Misc-Major Changes Flashcards

Question 1

Q

Different types of inflection
OE
ME
ModE

Answer

A

OE: full inflections = on tham dagum (dative) cf. German “an diesem Tage”

ME: leveled inflections = in tho daies (plural marking)
thei weren waischum of hym in Jordan (they already established, of him genitive, no marking of jordan)

ModE: inlections lost = in those days and were baptized of him/by him in Jordan

Question 2

Q

Syntax development
OE
ME
ModE

Answer

A

OE: relatiely free word order
e.g. AVS, SOV

ME: (VSO) SVO

ModE SVO

Question 3

Q

Changes in vocabulary
OE
ME
ModE

Answer

A

OE: Germanic vocabulary
rice (Reich), rihte (richtig), gyrdel (Gürtel)

ME: French borrowings
vois (voix), baptym (bapteme), fruyt (fruit)

ModE: mixed
baptism, right, voice, path (Pfad)

Question 4

Q

Periods of the Engl Lg

includings reasons for Periodization (pol. events)

Answer

A

Germanic conquest 449 (roman empire collapsed)

449-1066 OE

Norman conquest 1066

1066-15th c. ME

Printing in England + Reign of the Tudors 15th c

15th-18th c. Earl ModE

English around the world 18th c

18th c + Present day E

Question 5

Q

linguistic characteristics for Old English

Answer

A

highly inflectional (case/gender/number/etc. marking)))
free word order, free syllable structure
VSO, SVO, OSV,….CV,CVVC,VCCV,…
mostly Germanic vocab
latin alphabet with germanic runes
no clear standard, written work in Latin

Mair:
(ca. 500-1100):
Germanic vernacular of Britain, written evidence since ca. 700
inflectional, synthetic (“Latin-type”) grammar
largely Germanic vocabulary
Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish, West Saxon as the main dialect areas
growing Scandinavian influence in the North/East
10th / 11th centuries: first written English standard, later given up

Question 6

Q

linguistic characteristics for Middle English ME

Answer

A

few remnants of inflections, grammatical gender lost –> natural gender
some VSO, mostly SVO
canonical syllables (open syllable lengthening)
influence of French spelling e.g. OE, hus –> ME, house
no clear standard, lit. in all dialects

Mair:
(1100-1500)
English, Norman / French, Latin “triglossia”
English: language of the majority, but not the language of prestige
extreme dialectal diversity
analytical grammar, mixed Germanic-Romance vocabulary
loss of full vowels in remaining inflectional endings and unstressed syllables

Question 7

Q

linguistic characteristics for Early Modern English EME

Answer

A

even fewer inflections
rigid word order SVO
influence of the GVS: long vowels now quantitavily and qualitatively different from short ones
no adaption of spelling
borrowings from many European lgs
e. g. comrade (fr), armada (sp), cameo (it)
dialect of London most prestigious

Mair:
(1500-1750):
elaboration of analytical grammar
Latin and Greek loan words
standardisation of written language / expansion into prestigious written domains
(printing!)

Question 8

Q

linguistic characteristics for Present Day English PDE

Answer

A

borrowings from great variety of lgs
E is being transplanted into the world, many diff standards arise: AmE, CanE, NewZEm, etc.

(since 1750):
English developing into a pluricentric world-language with several co-existing
standard varieties
social mobility and increased speed of travel / communication transform traditional
rural dialects into socially stratified regional koinés
further standardisation of written language and standardisation of speech,
especially in public and formal communication
mass literacy

Question 9

Q

Important Lit
OE
ME
EME

Answer

A

OE:
Beowulf
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

ME:
Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

EME:
William Shakespeare

Question 10

Q

Differences in forming Q’s

OE, ME, etc.

Answer

A

EModE and PDE questions use auxiliary do, OE and ME questions have S-V
inversion; ME has object after the verb; OE has object before the verb (and in
the genitive)

Question 11

Q

synthetic lg

Answer

A

A synthetic language uses inflection or agglutination to express syntactic relationships within a sentence. Inflection is the addition of morphemes to a root word that assigns grammatical property to that word, while agglutination is the combination of two or more morphemes into one word. The information added by morphemes can include indications of a word’s grammatical category, such as whether a word is the subject or object in the sentence.[1] Morphology can be either relational or derivational.

