Cardset

• 8th century BC: Cletic tribes inhabit England

• Middle 1st century (43 AD): Roman tribes inhabit England

• 443 AD: Anglo-Saxon tribes gradually replace Celts

• Late 6h centuy: Christianisation

• 7th century: establishment of 7 kingdoms

  • Essex

  • Sussex

  • Wessex

  • Mercia

  • Northumbria

  • Kent

  • East Anglia

• Late 9th century: Danelaw

• 10th century: 2nd Viking Age (Cnut etc.)

• January 1066: King Edward the Confessor (last AS king) dies without direct heir, conlflict between

  • Harold Godwin, chosen successor by AS nobility

    • Earl of Sussex

    • Brother of the Queen of king Edward

  • William, claims throne was promised to him

    • Duke of Normandy

    • Maternal cousin of Edward

  • Harald Hardrada of Norway, to whom the king also promised the throne so he would not attack him

• September 25th 1066: Battle of Stamford Bridge (Yorkshire), Harold defeats attack by Harald Hardrada of Norway

• September 28th 1066: William lands in England in Pevensey

  • Army has to travel from Yorkshire to Pevensey in only 19 days

• October 14th 1066: Harold dies in battle of Hastings (Norman-French Army led by Will vs. English army of Rollie)

• December 25th: William crowned king of England

• 1066-1086: disposession of English nobility

• Replacement of higher ecclesiastics

• Norman French (Anglo-Norman) language of ruling elite

  • Monarchy

  • Aristocracy

  • Archbishops

  • Bishops

  • Abbots of major monasteries

• Vast majority of population continues to speak English

• Middle/End of 12th centuy:

  • OE used in writing and OE texts copied until then

  • New OE texts rare after Norman Conquest

• Latin and French used for

  • Administrative purpose

  • Literary purpose

  • Frech used as vehicle language in schools up to c. 1375

• Many people bi-/trilingual in French & English, especially in the cities

• Late 12th century: nwe English texts, language greatly changed -> “birth” of ME

  • Phonological changes

  • morphological reduction

  • New lexis

  • New orthography

• 700-1066

  • Law:

    • 90% L

    • 10% ED

  • Poetry

    • 55% ED

    • 45% L

  • Scholarly texts

    • 100% L

  • Spoken language

    • 95% ED

    • 5% L

• 1066-1300

  • Law:

    • 60% L

    • 30% F

    • 10% ED

  • Poetry

    • 50%ED

    • 40% L

    • 10% F

  • Scholarly texts

    • 85% L

    • 15% F

  • Spoken language

    • 90% ED

    • 5% L

    • 5% F

• 1400-1500

  • Law

    • 60% ED

    • 35% L

    • 5% F

  • Poetry

    • 80% ED

    • 20% L

  • Scholarly texts

    • 85% L

    • 10% SE

    • 5% F

  • Spoken language

    • 90% ED

    • 10% L

• 1550-1650

  • Law

    • 100 % SE

  • Poetry

    • 100% SE

  • Scholarly texts

    • 100% SE (1650)

  • Spoken language (1650)

    • 70% ED

    • 30 % SE

• 1066: Norman Conquest

• 1086: completition of Domesday book (record of a survey of England property/land/workforce made for William the Conqueror)

• 1154: last entry in AS chronicles

• 1204/05: confiscation of land of many noblemen, above all those who lived in Englad (families with estates on both sides of the channel had to give up one or the other)

• 1215: 4th Laternal Council insists on minimal relgious instruction for all Christians

  • re-emergence of religious literature

• 1258: New form of government installed: council of 24 members

• 1325-1384: John Wycliffe (theologian & preacher): his followers (the Lollards) translate the complete bible into English (80s &90s, Wycliffe bible)

• 1337-1453: Hunder Year War between English and French begins

• 1345-1400: Geoffrey Chaucer

• 1348-50: the plague/black death

• 1360: Treaty of Bretigny

  • End of first phase of HY War

  • Height of England hegemony

• 1362: Edward III opens parliament with speech in Egnlish (rather than French) -> “Statue of Pleading” enacted, which said that lawsuits were to be conducted in English

• 1381: peasants revolt

• 1420: English official language of administration -> “Chancery English”, beginning of standardized English

• 1453: End of HY War, major territory loss for England

• 1455-1487: “War of the Roses”, political/dynastic conflict between House of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose)

• 1476: William Caxton introduces printing press in England

• 1485: accession of Henry VII (first Tudor king)

• 1492: Columbus invades America

• 1525/26: Tyndale translation of new testament

• 1534: Act of supermacy: Henry VIII declares himself head of English Church

Complex situation

• lower social rank: monolingual native speakers of English

• Scandinavian-English bilingual speaker (from former Danelaw area)

• Monoligual French native speakers > higher social ranks

• Latin speakers (Church, scholarship, public records)

  -> increase of French among members of middle class

  -> increase of peope learning English

  • mainly people from Church (who had been replaced from English ones to French ones) who wanted to interact with the common people, who spoke English

    • introduced French loanwords

• Reading & writing in Latin

• Knowledge expected to be generalized to English

• For 200 years, ME was only a spoken langauge (records were only kept infrequently in 11th/12th century)

  • Written form tend to slow down/prevent language change, while unwritten language tends to change more rapidly

• Geographical and social isolation of English speakers results in variety of regional dialexct

• Diglossia: English as lower, socially stigmatized dialect spoken by peasants, artisan workers vs. French, language of prestige -> Language of prestige influences “lower” dialect

• Five regional dialects

• BUT: dialect situation complex and fluid in terms of geographical and temporal dimension: more of a dialect continuum

• Northern dialects more innovative

  • Likely due to Scandinavian speakers

• Southern dialects more conservative

• 1250-1350: religious and secular literature

• 1350-1400: rhymed metrical verses (borrowed from French) ! revival of native alliterative verse

• 1400-1500: great fourteenth century work, mystery plays

• Loss of “essentially phonetic” spelling in OE

• Replacement of runic letters with Latin letters

• Norman scribes introduced Romance spelling conventions (sometimes due to confusion regarding Egnlish spelling)

• Lack of correspondence between OE and ME later intesifide by Great Vowel Shift

  
  

• Changes in ME lexicon and grammar can be explained as a result of creolization

• ME as hybrid language between French and OE

  • Purely Germanic:

    • syntax

    • phonology

  • Mix between French and OE:

    • Lexicon affected by French

    • Simplification of grammar due to interference between French and English inflection

• Theory not widely accepted

• Use of French in England was quite limited

• Vocabulary not main determining factor of Creolization

• No structural changes can be (solely) attributed to French

• Effects on English phonology minimal

• Many changes in ME were already on the way in OE

• English dialects most in contact with French changed the least, those with the least contact changed the most

• No influence on

  • Word order

  • Rule of concord

• Influence on

  • Lexicon/lexical borrowing

  • Derivational affixes (such as -able)

  • Phonemicization of certain allophonic pairs

• Large share of French basic vocabulary in English not only due to contact situation, but rather due to forced linguistic contact of conquerin power

• England in 1066: relatively strong literary tradition

• After Norman conquest:

  • new literary genres

  • new metres

  • new poetic forms

• Until 1200, old OE literature was still copied

• 1200: change more evident, Scandinavian and Romance words more frequent

• superstrate: Language of dominant group = French

• Adstrate: Language of equal power = Scandinavian

• Substrate: Language of dominated Group = Celtic

• Raids

• Settlements -> most influential linguistically

• political conquest

• More than 50% of English lexicon not of Germanic origin

• Inherited: 22-27%

• French: 22-35%

• Latin: 22-28%

• Greek: 1.6 - 5.3%

• Unknown etymology: 4%

• Non-european languages: 1 - 2%

• Plus influences from Durc/Flemish, Arabic, Italian (ducat), Spanish (cork), Portuguese (marmalade)

