Old English

• The Old English we generally study is a kind of standard, elaborated on the basis of one of the dialects spoken at that time (West Saxon) plus the addition of grammatical, syntactic and lexical features from other dialects.

• Different dialects spoken depended on where each Germanic tribe settled. (See Heptarchy map).

Old English Periods

• Pre-Old English (449/450-700), paucity of written records.

• Early Old English (700-900), use of a literary dialect (West Saxon). Made important by King Alfred and his collaborators.

• Old English proper (900-1150).

Linguistic Situation in OE Period

• a. Anglian: spoken north of river Thames

a.1. Northumbrian: north of river Humber [north england]

a.2. Mercian: between Humber and Thames [midlands.mixture of N&S]

• b. Kentish: the south-east of England.

• c. West-Saxon: south-west of England [once standard]

Changes from Old English to Middle English

• Morphosyntactic Change [ declensions: lost]

• Syntactic Change[ word order]

• Lexical Change [most of the vocab has changad. Lots of it has disappeared]

BIG CHANGES --> BEYOND RECOGNITION

Morphosyntactic Change

• Gender in the article system disappears.

OE ME

MASCULINE se wulf þe wulf

FEMENINE seo giefu þe gift

NEUTER þæt land þe land

• Natural gender takes over in the pronoun system: it to refer to most objects and he, she to males and females and some objects such as ship.

Morphosyntactic Change

• Simplification of the cases in the article system

OE ME

Masculine All genders

Nom se þe

Acc þone þe

Dat þǽm þe

Gen þæs þe

Morphosyntactic Change

• Simplification of noun endings

Singular Plural

OE ME OE ME

Nominative stān stone stānas stones

Accusative stān stone stānas stones

Genitive stānes stone’s stanum stones’

Dative stāne stone stāna stones

Morphosyntactic Change

Plural with s spreads to most nouns

Sing Plural Sing Plural

MASC. stan stanas stone stones

FEM. giefu giefa gift gifts

NEUT. ship shipu ship ships

bok bec book books

BUT man men man men

Morphosyntactic Change

• Simplification of adjective endings

OE ME

• Nom. se wilda wulf þe wild wulf

• Acc. þone wildan wulf þe wild wulf

• Gen. þæs wildan wulfes þe wild wulf

• Dat. þǽm wildan wulfe þe wild wulf

• Nom. þa wildan wulfas þe wild wulfes

• Acc. þa wildan wulfas þe wild wulfes

• Gen. þǽra wildra wulfa þe wild wulfes

• Dat. þǽm wildum wulfum þe wild wulfes

Syntax From OE to ME

• Word order became more important with the loss of declensions [ lost because of external causes: 2 simplify things]

• Scandinavian phrasal verbs: gyfen up, faren mid, leten up, tacen to.

• Use of Scandinavian verbal operator get.

• Use of operator do [operator without a lexical meaning]

Wryteth ye this with your owne hande?

Dyd ye wryte this with your owne hande?

* simplification of cases meant that word order

was absolutely essential

Celtic substratum

• Very few words of Celtic origin are found in Modern English:

• Rivers: Avon, Clyde, Dee, Don, Forth, Severn, Thames, Usk

• Axminster, Caerleon-on-Usk, Exmouth, Uxbridge from the word for water.

• The word whisky/whiskey also comes from a compound of this word: uisge eatha = water of life

• Cities: Belfast, Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, London, York

• Landscape words: ben, cairn, corrie, crag, crannog, cromlech, dolmen, glen, loch, menhir, strath, tor:

• First Names: Alan, Donald, Duncan, Eileen, Fiona, Gavin, Ronald, Sheila

• Other words: badger -brock - tejón; peat - turba; bucket – cubo; dun = “dark coloured”, binn = “basket”

Celtic substratum

• Some of the Celtic words that entered English come from Latin [by contact with the Roman invaders]. These words were borrowed during the Roman occupation of Gaul:

• car, carry, carriage, chariot, charioteer, carpenter, carpentry, lance, and lancer.

Latin Influence:
Period of Continental Borrowing from Latin 1st to 5th centuries A.D.

• Around 50 words through Germanic contact with Rome before the invasion

and settlement of Britain: straet (strata) , pund (pondo), mil (milia).

Latin influence: (from Roman occupation of Britain -up to 410 AD)

Very little influence during this period.

Place names: ceaster (castra = “walled encampment'), for example: Dorchester,

Winchester, Manchester, Lancaster, and wic (vicum = “village” ) Greenwich, etc

Latin influence:
Period of the Christianizing of Britain (7th to 10th centuries AD)

• abbot, alms, pope, priest, oyster, fig, pine, cedar, sack, sock, etc.

• loan translations (native word formations in imitation of a Latin model) se haliga gast, godspel --> calque
--> holy ghost

Scandinavian Influence Toponyms

Scale (dwelling) Scalby Beck

-by (village) Ormsby, Kirkby

-gill (ravine) Aisgill

-fell (hill) Cross Fell

-thorpe (farm) Priesthorpe

-slack (dell, valley) Garton Slack

-thwaite Micklethwaite

Scandinavian Influence

• egg for OE ey

• sister for swuster

• leg for shanks

• Word pairs: skiff-ship; skirt-shirt

• OE words replaced by Scandinavian words:

• take-niman; cast-weorpan

• cut-ceorfan, die-steorfan (starve)

• Function Words

til

though

they, their, them

both

same

against

Linguistic Situation in ME Period 1100-1450/1500

• English co-existed with Anglo-Norman and Latin.

• Latin was the written language of the Church and many secular documents.

• After the Conquest a certain amount of bilingualism in England.

Norman Influence

• In Early ME 91.5 % of words had English origin; in later Middle English this figure had fallen to 78.8 %.

• The language of 5 or 10% of the population became the most substantial source of new words in written ME.

• 13th c. Parisian French superseded Anglo-Norman French [by now old fashioned]

Vocabulary

• Pre-Conquest French borrowings:
prud, castel.

• Early Post-Conquest words.
natiuite, canceler, concilie, carite,

• Borrowings increased dramatically around the 13th century, not because of structural gaps but because they were felt to be stylistically more suitable.

Norman and French Word Pairs

• Wile (1154) guile (1225)

• warrant(1225) guarantee (1624)

• warden(1225) guardian (1466)

• reward(1315) regard (1430)

Latin Borrowings in ME

• Words of common use.
aggregate, applaude, assimilate, etc.

• Words used in the