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Weakening of vowels

Phonetic reduction most often involves a centralization of the vowel, that is, a reduction in the amount of movement of the tongue in pronouncing the vowel, as with the characteristic change of many unstressed vowels at the ends of English words to something approaching schwa. A well-researched type of reduction is that of the neutralization of acoustic distinctions in unstressed vowels, which occurs in many languages. The most common reduced vowel is schwa.

Whereas full vowels are distinguished by height, backness, and roundness, according to Bolinger (1989), reduced unstressed vowels are largely unconcerned with height or roundness. English /ə/, for example, may range phonetically from mid [ə] to [ɐ] to open [a]; English /ɨ/ ranges from close [i], [ɪ], [e], to open-mid [ɛ]. The primary distinction is that /ɨ/is further front than /ə/, contrasted in the numerous English words ending in unstressed -ia. That is, the jaw, which to a large extent controls vowel height, tends to be relaxed when pronouncing reduced vowels. Similarly, English /ɵ/ ranges through [ʊ] and [o]; although it may be labialized to varying degrees, the lips are relaxed in comparison to /uː/, /ou/, or /ɔː/. The primary distinction in words like folio is again one of backness. However, the backness distinction is not as great as that of full vowels; reduced vowels are also centralized, and are sometimes referred to by that term. They may also be called obscure, as there is no one-to-one correspondence between full and reduced vowels. (Bolinger 1989:347)

Centralisation isn't the only form of reduction, however. Many Germanic languages, in their early stages, reduced the number of vowels that could occur in unstressed syllables, without (or before) clearly showing centralisation. In Old Norse, for example, only three vowels were written in unstressed syllables: a, i and u (their exact phonetic quality is unknown). Old English, meanwhile, distinguished only e, a, and u (or o). Catalan, a Romance language, also shows reduction, but in differing degrees depending on dialect. The Valencian dialect reduces the number of possible vowels from seven to five in unstressed environments, merging [ɛ] into [e] and [ɔ] into [o]. The central Catalan dialect goes even further, distinguishing only [i], [u] and [ə] or [ɐ], with [ɛ] and [e] becoming [ə] and [ɔ] and [o] merging into [u].

Sound duration is a common factor in reduction: In fast speech, vowels are reduced due to physical limitations of the articulatory organs, e.g., the tongue cannot move to a prototypical position fast or completely enough to produce a full-quality vowel. Compare: clipping (phonetics). Different languages have different types of vowel reduction, and this is one of the difficulties in language acquisition; see, e.g., "Non-native pronunciations of English" and "Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages". Vowel reduction of second language speakers is a separate study.



Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of Indo-European ablaut, as well as other changes reconstructed by historical linguistics.

Such vowel reduction is one of the sources of distinction between a spoken language and its written counterpart. Vernacular and formal speech often have different levels of vowel reduction, and so the term "vowel reduction" is also applied to differences in a language variety with respect to, e.g., the language standard.

Some languages, such as Finnish, Hindi, and classical Spanish, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. Such languages are often called syllable-timed languages. At the other end of the spectrum, Mexican Spanish is characterized by the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/. It can be the case that the words pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same: [ˈpesə̥s]. In the same way, Slovene has a stressed reduced vowel: /e/ appears as schwa [ə] in some reducing environments (such as /er/ when no other vowel is adjacent), even when the syllable is stressed.

 

12) The O.E noun had two grammatical or morphological categories: number and case. The category of number consisted of two members, singular and plural. The noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. In most declensions two, or even three, forms were homonymous, so that the formal distinction of cases was less consistent than that of numbers. The Nom. Can be loosely defined as the case of the active agent , for it was the case of the subject mainly used with the verbs denoting activity; the Nom. Could also indicate the subject characterised by a certain quality or stat; could serve as a predicative and as the case of address, there being no special Vocative case.

