throughout the world

c) the accent approximate at the most to standard English in England

9. 'Received Pronunciation' (RP) is also called

a) “approved pronunciation” b) “the King's English” c) “the Noble English”

10. On today’s radio and television RP

a) is still a solely acceptable accent

b) is becoming more and more corrupted

c) is no longer a particularly important accent

GLOSSARY

v Ablaut:alteration of the root vowel during the declension: mann, fót, tóþ, hnutu, bóc - menn, fét, téþ, hnyte, béc

v Amelioration: the act of improvement of the meaning: dizzy (meant 'foolish' in OE), French borrowing nice ('foolish', 'stupid') acquired new meanings (flamboyant, rare, modest, elegant) in the 15th century

v Assibilation:pronunciation with a hissing sound, making sibilant

v Back (velar):diphthongisation of vowels before back vowel in the next

v Mutation:i turns into io before r, l; p, b, f, m (hira → hiora “of them”)

v Beach-la-Mar: jargon used in trade relations in the Pacific Ocean

v Breaking: diphthongisation of front vowel under the influence of succeeding h, l, r

v Broad Australian English: most recognizable variety of Australian English; identifies Australian characters in non-Australian films and television programs

v Centum languages: (Latin 100) the western languages that descended from IE and have a word for that number closely related to centum (the Germanic languages have the word beginning with h-, which is a later sound change).

v Chancery English:the form of the English language developed in written documents of the fifteenth century in Chancery (the official writing center of royal administration)

v Cockney:local inner east London accent

v Cognate:two or more words from two or more different, but related, languages that share a common root or original

v Comparative Historic Method: reconstruction of earlier forms of a language, or of earlier languages, by comparing surviving forms in recorded languages

v Creole: a type of mixed language that develops when dominant and subordinate groups that speak different languages have prolonged contact, incorporating the basic vocabulary of the dominant language with the grammar and an admixture of words from the subordinate language and becoming the native tongue of the subordinate group

v Cultivated Australian English: variety of Australian English that has many similarities to British RP, and is often mistaken for it. It is now spoken by less than 10% of the population.

v Dual number: designating or pertaining to a number category that indicates two persons or things, as in Old English for the 1^st and 2^nd persons wit “we two”, git “we two”

v Estuary English: a new accent combining RP and Cockney

v Gemination:doubling of consonants (except for -r-) followed by -j after a short consonant: tælian → tellan, swæfian → swebban (later ff → bb)

v General Australian English: the variety that the majority of Australians use; it predominates among modern Australian films and television programs

v Great Vowel Shift: a massive sound change affecting English long vowels during the 15^th to 18^th centuries: long vowels shifted upwards

v Grimm’s Law: a set of relationships among the consonants of the Germanic and non-Germanic Indo-European languages, first codified and published by Jakob Grimm in 1822

v Hardening:turning of voiced fricativesinto voiced plosives [ð, v, γ→ d, b, g]: Gt broþar→Grm Bruder

v i - mutation:fronting and raising of all vowels, except i and e, caused by i (or j) in the next syllable: (framian → fremman)

v Inkhorn terms: words from Latin or Romance languages, often polysyllabic and of arcane, scientific, or aesthetic resonance, coined and introduced into English in the 16th and 17th centuries.

v Kennings: unique poetic vocabulary of OE literature, especially in metaphorical constructions: hronrad (whale road, or sea)

v Kettering accent: a mixture of East Midlands, East Anglian, Scottish, Cockney

v Kroo-English: jargon used by the Negroes in Liberia and on the coastline of Guinea and Western Africa, a language bases of English mixed with Portuguese vocabulary

v Kurgans:the speakers of Proto - Indo - European (southern Russia, 5000 BC)

v Macron:a diacriticalmark placed above a vowel to indicate a long sound or phonetic value in pronunciation (ā)

v Metathesis: inversion of sounds in order. We hear this when we identify certain regional dialects by the pronunciation “aks” for “ask.” ME brid → bird; axian → ask; thurgh → through; beorht → bright.

v Minim: a short vertical stroke of a pen which in adjacent position is difficult to read

v Received Pronunciation (RP):"the British accent" - the variant of English used by radio and television

v Rhotacism: modification of –s into –r: Gt raisjan→ OE ræ:ran (to rear)

v Palatalization: diphthongisation of a front vowel under the influence of preceding palatal k’(c), sk’ (sc), j (g, or Z) (gefan → giefan)

v Pejoration: the process or conditioning of worsening or generating (OE ceorl ('peasant') → ME cherl, "churl")

v Picts: non-Indo-European peoples settling the territory of the British Isles before the 7^th century

v Pidgin: a simplified form of speech, usually a mixture of two or more languages that has a rudimentary grammar and vocabulary and is used for communication between groups speaking different languages. Grammatical features are: absence of morphological changes of words, the plural does not differ from the singular, the verbs are deprived of tense - forms, e.g.

v Satem languages:(Old Persian 100) eastern languages

v Umlaut: a change in a vowel sound caused by partial assimilation to a vowel or semivowel occurring in the following syllable

v K. Verner’s law: the sound law of conditioning environment: a phonological change in one phoneme could depend on the neighbouring phonemes and the position of the z:\wikiStress_(linguistics) accent within the same word

TOPICS FOR REPORTS

1. The comparative historical method.
2. The Proto-Germanic language: linguistic peculiarities.
3. The Gothic language – the only written trace of the early Germanic tribes.
4. The Great Consonant Shift. Interpretation of the Great Consonant Shift.
5. The Vikings: their global colonization and linguistic influence (in Britain, Normandy, Russia, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Iceland, Greenland, etc).
6. The prefixes and suffixes in Old English: their origin and meaning.
7. The Celtic language: its original variant and development.
8. The Old English dialects.
9. The written records of the Old English language. The runic alphabet.
10. Origin and development of Old English vowels (Comparison of Gothic and Old English).
11. Historical background of the Middle English period.
12. The Middle English dialects. The London dialect.
13. Linguistic situation on the British Isles after the Norman Conquest.
14. Chaucer as a founder of the literary dialect. Major features of Chaucer’s English.
15. Peculiarities of the Scottish language.
16. Differences in the Middle English dialects.
17. Development of continuous and perfect aspects.
18. Development of the gerund and participle
19. Development of the article.
20. History of Prefixation.
21. History of Suffixation.
22. W. Shakespeare’s language.
23. The first English dictionaries.
24. The phenomenon and interpretation of the Great Vowel Shift.
25. Modification of Early New English vowels.
26. Development of the forms of the future tense.
27. Development of auxiliary functions of the verb to do.
28. Development of the non-finite forms of the verb.
29. Local inner east London accent-Cockney.
30. English in India (Nigeria, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, etc) (one country for choice).
31. American slang.
32. English words that survived in the United States.
33. Specificity of the English Language in Internet (Airspeak, Seaspeak, science) (one for choice).
34. Phonetic peculiarities of the Canadian English.
35. The first Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
36. English in Scotland, Wales, Ireland.
37. Historical development of syntactical relations in word combinations.
38. The history of the structure of the English simple sentence.
39. The history of the structure of the English complex and compound sentence.
40. The history of the English vowels.
41. The history of the English consonants.
42. The history of the English noun.
43. The history of the English verb.
44. The history of the English adjective.
45. The history of the English article.
46. The history of the English numeral.
47. The history of the English modal verbs.
48. The history of the English spelling.
49. Development of the English passive voice.
50. Development of the English mood.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1352