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Person and Number






The categories of person and number are closely connected with each other.

The expression of the category of person is essentially confined to the singular form of the verb in the present tense of the indicative mood and, besides presented in the future tense. In the present tense the expression of the category of person is divided into three peculiar subsystems. The first subsystem includes the modal verbs that have no personal inflexions: can, may, must, shall, ought, need, dare. So, in the formal sense, the category of person is wholly neutralized with these verbs, it is left unexpressed.

The second subsystem is made up by the unique verbal lexeme be. The verb be has three different suppletive personal forms, namely: am for the 1st person singular, is for the 3d person singular and are as a feature marking the finite form negatively. It can be taken for the specific positive mark of the second person for the simple reason that it coincides with the plural all-person marking. The third subsystem presents the regular, normal expression of person with the remaining multitude of the English verbs. The personal mark is confined here to the third person singular (e)s [-z, -s, -iz], the other two persons (the first and the second) remaining unmarked, e.g. comes-come, blows-blow, stops-stop, chooses-choose.

The expression of grammatical number by the English finite Verb from the formally morphemic point of view is hardly featured at all. As a matter of fact, the more or less distinct morphemic featuring of the category of number can be seen only with the forms of the unique be, both in the present tense and in the past tense. (am-are, was-were).

 

11. Development of English vocabulary

I would like to start with Old English vocabulary. The full extent of the OE Vocabulary is not known to present-day scholars. Many words have not been recorded, but according to the scientists, the total vocabulary of the OE estimated from 30 000 to 100 000 words (according to Smirnitsky and Pei), but the last number is quite unrealistic. However, those figures show that Old English was a quite developed language. Despite the gaps in the accessible data, we have a fairly complete outline of OE today. The OE vocabulary was mainly homogeneous (purely Germanic), except for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of native words inherited from PG or formed from native roots or affixes.

Among the native words we can distinguish the following 3 layers:

· Common Indo-European words. It is the oldest part of the Old English vocabulary. They describe natural phenomena, plants, animals, agricultural terms, verbs of man activities, adjectives, most numerals, personal pronouns. Old English examples of this layer are: mother, brother, son, do, nail, tree, moon, I, my two. Most of them are not shared with other groups of IE languages, but are found in certain areas, for example – Latvian “ barda ”, English “ beard ” and Russian «áîðîäà».

· Common Germanic layer includes the words that are shared by all Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. It is smaller than the first group. Common Germanic words originated in the common period of Germanic history: when the Teutonic tribes lived closely to each other. Semantically those words are connected with nature, sea, everyday life. # Gothic “ handus ”, NG “ hand ”, Icelandic “ hond ”; Gothic “ sigwan ”, English “ sing ”, Icelandic “ singwa ”. The areal distribution of those words reflects the contacts between the Germanic tribes.

· Specifically Old English words are words which do not occur in other Germanic and non-Germanic languages. They are very few # the verb “ clipian ” means “ to call ”, OE “ brid ” (NE bird). But this group will be larger if we include here the compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots # “ wiffman ” (woman) consists of two roots which occurred as separate in other Germanic languages but became a new word only in OE, compare Icelandic “ wif ”, Gothic “ mann ”.

Although the borrowed words constituted only the small part of the OE words (near 600 words) they are of great interest. They reflect the contacts of English with other tongues and show the political and economical situation between the tribes. 2 sources of OE borrowings: Celtic and Latin.

· Celtic. There are very few Celtic loan-words in the English vocabulary, most of them are found only in place-names. The OE kingdoms Kent, Deira derive their names from the Celtic tribes. The names York and perhaps London have been traced to Celtic sources (Celtic “dunn” meant “hill”). Various Celtic designations of “river” and “water” were understood by the Germanic invaders as proper names: Exe, Esk, Avon go back to Celtic “ amhuin ” (river) or “ uisge ” (water). Thames and Dover also come from Celtic. Many place names are hybrids with Celtic elements. # Celtic + Latin Celtic + Germanic

Man-chester York-shire

Win-chester Corn-wall

Lan-caster Canter-bury

Outside of place-names Celtic borrowings were very few: OE “ cradot ” (NE “cradle”), OE “ bratt ” (NE “cloak”) Some of Celtic borrowings survived only in dialects, # “ loch ” is dialectal for “lake”.

