1. THE OLD GERMANI C LS, THEI R CLASSI FI CATI ON AND PRI NCI PAL FEATURES.

Subdivision of the Germanic languages.

The English language belongs to the Germanic languages and the G/L is the brunch of the Indo-European language family.
First it was one language, and then ethnic and linguistic disintegration within the G/L put an end to original unity and there
appeared 3 subgroups of G/L.
1) East-Germanic subgroup ( Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian); all of them are dead.
2) North-Germanic subgroup ( Old-Norse, Old-Scandinavian). Later it became Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. There was
Islatic and Faroesa. The linguists say that Faroesa was the language of Vikings.
3) West-Germanic tribes lived in the Ouder in the Albe. And then they spread up the Ruhn. They occupied many territories
and they had many dialects: Anglian, Fresion, Saeson, English, German, Dutch, Jutish.
In spite of this subdivisions G/L made a distinct group within the Indo-European linguistic group because the had many
features in common.
The Germanic Ls in the Modern world, their classification.
The Germanic Ls in the Modern world are as follows:
English in GB, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other former British colonies and dominions:
German Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein; Netherlandish in the Netherland, Belgium; Africaans in the South
African Republic; Danish in Denmark; Swedish in Sweden and Finland; Norwegian in Norway; Icelandic in Iceland;
Frisian in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany; Faroese in the Faroe Islands; Yiddish in different countries.
Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate Ls.; Frisian and Faroese are often reffered to as dialects, since they
are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; Br E and Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent Ls.
It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic Ls, especially on account of English, which in many
countries is one of two Ls on a bilingual community. The estimates for English range from 250 to 300 mln people who have it
their mother tongue. The total number of people speaking Germanic Ls approaches 440 mln.
All the Germanic Ls are related through their common origin and joint development at the early steges of history.

2. COMMON PHONETI C CHARACTERI STI CS OF THE GERMANI C LANGUAGES
All the Germanic languages of the past and present have common linguistic features; some of these features are shared by
other groups in the IE family, others are specifically Germanic.
Word Stress
It is known that in ancient IE, prior to the separation of Germanic, there existed two ways of word accentuation: musical
pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was free and movable, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word
a root-morpheme, an affix or an ending and could be shifted both in form-building and word-building. Both these properties of
the word accent were changed in PG. Force and expiratory stress became the only type of stress used. In Early PG word stress was
still as movable as in ancient IE but in Late PG its position in the word was stabilized. The stress was now fixed on the first
syllable, which was usually the root of the word and sometimes the prefix; the other syllables suffixes and endings were
unstressed. The stress could no longer move either in form-building or word-building.
Consonants. Proto-Germanic consonant shift
The consonants in Germanic look shifted as compared with the consonants of non-Germanic Ls. The changes of
consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th c. and are often called
Grimms Law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift. Grimms Law had three acts: 1. The IE voiceless
stops [p], [t], [k] became Germanic voiceless fricatives [f], [th], [x]; 2. IE voiced stops [b], [d], [g] became Germanic voi celess
stops [p], [t], [k]; 3. PIE aspirated voice stops [bh], [dh], [gh] became PG voiced stops [b], [d], [g] without aspiration.
Verners Law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimms Law and were for a long
time regarded as exceptions. According to Verners Law all the early PG voiceless fricatives [f,,h] which arose under Grimms
Law, and also [s] inherited from PIE, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed: f b, d, s z
and h g.
i-mutation and its traces in Modern E.
Mutation a change of one vowel to another one under the influence of a vowel in the following syllable.
Palatal mutation (or i-Umlaut) happened in the 6
th
-7
th
c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Ls, except Gothic (thats why later
it will be used for comparison).
Palatal mutation fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable (to approach the
articulation of these two sounds). As a result of palatal mutation: [i] and [j] disappeared in the following syllable sometimes
leading to the doubling of a consonant in this syllable; new vowels appeared in OE ([ie, y]) as a result of merging and splitting:
before
palatal
mutation
after palatal
mutation
a
o


e
a: :
/ /
/ /
(labialised)
(new!)
/
/
/ (new!)
3. THE CHRONOLOGI CAL DI VI SI ON OF THE HI STORY OF ENGLI SH.
Language is a variable social phenomenon. It changes through the time. It is a slow uninterrupted process. Changes are not evenly
distributed in time: periods of intensive and vast changes may be followed by the periods of relative stability. Consequently, some
changes may effect and even reconstruct the whole gr. type of a language, while others are contributing gradually to the trends
existing in a language.
H. Sweet subdivided the history of the EL into 3 periods:
1. the period of full endings (Any vowel could be found in unstressed endings singan-sunu)
2. the period of leveled endings (All vowels in the unstressed endings were leveled under the letter e singen-sune)
3. the period of lost endings (Endings were lost all together sing-sun)
However, being a soc. phenomenon, serving for communication, language in its development is effected not only by its
inner laws and principles, but by the changes in the society, by social life of the language community. RUS scholars take into
consideration both extralinguistic and intralinguistic aspects. the boundaries are attached to the dates of history:
1. OE Period: 7th c. B.C. - Celtic Invasion (Celts), Celtic Dialects; 7th c. B.C. 410 A.D. - Roman Invasion (Celts, Romans),
Celtic Dialects, Latin; mid.5th c. late 6th c. - Anglo-Saxon Invasion, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Celtic Dialects, OE Dialects!;
597 - Introduction of Christianity, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Celtic Dialects, OE Dialects, Latin; after 8th c. - Scandinavian
Invasion, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians (Danes), Celtic Dialects, OE Dialects, Latin, Scandinavian Dialects;
2. ME Period : 1066 - Norman Conquest, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, Normans, Celtic Dialects, ME Dialects,
Latin, French; late 14th c. - English official L of the country, the English, ME Dialects, London Dialect (standard);
3. NE Period: 1475 - Introduction of Printing (William Caxton), The English, English (NE); 16th 17th c. - Expansion of
the British Empire, The English, English national L spreading overseas;
4. Modern English Period: 20th c. - English a global L.
Some modern linguists distinguish Present day E., influenced by AE. The EModE was a time of great historical importance

4. THE SCANDI NAVI AN I NVASI ON AND I TS EFFECT ON ENGLI SH.
In the 8
th
9
th
c. Britain was raided and attacked by the Danes/Scandinavians/Vikings. Only Alfred the Great of Wessex kept
them away. In 878 the Treaty of Wedmore was signed and England was divided into Wessex (belonged to Alfred) and Danelaw
(belonged to the Danes). The Scandinavian dialects belonged to the Germanic group, the Danes soon linguistically merged into
the local OE dialects leaving some Scandinavian elements.
Scandinavian borrowings came to English from Northern and North-Eastern Dialects.
Ways of Borrowing : Scandinavian borrowings penetrated only through oral speech .
Assimilation of Borrowings : Scandinavian borrowings were easier to assimilate as far as the Scandinavian Dialects as well as
OE Dialects were Germanic dialects (they all belonged to one and the same L group). So the Ls were very similar and the
assimilation was easy.
Semantic Fields: everyday life (cake, raft, skirt, birth, dirt, fellow, root, window, to die, etc.); military (knife, fleet, etc.);
legal matters (law, husband, etc.); some pronouns and conjunctions (they, their, them, both, though, etc.); essential notion (N
scar, anger; V to call, to take, to want to kill, to cast, to scare; Adj happy, ill, weak, wrong; Pron same, both; Prep till, fro, etc.).
Recognition in ModE : The only distinctive Scandinavian feature in English: Scandinavian cluster [sk] (sky, skill, skin, skirt,
etc.);
Scandinavian Contributions: A lot of Scandinavian borrowings disappeared, some were left only in dialects; Some
Scandinavian borrowings replaced the native words (they, take, call, etc.); Scandinavian borrowings enlarged the number of
synonyms in English: native to blossom Scan. borr. to bloom, native wish Scan. borr. want, native heaven Scan. borr. sky,
etc.

5. THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND I TS EFFECT ON THE HI STORY OF ENGLI SH.
1042-1066 King Edward the Confessor: brought up in France; had lots of Norman advisors and favourites; spoke French and
wanted his court to speak it; rumour had it that he appointed William, Duke of Normandy, his successor.
However, after the death of Edward in 1066 the government of the country was in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon feudal lords and
they proposed their own king Earl Harold Godwinson of Wessex.1066 Harold Godwinson became king of England. William
was not satisfied with this fact. He gathered a big army, there happened the Battle of Hastings, William won it, became king and
was called since then William the Conqueror. After the Norman Conquest of the British Isles the Normans occupied important
positions in church, government and army. William strengthened feudal system and royal power (vassals were not allowed to have
big armies so they could not oppose the king; with the Oath of Salisbury each vassal promised direct loyalty to king and military
help in return for land; Domesday Book provided William with information about all people and lands he possessed, he proclaimed
himself the owner of all the lands in the country). Centralization of the country:
Wales was the first to join England in the 13
th
16
th
c.;
Scotland remained independent until Queen Elizabeth the 1
st
of England died and as far as she was childless the throne passed
to James the 4
th
of Scotland who became James the 1
st
of England and unified Scotland and England. Finally, in 1707 Great Britain
appeared as a country consisting of England, Wales and Scotland;
Ireland the attempts to conquer Ireland were made in the 12
th
c. but they did not prove to be successful. In 1921, after a long
fight, the UK managed to keep only a small part of Ireland Northern Ireland.
French borrowings started to penetrate from the South and spread northwards.
Way of Borrowings: French borrowings penetrated through oral and written speech and at first were adopted only by the high
strata of the society (French was the L of the administration, kings court, law courts, church (as well as Latin) and army).
Assimilation of Borrowings: French borrowings were more difficult to assimilate as far as French was a Romance L while English
was a Germanic one (they belonged to different L groups). So they two Ls differed in some essential features (stress/accent, vocalic
system, etc.) and the assimilation was hard.
Semantic Fields: government and administration (assembly, authority, council, to govern, office, nation, etc.); feudal system
(baron, countess, duke, feudal, noble, etc.); military (aid, arms, army, battle, defeat, force, etc.); law (crime, court, jury, justice,
false, defendant, etc.); church (abbey, Bible, chapel, clergy, grace, etc.); art, architecture (chimney, palace, colour, figure,
design, etc.); entertainment (pleasure, leasure, sport, dance, cards, etc.); address (madam, sir, mister, etc.).
Recognition in ModE: French borrowings are often recognisable due to some phonetic, word-building and spelling peculiarities:
oi, oy (point, joy, toy, etc.); initial v (very, voice, etc.); -age (village, carriage, etc.); c as [s] (pierce, city, etc.).
Contributions: French borrowings enlarged the English vocabulary (a lot of new words); Some French borrowings replaced the
native words (very, river, easy,etc.); Some French affixes were borrowed into English (com-, sub-, dis-, -ment, -ish, -able, etc.);
French borrowings enlarged the number of synonyms in English: native to hide Fr. borr. to conceal, native wish Fr. borr.
desire, native smell Fr. borr. odour, etc.


6. OE DI ALECTS. ME DI ALECTS. THE RI SE OF THE LONDON DI ALECT
Kent (Kentish was spoken in Kent, Surrey, the Isle of Wight), from the tongues of Jutes/ Frisian; Wessex (West Saxon was
spoken along the Thames and the Bristol Channel), origin from a Saxon dialect, 9th c. Wessex was the centre of the English
culture and politics. West Saxon the bookish type of L. The most important dialect in the OE period. (Alfred the Great the
patron of culture and learning); Mercia (Mercian was spoken between the Thames and the Humber), a dialect of north Angles;
Northumbria (Northumbrian was spoken between the Humber and the Forth), a dialect of south Angles; 8th c. Northumbria was
the centre of the English culture.
ME dialects. The rise of the London dialect.
OE Dialect Kentish ME Dialect Kentish Dialect;
OE Dialect West Saxon ME Dialect South-Western Dialects (East Saxon Dialect, London Dialect, Gloucester Dialect);
OE Dialect Mercian ME Dialect Midland Dialects (West Midland Dialect, East Midland Dialect);
OE Dialect Northumbrian ME Dialect Northern Dialects (Yorkshire Dialect, Lancashire Dialect).
The most important dialect in the ME period was the London dialect:
In the 12
th
-13
th
c. the London Dialect became the literary L and the standard, both in written and spoken form. The reasons why
this happened:
The capital of the country was transferred from Winchester, Wessex, to London a few years before the Norman Conquests.
The East Saxon Dialect, that was the basis of the London Dialect got, became the most prominent in the ME period.
Most writers and authors of the ME period used the London Dialect in their works.
Features of the London Dialect:
The basis of the London Dialect was the East Saxon Dialect
The East Saxon Dialect mixed with the East Midland Dialect and formed the London Dialect.
Thus the London Dialect became more Anglican than Saxon in character The London Dialect is an Anglican dialect.

7. THE OE ALPHABETS. OE MAJ OR WRI TTEN RECORDS I N OE.
The first OE written records are considered to be the runic inscriptions. To make these inscriptions people used the Runes/the
Runic Alphabet the first original Germanic Alphabet.
Runes/Runic Alphabet: appeared in the 3
rd
4
th
c. A.D.; it was also called Futhark (after the first 6 letters of this alphabet); the
word rune meant secret, mystery and was used to denote magic inscriptions on objects made of wood, stone, metal; each
symbol indicated a separate sound (one symbol = one sound);
OE Alphabet- The OE Alphabet was borrowed from Latin, but there were also some letters that were borrowed from the Runic
Alphabet. Most of the OE manuscripts were written in Latin characters. The Latin Alphabet was modified by the scribes to suit
the English L (some letters were changed and some new letters were added).
The peculiarities of OE poetry:
written in Old Germanic alliterative verse:
the lines are not rhymed;
the number of the syllables in a line is free;
the number of stressed syllables in a line is fixes;
the line is usually divided into 2 halves, each half starts with one and the same sound; this sound may be repeated also in t he
middle of each half
Among the earliest textual insertion is The Ecclesiastical History of the English People written in Latin in the 8
th
c. by
Bede the Venerable, an English monk. The topics of OE poetry: heroic epic (Beowulf); lyrical poems (The Wanderer, The
Seafarer); religious poems (Fate of the Apostles , Dream of the Rood).
Major written records in ME.
The flourishing of literature, which marks the second half of the 14th c. This period of literary florescence is known as the "age
of Chaucer", the greatest name in English literature before Shakespeare. His work is Canterbury Tales, A Legend of Good
Women. John Wyclif (13241384), the forerunner of the English Reformation. His most important contribution to English
prose was his translation of the BIBLE completed in 1384. The London Dialect of the beginning of the XIV cent. is represented
by Adam Devis poems; the second half of the cent. by works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 'John Gower and 'John Wicliff. The literary
texts of the late 14th c. preserved in numerous manuscripts, belong to a variety of genres. Translation continued, but original
compositions were produced in abundance; poetry was more prolific than prose.


