The Scandinavian influence on OE

As the Scandinavians and the English lived side by side, their languages gradually influenced each other and finally intermixed. The similarity of the two tongues made it possible.

It is sometimes hard to decide whether a given word in Modern English is a native or a borrowed word. One of the simplest criteria to recognize it is the development of the sound sk. In OE this was early palatalized to sh (written sc), while in the Scandinavian countries it retained its hard sk sound. So native words like ship, shall, fish have sh in Modern English, Scandinavian words have sk: sky, skin, skill, scrape, scrub, bask, whisk. The OE scyrte has become shirt, while the corresponding ON form skyrta gives us skirt. In the same way the retention of the hard pronunciation of k and g in such words as kid, dike (cf. ditch), get, give, gild, egg is an indication of Scandinavian origin.

The Scandinavian influence is apparent in the place-names of Scandinavian origin. They are the names containing the following elements:

1.Crimsby, Whitby, Derby, Rugby, and Thoresby contain element -by (Danish) - ‘farm’ or ‘town’

2.Allthorp, Bishopsthorpe, Gawthorpe, and Linthorpe contain the Scandinavian word thorp (village).

The words brought by Scandinavians were of everyday character and often existed side by side with similar English words. The survival of one or the other must often have been a matter of chance: band, bank, birth, bull, dirt, down, egg, fellow, freckle, gap, guess, kid, leg, root, seat, sister, skill, sky, steak, want, window, flat, ill, low, sly, weak, call, die, gape, give, get, take & others.

Not only nouns, adjectives and verbs were borrowed, but also pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and even a part of the verb to be, which shows very close relation between the two languages: they, their, them, both, same, till, to and fro are Scandinavian. The present plural are of the verb to be is a most significant position.

Some inflections were also borrowed from Scandinavian. E.g. the –s of the third person singular present indicative of verbs and the participial ending –and (bindand) now replaced by –ing. The reason was that many words in the English and Scandinavian languages differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was nearly the same in the two languages and only the endings bothered the understanding. So the inflections gradually were lost.

There are also some influences on syntax, though it is not so easy to prove them. E.g. the omission of the relative pronoun in relative clauses (rare in OE) and the retention or omission of the conjunction that are in conformity with Danish usage; the rules for the use of shall and will in Middle English are much the same as in Scandinavian; the tendency to put a strong stress at times on the preposition and notes the expressions such as “he has some one to work for” that are not shared by the other Germanic languages.

It is difficult to count the number of borrowed words in Standard English. The list of words with undoubtedly Scandinavian origin is about 900. And an equal number must be added in which a Scandinavian origin is probable or in which the influence of Scandinavian forms has entered.

The French language dominated in England until the reign of Edward I (1272-1307), the first king for generations to have a good command of English.

For 200 years after the Norman Conquest, French was mainly used among the upper classes in England. French was the language of administration: of the king’s court, law courts, the church, the army and the castle. French alongside with Latin was the language of writing, teaching was also conducted in French. At first those who spoke French were Normans, but soon through intermarriage numerous English people started to learn the new language. English remained the language of the masses: the lower classes in the towns, in the country-side continued to speak English.

At first the two languages existed side by side, but then they started mixing slowly. The Norman barons picked up English words to make themselves understood, and for the English good knowledge of French was a mark of a higher social position. So probably many people became bilingual.

: fashion, dress, gown, coat, fur, luxury; blue, brown, scarlet; ruby, emerald, pearl; dinner, supper, feast, beef, mutton, pork, bacon, sausage, cream, orange; curtain, towel, wardrobe, leisure, dance, music

The development of perfect tense. The stabilization of the formal pattern of the perfect and it’s wide application throughout the verb paradigm were importantstages in the formation of a new verbal category, tremed nowadays the category of “Time- Correlation” or “Phase”. Yet its final establishment presupposes also the growth of semantic opposition between the members of the category: the perfect and non-perfect forms. In the beginning the main function of the perfect forms was to indicate a completed action, to express “perfectivity”, rather then priority of one action to another and relevance for the subsequent situation.

The growth of continuous forms was slow and uneven. Verb phrases consisting of beon plus participle one denoted a quality or a lasting state, characterizing the person ar a thing indicated by the subject of the sentence. In the early ME ben plus Part I fell into disuse, sometimes met in dialects of Kent and North. In Late ME it extended to the other dialects and its frequency grew again. At that stage the construction did not differ from the simple verb in meaning and was used as its synonym, mainly for emphasis and vividness of description. In the 15^th c present part and the verbal noun had lost their formal differences: participle I was built with the help of –ing and verbal noun had the suffix -ing. In the 18^th c Cont forms acquired a specific meaning of their own

-Find the sentences in the passive voice and explain the evolution of the passive voice from a historical point of view.These towns were built with stone as well wood, and had planned streets, markets and shops. They were connected by roads which were so well built that they survived when later roads broke up. These roads continued to be used long after the Romans left, and became the main roads of modern Britain.

In OE the finite verb had no category of Voice. Only in the system of verbal participles of transitive verbs, Pres and Past were contrasted as having an active and a passive meaning.The analytical passive forms developed from OE verb phrases consisting of OE bēon(NE be), and weorð(become) and Part II&transitive verbs The last instances of this agreement are found in Early ME : fewe . bēop icorene- few were chosen; In ME ben plus Past Part developed into an analytical form.The Pass forms had a regular means of indicating the doer of the action or the instrument with the help of which it was performed. out of variety of prepositions employed in OE – from, mid, wið, bi-two were selected and generalized : by and with. Therefore we can say the verb had acquired a new gram category –the category of Voice.

-Speak about the evolution of the degrees of comparison of the adjective (it is the only set of forms which the adjictive has preserved through all historical periods.In OE the forms of the comparative and the superlative degree, like all the gram forms were synthetic they were built up by adding suffixes –re, -est/-ost, to the form of positive degree. In ME the degrees of comparison could be built in the same way, only the suffixes had been weakened to –er,-est and the interchange of the root-vowel was less common than before. Since most adjectives with the sound alteration had parallel forms with interchange soon fell into disuse.Ex. ME long-lenger- longest was replaced by long- longer-longest.The alternation of root-vowels in early NE survived in the adjective old-elder-eldest, where the difference in meaning from old-older-oldest made the formal distinction essential. The most important innovation in the adjective system in the ME period was the growth of analytical forms of the degrees of comparison( ma-bet-betst: “more”, “better”, “To a greater degree”). In ME, when the phrases with ME more and most became more common, they were used with all kinds of adjective, regardless of the number of syllables and were even preferred with mono- and disyllabic words ( more swete, better worthy.) ) Besides new system of comparison appeared in ME, when from OE adverbs”ma”; “bet”;’betst emerged “more” and “better”. In ME these phrases became more and more common.

The Romans left about twenty large towns of about 5. 000 inhabitants, and almost one hundred smaller ones. Many of these towns were at first army camps, and the Latin word for camp, castra, has remained part of many town names to this day ( with the ending cheter, caster or cester): Gloucester, Leicester, Doncaster, Winchester, Chester, Lancaster and many others besides. These towns were built with stone as well wood, and had planned streets, markets and shops. Some buildings had central heating. They were connected by roads which were so well built that they survived when later roads broke up. These roads continued to be used long after the Romans left, and became the main roads of modern Britain. Six of these Roman roads met in London, a capital city of about 20.000 people. London was twice the size of Paris, and possibly the most important trading center of northern Europe, because southeast Britain produced so much corn for export.

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Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1851