· Latin. The role of Latin influence is really great; it was determined of such historic events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the Roman influence and the introduction of Christianity. There was a considerable influence on different spheres of the life: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. Through vocabulary we can see those spheres in the life of Britain. Latin words entered English at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into several layers.

The earliest layer comprises words which WG tribes brought from the continent. Contact with the Roman civilization started a long time before the AS invasion. The adoption of Latin words continued after the invasion since Britain had been under the Roman occupation for 400 years. Earle OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and concepts which the Teutons have learnt from the Romans, they pertain to war, trade, building and home life. Concept of trade can be seen in the #s – “ meanger ” (trader), “ ceap ” (to deal) and others which came from the Latin word “ caupo ” (“merchant”). Units of measurements – OE “pund” (pound), OE “ unce ” (ounce). Contribution in building can be traced in the examples – “ cealk ” (chalk), “ coper ” (copper). Domestic life is exemplified by “ pyle ” (pillow), “ disc ” (dish).

Among the words from Latin in the second period we should name place-names and components of place-names. Latin “ colonia ” is found in Lincoln and Colchester; “ castra ” (in the meaning of “camp”) is found in Chester, Lancaster.

The third period of Latin influence started with the introduction of Christianity (late 6th) and lasted to the end of OE. There are 2 layers of borrowing in this period – 1) connected with religion 2) connected with learning. Religion introduces new conceptions, such as L “ apastolus ” became “apostol” in OE; L “ monachus ” became “ monk ”. The wide spread of L in education: L “ schola ” became OE “ scol ”, L “ dichtare ” – OE “ dictan ”. + new things and ideas introduces in OE with the Roman invasion – plants: elm, plant; animals: tiger, elephant; food: oyster, radish.

The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words, there also appeared so-called “translation loans”. The earliest instances of loans are the names of the days of the week. OE “ Monan-dag ” was the translation of Latin “ Lunae dies ”.

In other words – Etymological layers of the OE vocabulary

Native words Borrowings
Common IE Common Germanic West Germanic Specifically OE Celtic Latin
           

 

The bulk of the vocabulary grew rapidly, usually by means of word-formation. According to the morphological structure the words fell into 3 main parts:

1) simple words (root-words) or words with a simple stem, containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes # “ land ”, “ singan ” (land, sing)

2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes # “ be-ginnan

3) compound words (more than one root-morpheme) # “ mann-cynn ” (mankind), “ scir-ge-refa ” (sheriff).

The ways of word-formation in OE were similar of that in modern English. One of the examples is the ability of a single root appears in different – simple, compound or derived words. For example, OE “ mod ” (mood) appeared in 50 words, such as “ ofermod ” (arrogance), “ modig ” (proud) etc. It is not always possible for linguists to say whether the way of word-formation was productive or not. OE employed 2 ways of word-formation: derivation and composition.

1) Word-derivation. Derived words in OE were built with the help of affixes, sound interchanges and word-stress.

· Sound interchanges in the words of related roots were frequent, but used as an additional feature to distinguish between the words built with the same root. SI was never used alone; it was also combined with suffixation. The earliest source of root-vowel interchanges was ablaut or vowel gradation inherited from PG and IE. Si interchanges was a distinctive feature between verbs and nouns and also verbs derived from a single root. # “ ridan ” – “ radan ” –> [i: - a]: (ride-raid); “ singan ” – “song” -> [i – a]: (sing-song); “ drinken ” – “ drunken ” [i-ý] (strong-weak verbs). Vowel interchangs were due to phonetic changes like breaking “ beran ” – “ bearn ”. The use of consonant interchanges was far more restricted than the use of vowels. Consonant interchanges arose as the result of phonetic changes: Verner’s Law, rhotacism, hardening of [th] and others. # “ risan ” – “ raeran ” -> Verner’s Law + Rhotacism.