8. MAJ OR SPELLI NG CHANGES I N ME, THEI R CAUSES.
In the course of ME many new devices were introduces into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes
which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and
digraphs.
In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn and the crossed d , were replaced by digraph th, wyne > double u
w -, shwa fell into disuse;
French influence: ou, ie, ch;
Wider use of digraphs: sch/ssh, dg, wh, oo, ee, gh;
When u stood close to n, m, v it was replaced by o to indicate short u (lufu - love);
y was used as equivalent of i;
ou and ow were interchangeable.
The letters th and s indicated voiced sounds between vowels, and voiceless sounds initially, finally and next to other voiceless
consonant.
Long sounds in ME texts are often shown by double letters or digraphs. The length of the vowel can be inferred from the nature
of the syllable.

9. The OE vowel system (monophthongs and diphthongs). Major changes.
Unstressed vowels were weakened and dropped. Stressed vowels underwent some changes: splitting 1 phoneme split into
several allophones which later become separate phonemes (e.g. a {a, , }); merging separate phonemes become allophones
of one phoneme and then disappear and are not distinguished any more as separate phonemes (e.g. a: (o:, :)
In PG there were no diphthongs. There was just a sequence of two separate vowels. Diphthongs appeared in OE: some (usually
long diphthongs) as a result of merging of two vowels: a + u ea; e + u eo; (i + u (io:) (dialectal variant).
Others (usually short diphthongs) as a result of the influence of the succeeding and preceding consonants (breaking of [, e]).
Palatal Mutation/i-Umlaut Mutation a change of one vowel to another one under the influence of a vowel in the following
syllable.
Palatal mutation (or i-Umlaut) happened in the 6th -7th c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Ls, except Gothic (thats why
later it will be used for comparison).
Palatal mutation fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable (to approach the
articulation of these two sounds). As a result of palatal mutation:
[i] and [j] disappeared in the following syllable sometimes leading to the doubling of a consonant in this syllable;
new vowels appeared in OE ([ie, y]) as a result of merging and splitting: a, o, e; a: :; / /; / /
(labialised) (new!); /, / / (new!)
Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English: 1. irregular Plural of nouns (man men; tooth teeth); 2. irregular verbs and adjectives
(told tell; sold sell; old elder); 3. word-formation with sound interchange (long length; blood bleed).
OE Vowel System (symmetrical, i.e each short vowel had its long variant).
The length of vowels was phonologically relevant (i.e. served to distinguish words): e.g. (OE) is (is) s (ice); col (coal) cl
(cool); god (god) gd (good), etc.
The OE consonant system.
1. Hardening (the process when a soft consonant becomes harder) usually initially and after nasals ([m, n]):
[] [d]; [v] [b]; [] [g]
2. Voicing (the process when a voiceless consonant becomes voiced in certain positions) intervocally and between a
vowel and a voiced consonant or sonorant
[f, , h, s] [v, , g, z] e.g. wulfos (Gothic) wulf[v]as (OE) (wolves)
3. Rhotacism (a process when [z] turns into [r])
e.g. maiza (Gothic) mra (OE) (more)
4. Gemination (a process of doubling a consonant) after a short vowel, usually happened as a result of palatal mutation
(e.g. fullan (OE) (fill), settan (OE) (set), etc.).
5. Palatalisation of Consonants (a process when hard vowels become soft) before a front vowel and sometimes also after
a front vowel
[g, , k, h] [g, , k, h] e.g. c[k]ild (OE) (child); ec[gg] (OE) (edge), etc.
6. Loss of Consonants: sonorants before fricatives (e.g. fimf (Gothic) ff (OE) (five)); fricatives between vowels and some
plosives (e.g. sde (early OE) sde (late OE) (said)); loss of [j] as a result of palatal mutation (see examples above); loss of
[w] (e.g. case-forms of nouns: s (Nominative) swe (Dative) (OE) (sea).

10/ 11. Great Vowel Shift the change that happened in the 14th 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au].
As a result these vowels were: diphthongized; narrowed (became more closed); both diphthongized and narrowed.
ME Sounds NE Sounds: [i:] [ai]; [e:] [i:]; [a:] [ei]; [o:] [ou]; [u:] [au]; [au] [o:].
This shift was not followed by spelling changes, i.e. it was not reflected in written form. Thus the Great Vowel Shift explains
many modern rules of reading.
Short Vowels ( ME Sounds NE Sounds): [a] [] (that [at] that [t], man [man] man [mn]); [a] [o] after [w]!!
(was [was] was [woz], water [wat] water [wot]); [u] [] (hut [hut] hut [ht], comen [cumen] come [cm]).
There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc.
Vocalisation of [r]: It occurred in the 16th 17th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [] (schwa)) when stood after
vowels at the end of the word. Consequences: new diphthongs appeared: [], [i], [u]; the vowels before [r] were lengthened
(e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.); triphthongs appeared: [ai], [au] (e.g. shower [au], shire [ai]).

12. Consonant changes in ME and NE (growth of affricates, loss of certain consonants).
A large number of consonants have probably remained unchanged through all historical periods. The most important
development in the history of new sets of sounds, - affricates and sibilants, - and the new phonological treatment of fricatives.
Growth of affricates: The new type of consonants developed from OE palatal plosives [k, g] and also from the consonant
cluster [sk]. The 3 new phonemes which arose from these sources were [t], [d], []. In Early ME they began to be indicated by
special letters and digraphs, which came into use under the influence of the French scribal tradition ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch.
The sound changes: k > t; g > d; sk > .
In ME the opposition of velar consonants to palatal [k,k,g,j] had disappeared, instead, plosive consonants were contrasted
to the new affricates and in the set of affricates [t] was opposed to [d] through sonority.
In the numerous loan-words of Romance origin adopted in ME and Early NE the stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate
syllable: the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word.
In Early NE the clusters [sj, zj,tj,dj] - through reciprocal assimilation in unstressed position regularly changed into [,, t, d]:
[sj]> [], [zj]>[ ], [tj]> [t]; [dj]> [d].
Loss of certain consonants: In Late ME long consonants were shortened and the phonetic opposition through quantity was lost.
long consonants disappeared firstly because their functional load was very low, and secondly, because length was becoming a
prosodic feature, that is a property of the syllable rather than of the sound. In ME the length of the syllable was regulated by the
lengthening and shortening of vowels.
In Early NE the aspirate [h] was lost initially before vowels though not in all the words. In Early NE the initial consonant
sequences [kn] and [gn] were simplified to [n], as in ME. Simplification of final clusters produced words like NE dumb, climb, in
which [mb] lost the final [b].

