Linguistics

1. Linguistic features of Germanic languages: vowels.
Germanic languages also have some peculiarities in the sphere of vowel sounds, which distinguish them from other Indo-European languages.
Their main characteristic feature in this sphere is the treatment of the Indo-European short vowels o and a and the long vowels o and a.
Indo-European short o and a appear as short a languages. E.g.:in
IE Germanic
Russ. Яблоко germ. Apfel
Lat. Noctem goth. Nahts
Russ.ночь germ. Nacht
Indo-European long o and a appear as long o in Germanic languages :
IE Germanic IE Germanic
Lat. Frater goth. Broar lat. Flos OE bloma
Greek. Phrator rOE bro
Thus, as a result of these changes, there was neither a short o nor a long a in Germanic languages. Later on these sounds appeared from different sources.
Another phenomenon common for Germanic languages is gradation or ablaut- root vowel change in strong verbs etc.
Another common phenomenon is Germanic Fracture that concerns 2 pairs of vowels: the pair E and I and the pair U and O.
2. Spelling changes in ME and NE. Rules of reading. The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of the words in ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different. In ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and digraphs.In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn – þ – and the crossed d – đ, ð – were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] and [ð]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u” – w – ; the ligatures æ and œ fell into disuse. After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance (11th–13th c.) English regained its prestige as the language of writing. Though for a long time writing was in the hands of those who had a good knowledge of French. Therefore many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo-Norman texts were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], and [t∫]. other alterations in spelling cannot be traced directly to French influence though they testify to a similar tendency: a wider use of digraphs. In addition to ch, ou, ie, and th Late ME notaries introduced sh (also ssh and sch) to indicate the new sibilant [∫], e.g. ME ship (from OE scip), dg to indicate [dз] alongside j and g; the digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hwæt, ME what [hwat]. Long sounds were shown by double letters, e.g. ME book [bo:k], though long [e:] could be indicated by ie and ee, and also by e. Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u; it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v, e.g. OE lufu became ME love [luvə]. The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. Sometimes, y, as well w, were put at the end of a word, so as to finish the word with a curve, e.g. ME very [veri], my [mi:]; w was interchangeable with u in the digraphs ou, au, e.g. ME doun, down [du:n], and was often preferred finally, e.g. ME how [hu:], now [nu:]. For letters indicating two sounds the rules of reading are as follows. G and с stand for [dз] and [s] before front vowels and for [g] and [k] before back vowels respectively. Y stands for [j] at the beginning of words, otherwise, it is an equivalent of the letter i, e.g. ME yet [jet], knyght [knix’t]. The letters th and s indicate voiced sounds between vowels, and voiceless sounds – initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants, e.g. ME worthy [wurрi]. To determine the sound value of o one can look up the origin of the sound in OE or the pronunciation of the word in NE: the sound [u] did not change in the transition from OE to ME (the OE for some was sum); in NE it changed to [Λ]. It follows that the letter o stood for [u] in those ME words which contain [Λ] today, otherwise it indicates [o].
3. Linguistic features of Germanic languages: consonants.
The consonants in Germanic languages are characterized by a number of specific traits which constitute what is perhaps the most remarkable feature of the group. At first sight it may appear that Germanic consonants are similar to those of other Indo-European languages. Yet, comparison of Germanic and non-Germanic words going back to the same Indo-European root shows that Germanic consonants do not correspond to the same consonants in other languages. Thus whenever we have the sound (p) in Latin or Russian, we find (f) in its place in parallel words from Germanic languages. On the other hand, wherever Germanic has (p), non-Germanic have (b) ex. Sleep and слабеть.
It appears that Germanic languages display regular correspondences of consonants with non-Germanic languages: voiceless consonants occur instead of voiced, ex. (p), (b), fricatives instead of plosives (f), (p).
These correspondences appeared as a result of specifically Germanic tendencies in the development of consonants. Sometimes the alterations were independent, at other times they were caused by phonetics conditions and took place only in certain positions. The most remarkable change, which affected the greatest number of consonants, refers to the Common Germanic period, its results are therefore to be found in all the languages of the group.
4. ME phonetics: vowel (reduction, shortening/lengthening, development of OE monophthongs in ME).
In the ME period a great change affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. OE had both short and long vowel phonemes, and each of these could occur in any phonetics environment, that is, they were absolutely independent phonemic units. But in the 10th—12th centuries, the ME vowel system was basically different.
Shortening - a long vowel occurring before 2 consonants (including a doubled, i.e. long, consonants) is shortened. The vowels are shortened before 2 consonants, but remain long in other environments. However, long vowels remain long before the ‘lengthening’ consonant groups ld, nd, mb, i.e. those consisting of 2 voiced consonants articulated by the same organ speech. Long consonants also remained long before such consonant clusters as belonged to the following syllable. This mainly affects the group –st.