· The use of word-stress in word-formation was not great. The shifting of word stress helped to differentiate between the parts of speech. Thus, the verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding noun had stressed prefixes. # “ ond-‘swarian ” (verb) – “ ’ond-swaru ” (noun).

· Prefixation. Prefixation was a productive means of building new words in OE. Many prefixes sprang from adverbs and prepositions # mis-, be-, ofer-. Prefixes were widely used with verbs but with other parts of speech were not so productive. # “ gan ” (go) – “ a-gan ” (go away), “ be-gan ” (go round). The most frequent and productive prefixes were: a-, be-, for-, ge-, ofer-, un-; the last was common with nouns. The prefix modifies the lexical meaning of the word but doesn’t change the part of speech. Some even changes the meaning very considerably # “ limpan ” (happen) – “ miss-limpan ” (go wrong). Some prefixes had a weak meaning based on grammatical # ge- was the commonest prefix and also showed result or completion and used with Past Participles.

· Suffixation was the most productive means of word-derivation. Suffoxes modified the lexical meaning and could change the part of speech. S were mostly applied to forming nouns and adjectives, seldom – verbs. There were some sources of suffixes: old-steam suffixes which produces the words in PG and were distinguished in some OE words as dead or not-productive (-t- in OE “meaht” – might); derivational suffixes and new suffixes which developed from root-morphemes in PG). Among the suffixes of agent-nouns there were some unproductive suffixes, like -a in “hunta” (hunter), -ere (Masc) and –estre (Femenine), -ing showed the descent of a person # “cyning” – the head of a tribe (OE “clyn” – clan). The productive adj suffix –lic originated from the noun “lic” (body) but lost all those semantic ties # “deadlic” (dead), “scearplic” (sharp). By adding suffix –e an adjective became an adverb # “freondlic” – “freondlice”. The most important feature of suffixation was a growth of suffixes from root-morphemes. The second component od a compound word became a suffix and the word went from a compound to a derived #-dom, -had, -lac. The verb-suffixes were unproductive # -s in “cla(ý)nsian”.

2) Word-composition was a highly-productive way to develop a vocabulary in OE. This method of word-formation was common in all IE languages but in Germanic group it became the most widely-spread. WC was more productive in nominal parts of speech than in verbs. Compound nouns had several first components – stems of nouns, adjective and verbs, the second component was a noun, the pattern “noun+noun” was the most productive of all ”mann-cynn” (mankind), “boc-craft” (literature = book kraft). Adjective stems: “wid-saa” (ocean); verb-stem: “bac-hus” (bakery). Compound adjectives were built by joining the noun-stem to an adjective # “dom-georn” (eager for glory). The most remarkable pattern of a compound adjective was “bahuvrihi type” – adjective plus noun-stem as the second component of an adjective # ”stip-mod” (brave). There were a lot of examples of words formed with different methods # “un-wis-dom” (prefixation+adjective stem+suffixation).

All in all, the summary of principle means of word-formation:

 

Derivation Word composition
Prefixation Suffixation
Verbs (nouns, adjectives) Nouns, Adjectives Nouns, Adjectives
For-gietan (forget) God-nis (goodness) Grad-ig (greedy) Ham-cyme, cild-geong (home-coming, young as a child)

 

Middle English period (12-19th centuries)

According to the estimated made by philologists, in the course of the thousands years, the English vocabulary has multiplied tenfold. Among the changes in the vocabulary we can name losses of words and their meanings, replacements, additions.

