3.The chronological division of the history of English

The history of the English language covers over 16 centuries. There was a well-known English scholar Henry Sweet, who proposed the division according to the state of the unstressed endings.

1.OE. The period of full endings, any vowel could be found in an unstressed ending: sinзan, sunu. The OE begins in the 5 century, embracing the years 500 to1100, the time when A-S invaded Britain, where Celts lived. The earliest writings belong to the year 700 AD. The end of the period is closed to the Norman Conquest (1066).

2.Middle English. The period of leveled endings. Vowels of unstressed endings have been leveled under the neutral vowel [ә] (шва), which is represented by [e]: singen, sune. ME dates to 1100-1500 (the introduction of printing, the end of the war of roses, the dec[k]ay of feudalism.

3.Modern English – the period of lost endings: sing, son.

-Early ME (1500- until the age of Shakespeare)

-Late ME.

This division is based on both phonetic and morphological features (weakening and loss of unstressed vowel sounds and grammatical morphemes). The transition from one period to another was very gradual and slow.

4. The English speaking world, varieties of English

Approximately 400 mln people speak English as their first language. English belongs to the indo-European family; it began to develop about 450 AD. It is the language of aviation, air travel control, summit meetings, internet, sport and pop-music, demonstrations. 75% of the world’s mail is in English. 60% of the world’s radio stations broadcast in English and more than half of the worlds periodicals are printed in English. It is the language of world movies. It is an official language in 44 countries. In many others it is the language of business, technology. Now Eng. words have started to become a part of other languages. In Sierra they speak Krio, 80% of words in the dictionary come from English. In India you can hear 14 languages (Hindi, Indian English, and local English, so on). English there is the neutral language, the same to everyone, no one is privileged. They still speak English in Africa. People there have more than 1000 local languages. They need English as a link language. After 1945 there was a shift from British E. to American E. America gained power in military, economy, politics.

5. The position of English and its role in the world. English is the major language of news and information in the world. It is the Language of business and government even in some countries where it is a minority language. It is the language of maritime communication and international air traffic control, and it is used even tor internal air traffic control in countries where it is not a native language.

In several countries, E is the sole or dominant language. It has that place in the UK, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. All of these countries are former British colonies. In other countries, E is widely used. E is commonly used as a medium for the communication of information and news. Three quarters of all telex messages and telegrams are sent in E. 80 percent of computer data are processed and stored in E. 5000 newspapers are published in E. Even in many countries where E is a minority language, there is at least one newspaper in E. In many countries television news is broadcasted in E. E is a major language of international business, diplomacy, and science and the professions. E is also an official Language of many international organizations, including the United Nations, many professional organizations. It is frequently the Language of international conferences; and it is language of international athletics. E is often used in India, because it is neutral. It is a civil language and accepted by the society. In Singapore, E is a 2^nd language, but many companies are using it. 16 countries in Africa retained E. In Japan almost all junior high, high student school and collage study E. In China E language lessons are popular TV programs.

6. The OE vowel system. Major changes during the period. The OE vowel system: [i e a æ o u y] each vowel could be long and short. In the course of time G V proved to be more changeable than C. Long V proved to be more changeable than short one. All the V underwent positional changes due to assimilation, the most important are: 1. I-mutation or palatal mutation: the mutation of the root, back or open V to a front one by a following i/j, ex.: kopjan (o-open) changed into cepan. 2. In dialects there is happened OE breaking: it is diphthongization of short V before certain C clusters. It is the V a, e which changed into ae before clusters: r, l, h + C, h-final; e into eo before r, l, h + C, h-final. 3. In the 9^th century V were lengthened (lengthening) before the clusters: nd, ld, mb, ex.: bindan-bi:ndan-bind (в первом случае Iкраткая, во втором долгая).

7. Word order in OE. WO in the OE sentence was relatively free. The position of words in the sentence was often determined by logical and stylistic factors rather than by grammatical constraints. But the freedom of WO and its seeming independence shouldn’t be overestimated. The WO could depend on the communicative type of the sentence, there existed 3 main patterns, they are: 1. SPO₁ (O₂); 2.SOP; 3.PSO (S-subject, O-object, P-predicate). 1. in non dependent clauses or in main clauses. Unless they opened with an adverb, if there was an adverb it was changed. 2. Occurred when the O was pronoun or it was used in dependent clause. 3. chiefly in questions or in declarative sentences opening with the adverb. Different types of WO could be used in similar syntactical conditions. It appears that in many respects OE syntax was characterized by a wide range of variation and by the co-existence of various, sometimes even opposing, tendencies.

8. The Great Vowel Shift.is a series of changes of long vowels betw 14-17c.Every long vowel&some diph.were shifted&the pronouniat.of all the words with this sounds changed.GVS wasn’t followed by any regular spelling changes;the modific.in pronounc.of w.wasnt reflected in their written form.The GVS can be regarded as a process of 2stages: 1. [i:,u:] became diphthongs and most of V showed the process of narrowing; 2. There were appeared the diphthongs [ei] into [ai] and [au] into [əu].