• 44% of all English headwords are of French or Latin origin

• more than 10´000

• 75% of those loanwords are still used today

• Total: 53`925 words

• OE: 10´000 (19%)

• French: 8´600 (16%)

• Latin: 6´500 (12%)

• French or Latin 5`700 (11%)

  -> 39% French/Latin

• Many French loanwords already had equivalent word in AS

  • Rise (AS) - mount (NF) - ascend

  • Help (AS) - aid (NF) - assistance (L)

  • Fair (AS) - beautiful (NF) - attractive (L)

• Loanwords often had/acquired more specific meaning

• Latin loans often related/more specifically about church context

• Some French words were adopted to English and then changed like English words, i.e. by adding an English suffix

  • Gentlewoman

  • Gent-ly

  • Gentle-ness

    
    

• Between 1200-1299 some borrowing from French

  • about 200 words/century

  • F about 15-22% of all new words

  • L in beginning about 10% of all new words, towards end of 13th centuy about 2% of all new words

• 1300-1500 spike in borrowing from French (1100 new words/century plus ca. 1000 French/Latin words)

  • 1300-1400: F 27-40% of all new words

  • 1400-1500: F 15-20% of all new words

    • Increased percentage of words whcih could be of Latin or French origin (about 10-15%) around 1350

• BUT: sudden spike might be misinformation -> there were few ME texts after Norman Conquest, increased loaning could´ve taken place here already but gone unrecorded

• After Norman Conquest (1066-1375) many mono- and bilingual French families including royal family

• Decrease in French learning after Black death (1346-1353)

  • English becomes common medium of communication

• Overall decrease in French speakers after initial spike in Norman Conquest

• Power (court, crown)

• War (battle)

• Art (image)

• Religion (service)

• Architecture (tower)

• Fashion (garment)

• Chase (sport)

• Law

  • Nouns: plea, suit, justice, attorney, jury

  • verbs: judge, sue, plead, arrest, pledge

  • Crimes and misdemeanors: felony, trespass, assault, perjury

  • property, estate, heritage

  • adjectives: just, innocent, culpable

  • OE law terms replaced by French ones

• French nothing <-> AN /s/

  • Bête = beast

  • o   Château = castle

    o   Forêt = forest

• French: second palatalisation took place -> Change did not take place in Anglo Norman

  • /ka/ sound becomes /tsha/ sound

    • Cattle (AN) <-> chattel(s) (CF)

  • /ts/ becomes /s

    • cherry (AN) <-> cerise (F)

    • chisel (AN) <-> ciseau (F)

• AN /w-/ corresponds to CF /g-/

  • reward - regard

  • wage - gage

  • ward - guard

  • warranty - guarantee

• in late 13th century phonetic changes in French: French words whcih were loaned before this time correspond to the unchanged version, those who entered after the 13th century correspond to the changed versions

•   /dʒ/ > /ʒ/

  • Early loans: gentle, jewel, journes

  • Late loans: jabot, rouge

• /tʃ/ > /ʃ/

  • Early loans: chai, chamber, change

  • Late loans: chamois, chaperon, chateau

    • BUT: Chivalry late loan, despite the sound

• Furthermore, English underwent the great Vowel shift in 15th century: French words whcih were loaned before the 15th century were also changed accordingly, those that were adopted after 15th century did not change according to the GVS

  • Early loans

    • attire, nice, strive (i -> ai)

    • espouse, flour, tower (au sound)

  • Late loans

    • police, ravine (i sound)

    • Mousse, rouge, soup (u: sound)

• Different linguistic and social situation of Norse compared to French

• Social:

  • longer coexistence

  • French superstrate language, Norse adstrate language

  • French influence mainly in the South, particularly in London

  • French more written than spoken

• Linguistically: Norse also a Germanic lanugage, adoption therefore easier

• Norse loans less obviosu than French ones

• Many Norse loanwords only preserved in dialects, not in standard English

• Many Norse loanwords only started appearing in ME

• Difference in borrowed content

  • Many more content words borrowed from French than from Norse

  • More basic terms borrowed from Norse

    • Function words (they, them, their, both, same, against, though)

    • Everyday words (want, take give, Thursday, husband)

• Plancenames (-by, -thorp, -dale, -thwaite, -toft)

• Personal names (-son, -sen)

• Certain semantic domains (anger, bag, cake, dirt)

• Doublets (skirt vs. shirt, dike vs. ditch)

• Function words (they, them, both, same, again)

• /sk/ for /sh/: skill, skin, skull, sky, skirt

• /g/ for /j/: gate, egg, get, gift, give

• Replacement of OE words with same origin (cognates)

  • ON egg replaces OE oeg

• Replacement of OE words with different origin

  • ON talka replaces OE niman

• OE word survives, but acquires Norse meaning

  • OE “dream” meant joy, came to acquire meaning of ON “draumr” (meaning dream)

• Both words survive, one restricted to dialect

  • ON kirkja -> kirk, vs. PDE church

• Both words survive, one undergoes semantic shift

  • ON sky “cloud” -> PDE sky, OE heofon -> PDE heaven

• Both words with same derivational origin which developed differently

• Cognates:

  • Related form in different languages

• Doublets:

  • Related form in same language

• Originally OE allophonic fricatives (s - z, f - v, th ; th) were voiced or voiceless depending on position in word

  • voiceless at beginning or end of word or when doubled

  • voiced in medial position surrounded by vowels

• In ME, voiced and voiceless allophones could appear in any position due to…

  • Loss of endings -> original middle position becomes final position

    • OE wif/wifan -> ModE wife

    • OE clathian -> PdE cloth

    • OE huus -> PDE house

  • Borrowing from French, where there was no v/f, z/s distinction

    • vain, veil, very, vice (v)

    • ease, easy, zeal (z)

  • Initial voicing in function words

    • this, that, there

  • initial voicing in Southern dialects -> this development already began in the Sout during the OE period (initial f, s -> v, z)

    • Thunder, soul, fox

  • Sometimes voiced fricatives in medial position as a somplification of pronounciation

  • nitial /ʒ/ only in relatively recent French loanwords

• Qualitative: vowel height, rounding, backness, frontness etc.

• Quantitative: length of vowel

• Simplification

• In /hl/, /hn/ and /hr/ the h was dropped

  • hlaefdige (OE) -> ladi (ME

  • Hnecca (OE) -> neck (ME)

  • Hraefn (OE) -> raven (ME)

• Loss of final b after m (only in pronounciation, not in spelling)

  • lamb, comb, climb

• Loss of w after s or t (sometimes also in spelling)

  • sweostor -> suster (sister)

  • sword, two

• From symmetrical OE system to asymmetrical ME system

• ME more diphthongs

• ME more long than short vowels

• New vowels in ME: ǝ, ǝ:, ɔ:

• Lost vowels/diphtongs in ME: y (only short), æ, æ:, œ, œ:, eo, e:o, aea, ae:a

• New diphthongs:

  • ei, eu, ai, au, oi, ou, ui, iu

• OE /a:/ -> ME /ɔ:/

  • From long a to long o

    • OE stan -> ME ston

  • Only in southern dialects, northern dialects preserved /a:/

    • Sc: stone -> sten -> a turns into e sound, o does not -> a sound must’ve been preserved and then changed during great vowel shift

• Vowel reduction

  • OE /a/ /o/ /u/ turn into ME

• 750-900: pre-cluster lengthening

• 1000: pre-cluster shortening

• 1000: try-syllabic shortening

• 1200: open-syllable lengthening

• Set of rules or historical changes

• are unrelated

• but appear to act together to serve a particular goal

• PCL before homorganic elements

  • homorganic: same articulation point, for instance two bilabial phonemes

• Vowels before

  • /mb/

  • /nd/

  • /ld/

  • /rd/

  • And in some dialects also /ng/, /nth/, /rl/, /rn/, /rth/, /rz/

• Exceptions

  • When another consonant immediately follows the cluster

    • OE lamb -> ME la:mb, BUT lambru (pl.)

