History of English Flashcards
Historical Background
Old English
Middle English
Early Modern English
Present Day English
The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain,
OE: 449 - 1066
Germanic conquest (499) (incl. Anglo-Saxons)
Viking invasions
ME: 1066-15th c. Norman Conquest (1066) French occupation 100 Year War: (1337–1453) War of the Roses: the House of York and the House of Lancaster. The Lancastrian Henry Tudor ended the War of the Roses and established the Tudor dynasty in 1485.
EME: 15th - 18th c.
reestablishment of English reign
Printing press by Caxton in 1476
PDE: from 18th c. on
spread of English to the New World
Declaration of Independence in 1776
However the division is somewhat arbitrary… bound to historical events but the lg didn’t change so suddenly as the division suggests!
Also this considers the history of standard English, particularly after 1500
compare diff. periods of English typologically, in regard to standard variety
Concerning:
- vocab
- word order
- case system
- standard variety
- orthography
OE:
highly inflectional
– relatively free word-order,
– mostly Germanic vocab (some Latin and Celtic loans),
– free syllable structure,
– Latin alphabet with some Germanic runes,
– West Saxon dialect serves as standard
ME:
- few inflections,
- loss of gender,
- more rigid word order SVO,
- many French loan words,
- canonic structure (long vowels in open syllables, short vowels in checked syllables),
- runes replaced by Latin letters,
- French serves as standard lg
EME:
- pronunciation of all long vowels changes (Great Vowel Shift),
- vowel length not distinctive any more,
- rigid word order,
- even fewer inflections,
- borrowings from French, Latin and Greek,
- dialect of London becomes written standard
PDE:
- borrowings from a great variety of lgs,
- development of several standards (e.g. American English, Australian English…)
Development of Standard English
When?
-> in EME period (written std by 1500, spoken develops in the course of 16th and 17th c.)
Why then?
-> invention of the printing press, availability of education to the middle class, higher mobility trigger need for a more uniform lg
How?
–> mix of London plus Midland features; steps:
selection, acceptance, elaboration and codification; many grammars, dictionaries (Samuel Johnson, Dictionary 1755)
Semantic change of English throughout its History?
First name different types of semantic change, i.e. in which regard the semantic meaning may change.
types of change:
- extension (broadening of meaning):
e. g. dog, development of hyponym into hypernym - specialization (narrowing of meaning):
e. g. wife - amelioration (more positive meaning):
e. g. knight (Knecht -> Ritter) - pejoration (more negative):
e. g. mistress - shift (total change of meaning):
e. g. gay - connotation:
e. g. sweater (loss of connotation; cheap (development of new connotation)
_____
Semantic change through development of the English lexicon
- history of borrowing:
– Invasion of Vikings (beg. 8th c.) –> many Scandinavian loans (common terms of everyday lg, grammatical words, place names);
– great influence of French (Norman Conquest, 1066: for 200 yrs official lg of gov., administration and education) Latin and Greek loans
- word formation:
borrowings assimilated quickly into the system of Engl; loss of some OE prefixes and suffixes due to the wealth of new material - present characteristics:
more than 50% of the vocab based on Romance words; many doublets (e.g. as-demand), dissociation (in word-fields connection not clearly seen by word itself), common core vocab mostly Germanic
Morphology change in History of English?
Causes and changes on the different linguistic levels.
First name the ways in which the changes can occur.
Causes for grammatical change:
1. loss of distinction due to sound changes
–> need for new marking of distinctions as a result of this loss
2. contact with other lgs leads to gain or loss of constructions
3. free variation is eliminated by loss or semantic differentiation
4. regularzation by analogy: high frequency affected last
_______
changes in short:
loss and development of categories, change by analogy/regularization, explanation of modern grammar
• loss of categories
- grammatical gender (= specific form of noun class system in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language, such as adjectives, articles, pronouns, or verbs)
- noun declension,
- adjective declension,
- article now invariant,
- paradigm of strong verbs reduced,
- person marking on verbs
• development of categories -- continuous aspect (I am speaking Spanish vs. I speak) -- perfect tense more frequent and with new meaning (I have not been to Paris yet) -- prepositions replace case markings -- future tense markings (I will leave, I'm gonna leave) -- medio-passive development (the book sells well) -- development of modal auxiliaries (must I pay? She may be smart)
• change by analogy, regularization
– linguistic sign is changed (form or meaning) to reflect another item in the lg system on the basis of analogy or perceived similarity.
– contrast to regular sound change: analogy is driven by idiosyncratic cognitive factors and applies irregularly across a language system.
–> This leads to what is known as Sturtevant’s paradox: sound change is regular, but produces irregularity; analogy is irregular, but produces regularity.
Analogical change in morphology:
– involves changing the items in one inflectional paradign to fit with the pattern observed in another on the basis of phonological similarities.
EXAMPLE:
plural of octopus?