Lengthening – short vowels were lengthened in open syllables. This was another item of the development which deprived quantity of its status as a phonetic feature. It affected the short vowels a, e, o. The narrow vowels I and u remained as a rule unaffected by this change, and thus the difference between short I and long and also that between short u and long u retained its quality as a phonemically relevant feature.
Monophthongization of OE Diphthongs – all OE diphthongs were monophthongized in ME. OE short ea became a passing through the stage of ᵫ, as in eald – ald ‘old’, healf – half.
5. The Earliest Period of Germanic History
The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th с B.C. The would-be Germanic tribes belonged to the western division of the IE speech community.
As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, the ancient Germans or Teutons x moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of the Teutons. It is here that they developed their first specifically Germanic linguistic features which made them a separate group in the IE family.
PG was never recorded in written form.
It is believed that at the earliest stages of history PG was funda­mentally one language, though dialectally coloured. In its later stages dialectal differences grew, so that towards the beginning of our era Ger­manic appears divided into dialectal groups and tribal dialects. Dialec­tal differentiation increased with the migrations and geographical ex­pansion of the Teutons caused by overpopulation, poor agricultural technique and scanty natural resources in the areas of their original settlement.
Towards the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end. The Teutons had extended over a larger territory and the PG language broke into parts. PG split into three branches: East Germanic (Vindili in Pliny's classification), North Germanic (Hilleviones) and West Germanic (which embraces Ingveones, Istsevones and Hermino-nes in Pliny's list). In due course these branches split into separate Germanic languages.
The East Germanic subgroup. was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were the Goths.
The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4th—6th с The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian.
The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in placenames, which reveal the directions of their migrations: Bornholm and Burgundy go back to the East Germanic tribe of Burgundians; Andalusia is derived from the tribal name Vandals; Lombardy got its name from the Langobards, who made part of the population of the Ostrogothic kingdom in North Italy.
North Germanic
The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to the North Germanic subgroup of languages. The speech of the North Germanic tribes showed little dialectal variation until the 9th c. and is regarded as a sort of common North Germanic parent-language called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. It has come down to us in runic inscriptions dated from the 3rd to the 9th c. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard material in an original Germanic alphabet known as the runic alphabet or the runes. The runes were used by North and West Germanic tribes. The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began after the 9th c., when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages.
The earliest written records in Old Danish, Old Norwegian and Old Swedish date from the 13th c. In the later Middle Ages Danish and then Swedish developed into national literary languages. Nowadays Swedish is spoken not only by the population of Sweden; the language has extended over Finnish territory and is the second state language in Finland.
Norwegian was the last to develop into an independent national lan­guage. During the period of Danish dominance Norwegian intermixed with Danish. As a result in the 19th с there emerged two varieties of the Norwegian tongue: the state or bookish tongue riksmal (later called bokmal)and landsmal. At the present time the two varieties tend to fuse into a single form of lan­guage nynorsk ("New Norwegian").
In addition to the three languages on the mainland, the North Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Viking Age.
Faroese is spoken nowadays by about 30,000 people. For many centuries all writing was done in Danish; it was not until the 18th с that the first Faroese records were made.
At present Icelandic is spoken by over 200 000 people.
Old Icelandic written records date from the 12th and 13th c, an age of literary flourishing. The most important records are: the ELDER EDDA (also called the POETIC EDDA) — a collection of heroic songs of the 12th c, the YOUNGER (PROSE) EDDA (a text-book for poets compiled by Snorri Sturluson in the early 13th c.) and the Old Icelandic sagas.
West Germanic
The dialectal differentiation of West Germanic was quite distinct even at the beginning of our era since Pliny and Tacitus described them under three tribal names On the eve of their "great migrations" of the 4th and 5th c. the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians (or Franks) subdivided into Low, Middle and High Franconians. The Angles and the Frisians (known as the Anglo-Frisian group), the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany and the southern part of Denmark. A group of tribes known as High Germans lived in the mountai­nous southern regions of the Federal Republic of Germany (High Germans , Low Germans ) The High Germans included a number of tribes whose names are known since the early Middle Ages: the Alemanians, the Swabians, the Bavarians, the Thuringians and others. The Franconian dialects were spoken in the extreme North of the Empire; in the later Middle Ages they developed into Dutch - the language of the Low Countries (the Netherlands) and Flemish - the language of Flanders. The earliest texts in Low Franconian date from the 10th c; 12th с records represent the earliest Old Dutch.
The modern language of the Netherlands, formerly called Dutch, and Its variant m Belgium, known as the Flemish dialect, are now treated as a single languuge, Netherlandish. Netherlandish is spoken by almost 20 million people.
About three hundred years ago the Dutch Language was brought to South Africa. Their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic language, Afrikaans. Today Afrikaans is the mother-tongue of over four million Afrikaners and coloured people and one of the state languages in the South African Republic
The High German dialects consolidated into a common language known as Old High German (OHG). The first written records in OHG date from the 8th and 9th c. (glosses to Latin texts, translations from Latin. and religious poems). Towards the 12th c. High German (known as Middle High Germarn had intermixed with neighbouring tongues, especially Middle and High Franconian, and eventually developed into the Literary German language. The total number of German-speaking people approaches 100 million.