The Genitive was primarily the case of nouns and pronouns serving as attributes to other nouns. The meanings of the Gen. were very complex and can only roughly be grouped under the headings “Subjective” and “Objective” Gen. subjective Gen. is associated with the possessive meaning and the meaning of origin

Dat. Was the chief case used with prepositions. The O.E Dat. Could convey an instrumental meaning, indicating the means or manner of an action. The Acc. case, above all, was the form that indicated a relationship to a verb. It is important to note that there was considerable fluctuation in the use of cases in O.E. One and the same verb could be construed with different cases without any noticeable change of meaning. The semantic functions of the Gen. , Dat. And Acc. as objects commonly overlapped and required further specification by means of prepositions. The vague meaning of cases was of great consequence for the subsequent changes of the case system.

 

13, 14) The adjective in O.E could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a predicative. Like nouns adj. had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adj. differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adj. served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning-e.g.

Weak and Strong declension.

As in other OG lang., most adj. in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and to the strong declension. The formal differences between the declensions, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes in PG: vocalic: a, o, u and i and consonantal n. Accordingly, there developed sets of endings of a-stems of nouns for adj. in the Masc. and Neut. and of o-stems- in the Fem., with some differences between long and short-stemmed adj. and some remnants of other stems. Some endings in the strong declensions of adj. have no parallels in the noun paradigms; they are similar to the endings of of pronouns:-um for Dat. sg, ne- for Acc. sg Masc. in some Fem. And pl endings. Therefore the strong declensions of adj. in sometimes called the “pronominal” declension. As for the weak declension. It uses the same markers as n-stems of nouns except that in in the Gen. pl the pronominal ending –ra is often used instead of the weak – ena . The difference

between the strong and weak declension of adj. was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adj. did not belong to a certain type of declension. Most adj. could b e declined in both ways. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adj., the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adj. had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determines. The weak form was employed when the adj. was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun of the Gen. case of personal pronouns. Therefore the weak forms were regular y used together with demonstrative pronouns. The formal and semantic opposition between the two declensions of adj. is regarded by some historians as a grammatical category which can be named “the category of definiteness/indefiniteness. In later OE the distinction of forms in the adj. paradigm became even more blurred. The Instr. Case fell together with the Dat. Numerous variant forms with phonetically reduced endings or with markers borrowed from other forms through analogy impaired the distinction of categorical forms.

 

 

15) OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns; personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefi­nite. As for the other groups — relative, possessive and reflexive — they were as yet not fully developed and were not always distinctly separat­ed from the four main classes. The grammatical categories of the pro­nouns were either similar to those of nouns (in "noun-pronouns") or corresponded to those of adjectives (in "adjective pronouns"). Some fea­tures of pronouns were peculiar to them alone. In OE, while nouns consistently distinguished between four cases, personal pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of the Dat. case of the pronouns of the 1st and 2nd p. were fre­quently used instead of the Acc; in fact the fusion of these two cases in the pi was completed in the WS dialect already in Early OE: Acc. eowic and Hsic were replaced by Dat. eow, as; in the sg usage was variable, but variant forms revealed the same tendency to generalise the form of the Dat. for both cases. It is important to note that Ihe Gen. case of personal pronouns had two main applications: like other oblique cases of noun-pronouns it could be an object, but far more frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a possessive pronoun, e. g. sunu min, his fsder (NE my son, his father). Though forms of the Gen. case were em­ployed as possessive pronouns, they cannot be regarded as possessive pronouns proper (that is, as a separate class of pronouns). The grammati­cal characteristics of these forms were not homogeneous. The forms of the 1st and 2nd p. — min, are and others —were declined like adjectives to show agreement with the nouns they modified, while the forms of the 3rd p. behaved like nouns: they remained uninflected and did not agree with the nouns they modified.

 

 

16) Word-building means in Old English
Word Structure

According to their morphological structure OE words fell into three main types:
1) simple words (“root-words”) containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes, e.g. land, çōd.
2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes, e.g. be-çinnan.
3) compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme, e.g. mann-cynn.

 

17) The full extent of the OE vocabulary is not known to present-day scholars. There is no doubt that many words have not been recorded in the extant texts at all. The evidence of the records has been supple­mented from other sources: from the study of the words of closely related OG languages and from later, more extensive ME texts.