– Greek borrowed word, so should take a plural form octopodes. However, English has many nouns of Latin origin with singular forms ending -us and plural forms ending -i, such as cactus/cacti, radius/radii, etc. Thus, an analogical proportion can be established: On the basis of this analogy, the plural octopi is established. (Some varieties may have octopuses instead, which is instead derived from the productive plural rule of English morphology.)
• morphological leveling
– generalization of an inflection across a linguistic paradigm
–> when a language becomes less synthetic: often a matter of morphological leveling.
EXAMPLE:
conjugation of English verbs, has become almost unchanging today (see also null morpheme), contrasting sharply for example with Latin, where one verb has dozens of forms, each one expressing a different tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number.
–> English sing has only two forms in the present tense (I/you/we/they sing and he/she sings)
_______
• serves as explanation of modern grammar
– tenses
(new construction: will- and going to-future; old form, new meaning: present perfect, continuous aspect)
– aspects,
(Aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, denoted by a verb, extends over time.)
– do-periphrasis (= do-support?)
periphrasis: usage of multiple separate words to carry the meaning of prefixes, suffixes or verbs, among other things, where either would be possible. Technically, it is a device where grammatical meaning is expressed by one or more free morphemes (typically one or more function words accompanying a content word), instead of by inflectional affixes or derivation.
EXAMPLE:
- Dare I say that? > Do I dare to say that?
- Need I tell you? > Do I need to tell you?
– irregular verbs
Most irregular verbs exist as remnants of historical conjugation systems.
EXAMPLE
– keep - kept (vowel shortened in old version and also today)
–> force of analogy tends to reduce the number of irregular verbs over time, as irregular verbs switch to regular conjugation patterns (for instance, the verb chide once had the irregular past tense chid, but this has given way to the regular formation chided). This is more likely to occur with less common verbs (where the irregular forms are less familiar); hence it is often the more common verbs (such as be, have, take) that tend to remain irregular.
–> FREQUENCY plays a role.
See: leave - left (310/mio. words)
and weep - wept (4/mio words)
– etc.
Phonological change in History of Engl, overview
• Great Vowel shift
– all long vowels affected,
– vowels that could not be raised were
diphthongized
• mergers:
–> (unstressed syllables merge under schwa),
splits:
–> (voiced fricatives are allophones in OE, but phonemes in ME),
shifts
• the changes in quantity :
regularization of syllable structure from OE to ME:
– lengthening in open syllables:
e.g. cepan;
– lengthening before lengthening groups: e.g. climban → climb;
– shortening in closed syllable:
e.g. softe→ soft;
– shortening in antepenultimate syllables
• syllable changes:
– dropping of unstressed syllables from OE to ME
• assimilation (e.g. munecas → monk), deletion (e.g. Englaland → England), epenthesis (e.g. OE: slumerian → slumber)
• conditioned versus unconditioned change
(Sound changes can be environmentally conditioned, meaning that the change only occurs in a defined sound environment, whereas in other environments the same speech sound is not affected by the change.)
Explanation of PDE irregularities
• spelling
(see-sea; sight-site-sit; mood-blood-foot; some-sum…) → regularization of
phonology was not represented in the regularization of orthography; orthography was just beginning to be standardized
• grammar
irregular verbs, plural (brought, given, could, children, feet, sheep…)
Comment on Change of Engl in History
Phonologically
- Great Vowel Shift
- mergers, splits, shifts
- the changes in quantity (regularization of syllable structure from OE to ME)
- syllable changes
- assimilation, deletion, epenthesis
- conditioned versus unconditioned change
(Sound changes can be environmentally conditioned, meaning that the change only occurs in a defined sound environment, whereas in other environments the same speech sound is not affected by the change.)
Morphologically
- loss of categories
- development of categories
- change by analogy, regularization
- explanation of modern grammar (tenses, aspect, do-periphrasis, etc.)
Semantically
- diff. types
- why change of lexicon?
- -> prototype theory, shifts in meaning
- ->
What features of present day English (PDE) show the history of English?
- i-mutation (Old English forms, similar to other West Germanic lgs)
- strong-weak verbs (typical germanic feature)
- spelling and sounds don’t seem to fit well
- lexicon shows many loan words, borrowings
Please comment on the past tense of mouse and foot
I-mutation
Phenomena Shared with German.
Plural form of Gast used to be Gasti.
The ending gave the first vowel i-coloring, which turned It into Gästi.
Ending was later dropped and so now it’s Gäste.
Similar to some forms in English. Mouse - Mice; foot - feet
_____
I-mutation is caused by the very human habit of laziness: taking the shortest distance between two points. The plural of man in ancient West Germanic, the ancestor of Old English, used to be a word something like *manniz.
So after hundreds of years of this, the plural came out as *menniz, or something similar, when people said it. Eventually, the shifted vowel itself comes to stand for the plural, and since laziness dislikes doing the same job twice, the syllable at the end of the word slowly shriveled and dropped off.