The first English written records have come down from the 7th c., which is the earliest date in the history of writing in the West Germanic subgroup (see relevant chapters below). The Frisians and the Saxons who did not take part in the invasion of Britain stayed on the continent. Frisian has survived as a local dialect in Friesland (in the Netherlands) and Ostfriesland (the Federal Republic of Germany). It has both an oral and written form, the earliest records dating from the 13th c. In the Early Middle Ages the continental Saxons formed a powerful tribe. Together with High German tribes they took part in the eastward drive and the colonization of the former Slavonic territories. Old Saxon known in written form from the records of the 9th c. has survived as one of the Low German dialects.
6. Development of Old English diphthongs inМ.English
One of the most important sound changes of the Early ME period was the loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative distinctions. OE possessed a well developed system of diphthongs: falling diphthopgs with a closer nucleus and more open glide arranged in two symmetrical sets long and short: [ea:, eo:, ie:] and [ea, eo, ie]. Towards the end of the OE period some of the diphthongs merged with monophthongs: all diphthongs were monophthongised. In Early ME the remaining diphthongs were also contracted to monophthongs: the long [ea:] coalesced with the reflex of OE [ ж:] ME[ ]; the short [ea] ceased to be distinguished from OE [ж] and became [a] in ME; the diphthongs [eo:, eo] -- as well as their dialectal variants [io:, io] - fell together with the monophthongs [e:, e, i:, i ]. Later they shared in the development of respective monophthongs. As a result of these changes e vowel system lost two sets of diphthongs, long and short. In the meantime a new set of diphthongs developed from some sequences of vowels and consonants due to the vocalisation of OE [j] and [y], that is to their change into vowels.
In Early ME the sounds [j] and [y] between and after vowels changed into [i] and [u 1 and formed diphthongs together with the preceding vowels. These changes gave rise to two sets of diphthongs: with i-glides and u-glides.
The formation of new diphthongs in ME was an important event in the history of the language.
7.Basic grammatical features of Germanic languages
Strong evidence for the unity of all the modern Germanic languages can be found in the phenomenon known as the first Germanic sound shift or consonant shift (also called Grimm's law), which set the Germanic subfamily apart from the other members of the Indo-European family. Consisting of a regular shifting of consonants in groups, the sound shift had already occurred by the time adequate records of the various Germanic languages began to be made in the 7th to 9th cent. According to Grimm's law, certain consonant sounds found in the ancient Indo-European languages (such as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit) underwent a change in the Germanic tongue. For example, the sounds p, d, t, and k in the former became f, t, th, and h respectively in the latter, as in Latin pater, English father; Latin dent, English tooth; and Latin cornu, English horn(рог).
Before the 8th cent. a second shift of consonants took place in some of the West German dialects. For instance, under certain circumstances, d became t, and t became ss or z, as in English bread, Dutch brood, but German Brot; English foot, Dutch voet, but German Fuss; and English ten, Dutch tien, but German zehn. The dialects in which this second consonant shift took place were the High German dialects, so called because they were spoken in more mountainous areas. Standard modern German arose from these dialects. The West Germanic dialects not affected by the second shift were the Low German dialects of the lowlands, from which Dutch and English evolved.
Also peculiar to the Germanic languages is the recessive accent, whereby the stress usually falls on the first or root syllable of a word, especially a word of Germanic origin. Another distinctive characteristic shared by the Germanic languages is the umlaut, which is a type of vowel change in the root of a word. It is demonstrated in the pairs foot (singular), feet (plural) in English; fot (singular), fцtter (plural) in Swedish; and Kampf (singular), Kдmpfe (plural) in German.
All Germanic languages have strong and weak verbs; that is, they form the past tense and past participle either by changing the root vowel in the case of strong verbs (as in English lie, lay, lain or ring, rang, rung; German ringen, rang, gerungen) or by adding as an ending -d (or -t) or -ed in the case of weak verbs (as in English care, cared, cared or look, looked, looked; German fragen, fragte, gefragt). Also typically Germanic is the formation of the genitive singular by the addition of -s or -es. Examples are English man, man's; Swedish hund, hunds; German Lehrer, Lehrers or Mann, Mannes. Moreover, the comparison of adjectives in the Germanic languages follows a parallel pattern, as in English: rich, richer, richest; German reich, reicher, reichst; and Swedish rik, rikare, rikast. Lastly, vocabulary furnished evidence of a common origin for the Germanic languages in that a number of the basic words in these languages are similar in form; however, while word similarity may indicate the same original source for a group of languages, it can also be a sign of borrowing.
The Germanic languages have two adjective declensions, a strong and a weak. The weak forms are used generally after articles, demonstrative pronouns, and possessive adjectives; the strong are used independently. The number of these forms is reduced greatly in Danish, Swedish, and Netherlandic. The comparison of adjectives and adverbs in Germanic differs from that in the Romance languages. Generally, -r and -st endings are added: long, longer, longest; Swedish, lang, langre, langst.