  • When word in question is unstressed

• Examples (OE - ME)

  • climban - cli:mben

  • camb -> co:mb

  • findan -> fi:nde

  • hund -> hu:nd

• In disyllabic words

• with closed syllables (CVS; CVCC), i.e. syllables end in consonant

• and long, stressed vowels

• Long vowel becomes short

• Resulted in certain vowel alternations, i.e.

  • five vs. fiftenn, keep vs. kept, wise vs. wisdom

• Exceptions:

  • Pre-cluster lengthening group (homorganic clusters)

  • vowel before /st/

• In trisyllabic words, the first vowel is shortened (if it is long)

  • ha:ligdaeg -> holiday

  • chri:stendom -> Christendom

• led to alternations, for instance

  • so:uth / southern

    
    

• in 12th/13th century

• Rules

  • in disyllabic words

  • with open syllables (first only /a/, /e/, /o/, later also /u/ and /i/

  • and only one medial consonant

• Resutl: first vowel in lenghtened and also lowered if it is not already low

• Examples

  • na-ma -> na:me

  • e-tan -> eten

  • no-su -> no:ze

Didactic poem/text which was written in a eay to teach pronounciation of two consonants

• Who became /o:/

  • /o:/ -> /o:/

  • /ʊ/ becomes /o:/ in MEOSL

• Who became /ɔ:/

  • /a:/ sometimes rounded and raised to /ɔ:/

  • /o/ sometimes became /ɔ:/ due to MEOSL

• Who became /e:/

  • /e:/

  • /e:o/ -> monophtongisation, rounding

  • /ae:/ -> raising

  • /e/ -> lenghtening before consonant group

  • /i/ -> lengthening in open syllables, laxing (less muscular tension)

• Who became /ɛ:/

  • aea -> monophtongisation

  • /ae:/ -> raising

  • /e/ -> lenghtening in open syllable

• Ae disappeaered

  • replaced by a or e

• /u:/ spelled ou or ow (hus -> house)

• /ʊ/ spelled u or o

  • o frequent when sound next to lettzers like, i m n v/u (minin environment)

• Long vowels, especially e: o: /ɔ:/ and /ɛ:/ often marked by doubbling

  • hɔ:m = hom or hoom

• hw replaced by wh (hwaet -> what)

• <þ> and <ð> are replaced by th (þu > thu)

• OE sc replaced by sh

• <ƿ> is replaced by w (ƿolde > wolde)

• new graphemes are introduced for some voiced fricatives: v, z

• North: nay

  • OE: /a:/ -> ME /a:/ -> ModE /eI/

• South: no

  • OE /a:/ -> ME /ɔ:/ -> PDE /oʊ/

• OE /ɣ/ > ME /ʊ/

• OE /j/ > ME /ɪ/

• after front vowels:

  • /ɣ/ > ME /j/ > /ɪ/

    • OE hreġn > ME rein

    • OE seġl > ME sail

    • OE næġl > ME nail

• after backvowels or l/r: /ɣ/ > ME /w/ > /ʊ/

  • OE boga > ME bow

  • OE ploga > ME plow

  • OE fugol > ME fowl

  • OE morgen > ME morrow

• OE: period of full inflection (naama, gifan, caru)

• ME: period of levelled inflections (namme, given, caare)

• Modern English: period of lost inflections (naam, giv, caar)

• Unstressed syllables in OE had full vocalic value

• In ME, full/weak vowels were reduced ti schwa, written <e>

  • OE stanas -> ME stones

  • OE nosu -> ME nose

  • OE drifon -> ME driven

• M and n are merged

• Evidence found in spelling

• Consequences:

  • Endings become levelled or weakened (less ditincitve/apparent)

  • Results in collapse of OE

    • inflectional system

    • Gender

    • Mood

    • Case

• To solve ambiguitiy, new means of to mark had to be developed

• Increased use of function words, mainly prepositions

• relatively fixed word order

  -> English changed from a synthetic language (OE) to an analytical one (ME)

• Synthetic language:

  • Inflectional morphemes prevalent (i.e. single morphemes with multiple components or meanings)

    • morphemes: smallest unito of lanugage which contains meanings, i.e. roots, suffixes, affixes etc.

• Analytic language:

  • Constructions and prepositions used to express meaning

  • Predominance of analytic constructions

  • Relative lack of bound morphology

    • Bound morpheme = word element which cannot stand alone, i.e. suffixed, prefixes

• Oacc - V: him ask

• V - Oacc: ask him

• 1000: about 50/50

• until 1200: small increase in V-Oacc usage (about 0.2 %)

• from 1200 - 1300: change starts to become more prominent

  • 60% V - Oacc

  • 40% Oacc - V

• by 1400:

  • 85% V - Oacc

  • 15% Oacc - V

• by 1500: almost exclusively V - Oacc (about 1% Oacc - V)

• Odat - V: him tell

• V - Odat: tell him

• 1000:

  • 43% Odat - V

  • 57% V - Odat

• 1100:

  • 39% Odat - V

  • 61% V - odat

• N - ´s = Book Paul´s

• ´s - N = Paul´s book

• N - of = Book of Paul

• 900:

  • 47% N - s

  • 52% s - N

  • 0.5 N - of

• 1000:

  • 30% N - s

  • 69 % s - N

  • 1% N of

• 1100:

  • 22% N - s

  • 77% s - N

  • 1% N of

• 1200:

  • 11 % N - s

  • 81% s - N

  • 6% N of

• 1250:

  • 0.5 % N - s

  • 70% s - N

  • 30% N of

• 1300:

  • 0% N - s

  • 15% s - N

  • 85% N of

• Case endings disappeared: Dative and accusative merged into one

• Exception of case ending disappearance:

  • -(e)s for genitive singular and plural

  • uninflected forms used for long time

• Number:

  • plural -(e)s from masculine A-stem extended to all nouns

  • long time comptetition with weak noun plural -en

    • survives in a few exceptions: children, oxen

  • Zero plurals: deer, sheep

  • Umlaut plural: geese, feet, men, mice

• Grammatical gender disappears in favour of “natural” gender

• strong/weak opposition decays

• replaced with zero/-e distinction

• Definite -e

  • After determiners (possessive and demonstrative pronouns) , i.e. the colde steele, this goode wife

  • in vocatives/direct adress: o false mordrour

  • in attributive plurals (two nouns together): the longe nyghtes

• Zero froms

  • singular predicative adjectives: it was old

  • after indefinite determiners: a good wyf

  • without determiners: as hoot he was a

  • unaccompanied adjectives

  • predicative use after to be (i.e. “to be rich” -> no subject)

  • normally zero form for adjectives which in OE were strong and singular, but ME system not very regular

• In late ME, this pattern is restricted to monosyllabic adjectives

• Synthetic construction of OE inherited by ME

  • umlaut for comparatives and superlatives: long - lenger - lengest

  • Lenght alternations due to pre-cluster shortenings

    • glad - gladder - gladdest

• ME addition: analytic comparison with more and most

• 17th century: zwo syllable rule established

  • in adjectives with two or more syllables, no umlaut but rather addition of -er or use of more/most