14. 15. The OE noun system (grammatical categories, major types of declension).
The OE noun had 2 grammatical categories: number and case. Also, nouns distinguished 3 genders, but gender was not a
grammatical category; it was merely a classifying feature accounting for the division of nouns into morphological classes.
The category of number consisted of two members: singular and plural. There were 4 major cases: nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative.
The OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the phonetic structure
of the word, phonetic changes in the final syllables.
Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels (vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, i- stems), of consonants (consonantal stems, e.g. n-stems), of
sound sequences, e.g. -ja-stems, -nd-stems. Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a zero-suffix; they are
usually termed root-stems and are grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants, e.g. OE man, bc.
OE nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have their own endings. In general, weak nouns are easier than
strong nouns, since they had begun to lose their declensional system. Strong (a,o,i,u stem). A-stem and its variation ja&wa m,n.
O-stem jo&wo f noun. I-stem m,f,n. U-stem m,f. j,w appeare before inflexion. Weak decl n m,f,n. es n. room-stem
(Root-stem formed some cases not by an in flexional ending, but by the chance of the root vowel due to mutation)-no form
suffixes. Mutation was used to define number and gender of noun. Primary compound (both parts in Nomcase) +adj+noun.
Secondary comp.noun (the 2-nd part in Gen Case.)=noun+noun, verb+noun.

16. The OE personal pronouns, their grammatical categories and declension. Lexical replacement in ME.
Personal Pronouns possessed (and still do) a very vivid Indo-European feature suppletivity (i.e. they build their forms with the
help of different roots.
Personal pronouns in OE changed in Gender, Number, Case, Person.
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. It is
important to note that the 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
mn.
They have categories of 3 persons, 3 numbers ( 3 - 2), 4 cases, in 3 person, 3 . - 3 . 1,2 Person have dual
number, the 3P - gender. 1,2 it is ancient paradigm, they are suppletive, 3 is late, non suppletive. Suppletivity the expression
of grammatical categories of different roots by means of root vowel be, es, ves.
Later the following changes happened to the personal pronouns (some of them are marked with * in the table above so that one
can trace the connection easily):
1. Gender is still preserved (he, she, it) in ModE but is often denied by scholars because it is expressed lexically and
practically has nothing to do with grammar.
2. Cases: -In ME the Genitive Case turned into a new class of pronouns Possessive Pronouns (e.g. ModE I (pers.) mine
(possess.); you yours, he his, she her, etc.); -The Dative and the Accusative Cases fell together and formed the Objective
Case. Thus in ME there were only two cases left in the personal pronouns Nominative and Objective (e.g. ModE I (Nom) me
(Obj); he him, she her, etc.).
3. Number. Dual forms disappeared in ME.
3
rd
person. As far as in the Early ME many forms in the 3
rd
person coincided phonetically and often caused confusion and
difficulties in communication, the following changes occurred.

17. The OE adjective (grammatical categories and declensions).
The adjective in OE 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, adjectives had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition
to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adjective served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat.
case expressing an instrumental meaning.
Historically the Adjective is a younger class of words as compared to the Noun. So it has borrowed many of its categories and
inflections from the Noun and the Pronoun.
The Adjective had the following categories: Gender. It still existed in OE but was the first category to disappear in the 11
th
c.
Case. -At the end of OE Period Instrumental Case fell together with Dative Case due to the homonymy of inflections; -All other
cases disappeared by the end of the 13
th
c. also due to the homonymy of inflections.
System of Declensions. The system of declension was inherited from PG. Adjectives had two declensions that had to do also with
the category of determination strong (definite) and weak (indefinite) and unlike nouns practically all adjectives could be
declined both ways (by strong and weak declension). So an adjective did not belong to a particular declension, its declension
depended on several factors: Strong (definite) from a-stem and o-stem: when Adj used attributively without any determiners (dem.
pronouns); Adj used predicatively. Weak (indefinite) from n-stem when Adj preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or Genitive
Case of a noun;
The difference between the strong and weak declension of adjectives was not only formal but also semantic. The choice of
the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the
presence of noun determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any
determiners. The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of
personal pronouns.
The development of the adjective in ME (decay of grammatical categories and declensions).
The decay of grammatical categories of the adj proceeded in the following order. The first category to disappear was Gender,
which ceased to be distinguished by the adj in the 11
th
c.
The number of cases was reduced: the Instr. Case had fused with the Dat. By the end of OE; distinction of other cases in Early
ME was unsteady.
In the 14
th
c. the difference between the strong and weak form is sometimes shown in the sg with the help of ending e.
In the 14
th
c. pl forms were sometimes contrasted to the sg forms with the help of ending e.
In the age of Chaucer the paradigm of the adj consisted of 4 forms distinguished by a single vocalic ending e.
Adjs ending vowels and polysyllabic adjs took no endings and could not show the difference between sg and pl forms or strong
and weak forms.
Certain distinctions between weak and strong forms, and also between pl and sg are found in the works of 14
th
. writers like
Chaucer and Gower.
In ME the following changes happened:
In most cases inflections -er, -est were used to form the comparative and the superlative degrees;
Root-sound interchange fell into disuse (long longer longest), though in some cases it was preserved as an exception from
the rule (e.g. old elder eldest; far further furthest);
A new way of formation of the degrees of comparison appeared: more + Adj (comparative) || most + Adj (superlative)..It
was applicable to all adjectives and was interchangeable with -er, -est way of formation till 17
th
18
th
c. In NE, during the
Normalisation Period, the modern rule appeared and this way was applicable only to a certain group of adjectives.

18. The OE demonstrative pronouns, their grammatical categories and declension. The rise of the articles.
There were two demonstrative pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE that, which distinguished three genders in the sg. And had
one form for all the genders in the pl. and the prototype of this. They were declined like adjectives according to a five-case
system: Nom., Gen., Dat., Acc., and Instr.
Demonstrative pronouns were frequently used as noun determiners and through agreement with the noun indicated its number,
gender and case 2 types: the 1
st
with the demonstrative meaning considerably weakened. And have 5-th case Instrumental
(). 2
nd
with a clear demonstr. meaning..
The articles have to do with the category of Determination (definiteness/indefiniteness). Causes for Rise of Articles:
1. In OE the there were two declensions of adjectives strong (definite) and weak (indefinite) and the inflections of these
declensions indicated whether the noun that followed the adjective was definite or indefinite. At the end of the ME Period the
declensions of the Adjective disappeared and there was a necessity to find another way to indicate the definiteness/indefiniteness
of a noun. Thus the articles appeared.
2. In OE the word-order was free because inflections were employed to show the relations of the words in a sentence. In ME and
NE the majority of the inflections disappeared and the word-order became fixed. This meant that the first place in a sentence was
usually occupied by the theme (information already known marked with the definite article) and the second place by the
rheme (new information marked with the indefinite article).
Definite Article. As it was mentioned above, the definite article appeared from the OE demonstrative pronoun se (M, Sg, Nom)
from the paradigm of the OE demonstrative pronoun that because it was often used to indicate a definite object or notion.
Indefinite Article. The indefinite article appeared from the OE numeral n (one) and had the meaning of oneness (it still
indicates only nouns in Sg, i.e. nouns indicating one object or notion).
In OE n had 5-case paradigm that was lost in ME and only one form was left oon/one. Later it was employed in the
building of the indefinite article a/an.

