History of english language

16. The OE consonant system. Grimm’s and Verners Laws, treatment of fricatives

The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th c. and are often called Grimm’s law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift. By the terms of grimm’s law voiceless plosives developed in PG into voiceless fricatives (A

ct 1) p-f, t – T, k-x, IE voiced plosives were shifted to voiceless plosives (Act 2) b – p, d – t, g – k and IE voiced aspirated plosives were reflected either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives (Act 3) bh – v, dh – D rudhira rauDs, gh – Y (or g) hostis – gasts. Verner’s law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm; s law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. According to verner’s law all the early PG voiceless fricatives [f, T, x] which arose under Grimm’s law, and also [s] inherited fromPIE, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. F-v – heafod – huvud, T-D, d pater, fadar, x – Y, g socrus – swaihro, s-z auris-auso. /////// PG voiced fricatives tended to be hardened to corresponding plosives while voiceless fricatives, being contrasted to them primarily as fricatives to plosives, developed new voiced allophones. The PG voiced [D] was always harderned to [d] in OE wasida – werede, The two other fricatives, [v] and [$] were hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals. 2. PG [z] underwent a phonetic modifications through the stage of [Z] into [r] and thus became a sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r]. This process, termed rhotacism, maize-mara-more. 3. Voiceless fricatives [f, T, x, s] and also those of the voiced fricatives which had not turned into plosives, that is, [v] and [$], were subjected to a new process of voicing and devoicing. In early OE they became or remained voiced intervocally and between vowels, sonorants and voiced consonants; they remained or became voiceless in other environments, namely, initially finally and next to other voiceless consonants. V – v, f hlaifs – loaves; f – v, f wulfos – wolves, T – T, D sauT – seeDd, $ – $, x dagos-daZs – days; s-s, z kaus – chose. Old English consonant system. The system consisted of several correlated sets of consonants. According to manner of articulation All the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants m, m:, w, n, n:, r, l, j, N. The noise consonants were subdivided into plosives and fricatives; plosives were further differenriated as voiced b, b:, d, d:, g’:, g, g: and voiceless p, p:, t, t:, k’, k’:, k, k:, the difference being phonemic. The fricative consonants were also subdivided into voiced v, z, D, $, $’, j and voiceless f, f:, x’, x’:, x, x:, h, s, s:, T, T: The most universal distinctive feature in the consonant system was the difference in length. Place of articulation: labial, labiodentals p, p:, b, b:, f, f:, v, m, m:, w/ forelingual (dental) t, t:, d, d:, s, s;, z, T, T:, D; n, n:, r, l/ mediolingual (palatal) k’, k’:, x’, x’:, j,$/ back lingual (velar) k, k:, g, g:, x, x: h.

17. The general features of the OE noun declension system. The peculiarities of the a-, n, r–and root – stem declensions

The most remarkable feature of OE nouns was their elaborate system of declensions, which was a sort of morphological classification. The total number of declensions exceeded 25. All in all there were only 10 distinct endings and a few relevant root-vowel interchanges used in noun paradigms; yet every morphological class had either its own specific endings or a specific succession of markers. The OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: 1. The stem-suffix, 2. The gender of nouns 3 genders, a derivation suffix reffered a noun to a certain gender, 3. The phonetic structure of the word, 4. Phonetic changes in the final syllables. In the first place, the morphological classification of OE nouns rested upon the most ancient grouping of nouns according to the stem-suffixes. Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, i-stems, of consonants (n-stems), of sound sequences (-ja-stems, – nd-stems). Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had zero-suffix; they are usually tered root-stems and grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants. A-stems included MASC. and NEUt. Nouns. The forms in the a-stem declension were distinguished through grammatical endings (including zero ending). In some words inflections were accompanied by sound interchanges: nouns with the vowel [ж] in the root had interchanged [a],

18. Preterite-present verbs in OE and their further development

In OE there were twelve preterite-present verbs (the had indicative, subjunctive moods; sin, pl, 3 persons, present and past tense). Six of them have survived in Mod. E – owe, ought, can, dare, shal, may, must. Most of the preterite-presentsdid not indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb, an Infinitive which followed the preterite-present. In other words, they were used like modal verbs, and eventually developed into modern modal verbs. In ME and early NE several preterite-present verbs died out. The surviving verbs lost some of their old forms and grammatical distinctions but retained many specific peculiarities. They lost the forms of the verbals which had sprung up in OE and thedistinctions between the forms of number and mood in the Present tense. In NE their paradigms have been reduced to two forms or even to one. Now dare has – s ending in the 3rd person and Past form dared.

19. The anomalous verbs in OE and their further development

Among the verbs of the minor groups there were several anomalous verbs with irregular forms. OE willan (past wolde) was an irregular verb with the meaning of volition and desire; it resembled the preterite-presennts in meaning and function, as it indicated an attitude to an action and was often followed by an Infinitive. Eventually willan became a modal verb, like the surviving preterito-presents, and, together with sculan developed into an auxiliary. Some verbs combined the features of weak and strong verbs. OE dLn formed a weak Past tense with a vowel interchange: and a Participle in – n: don-dyde-Zedon. Two OE verbs were suppletive. OE ZAn, whose Past tense was built from a different root: ZAn-eLde – Ze-Zan. BeLn. In ME verb willan was used as a modal verb expressing volition. In course of time it formed a system with shall, as both verbs, shall and will began to weaken their lexical meanings and change into auxiliaries. ZAn – in ME it acquired a new Past tense wente, which came from an entirely different verb, OE wendan

20. The sources of Modern English verb groups

The proportion of strong and weak verbs in the language has considerably altered in the course of history. The OE strong verbs reduced by over two thirds, constitute a small group of verbs in present day English: they belong to non-standard verbs, which include nowadays many more verbs coming from various sources. Several groups of modern non-standard verbs have developed from the weak verbs class 1. Nowadays they employ various form-building devices: the dental suffix, vowel and consonant interchanges. These are verbs like sellan – salde/ sellen-solde. Another group of weak verbs became irregular in Early ME as a result of quantitative vowel changes. In verbs like OE cepan, the long vowel in the root was shortened before two consonants in the Past and Participle 2. The long vowel in the Present tense stem was preserved and was altered during the GVS, keep-kept. 3 Verbs like OE settan, with the root ending in a dental consonant, added the dental suffix without the intervening vowel [e] – OE sette. When the inflections were reduced and dropped, the three stems of the verbs – Present, Past and Part. 2 fell together set-set-set; put-put-put, cast-cast, cast. The final – t of the root had absorbed the dental suffix.

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