III. OE Adjectives. Declension.

Forms of the OE adjectives express the categories of gender, (mascu-

line, feminine, neuter), number (singular and plural) and case (nominative,         genitive, dative, accusative and, partly, instructive).

     Every adjective can be declined according to the strong and the weak declension. Most adjectives are declined as a-stems for the masculine and neu­ter gender and as o-stems for the feminine.

                              Monosyllabic adjectives with a short root syllable take in the nomina­tive singular feminine and in the nominative and accusative plural neuter the ending - u; those with a long root syllable have no ending at all in  these forms; - a -, - o - stems.

                                                   Masculine           Neuter                 Feminine

Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc. Intrr.

blæc(black) blac-es blac-um blæc –ne blac-e

blæc blac-es blac-um blæc blac-e

blac-u blæc –re blæc –re blac-e -

                                                       

Plural

Nom. Gen.	blac-e blac-ka	blac-u blac-ra	blac-a blac-ra
Dat. Acc.	blac-um blac-e	blac-um blac-u	blac-um blac-a

Weak declension corresponded to nouns with n-stem,excepi Genetive

 case plural: - ra - instead of - na -;

N. G. D. A.

nama(n.n.) naman naman naman

zōd zōdan zōdan zōdan

 

N. G. D. A.

naman namena namun naman

zodan zodra zodum zodan

IV. Degrees of Comparison.

The degrees of comparison were formed by means of suffix - ra - (re)

for comparative degree and suffix -ost (est) for superlative degree.

      Suffix - ra - in Old Germanic – iza, oza

- ost - in Old Germanic – ist,ost.

OE suffix - ra waschanged into - re.Later ending - e – was lost. But it was necessary to introduce a vowel sound lol between the stem and suffix - r. This way the suffix - er - was formed.

hard - harder - hardest.

But along with the correct forms of adjectives there were forms with a

changed root vowel.

In adjectives with suffix - iza, ist - the root vowel had the influence of mutation, that is,the root vowel of positive degree is not the same as the vowel of comparative and saperlative degree.

Ex - eald - eildra - eildest (old)

long - lengra - lengest (long)                                                             

strong - strenga - strengest (strong)

In adjectives with-oza, ost-no changes of  vowels;

heard - heardra - heardost (hard)

hwat-hwatra-hwatost

In some cases the old form was separated, because itformed a new word

elder - eldest ≠ old - older – oldest

 latter - last - late ≠later- latest

Some adjectives had suppletive forms of comparison

OE Ex.  zod               micel                ltel

-betera-     bettra             māra           tssa

betst          mæst           læst

ME good-better-best micel (muchel) more-most-most litel-lesse-lest

    In OE there were combinations of adjective with "mara", "mast". These combinations were widely used in ME, There were even combinations

of "more,"most" with comparative forms:

 

In Shakespare:

Ex. more better, this was most unkindest

   In the 17 c, the use "more" and "most" began to depend on number of syllables. The grammatists of the 18 th c, objected to have "more" and

"most" with the comparative forms. Such forms were considered to be incorrect.

Seminar 8

EVOLUTION OF THE PRONOUNS AND ADJECTIVES IN OLD ENGLISH, MIDDLE ENGLISH AND NEW ENGLISH PERIODS.

1. Declension of O.E. Personal Pronouns.

2. Declension of O.E. Demonstrative Pronouns.

3. Declension of O.E. Possessive Pronouns.

4. O.E. interrogative Pronouns.

5. M.E. Pronouns.

6. O.E. Adjectives. Degree of Comparison, in O.E. and M.E. period.

 

 

III. Seminars

Seminar No 1

HISTORY OF FORMIGN ENGLISH.

EARLY HISTORY OF BRITANNIA.

1. Origin of English
2. The periods of the English language.
3. The Iberians and Celts as the earliest inhabitants of British Isles.
4. Traces of the Roman rule in Britain. Latin borrowings.
5. Anglo-Saxon period. Vocabulary.
6. Scandinavian Conquerors. The Scandinavian traces in British vocabulary.
7. The Normans Conquest. French Borrowing.