The eight cases of Indo-European nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were reduced to four, and sometimes even fewer, in Germanic. Free stress (accent) became recessive, and precise accent rules became dominant, with the first root syllable in Germanic carrying the stress. Umlauting, a process of modifying vowel sounds, took place extensively (man, men; foot, feet). A system of strong verbs developed as the result of vowel alternation (ablaut), as in sing, sang, sung, and a unique way of forming the past tense using weak verbs (jump, jumped) was created, probably by adding a form of did to the verb (I jump - did = I jumped). The number of strong verbs in Germanic is steadily being reduced, and the system does not seem to permit the creation of new strong verbs. Conversely, the number of weak verbs is increasing.
The runic alphabet
The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of other groups. The word rune originally meant ’secret’, ‘mystery’ and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate separate sound. This alphabet is called futhark after the first six letters. Runic letters are angular; straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided; this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin, other have not been traced to any known alphabet, and the order of the runes in the alphabet is certainly original. The number of runes in different OG languages varied. As compared to continental, the number of runes in England was larger: new runes were added as new sounds appeared in English (from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent). The main use of runes was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is and inscription on a box called the “Franks Casket”, the other is a short text on a stone cross near the village of Ruthwell known as the “Ruthwell Cross”.

8. The Great vowel shift

Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of Germanic languages, generally accomplished in the 15th century and early 16th century, both in Europe and England. It represented a change in the long vowels (i.e. a vowel shift). In English, the shift began toward the end of the 15th century and was mostly completed in the 16th century, although it continued for some time after that, spreading toward the non-metropolitan and non-port areas.
The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English. Originally, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height and one of them came to the front.
The principal changes are roughly the following — though exceptions occur, the transitions were not always complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes in orthography:
/a:/ -> /e:/ (in e.g. make)
/E:/ -> /e:/ or /i:/ (in e.g. break, beak)
/e:/ -> /i:/ (in e.g. feet)
/i:/ -> /ai/ (in e.g. mice)
/O:/ -> /o:/ (in e.g. boat)
/o:/ -> /u:/ (in e.g. boot)
/u:/ -> /au/ (in e.g. mouse)
This means that the vowel in the English word make was originally pronounced as in modern English father, but has now become a diphthong, as it is today in standard pronunciations of British English (see Received Pronunciation); the vowel in feet was originally pronounced as a long Latin-like e sound; the vowel in mice was originally what the vowel in feet is now; the vowel in boot was originally a long Latin-like o sound; and the vowel in mouse was originally what the vowel in moose is now, but has now become a diphthong.
The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860 - 1943), who coined the term.
The shift was remarkable for how widespread it was (going through most of Europe and then Great Britain), as well as its rapidity. The effects of the shift were not entirely uniform, and differences in degree of vowel shifting can sometimes be detected in regional dialects, both in written and spoken English. The surprising speed and the exact cause of the shift are continuing mysteries in linguistics and cultural history
. Because English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. Spellings that made sense according to Middle English pronunciation were retained in Modern English.
9. Chronological division in the history of English. Short survey of periods. The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from England and their language was called English - from which the words England and English are derived.
Old English (450-1100 AD) The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100.
Middle English (1100-1500) In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy conquered England The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.
Early Modern English (1500-1800) Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many people from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.
Late Modern English (1800-Present) The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.
A brief chronology of English
BC 55
Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar.
436
Roman withdrawal from Britain complete.
449
Settlement of Britain by Germanic invaders begins
450-480
Earliest known Old English inscriptions.
1066
William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and conquers England.
1348
English replaces Latin as the language of instruction in most schools.
1362
English replaces French as the language of law. English is used in Parliament for the first time. c1388 Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales. c1400 The Great Vowel Shift begins.
1475
William Caxton establishes the first English printing press.
1604
Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary, is published.

Late Modern English (1800-Present) The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.
A brief chronology of English
BC 55
Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar.
436
Roman withdrawal from Britain complete.
449
Settlement of Britain by Germanic invaders begins
450-480
Earliest known Old English inscriptions.
1066
William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and conquers England.
1348
English replaces Latin as the language of instruction in most schools.
1362
English replaces French as the language of law. English is used in Parliament for the first time. c1388 Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales. c1400 The Great Vowel Shift begins.
1475
William Caxton establishes the first English printing press.
1604
Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary, is published.
10. New English Phonetics: loss of unstressed –e, the change of –er into –ar, a into ǽ. Rise of new phonemes.
At the outset of of the MnE period the vowel eof unstressed endings was lost. This vowel was on the verge of loss in th 14th c already, in the 15th c it disappeared. The vowel e was lost when it was final and also when it was followed by a consonant, as in the plural forms of substantitives(tables, hats, books), in the 3d person sing present indicative(likes, sits, begs), and in the past tense 2d participle in –ed(lived, filled). But the e was preserved and later changed inyo I in some adjectives and adjectivized participle in –ed (learned, wicked, ragged).The letter e was also preserved in words with long root-vowel, in this way the so-called ‘mute’ e arose, which denotes length of the preseding vowel( house, stone, wrote).
