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MIDDLE ENGLISH SYNTAX

adjective before noun (erthely servaunt) ;articles: indefinite article (a/an) derived from numeral "one" ;isolated possessive marker (the raven is neste) ;analytic possessive (of) ;group possessive (the Duke's place of Lancastre) ;double possessive (obligacion of myn) ;noun adjuncts (perselly rotes, fenell rotes) ;negative ne before verb (I nolde fange); double negatives freely used ;prepositions before objects; sometimes followed if object was pronoun (he seyde him to) ;verb phrases: origin of compound verb phrases; perfect tense became common, use of auxiliaries (be & have); progressive tense came into being; passive constructions (with 'be' as auxiliary); future tense (with shall and will auxiliaries); modal auxiliaries instead of subjunctive (may, might, be going to, be about to); do in periphrastic constructions indicating tense (doth serve); impersonal verbs and dummy subjects (me thristed, hit me likede); clauses: trend toward modern word order, SVO in affirmative independent clauses; VSO in questions and imperatives.

 

22. ENGLISH VOCABULARY. MIDDLE ENGLISH.

In Middle English it underwent fundamental changes and became almost new. If in Old English the word-stock was almost completely native, in Middle English there were many borrowings. The principal sources of them were:1. Scandinavian (those who came in the end of the Old English period) — over 500 words (take, give, sky, wrong, etc.); 2. French (the language of the Norman conquerors) — over 3500 words (government, army, battle, etc.).Though the number of the French words is greater, all the Scandinavian words — common, colloquial, everyday, indispensable — entered the very core of the language, and their influence is very great. The French words are generally terms indispensable only in certain official spheres, but not colloquial. The Scandinavian borrowings are intensive, the French borrowings — extensive: 1. the Scandinavians and the English were linguistically similar (both Germanic), the English and the French — different (Germanic and Romance languages); 2. the English and the Scandinavians were similar socially (neither of the nations formed the upper class); the French and the English were different socially (the French-speaking people forming the ruling class, the English-speaking — the lower class); 3. the English and the Scandinavians had similar culture, habits, customs, traditions; the French and the English — different; that is why the assimilation of the French words could not proceed so quickly and intensively as that of Scandinavian. The principal means of enriching vocabulary were thus outer means, i.e. borrowings.

 


Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1266


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MIDDLE ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY | GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NE
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