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2.1. Phonetics

2.1.1. The system of stress

In native words the stress is fixed and falls on the first root syllable (as in Old English and Middle English). Some of the borrowed words were not fully assimilated phonetically, that is why the stress falls on another syllable, and those fully assimilated have the stress on the first root syllable, like in native words.

Native English words are short – they have one or two syllables, that is why it is a norm, a rhythmic tendency of the language to have one stress syllable and one stress one => in borrowed words there developed a system of two stresses.

Sometimes the stress is used to differentiate the words formed from the same root by the process called conversion (to pro'duce - 'produce).

2.1.2. Consonants

a) A new [З] was introduced in borrowed words. Otherwise the changes were not as great as in Middle English.

b) Vocalization of consonants (some consonants in some positions were vocalized – they disappeared, influencing the preceding vowel).

Example: [r] disappeared at the end of the words and before consonants changing the quantity of the vowel immediately preceding it:

Middle English New English

For [for] [fo:]

Form [form] [fo:m]

2.1.3. Vowels

a) In the unstressed position the vowels that were leveled in Middle English generally disappeared at the end of the words. Some of them preserved for phonetic reasons only, where the pronunciation without a vowel was impossible.

Old English Middle English New English

-as -es [z] dogs

[s] cats

[iz] dresses

b) All Middle English long vowels underwent the Great Vowel Shift (in early New English, 15^th – 18^th century). They became narrower and more front. Some of them remained monophthongs, others developed into diphthongs.

Middle English New English

he [he:] [hi:] e: => i:

name [na:me] [neim] a: => ei

2.2. Grammar

In new English it did not change fundamentally. The main changes are the strengthening of analytical features of the language:

a) in many cases empty grammatical words are used (form-words);

b) Analytical forms of Middle English are preserved, and in addition to them in New English non-finite analytical forms appear (in Middle English only finite forms could be analytical);

c) A fixed word-order is established.

2.3. Word-stock

The vocabulary is changing quickly. Many new words are formed to express new notions, which are numerous.

Ways of enriching vocabulary:

1. Inner means (conversion: hand => to hand);

2. Outer means: the sources here are numberless, as English has not only direct, but also indirect (through books, later – TV, radio, internet) contacts with the entire world.

In the beginning of the Early New English period (15^th – 16^th century) – the epoch of the Renaissance – there appeared many borrowings from Greek, Italian, Latin.

In the 17^th century is the period of Restoration => borrowings came to the English language from French (a considerable number of these words being brought by Charles II and his court).

In the 17^th century the English appeared in North America => borrowings from the Indians’ languages were registered.

In the 18^th century the English appeared in India => borrowings from this source came to the English language (but these words are not frequent, for they denote some particular reality of India, example: curry).

In the 19^th century the British colonizers appeared in Australia and New Zealand => new borrowings follow (kangaroo, etc.)

At the end of the 19^th – beginning of the 20^th century the British appeared in Africa, coming to the regions formerly colonized by the Dutch => borrowings from Afrikaans and Dutch appeared.

Old English and Middle English Russian borrowings were scares – the contacts between the countries and their peoples were difficult. In New English there more borrowings: sable (very dark), astrakhan, mammoth; in the 20^th century – Soviet, kolkhoz, perestroika, etc.

LECTURE 5.

List of principal questions:

1. OLD ENGLISH VOWELS

   1. Origin of Old English vowel phonemes

   2. Changes in Old English vowel phonemes

      1. Breaking

      2. Palatal mutation

      3. Effect of palatal mutation upon grammar and word-stock

2. OLD ENGLISH CONSANANTS

   1. Dependence of the quality of the consonant phoneme upon its environment in the word

   2. Grimm’s law, Verner’s law

Literature

1. R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the English language. M., 2003.

2. T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.

3. А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка. М., 2000.

4. К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.

5. И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского языка. СПб., 1998.

6. А.И. Смирницкий Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.

1. OLD ENGLISH VOWELS

1.0. There were the following vowel phonemes in Old English

Monophthongs diphthongs

a æ e i o u y ea eo

ā ǽ ē ī ō ū ý ēa ēo

As we see in Old English there existed an exact parallelism between long vowels and the corresponding short vowels. Nor only monophthongs but even diphthongs found their counterparts which differed from them not only in quality but also in quantity. Thus we may say that in the system of vowels both the quality and the quantity of the vowel was phonemic. All the diphthongs were falling diphthongs with the first element stronger than the second, the second element being more open than the first.

Examples:

Monophthongs diphthongs

ā – a: stān – dagas ēo – eo: cēosan – heorte

(choose) (heart)

ǽ - æ: dæd – dæg ēa – ea: cēas – eald

(chose) (old)

ō – o: gōd – god

(god) (good)

ī – i: wrītan – writen

(write) (written)

1.1. Origin of Old English vowel phonemes

All Old English vowel phonemes can be traced back to Common Germanic vowel phonemes. Old English monophthongs are, as rule, a further development of some Common Germanic monophthongs.

