Introduction

Subject and Aims of the History of English

This outline history covers the main events in the historical development of the English language: the history of its phonetic struc­ture and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system, the growth of its vocabulary, and also the changing historical conditions of English-speaking communities relevant to language history.

A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English (Mod E) we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level — phonetics, grammar or lexis — synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features or their tendencies to change. The synchronic approach can be contrasted to the diachronic. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language. In practice, however, the contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not so marked as in theory: we commonly resort to history to explain current phenomena in Mod E. Likewise in describing the evolution of language we can present it as a series of synchronic cross-sections, e.g. the English language of the age of Shakespeare (16th-17th c.) or the age of Chaucer (14th c).

Therefore one of the aims of this course is to provide the student with knowledge of linguistic history sufficient to account for the principal features of present-day English.

Another important aim of this course is of a more theoretical nature. While tracing the evolution of the English language through time, the student will be confronted with a number of theoretical questions such as the relationship between statics and dynamics in language, the role of linguistic and extralinguistic factors, the interdependence of different processes in language history

One more aim of this course is to provide the student of English with a wider philological outlook. The history of the English language shows the place of English in the linguistic world; it reveals its ties and contacts with other related and unrelated tongues.

Concept of Linguistic Change

One can distinguish three main types of difference in language: geographical, social and temporal. Linguistic changes imply temporal differences, which become apparent if the same elements or parts of the language are compared at successive historical stages; they are trans­formations of the same units in time which can be registered as distinct steps in their evolution. For instance, the OE form of the Past tense pl Ind. Mood of the verb to find— fundon ['fundon] became founden ['furndan] in the 12th-13th с and 'found in Mod E. The continuity of the item was not broken, though we can register several changes: a) pho­netic and spelling changes as the root vowel [u] became [u:] and then [au] and the letter и was replaced by the digraph ou; b) phonetic and morphological changes in the inflection: -оn>-en>—; c) morphological changes in the place of the form in the verb paradigm and its grammatical meaning: fundon was the Past tense pi of the Ind. Mood; its descendant founden was also the form of Past pi Subj. and Part. II, as these three forms had fallen together; the modern found has further extended its functions — it stands now both for the singular and plural since these forms are not distinguished in the Past tense. All these changes can be defined as structural or intralinguistic as they belong to the language system.

The concept of linguistic change is not limited to internal, structural changes. It also includes temporal differences in the position of the given unit in language space, that is the extent of its spread in the functional varieties of the language. A new feature — a word, a form, a sound — can be recognised as a linguistic change only after it has been accepted for general use in most varieties of the language or in its main, "prestige" variety — the Literary Standard. For instance, in the 10th-11-th с many Scandinavian words penetrated into the Northern dialects of the English language (as a result of Scandinavian invasions and mixture of the population), e.g. sky, they, call; later they entered literary English.

Most linguistic changes involve some kind of substitution and can therefore be called replacements. Replacements are subdivided into different types or patterns. A simple one-to-one replacement occurs when a new unit merely takes the place of the old one, e.g. in the words but, feet the vowels [u] and [e:] (pronounced four or five hundred years ago) have been replaced by [] and [i:] respectively ([u]>[] and [e:]> [i:]) OE ea was replaced by the French loan-word river, OE eode ['eode], the Past tense of to go, was replaced by a new form, went. Replacements can also be found in the plane of content; they are shifts of meaning in words which have survived from the early periods of history, e.g. OE feoh [feox] had the meaning 'cattle', 'property', its modern descendant is fee.

Those are the simplest one-to-one replacements. Most linguistic changes, however, both in the language system and language space, have a more complicated pattern. Two or more units may fall together and thus may be replaced by one unit, or, vice versa, two distinct units may take the place of one. The former type of replacement is defined as merging or merger; the latter is known as splitting or split. The modern Common case of nouns is the result of the merging of three OE cases — Nom., Gen. and Ace.

Linguistic changes classified into different types of replace­ment, namely splits and mergers, can also be described in terms of oppositi­ons, which is a widely recognised method of scientific linguistic analysis. Thus a merger is actually an instance of neutralisation or loss of oppo­sitions between formerly contrasted linguistic units, while the essence of splitting is the growth of new oppositions between identical or non-distinctive forms. To use the same examples, when three OE cases merged into the Comm. case, the opposition between the cases was neutral­ised or lost. When [k] split into [k] and [t] there arose a new kind of phonemic opposition — a plosive consonant came to be opposed to an affricate (cf. kin and chin).

