Lecture 4 New English 1 External History

Lecture 4 New English

1. External History. Formation of the National Language 1. 1. Spread of London Dialect in the 15 th Century The formation of a national language was mostly caused by Ø the Wars of the Roses (1455— 1485) Ø the introduction of printing http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/William_Caxton http: //www. uni-duisburgessen. de/SHE/HE_Dialects. Modern. English. htm

1. 2. Development of the Literary Language 1611 King James' Bible http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/King_James_Version_o f_the_Bible 1621 Alexander Gill. Logonomia Anglica 1685 Christopher Cooper. Grammatica Anglicana 1724 William Baker. Rules for True Spelling and Writing English 1755 Dr. Samuel Johnson. A Dictionary of the English Language

Samuel Johnson 1709— 1784

1. 3. Expansion of English. The English Language in America. Hybrid Languages http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/British_Empire http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Mixed_language

1. 4. 20 th century. English as an International Language http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/International_Eng lish

Early New English texts William Shakespeare http: //molcat 1. bl. uk/treasures/shakespeare/s earch. asp

2. Internal History 1. 1 Vocabulary of NE period Ø Enrichment of Vocabulary in the Renaissance Period Ø Latinization of French Words Ø Greek Words Ø Borrowing of Colonial and French Words in the 17 th Century

2. 2 Phonetic Changes The changes that affected the vowel and the consonant system in New English were great and numerous. Vowels — Qualitative changes: 1. Disappearance of vowels in the unstressed position at the end of the word. 2. Changes of all long vowels — the Great Vowel Shift. 3. Changes of two short vowels: [a] > [æ] or [o] and [u] >[ʌ]. Vowels — Quantitative changes: 4. Changes of two diphthongs: [ai] > [ei], [au] > [o: ]. 5. Lengthening of vowels before [r] — due to the vocalization of consonants. Consonants: 6. Appearance of the consonant [3] and the consonants [ʧ]>[d 3] in new positions. 7. Disappearance or vocalization of the consonant [r]. 8. Voicing of consonants — Verner's Law in New English. 9. Positional disappearance: r vocalized at the end of the word: far w before r write к before n knight h before t light

VOWELS IN THE UNSTRESSED POSITION Ø Vowels in the unstressed position already reduced in Middle English to the vowel of the [ə] type are dropped in New English if they are found in the endings of words Old Middle New English nama name [neim] writan write [rait] sunu sone son [sʌn]

VOWELS UNDER STRESS Qualitative changes. Changes of monophthongs Ø All long monophthongs in New English (15 -17 century) underwent a change that is called The Great Vowel Shift. Due to this change the vowels became more narrow and more front. Ø Middle New English [ā]-[ei] make [ē]-[i: ] see [ō]-[ou] stone [õ]-[u: ] roote root moon

Two long close vowels: [ū] and [ī] at first also became more narrow and gave diphthongs of the [uw] or [ij] type. But those diphthongs were unstable because of similarity between the glide and nucleus. Ø Consequently the process of the dissimilation of the elements [ī] and [ū] gave us the diphthongs [ai] and [au], respectively. Ø Middle New English [ū]-[au] house [ī]-[ai] time

INFLUENCE OF THE CONSONANT “R” UPON THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT Ø When a long vowel was followed in a word by the consonant "r" the given consonant did not prevent the Great Vowel Shift, but the resulting vowel is more open, than the resulting vowel in such cases when the long vowel undergoing the Shift was followed by a consonant other than "r". [ei] but [ ] ə fate but fare [i: ] but [iə] steep but steer [ai] but [aiə] time but tire [u: ] but [uə] moon but moor [аu] but [аuə] house but hour

Ø As a result of the Great Vowel Shift new sounds did not appear, but the already existing sounds appeared under new conditions. The sound appeared after the Shift [ei] [u: ] The sound existed before the Shift wey hous [i: ] time see make moon

ØTwo short monophthongs changed their quality in new ØEnglish (XVII century), the monophthong [a] becoming [æ] and Øthe monophthong [u] becoming [ʌ]. Middle New English [a] > [æ] that [u]>[ʌ] cut

Ø However, these processes depended to a certain extent upon the preceding sound. When the sound [a] was preceded by [w] it changed into [o]. Middle New English [a] > [æ] that Where the sound [u] was preceded by the consonants [p], [b] or [f], the change of [u] into [ʌ] generally did not take place Ø bull, butcher, pull, push, full, etc. that [a] > [o] was Ø was

Changes of diphthongs Ø Two out of the four Middle English diphthongs changed in New English, the diphthong [ai] becoming [ei] and the diphthong [au] contracted to [o: ] For example: Middle New English [ai] > [ei] dai day [au]> [o: ] lawe

Quantitative changes Ø Short vowels followed by the consonant [r] became long after the disappearance of the given consonant at the end of the word or before another consonant Ø Middle New English [a] > [a: ] farm [o] > [o: ] horse

Ø When the consonant [r] stood after the vowels [e], [i], [u], the resulting vowel was different from the initial vowel not only in quantity but also in quality. Compare: Ø Ø Ø her fir fur Ø or [h] before [t]: might, night, light. [ə: ]

CONSONANTS Ø 1) Appearance of a new consonant in the system of English phonemes — [3] and the development of the consonants [d 3] and [ʧ] from palatal consonants. Thus Middle English [sj], [zj], [tj], [dj] gave in New English the sounds [ſ], [3], [ʧ], [d 3]. [sj] > [ſ] Asia, ocean [zj] > [3] measure, treasure [tj] > [ʧ] nature, culture, century soldier [dj]> [d 3]

2. Certain consonants disappeared at the end of the word or before another consonant, the most important change of the kind affecting the consonant [r]: farm, form, horse, etc. 3. The fricative consonants [s], [Ө] and [f] were voiced after unstressed vowels or in words having no sentence stress — the so-called "Verner's Law in New English": possess, observe, exhibition; dogs, cats; the, this, that, there, then, though, etc.