TOPIC 1. 29. The Language in England before English. Who were the first people in Britain about whose language we have definite knowledge? What languages did they speak? – The Celts. The Celtic languages: the Gaelic (or Goidelic) branch and the Brythonic branch. 30. The Romans in Britain. What did the expeditions of Julius Caesar to Britain result in? – Though he had perhaps struck terror into the hearts of the Celts, his expeditions resulted in no material gain and even some loss of prestige. 31. The Roman Conquest. When was Latin introduced in Britain? – When Britain became the province of the Roman Empire. When was Britain conquered by the Romans? What regions did they not penetrate? How did they protect their northern boundaries in Britain? – In the 1st c. AD. Wales and Scotland. By a stone wall stretching at the frontier with Scotland. 32. Romanization of the Island. What were the results of the Roman conquest of Britain? – The Roman civilization and Christianity were brought into Britain. 33. The Latin Language in Britain. Did Latin replace the Celtic languages in Britain? – The use of Latin was confined to the upper classes and some inhabitants of the cities and towns. Latin did not replace the Celtic languages in Britain as it did in Gaul. 34. The Germanic Conquest. What Germanic tribes invaded and conquered Britain in the 5 – 6th c. AD? Where was their home? – Angles, Saxons and Jutes. On the territory of Modern Denmark (the Jutland Peninsula) and northern Germany. Who told us about the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain? – Bede the Venerable in his Church history of the English People, and also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Why did the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain become possible? – The Britons had come to depend on Roman arms for their protection. Consequently, when in 410 the Romans withdrew to defend Rome, the Britons were no longer able to keep out the warlike Picts and Scots. Finally, one of their leaders invited the Jutes to help him drive out the Picts and Scots. The Jutes, having recognised the weakness of the Britons, decided to stay in the island. After them the Saxons and Angles came. 35. Anglo-Saxon Civilization. What happened to the Britons after the Anglo-Saxon invasion? What happened to the Roman towns? – The Britons were either subjugated or driven out. The Roman towns were burnt and abandoned. How many Anglo-Saxon kingdoms are recognised as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy? What are they? – The seven kingdoms. They were: Kent was settled by the Jutes; Sussex, Essex, Wessex by the South, East and West Saxons; East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria by the Angles. When and why did Wessex begin to extend its influence? – In the 9th c., because under King Alfred the Great (871–899) Wessex attained a high degree of prosperity and considerable enlightenment. 36. The Names 'England' and 'English'. Why did the names England and English come into use? – Both names are derived from the name of Angles (Angli in Latin sources, but Engle in OE ones. The term English (OE Englisc) is older than England (OE Engla land, i.e., the land of the Angles). England was named after the Angles either because of the early supremacy of the Anglian kingdoms in the north, or because of the desire to avoid confusion with the Saxons who remained on the continent. 37. The Origin and Position of English. What is the origin of English? – English belongs to the Low West Germanic branch of the IndoEuropean family of languages. It shares certain characteristics common to all Germanic languages, i.e. the Common Germanic Consonant Shift (Grimm's law), the strong and weak conjugation of verbs, the strong and weak declension of nouns. 38. The Periods in the History of English. How many periods can be recognised in the history of English? What are they? – Three periods: Old English (5–11th c.), Middle English (12–15th.), Modern English (begins in the 16th c.). Within Modern English the Early Modern English period can be distinguished (16–early 18th c.). The progressive decay of inflections marks the evolution of English in its various stages (full endings – reduced endings – no endings). 39. The Dialects of Old English. How many dialects were there in Old English? – The number of oral dialects coincided with the number of the kingdoms (seven), but only four of them are preserved in manuscripts: Kentish, Northumbrian, Merсian, Wessex. The Wessex dialect attained something of the position of a literary standard. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF OLD ENGLISH 40. Some Characteristics of Old English. What aspects of language do the differences between Old and Modern English concern? – Spelling and pronunciation, the lexicon, and the grammar. What vowels have undergone considerable modification? Give examples. – Long vowels, e.g. (OE – ModE) gan – go, bat – boat, fot – foot, metan – meet, riht – right, hu – how. What differences of spelling can be distinguished in Old and Modern English? – The use of two specific characters (þ, ð) instead of the modern th (þorn – thorn, ðis – this). The use of characters 'y', ‘æ’ for specific palatal sounds (fyr – fire, bæc – back. The use of different letters or combination of letters in native words, e.g. ecg – edge, scip – ship, nacod – naked, benc – bench. What is the main difference between the OE and ModE vocabulary? – The rarity of those words derived from Latin and the absence of those from French. The vocabulary of Old English is almost purely Germanic. A large part of this vocabulary has disappeared from the language. What type of languages did Old English belong to – synthetic or analytic? Give the definitions of each of them. – OE belonged to the synthetic type. A synthetic language indicates the relation of words in a sentence largely by means of inflections. An analytic language makes extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary verbs as well as depends upon word order to show other relationships. OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR 41. The Noun. What grammatical categories did the OE noun have? – Case, number and gender. How many cases did the OE noun have? What were they? – Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. What is the difference between the strong and weak declension of the OE noun? – They differed according