Week 5

Question 1

Who were there before Germanic tribes invaded Britain?

Answer 1

1. Celts
2. Romans
3. Scots

Question 2

Who came to the Celts before the Germanic tribes came?

Answer 2

1. Britons; 1,000 BCE probably.
2. Romans by 55 BCE; 3 Celtic peoples
   
   • Britton’s, Caledonians and Picts
   • Scottish place names linked to the Picts: Pitlochry, Pittenweem.

Julius Caesar: [they] “dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible. They wear long hair, and shave every part of the body save the head and the upper lip.”

Question 3

When Romans in England?

Answer 3

They never went up to Scotland because of two walls.

From c. 50 BC - 410 AD.

Question 4

When Irish pirate raids? When Kingdom of Scotland?

Answer 4

In the meantime, the Scots were in the north.
• 300 AD; Irish pirate raids
• 500-900 AD: Kingdom of Scotland
• P-Celtic -> Q-Celtic

Question 5

The Roman collapse in the South

Answer 5

410 AD: Romans leave Romanised Brits to their own devices.

Marcellinus (c. 390 AD): “During this period practically the whole Roman world heard the trumpet-call of war, as savage peoples stirred themselves and raided the frontiers nearest to them. The Alamanni were ravaging Gaul and Raetia at the same time; the Picts, Saxons, Scots (Irish) and Attacotti were bringing continual misery upon Britain…”

Question 6

What are the roots of Kent? And what is OE Kentish similar to?

Answer 6

Celtic (Cantto; border land), similar to Frisian.

Question 7

Recent study about mass migration in Britain (2022)

Answer 7

DNA points to mass migration of both men and women. BUT there’s no clear signs of an armed conquest:
• Locals adopted cultural practices
• Intermarriage
• Also movement back to continent = much more mobility!

Question 8

There were few Celtic borrowings, but which were there?

Answer 8

1. Geographical: crag, cumb (deep, valley), binn, carr (rock).
2. River names: Avon, Thames, Usk.
3. Place names: Dover

Question 9

Substratum

Answer 9

L2 shift phenomena -> simplification grammatical system/pronunciation.

Question 10

What kind of culture had Pre-historic OE?

Answer 10

Oral culture

Question 11

When was Old English: Christianisation

Answer 11

596/7 AD

Question 12

Old English: Latin borrowings

Answer 12

Angel, priest, mass, nun, school, verse.
• But overall preference for native words; god and not deus, godspell (gospel) and not evangelium.

Question 13

Which scripts influenced Old English?

Answer 13

1. Roman: ð [θ] [ð] æ ʒ
2. Runic: wyn, Þ [θ] [ð]

Question 14

Pre-historic Old English sound changes

Answer 14

1. Palatalisation: Anglo-Frisian
2. Velars [k] [sk] [g] are fronted before/after front vowels to [tʃ] [ʃ] [j].
   • *OE: ascian -> /‘askojana/

Back vowels fronted (and raised) when followed by i/j.
1. Plural -iz
2. Verb-suffix *-jan
3. Noun-suffix *-itha/o
4. Comparatives in -ir

Question 15

PDE morphology: inflections

Answer 15

1. Two noun inflections: cats and cat’s.
2. Four verbal endings: meows, meowed, meowed, meowing.
3. Adjective/adverb inflections: kinder, kindest cat.
4. Only pronouns show case (nom, acc, gen).

Question 16

Old English morphology: inflections

Answer 16

1. Grammatical gender and number concord.
2. Four cases
3. Nouns (strong and weak)
4. Adjective/adverb inflections (gender, number, case, comparative, superlative, definiteness; strong and weak).

Question 17

Old English morphology: pronouns

Answer 17

1. Three cases retained; dat and acc merged.
2. Dual category lost.
3. Second p. pl. and sg. distinction lost (except yourself/selves).
4. OE had no reflexives yet.
5. Neuter got its own possessive pronoun.

Question 18

Overlap in strong noun endings

Answer 18

1. Overlap of endings in strong sg. masc., neuter
2. Nom sg noun rarely provides a clue about gender
3. Acc identical to non pl
4. Root initial stress took care of the rest
5. Regularisation by analogy

Question 19

Word order in OE was flexible but some clear preferences existed:

Answer 19

1. Most common: SV, SVO
2. SVO
3. VS(O)
4. SOV
5. Pre-verbal object pronoun

Question 20

The decline of inflections in English was partly inherited from…

Answer 20

Proto-Germanic
1. Root initial stress
2. Reduction of inflectional endings

Question 21

Fricative voicing: allophonic variation

Answer 21

[f] → [v], between two voiced sounds
[s] → [z], between two voiced sounds
[θ] → [ð], between two voiced sounds

Question 22

What remnants of the futhorc alphabet can you spot in Old English manuscripts?

Answer 22

Thorn and Wynn

Question 23

The reconstructed singular and plural forms of mouse in Proto-Germanic are mus and musiz. How did English end up with the plural mice

Answer 23

Because of i-mutation. The high front vowel /i/ caused the preceding vowel /u/ to be fronted and raised to /y/, resulting in the shift from mus to mys.