• OE first demonstrative (inflected & gendered): se, seo, paet, pa

• ME first demonstrative: uninflected the (sg) - tho (pl)

• Suppletion (se, seo) eliminated

  • suppletion: phonetically unrelated allomorphs of same phoneme, i.e. go - went

• Paet used in demonstratives and relative paradigms

• OE second demonstrative pes, peos, pis, pas =

  • ME: this - these (proximal) and that - those (distal)

• 2nd person pronouns

  • OE pu, pe -> ME thou, thee, ye, you for both plural and singular

  • by end of early modern English you - thee distinction lost -> general you for everyone remains

• 3rd person pronouns: m

  • OE he (m) and heo (f) merged into he (through monophthongisation of eo)

• 3rd person pronouns: f

  • New 3rd person pronoun she develops from demonstrative seo or from personal heo (likely a merger of these two)

    • she developed in the north = likely due to contact with Norse

• 3rd person pronuns: n

  • hit -> it

• Plural pronouns

  • OE hi, hie, him, hem, hiere replaced by Scandinavian, they, them their

  • Three phase development completed by 15th century, started in the north

    • 1. they (north) - here - hem (south)

    • 2. thei - here(e)/their - hem

    • 3. thei - their - hem/them

• Dual lost by 13th century

• 1st person singular somewhat lost in North, remains in Midlands and South

• 2nd person sg: OE -st/-est

  • N: -es

  • Mind: -est

  • South: -est

• 3rd sg: OE -(e)th

  • North: -es

  • Mid.: -eth/-es

  • South: -eth

• Plural OE - ath

  • North: -es

  • Mid: en/-es

  • South: eth

• Disappearance of OE distinction between

  • II grade of 1st and 3 sg (draf)

  • III grade of 2nd sg and plural (driffe, drifon)

• Grade reduction: levelling under singular vowel grade (only one vowel change)

  • OE ridan - rad - ridon - riden

  • ME riden - rod - riden -riden

• Transfer to weak inflection

  • OE creopan - creap - crupon - cropne

  • ME crepen - crepte - crepte

• Hybridisation

  • Transfer of forms from onse strong class to another

    • OE specan - spaec - speacon -specen (v)

    • ME speken - spak - speken - spoken

  • Part strong, part weak paradigms

    • OE swellan - sweall - swullon - swollen (iii)

    • Me swellen - swelled - swollen

• Series of changes which affected only the long vowels

• Raising process (all vowels raised one height)

  • Vowels which could not be further raised were diphthongized

• Took place over long period of time, starting in ME and ending around 17th century

• Usually a chain shift

• Not a uniform process

  • Did not take place in all dialects (simulanously or at all)

• [i:] -> [aɪ]

• [e:] -> [i:]

• [ɛ:] -> [i:]

  • Words with ea in spelling and i: sound likely derived from ɛ:, those with ee in spelling and i: sound likely derived from [e:]

• [a] -> [eɪ]

• [ɔ:] -> [əʊ] (ou sound like in boat)

• [o] -> [u:]

• [u:] -> [aʊ] (as in out)

  • From 7 long vowels to 2 long vowels and 4 dophtongs

Sequence of interdependent sound changes

• Drag chain

  • One change “drags” the other bey leaving an empty space where a sound once was which needs to be filled

• Push chain

  • One change pushes the other by taking its place, so that that sound has to find a new place -> pushes the next one

• Otto Jespersen: in London/Cockney dialect and in Australian English, high vowels have tendency towards diphtongization

• Loss of friction/fricatives leads to vowel before fricatives to become long to compensate for the loss of the fricative -> might have been further raised to avoid ambiguity, starting the vowel shift

• Austrian Linguist Karl Luick: In English dialects where /o:/ is fronted rather than raised, the /u:/ is not diphthongized

  • Without a push from o, the u was not diphthongized

• Not all dialects equally affected

• Northern British dialects did not lower diphtohongs /ai/ and /au/ that much

  • my house = mi: hu:s

• Not all words of particular vowel class

  • The ea class: normally ɛ: became i:, but some exceptions

    • Swear, bear, wear (/swɛər /, /bɛər /, /wɛər/)

    • Great, break, steak (ɡreɪt/, /breɪk/, /steɪk/)

    • Dead, head, wealth (/dɛd/, /hɛd/, /wɛlθ/)

    • A sound might’ve prevented the shift from happening, not completely clear

  • The oo class: normally [o:] turned into [u:], but

    • book, foot, good /bʊk/, /fʊt/, /gʊd/

    • blood, country /blʌd/, /kʌntri/

      -> possibly due to plosive sound in the end, not clear

• loss of /a:/ and /ɔ:/

• New /a:/ found in words

  • Of French origin, often before nasals: aunt, branch, command, demand, grant

  • Containint ME /a/ before fricatives: laugh, craft, staff, after

  • Containing ME /a/ before l plus labial: calm, calf, half

  • Containing ME /a/ or /e/ before /r/

    • card, harm, aprt

    • star

    • parson (ME person)

• New /ɔ:/ found in words

  • Of French origin, often before nasals: cause, haunt, launch, sauce

  • Containint ME /ɒ/ before fricatives: off, cross

  • Containing ME /a/ before l but not followed by a labial: call, chalk, malt, salt

  • Containing ME o, o:, or ɔ: before r: boar, floor, pore

• Mergers -> evidence in spelling

  • [e:] and [ɛ:] -> [i:] = beech, beach

  • [a] and [ai] -> [eI] = bate, bait, made, maid

  • ME /ɔ:/ and /o:/ = no - know, roe - row, so - sow

• Not clear

• Might be due to Black Death (1348 onwards)

  • Massive decrease in population

  • Repopulation coincides with Great Vowel Shift

  • Different parts of Englang ight’ve met, contact situation of different dialects

• Language contact between French and English

  • English might’ve tried to drift away from French

  • English begins to spell differently to reaffirm its identity

• before 1066: relatively centralised country with strong literary tradition

• Introduction of French as literary language brought about new literary genres, metres and poetic forms

• 1250-1350: religious and secular literature

• 1350-1400: rhymed metrical verses (borrowed from French) and revival of native alliterative verse

• 1400 - 1500: great fourteenth century works, mystery plays

• /sk/ for /sh/: skill, skin, skull, sky, skirt

• /g/ for /j/: gate, egg, get, gift, give

-         OE /ɣ/ > ME /ʊ/

-         OE /j/ > ME /ɪ/

• after front vowels: /ɣ/ > ME /j/ > /ɪ/

  • OE seġl > ME sail

• after backvowels or l/r: /ɣ/ > ME /w/ > /ʊ/

  • o   OE boga > ME bow

    o   OE ploga > ME plow

• demonstratives and possessives

  • OE: can together preceede nouns

  • ME: word order not stable

• Determiners

  • OE: not obligatory

  • ME: not stable yet, but moving towards a stable system

• Modifiers (adjectives, determiners)

  • OE: agree with head in number, case and gender

  • ME: agreement lost due to morphological reduction

• Word order

  • OE: not stable or necessary, syntactic function associated with particular case

  • ME: word order increasingly SVO, syntactic function indicated by word order

• Subject

  • OE: Many constructions do not require a subject (pro-drop)

  • ME: subject position filled by dummy (h)it, impersonal constructions still frequent

• Subject and verb

  • OE: V2 constrains: inversion of subject and verb after pronominal temporal, locative and negative Adverb

  • ME: Inversion more rare after adverbial phrase, persist after negatives

• position of object

  • OE: more flexible than PDE, case marked function

  • ME: development of analytic objects, order of object fixed as certain cases cannot be distinguished anymore