19. The OE verb (grammatical categories, morphological types).
Classification:
1. Finite
They had the following categories:
Tense Present and Past (NB no Future! future actions were expressed by the Present Tense forms);
Mood Indicative, Imperative, Superlative;
Person 1
st
, 2
nd
, 3
rd
;
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);
Conjugation strong and weak.

2. Non-finite:
Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of:
Case Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)
e.g. Nom beran (uninflected) Dat to berenne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose);
Participles 1, 2 resembled the Verb, the Noun and the Adjective and had the following categories:
Tense Present (Participle 1) and Past (Participle 2);
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);
Gender Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N);
Case Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc);
Voice Active (Part. 1, 2) and Passive (Part 2).
Preterite-Present Verbs: There were 12 of these verbs and most of them later turned into Modal Verbs.
Anomalous Verbs: They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them
willan (will), bon (to be), n (to go), dn (to do).

20. OE strong verbs and their further development.
The strong verbs in OE are usually divided into seven classes. Classes from 1 to 6 use vowel gradation which goes back to the
IE ablaut-series modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG and Early OE sound changes. Class 7 includes
reduplicating verbs, which originally built their past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme; this doubled root gave rise
to a specific kind of root-vowel interchange. The principal forms of all the strong verbs have the same endings irrespective of
class: -an for the Infinitive, no ending in the Past sg stem, -on in the form of Past pl, -en for Participle II.
Strong Verbs and their Development
1. As far as the strong verbs were a non-productive class, some strong verbs turned into weak with time, i.e. started to employ -t/-
d suffix in their form-building (e.g. to climb, to help, to swallow, to wash, etc.). Thus in NE only 70 strong verbs out of 300 in OE
remained.
2. The strong verbs were subdivided into 7 classes according to the type of vowel gradation/ablaut.
The classes that survived best through different periods of the history were classes 1, 3, 6.
The following changes occurred:
In ME the inflections -an, -on, -en were all reduced to just one inflection -en.
In NE the ending -n was lost in the Infinitive and preserved in the Participle 2 in order to distinguish these two forms.
In NE Past Singular and Past Plural forms were unified, usually with the Singular form preferred as a unified form because Past
Plural and Participle 2 often had similar forms and it was hard to distinguish them (e.g. ME writen (Past Pl) writen (Part. 2))
the category of Number disappeared in the Verb.
In ModE the subdivision into classes was lost though we still can trace some peculiarities of this or that class in the forms
of the irregular verbs.

21. OE weak verbs and their further development.
W.v. form their Preterit and Participle2 by addition of a dental suffix (d/t) love, loved. Weak verbs form the majority of OE
verbs. There are three major classes of weak verbs in OE. The first class displays i-mutation in the root. The verbs of Class I
usually were i-stems, originally contained the element [-i/-j] between the root and the endings. The verbs of Class II were built
with the help of the stem-suffix -, or -j and are known as -stems. Class III was made up of a few survivals of the PG. Third and
fourth classes of weak verbs, mostly -j-stems.
Each Wv. is characterized by 3 basic forms: infinitive, Preterit and a participle 2.
Development:
1. The division of weak verbs into classes was based on the original stem-building suffix of a verb that was already hard to
distinguish even in OE: 1
st
class: OE (stem-suffix j)> ME (most verbs with front root-vowel)> NE (derived from nouns,
adjectives); 2
nd
class: OE (stem-suffix oja)>ME (most numerous class)>NE (most verbs with back root-vowel); 3
rd
class: OE,
ME, NE (3 verbs only: habban (to have), libban (to live), secan (to say)).
2. Weak verbs were not as complex as strong ones and had a greater regularity and simplicity. Thats why they were
productive, i.e. all borrowed verbs used weak model of form-building (suffix -t/-d) (e.g. Scand. to skate, Fr. to charm, Lat. to
decorate, etc.) and, as it has already been mentioned above, many originally strong verbs turned into weak (e.g. to bake, to laugh,
to help, to lie, etc.). The opposite process of turning of weak verbs into strong was very rare and was mainly based on phonetic
similarity between some strong and weak verbs, i.e. was a result of mere confusion that later was accepted as a norm due to its
persistent and regular character (e.g. to wear was originally weak and became strong because of the mistaken analogy with to
swear, to ring (mistaken analogy with to sing), to hide (mistaken analogy with to ride)).

22. OE preterit-present verbs and their further development.
The preterite-present verbs had the following characteristics:
Their Present-Tense forms resembled Past-Tense forms (Germ. Prteritum = past tense, thats why they were called so);
Some of these verbs did not have a full paradigm and were called defective;
These verbs expressed attitude and were followed by the Infinitive without to (NB! Most of these verbs are present-day modal
verbs);
Out of 12 preterite-present verbs only 6 survived in ModE:
(ought), cunnan (can), dear (dare), sculan (shall), maan (may), mt (must).
Present Tense form formed like Past Tense of strong verbs); Past T. form formed like Past Tense of weak verbs.
ME The following changes happened to the preterite-present verbs:
They lost their Verbals (non-finite forms) (e.g. OE cunnen Part 2 of cunnan);
They lost the Number and Mood distinctions (e.g. OE cann (Indicative) cunne (Subjunctive); OE cann (Sg) cunnon (Pl)).
NE. The paradigm of the preterite-present verbs (that had already become modal verbs) was reduced to one or two forms (e.g.
must (just one form), can, could (just two forms), etc.).
24. The rise of analytical forms in verbal system in ME.
In OE there were no analytical forms. They appeared later:
ME Future Tense, Perfect, Passive and Subjunctive forms;
In OE there was no Future Tense. Future actions were expressed by Present-Tense forms and modal phrases with sculan (shall),
willan (will), maan (may), cunnan (can), etc.
1. Formation
sculan/willan + Infinitive
Willan had more strong modal meaning (volition) that was later weakened and almost lost.
2. 13
th
14
th
c. these forms were very common and sculan (shall) and willan (will) were completely interchangeable.
3. 17
th
c. John Wallis introduced the rule shall 1
st
person, will 2
nd
and 3
rd
person.
4. In ModE there is a tendency to use will + 1
st
, 2
nd
and 3
rd
person without any distinction (earlier will + 1
st
person had
the modal meaning of volition).
and had the following characteristics:
They consisted of 2 elements:
a verb of broad semantics and high frequency (an auxiliary);
a non-finite form (Infinitive, Participle 1, 2).
The rise of analytical forms in verbal system in NE.
NE Continuous and Do-forms;
In NE these forms reappeared together with a synonymous form:
be + Participle 1 = be + on/in + Gerund (indicated a process of limited duration)
e.g.: He was on huntinge He was hunting (literally, He was on hunting).
1. 18
th
c. Continuous forms became well-established.
2. 19
th
c. Continuous forms in the Passive were accepted as a norm (e.g. The house is being built previously such forms were
considered clumsy and non-grammatical).
Do-Forms
1. In NE do-periphrasis was used in the Past and Present of the Indicative Mood.
2. 16
th
c. Do was used in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences and was freely interchangeable with the simple
forms (without do), e.g.:
Heard you all this? = Did you hear all this?
I know not why he cries. = I dont know why he cries.
He knew it. = He did know it (without any meaning of emphasis).
3. 17
th
c. do was left only in negative and interrogative sentences to keep the word-order S + P + O (e.g. I (S) pity (P) him (O).
Do you (S) pity (P) him (O)?). In affirmative sentences do acquired an emphatic meaning (e.g. Did you really see him? I did
see him, I swear!).
and had the following characteristics:
They consisted of 2 elements:
a verb of broad semantics and high frequency (an auxiliary);
a non-finite form (Infinitive, Participle 1, 2).