Modern estimates of the total vocabulary of OE range from about thirty thousand words to almost one hundred thousand (A. I. Smir-nitsky, M. Pei), — the latter figure being probably too high and unreal­istic. (Among other causes the differences in the estimates depend on the treatment of polysemy and homonymy. But even the lowest esti­mates show that OE had already developed about as many words as used by a present-day cultured English speaker.) Despite the gaps in the accessible data, philological studies in the last centuries have given us a fairly complete outline of the OE vocabulary as regards its etymology, word structure, word-building and stylistic differentiation.

 

 

18) The Roman Invasion of Britain

In 55 and 54BC Julius Caesar came to Britain with a Roman Army. Both times he made some progress into England before returning to France having not successfully conquered Britain. Caesar reported that the Britons were a strange breed of people, that they dyed themselves blue and were very barbaric. Caesar's visit may not have overwhelmed the island but the Romans now new that Britain really did exist (many people thought that it was a magical or even made up Island before his visit) and that it had lots of valuable crops and minerals.

Ideas of invading Britain faded until Claudius became Emperor in AD41. He was eager for people to think of him as a strong man and knew that a successful war would make people in Rome like him. he chose to invade Britain.

The Roman Army sailed from Boulogne in France across the English Channel and landed at Richborough in Kent. The British tribes met the Romans in a fiercely fought battle at the River Medway . After much bloodshed the Romans emerged victorious and 4 Legions went on to conquer all of England, much of Wales and parts of Scotland.

Remains of the time that the Romans were in control of Britain are not hard to find. The City of York has much that was made at this time and Hadrian's Wall is testament to the impact of the Romans on this country.

 

 

19) Latin Influence on the Old English Vocabulary

The role of the Latin language in Medieval Britain is clearly manifest; it was determined by such historical events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the influence of the Roman civilisation and the introduction of Christianity. It is no wonder that the Latin language exerted considerable influence on different aspects of English: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. The impact of Latin 0n the OE vocabulary enables us to see the spheres of Roman influence on the life in Britain.

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into several layers.

The earliest layer comprises words which the WG tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilisation began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon inva­sion (see § 91).

The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years. Though the Romans left Britain before the settlement of the West Teut­ons, Latin words could be transmitted to them by the Romanised Celts.

Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and con­cepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and home life.

Words connected with trade indicate general concepts, units of measurements and articles of trade unknown to the Teutons before they came into contact with Rome: OE ceapian, ceap, ñ¸àðòàï and mansion, man^uns, manzere ('to trade', 'deal', 'trader', 'to trade', 'trading', 'trader') came from the Latin names for 'merchant' — caupo and mango.

Evidently, the words were soon assimilated by the language as they yielded many derivatives.

Units of measurement and containers were adopted with their Lat­in names: OE pund (NE pound), OE ynce (NE Inch) from L pondo and uncia,OEmynet,mynetian ('coin', 'to coin'),OE flasce, ciest (NE flask, chest).

The following words denote articles of trade and agricultural prod­ucts, introduced by the Romans: OE win (from L vinum), OE butere (from L batyrum), OE plume (from L prunus), OE ciese (from L caseus), OE pipar (from L piper), (NE wine, butter, plum, cheese, pepper).

Roman contribution to building can be perceived in words like OE cealc, ti$ele, coper (NE chalk, tile, copper). A group of words relating to domestic life is exemplified by OE cytel, disc, cuppe, pyle (NE kettle, dish, cup, pillow), etc.

Borrowings pertaining to military affairs are OE mil (NE mile) from L mi Ilia passuum, which meant a thousand steps made to measure the distance; OE weall (NE wait) from L vallum, a wall of fortifications erected in the Roman provinces; OE str&t from Latin strata via, — a

"paved road" (these "paved roads" were laid to connect Roman military camps and colonies in Britain; the meaning of the word changed when houses began to be built along these roads, hence NE street); to this group of words belong also OE pit 'javelin', OE putt (NE pile, pit). There is every reason to suppose that words of the latter group could be borrowed in Britain, for they look as direct traces of the Roman occu­pation (even though some of these words also occur in the continental Germanic tongues, cf. G Stra/Je).

