Презентация на тему Course of history of english

sources.
Different approaches to language development.
Evolution of language and

scope of language history.
Concept of linguistic change and the causes of language evolution.
Main aspects of the course of History of English.

PROBLEMS TO COVER:

this subject will help us understand:
1. Subject and

aim of HISTORY OF ENGLISH. Its sources

the essence of language evolution;
– the role of linguistic

and extralinguistic factors;
– the interdependence of different processes in language history;
– the place of English in the linguistic world;
– the ties and contacts with other cognate and unrelated tongues;
– the peculiarities of the English language evolution.

(vs German or Latin)
How many letters and sounds?
bit, bite,

knight
Why?

At the time when Latin characters were first used in Britain (7thc.) writing was phonetic: the letters stood, roughly, for the same sounds as in Latin. Later, especially after the introduction of printing in the 15thC., the written form of the word became fixed, while the sounds continued to evolve. This resulted in a spelling and pronunciation divergence and in the modern peculiar use of Latin letters in English. Many modern spellings show how the words were pronounced hundreds of years ago, e.g. in the 14th С knight sounded as [knix't], root as [ro:t], tale as ['ta:lә].

other Germanic languages (German, Swedish, Danish and others)?
give

– geben, baker - Bäcker, brown – braun, hair – Haar, young – jung, long – lang, man – Mann, mouse – Maus, folk – Volk, etc.
What similar English and French words do you know?
peace – paix (G. Frieden) , army – armée (G. Heer), table – table (G. Tisch), royal – royal (königlich), chair – chaise (G.Stuhl)
Why?
In the first group words are of native, Germanic origin, which is confirmed by the parallels from other Germanic tongues.
In the second group words are borrowed from the Romance languages (BUT IN OE THE RESPECTIVE WORDS WERE GERMANIC).
In Modern English the proportion of Romance roots is higher than that of native roots.

What English inflexions do you know?
Why does English have

so few inflexions?
How has the loss of inflections influenced the grammatical structure?
Does English have a fixed word order?
Why do some nouns have irregular plurals?
Why do modal verbs have no ending –s?

language changes?
What is language reconstruction?
What unites 4c

AD (for Gothic) and 7c AD (for English)?
Is the language born together with its system of writing?
How can we find out about early stages of history of English and lifestyle of people who spoke it? Give examples.

works of ancient historians and geographers, especially Roman;
descriptions of Germanic tribes, personal names and place-names;
early borrowings from Germanic dialects into other languages;
scientific study of extant texts.

= a series of disconnected partial changes which gradually,

as if by chance, resulted in a new state of things.
Complex grammatical phenomena were seen as a mechanical result of phonetic development.

2. APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

language as a STATIC SYSTEM of interconnected units.


father

of modern linguistics for
bringing about the shift from diachronic
(historical) to synchronic (non-historical) analysis.





It was the merit chiefly of the Prague Linguistic Circle, created in 1926, to have introduced the notion of system into diachronic linguistics as well, so that DEVELOPMENT CAME TO BE SEEN AS THE EVOLUTION OF THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM AS SUCH, NOT AS A CHANCE ACCUMULATION OF DISCONNECTED CHANGES IN DETAILS.

“Language Development” handout.
Watch episode “Birth of a Language” from

“The Adventure of English” BBC documentary and do exercises.

2 project groups:
Technological progress in the 13-16 c and language evolution
Technological progress in the 20-21 c and language evolution

Home assignment