25. The OE infinitive and its further development. The rise of the gerund.
The Infinitive had no verbal gram categories. Being a verbal noun by origin, it had a sort of reduced case-system: 2 forms which
roughly corresponded to the Nom. And the Dat. Cases of nouns. The preposition to was used to show direction or purpose.
In ME the Infinitive lost the Dative Case (the inflected form) and only one form was left: e.g. ME (to) writen. Particle to
remained in NE as a formal sign of the infinitive with no meaning of direction or purpose.
Gerund appears in the 12th century. OE verbal noun ( ) with suffix ung, -ing and P1 overlapped (
); verbal noun later turned into Gerund and could 1) take direct object (ex. buying the book) - verbal feature; 2) preceded
by article or possessive pronoun nominal () feature. The gerund can be traced to three sources: the OE verbal noun in -
uns and -ins, the Present Participle and the Infinitive. In OE the verbal noun derived from transitive verbs took an object in the
Gen. case, which corresponded to the direct object of the finite() verb. The syntactic functions of the verbal noun, the
infinitive and the participle partly overlapped.
This verbal feature a direct object as well as the frequent absence of article before the -ing-form functioning, as a noun
transformed the verbal noun into a Gerund in the modern understanding of the term. The nominal features, retained from the
verbal noun, were its syntactic functions and the ability to be modified by a possessive pronoun or a noun in the Gen. case.
The OE participles and their further development.
Participle 1
The formation of the Participle 1 was as follows:
OE ME NE
berende berin
g
bearin
g
In OE Participle 1 was considered Present Participle, had only the form of the Active Voice, possessed the categories of Number,
Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case).
In ME it lost its nominal and adjectival features together with the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.
Participle 2
As it has been mentioned in the table above, in OE Participle 2 was formed:
in strong verbs with the help of the suffix en (+ sometimes root-vowel interchange) + often marked by prefix e-:
e.g. OE bindan (Infinitive) ebunden (Participle 2) (to bind)
In ME prefix e- was weakened to prefix i-/y- (e.g. ME y-runne (run, Part.2 from to run) and in NE it disappeared at all.
in weak verbs with the help of the suffix -t/-d:
e.g. OE cpan (Infinitive) cped (Participle 2) (to keep)
Participle 2, unlike Participle 1, had two meanings of the category of Voice:
OE
NE
Active Voice Passive Voice
egn ebore
n
gone,
born
somebody was
gone, i.e. he
did it himself
= he was the
subject/active
doer of the
action
somebody was born,
i.e. somebody gave
birth to him = he was
the object/passive
recipient of the
action
No Voice
distinctions
observed
Thus in OE Participle 2 was considered Past Participle, had the forms of the Active and Passive Voice, possessed the categories
of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case).
In ME it lost the category of Voice and the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.

26. The origin of plural endings in Modern English nouns.
Most changes occurred to the Noun in ME.
Number: The quantity of the Number endings was reduced as far as the declensions disappeared. The markers of the Plural
became more uniform (-s, -en, root-sound interchange). The preference of the consonantal endings can be explained by the fact
that the vowels were more apt to change and reduction then the consonants that in general proved to be more stable.
In late ME the ending -es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the pl. In Early NE it extended to more nouns to the new words
of the growing E. vocabulary and to many words, which built their plural in different way in ME or employed es as one of the
variant endings.
The ME pl. ending en used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its former productivity, so that in standard Mod E it is
found only in oxen, brethren, and children.
The small group of ME nouns with homonymous forms of number (ME deer, hors, thing0 has been further reduced to 3
exceptions in Mod E: deer, sheep, swine.
It follows that the majority of E nouns have preserved and even reinforced the formal distinction on Number in the Comm.
Case. Meanwhile they have practically lost 3 distinctions in the Gen. case, for Gen. has a distinct form in the pl only with nouns
whose pl ending is not es.
Despite the regular neutralization of number distinctions in the Gen. case we can say that differentiation of Number in nouns has
become more explicit and more precise. The functional load and the frequency of occurrence of the Comm. Case are certainly
much higher than those of the Gen.; therefore the regular formal distinction of Number in the Comm. Case is more important than
its neutralization in the Gen. case.

27.28. Types of syntactic relations in OE.
The syntactic structure of OE was determined by two major conditions: the nature of OE morphology and the relations between
the spoken and the written forms of the language.
Types: agreement; government; joining.
1. agreement mainly used in attribute groups to denote the relation between an adj/pron and the substantive: eg: sre bc (that
book) (Dat).
2. Government substantive pron. stands in a certain case (Acc, Dat, Gen) depends on the head word: Eg: andsnare onfn
(receive answer): -subst. Acc transitive verb. Eg: nosian hses (approach the houses).
3. Joining an adj referring to a verb/adj is connected with it without any formal means.
ME:
1. agreement was reduced < reduced morphological system. Only agreement in number survived for strong declension adj and
pron. Eg: fresshe floures (fresh flowers).
2. government has no essential changes in ME;
3. joining was widened by the reduction of agreement.
NE:
1. agreement goes on decreasing. Only THIS and THAT still agree in number with their head word.
2. government only personal pron, interrogative. and relative pron which are governed.
3. joining old wrinkles the adj connected with the head word by joining.
of time (one winter ).
Negation in the history of English.
In OE the common word for negation was ne (IE origin). It was simply placed before a word that was to be negated:
e.g. OE Ne can ic (I dont know, or literally Not know I).
As a result of this position before a word the particle ne often fused with:
a verb (e.g. OE nis ne is; ns ne ws; nfde ne hfde (had), etc);
a numeral (e.g. OE nn ne an (none));
a pronoun (e.g. OE nic ne ic (not me));
an adverb (e.g. OE nfre ne fre (never)).
Multiple negation was perfectly normal:
e.g. OE Nis nn wisdom ne nn rad naht onean God. There is no knowledge concerning God.
Often the particle ne was strengthened by the particle naht.
In ME particle ne fell out of use and was replaced completely by the particle naht that later developed into not, stood manly after
a verb (V + not) and negated it:
e.g. I fell to earth I knew not where.
In NE, during the Normalisation Period, no-double-negation rule appeared that prohibited more than one negative word in a
sentence.
Word order in the history of English.
In OE the word order was free as far as there were a lot of inflections that showed the relations between the words in a sentence.
Most common word-order patterns were:
1. S + P + O (in non-dependent clauses);
2. S + O + P (when the Object was a pronoun, e.g. OE Ic e sece literally to you say);
(in dependent clauses, e.g. OE is ws efohten sian h of st Enlum cm literally This battle was held when he from
eastern England came such word order was called frame after a connective went the Subject, it was followed by all the
other parts of the sentence and the last place was occupied by the Predicate which thus created a frame together with the
Subject);
3. P + S + O (in questions, e.g. OE Hwat sceal ic sinan What shall I sing?);
(in sentences starting with adverbial modifier, e.g. OE N synt erde enas mne literally Now were threatened my
servants). In ME and NE, due to the loss of the Cases and, as a result, loss of the inflections the distinction between the Subject
and the Object of a sentence was lost. Thus the word order became fixed and direct (S + P + O The Subject almost always took
the first place and was followed by the Object).
Such word order led to the appearance of the formal Subject (formal it, there, e.g. It was winter; There is a book.) that took the
place of the Subject if a sentence did not have one and thus preserved the direct word order.
Inversion was used only in questions and for emphasis.