Question 12

Q

Characteristics of Proto-germanic lgs

Answer

A

highly inflectional (5-6 cases for nouns, 3 gram. genders, various classes)
inflection of pronouns and articles
weak and strong forms of adj. and verbs
(Strong verbs have a change in the vowel of the original verb when they are used in the past tense or as a past participle—or they don’t change at all.)

Question 13

Q

Anglo-Saxon influences in place names

Answer

A

ing (place of the people: Hastings (ppl of Haste)
port (town with market)
ney (island)
bury (walled town)

Question 14

Q

Sound features of OE

Answer

A

length of sound : distinctive
free syllable structure
strange phoneme-morpheme corresp

Question 15

Q

OE morphophonemic alternations

Answer

A

i-mutation

suffix /i/ colours preceding vowel of stem –> raised, fronted
-> vowel ending might be lost but color. stays

when?
strong verbs: 2nd&3rd p. : helpe-hilpst-hilpp

some word formations : strang - strengen
some comparatives : eald - iealdra ieldesta
certain plurals : fot - fet (still: mouse - mice, man - men, louse - lice)

sounds?
a --> ae
a --> e
e --> i
o --> oe/e
u --> y/ie
ea, eo --> ie

Question 16

Q

cognate words, def.

Answer

A

words going back to a common historical source

Question 17

Q

High German consonant shift

Answer

A

In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases. It probably began between the third and fifth centuries and was almost complete before the earliest written records in High German were produced in the ninth century. The resulting language, Old High German, can be neatly contrasted with the other continental West Germanic languages, which for the most part did not experience the shift, and with Old English, which remained completely unaffected.

Question 18

Q

Examples where High German consonant shift is visible

Answer

A

ten zehn
token Zeichen
plant Pflanze
wart Warze
water Wasser
better besser
bitter bitter
stone Stein
true treu
eat essen
hate hassen

pan - Pfanne
path - Pfad
weapon - Waffe
open - öffnen
leap - 
ship - Schiff
stop - Stop
copper - Kupfer

gleich - ?
Buch - book
Lerche - lark
Kirche - church
auch - ought?

regular correspondence and similar: e.g. Streich – strike, Haufen – heap
regular correspondence but dissimilar: e.g. zeigen – teach, Zeichen – token, jucken – itch

Question 19

Q

Indo-European to Germanic: Important Germanic innovations

Answer

A

Grimm’s and Verner’s Law:
- shifted all values of stop consonants

Grimm’s Law /First Consonant Shift
-> chain shift (1. vl stops to vl fricatives; 2. vd stops to vl stops; 3. vd aspirated stops to vd stops or fricatives –> allophones)
Verner’s Law (prosodically conditioned reg. exception to G’s Law; vl fricatives after unstressed syllable to vd fricatives)

Compare ‘three’ w/ Latin ‘tres’; ‘two’ with Latin ‘duo’ and ‘do’ with Sanskrit ‘dha’
_______

important vowel changes
/o/ > /a/
/a:/ > /o:/

A change known as Germanic umlaut, which modified vowel qualities when a high front vocalic segment (/i/, /iː/ or /j/) followed in the next syllable. Generally, back vowels were fronted, and front vowels were raised. This change resulted in pervasive alternations in related words — still extremely prominent in modern German but present only in remnants in modern English (e.g., mouse/mice, goose/geese, broad/breadth, tell/told, old/elder, foul/filth, gold/gild.
_______

Fixing of word stress on the root syllable
e.g. Teil, teilen, Beteiligung,….(but: Urteil, aufteilen)/ generally on the first syllable of the word
triggered significant phonological reduction of all other syllables. This is responsible for the reduction of most of the basic English, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish words into monosyllables, and the common impression of modern English and German as consonant-heavy languages.
Grammatical innovations of Germanic
definite/indefinite adj. declensions der gute Freund, ein guter Freund
“weak”/dental preterite morpheme: spielte, played, spelade,…

Question 20

Q

linguistic mechansisms: some productive “neologising” processes in PDE

Answer

A

increasin polysemy (chip, memory)
compounding and derivtion (mad cow disease)
conversion/zero derivation (to bar-code, to fax)
shortenings, blends, acronyms (fax (facsimile), cred (credibility), camcorder
combining forms (eco-, -cide, )

Question 21

Q

some changes in PDE

Answer

A

declining use of whom
regularisation of irregular morphology (dreamed)
elimination of shall
partial revival of subjunctive
etc. ..

Question 22

Q

When did present perfect passive progressive evolve?