The change –er into -ar began in the 14th c and was completed in the 15th. Spelling in most cases reflected the change. Steorra- sterra- star, heorte – herte – heart. In some cases the spelling doesn’t reflects the change(clerk, sergeant, Derby). The ME substantive person has yielded 2 variants in MnE: parson and person. In some words -er didn’t developed in –ar(certain, University).
The change a into ǽ affected all words containing [a]except those where it was preceded by w(ѣǽt- that – that).
The rise of new phonemes α:, o:, έ: took place in the 16th c. 1)[ α: ǽ> ǽ: >α: ] before fricatives and th 9[Ѳ]:father, rather, aftermath; [s]: glass, gruss, but lass, mass[ǽ]; [st]: last, cast, but elastic, plastic[ǽ]; [sk]: ask, mask but masculine[ǽ]. 2) from [aυ] + l+consonant: calm, palm.
But in the 16th c [aυ> o] but the spelling remained unchanged – au, aw: cause, p draw.
In tthe 16th c a new vowel appears [έ:]. It rises in the following cases: i+r – sir, u+r – fur, e+r –lern, o+r after w – word, worse
11. Old English. Historical background.
Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon,[1] Englisc by its speakers) is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.
Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years[2] – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations that created England in the 5th century to some time after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the language underwent a dramatic transition. During this early period it assimilated some aspects of the languages with which it came in contact, such as the Celtic languages and the two dialects of Old Norse from the invading Vikings, who occupied and controlled large tracts of land in northern and eastern England, which came to be known as the Danelaw.
The most important force in shaping Old English was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, which it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe. Some of these features are shared with the other West Germanic languages with which Old English is grouped, while some other features are traceable to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to have derived.
Like other Germanic languages of the period, Old English was fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental, though the instrumental was very rare), which had dual plural forms for referring to groups of two objects (but only in the personal pronouns) in addition to the usual singular and plural forms. It also assigned gender to all nouns, including those that describe inanimate objects: for example, sēo sunne (the Sun) was feminine, while se mōna (the Moon) was masculine (cf. modern German die Sonne and der Mond).
One of the ways the influence of Latin can be seen is that many Latin words for activities came to also be used to refer to the people engaged in those activities, an idiom carried over from Anglo-Saxon but using Latin words. This can be seen in words like militia, assembly, movement, and service.
The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic alphabet (also known as futhorc or fuюorc) to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Old English words were spelt as they were pronounced. The "silent" letters in many Modern English words were pronounced in Old English: for example, the c in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the modern knight, was pronounced. Another side-effect of spelling words phonetically was that spelling was extremely variable – the spelling of a word would reflect differences in the phonetics of the writer's regional dialect, and also idiosyncratic spelling choices which varied from author to author, and even from work to work by the same author. Thus, for example, the word and could be spelt either and or ond.
The second major source of loanwords to Old English was the Scandinavian words introduced during the Viking invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries. In addition to a great many place names, these consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, which included extensive holdings all along the eastern coast of England and Scotland). The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a language related to Old English in that both derived from the same ancestral Proto-Germanic language. It is very common for the intermixing of speakers of different dialects, such as those that occur during times of political unrest, to result in a mixed language, and one theory holds that exactly such a mixture of Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English. Apparent confirmation of this is the fact that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the North and latest in the Southwest, the area farthest away from Viking influence. Regardless of the truth of this theory, the influence of Old Norse on the English language has been profound: responsible for such basic vocabulary items as sky, leg, the pronoun they, the verb form are, and hundreds of other words.
Old English should not be regarded as a single monolithic entity just as Modern English is also not monolithic. Within Old English, there was language variation. Thus, it is misleading, for example, to consider Old English as having a single sound system. Rather, there were multiple Old English sound systems. Old English has variation along regional lines as well as variation across different times. For example, the language attested in Wessex during the time of Жthelwold of Winchester, which is named Late West Saxon (or Жthelwoldian Saxon), is considerably different from the language attested in Wessex during the time of Alfred the Great's court, which is named Early West Saxon (or Classical West Saxon or Alfredian Saxon). Furthermore, the difference between Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon is of such a nature that Late West Saxon is not directly descended from Early West Saxon (despite what the similarity in name implies).
The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon. Each of those dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were successfully defended were then integrated into Wessex.
Old English was first written in runes (futhorc) but shifted to a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by insular script, a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline) replaced the insular.

The letter yogh was adapted from Irish ecclesiastical forms of Latin < g > ; the letter ржt < р > (called eth or edh in modern English) was an alteration of Latin < d >, and the runic letters thorn and wynn are borrowings from futhorc. Also used was a symbol for the conjunction and, a character similar to the number seven (< ⁊ >, called a Tironian note), and a symbol for the relative pronoun þæt, a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender (< ꝥ >). Macrons < ¯ > over vowels were rarely used to indicate long vowels. Also used occasionally were abbreviations for following m’s or n’s. All of the sound descriptions below are given using IPA symbols.