29. OE vocabulary, its volume and etymological structure.
The history of words throws light on the history of the speaking community and its contacts with other people.
According to some rough counts OE vocabulary had between 23 000 and 24 000 lexical units. About only 15% of them survived in
ModE.
In OE there were an extremely low percentage of borrowings from other Ls (only 3% as compared to 70% in ModE). Thus OE from
the point of view of its vocabulary was a thoroughly Germanic L.
Native OE words can be subdivided into 3 following layers:
1. Common IE words the oldest and the largest part of the OE vocabulary that was inherited by the PG, and later by all the GLs,
from the Common IE L.
Semantic fields: family relations (father, mother, daughter, brother, etc.(except aunt, uncle words of the Gorigin)); parts of human
body (eye, nose, heart, arm, etc.); natural phenomena, plants, animals (tree, cow, water, sun, wind, etc.).
Parts of speech: nouns (eye, brother, etc.); verbs (basic activities of man) (to be, can, may, to know, to eat, to stand, to sit, etc.);
adjs (essential qualities) (new, full, red, right, young, long, etc.); pronouns (personal and demonstrative) (I, my, this, that, those,
these, etc.); numerals (most of them) (1-10, 100, 1000, etc.); prepositions (for, at, of, to, etc.).
2. Common Gwords the part of the vocabulary that was shared by most GLs. These words never occurred outside the Ggroup of
Ls. This layer was smaller than the IE layer.
Semantic fields: nature, plants, animals (earth, fox, sheep, sand, etc.); sea (starve, sea, etc.); everyday life (hand, sing, find, make,
etc.).
Parts of speech: nouns (horse, rain, ship, bridge, life, hunger, ground, death, winter, evil, etc. ); verbs (to like, to drink, to bake, to
buy, to find, to fall, to fly, to make, etc.); adjs (broad, sick, true, dead, deaf, open, clean, bitter, etc.); pronouns (such, self, all, etc.);
adverbs (often, again, forward, near, etc.).
3. Specifically OE words native words that occur only in E. and do not occur in other G and non-G Ls. They are very few and are
mainly derivatives and compounds (e.g. fisher, understand, woman, etc.).
4. Borrowed words this part of OE vocabulary, as it has already been mentioned above, was a small portion of words that
remained on the periphery of OE vocabulary. The words were mainly borrowed from: Latin (around 500 words only) (abbat,
anthem, alms, etc. ); Celtic dialects:-common nouns (bin, cross, cradle, etc.) most of them died out, some survived only in
dialects;-place names and names of waterways: Kent, London, York, etc.;-Ouse, Avon, Evan, Thames, Dover all with the meaning
water;-comb (deep valley) Duncombe, Winchcombe, etc.;-torr (high rock) Torr, Torcross, etc.;-llan (church) Llandoff,
Llanelly, etc.;-pill (creek) Pylle, Huntspill, etc; hybrids:
Celtic element +
Latin element
Celtic element +
Germanic element
Man-chester York-shire
Corn-wall Devon-shire
Lan-caster Salis-bury

30. Affixation in OE.
In OE the vocabulary mainly grew by means of word-formation. prefixation was a productive way (unlike in ModE):
IE prefixes (OE un- (negative));
Germanic prefixes (OE mis-, be-, ofer-(over-));
prefixes were widely used with verbs, but were far less productive with the other parts of speech (e.g. OE n (to go) -n (to
go away) be-n (to go round) fore-n (to precede), etc.);
prefixes often modified lexical meaning (e.g. OE si (journey) for-si (death));
there were grammatical prefixes, e.g e-:
o was used to build Participle 2 of strong verbs (e.g. OE sitten (to sit) esett (sat), etc.);
o turned durative verbs into terminative (e.g. OE feran (to go) eferan (to reach), etc.).
suffixation was the most productive way, mostly applied to nouns and adjectives, seldom to verbs.
Classification of OE suffixes:
1. Suffixes of agent nouns (-end (OE frond (friend)), -ere (OE fiscere (fisher)), -estre (feminine) (OE bcestre (female
baker)), etc.);
2. Suffixes of abstract nouns (-t (OE siht (sight)), -u (OE lengu (length)), -nes/nis (OE beorhtnes (brightness), blindnis
(blindness)), -un/in (OE earnun (earning)), etc.);
3. Adjectival suffixes (-i (OE hli (holy)), -isc (OE mannisc (human)), -ede (OE hcede (hooked)), -sum (OE lansum
(lasting)) etc.);
4. New suffixes derived from noun root-morphemes (-dm (OE frodm (freedom)), -hd (OE cldhd (childhood)), -lc (OE
wedlc (wedlock)), -scipe (OE frondscipe (frendship)), etc.);
New suffixes derived from adjective root-morphemes (-lic (OE woruldlic (worldly)), -full (OE carfull (careful)), -las (OE
slplas (sleepless)), etc.).
Borrowings from classical Ls in ME.
After the Norman Conquest the main spheres of the Latin L remained: church; law; academic activities.
The surge of interest in the classics during the Age of the Renaissance led to a new wave of borrowings from Latin and Greek
(through Latin mainly).
Latin: abstract concepts (anticipate, exact, exaggerate, explain, fact, dislocate, accommodation, etc.); affixes de- (demolish,
destroy, etc.),
ex- (extract, , explore, explain, etc.), re- (reread, retell, retry, etc.), -ate (locate, excavate, etc.), -ent (apparent, present, turbulent,
etc.), -ct (correct, erect, etc.)
Greek: theatre (drama, episode, scene, theatre, etc.); literature (anapest, climax, epilogue, rhythm, etc.); rhetoric (dialogue,
metaphor, etc.); roots for creation of new words; affixes -ism (humanism, mechanism, aphorism, etc.), -ist (protagonist, terrorist,
cyclist, etc.),
anti- (antibody, antidote, antibiotic, etc.), di- (digest, diverse, etc.), neo- (neo-realism, neo-conservatism, etc.)
Greco-Latin Hybrids (words one part of which is Greek and the other one Latin): e.g. tele-graph, socio-logy, tele-vision, etc.
Compounding in OE and ME. The rise of conversion.
Word composition was highly productive way of developing the vocabulary in OE.
Compound nouns contained various first components stems of nouns, adjs and verbs; their second components were nouns. The
pattern N+N was probably the most productive type of all. Compound nouns with adj-stems as the first components were less
productive. Compound nouns with verb and adverb-stems were rare.
Compound adjs were formed by joining a noun-stem to an adj. the most peculiar pattern of compound adjs was the so-called
bahuvrihi type adj+noun-stem as the second component of an adj.
The remarkable capacity of OE for derivation and word-composition is manifested in numerous words formed with the help of
several methods: negative prefix, adj-stem, noun-stem turning into a suffix, suffix.
Derivation: Prefixation (verbs, adjs); suffixation (nouns, adjs). Word composition: nouns, adjs.
In ME word compounding was less productive than in OE period. As before, compounding was more characteristic of nouns and
adjs than verbs.
Compound words of the ME were formed after the word-building patterns inherited from OE, modifications of these patterns and
new structural patterns. In addition to compounds made of native stems there appeared many hybrids with stems of diverse origin.
Compound nouns were built according to a variety of patterns. The most productive type 2 noun-stems was inherited from OE.
Conversion was a new method of word derivation which arose in Late ME and grew into a most productive, specially English way
of creating new words. Conversion is effected through a change in the meaning, the gramm paradigm and the syntactic use of the
word in the sentence. The word is transformed into another part of speech with an identical initial form, e.g. NE house n and house
v.
The growth of conversion is accounted for by gramm and lexical changes during the ME period: reduction of endings and suffixes
and the simplification of the morphological structure of the word. After the loss of endings and suffixes a large number of E verbs
and nouns became identical in form.
The use of conversion was not restricted to the formation of verbs from nouns, when the new relations within the pairs had been
well established, the reverse process could occur as well: nouns came to be derived from verbs.
In present-day E. conversion has grown onto one of the most productive ways of word-building, accounting for the free
transformation of nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns through a change in their syntactic position.