Answer

A

PDE…

before…
OE, early ME: one aux. and one verbal form
late ME to EME: 2 aux. and one verbal form
18th/19c: present progressive passive

20thc more and more examples

Question 23

Q

Germanic subgroups of Indo-European-Languages

Answer

A

Old English,
Old High German
Old Saxon
Old Frisan
Gothic
Old Norse
etc.

Question 24

Q

Which major phonological feature differentiates germanic lgs (the proto-germanic-lg) from other Indo-European lgs?

What changes through Grimm’s Law and Verner’s law?

Answer

A

–> Germanic shift of stress to the initial syllable of every word (excluding certain prefixes)

Grimm’s law / First Germanic Sound shift:
- Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops change into voiceless fricatives.
Proto-Indo-European voiced stops become voiceless stops.
Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops become voiced stops or fricatives (as allophones).

bʰ→b →p →f
dʰ→d →t →θ
gʰ→g →k →h

Verner’s Law:
Around the same time as the Grimm’s law adjustments took place.
Verner’s law caused, under certain conditions, the voicing of the voiceless fricatives that resulted from the Grimm’s law changes, creating apparent exceptions to the rule. For example:

Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr (“brother”) > Proto-Germanic *brōþēr (Old English broþor, Old High German bruothar/bruodar)
Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr (“father”) > Proto-Germanic *fadēr (Old English fæder, Old High German fatar)

Question 25

Q

i-umlaut in OE

Answer

A

i-umlaut is one of the most important
developments of the prehistoric Old English period
when Old English had separated from its sister
languages but was not yet written down.
The essence of this process was that a high front vowel or palatal glide in one syllable caused a back vowel in the preceding syllable to become a front vowel, to oversimplify greatly.

This is a type of anticipatory assimilation,
in which the speaker anticipates the vowel of
an upcoming syllable by moving the tongue into a
front position too early.

An assimilation of an even earlier period involved the palatalization of velar consonants that were adjacent to front vowels or a palatal glide in the same syllable. Palatal stops have a tendency to turn into affricates, and this is what happened in Old English, with the result that Germanic *dı¯k has come down to us as ditch.

Question 26

Q

voicing in OE

Answer

A

difference between Old English and ModE
- voicing was not a distinctive feature for most fricatives.
In Modern English, [f] and [v], written as f and v, are
perceived as two distinct sounds, as the difference
between fat and vat illustrates.
But in Old English,
they were perceived as variants of essentially the same
sound or phoneme. The labiodental fricative was
pronounced as voiced [v] when surrounded by voiced
sounds (such as vowels), but pronounced as voiceless
[f] otherwise; e.g., although deofol was written with
an f, it was pronounced more like modern devil than
the spelling suggests.

Question 27

Q

Changes in OE through Scandinavian and french invadors…?

Answer

A

changes like the generalization of -es as the genitive singular inflection to declensional classes where it historically does not belong, are harbingers of more general changes of the Middle English period.
(saxon genitive mostly found for human-noun, now also non-human nouns, like “the cover’s book”)

It is certain that large numbers of everyday words such as take which replaced native niman are of Scandinavian origin.

Contact with
French did not begin with the Conquest; especially
notable is that there was a strong Norman presence
at the court of Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042–
1066). Several French loan words entered the language
in the Old English period, including pru¯ d
‘proud’, first attested c. 1000.

Question 28

Q

grammaticalisation

Answer

A

In historical linguistics and language change, grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a process of language change by which words representing objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (affixes, prepositions, etc.). Thus it creates new function words by a process other than deriving them from existing bound, inflectional constructions, instead deriving them from content words. For example, the Old English verb willan ‘to want’, ‘to wish’ has become the Modern English auxiliary verb will, which expresses intention or simply futurity.

Where grammaticalization takes place, nouns and verbs which carry certain lexical meaning develop over time into grammatical items such as auxiliaries, case markers, inflections, and sentence connectives.