Вопрос 12 major vowel changes in NE. great vowel shift. Vocalization of [r].
New English
Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were: diphthongized; narrowed (became more closed); both diphthongized and narrowed.
ME Sounds
NE Sounds
ME
NE
[i:] 
[ai]
time [‘ti:mə] time [teim]
[e:] 
[i:]
kepen [‘ke:pən] keep [ki:p]
[a:] 
[ei]
maken [‘ma:kən] make [meik]
[o:]  
[ou]
[u:] stone [‘sto:nə] moon [mo:n] stone [stoun] moon [mu:n]
[u:] 
[au]
mous [mu:s] mouse [maus]
[au] 
[o:]
cause [‘kauzə] cause [ko:z]
This shift was not followed by spelling changes, i.e. it was not reflected in written form. Thus the Great Vowel Shift explains many modern rules of reading.
Short Vowels
ME Sounds
NE Sounds
ME
NE
[a] 


[æ]

[o] after [w]!! that [at] man [man] was [was] water [‘watə] that [ðæt] man [mæn] was [woz] water [‘wotə]
[u] 
[Λ]
hut [hut] comen [cumen] hut [hΛt] come [cΛm]
There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc.
Vocalisation of [r]
It occurred in the 16th – 17th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word.
Consequences:
new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə]; the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.); triphthongs appeared: [aiə], [auə] (e.g. shower [‘∫auə], shire [‘∫aiə]).
13. Old and Modern Germanic languages.
Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon,[1] Englisc by its speakers) is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.
The Germanic languages today are conventionally divided into three linguistic groups: East Germanic, North Germanic, and West Germanic. This division had begun by the 4th cent. A.D. The East Germanic group, to which such dead languages as Burgundian, Gothic, and Vandalic belong, is now extinct. However, the oldest surviving literary text of any Germanic language is in Gothic (see Gothic language).
The North Germanic languages, also called Scandinavian languages or Norse, include Danish, Faeroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. They are spoken by about 20 million people, chiefly in Denmark, the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
The West Germanic languages are English, Frisian, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, German, and Yiddish. They are spoken as a primary language by about 450 million people throughout the world. Among the dead West Germanic languages are Old Franconian, Old High German, and Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) from which Dutch, German, and English respectively developed.
Modern Germanic languages Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the I-E linguistic family. The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:
English – in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies;
German – in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, part of Switzerland;
Netherlandish – in the Netherlands and Belgium (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively);
Afrikaans – in the South African Republic;
Danish – in Denmark;
Swedish – in Sweden and Finland;
Norwegian – in Norway;
Icelandic – in Iceland;
Frisian – in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;
Faroese – in the Faroe Islands;
Yiddish – in different countries.
14. Middle and New English noun: morphological classification, grammatical categories.
The OE noun had the gr. cat. of Number and Case. The Southern dialects simplified and rearranged the noun declensions on the basis of stem and gender distinctions. In Early ME they employed only four markers - -es, -en, -e, and the root-vowel interchange – plus the bare stem ( the zero- inflection) - but distinguished several paradigms. Masc and Neuter nouns had two declensions, weak and strong, with certain differences between the genders. Masc nouns took the ending -es in the Nom., Acc pl, while Neuter nouns had variant forms:
e.g. Masc fishes –Neut land/lande/landes
Most Fem nouns belonged to the weak declensions and were declined like weak Masc and Neuter nouns. The root-stem declention had mutated vowels in some forms and that vowel interchange was becoming a marker of number rather than case.
In the Midlands and Northern dialects the system of declension was much simplier. There was only one major type of declension and a few traces of other types. The majority of nouns took the endings of Oemasc a-stems: -(e)s in the gen sg, -(e)s in the pl irrespective of case.
Most nouns distinguished two forms: the basic form with the zero ending and the form in –(e)s .
The OE Gender disappeared together with other distinctive features of the noun declensions
The gr category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes in Early ME. The number of cases in the noun paradigm was reduced from four to two in Late ME. In the 14th century the ending –es of the Gen sg had become almost universal. In the pl the Gen case had no special marker- it was not distinguished from the common case. Several nouns with a weak plural form in –en or a vowel interchange (oxen, men) added the marker of the Gen case to these forms.
Number is the most stable of all the nominal categories. The number preserved the formal distinction of two numbers. –es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the plural.
Construction With its simplified case-ending system, Middle English is much closer to modern English than its pre-Conquest equivalent.
Nouns Despite losing the slightly more complex system of inflectional endings, Middle English retains two separate noun-ending patterns from Old English. Compare, for example, the early Modern English words "engel" (angel) and "nome" (name):
First and second pronouns survive largely unchanged, with only minor spelling variations. In the third person, the masculine accusative singular became 'him'. The feminine form was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into 'she', but unsteadily—'ho' remains in some areas for a long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the eleventh and the fifteenth century makes these changes hard to map.