Among the Latin loan-words adopted in Britain were some place-names or components of place-names used by the Celts. L castra in the shape cosier, ceaster 'camp' formed OE place-names which sur-. vive' today as Chester, Dorchester, Lancaster and the like (some of them with the first element coming from Celtic); Lcolonia 'settlement,for re­tired soldiers' is found in Colchester and in the Latin-Celtic hybrid Lin­coln; L vicus 'village' appears in Norwich, Woolwich, L partus — in Bridport and Devonport (see also the examples in §234). Place-names made of Latin and Germanic components are: Portsmouth, Greenport, Greenwich and many others.

It should be noted that the distinction of two layers of early Latin bor­rowings is problematic, lor it is next to impossible to assign precise dates to events so far back in history. Nevertheless, it seems more reasonable to assume that the earlier, continental layer of loan words was more numerous than the laypr made in Britain. In the first place, most OE words quoted above have parallels in other OG languages, which is easily accounted for if the borrowings were made by the Teutons before their migrations. At that time transference of loan-words Irom tribe to tribe was easy, even if they were first adopted by one tribe. Second­ly, we oufeht to recall that the relations between the Germanic conquerors and the subjugated Britons in Britain could hardly be favourable for extensive borrowing.

The third period of Latin influence on the OE vocabulary began with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6th c. and lasted to the end of OE.

Numerous Latin words which found their way into the English lan­guage during these five hundred years clearly fall into two main groups: (1) words pertaining to religion, (2) words connected with learning. The rest are miscellaneous words denoting various objects and concepts which the English learned from Latin books and from closer acquaint­ance with Roman culture. The total number of Latin loan-words in OE exceeds five hundred, this third layer accounting for over four hundred words.

The new religion introduced a large number of new concep­tions which required new names; most of thern were adopted from Lat­in, some of the words go back to Greek prototypes:

OE apostol NE apostle from L apostolus from Gr apostolos

antefn anthem antiphona antiphona

bfscop bishop eptscopus episcopos

candel candle candela

clerec clerk clericus klerikds

'clergyman'

deofol devil diabolus diabolos

ma?sse mass missa

mynster minster monasterium

òèãøñ monk monachus monachcs

To this list we may add many more modern English words from the same source: abbot, alms, altar, angel, ark, creed, disciple, hymn, idol, martyr, noon, nun, organ, palm, pine ('torment'), pope, prophet, psalm, psalter, shrine, relic, rule, temple and others.

After the introduction of Christianity many monastic schools were set up in Britain. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was conducted in Latin, or consisted of learning Latin. The written forms of OE developed in translations of Latin texts. These conditions are reflected in a large number of borrowings connected with education, and also words of a more academic, "bookish" character. Unlike the earlier borrowings scholarly words were largely adopted through books; they were first used in OE translations from Latin, e.g.:

 

OE scol NE school L schola (Gr skhole)

scolere scholar scholaris

ma^ister master, 'teacher' magister

fers verse versus

dihtan 'compose' dictare

 

Other modern descendants of this group are; accent, grammar, meter, gloss, notary, decline.

A great variety of miscellaneous borrowings came from Latin probably because they indicated new objects and new ideas, introduced into English life together with their Latin names by those who had a fair command of Latin: monks, priests, school-masters. Some of these scholarly words became part of everyday vocabulary. They belong to different semantic spheres: names of trees and plants — elm, lily, plant, pine; names of illnesses and words pertaining to medical treatment — cancer, fever, paralysis, plaster; names of animals — camel, elephant, tiger; names of clothes and household articles — cap, mat, sacfe, socfe; names of foods — beet, caul, oyster, radish; miscellaneous words — crisp, fan, place, spend, turn.

