The Peculiarities of the Complex Sentence. Structure in OE and its historical development.

Types of subordinate clauses occurring within the complex sentence (Table: 57):
1. Subject clause is not often found in OE texts
2. Predicative clause do not seem to occur in OE texts
3. Object clause is mainly found in indirect speech. They may be introduced by the conjunction ðæt or ʒif, by an interrogative pronoun or adverb.
4. Attributive clause is introduced either by the relative pronoun ðe or by the pronoun sē, which from a demonstrative acquired a relative meaning, or by the compound pronoun sēðe.
5. Adverbial clauses of different types (terminal clause, of place, of cause, of purpose, of result, of concession, of manner and comparison, conditional clause)
OE complex sentences often contained correlative strictures which served as connecting elements to join parts of the sentence: ða…ða, swā…swā, ðonne…ðonne etc.

The Structure of the Simple sentence in OE.

There were 6 parts of the sentence in OE: the subject, the predicate, the object, the attribute the adverbial modifier, the apposition.
Apposotion followed the head noun, attribute precedes or follows the head noun.
Word order could be direct, inverted or synthetic.

Principal Features of OE vocabulary.

The full extent of the OE vocabulary is not known to present day scholars. Some colloquial words are lost. According to modern estimates – 30 000 words (total vocabulary). Native words can be subdivided into:

1. Indo-European layer: numerals 1-100.

pronouns: OE-ic L-ego Gr-ego´;

OE-ðu Sl-ти L-tu Sancr-tuvan.

OE-fæder Gr-pater L-pater Sancr-pitā(r).

2. Common Germanic layer: OE-hand G-Hand Gt-handus

3. West Germanic layer: OE-bi,be OHG-bi (Mod.E-by)

OE-macian OHG-mahhon (Mod.E-make)

4. Specifically Old English Words: OE-wimman (Mod.E-woman).

There were Latin (1 layer – stræt (road) L-strata; 2 layer – mæsse L-missa) and Celtic (loans) borrowings (dun “dune” also in Dumfries).

The Word formation OE.

There were4 ways of word formation in OE:

1. suffixation : nouns –ere (fiscere); adjectives -isc (Englisc); adverbs –e (harde).

2. prefixation: un- (uncuÞ).

3. composition: ƷoldsmiÞ.

4. semantic shift: ēastron (a heathen spring holiday) Easter (a Christian holiday).

Changes within the Consonant System in ME.

The main changes in the ME consonant system:

1. assibilation (started already in OE: k’˃tʃ, Ʒ’˃dƷ, sk’>ʃ (ic-ich, fisc-fish)

2. shortening of long consonants: OE-full ME-[ful] full

3. vocalization of consonants:

· in final position: Ʒ˃u (OE-aƷ ME-owe[ou]; Ʒ’˃i (OE-dæƷ ME-dey [dei];

· in the suffix: iƷ˃y ( OE-mistiƷ ME-misty [misti];

· after r,l : Ʒ˃u( OE-morƷen ME-morwen [moruen];

· vocalization of f(OE-hlafdiƷe ME-lady [ladi].

4. loss of initial hhr>r, hl>l, hn>n (hlud>loud [lud]).

5. gradual loss of –n in inflexions (OE-sittan ME-sit [sitten,sit].

40. ME Vowels: Qualitative changes.

In ME a great change affected the system of vowel phonemes.

OE dipthongs began to turn into monophtongs: /ea/>/æ/>/a/ (heard>hard).
Reduced the number of monophtongs: from 8 long→5 long, 7 short→6 short.
The number of diphtongs: 4 short→12 short, 4 long→−. 5 new diphtongs appeared (ei, ai, oi, au, ou). Also there were dialect changes: tbibal→territorial.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1551