Simplification of noun morphology affected the grammatical categories of the noun in different ways and to a varying degree.
The grammatical category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes.
2) after a voiceless consonant, e.g. ME bookes [΄bo:kəs] > [bu:ks] > [buks], NE books;
3) after sibilants and affricates [s, z, ∫, t∫, dз] ME dishes [΄di∫əs] > [΄di∫iz], NE dishes.
The ME pl ending –en, used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its former productivity, so that in Standard Mod E it is found only in oxen, brethren, and children. The small group of ME nouns with homonymous forms of number has been further reduced to three exceptions in Mod E: deer, sheep, and swine. The group of former root-stems has survived also only as exceptions: man, tooth and the like.
1. Old English Dialects and Written Records.
Ruthwell Cross, a religions poem on a tall stone cross near the village of Ruthwell in South-East Scotland.
Runic Casket, made of whalebone, and found in France near the town Clermond-Ferrand, now in the British Muscum in London. The Runic text is a short poem about whalebone( of the 9th century.)
After the Anglo-Saxon came into contact with the Roman culture the Runic alphabet was superseded by the Latin. Since the very earliest times there were four dialects in OE:
Nourthumbrian (1) , spoken by Angles living north of the Humber. Mercian West-Saxon(2), spoken by Angles between the Humber and Thames. The Mercian dialect: Translation of the Psalter (9 th c.) and hymns.The Runic texts of the Ruthwell Cross and Frank’s Casket (Runic), translation of the gospels, Caedmon’s Humn and Bede’s Dying Song.
Kentish, the language of the Jutes and Frisians. The West dialect is represented by the works of kind Alfred (lived 849-900), both original compositions of translations of Latin texts, also by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (till 891), works of the abbot Aelfric (10 century) and sermons of Wultstan (early 11thcentury).: Translations of Psalms L-LXX and old charters .(псалма,
The superiority of the West - Saxon dialect both in quantity and importance of the documents using it contirms its dominating position as the literary language of the period.
The epic poems of the OE period: Beowulf, Genesis, Exodus, Judith, and poems by the monk Gynewulf: Eleng Andreas, Juliana and other were written in Anglian dialect but have been kept in West-Saxon dialect.
All over the country in the Kingdoms of England, all kinds of legal documents were written and copied. At first they were made in Latin, with English names and place names spelt by means of Latin letters, later they were also written in the local dialects.
There is a great variety of prose texts, part of them translations from the Latin. Among the prose works we should first of all note the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, (VII-IX centuries), the year book of the events in English history, starting at 787, writtenlater in West- Saxon.
King Alfred’s Orosius is a long text based on the Historia adversus paganos (a History against the Heathens by the Spanish monk Paulus Orosius, 5th century).
Translation made either by Alfred himself or on his orders is that of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. We mention among Alfred’s translations that of the Pastoral Care by Pope Gregory I.(ab.540-604) and others.
As we know OE scribes used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. Like any alphabetic writing, OE writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. Some of OE letters indicated two or more sounds, according to their positional variants in the word. 16. Origing of modern irregular noun forms
All modern irregular noun forms can be subdevided into several groups according to their origin:
Noun going back to the original a-stem declension, neuter gender which had no ending in the nominative and accusative plural even in OE.
Sheep – sheep; Sing. Plur.
Nom: sceap sceap
Acc. Deor deor
In OE the forms of this nouns were homonimous bouth in the sing. and plur. Nom. and Acc. case. some nouns of n –stem declension preserving the pluralforms.
Ox –oxen. Sg. Pl. OE: oxa oxan
The original s-stem declension
OE cild -­­­­cildre
ME child­­­­­­children
NE child­­­­­­children
In ME the final vowel was neutralized(or levelled)U­­­­E and the ending ­N added on analogy with the nouns of the original N-stem declinsion.It shows that the power of the N-stem declinsion still relatively strong. (cild+s ( s­­z­­r (– the result of rotasism )= cildru. remnants of the original root-stem declension.
Foot-feet, tooth-teeth, mouse-mice( the result of mutation in OE.
The structure of the Oenoun consists of 3 elements: the root+stem-building suffix+the ending;
Root-stem nouns never had any stem-building suffix, that’s why the ending was added on immediately to the root of the noun and caused mutation of the root-vowel.
Foot­­fot + iz ­­­fet. W
Words borrowed in early NE from Latin.These words were borrowed by learning people from sintific books, who used them, trying to preserve the original form. (detum – deta). When in the course of further history these words entered the language of the whole people they tended to add regular plural endings which gave rise to such doublets.(molecula, moleculal, moleculas).
Вопрос 17 The OE vowel
The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.