For example:

Old English from Common Germanic

[æ] [a]

dæз dags

[i] [i]

bindan bindan

[o] [u]

coren cusan, etc.

Some Old English monophthongs developed from Common Germanic diphthongs:

Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)

[ā] [ai]

rās rais

Old English long diphthongs are a result of some further development of Common Germanic diphthongs, though in the course of history the quality of the diphthong may have undergone a change:

Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)

cēosan (choose) kiusan

cēas (chose) kaus

Old English short diphthongs originated from monophthongs:

Old English from Common Germanic

eald (old) *ald

heorte (heart) *herte

1.2. Changes in Old English vowel phonemes

1.2.0. The changes that took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which explain the difference between Old English and Common Germanic vowels of two types: assimilative changes and independent (non-assimilative) changes.

Independent changes do not depend upon the environment in which the given sound was found. They cannot be explained but they are merely stated.

Common Germanic Old English

ai > ā

a > æ, etc.

Assimilative changes are explained by the phonetic position of the sound in the word and the change can and must be explained. Among the many phonetic assimilative changes which took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which account for the discrepancy between the Old English and the Common Germanic vowel system the most important are breaking and palatal mutation.

1.2.1. Breaking

The process of breaking took place in the 6^th century. It affected two vowels – [æ] and [e] when they were followed by the consonants [r], [i], [h] generally followed by another consonant.

The resulting vowel was a diphthong (hence the name “breaking” – a monophthong “was broken” into a diphthong), consequently the process may be summed up as diphthongization of short vowels [æ] and [e] before certain consonant clusters.

For example:

æ > ea before r + consonant ærm > earm (arm)

l + consonant æld > eald (old)

h + consonant æhta > eahta (eight)

h final sæh > seah (saw)

e > ea before r + consonant herte > heorte (heart)

lc + consonant melcan > meolcan (milk)

lh + consonant selh > seolh (sael)

h final feh > feoh (cattle)

1.2.2.Palatal mutation

The qualitative change of Old English vowels that experts call palatal mutation, or I – mutation, occurred somewhere during the 6^th – 7^th centuries. The process affected Germanic words where a vowel in a stressed syllable was immediately followed by the sound [i] or [j] in the next syllable. Almost all vowels, both diphthongs and monophthongs, in the context described above became further forward and higher, or more palatal and more narrow, with the exception of [e] and [i] which could go no further. This may be described as a kind of vowel harmony – a natural process affecting many modern languges: the vowels mutate, the change being caused by their partial assimilation to the following vowel (or semi-vowel).

Monophthongs

a > e strangiÞu > strengÞu (strength)

æ > ea tælian > tellan (to tell)

ā > æ hālian > hælan (to heal)

o > e ofstian > efstan (to hurry)

o > ē domain > dēman (to deem)

u > y fullian > fyllan (to fill)

ū > y cūÞian > cyÞan (to announce)

As a result of palatal mutation new phonemes entered the vowel system in Old English – the vowel phoneme [y] and the vowel phoneme [y], the result of the mutation of [u] and [u], respectively.

Ea > ie ealdira > ieldra (elder)

ēa > īe зelēafian > зelīefian (to believe)

eo > ie afeorrian > afierran (to remove)

ēo > īe зetrēowi > зetrīewe (true)

1.2.3. Effect of palatal mutation upon grammar and word-stock

Though palatal mutation was a phonetic process it left traces in Old English grammar and word-stock.

Grammar: as a result of the process of palatal mutation there appeared vowel gradation in the system of the declension of nouns (root-stem declension). In the system of adjectives we have vowel gradation in the degrees of comparison, in the system of verbs vowel gradation is found in Old English irregular weak verbs.

Word-stock: Palatal mutation resulted in vowel interchange as a word building means.

Adjective Verb

Ful (full) fyllan (fill)

Noun Verb

Dom (doom) dēman (deem)

Verb Verb

Sittan (sit) settan (set)

1. OLD ENGLISH CONSONANTS

0. The Old English consonant system consisted of some 14 consonant phonemes denoted by the letters

P, b, m, f, t, d, n, s, r, l, Þ (), c, З, h.

The consonant system in Old English manifested the following peculiarities.

1. The relative small number of consonant phonemes – only 14 phonemes.

2. The absence of affricates and fricative consonants which we now find in the language such as [t], [d], [], []

3. Dependence of the quality of the phoneme upon its environment in the word.

If the first two points require no particular explanation, the last point calls for a special comment.