 

The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of them is the appearance of the so-called "translation-loans"-— words and phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations. The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the week found not only in OE but also in other Old (and modern) Germanic languages:

OE Ìîïàï-îæî (Monday) 'day of the moon', L Lunae dies;

Tiwes-dxi (Tuesday) May of Tiw' L Mortis dies (Tfw — a Teutonic God corresponding to Roman Mars).

The procedure was to substitute the name of the corresponding Ger­manic god for the god of the Romans. Other translation-loans of the type were OE ^odspell (NE gospel) 'good tidings', L euangelium; OE priness (lit. 'three-ness'), NE Trinity.

In late OE, many new terms were coined from native elements ac­cording to Latin models as translation-loans: OE åîãðÛ%åïúà 'inhabitant of the earth' (L terricola); OE zoldsmip (NE goldsmith) 'worker in gold' (L aurifex); OE tun^olcrseft 'astronomy', lit. 'the knowledge of stars' <L astronomos).

Some grammatical terms in ^lfric's GRAMMAR are of the same origin: OE dSlnimend 'participle', lit. 'taker of parts' (L participium); OE nemniiendlic (L Nominatious), OE wre^endlic 'Accusative', lit. 'accusing, denouncing' (L Accusativus). This way of replenishing the vocabulary may be regarded as a sort of resistance to foreign influence: instead of adopting a foreign word, an equivalent was produced from native resources in accordance with the structure of the term.

Another question which arises in considering borrowings from a foreign language is the extent of their assimilation. Most Latin loan­words were treated in OE texts like native words, which means that they were already completely assimilated.

Judging by their spellings and by later phonetic changes they were naturalised as regards their sound form. . Like native English words, early Latin loan-words participated in the sound changes, e.g. in disc and ciese the consonants tskl and [k'l were palatalised and eventually changed into Ö] and [Ö] (NE dish, cheese). Note that some later bor­rowings, e.g. scot, scolere did not participate in the change and [ski was retained

Loan-words acquired English grammatical forms and were inflected like respective parts of speech, e.g. cirice, cuppe (NE church, cup). Fem. nouns were declined as ë-stems: òèïå, deofol (NE monk, devil), Masc. — like ä-stems, the verbs pinion, temprian were conjugated like weak verbs of the second class ('torture', NE temper).

Important proofs of their assimilation are to be found in word-for­mation. Stems of some Latin borrowings were used in derivation and word compounding, e.g. the verbs fersian 'versify', plantian (NE plant) were derived from borrowed nouns fers, plant; many derivatives were formed from the early Latin loan-words caupo, mengo (see § 238); ab­stract nouns — martyrdom, martyrhad were built by attaching native suffixes to the loan-word martyr (NE martyrdom); compound words like cirice$eard (NE churchyard), mynster-ham (lit. 'monastery home'), òóï-ster-man 'monk' were Latin-English hybrids.

The grammatical form of several loan-words was misunderstood: pisum on losing -m was treated as a plural form and -s- was dropped to produce the sg: OE pese, NE pi peas, hence sg pea; in the same way L cerasum eventually became cherries pi, cherry — sg.

 

 

20) In Early ME the differences between the regional dialects grew. Never in history, before or after, was the historical background more favourable for dialectal differentiation. The main dialectal divi­sion in England, which survived in later ages with some slight modifi­cation of boundaries and considerable dialect mixture, goes back to the feudal stage of British history.

In the age of poor communication dialect boundaries often coincided with geographical barriers such as rivers, marshes, forests and moun­tains, as these barriers would hinder the diffusion of linguistic features.