1. Origin of English

• About how many years has the English Language as such, been in existence?
• To what branch of the I.E. family of languages does English belong?

1. The periods of the English language.
• What periods is the English language divided into?
• What kind of phenomena is this division based on? What does it mean?
2. The Iberians and Celts as the earliest inhabitants of British Isles.

· What people were the earliest inhabitants of Britain?

· Where did the Celts come from?

· When did the Celts start to inhabit Britain?

· What part of Britain did the Celts live in? How long?

· What words of the Celts do they still have in N.E.?

1. Traces of the Roman rule in Britain. Latin borrowings.

· What is the period of the Roman ruling?

· What traces of the Roman rule do they still have?

1. Anglo-Saxon period.

· What Teutonic tribes occupied the British Isles? When?

· What were the main kingdoms of Teutonic tribes?

· What were the main dialects of O.E.?

· Vocabulary of O.E. period.

1. Scandinavian Conquerors.

· The period of Scandinavian Conquering (short history)

· Vocabulary of Danish and English.

1. The Normans Conquest.

· The period of the Normans Conquest

· Who were the Normans?

· What was the language of the Normans?

Additional information

The Scandinavian Influence

Some three hundred years after the West Germanic tribes had settled in England, there was another wave of invasions, this time by Scandinavians. In the history books these people are usually referred to as "Danes," but there were Swedes and Norwegians among them, and their speech was probably no more uniform than that of the first wave. The dialects they spoke belonged to the Northern rather than the Western division of Germanic. They differed rather more from the dialects of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes than these differed from each other—roughly, about as much as Spanish differs from Italian. In spite of different habits of pronunciation, most of root words were enough alike to be recognizable. The difficulty caused by differences in inflection was partly solved by dropping some of the inflections altogether and being broad-minded about the others. Spelling was not much of a problem, because most people could not write, and those who could, spelled as they pleased there were no dictionaries to prove them wrong.

Although these Danes moved in on the English, and for a time dominated them politically, their conquest was nothing like as thor­ough as that of the English over the Britons. After the early fighting the two peoples settled down together without much attention to their separate origins, and the languages mingled. On the whole, English rather than Danish characteristics won out; but many of the words were so much alike that it is impossible to say whether we owe our present forms to English or Danish origins, and occasionally the Danish forms drove out the English ones. Sometimes both forms remained, usually with a somewhat different meaning. Thus we have"shirt" and"skirt",both of which originally meant a long, smock-like garment, although the English form has come to mean the upper part, and the Danish form the lower. Old English"rear"and Danish"raise" are another pair—sometimes interchangeable, sometimes not.

The Norman Conquest

In 1066 the Normans conquered England. They, like the Danes, had originally come from Scandinavia. But they had settled in northern France, and for some undiscoverable reason had given up their own language and learned to speak a dialect of French. For several centuries Normans, and other Frenchmen that they invited in later, held most of the important positions in England, and it seemed quite possible that French would become the standard language of the country. But the bulk of the population was still English, and they were stubborner than their rulers. Most of them never learned French, and eventually —though only after several centuries—all the nobles and officials were using English.

It was not, however, the English of the days before the conquest. A good many French words had gotten into the language; and most of the inflections that had survived the Danish pressure had dropped out, with a standard word-order making up for their loss. We need not go into the argument about whether the new word-order had to develop because the endings dropped out, or the endings disappeared because the new word-order made them unnecessary. The two changes took place together, and by the time of Chaucer (died 1400) the language had become enough like modern English to be recogniz­able. The pronunciation was quite different and the spelling was still catch-as-catch-can; but a modern student can get at least a general idea of Chaucer's meaning without special training, while he can no more read Old English than he can German or Latin, unless he has made a special study of it. Compare the two following passages:

1. Hwaet! We gardena              in geardagum

Theodcyningas                      thrym gefrunon

2. Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

In the first two lines from Beowulf (about 700 a.d.), only "we" and "in" are readily recognizable; while in the first two from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, only soote (sweet) offers much of a problem.