Like many others lexical changes, the losses were connected with events in external history, with the changing conditions, for example. Some rituals and institutions of the OE Kingdom became obsolescence and with them their names and concepts also died. # OE “Danegeld”, the tax paid to the Scandinavians, was not collected after the collapse of the Danish Empire. This word has survived as a historical term. Some rituals were abandoned, as well as their names. # OE “tiber”, “blot” (sacrifice) went out of use. In OE there were a lot of synonyms, the use of which became irrelevant in ME. # OE “fierd”, “weord” were replaced by the French borrowings “army”, “troop”. Poetic vocabulary of OE was also replaced by more neutral words. Also many words current in ME became obsolete in NE # ME “chapman” (pedlar).

Replacements played a great role in ME vocabulary. It was calculated that more than 80% of words came out of use from OE period, but they were not simply lost, they were replaced by other words of the same or similar meanings. This replacement came as a result of rivalry of synonyms. Thus, OE “clippian” was replaced by ME “callen” and by NE “call”. Replacements could also occur in the sphere of content: the word was retained but its meaning was changes or replaced by another meaning. # OE “chint” (boy) changed its meaning to ME and NE “knight”.

Additions embrace a large number of vocabulary changes. Among them we find pure innovations which named the new things and ideas. # ME “dyke”, “pryncess” – new ranks; “cite” – new kind of a town. The development of new meanings in the existed words extended the vocabulary and led to the growth of polysemy and homonymy. # ME “journee” meant “day’s work” and in NE began to name a kind of travel.

 

Vocabulary developed in the ME both by internal and external processes. Internal ways of developing a vocabulary was productive in all periods. Word-formation and semantic changes were widely spread in the periods of the growth of the vocabulary (the Renaissance period). The role of external sources is very important esp. in English language. The language of former periods absorbed hundreds of words from different languages. As a result, the proportion of the Germanic words has fallen rapidly. But the native components and native words were widely spread as they present the most spread layer of the language. The influx of borrowings depends on the situation in the country (cultural, economical), bilinguism in the community and other sources. The linguistic situation was most favorable in ME for strong French and Scandinavian influence.

1. The Scandinavian invasions had many linguistic consequences. There are the hundreds of place-names with Scandinavian origin in the Danelaw. Placenames often begin as topographical descriptions and place-name elements like -by (Grimsby), -beck (Tossbeck), -ness (Furness), -kir[k] (Kirkcaldy), -scale, -sough, -thwait[e] (Inglethwaithe), -thorp[e] meant “village” (Scunthorpe), and -toft (Lowestoft) are all of Scandinavian origin. In the beginning loan-words became restricted, but many people became bilingual. The total number of Scandinavian borrowings is nearly 900 words.

It is difficult to define the semantic spheres of Scandinavian influence. They portray everyday life and do not differ from everyday words. Only the earliest loan-words deal with military affairs: NE “law” from Scandinavian “log”. Other borrowings: “takan” (take), “husbonda” (husband), “cnif” (knife). Nouns of NE with Sc. origin: cake, crook, gate, gap, loan, root, score. Verbs: cut, die drown, happen, lift, skip. Adjectives: awkward, happy, ill. The Scandinavian loan-word came to English usually with new innovations (# law), but more often the words became the synonyms to already excised: # Sc “ill” and native “evil”, Sc. “sky”, native “heaven” – they have survive with a slight difference in meaning. Assimilation of new Sc. words was easy as the two languages were related. The only criteria to distinguish the Scandinavian borrowing today is phonetic. Some words are easily recognized due to Scandinavian initial consonants: sk (skill, sky, skin, skirt), while [ø] is more or less native (shirt).

2. The French language was brought to English by the Roman conquest. The Normans remained the masters of England for a long time to have a great influence on the language. And later in the 13th the variety of more literal French came from the central France. The total number of French borrowings today is the total number of the rest foreign borrowings in English.