Most such suffix vowels were gone by the Old English period, but their effects remained and in a few cases still do. Some of the main places you can still find evidence of i-mutation are:
- Abstract nouns formed from adjectives by adding -ith: foul-filth, hale-health, long-length, slow-sloth, strong-strength, wide-width, deep-depth.
- Verbs formed from noun or adjective roots by adding -jan: doom-deem, food-feed, tale-tell, full-fill, blood-bleed, hale-heal.
- Causative verbs formed from preterites of strong verbs by adding -jan: drank-drench, lie-lay, rose-raise, sat-set, drove-drive. Fell-fell is also an example, though it’s not so obvious now.
- Noun plurals in -iz: man-men, foot-feet, tooth-teeth, goose-geese, louse-lice, mouse-mice. Along with woman-women (derived from wif-man) these are the only survivors of this class, which was numerous in Old English and included such words as the ancestors of modern book, goat, and friend, which now have gone over to the -s plural.
- Comparatives in -ir: old-elder, late-latter.
- I-mutation turns up in an adjective formed from a noun by adding -ish in at least one important case: English (Old English Englisc) from the people called Angles.
Major differences between Early Modern English and Present Day English?
- Main difference is that English is now globally represented and there exist many standard varieties of English
- also some new innovations:
e. g. present perfect passive progressive
Major differences Old English and Middle English?
- from inflectional to analytical language
- vocabulary, many French loan words, but also still Germanic, Latin
Phonology:
- OE distinction vowel and diphthong length
- vowels lost full vowel quality in endings (e.g. hopa-hope)
- OE allophones became phonemic /v/ and /f/
Morphosyntax:
- less inflectional
- ‘do’ started to be used more grammatically
Major changes/differences between Middle English and Early Modern English?
Phonology:
- Great Vowel Shift
(Long vowels were raised and those that couldn’t be raised were diphthongized)
Morphosyntax:
- EME more frequent use of do-periphrasis
- also more frequent use of progressive
General:
- standardization?
(Bc of printing press and general education?)
Why is English so different from other Germanic languages (give examples)?
How did it develop into a lg with an easy grammar, a complex and large vocabulary, and a chaotic spelling system?
Answer: language contact situations!
- Celts and Romans ‘to begin with’
- Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Frisians next
- -> mix of Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Danish
5th century:
Contact with Vikings/Old Norse
–> OE
End of 11th c.:
Contact with Normans/Norman French
–> ME
Till end of 15th c.
Renaissance: Latin, Greek, French, Italian
–> Early Modern English
17th c onward: --> modern English Many influences from all over the world through Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hindi, Malay \+ Spanish, American Indian \+ the internet --> many English standard varieties
Where do you still see the Scandinavian lg influence in PDE?
Place names:
-by (village, town) > Selby, Wetherby
- thorp (secondary settlement) > Comanthorpe
- kirk (orig. meaning church) > Ormskirm
What linguistic influence did the Vikings have on English?
- massive borrowing of vocab
–what kind?
. Common terms of everyday lg: band, bull, dirt, egg
. Adjectives :
flat, odd, rotten, sly
. Verbs:
bait, call, clip, die
. Grammatical words
they/their/them, though, are, ado
. Place names - phonological effects (new combos of phonemes)
- even grammatical influences
- loss of inflection
- function words
- grammatical patterns
What morphosyntactic effects did the Vikings (Old Norse) have on English lg?
- conjunctions: though, although
- verb forms: am, are
- pronouns: they, their, them
Also changes typology of English lg:
- -> English becomes a mainly ANALYTICAL language through leveling of endings
- -> because stress is shifted to the first syllable in all Germanic lgs
- and bc endings cause confusion due to lg influence
- -> in PDE relations in a sentence are no longer indicated through inflection
OE still have relatively free Word Order though
Morphosyntactic effects - Syntax
- omission of relative pronouns
- omission of ‘that’ as complementizer
- clause-final Position for prepositions
Summarize contact type and effects of Vikings on lg
Contact type:
- Vikings came and stayed
- very intimate relation on equal voting with full integration and lots of intermarriage
- the lgs were mutually intelligible
Effects:
- massive borrowing of everyday vocab (leading to new sound combinations)
- speeding up of major typological change (loss of endings)
- new grammatical patterns and grammar words
Name Characteristics of Norman French (little before and after Norman conquest..?) borrowing
- humble trades retained Anglo-Saxon names (Baker, Miller…)
- more skilled trades adopted French names
(Mason, painter, merchant…) - animals of the field generally kept E names
(Sheep, cow, ox, calf, swine…) - in culinary sense, once cooked, became French
(Beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, venison)
- more prestigious words from French: ask vs. demand wedding vs. marriage motherhood vs. maternity child vs. infant fight vs. battle
