Assignments for the classes of the History of the English Language

Periods

Subperiods

Date of the beginning of the period and corresponding

historical event

Date of the end of the

period and corresponding

historical event

Linguistic situation

Old English

Middle English

New English

Phenomena compared

Commonalities

Distinctive Features

PIE (except PG)

PG

I

Morphology

Parts of speech

1. Nouns

- inflectional system

- grammatical categories of case, number, gender

- morphological classification into declensions (not a grammatical category) depending on the stem suffix (основообразующий суффикс)

- 8 cases

- dual number

PG reduced the number of cases to 4 (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative)

2. Adjectives

- inflectional system

- grammatical categories of case, number, gender

adjective inflections were the same as the noun inflections

PG developed 2 distinct sets of inflections: for the strong and the weak declensions of the adjective

3. Pronouns

- grammatical categories of case, number, gender

4. Verbs

- inflectional system

- strong verbs which showed their grammatical form (tense) by means of ablaut (change of the vowel of their root)

- division into classes

- grammatical categories of tense, number and person

more complicated verb inflectional system

- PG simplified the system of inflections: only 2 tenses of the verb (the Present and the Past / Preterite)

- PG invented weak verbs which formed the past form by adding a dental suffix

II

Phonology

1. Accent

great importance of accent

- great use of musical accent depending on musical pitch

- the stress was free and movable (could fall on any syllable)

- the force (expiratory, breath, dynamic) stress using acoustic loudness became predominant

- the stress was fixed on the 1^st syllable, usually – the root of a word

- weakening, reduction and loss of unstressed vowels

Phoneme-system

2. Consonants

the bulk was stable

the 1^st consonant shift was followed by Verner’s law

3. Vowels

- the length of vowels was phonemic making 1 word different from another

- ablaut – spontaneous and independent alteration – as a grammatical means

- strict differentiation, order and symmetry of long and short vowels

- Umlaut (mutation) – positionally dependent alteration

- appearance of diphthongs

III

Lexicology

Vocabulary

- common words (roots) concerning natural phenomena, plants and animals, terms of kinship, basic activities of men, some pronouns and numerals

- the same word-building means

- unique vocabulary items belonging to basic sphere of life: nature, sea, home life (house, land, drink, sea, wisdom)

- PG borrowed many words from neighbouring people (the Celts, the Romans) to do with warfare and trade

IV

Alphabet

Latin alphabet (although oral communication)

runic script Futhark [‘fu:  ark] (from the 1^st letters of the earliest known alphabet)

№

Letters

The names

of the letters

Pronunciation

Position

1.

Þ

θ

thorn (шип)

[ð]

Intervocally:

Between a vowel and a sonorant:

[θ]

In other cases:

2.

(w)

wynn (“joy”)

[w]

In all cases:

3.

c

cen (“torch”) > [se:]

[k’]

Before front vowels ( e, e, i, y):

[k]

In other cases:

4.

yogh (“yoke”)

[γ’]

Next to front vowels:

[γ]

Between back vowels (a, o, u):

After r

[g]

Initially before back vowels:

After consonants (except r )

[j]

Initially before front vowels ( e, e, i, y):

5.

ð (đ)

Crossed d

[ð]

Intervocally:

Between a vowel and a sonorant:

[θ]

In other cases:

6.

f

feoh (“cattle”) > [ef]

[v]

Intervocally:

Between a vowel and a sonorant:

[f]

In other cases:

7.

s

siZel (“sun”) > [es]

[z]

Intervocally:

Between a vowel and a sonorant:

[s]

In other cases:

8.

æ

æsc (“ash”)

[ e], [ e:]

Front vowel

9.

h

hæZl (“hail”) > [ha]

[x’]

After front vowels ( e, e, i, y):

[x]

After back vowels (a, o, u):

[h]

Initially and in other cases:

10.

b

beorc (“birch”) > [be:]

[b]

11.

d

dæZ (“day”) > [di:]

[d]

12.

l

laZu (“sea”) > [el]

[l]

13.

m

man (“man”) > [em]

[m]

14.

n

nied (“necessity”) > [en]

[n]

In all positions except when followed by k or g

15.

p

peor (“?”) > [pi:]

[p]

16.

r

rād (“riding”) > [a:r]

[r]

17.

t

tiw (name of a god) > [ti:]

[t]

18.

x

eolh (“?”) > [eks]

[ks]

19.

a

ac (“oak”) > [a:]

[a], [a:]

Back vowel

20.

e

eoh (“horse”) > [e:]

[e], [ e:]

Front vowel

21.

i

is (“ice”) > [i:]

[i], [i:]

Front vowel

22.

o

ōs (“god”) > [o:]

[o], [o:]

Back vowel

23.

u

ur (“bison”) > [u:]

[u], [u:]

Back vowel

24.

y

yr (“bow”) > [ypsilon]

[u], [u:]

Front vowel

Number of phonemes

New vowels comparing to PG

Peculiarities of the vowel system

Oppositions within

the system

Vowel changes

14 monophthongs

(7 long, 7 short)

8 diphthongs

(4 long, 4 short)

y, ỹ

ie, īe

- emergence of some new phonemes (y, ỹ, ie, īe) due to Mutation

- the set of short diphthongs;

- an exact parallelism between long and short vowels, both monophthongs and diphthongs;

- the length of the vowels was phonemic (length differentiated between 2 words differing only in the length of the vowel);

- all the diphthongs were falling with the 1^st element stronger than the 2nd;

- shortening of long final vowels, dropping of short final vowels;

- under stress any vowel could be found, in an unstressed position there were no diphthongs of long monophthongs but only 5 short monophtongs (i, e, u, o, a)

- Monophth. – diphth.

- Short monopth. – long monophth.

- Short diphth. – long diphth.

- front vowels (i, e, æ, y) – back vowels (a, o, u)

- Independent changes

- I-Umlaut

- Palatal Mutation

- OE Breaking

- Palatalization

- Velar Mutation

- Germanic Breaking

- Compensative Lengthening

Place of articulation

Manner of

articulation

Labial

Labial - dental

Forelingual

Mediolingual

(palatal)

Backlingual

(velar)

Pharyngeal

Noise consonants

Plosive

short

(voiceless – voiced)

p - b

t - d

k’

k - g

geminates

(voiceless – voiced)

p: - b:

t: - d:

k’: - g’:

k: - g:

Fricative

short

(voiceless – voiced)

f - v

θ – ð

s – z

(j)

x’ - γ’

x – γ

h

geminates

(voiceless – voiced)

f:

θ:

s:

x’:

x :

Sonorants

Short

m

w

n

r

l

j

()

Geminates

m:

n:

Number of phonemes

New consonants comparing to PG

Peculiarities of the consonant system

Oppositions within

the system

Consonant changes

16 phonemes

Geminates (long consonants)

- a set of geminates (long consonants) due to the process of germination (doubling)

- phonemic opposition of short and long consonants

- the absence of voice fricatives (ð, v, z), they were allophones of the voiceless fricatives (f, θ, s, x)

- noise consonants – sonorants;

- Labial, Labial-dental Forelingual - Mediolingual

(palatal) - Backlingual

(velar) - Pharyngeal

- plosives – fricatives

- short – geminates

- voiced – voiceless

- Consonant Shift I (Grimm’s Law)

- Consonant Shift II

- Verner’s Law

- Contraction

- Loss of Nasal

- Sonorants

- Neutralization of Occlusives

PIE

PG

о

ā

е

ē

u