    • pronoun-noun order preferred

• 3 categories (OE) collapsed to 2

• type 1: athematic

  • Construction

    • infinitive: deem-en, seek-en

    • past 1 sg.: deem-de

    • past participle: (y-)deem-d, (y-)souz-t

      -> -t/-d added directly to stem

  • Derivation

    • descendants of OE weak class 1 and most of class 3

    • French loans with consonant-final stem

• type 2: thematic

  • Construction

    • infinitive: her(i)en, vu(i)en

    • past 1 sg.: her-e-d(e), luv-(e)-de

    • past participle: y-her-e-d, (y-)love-e-d

      -> thematic because themed vowel is added inbetween

  • Derivation

    • Descendants of OE weak class 2 and OE weak class 1

    • French loans with vowel final stem plus some with consonantfinal stem

• IME: system restructured, syllabic weak past (type 2) disappears in all contexts except in verbs with /t, d/ final (seated, defeated, wounded)

• spread of pres. indicativ. pl. aron from Sout

• Loss of wes-forms in imperative (new be/be(th))

• Loss of be form in present (am, art, is, was…)

• Loss of sie- forms in present subjunctive (be, be(n), were, were(n))

• transfer of past /o/ to present = variation between will and wol() = will vs. wont

• Semantic dissociation between present and past

Loss of i umlaut in present (dest, deth) -> do and did still exist, but in present only do

• loss of i-umlaut in present (gaest, gaep)

• Replacement of yede/yode by new suppletive past wente (of wendan = turn)

• Infinitives and particple lost in ME period (to can, canning)

• Reduction of number difference in present

  • OE cann - cunnpn -> ME can

  • OE sceal - sculon -> ME shal/shel

• semantic dissociation between present and past: shall - should

  • split into independent verbs

    • OE ah - agon -> owe, but OE ahte -> own

• Loss of forms: OE mot - moton - moste -> ME most(e)/must(e)

• Loss of verbs: witan (know), dugan (avail, be of use)

  -> stabilisation of unique class of modal auxiliaries with idiosyncratic morphology and syntax

• Strong vs. weak forms whcih differ in OE

  • Present imeprative singular: no ending (strong) vs. -e (weak)

  • past indicative 1 and 3rd sg: none (strong) vs. -e (weak)

  • Past indicative 2nd sg.: -e (strong) vs. -(e)st (weak)

  • Past subjunctive singular: -en (strong) vs. -e (weak)

    
    

• In North and the Midlands it remained a:

  • Evidence in consequences of the GVS: in the North, OE /a:/ -> ME /a:/ -> ModE /eI/

• in the South it turned into /o:/

  • Evidence in consequences of the GVS: in the South, OE /a:/ -> ME /ɔ:/ -> PDE /oʊ/

• in western Midlands: a plus nasal = /o/ (man -> mon)

• everywhere else it stayed /a/

• Kent y -> e (hyll -> hell)

• South and Westmidlands: y -> u (hull)

• East midlands: y -> i (hill)

• North: sal

• South & midlands: schal/shal

• North: - and(e)

• South: -ing

• West Mindlands: -indle, -ing

• East midland: -endle, -ing

• Standard English in a (dialectical) variety of English

• It is NOT

  • an accent

  • a style

  • a language

  • a register

  • a set of prescriptive rules: variation in natural and cannot be eliminated

  • The same as RP

  • a monolithic form

• supra-regional class dialect

  • supra-regional: not tied to specific region

• Was not spoken by vast majority of population

• Was exclusionary, gate-keeping function to exclude majority of population from social and professional upward mobility

• its consevative form is now avoided by younger speakers

• variety of a language

• Distinguishable in terms of

  • syntax

  • vocabulary

    
    

• Supra-regional currency: spoken and understood across different regions

• taught in school and as a foreign language

• literary canon

• medium of translation of the bible

• Is codified in terms of grammar and spelling through a number of mediums (dictionaries, grammar books)

• Relatively stable (but has to keep up with changing culture and needs of society)

• 
  

• Any vernacular adequate at any given moment for group that uses it (there is a reason why group uses that specific standard)

• Vercaluar which is specifically fit for one group not necessarily fit for other group

• Any variety at any time can be picked to become a standard

• Complex connection fo differents processees which leads to one specific variety being picked

1. Elimination of other variants

2. picking a standard variant

3. Acceptance of chosen variant as a standard

4. Diffusion: geographical diffusion aswell as spread across different mediums

5. maintainance: standard variety mus be maintained over certain period

6. Elaboration of function: Standard must have specific function

7. Cofidication: standard needs some agreed upon rules

8. prescription: creation of dictionaries, grammar books etc.

• OE mostly not standardised, but attempts at standardisation existed

  • Mercian literary dialects

  • late 9th century: Alfred Circles

    • King Alfred attempted to establish a standard through court and scholars

    • Late West Saxon Standarad derived from king Alfred standardisation attempt

  • Late 10th/11th century: school ob abbot Aethelwold/Winchesters Scool

  • Late West Saxon Standard closest to an OE standard

• In this sense OE quite standardized, but standardisation was interrupted by Norman Conquest

• Selection: Written WS privileged over other dialects

• Acceptance: WSS imitated outside Wessex

• Codification: Aelfrics grammar, Winchester School

• Elaboration: variety was used to translate philosophical and theological texts from Latin

• 12th - 14th century:

  • no standard English

  • Latin and French for most supra-regional functions

• 14th - 15th century

  • Development of a new Standard

  • 1337-1453, HY-War: English wanted an own identity -> nationalistic policies of Lancastrian monarchs push out French and replace it with English

  • 1348-1350: Black death

    • English replace French with English as the teaching language in grammar schools

  • The importance of London

    • London cultural hub where many different dialects met

    • Center of administration

    • Population mainfolds, need to understand each other

  
  

• Central Midland Standard/Wycliffit

  • 1300 - early 1400

  • Associated with translation of the Bible and other religious texts by John Wycliffe and Lolland movement

    • translation to make it more accessible to common people

• Auchinleck

  • 1330 - 1380

  • King Alexander (famous poet) wrtoe in this dialect

    • Scribes by Londoners as well as by native West Midlanders

  • Attested in a group of manuscripts produced in London

• Chaucerian

  • 1360 - 1430

  • Language of London in Late 1300 and early 1400

  • Used in civic documents and in certain poetical mediums

• Chancery Standard

  • 1430 -

  • Government documents produed in Lodon

  • Most of its spelling survives until today

• Such(e) instead of

  • siche, sych, seche, swich

• Much(e) instead of

  • moch(e)

• not/night instead of

  • nat

• Grew out of little office connected with the chancel/chapel

• Chaplains worked on divine services and wrote letters for the king (king simply signed them)

• Until 14th century Chaplains followed the king around the country so there was no connection to Westminster

• Around 1330 - 1340s: Chancery connected to Westminster

• Court gave impression that Chancery was a CLASS dialect rather than a local dialect

• Chancery slowly became independent and self-perpetuating bureaucracy

• 1420 - 1460: English as official language of administration

• At this point still focused variety of administrative English since it was not yet codified

• Fisher exagerates the importance of Chancery, since there were other offices with the regularity of spelling of Chancery

• Henry IV and V had an official policy of using English in administrative documents but there is no written document declaring English the official language

• Business classes had mixed language systems

  • Latin and Anglo Norman as matric languages

  • comparatively invariant spelling in both

• Benskin accepts that:

  • Regional varieties disappeared between 14th and 15th century

  • Administrative documents were important in carrying the standard spelling into provinces

• Social hub, many different dialects met here -> need for a standard to understand eachother

• London achieve switched to monolingual English between 13th and 15th century

• Northern features came to Lodon between 14th and 15th century

  • are, -s instead of -th for 3rd sg., they

• Elimination of other variants (which lasted a few centuries=

• Language contact (written and spoken)

  • sprading out from ceners of population density to rural areas

  • driven by business context

  • Resulted in loss of regional features

• Rise of living standard in 14th century

  • New people found their voice

  • monolingual English (shaped by AN) as the written standard of the trading classes

• 1476: Claxton establishes printing press in Westminster

• At this point Chancery English the norm for official documents

• Language of early printed books less standardised than that of Chancery documents

• Printed language strongly influenced by Chancery Standard

  • are instead of be/ben

  • -s instead of -th for 3rd person sg.