In addition to economic, geographical and social conditions, dialectal differences in Early ME were accentuated by some historical events, namely the Scandinavian invasions and the Norman Conquest,

 

21) English essentially began with the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain constituted part of the wider Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire. The Anglo-Saxons, after the departure of the Roman Legions, overwhelmed Roman Britain and drove the Romanized Celts into the remote west. Thus the Anglo-Saxon Germanic tongue became the foundation for the English language. The Anglo-Saxon language is generally referred to as Old English and was widely spoken once the Romanized Britons had been defeated and driven into the west during the 6th century. The first English literature comes from this period. The most important work from this time is the epic poem, Beowulf, based on a Germanic legend that goes back several centuries and was transmitted orally long before it was written down. Writings of the preacher Wulfstan also survive. Old English is not understandable to the modern reader. One author describes it as sounding dark and brusque. [Lerer] Old English words are not easily recognizable, but the influence on modern English can sometimes be seen. The word for throne was "gifstol" (literally “gift seat” or “gift stool”) because it was from his regal seat or throne that a king dispensed tokens (gifts) to his retainers. Many words are totally lost, such as "uht," which meant something close to “dawn.” Latin was also an important contributor to Old English during destinct periods.

 

22) OE and Old North were very much alike. Englishmen and Scandinavians could understand each other without any translation. Culturally these two peoples were equal. Scandinavian borrowed words were rather numerous in OE. These words were basic every day. The scand. infl. can be seen in place names. All the English settlements whose names and in scand. morpheme [by] mean town, and [tafe] mean house and grounds.
Under the year 787 three shiploads of Northmen landed upon the coast of Britain and invaded the country. These invaders were Scandinavian tribes: The Danes, the Swedes. They inhabited the north of Europe (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden). They started their invasion taking possession over the East of Britain and the Danish invasion resulted in the occupation of a great part of the territory by Scandinavian settlers. In the year 878 the English King Alfred the Great, by the Treaty of Wedmore was obliged to recognize Danish rule over a territory covering two-thirds of modern England; all Northumbria, all East Anglia and one half of Central England made up District called the Danelaw.
The effect of the Danish Conquest was a contribution of many Scandinavian words to the English vocabulary.
The criterion of sound in many cases may be applied in distinguishing Scandinavian words. Since in native English words the sk sound had regularly changed to sh and since the k sound before the vowels e and i had regularly changed to ch, the greater part of the Germanic words in English with the sk sound such as scare, skill, skin, skirt, sky and many words with the k sound before e and i, such as kettle, keg, kirk are to be assigned to Scandinavian origin.
In cases where the Scandinavian form of a word differed from the English form, sometimes both forms survived with a different meaning.
The Scandinavian influence was especially marked in place-names in Northern England, Among the more common ones are those ending in-by (0. N. byr, a dwelling, village); in -beck (has been used as an independent word since 1300 especially in the North; 0. N. bekker, a brook, Ger. Bach); in-dale (O. N. Dalr, a valley, Ger. Thai); in thorp or-torp (0. N thorp, a hamlet, village); in -toft (O. N, toft a homestead, enclosure) and in -twaite (0. N. veiti, a clearing).
In some cases when the English word and the Scandinavian agreed in form, the Scandinavian form has imported a new meaning to the English. Thus dream in Î. Å. meant toy, but in Middle English the modern meaning of dream was taken over from O.N. draumr. The same is true of bread (formerly meaning a fragment or bloom (O. E. bloma, mass of metal), plough (Î. Å. ploh, a measure of land); holm (Î. Å. holm, ocean).
A number of common words which existed in Old English have been assimilated to the kindred Scandinavian synonyms only in form (e. g. sister descends not from the Old English sweoster, but from the O. N. syster. The same is true of such everyday words as birth, get, give, etc.
Sometimes the Scandinavians gave a fresh lease of life to obsolescent or obsolete native words. The preposition till, for instance, is found only once or twice in Old English texts belonging to the pre-Scandinavian period, but after that time it begins to be exceedingly common in the North, from whence it spreads southward. The same is true of the words barn, blend and dale.
From no other foreign source has the English language derived words so elemental in character. Scandinavian elements combine with native elements in hybrid compounds such as awkward and greyhound. Since these Scandinavian words are, as has been mentioned already, so nearly related to the Anglo-Saxon, and since they were borrowed so early and have consequently undergone changes in form and in meaning along with the Anglo-Saxon element, one may almost reckon them as belonging to the native stock of English words. In later periods of English, history the contact between English and Scandinavian-speaking peoples was never so close.

 


Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1885


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