Вопрос №15 Traces of Palatal Mutation in Old English
This type of change affected back vowels. It was caused by the sound [i/j] in the following
syllable and resulted in the fronting of the vowel. The influence of i/j sound may also result in
the raising of the front vowel. Took place in the 6th cent in all the Germanic dialects. In OE it
was completed by the time of the 1st written efforts. (7th century).
Assimilative changes were positional. They were combinative changes and they were changes of 2 types. The 2nd type is palatal mutation and it was caused by the neighboring vowels.
This type of change affected back vowels. It was caused by the sound [i/j] in the following syllable and resulted in the fronting of the vowel. The influence of i/j sound may also result in the rising of the front vowel. It took part in the 6th century in all the Germanic dialects.
This process had a great influence on the grammar system of OE especially on the adj. and verbs. It also became a word making means.
Palatal Mutation is of special importance because:
1) there appeared new phonemes: y, y -OE phonemes
2) there appeared numerous examples of vowel-variation in the root. These variations are found in the f-building and in the w-building of present day English.
The traces of PM in OEin w-building:
OE adj. lan long
Вопрос №16 Nominal grammatical categories in OE
I. The Nominal Grammatical Categories
OE was like other G. lang an inflexional synthetic lang. Besides inflexions, which were the most productive way of f-building, the following means were employed:
a) sound interchange in the root
b) suppletive formations, which were as archaic in OE, as they are today. They were confined to the same parts of speech, as they are today. (personal pronouns and degrees of comparison): od – bettra - god – better
OE like other IE Languages had the following nominal gr. categories.
- number,
- gender,
- case
In nouns these categories were independent, in adjs and pronouns they were dependent as they agreed with the noun.
Gender: In nouns gender was a lex-grammatical category, that is a w could belong to one gender only, which was not shown by any formal marker and did not depend upon the consideration of sex. It was pure traditional.
There were 3 grammatical forms:
e.g. wif (wife) – neutral
stan (stone) – masculine
tunge (tongue) – feminine
In OE the gender of nouns was mainly indicated by the ws defining them (adj or pronoun).
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Number
Nouns, adjs & pronouns distinguished 2 numbers: singular & plural. But the personal pronouns of the 1st and 2nd persons preserved a set of forms for 2 things – the dual number.
1st p. Ic (sg) wit (dual) we (pl)
2nd p. pu (sg) it (dual) e (pl)
Case It was a grammatical category.
Nouns had 4 cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative
Adjectives had 5 cases as well as pronouns: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative + Instrumental. The Instrumental case of nouns coincided with the Dative case.
e.g. Dat.sg. miclum stane (a large stone - большому)
Inst. Micle stane (большим)
Nouns. A well-developed case sys with (4 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative). Two number forms (singular, plural). Have the category of gender (feminine, masculine and neutral). The same categories: gender, case, number. Acc to the ending of their stems 3 types of declension: - a-stem (mostly masc and neutr); n-stem; root- declension (masc with the help of suff as well as by changing roots – man-men)
Вопрос №17 Traces of the Old English Declension in Modern English
In OE in different nouns the endings of 4 cases varied, but they fell into stems singled out traditionally. Nouns were subdivided into classes acc to the sound, which used to be at the end of the stem. The stem could end in a vw or a c. Nouns whose stem ended in a vowel belonged to the so-called strong declension;ended on “n” or “r” - weak declension. 4 different paradigms: the a-stem; o-stem; u-stem; e-stem paradigms.
The most important of them are: a-stem; n-stem; root-stem (did not belong to either strong or weak declensions, because the ending was added directly to the root). The traces of a, n, root-stems are preserved in ME.
A-stem
n-stam root-stem
Nominative and accusative were synonyms in all types of declensions in the plural in most cases in the singular. Some types of declensions contained many homonymous forms. The endings of G and D pl. were absolutely the same. The traces of the PM are found in the root-stem mostly, as in this type of declension the endings were added directly to the root without any suffixes. As the endings contained the sounds i/j they influenced the root vowel.
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The most important endings from the historical point of view are:
- as(the N and A pl. of a-stem masculine). It is reflected in the modern endings s/es
- es (the G sg. Of a-stem declension). It is reflected in the possessive case today.
- the forms of the neuter gender a-stem with the long root vowel. Neuter nouns of a-stem declension differed from masculine only in the N and A pl.
–u survived only in nouns with a short root syllable. In long root syllable ws this –u disappeared. Nouns with a long root vowel had the zero ending in the N and A pl.: e.g. word – N a-stem with a long root vowel: sceap sheep – sheep They do not change for the plural.
- the ending -anof the n-stem declension plural. It is preserved in ME oxen, children.
The class of n-stem nouns was the 2nd largest after and it survived longer then other classes. (a-stem exception). That’s why in southern dialects some newly borrowed ws or coined ws were declined acc to the n-stem type and it influenced the nouns of other classes: OE an > ME en OE a-stem: N sg. cild; N pl. cildru > ME children
- the forms of the root-stem type of declension, where as a result of the PM in the D sg. and the N and A pl. the root vowel underwent PM, the vowel interchange survived as the only mean of differentiating the forms of pl. and sg.
The endings of the rest of the case forms were built up by the analogy with those of the a-stem.
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