• Caxton not a professional scribe and had spent time abroad

• Main goal of Caxton was to reach broad audience, not standardisation -> translated in a way that was understandable for educated people

• Prints of Caxton were often close to the spelling system that was used by the writer whose work he was translating or editing

• Elimination of other variations + selection of Lodon accent as a standard = End of ME, beginning of EmE

• Acceptance of London English as a standard

• Diffusion through official documents, printing, bible

• Maintenance and elaboration

• 1568: beginning of attempts to codify language through grammar books and lexicons

• 18th century: codification & prescroption

• /r/ somewhere between consonant and vowel, hence it had a special role

• responsible for many phonological changes between 15th and 18th century

• From 15th century on: Epenthesis

• If a long, stressed vowel was followed by /r/, a schwa was inserted between the vowel and the r

• Futhermore, for some long stressed vowels they further underwent the GVS

  • /e/ = becomes /i/ due to GVS -> addition of schwa before r = hire (haɪər) = hear (/hɪə/)

  • /i/ = becomes /aI/ due to GVS -> addition of schwa before r = hire (haɪər)

  • /u:/ -> /aʊ/ -> + schwa =/aʊə/ for flower (“flauer”), shower, hour /haʊə/

    • BUT: not if r was followed by consonant

      • o   Mourn [mɔːn]

        o   Source [ˈsɔrs]

  • /o:r/ -> /ʊə/ (as in “security” (iu)) OR merger with /ɔ:r/ -> whore, door, floor (/hɔː/, /dɔː/)

    • Poor, moor

  • ME /ɔːr/ -> ModE ɔː (loss of r) = oar /ɔː/, lore /lɔː/, more /mɔː/

• /r/ before /ɛ:/= the <ea> class

  • Normally due to the GVS, /ɛ:/ would end up becoming /i:/ (as in sea)

  • This change was prevented/altered when /ɛ:/ was followed by /r/

  • /ɛ:r / and /a:r / were merged

    • Swear, bear, wear (/swɛər /, /bɛər /, /wɛə/)

    • Hare, pare, share [hɛː] [ʃɛː]

• /e/ followed by /r/ was lowered to /a/ spelling

• first in 13th century

• quite established in 16th century

• By 18th century

  • Reflexes of /a/ kept in Germanic words

    • Heart, star, dark

  • /e/ reintroduced in loans

    • mercy, serve, certain

• Changes in 18th century which affected

  • /ir/

  • /ur/

  • /er/

• those were changed to /ɜ:/

  = dirt (/dɜ:t/), stir, earth, turn

• Only in mainland Englsih

• Not in Scots and partially in Irish English

• ME /a/ and /au/ were raised to /æ/ = bat, catch, January

• Exception: in southern mainland english, /æ/ changed to /æ:/ and eventually back to /a/…

  • before voiceless fricatives (laugh, staff, path) except for /ʃ/ (ash, cash)

  • before nC (dance, advance)

  • Before /r/: bar, car, far

• ME /u/ (and sometimes long version u:) is lowered and rounded to Modern English /ʌ/ in Souther Mainland English dialects

  • bus, but, cousin, cut

  • blood, flood

• Change prevented when /u/ comes after labials

  • bull, pull, put, push

    • BUT: not in romance loans (pus, bugger)

• OE/ME /x/ [x, ç] are lost

• Short vowel + velar = lengthening of vowel which later led to transformations accoding to GVS and dropping of velar

  • bog/boh -> bo:g -> bu:(x) -> bau (bow)

  • night -> nict -> ni:t -> nait

• Alternative: verlar reinterpreted as labiodental, maintained the fricative

  • laughter, cough, through, enough

• [ŋ]

  • in OE and ME: only before /k, g/

  • In ModE independent phoneme through the loss of /g/

  • 16th century: loss of g at the end of words

  • 17th century: loss of g even in medial position

• [ʒ]

  • introduction because of French loanwords (i.e. rouge)

  • Development through palatalization of /zj/ in weak syllables

    • decision, pleasure

• non-rhotic: Long term loss of post-vocalic /r/ completed by 1800

  • car, cardinal, morning, hour

• Rhotic

  • Irish

  • Scots

  • North American English

• In Britain prestige accents are non-rhotic, in US they are rhotic

• Loss of w

  • Two

  • Who

  • Write

  • Except if W after s: Swear, swim, swing

• Loss of /p/ in loanwords from Greek and Latin

  • psychology, pneumonia

• 16th century: Loss of b after /m/

  • lamb, climb, comb, womb

• 17th century: loss of /k/ and /g/ before n

  • knee, gnat

• Dropping after /l/ (not pronounced blju)

• preserved after

  • velars (huge)

  • labial (fume, lube, lewd)

• 18th century: increase in work on elocution

• 19th century: obsession with inappropriate usage

  • shibboleths

• Words or sounds which are hard to pronounce and thus can distinguish between groups (i.e. higher vs. lower class, foreigner vs. local)

  • From hebrew “Password” = words which give you access to certain group

• Characteristics of English shibboleths

  • Clipping of final consonant: comin’, goin’ (= lower class)

  • h-dropping: ‘ave, ‘eat (= lower class)

  • hypercorrect h-insertion (hour, heir, honest)

• late 16th century onwards: Invention and expansion of printing

  • Texts translated from Latin and French to English -> Latin graudally replaced as written language for the learned

  • Codification of English in lexicons and grammar books

  • Expansion of London English

• Standard English overtakes very fast in poetry and law documents, almost finished by the end of 15th century

• Overtake in scholary texts finished around 1650

• Overtake in spoken language took the longest as it competed with English

• 18th century: peak of French in natural sciences and technology

• 19th century: Peak of German

• from 1550 - 1650: around 6k - 8k new words

• Peak in new words between 1800 and 1950 (11k - 16k new words all 50 years), most of all between 1850 and 1900

• Peak did not correspond to introduction of printing press/amount of printed books

• Most loans which entered English in 16th/17th century were Latin loans

  • overall increase in Latin and decrease in French loans

• Mainly basic words/content words (no function words)

  • Adjectives, verbs, nouns

• Some loans necessary because there was no corresponding Germanic word (i.e. democracy)

• Many borrowings from Greek through “medium” Latin

• 1500 - 15'80: English seen as unsuitable for a lot of subjects such as religion because

  • It lacked the prestig of Latin and French

  • It did not have a technical vocabulary

  -> Borrowing as a possible solution to make English a more suitable/decent language

• 1500 - 1580: Some supported it as it could transfrom English into a more “suitable” and prestige language

• 1561: John Cheke: fear that English as a “pure” langauge will perish if it borrows too much

• Early 17th century: Inkhorn controversy

  • Thomas Willson: criticism of superfluous borrowing -> inkhorn as words which are superfluous and unnecessarily complicated

• 1660: Over the course of the 17th century inkhorn controversy dies out, is replaced by a criticism of an overuse of Frenchbased loans

• 18th century: impact of French still cause of concern

• “hard words”

