29.Grimms law.

The first consonant shift. this became known to the public in 1822.The essence of Grims law is: Indoeuropean plosives or voiceless tops underwent certain changes in Germanic languages.It reflected in 3 categories:

1. IE voiceless plosives [p,t,k,] correspond to Germanic voiceless fricatives [f,o,h]

So p-f пять-five

t-o три-three

k-h (lat) cardia-heart

2. IE voiced plosives [b,d,g] changes into Germanic voiceless plosives [ p,t,k,]

So b-p яблоко-apple

d-t два-two

g-k (lat) ego-ic(old Eng)

3.IE aspirated plosives [bh,dh,gh] correspond to Germanic voiced plosives without

aspiration

So bh-b bhrator-brother(oe)

dh-d madhu-medu(old E)

gh-g ghosti-gasts(Gothic)

These changes are likely to stretch over centuries before our era called the first

consonant shift.

30. Verners law.

Some words in Germ.lang appeared to have an irregular development of IE [p,t,k,s].Instead of the expected [f,o,h,s] we find [v,p,g,z].IE[t] has become[p] instead of[o].An explanation of these exceptions to Grimm’s law was offered in 1875 by Verner.Verner’s law is that in Photo-Germanic,voiceless fricatives became voiced when they were in a voiced enviroment&the IE stress was not on the immediately preceding syllable.If the preceding vowel is unstressed[s] in Germ.lang became voiced&changes into[z].Later[z] became[r](rhotacism).

31. Reduction of unstressed inflections.

Unstressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions. The tendehcy towards phonetic reduction operated in all subsequent periods of the history . In early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct.

The occurance of only 2 vowels neutral sound & [i] in unstressed vowels appeared

in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones. Some were reduce to the neutral sound or dropped. In unstressed syllables 5 monophtongs.

32.Chauser & his “Canterbury tales”.

14^th cent. the age of Chaucer. He was an outstanding & famous figure in

1340-1400, who was born in London. His early works were imitiative. He never

wrote in any other languages than English. Chaucers literature language, based

on the mixed London dialects, is known as- classical ME. About tales- he managed to give a most vivid picture of contemporary England: a gallery

of life – like portraits taken from all walks of life. Knights, doctors, monk, sailor,

the story in harmony with the character of the narrators.

33.The rise of articles

The use of articles in the age of Chaucer is often similar to what we find in English nowadays – Whan the sonne was to reste( when the sun set).The development of the definite article is usually connected with the changes in the declension of adj-es. Another factor, which was the changing function of the word order. Relative freedom in the position of words in the OE sentences made it possible to use word order for communicative purpose. The growth of the articles is their connections both with the changes in syntax & in morphology.

The communicative functions passed to the articles & their use became more

regular.