From Chaucer's time to our own the language has developed with no outside pressure comparable to that of the Danish and Norman invasions. Still more endings have disappeared, and there have been other changes; but the greatest development has been in the vocab­ulary. A considerable number of Chaucer's words have dropped out of use, and a much greater number of new words have been added. Some of these new words have been made by compounding or other­wise modifying old ones, but most of them have been borrowed from other languages, particularly Latin.

Impact of the Roman Civilization on the English language.

The semantic history of the names of the days of the week is the example of the impact of the Roman civilization. These words are loan- translations of corresponding words in Latin, with the second element denoting day. The first element was the name of a God or a planet. The procedure was to substitute name of the God of Romans for the corresponding Germanic God or translate the name of the planet into Old English. The result may be tabuled as follows:

 

O.E. name	Modern translation	Latin Pattern
Sæterns dæz “Saturn’s day”	Saturday	Saturnis dies Saturn – the God of Agriculture and Merry Making
Sunan dæz “Sun’s day”	Sunday	Solaria dies
Monan dæz “Moon’s day”	Monday	Lunae dies
Tiwes dæz “Tiw’s day” Tiw – Teutonic God of War or God of Darkness	Tuesday	Martis dies Mars – the God of War
Wondess day “Woden’s day” Woden – the God of the Elements, later on – the God of War, the highest heathen diety	Wednesday	Dies Mercury Mercury – the Messenger of Gods, the God of Trade and Commerce
Punres dæz OE punor – the God of Thunder	Thursday	Dies Jovis Jupiter – the God of Thunder
Frie dæz “Freya’s day” Freya – the Goddess of Love and Beauty	Friday	Veneris dies Venera – the Goddness of Love and Beauty

The seven day division is connected either with the seven subdivision of the week, with the seven phases of the moon or with the seven visible planets. It was supposed that each day of the week is governed by the certain planet. As the planets were worshipped and often considered as the seats of Gods in the cowers of time the first element in the names of the days of the week began to be associated with the Gods themselves.

 The succession of day of the week is not without logic. The middle of the week was devoted to Woden who according to some versions was considered as the God of War. It was the highest heathen deity since war was so important in those barbaric times where brute force, not the force of intellect was a winning card. Then the thunder god and after those Freya – the love Goddess appeared on the scene to restore the rages of darkness, war and thunder followed by Saturn, the god of merry-making. At last Sunday came again and the cycle repeated itself.

If Tiw is taken for the God of Darkness the logic is in the following: succession of one day of the week after another may be explained through the opposition of light to darkness, as the former was usually associated with good protecting forces and the latter with the evil ones. The week opens with Sunday sacred to the light – and – life giving sun. It is followed by Monday, the day of the Moon that only reflects the Sun’s light. It gives way to Thursday, commanded by Tiw, the God of Darkness. And darkness was often associated in those days with evil events, including war. The explanation of the rest of the cycle will remain the same. 

                     

 

Seminar No 2      

MIDDLE ENGLISH  PERIOD (XII-XV).    EARLY NEW ENGLISH PERIOD (XVI-XVII) . NEW ENGLISH PERIOD (XVIII- …).

1. ME dialects. Existence of three languages
2. Vocabulary of ME period
3. Raising of London dialect
4. Book printing
5. Forming of the national language
6.  Spreading of English outside of England.
7. Development of the literary standard.

DEVELOPMENT OF A LITERARY STANDARD

The changes that took place in the language throughout the Old and Middle English periods were a natural development, unguided by any theory. Men talked more or less as their neighbors did, and anybody who wrote tried to indicate the sound of his speech on paper. There were no dictionaries, no grammars, and no printed books of any kind. As far as we know, very few people thought about the language at all; and most of those who did think about it considered it a crude and rather hopeless affair, unworthy of serious study. There were exceptions, of course, but they did not have much influence. Local differences were so great that a man trained in northern England would have serious difficulty reading a manuscript written in the southern part. However, the dialect of London had a certain prestige throughout the country; and although this dialect itself was by no means uniform, and changed with shifts in city population, it gradually came to be accepted as the standard. By the latter half of the fifteenth century London dialect was quite generally used in writing throughout the country except in the extreme north. The introduction of printing in 1476, with London as the publishing center, greatly strengthened the influence of the London dialect. Strong local differences in spoken English remain to this day, especially among the less educated classes. But throughout the modern period written (or at least published) English has been surprisingly uniform.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MOVEMENT TO REGULARIZE THE LANGUAGE