  • Words whose etymology is hard to understand

  • Often very specific meaning

  • rarely used in everyday language

  • very far from Germanic equivalent

    • Examples: appendix, hereditary, pneumonia

• Consequences of hard words:

  • Hard words become social classifiers

  • First dictionaries were list of hard words

  • Clipping: hard words were clipped/shortened to facilitate their use

    • Aeroplane -> plan

    • refrigerator -> fridge

    • Barssière = bra

  • Popular folk etymology: hard words aquired meaning of something else because their etymology was hard to understand so it was adapted in a way that it made sense

• Richness in near synonyms

  • near synonyms = words with very similiar meaning

• Dissociation with lexical field = two words refer to same entity but have completely different etymology

  • can also be for words from different categories, i. e. verb and noun

    • Word - verbal

    • Ear - auditive

    • Mouth - oral

    • Tooth - dental

    • Lungs - pneumonia

• Ludicrous misuse of words, especially mistaking a word for another (i.e. alligator instead of allegedly)

• Popular perversion ot the form of a word in order to render it apparently significant

• Germanic and French/Latin (but less Germanic)

• Romance elements more frequent as

  • bases

  • affixes

• Temporal (pre-, post-, ante-)

• Locative (mid-, fore-. inter-)

• Negatives (un-, non-)

• Intesifying (hyper-, super-, sub-)

• Quantitative (mono-, poly-, multi-)

• Compounding: words of different origins just put together

  • also combinations of noun-noun, noun-verb etc.

• Conversion: changing word class of a word without derivation, i.e. without adding a suffix/prefix or anything

  • Verb -> noun: shudder, whisper

  • Adjective -> noun: fluid, human

  • Noun -> verb: bottle, pocket, group, silence

  • Particle -> verb: foward, near, humph

  • Also conversion to adverb

• Negatives

  • in ME/OE: addition of negative particle: You NOT wear wigs

  • Negatives in EmodE: rise of do-support for lexical verbs: You don’t wear wigs

• Interrogatives

  • in OE/ME: inversion of verb and Subject: You wear wigs vs. Wear you wigs?

  • in EmodE: rise of do-support for lexical verbs

    • Do you wear wigs?

• As a lexical verb: “You do your work”

• Ellipsis; to avoid repeating a verb: “He creaved the mineral and so did she”

• Causative: *He who does make him wear wig” -> he who causes him to wear wigs

• In early ME: appearance of new construction formed by do + infinitive verb

• Only in declarative sentences (you do wear wigs)

• Semantically the same as the present tense

• Causative hypothesis

• Celtic hypothesis

• Hypothesis on how do-periphrasis came to be in EModeE/in the English language

• Idea: Causative do-use was misinterpreted as a perfective marker in reanalysis since the prefix ge- which used to fulfill this role was lost

  • perfective: completed action

• Perfective marker was eventually interpreted as auxiliary

  -> pragmatic shift as cause of creation of do-periphrasis

• Hypothesis on how do-periphrasis came to be in EModeE/in the English language

• before late 13th century: first attestation of do-periphrasis in Cornish and Welsh

• Do in affirmative statemets still survives to this day in dialects that are close to the area of Welsh and Cornish

• 1400: First appearance in affirmative declaratives, quickly ceases to be popular

• 1500-1600:

  • Steep rise in usage of do-periphrasis in interrogatives (negative and affirmative questions)

  • Less steep rise in negative imperatives and negative declaratives

• 1600-1700:

  • NQ and AQ in 100% of sentences by end of 1700

  • Steep rise in NI and ND, also reach the 100% mark around 1700

• sentences with do-support have the same structure as senteces with other auxiliaries

• Sentences with do-support have the Subject-Object-Verb structure which is the hallmark symbol of Modern English Syntax

• Verbs need do-support of they are lexical verbs instead of modals

• Do becomes obligatory in the grammatical structure of English

  • Negation: “He hasnt worn wigs” <-> “he didnt wear wigs”

  • Inversion “Has the wig been worn?” <-> “Did he wear wigs?”

  • Code “She was rewarded and so was he” <-> “She got rewarded and so did he”

  • Emphasis: “He wore wigs” <-> “He did wear wigs”

• In negation

  • Care

  • Come

  • Doubt

  • Have

  • Know

  • Mistake

  • Speak

• In interrogation

  • Come

  • Dare

  • Do

  • Have

  • Hear

  • Mean

  • Need

  • Say

  • Think

• Construction of be plus -ing (“What are you reading?”) develops in ME

• Not clear where -ing construction comes from, maybe Celtic origni

• Still unsettled in 16th and 17th century

• Do alternative: “What do you read?”

• There was no progressive passive, active progressive was used to express the passive

  • One would say “the house is building” but not “the House is being built”

• There was no confustion between active and passive, distinction was based on the fact that

  • Active had animate subject

  • Passive had inanimate subject

• Get-passive did not exist yet, developed in late EmodE

  • Be-passive: “you were hurt”

  • Get-passive “you got hurt”

    • Get-passive used in interrogatives with do-support, i.e. “Did you get hurt?”

  • Get passive was used with agentive subject, i.e. when the agent is also the subject

• Auxiliaries of the perfect: be and have

  • In ME and OE:

    • Be with intransitives (“ich bin geblieben”)

    • Have with transitives (“Ich habe ihr gesagt” -> with object)

  • in EmodE

    • Have gains ground

    • Do used almost exclusively with verbs indicating states, i. e. contious tense (like, love, believe)

  • Perfect in EmodE optionals, perfect less common than preteriete

  • In EmodE perfect could be used with an adverbial of time to link the action with the past

    • “…which I have forgot to do yesterday”

    
    

• Zero possessives: Mikes book

• Possessives with pronouns instead of genitive s

  • Mike his book

  • His not really used as a pronounc since it was also used when a feminine noun would´ve been expected -> rather a homophone of the genitive

  • Ofte possessive with prouns if genitive s would have been followed by another s, as in “Mike´s sentence”

• Plural construction slowly itching towards regularisation

• -s plural slowly erasing -en plurals, but EmodE still had more -en plurals than present day English

• between 14th and 16th century: You (accusative plural) became standardises as nominative, pushed out yet

• 1600: Thou as marked form which carries special implications of prestige while you is the normal unmarked

  • Thou dies out at beginning of Early Modern English period

• Late 16th century: Creation of its by adding -es to it, spread rapidly

• 1620: Use of its normal

• 1660: hem last recorded, weak form em popular in plays

• Beginning of Early Modern English period: mine/thine used when preceeding a vowel, my and thy used before consonants

• During EME period my and thy become more popular at expense of mine and thine

• development of -self form (myself, yourself) to form reflexives

• Still useage of ordinary personal pronouns for reflexive forms

• Use of simple self in empathic pronouns rare

  • Empathic pronouns: Noun plus reflexive = “I myself” “The queen herself”

• Around 1500: First appearance of plural forms for -self (themselves) alongside forms like them self

• 1550: plural forms for -self are the norm

• Disappearance of strong/weak distinction

• Indeclinable

• Free variation between analytic/periphrastic (more pretty) and synthetic/inflectional (prettier)

• Sometimes even mix of periphrastic and inflection (more prettier)

• Mutated comparative and superlative forms (lenger, lengest)

• Overall quite equal distribution of inflectional and periphrastic variation across centuries, peak of inflectional adjectives between 1850 and 1900 (about 70% of cases)

• Concord with thou -> morpheme -est

• Occasionally also -es found

  • Previous northern variation

  • -es frequent in verbs which ended in -t because of the weird construction it would´ve resulted in

• First tense in marking (i. e. -ed for past), then person marking (i. e. -est for second person singular) -> walk-ed-est