Question 29

Q

Phonetics in OE

Answer

A

vowels:
- length contrast not only in monophthongs, but also in diphthongs
(in PDE vowel length doesn’t contrast, although they are phonemic,
: long/short vowel ‘kid’ ‘keep’, although difference in quality is more distinct and esp in GA)
also:
- Umlaut/i-mutation (fo_t–>fe_t) (7th c)
- inherited germanic “au” –> “ea”
–> Baum, beam; Traum, dream
- inherited germanic “ei” –> /a:/
–> gāt / Geiß, bān / Bein, stān / Stein,

consonants:
- “geminates” - double consonants pronounced (longer)
(in PDE, not pronounced in root word, e.g. baggage w/o g: )
- voiced/voiceless sibilants and fricatives are allophones

Question 30

Q

Vocab in OE

Answer

A

Word formation:

compounding “sea goer” sægenga
derivation: æftergengness (“after-go(ing)-ness” = succession)
-> complex inventory of verbal prefixes (cf. modG)

most important contact languages for borrowing: Latin, Scandinavian
- loan-translations / calques (“Lehnübersetzungen”):
godspel(boc) (< evangelium)
- loan-renditions (“Lehnübertragungen”):
leorningcniht (< discipulus)
- loan-creations (“Lehnschöpfungen”):
cwildeflod (= “destruction / pestilence” + “flood”)
- semantic loans: God

Question 31

Q

Grammar in OE

Answer

A

elaborate inflectional paradigms for nouns, pronouns, articles, verbs and adjectives

Question 32

Q

irregular verbs

from OE to modE

Answer

A

simplification of strong-verb (“ablaut” literally meaning “sound gradation”) paradigms
e. g. OE ridan/rad-ridon/geriden –> ME: ride(n) / rod-ride(n) / yride(n) –> EME ride rode ridden
further reduction to patterns with identical past and participle forms:
slide - slid - slid, strike - struck, shine - shone
fossilised participial / adjectival forms:
stricken with grief, panic-stricken vs. *struck with grief, *panic-struck
horror-struck, horror-stricken
sunken ships vs. sunk ships
molten lava, molten metal, but melted butter, melted snow
gradient of irregularity in Modern English:
spoil / spoilt (minimal deviation from the regular, productive pattern)
put / put
find / found
hide / hid / hidden

Question 33

Q

ME phonetics

Answer

A

OE diphthongs monophthongised (new diphthongs emerging eventually)
voiced and voiceless fricatives gain phonemic status
loss of full vowels in inflectional endings (–> grammar)
word stress system complicated by influences from French, with consequences that have persisted
to the present-day: GARage vs. garAGE, ADDress vs. adDRESS, etc.
end of the ME period: start of the “Great Vowel Shift”

Question 34

Q

ME word formation and grammar

Answer

A

a) OE prefixed verbs replaced by phrasal verbs (see 2.2.3 above)

b) new derivational morphemes from French: e.g. -able / -ible, -ment
main stages unanalysable: possible, edible, probable
analysable but not separable: immutable
analysable, and separable: governable
productive use on native roots: eatable, get-at-able

c) loss of inflections on the noun, the adjective, and the definite article:

OE: stān stānas & tunga tungan
transition: stān stānes & tung(e) tung(en/e)
ME: stone stones & tongue tongues

d) emergence of a characteristic ME pronominal system:
- fully functioning thou / ye-contrast (note case distinction in: thou / thee and ye / you)
- replacement of the Anglo-Saxon 3rd person plural pronouns (hi / hire / hem) with the
Scandinavian forms (they / their / them)
- appearance of she as the nominative 3rd person singular feminine

e) verbal inflections: -(e)st for the second person singular
3rd-person variation with –s / –eth
inflections common for the plural present
f) periphrastic verb forms (present perfect, progressive, etc.) emerging, but free variation rather than
grammatically regulated distribution
g) word order: very slow transition to the modern SVO principle, but certain ‘deviant’ orders such as
AVS (then came he) still widely current

Question 35

Q

ME vocab

Answer

A

integration of thousands of Norman French, Central French, Latin and Scandinavian words into the general
vocabulary

e.g. begin - commence; and also in culinar: pig -pork, calf -veal

then tree names: Germanic alder, ash, aspen, beech, birch, box, elm, fir, hazel, holly, ivy, linden,
maple, oak, thorn, willow, yew
french: chestnut, laurel, plane, poplar

The Norman / French vocabulary of power and prestige in power war religion chase art fashion architecture e.g. court; justice; miracle, grace, beauty, aisle
Etymological “doublets”:
Norman French / Central French: catch – chase, warden – guardian, display – deploy
Anglo-Saxon / Scandinavian: shirt – skirt
French / French: travel – travail (< Latin trepalium)
French / Latin: royal – regal, loyal – legal, deduce – deduct, construe – construct
English / English: thorough – through, of – off