Until the eighteenth century the uniformityof the language was the result of social pressure rather than of educational theory. Early English grammars (the first appeared in 1586) had been written  to help foreign­ers learn English or to prepare English students for the study of Latin grammar. On the whole these books neither had nor were intended to have any influence on the use of English by native speakers. It was not until about 1750 that there was any general attempt to teach English­men systematically how to use their own language.

It is too bad that this attempt was not postponed for a few more generations. Since the really scientific study of various languages had not yet begun, the eighteenth century grammarians had to base their work on a set of theories that we now know are definitely wrong. For one thing, they thought that grammar had an absolute existence, and must therefore be the same in all languages. Since they believed that this grammar was well preserved in Latin and badly frayed in English, they often tried to reform a natural English expression on a Latin model.

For another thing, they thought that the simplifying of inflections, which had been going on for centuries, was decay instead of progress. They could not do anything about the ones that had already com­pletely disappeared, but they did make a deliberate and fairly success­ful effort to preserve those that were just disappearing. We would not have so many irregular verbs today if they had just let nature take its course.

Perhaps the most dangerous of their ideas was that they could keep the language from ever changing any more. They argued that Latin had remained unchanged for centuries, and they saw no reason why English should not do the same. They failed to realize that the only reason classical Latin had remained unchanged was that the men who had written it had been dead for a long time. There were still scholars― there a few even today― who could imitateclassical Latin. But as a natural language for the people  Latin had developed in different areas: in  Italian, French, Spanish, and so forth. All of these lan­guages, as well as English, are still changing, and we have every reason to believe that they will continue to change as long as they are used.

If these theories had merely been the bad guesses of a few scholars, they would not have done much harm. But they became the guiding principles in most schoolroom instruction just at the time when education was becoming general, and when the study of the English language was beginning to be recognized as an end in itself and not merely as a preliminary step to the study of Latin. As a result, during the two hundred years in which English has been seriously taught in our schools, it has been taught almost entirely on a set of theories, which can now be proved unsatisfactory, so that a great part of the effort has been wasted.

Since most students find it hard enough to learn English grammar without making comparisons with other languages, we need not go into a detailed explanation of why the eighteenth-century theories were wrong. But the basic structural difference is easily grasped. Latin is a syntactic language. That is, it is highly inflected, and the relations between words are shown primarily by their endings. Old English was also syntactic, but modern English has become an analytical language. Most of the endings have dropped off, and even those that remain arc much less important than they used to be, since the relations between words are now shown largely by word-order and function words, such as connectives and auxiliary verbs. It is now rather generally held that the shift from a syntactic to an analytical structure is an improvement, but most eighteenth-century grammarians considered it a calamity and tried to stop it.

One effect of this misdirected effort has been to interfere with the natural development of the language. By 1750 most of the Old Eng­lish irregular verbs either had dropped out of use or had become regular: help, hold had become help, helped; wash, wesh had become wash, washed, etc. A number of others were in the process of making the same change: blow, blew to blow, blowed; throw, threw to throw, throwed; etc. We should probably still have some irregular verbs even if eighteenth-century grammarians had not deliberately resisted this development, but there would certainly not be so many. Most of us probably have a feeling that such forms as blowed and throwed are in­trinsically wrong; but our acceptance of helped and washed as correct shows that this is purely a matter of habit.

At the same time, many of those troublesome verbs like sing and take,which have separate forms for the past participle, were simpli­fying to a single past form. This change also was resisted  on the theory that the small number of inflections was "the greatest defect in our language." The fact that only about forty of our verbs now have these separate forms proves conclusively that we don't need them, and most of them would probably have disappeared by now if they had been allowed to depart in peace. But after two centuries of insistence on the importance of these unfortunate survivals, we may never get rid of them. 

 

Seminar No 3        

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