• Have was ussually contracted to hast instead of hauest, but hauest also occasionally found in 16th century

  
  

• -eth or -es

• -th instead of -eth ending in…

  • Do (doth)

  • Have (hath)

  • Say (saith)

• By 1600, people would often write -eth but pronounce it -es

• The -es ending was more likely to be used…

  • By female writers

  • In the phonological context of liquids (l, r)

  • In the phonological context of stops (b, p, d, t)

  • In the phonological context of sibiliant (s, z)

  • In the phonological context of vowels

  • In verbs other than do and have

• same function as today, but actual form sometimes different than today

• Veriant forms

• Strong verbs vs. weak verbs

  • Tendency for strong verbs to become weak -> sometimes weak verbs would become strong aswell

  • EME variations

• The past tense of strong verbs

  • In EME the singular and plural stems of strong verbs are used as temporal variants, i.e. sang and sung or rid and rod

  • Analogy: past tenses of strong verbs adapted to past tenses of weak verbs

    • Analogy: complex word form is changed and adapted to already existing simpler structure

• 500 AD: Angles living in present day Scotland

  • Dynastic ties, i.e. Malcolm III married West Saxon Princess Margaret 1070

• AS immigration following Norman Conquest

• 1603: union of crowns

• 1707: union of parliaments, English established as national language

• Standardized English variety spoken in Southern Scotland

• Rather conservative phonology

• Rhotic language

• Preservation of short vowel distinction, i. e. short vowels merged to schwa if they came before /r/ and the /r/ sound was sometimes lost, but this did not happen in scottish

  • beer pronounced bi:r, poor pronounced pu:r

  • First and fern du not contain schwa, but rather I or ɜ

• Lack of distinction between ʊ and u, both pronounced with u -> pool and pull both pronounced like pool, foot and boot both pronounced like boot

• Lack of distinction between Æ and ɑ (ample vs. sample)

• I and schwa might be neutralized (sound the same)

• most vowels in Scottish long

• all short vowels (except I and schwa) lengthened

  • before voiced fricatives

  • before r

  • at the end of words

• some diphthongs monophthongs

  • həʊm -> ho:m

  • ɡreɪt -> gret

• Some diphthongs split into other diphthongs

  • aɪ has split into

    • əɪ (as in side)

    • ae (as in sighed)

• aʊ can be centralized to əʊ (so the vowels in mouth would be pronounced like the vowels in show)

• Scottish is rhotic

• No h- or yod-dropping

• Hw and w are distinguished

• Voiceless stops lightly aspirated

• Existence of /x/ even in English words like night

• θ in certain words which would demand ð

• Remnant plural forms with -en (shoon instead of shoes)

• Use of definite article (the) where English would use indefinite

• Personal pronoun: use of second person singular thou, new creation of yous

• Use of a- affix where English would use be- prefix

• use of No or nae

• Typically contracted to form terms such as canno, didnae, hadnae

• multiple negatives possible

• Will has replaced shall (Will I open the window?)

• Can/get to instead of may

• Shoud/want instead of ought

• Multiple modals possible

• Infinitival marekr to may precede a modal, as in ´”Id like to could to that”

• No dummy do necessary

• Passive may be marked with frae (from) or by

• Progressive with state verbs widely spread (Im needing to see you)

• Also: need without to be (my hair needs washed)

• Use of past tense when perfect is expected

• More adolescent speakers than other age groups, but it doesnt survive because they have no one to talk to

• Overall gradual decrease in Gaelic speakers

• Mainly used in informal spaces

• 52% speakers Outer hebrides

• 5% highland, Inverness, Argyll and Bute

• 10% in Glasgow, 5878 speakers, absolute largest number of speakers

• 1163: first Anglo-Norman settlement established around Doublin (the Pale) -> Entrance of English presence in Ireland

• 1172: Henry II Lord of Ireland (Norman King)

• 1600s: End of Irish-Gaelic predominance in Ireland because of…

  • Defeat of the Irish under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I

  • Influx of English settlers during reign of James I

  • Efforts by Cromwell to dominate the Irish

  • Plantation schemes

• 17th century: migration of protestants from southwest Scotland

• 1800: Acts of Union, Ireland becomes part of England -> steady decline of Gaelic

• 1831: introduction of National Schools, English-medium only

• 1850: Great potato famine, English dominant in Ireland

• End of 19th century: 80% of Irish population monolingual English speakers

• 1921: Partition of Ireland into a Southern Republic of Ireland and British Northern Ireland

• Different development of English and Gaelic through the island

• RoI:

  • Hiberno English

    • rural and urban varieties

  • Influenced by migration from West country and west midlands of England who settled in Doublin

• NI:

  • Ulster-Scots/Scots-Irish: variation brought by Lowland Scots to Ulster

  • Northern Hiberno-English

  • Stron similiarities to Scottish

    • trade connection for centuries

    • Influenced by migration of Scottish protestants in 17th century

      • 1607: intensive Scott settlements in Ulster

        
        

• 1937: English official second language of IReland

• English official language in Northern Ireland

• Since 2022 Irish also an official language

  
  

• Rather conservative

• Vowels not reduced before /r/

• rhotic dialect

• Vowels not reduced to /r/

• /ɜ/ and /e/ not raised to /i:/ in ea words (easy, steal, cheat, leave)

• Sometimes /ɜ/ and /e/ merge to /ɜ/ before n (i.e. pen and pin are homophones, both sounding like pen)

• E and o tend to be monophthongs

• ɔɪ and aI merged to əɪ (boi and buy therefore homophones)

• No diphthong in words like bay, plate, weight, but rather monophthong e

• no h- or yod-dropping

• Characteristic intonation pattern: HRT declarative sentences can end with a rising pitch

• Distinction between h and hw

• interdental fricatives (th) are realized as dental (t, d)

• postponed stress on verbal suffixes

• in polysyllabic words stress on vowel after consonant cluster

• be after (v)-ing instead of perfect (“He is after getting up” instead of “he just got up”)

• Use of do be (v)-ing/adjective for habitual action

• Will instead of shall

• Progressive or present instead of past tense

• And for all subordinate conjunctions (if, when etc.)

• Use of definite article where English would use indefinite

• But instead of though

• From instead of since

• It cleft to emphasizes (Its a nice girl, she is)

• Between 1861 and 1926 significantly fewer Irish-speakers than non-Irish speakers (20 - 80 ratio)

• Since 1946 somewhat increase in Irish speakers (up to 40%)

• A lot more Irish speakers among 12-15 y. o. than other age group

• Number of people able to speak irish in 2016:

  • 1`751`420 (40%)

  • Decrease of 13k from 2011

  • More women (55%) than men (45%)

• Both have present and preterite (more change in strong/weak distinction etc.)

• In OE:

  • indicative

  • Subjunctive

  • Imperative

• In ME

  • Loss of morphological distinction between indicative, subjunctive and imperative

• OE

  • active/passive

  • Periphrastic passive: formed with beon and worphan + part participle

• ME

  • Active/passive

  • Worthen overtaken by ben in periphrastic passive

• Word oder fixation

• Complex periphrastic forms develop: progressive

• Late 14th century:

  • Perfect (she has worked)

  • Pluperfect (she had been working)

• 14th century: future (she will enjoy)

• 16th century: future perfect (she will have enjoyed and all passive froms)

• Contributory influences of Celtic and French

• expanded construction: BE + present participle (-ende)

• Early ME morphological confusion affects ending of

  • present participle (-nde)

  • infinitive -(n(ne))

  • verbal noun (-ung)

    -> -ing form expands functionally

• Habben perfect much more frequent than earlier in ME, especially in more colloquial style

• pluperfect refers to completed actions in the past