Question 36

Q

examples of french vocab entering ME

Answer

A

[till today french-derived vocab higher register]
begin – commence 
fight – combat 
help – aid 
hide – conceal
bother – annoy 
gain – profit 
lonely – solitary 
clean – pure
clothes – dress 
hinder – prevent
homely – domestic 
shun – avoid
end – finish 
holy – saintly 
feed – nourish 
shape – forge

a special culinary case:
cow – beef, sheep – mutton, pig – pork, calf – veal, deer – venison

Question 37

Q

relevant ME sound changes

Answer

A

1300 onwards: final becomes [f] in Western dialects, stigmatised in London
17th C: all fricative pronunciations of other than [f] given up

3. process interacting with the Great Vowel Shift (GVS) from 15th century onwards
class 1: silent  and long /u:/ before the GVS
class 2: dialect borrowing from the West
class 3: diphthong monophthongised and merged with /o:/ after GVS
class 4: /u:/ shortened before fricative early enough to become /ʌ/
class 5: lengthening, after the GVS, of a weak form containing /ə/ or /ʊ/?

Question 38

Q

A note on Middle English dialects

Answer

A

northern features
more Scandinavian lexical items

southern features
fewer Scandinavian lexical items

-ough ending variety:

cough, bough, through, dough
depending on northern or southern

Question 39

Q

EME phonetics

Answer

A

(1) Great Vowel Shift under way, often with complications, e.g. interaction with various lengthening
and shortening processes
- leave / left, keep / kept, breathe / breath …
- wild / wilderness
- South / Southern

(2) Middle English /ʊ/ /ʌ/
- butter, much, some, money, book, …
(survives as important dialectal isogloss separating the English “North” from the South /
Southeast)
note: this change also interacts with the GVS in interesting ways:
(a) food, mood
(b) good, book
(c) blood, flood

(3) some further changes:
- Middle English short /a/ splits into two phonemes: cat / what
- lowering of vowel in words such as dance, path, demand in London English and, eventually,
the British Standard (RP)
- reduction of initial kn-, gn-: gnat, knee, …
- loss of post-vocalic /r/ in Southeastern England (late 18th century)

Question 40

Q

EME grammar

Answer

A

Many of the grammatical developments originating
in the previous centuries continued in EModE, including
morphological simplification and the stabilization
of word order. On the whole, English acquired its
present analytical structure during the early modern
period. These developments are perceptible, for example,
in the decline of inflectional endings, the increasing use of auxiliaries, and the diminishment
of inversion. Natural gender, in particular, the distinction
between human and nonhuman reference,
became an important factor among pronouns. The
grammaticalization process created new closed-class
elements in several areas of grammar.

a) aspect:
progressive
(EModE turning point)

Old English: beon / wesan + V-ende

-> [Jesus] wæs on temple lærende
-> is feohtende / wuniende / dwellynge

Middle English: conflation of several forms and constructions toward the end of the
period, no clear grammatical function yet
be on + V-ing –> be + a-V
–> Whyle Torrent an huntyng wase
–> a knight that had been on huntynge

Early Modern English: examples from Shakespeare
–> What do you read, my lord?
Ham. Words, words, words.
Pol. What is the matter, my lord?
Ham. Between who?
Pol. I mean, the matter you read, my lord.

“How now! What letter are you reading there?” (Two Gentlemen, I.3.51)
“What are you reading?” (Troilus and Cressida, III.3.95)

Late Modern English – 18th century to present: rapid rise in frequency and increasingly
obligatory use; filling of empty slots in the passive paradigm
–> the road is / was building
the road is / was being built
the road would be being built
the road has been being built

b) present perfect / past contrast:
- Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind

c) auxiliary do
Mistress Page: Why went you not with master doctor, maid? (Shakespeaere, Merry Wives of
Windsor, V.5)
Cressida: Did not I tell you. Would he were knocked i’ th’head! (Shakespeaere, Troilus and Cressida,
IV.2)
- Shakespeare says things like: do not you know, Do you not know, I know you not etc etc

d) double comparatives and double negatives:

e) “which” as a relative pronoun for human antecedents
- -> “Our Father which art in Heaven”

f) personal and possessive pronouns:
- -> thou, thee, thine; ye, you; my / mine, etc.; his / it / its-variation

g) in spite of basic SVO order, greater freedom possible than today:

Question 41

Q

inkhorn terms

Answer

A

An inkhorn term is any foreign borrowing (or a word created from existing word roots by an English speaker) into English deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious.
Some filled a lexical gap, while others seemed to create a problem as they had similar meanings in one lg vs another

–> Deceptive similarities: be careful to avoid misreading classic works of English literature!

e.g.
“eat him quick.” –> from quicklebendig, eat him alive (vgl. Quicksilver)

“extravagant” –> extra = outside; vagare = travel, so travel around, wanderer

“nice” –> nice - latin origin; nescius - ignorant (not knowing) „there are nice distinctions between the synonyms“ - nice means precise, tricky; so here nice means tricky

“want” –> “the good want power” modern: want = desire but back then: want = lack
actually then: 90% lack, 10% desire
200yrs later its been flipped around, your first idea is that someone means desire, some old-fashioned or formal context where means lack

“wonderful” –> sonderbar, verwunderlich

“cute” –> intelligent; from acute –> ‘cute; sharp as a knife

“pathetic” –> full of Pathos, Pathetisch
Pathos: an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion

Question 42

Q

impersonate verbs

Answer

A

e.g. like in German: Dem König gefiel der Name

still present in OE but got lost towards end and entirely in ME.

Question 43

Q

Great Vowel Shift

Answer

A

during EME time (but rather end of period)
–>primarily between 1350 and the 1600s and 1700s

all Middle English (ME) long vowels
changed at various times after 1400.
Some consonant sounds changed as well, esp. those that became silent; sometimes included in GVS

Before (LME) –> after GVS (ModE)

bite: /I:/ –> /ai/
meet: /e:/ –> /i:/
meat: /Epsilon:/ –> s.o.
mate: /a:/ –> /eI/
out: /u:/ –> /au/ (umgekehrter omega)
boot: /o:/ –> /u:/
boat: /spiegelv. c:/ –> /ou/ “omega”

diphthongization of two ME long vowels, /i:/ and /u:/ into /ai/ and /au/, as in write and house, and the later
merger of /e:/ and /E:/, as in meet and meat, left English with four long vowels, /i:, e:, o:, u:/.
supplemented by /a (aufkopf):/, which developed from the
diphthong /au/, as in cause.
During the early modern period, the ME
diphthongs, /iu, eu, au, ai, ou/, were monothongized, –>/u:, u:, a(kopf):, e:, o:/,
whereas /oi/ and /ui/
remained unchanged, as in joy and boil.

A combination of these and new diphthongs that developed from long vowels resulted in three diphthong phonemes, /ai, au, Oi/, at the end of the period.

The impact of postvocalic /r/ which, among other things, often lowered preceding vowels, also created new diphthongs,
when an epenthetic [e] was inserted between a vowel
and [r], as in fire.

Although there may have been
sporadic cases of the loss of postvocalic /r/ in the early modern period, its systematic deletion took place later.

The ME short vowels /i, e, a, o, u, e/ remained mostly unchanged. A significant change was the southern split of /u/ into two phonemes, /u/ and /V/, e.g., put and cut.
The consonant system lost the phoneme /x/, which was often spelled , with its two allophones [x, c¸] Its realizations were replaced by vowel lengthening,
e.g., right or by /f/, as in enough.

Two new consonant phonemes, /Z, N/, developed, and since that occurred,
the inventory of English consonants has remained unchanged.

The consonant /h/, was very weak and
occasionally dropped, as contemporary spellings like for helmet and the excrescent in for every show, but there is no evidence of its stigmatization.

Question 44

Q

reasons for transition from inflectional to analytical grammar

Answer

A

intial stress causes final reduction
Viking influence: confusion leads to ignoring endings
instead of endings:
1.) SVO word order
the girl saw the dog
the gardeners always welcome the king

) prepositions
- look at, laugh at, bet on, show to, dispose of
) periphrastic constructions
- I am going to win
- she didn´t work
- they have done it again
- he will not stop

Question 45

Q

i-mutation

Answer

A

Phenomenon during OE where Fronting of stem vowel occurred if the following syllable contained an /i/ or /j/ for example in the Indo-European Language system.
(Affected almost all Germanic lgs except for gothic)

Some samples that are still in ModE
Plural : goose - geese
Superlative : old - elder - eldest

Question 46

Q

ablaut

Answer

A

Used by Grimm to describe how in strong Germanic verbs the vowel changes for example when past tense is used.