31. Scandinavian loan-words in ME.
In ME the main donors of borrowings to English were French and Scandinavian Ls:
Scandinavian borrowings came to English from Northern and North-Eastern Dialects.
Ways of Borrowings: Scandinavian borrowings penetrated only through oral speech as far as the Scandinavians had never been
too eager to come to the power wherever they went. They were just raiders.
Assimilation of Borrowings: Scandinavian borrowings were easier to assimilate as far as the Scandinavian Dialects as well as
OE Dialects were Germanic dialects (they all belonged to one and the same L group). So the Ls were very similar and the
assimilation was easy.
Semantic Fields: everyday life (cake, raft, skirt, birth, dirt, fellow, root, window, to die, etc.); military (knife, fleet, etc.); legal
matters (law, husband, etc.); some pronouns and conjunctions (they, their, them, both, though, etc.); essential notion (N scar,
anger; V to call, to take, to want to kill, to cast, to scare; Adj happy, ill, weak, wrong; Pron same, both; Prep till, fro, etc.).
Recognition in ModE: Scandinavian borrowings are hard to distinguish from the native words as far as Scandinavian Dialects
belonged to the same L group (Germanic). The only distinctive Scandinavian feature in English: Scandinavian cluster [sk] (sky,
skill, skin, skirt, etc.);
Contributions: A lot of Scandinavian borrowings disappeared, some were left only in dialects; Some Scandinavian borrowings
replaced the native words (they, take, call, etc.); Scandinavian borrowings enlarged the number of synonyms in English: native to
blossom Scan. borr. to bloom, native wish Scan. borr. want, native heaven Scan. borr. sky, etc.
French loan-words in ME.
After the Norman Conquest the main spheres of the Latin L remained: church; law; academic activities.
French became the official L of administration (it was used in the kings court, in the law courts, in the church (as well as Latin),
in the army, by the nobles in the south of England).
English was the L of common people in the Midlands and in the north of England. It still remained the L of the majority who
were the representatives of the lower classes of society and never learned French, so the Norman barons had to learn English to be
able to communicate with locals and soon English regained its position as the L of the country.
In ME the main donors of borrowings to English were French and Scandinavian Ls:
French borrowings started to penetrate from the South and spread northwards.
Ways of Borrowing: French borrowings penetrated through oral and written speech and at first were adopted only by the high
strata of the society (French was the L of the administration, kings court, law courts, church (as well as Latin) and army).
Assimilation of Borrowings: French borrowings were more difficult to assimilate as far as French was a Romance L while English
was a Germanic one (they belonged to different L groups). So they two Ls differed in some essential features (stress/accent,
vocalic system, etc.) and the assimilation was hard.
Semantic Fields: government and administration (assembly, authority, council, to govern, office, nation, etc.); feudal system
(baron, countess, duke, feudal, noble, etc.); military (aid, arms, army, battle, defeat, force, etc.); law (crime, court, jury, justice,
false, defendant, etc.); church (abbey, Bible, chapel, clergy, grace, etc.); art, architecture (chimney, palace, colour, figure, design,
etc.); entertainment (pleasure, leasure, sport, dance, cards, etc.); address (madam, sir, mister, etc.).
Recognition in ModE: French borrowings are often recognisable due to some phonetic, word-building and spelling peculiarities:
oi, oy (point, joy, toy, etc.); initial v (very, voice, etc.); -age (village, carriage, etc.); c as [s] (pierce, city, etc.).
Contributions: French borrowings enlarged the English vocabulary (a lot of new words); Some French borrowings
replaced the native words (very, river, easy,etc.); French borrowings enlarged the number of synonyms in English: native to hide
Fr. borr. to conceal, native wish Fr. borr. desire, native smell Fr. borr. odour, etc; Some French affixes were borrowed into
English (com-, sub-, dis-, -ment, -ish, -able, etc.).
Borrowings in NE.
In addition to the three main sources Greek, Latin and French, English speakers of the NE period borrowed freely from many
other Ls. It has been estimated that even in the 17th c. the English vocabulary contained words derived from no less than fifty
foreign tongues. The main contributors to the vocabulary were Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Russian. A
number of words were adopted from Ls of other countries and continents, which came into contact with English: Persian, Chinese,
Hungarian, Turkish, Malayan, Polynesian, the native Ls of India and America.
Borrowings from Germanic Ls are of special interest as English is a Germanic L too. The influence of Scandinavian in Early
ME has certainly remained unsurpassed and the unique conditions of close L contacts were never repeated. By the 15th 16th c.
the Germanic Ls had driven far apart;
Dutch made abundant contribution to English, particularly in the 15th and 16th c, when commercial relations between England
and the Netherlands were at their peak. They specialised in wool weaving and brewing, which is reflected in the Dutch loan-
words: pack, scour, spool, stripe (terms of weaving); hops, tub, scum. Extensive borrowing is found in nautical terminology:
bowline, buoy, cruise, deck, dock, freight, keel, skipper. The flourishing of art in the Netherlands accounts for some Dutch loan-
words relating to art: easel, landscape, sketch.
The earliest Russian loan-words entered the English L as far back as the I6th c, when the English trade company (the Moskovy
Company) established the first trade relations with Russia. English borrowings adopted from the 16th till the 19th c. indicate ar-
ticles of trade and specific features of life in Russia, observed by the English:, beluga, intelligentsia, muzhik, rouble, samovar,
troika, tsar, vodka.
The loan-words adopted after 1917 reflect the new social relations and political institutions in the USSR: bolshevik, Komsomol,
Soviet. Some of the new words are translation-loans: collective farm, Five-Year-Plan, wall newspaper.