- •1. The Old Germanic language, their classification and principle features.
- •2. The origin of the English language.
- •3. The chronological division of the history of English.
- •5. The position of English and its role in the world.
- •6. The oe vowel system. Major changes during the period.
- •7. Word order
- •8. The Great Vowel Shift.(gvs)
- •9. Major consonant changes in the history of English.
- •10. I-mutation and its traces in modern English
- •11. Changes in the vocabulary system in me
- •12. The oe noun system and its further changes
- •13,14 The oe adjective and its further development in me. Degrees of comparison.
- •15. The oe personal pronouns
- •16. Changes in the vocabulary system in ne period
- •17. The oe verb, its grammatical & morphological categories
- •18. Strong V. In oe & their further development
- •19. Weak V. In oe & their further development
- •20. Preterite-present V. In oe & their further development
- •21. The rise of the perfect forms
- •22. The rise of the passive forms
- •23. The oe vocabulary & its etymological characteristics
- •24. Main types of word-formation in oe
- •25. French loans.
- •26. Scandinavian loans.
- •27. Latin loans.
- •28. Main peculiarities of oe poetry.
- •29. Grimm’s Law.
- •30. Verner’s law.
- •32. Chaucer and his “Canterbury Tales”
- •33. The rise of articles
- •35 The root-stem declension in oe
- •36.The rise of do-forms
- •37. The rise of the future forms.
- •38. Gram. Agreement and government.
- •39. The non-finite forms of the verb in oe and their further development.
- •40. Forms of negotiation in oe.
35 The root-stem declension in oe
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, of consonants, of sound sequences. Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a “zero-suffix”, they are termed “root-stems” and are grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants.( OE man, NE man, book). In Early OE the root-vowel in some forms was subjected to phonetic changes: if the grammatical ening contained the sound [i ], the vowel was narrowed and/or fronted by palatal mutation. After the ending was dropped the mutated vowel turned out to be the only marker of the form. The interchange of root-vowels had turned into a regular means of form –building used similarly with inflections. This peculiarity of the root-stems is of considerable consequence for later history and has left traces in ME (irregular pl forms – men, women, teeth and the like come from the OE root-stem declension).
36.The rise of do-forms
In the early NE a new set of analytical forms which entered the paradigms of the Pres.&Past Tense of the Indicative Mood was developed:interrogative&negatives forms with the auxiliary verb “do”.these forms are known as do-periphrasis.In ME the verb don was used ogether with an Inf.to express a causative meaning.In the early NE the causative meaningpassed to a similar verb phrase with “make”,while the perphrasis with do began to be employed instead of simple,synthetic forms.At 1st the do-perephrasis was more frequent in poetry.The use of do enabled the author to have an extra syll.in the line/Then it spread to all kinds of texts.In 16&17c the periphrasis with do was used in all types of sentences-negative,affirmative&interrogative;it freely interchanged with the simple form,without do.In the end of17 c he use of simple forms&the do—pre became more differentiated:do was found mainly in negative statements&?,the simple forms-in affirmative statements.The do-pre turned into analytical negative&interrogative forms of simple forms:presn&past.When word oder became fixed,&the pedicate
Of the centence followed the subject,the use of do made it possible adhere to this order in ?,for at least the notional part of the predicate could thus preserve its position after the subject.This order of words was well established in numerous sentences with analytical forms&modals phrases.In the 18 c the periphrasis with do as an equivalent of the simple form in affirmative statements fell into disuse(its employment in affirmative sentences acquired a stylistic function:it made the statement emphatic)
37. The rise of the future forms.
In OE category of tense consisted of Pr.& Past. Pr could indicate pr & fut actions. Fut happenings were also presented:modal phrases(v sculan, willan, magan, cunnan) & Infinitive of the notional verb. The meaning of fut was combined with strong modal meaning.
ME shall+inf=the principle means of indicating fut in any context. Shall retained its modal meaning of necessity, but weakened it so that phrase denoted pure futurity; willen+inf=also expressed fut, but the meaning of volition was more obvious than the modal meaning of shall.
Shakespeare’s age-shall/will outnumbered all the other ways of indicating fut. 17cent. John Wallis formulated the rule about regular interchange depending on person, which proves that the semantic diff b/n the 2 auxiliary v was slight. End of 17-constructive form ‘ll.