Even Today: sing - sang - sung

Question 47

Q

what is grammaticalization?

Answer

A

In historical linguistics and language change, grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a process of language change by which words representing objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (affixes, prepositions, etc.). Thus it creates new function words by a process other than deriving them from existing bound, inflectional constructions, instead deriving them from content words. For example, the Old English verb willan ‘to want’, ‘to wish’ has become the Modern English auxiliary verb will, which expresses intention or simply futurity. Some concepts are often grammaticalized, while others, such as evidentiality, are not so much.

Question 48

Q

Def Linguistics

Answer

A

Linguistics is the scientific study of both the phenomenon of language in its most general sense (as a uniquely human capacity and activity) and of individual languages.
___
Synchronic vs historical linguistics

Synchronic:
… is concerned with the structure of language and individual languages at a particular, fixed point in time: for example 20th century English or 17th century German.

Historical:
…is concerned with how language changes over time.

Question 49

Q

Subdisciplines in Linguistics

Answer

A

Phonetics
…is concerned with how people produce and perceive speech sounds.

Phonology
…is concerned with how speech sounds are organized into patterns distinctive of each language.

Morphology
…is concerned with how words are built up from smaller units.

Syntax
…is concerned with how words are combined into larger units such as phrases and sentences. In English we say He has read a book, but in German, Dutch, and Afrikaans we say “he has a book read,” with the word “read” at the end of the sentence: Er hat ein Buch gelesen , Hij heeft een boek gelezen, Hy het ’n boek gelees.

Semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and conversational analysis
…are all concerned with the way words and sentences are used in actual speech to communicate messages.

Semantics
…deals with that part of the communication which actually comes from the language itself – the meaning of words and structures. For example, in some cases it seems that to redden and to turn red “mean the same thing.” Betsy’s face turned red and Betsy’s face reddened seem to be interchangeable. On the other hand, you can say Just as I got to the intersection, the traffic light turned red but not Just as I got to the intersection, the traffic light reddened. A semantician would want to why both sentences are possible in the first case but not the second. How does redden differ from the phrase turn red. A semantician of German might want to know how the German verbs cognate with English must, and shall, namely müssen and sollen, differ from each other, especially since the Dutch verb moeten appears to do duty for both of them.

Pragmatics
…deals with language as used by people, taking into account everything else that people know besides language when they talk to one another. For example, the sentence Can you speak French? asks whether you know how to talk French but does not actually invite you to go and start speaking French. In contrast, Can you turn down the television? is not really concerned with whether you have the physical ability to turn off the set every now and then but is requesting that you do so. And right now.

Discourse analysis
and conversational analysis
…all deal with how language (phrases, sentences) is put together to form larger entities such as texts and discourses and conversations. For example, one can conclude a lecture with the word therefore (as in Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I am against my opponent’s proposal) but one would not begin a lecture with it (Ladies and gentlemen! Therefore I am glad to be here this afternoon). Moreover, German and Dutch and other Germanic language have many puzzling little words (called “discourse particles”) like mal or ja or eben or eens or maar which are analogous to English then or y’know and which can only be learned when one understands precisely what the social rules are for using them in discourse or conversational contexts.

As might be expected in fields as complex as linguistic behavior, linguistic knowledge, and linguistic structure, there are various competing theoretical approaches to the study of language.

Formal linguistics adopts a relatively mathematical and logical approach to language and languages, with the goal of integrating all the parts of language mentioned above into a comprehensive system of rules and constraints interacting with one another. It is best represented on the UCLA campus by Generative Grammar, originated by Noam Chomsky. These include Grammaticalization Theory, Cognitive Grammar, and what could be a kind of intellectual mirror-image of Cognitive Grammar known as the Columbia School.

Question 50

Q

How can/could lg changes from OE to ME
or
ME to ModE
be reconstructed?

Examples?

Answer

A

Generally: linguistic reconstruction

internal reconstruction
- -> hypothesis: irregularities can be explained by lg change
comparative reconstruction
- -> hypothesis: lgs which show similar structures go back to a common ancestor lg

Challenging due to the fact that there are only written data.
But large text corpora of ME exists.

In contrast with OE and ModE, spelling was usually phonetic rather than conventional. Words were written mostly how the writer thought they sounded like.

Some examples of change:

Open syllable lengthening (13. c.)
-> short vowels were lengthened in an open syllable
-> and non-low vowels were lowered

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