to whether the stem ended in Germanic in a vowel or in a consonant. Compare the categories of the OE noun with the Modern English. What is the difference? – There is no grammatical gender in ModE and there are only two cases (Common and Possessive) instead of four. 42. Grammatical Gender. How many forms of gender did the Old English noun have? What were they? Did they depend upon the considerations of sex? Was their usage quite logical? – Masculine, feminine and neuter. Their usage was not quite logical because they did not depend upon the considerations of sex. 43. The Adjective. How many declensions did the OE adjective have? What were they? How were they used? - The strong and weak declension. The strong one was used with the definite article or with the demonstrative and possessive pronouns, the weak one – without them. 44. The Definite Article. How many articles were there in OE? What is the difference between the definite article in Old and Modern English? - The definite article only. In OE it had various forms of gender, case and number. 45. The Personal Pronoun. Which forms of the OE personal prounouns are similar to the modern ones? Which are different? - Forms like me, he, him, his, we, us. The others were written in a different way. The distinction between the dual and the plural has disappeared. 46. The Verb. How many categories did the OE verb distinguish? What category did it lack? - Person, number, tense (time) and mood. It lacked the category of future time. What two great classes did the OE verb distinguish? What was the difference between them? What are they called in Modern English? - Weak and strong verbs (in ModE they are regular and irregular verbs). The strong verbs indicated change of tense by a modification of their root vowel, the weak verbs – by the addition of the dental suffix (-od > -ed, -d). How many basic forms did the OE strong verbs have? What were they? - The infinitive (present), the past sg., the past pl., the past participle. How many classes did the OE strong verbs have? What did they differ in? - The seven classes of the OE strong verbs differed in their root vowels. Why has the weak conjugation become the dominant one in Modern English? - Because many strong verbs have passed over to this conjugation, and practically all the new verbs are inflected in accordance with it (borrowed verbs among them). 47. The Language Illustrated. OLD ENGLISH TEXT Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum Our Father, Thou who art in heaven Отче Наш, иже еси на небесех, sie þin nama gehalgod, tobecume þin rice. Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Да святится имя Твое, Gewurþe þin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Да приидет Царствие Твое, да будет воля Твоя яко на небеси и на земли. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg, Give us this day our daily bread, Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь And forgyf us ure gyltas And forgive us our trespasses, И остави нам долги наша, Swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. as we forgive those who trespass against us. Яко же и мы оставляем должником нашим, And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. И не введи нас во искушение, но избави нас от лукаваго. 48. The Resourcefulness of the Old English Vocabulary. Was Old English able to convey any fine distinctions of thought and feeling? Was it limited in it resources? – No, it was not. It could express subtler shades of meaning due to the remarkable capacity for word formation. It was more resourceful in utilizing its native material than Modern English. From one root more than a hundred words could be formed. E.g., mod ‘spirit, courage, pride’ – modig ‘spirited, bold’ – modiglic ‘magnanimous’ – modignes ‘magnanimity’ – modful ‘haughty’ – modigian ‘to be indignant, to rage’, etc. The root lent itself to combination with other words to indicate various mental states, e.g., modlufu ‘affection’, modcaru ‘sorrow’, stiþmod ‘resolute’, torhtmod ‘glorious’, etc. 49. Self-explaining Compounds. What are self-explaining compounds? Are they coined today as often as in Old English? What task did they serve in Old English? – These are compounds, whose meaning is evident from the meanings of their parts through the association and usage, e.g., railway, greenhouse, coffee table. Today they are not coined as easily as in Old English because we have many borrowings instead. The Old English compounds could express different notions (e.g., earhring ‘ear+ring’, i.e. ‘earring’; leohtfæt ‘light+vessel’, i.e. ‘lamp’), including the abstractions of science, theology and metaphysics (fielleseocnes ‘falling+sickness’, i.e. ‘epilepsy’; frumweorc ‘beginning+work’, i.e. ‘creation’). 50. Prefixes and Suffixes. Why were there so many affixes (suffixes and prefixes) in Old English? Give examples. – They formed new words to modify or extend the root idea, as there were not so many borrowings in Old English. E.g., settan ‘to set’ – asettan ‘place’ – besettan ‘appoint’, etc. Which of them are still present in Modern English? – E.g., thankful, friendship, likeness, kingdom, brotherhood, teacher, misdeed, forget, become, understand, etc. Could the Old English affixes serve to creating scientific or theological terms? – Yes, e.g. tunglere ‘an astronomer’ (tungol ‘star’), godcundlic ‘divine’. What are specific features of the Old English poetic vocabulary? – The wealth of synonyms for the key notions of heroic life (the names for war, warrior, shield, sword, battle, sea, ship, etc.) and the bold use of metaphors (e.g., the king is ‘the giver of rings’, ‘the leader of hosts’, ‘the victory-lord’; a battle is ‘the play of swords’, a warrior is ‘the shield-bearer’, a boat is ‘the seawood’, ‘the wave-courser’). 51. Old English Syntax. What is the difference between ‘paratactic’ and ‘hypotactic’ style? Which of them was typical of the Old English syntax? - The former is characterized by shorter sentences without subordination, while the latter has a high proportion of longer sentences with subordination. The Old English syntax was characterized by the paratactic style as the subordinators (conjunctions) as well as adverbs were ambiguous: þa could mean either ‘when’ or ‘then’. Why could Old English have a ‘free’ (not fixed) order of words? – Because the various case forms of nouns were able to express the relations between the words in a sentence.