0. Dependence of the quality of the consonant phoneme upon its environment in the word

Among the 14 consonant phonemes that existed in Old English there were at least 5 that gave us positional variants which stand rather wide apart.

1. The phonemes denoted by the letters f, Þ, or s are voiced or voiceless depending upon their phonetic position. They are generally voiced in the so called “intervocalic position’ that is between vowels and voiceless otherwise.

For example:

Half [f] – hlaford [v]

(bread) (lord, originally hlafweard – bread-keeper)

Зos – Зoses [z]

(goose, Nom. Sing.) (Gen. Sing.)

2. The phoneme denoted by the letter c also gave at least two variants – palatal [k’] and velar [k]. in the majority of cases it was velar consonant and palatal generally before the vowel i compare:

cild (child), scip (ship) where c denotes the palatal consonant [k’] and such words as

can (can), climban (climb)

when the letter c denotes the corresponding velar variant of the phoneme [k].

3. Similar remarks can be made about the phoneme denoted by the letter З: we have the voiced velar plosive variant [g] of it at the beginning of the word before back vowels or consonants or in the middle of the word after n:

Зod (good), Зretan (to greet, to address) Зanзan (to go),

The voiced velar fricative variant [] in the middle of the word between back vowels:

Daзas (days),

The voiced palatal fricative variant [j] before and after front vowels:

Dæз (day) Зear (year).

The system of consonant phonemes that we observe in Old English involves certain peculiarities that are typical of the majority of Germanic dialects which set them (those Germanic dialects and old English among them) apart from the majority of the Indo-European languages. Those peculiarities were mainly accounted for by two linguists – Jacob Grimm and Karl Verner, hence they are generally referred to as “Grimm’s law” (or the first Germanic consonant shift) and “Verner’s law”

0. Grimm’s law and Verner’s law

Grimm’s law explains the correspondence between certain groups of Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. Those correspondences involve three sets of Germanic consonants, consequently they generally speak of three stages of Grimm’s law. But we shall speak here about only one stage which is the simplest to explain and the most consistent – the Germanic consonants [f], [ө]. [h]. And the correspondent consonants [p], [t], [k] we find in similar phonetic environment.

The essence of this stage of the first Germanic consonant shift is following:

The voiceless plosive consonants [p], [t], [k] of Indo-European languages other than Germanic shifted in Germanic languages into the voiceless fricative consonants [f], [ө], [h]. it was a non-assimilative change which presumably affected Germanic languages at the beginning of the first millennium AD.

Examples:

Russian Greek Old English

Пена fama (foam)

Пять fiv (five)

Три ðrie

Ты þū

Кров, кровля hrōf

kardia heorte

octo eahta

The specific peculiarities of consonants constitute the most remarkable distinctive feature of the Germanic linguistic group. Comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. Thus we regularly find [f] in Germanic where other IE languages have [p]; cf. e.g., E full, R Fr plein; wherever Germanic has [p], cognate words in non-Germanic languages have [b] (cf. E pool, R). Consonants in Germanic look “shifted” as compared with the consonants of non-Germanic languages. The alterations of the consonants took place in PG, and the resulting sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group.

The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19^th c. and are often called Grimm’s Law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift.

By the terms of Grimm’s Law voiceless plosives developed in PG into voiceless fricatives (Act I); IE voiced plosives were shifted to voiceless plosives (Act II) and IE voiced aspirated plosives were reflected either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives (Act III).

Another important series of consonant changes in PG was discovered in the late 19^th c. by Danish scholar, Carl Verner. They are known as Verner’s Law. Verner’s Law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm’s Law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. According to Verner’s Law all the PG voiceless fricatives [f, θ, x] which arose under Grimm’s Law and also [s]inherited from PIE, became voiced between vowels if the proceeding vowel was unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. The voicing occurred in early PG at the time when the stress was not yet fixed on the root-morpheme. The process of voicing can be shown as a step in succession of consonant changes in prehistorically reconstructed forms; consider, e.g. the changes of the second consonant in the word father

PIE early PG late PG

Pater > faθar > fa’ ðar > > faðar

Verner's Law accounts for the appearance of voiced fricative or its later modifications [d] in place of the voiceless [θ] which ought to be expected under Grimm’s Law. In late PG, the phonetic conditions that caused the voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted to the first syllable.

Voicing of Fricatives in Proto-Germanic (Verner’s Law)

PIE PG NON-GERMANIC GERMANIC

Old Present-day

P f > v Lat. caput Gt haubiÞ Sw huvud G Haupt

O.Icel haufoÞ NE head

OE heafod [v]

t θ > ð,d Sanscr. Satam Gt hund, O Icel hundarð, G hundert, Sw

R cто OE hund hundrate

NE hundred

L pater Gt fadar [ð],

Sanscr pitā