Lecture 1. Periodisation of English.

Contents:

1. Subject and aims of the course «a History of the English Language».

2. Internal and external factors of language evolution.

3. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to the history of language.

4. Indo-European and Germanic Influence on the English Language.

5. Periodisation of English. Survey of periods.

Subject and aims of the course «A History of the English Language»

The course History of English is intended for the 3rd year students of English and designed for 1 semester with 4 hours per week for 19 weeks (1 Lecture and 1 seminar per week), including a final examination. By the end of the course the students are supposed to have a general idea of the historical development of the English language; to read and translate Old, Middle, New English texts; to make phonological, grammatical, syntactic and etymological analysis of the texts.

Subject of the course is the historical development of the English language and its subsystems: phonetics and spelling, grammar, lexis and also the development of English-speaking communities. It’s recognised that every living language changes through time, it can never be absolutely static, it develops with the speech community, with the people who speak it. The purpose of our subject is a systemic study of these changes from the earliest times to the present day.

Aims of the History of English – to trace the linguistic forms back to a distant past and explain them from the angle of their evolution – historically.

Internal and external factors of language evolution

The scholars think that while studying the history of a language we deal with the changes at different linguistic levels – the phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic levels. All of them constitute a language system, its internal structure. The development of different elements of these levels is called the internal development, or internal history (linguistic) as opposed to the external development or history (extralinguistic). The latter deals with the history of the speech community: the structure of society, the migration of tribes, economic and political events, the growth of culture and literature, contacts with other languages.

Which changes are most important? Modern scholars think that external factors are of no concern to linguistic history. They believe that the main causes which produce linguistic changes are internal. The most general causes of language evolution are found in the tendencies to improve the language technique.

E.g., the language system tends towards simplicity. This tendency – a simplifying one - is displayed in numerous assimilative and simplifying phonetic changes: the consonant cluster [kn] in know and knee was simplified to [n]; [t] was missed out in often and listen.

Another internal tendency is connected with the previous one and can be called a stabilizing tendency. This tendency is opposite to the first because it prevents any language system from changes. E.g. English has retained many words and inflections expressing the most important notions – personal pronouns, nouns, adjectives, the suffix –d to form the Past tense and so on.

The other scholars, e.g. sociologists in linguistics (Vendryes, Meillet, The Prague school of linguists) attach greater importance to changes of speech in social groups believing that linguistic changes are caused by social conditions and events in external history. They believe that language changes because of migrations and mixtures of people, contacts with other people, the progress of culture and literature, and also because of many psychological and physiological factors. E.g. the psychological theory by Jacob Grimm explaining the changes in the consonant system of Germanic tribes. The whole system of consonants changed because people imitated the speech of the leaders of the ancient tribes who articulated sounds with energy and great tension.

Both internal and external factors that influence any language are important.

Phonetics:

name

know

cow

crow

Grammar:

can, may, will – take no s in the 3 person sg present.

Vocabulary:

knight – a boy.

Synchronic and diachronic approaches to the history of language