Comment on the following quotation from the work of a prominent modern linguist and write a short essay on the problems of linguistic change.
| The structure of language is nothing but the unstable balance between the needs of communication, which require more numerous and more specific units and man’s inertia, which favours less numerous, less specific and more frequently occurring units. A.Martinet |
Analyse the shifting of word stress in word-building and form-building and point out the words which can illustrate the original Germanic way of word accentuation. Explain your ideas.
Bear, bearer, unbearable.
Circumstance, circumstantial, circumstantiality.
In the 14th century the following words were pronounced exactly as they are spelt, the Latin letters retaining their original sound values. Show the phonetic changes since the 14th century.
e.g. nut à [nut] > [nʌt]
Turn, first, part, for, often, moon.
5. Explain the origin of the following place-names:
Scotland, Great Britain, Sussex, Wessex, Wales, Cornwall.
6. Give a short answer to the question and do the task:
Why can the voicing of fricative consonants in Early Old English be regarded as a sort of continuation of Verner’s Law? Describe the similarities and the differences between the two processes.
Determine the type of noun declension and supply the missing forms.
| New English book | Singular | Plural |
| Nom. | böc | bëc |
| Gen. | bëc, böce | ? |
| Dat. | ? | ? |
| Acc. | ? | ? |
| New English cup | Singular | Plural |
| Nom. | cuppe | ? |
| Gen. | ? | ? |
| Dat. | ? | ? |
| Acc. | cuppan | ? |
8. Do the tasks and give short answers to the questions:
a) From lists of Latin loan-words in Old English speculate on the kind of contacts the English had with Rome at different historical periods.
b) What facts can be given to prove that Old English was generally resistant to borrowing and preferred to rely upon its own resources?
9. Give a short answer to the question:
What events of external history favoured the growth of the English national literary language?
10. How could the vowels in Old English hopa, stolen ultimately develop into diphthongs, though originally they were short monophthongs (New English hope, stolen)?
11. What are the causes of vowel interchanges in New English leave, left; five, fifth; feel, felt? Originally, in Old English the words in each pair contained the same long vowels.
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12. Give a historical explanation of different spellings of the following homophones (in New English):
See, sea; rein, rain; soul, sole; cease, seize; so, sow; root, route; rode, road.
Were all these pairs of homophones in Middle English?
13. Reconstruct the phonetic changes so as to prove that the words have descended from a single root: New English merry and mirth; foul and filth; long and length; tell, tale and talk; gold, gild and yellow.
14. Give a short answer to the question:
What is the connection between the growth of articles, the history of pronouns and the decline of adjectival declensions?
15. Use the following quotation to describe the history of the Continuous forms:
She wyst not ……… whether she was a-wakyng or a-slepe. (Caxton)
What, my dear lady Disdain! Are you yet living? (Shakespeare)
16. What development in English syntax can be illustrated by the following quotation:
How likes you this play, my lord? (Shakespeare)
Do the following test.
1. The earliest extant written texts in English are dated in the … century
A) 8th;
B) 9th;
C) 7th;
D) 10th;
E) 5th.
2. The History of the language can be subdivided into
A) historical phonetics, historical morphology and historical syntax;
B) historical phonetics and historical morphology;
C) historical morphology and historical syntax;
D) historical syntax and historical lexicology;
E) historical phonetics, historical morphology, historical syntax and historical lexicology.
3. What happened to Gothic language as a result?
A) the language is ‘still alive’ and using by few people;
B) the language is dead;
C) the language is becoming more popular nowadays;
D) the language is forbidden to use;
E) there is no right answer.
4. The Old Germanic languages had a … grammatical structure
A) stable;
B) synthetic;
C) common;
D) strong;
E) different.
5. The beginning of the Modern or New English period which lasts to the …
A) 20th century;
B) 21th century;
C) 19th century;
D) 18th century;
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E) present day.
6. Which word did originally mean “secret” or “mystery”?
A) language;
B) word;
C) rune;
D) alphabet;
E) manuscript.
7. The first English words to be written down with the help of Latin characters were…
A) names of the plants and trees;
B) the name of natural phenomenon;
C) personal names and place names;
D) names of battles;
E) there is no right answer.
8. Put in chronological order three alphabets, which the Germans used:
A) the runes, Latin alphabet, Ulfila’s gothic alphabet;
B) Ulfila’s gothic alphabet, the runes, Latin alphabet;
C) Latin alphabet, Ulfila’s gothic alphabet, the runes;
D) Ulfila’s gothic alphabet, Latin alphabet, the runes;
E) the runes, Ulfila’s gothic alphabet, Latin alphabet.
9. The Roman occupation of Britain lasted nearly … years
A) 800;
B) 500;
C) 700;
D) 400;
E) 600.
10. The Germanic tribes, conquered Britain, formed … independent kingdoms
A) 7;
B) 6;
C) 5;
D) 4;
E) 3.
11. There was no linguistic barrier between them as both OE and OScandinavian belonged to the … group
A) Slavic;
B) Indo-European;
C) Celtic;
D) Australian;
E) Germanic.
12. By the end of the …the domination of the French language in England came to an end, and English was reestablished as the language of literature and administration.
A) 18th;
B) 19th;
C) 14th;
D) 10th;
E) 15th.
13. The first printer of English books was …
A) John de Trevisa;
B) William Caxton;
C) Johann Gutenberg;
D) William Tyndale;
E) William Shakespeare.
14. The first English book, printed in 1475, was Caxton’s translation of the story of Troy …
A)Utopia;
B) Poema Morale;
C) Chronicle;
D) Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye;
E) Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight.
15. In the course of the first 700 years of the existence of English it was brought into contact with three other languages: the languages of the Celts, the Romans, and …
A) the Goths;
B) the Scandinavians;
C) the Germans;
D) the Italians;
E) the Britishs.
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16. Abundant borrowing from Celtic is to be found only in …
A) place-names;
B) personal names;
C) names of plants or trees;
D) names of natural phenomena;
E) there is no right answer.
17. According to their morphological structure OE words fell into 3 main types:
A) difficult words, derived words and compound words;
B) simple words, combined words and compound words;
C) simple words, derived words and integrated words;
D) simple words, derived words and compound words;
E) there is no right answer.
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