Although many linguistic changes can be described in terms of replacements and explained as loss and rise of oppositions, the con­cept of replacement is narrower than that of linguistic change. Some changes are pure innovations, which do not replace anything, or pure losses. Thus we should regard as innovations numerous new words which were borrowed or coined to denote entirely new objects or ideas, such as sputnik, Soviet, nylon, high-jacking, baby-sitter. On the other hand, many words have been lost (or have died out) together with the objects or ideas which have become obsolete, e.g. OE witenaзemot 'Assembly of the elders', numerous OE poetic words denoting warriors, ships and the sea.

In addition to the distinctions described above — and irre­spective of those distinctions, — various classifications of linguistic changes are used to achieve an orderly analysis and presentation. It is obvious from the examples quoted that linguistic changes are con­veniently classified and described in accordance with linguistic levels: we can speak of phonetic and phonological changes (also sound changes), spelling changes, grammatical changes, including morphology and syntax, lexical and stylistic changes. At these levels further subdivisions are made: phonetic changes include vowel and consonant changes, qual­itative and quantitative changes, positional and independent changes, and so on. Changes at the higher levels fall into formal and semantic, since they can affect the plane of expression and the plane of content; semantic changes, in their turn, may take various forms: narrowing or widening of meaning, metaphoric and metonymic changes, etc.

In books on language history one may often come across one more division of linguistic changes: into historical and analogical. This distinction was introduced by the Young Grammarian school in the late 19th с A change is defined as historical only if it can be shown as a phonetic modification of an earlier form, e.g., the modern pi ending of nouns -es has descended directly from its prototype, OE -as due to phonetic reduction and loss of the vowel in the unstressed ending (cf. OE stan-as and NE ston-es); both the change and the resulting form are called "historical". An analogical form does not develop directly from its prototype; it appears on the analogy of other forms, similar in meaning or shape. When the plural ending -es began to be added to nouns which had never taken -as — but had used other endings: -и, -an, or -a, — it was a change by analogy or an instance of analogical levelling. This analogical change gave rise to new forms referred to> as "analogical" (cf. OE nam-an and NE nam-es).

So far we have spoken of separate changes: those of sounds, grammatical forms, or words. In describing the evolution of language, we shall more often deal with the development of entire sets or systems of linguistic units. Every separate change enters a larger frame and forms a part of the development of a certain system. As known, language is a system of interrelated elements, subsystems and linguistic levels. Every linguistic unit is a component part of some system or subsystem correlated to other units through formal or semantic affinities and oppo­sitions. The alteration of one element is part of the alteration of the entire system as it reveals a re-arrangement of its structure, a change in the relationships of its components.

Rate of Linguistic Changes

Linguistic changes are usually slow and gradual. They proceed in minor, imperceptible steps unnoticed by the speakers. The rate of linguistic changes is restricted by the communicative function of lan­guage, for a rapid change would have disturbed or hindered communica­tion between speakers of different generations. Unlike human society, language undergoes no revolutions or sudden breaks. The slow rate of linguistic change is seen in the gradual spread of new features in language space.

This should not be understood to mean that the speed of evolution in language is absolutely consistent or that all changes proceed at exactly the same pace. As shown below, at some historical periods linguistic changes grew more intensive and more rapid, whereas at other periods they slowed down and the English language was stabilised. It is important to note that different parts or levels of language develop at different rates.

It is often said that the vocabulary of a language can change very rapidly. This is true only if we compare lexical changes with changes at other linguistic levels, e.g. grammatical. Lexical changes are quite conspicuous and easy to observe, since new items spring into being be­fore our very eyes, though, as a matter of fact, they rarely amount to more than isolated words or groups of words. New words are usually built in conformity with the existing ways of word-formation which are very slow to change; the new formations make use of available elements — roots, affixes — and support the productive word-building patterns by extending them to new instances. Cf. motel and hotel, typescript and manuscript. It should be added that if the number of new words is very large, it takes them several hundred years to be adopted and assimilated (as was the case in the Middle Ages, when English borrowed hundreds of words from French).

The system of phonemes cannot be subjected to sudden or rapid chan­ges since it must preserve the oppositions between the phonemes required for the distinction of morphemes. Sometimes phonetic changes affect a whole set of sounds — a group of vowels or a group of consonants, — but as a rule they do not impair the differentiation of phonemes.

Likewise, the grammatical system is very slow to change. Being the most abstract of linguistic levels it must provide stable formal de­vices for arranging words into classes and for connecting them into phrases and sentences.