During the Norman occupation, about 10, 000 French words were adopted into English, some three-fourths of which are still in use today. This French vocabulary is found in every domain, from government and law to art and literature # ME “prisun” (prison), “were” (war), “prut” (proud).

The heaviest borrowing from French occurred in ME because after 1250 there were more French speakers who began speaking English--remember the loss of Normandy in 1204. The words borrowed during this phase are found in many spheres:

Government and Administrative: govern, government, administer, crown, state, empire, royal, majesty, treaty, statute, parliament, tax, rebel, traitor, treason, noble, peer, prince, princess, duke, slave, servant, vassal.

Ecclesiastical: religion, theology, confession, censer lectern, abbey, convent, virgin, faith, heresy, schism, divine, pray, confess.

Law: justice, equity, plaintiff, judge, advacate, attorney, petition, inquest, felon, evidence, sue, accuse arrest, blame, libel, slander, felony, adultery, property, estate, heir, executor.

Military -Army and Navy: (Much of the fighting during this time was done in France. Many now-obsolete words for pieces of armor, etc., were borrowed at this time.) army, navy, peace, enemy, arms, battle, spy, combat, siege, defence, ambush, soldier, guard, mail, buckler, banner, lance, besiege, defend, array.

Clothing: robe, garment, attire, cape, coat, button, satin, taffeta, jewel, ornament, ivory, topaz, diamond.

Food: feast, appetite, tart, sturgeon, sardine, beef, port, bacon, toast, cream, sugar, salad, spice, clove.

Social: curtain, couch, lamp, wardrobe, screen, closet, leisure, dance, melody.

Art, Learning, Medicine: painting, sculpture, music, beauty, cathedral, palace, mansion, ceiling, poet, prose, romance, paper, pen, volume, chapter, geometry, grammar, noun, gender, physician, pain, pulse, remedy, poison.

Common words and expressions showed the Norman way of life in England, the loan-words are: lamp, coach, city, cheer, honour and others.

The impact of French upon the English can be traced due the borrowings of roots and affixes. The assimilation of French words was a more difficult process than the assimilation of Scandinavian, because some sounds didn’t exist in English. In the 13th century the French `j' came to be pronounced `zh', and `ch' became `sh'. Later borrowings (i.e., after the 13th century) have the `zh' and `sh' pronunciations: chamois, chaperon, chiffon, chevron, jabot (last trim on the front of a dress), rouge.

In the Renaissance period – development of science art culture and interest in ancient civilizations brought Latin and Greek borrowings. Many French words appeared due to contacts with Europe and France. In the 16 century the mixed character of the vocabulary became quite obvious. Elements of different origin were combined into a complex system. Intimate ties between elements of different origin are confirmed by numerous hybrid formations, that are words consisting of a native root and a borrowed affix or vice versa. Latin Borrowings. In a sense the French words were Latin borrowings since French developed from Vulgar Latin--as did all the Romance languages. The borrowings that came directly from Latin tended to be more learned in character--e.g., allegory, index, magnify, mechanical, private, secular, zenith. Aureate terms--direct borrowings from Latin--were a stylistic affectation of the 15th century Scottish Chaucerians such as James I, Henryson, and Dunbar. Some of these words have been dropped from English (or never really made it in) while others have survived, e.g., diurnal (daily or daytime), tenebrous (dark), laureate, mediation, oriental, prolixity.

It has been pointed out that as a result of Middle English borrowing from French and Latin, Modern English has synonyms on three levels: popular (English), literary (French), and learned (Latin), as in rise--mount--ascend; ask--question--interrogate; fire--flame--conflagration; holy--sacred--consecrated.

According to Smith – the development of English vocabulary was mainly due to borrowings. But the leading role in the history of English vocabulary belongs to word formation and semantic changes which absorbed and remodeled the vast majority of loan words according to its own standards. So sometimes it’s difficult to say whether the word is native or borrowed.

 

 

16. Articulatory classification of English vowels and consonants


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