GVS didn’t bring about any new phonemes because all the V which were resulted from GVS were already existed, but they were found in other classes of words. The GVS didn’t add any new sounds to the V system, every V which developed under the shift can be found in late ME. The changes in pronunciation of numerous E words, resulting from GVS, had never been supported by the corresponding spelling reforms.

9.Consonant changes in the history of E.

In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants(∫, t∫, З dЗ) except( s,z). in all Ger. lang. at an early stage of their independent history most consonants were lengthened after a short vowel before [j] – the process is known as West Germanic “doubling” of consonants satjan – settan(bedd, mann) these long consonants disappeared in ME and the phonemic opposition was lost. English consonants were more stable than vowels. The sonorous( m, n, l), the plosives( p, b, t, d) & k, g in most positions haven’t been subjected to any noticeable changes. {З}appeared on the boundary between the OE & the ME, came from French & is the youngest consonant. We evidence palatalisation( softening of the back lingual consonants) – kild, scip, sceal; elision –dropping, omitting of a letter: G Gans – OE Зos, G uns – OE us, mæjden – mæden(maiden). In the ME the sound [w] was lost: hwa – who, hwom – whom; [h] disappeared in combinations with initial hl( half –laf(loaf)), hr(hra∂e – rather), kn is pronounced as n – knight,cnawan( know). At the beginning of the NE period the sound [r] disappeared in the final position or before consonants as a result the preceding vowel lengthened – ME a – NE a: bar, star, car; o – o: door, lord; a: - eə care, dare; o: - uə poor, moor. In the 17^th – 18^th words with h that was denoted by the gh combination, the sound h disappeared & lengthened the preceding vowel – bought, thought. In OE we have metathese( permutation, the process of interchanging sounds in a word, as in rinnan – irnan(run), ascian – axian(ask) & we have assimilation wif-man – wimman. In the loan-words of Roman origin adopted in the ME & the ENE the stress fell on the final syllable & was moved closer to the beginning of the word & the changes happened due to the reciprocal assimilation. In the OE f,v,s,z,∂,Ө were allophones – in intervocal position appeared as voiced, otherwise were voiceless. In the ME they became independent.- ris[s] – risan[z]. [j] &[y] developed into [i] & [u] respectively; [x’] [x] developed into [i] & [u] respectively& formed glides of diphtongs or lengthened the preceding vowel – ^OEniht – ^MEnight – ^LMEni:t - ^NEnait.in final position x changed into f ^MErough( ru:x) - ^NErough. In final position and before consonants j & r changed into vowels but in initial retained the same rechen – reach, yeer – year.in the 16^th a new vowel appeared [ɔ:] in the following cases: i+r- fir,sir; u+r - fur,burn; o+r after w worm; e+r – fern.

10. I -mutation

Long vowels proved to be more changeable than short ones. The most important change was umlaut or palatal mutation. Mutation is a change in a vowel sound brought by a sound in the following syllable. The mutation of a root back or open vowel to a front one by a following

i or j is called i-mutation. I –mutation affected all the Germanic languages but Gothic. OE stressed vowels changed into back or more narrow under the influence of i (j) in the next syllables (regressive assimilation). The result was the rise of the new phonemes y, y: but disappeared in early ME.

ǎ > e sandian – sendan(send)

æ>e sætian – settan(set)

ā > æ hālian – hælan (heal)

ü > y fullian – fyllan (fill)

ō > ē wopian – wepan (weep), dohtor – dehter (daughter)

The approximate date of the change was the 5-6^th c. They are not many in English and can be find both in word changing and word formation: man-men, louse-lice, old-elder; full-fill, stong-strength, tale-tell, food-feed.

11. Changes in the vocabulary system in ME

The period that changed the etymological structure of E to a very great extent as well as in grammar was the ME that brought about radical changes, when no fewer than 10,000 words were borrowed from French and about 900 from Scandinavian ousting native words. The Norman conquest of 1066 introduce Fr.-E bilingualism into England & paved the way for a massive borrowing of Fr. words into E. voc. Most of the newcomers have stayed in E.& became indispensable to present – day E:Scandinavian husband,happy,wrong,anger/Frenchbeauty,war,peace,dinner,dress,large. The loans have been completely assimilated that they are difficult to recognize as alien elements. As a result there appeared a great number of new coinages in which native & foreign morphemes are combined in one word, forming hybrids: beauty (Fr) + ful(E),special(Fr) + ly(native). French borrowing continued to enrich the English vocab.after the M ages but the process became less active. Some of this bor. Are not completely assimilated&betray their foreign origin phon. or graphically (policy, police, Champagne).Another language which made a large contribution to the E.voc.was Latin. The 14^th & 15^th were abundant in Latin borrowing (Renaissance period).There was a strong tradition of using L in all fields of knowledge. The educated people used L to communicate with each other. Among L loans we find terms relating to law, science, medicine, literature ( history,index,popular,legal).In EME over 90% of the lexicon was of native E origin. By the end of the ME period this proportion had fallen to around 75%.