The vocalic system in OE included 2 subsystems: monophthongs, diphthongs. All vowels existed in the pairs: ææдолг, a ā, e ē, o ō, i ī , u ū, y y долг (У готтов не было ā, ææдолг, ō) В виде пар существовали и дифтонги: ea eaдолг, eo eoдолг, ie ieдолг. The major factor in OE was a category of quantity vowels. It means, that all OE vowels, including diphthongs, could be both long and short. It it the system of vowels on the beginning of OE. The new system came with Anglo-Saxon tribes (жоанная): In most cases these new processes represent result of influence of the next sounds and called the COMBINATORY CHANGES.
1.Influence of the next consonant–Breaking (diph thongization) Short vowel were diphthong-sed before consonant. The short vowels æ и е, a. Short vowels æ and е were diph-nized: æ turn into ea before combinations r + согл, l + согл, h + согл, and before h on the end of a word: wearþ,healp,eahta,seah e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. e turn into eo before combinations r + согл, l + velar concordant c and h, before h on the end of a word: weorþan,meolcan,feoh
The essence of breaking consists that front vowel assimilates with the subsequent firm consonants by development of a sound of glide, which forms a diphthong. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.
Palatalization
After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [ж] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scжmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”. It observes in Wessex dialect. æ - ea sceal , cearu. æдолг - ea долг scēāwian, зēāfon. a - ea scacan- sceacan. o - eo sceort, ceort. e - ie scield, з iefan
Contraction –(стяжение) The vowels contracted into 1 when they were separated by h and H disappeared. e+a=eo (sehan – seon. i+a=eo (tihan- teon). a+a=ea (slehan – slean). o+a=o долг (fohan – fon)
Mutation -перегласовка
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. 2 types: i-Umlaut mutation (palatal mutation) and Back mutation (guttural)-гортанный.
1) i-Umlaut - under its influence vowel moves ahead or narrowed. æ – e sætjan – settan, a-e talu – tellan, o-e ofost – efstan, ō –ē dōm – dēman, u - y fullian - fyllan , u - y cuþ- cŷþþan. Changes in diphthongs: ea – ie, ea долг – ie долг, eo – ie, eo долг – ie долг.
Back mutation – U-Umlaut it is caused by back vowels (a, o, u). In Wessex dialect take place only before consonants r, l, p, f, m. a-ea saru – searu, i- io hira – hioru, e-eo herot – heorot. The words which begin with wi – mutation occurred without dependence from the subsequent concordant: widu – wiodu
U-umlaut was optiona(facultative) and i-umlaut was the main (системообразующ).
Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [ж] and [a:] > [ж:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].
Phonetic processes in Old English (the system of vowels)
Changes of stressed vowels in Early Old English

The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.
Independent changes.Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].
Assimilative vowel changes: Breaking and Diphthongization
The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [ж], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fracture. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [ж] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scжmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”.
Palatal mutation
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. mūs and mўs). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. We find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mўs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding –iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse – mice, foot – feet, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut).
19. Phonetic processes in Old English (the system of consonants)

Treatment of fricatives. Hardening. Rhotacism. Voicing and Devoicing.
After the changes under Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law had PG had the following two sets of fricative consonants: voiceless [f, Ө, x, s] and voiced [v, ð, γ, z]. In WG and in Early OE the difference between two groups was supported by new features. 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 [ð] (due to Verner’s Law) was always hardened to [d] in OE and other WG languages, e.g. Icel, gōðr and OE зōd. The two other fricatives, [v] and [γ] were hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals, otherwise they remained fricatives. PG [z] underwent a phonetic modification through the stage of [з] into [r] and thus became a sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r]. This process is termed rhotacism. In the meantime or somewhat later the PG set of voiceless fricatives [f, Ө, x, s] and also those of the voiced fricaties which had not turned into plosives, that is, [v] and [γ], 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. In all WG languages, at an early stage of their independent history, most consonants were lengthened after a short vowel before [l]. This process is known as “geminantion” or “doubling” of consonants, e.g. fuljan > fyllan (NE fill). The change did not affect the sonorant [r], e.g OE werian (NE wear); nor did it operate if the consonant was preceded by a long vowel, e.g. OE dēman, mētan (NE deem, meet).
Velar consonants in Early Old English. Growth of New Phonemes
The velar consonants [k, g, x, γ] were palatalized before a front vowel, and sometimes also after a front vowel, unless followed by a back vowel. Thus in OE cild (NE child) the velar consonant [k] was softened to [k’] as it stood before the front vowel [i] – [kild] > [k’ild]; similarly [k] became [k’] in OE sprǽc (NE speech) after a front vowel but not in OE sprecan (NE speak).

Loss of consonants in some positions
Nasal sonorants were regularly lost before fricative consonants; in the process the preceding vowel was proably nasalized and lengthened, e.g. OHG fimf – OE fīf (NE five). It should be also mentioned the loss of consonants in unstressed final syllables. [j] was regularly dropped in suffixes after producing various changes in the root.
21. OE Verb. Grammatical categories and morphologiacal classification.
In Finite Forms they were: mood (3), tense (2), number (2), person(3).
1) There were 3 moods: Ind, Subj, Imp. They had approximately the same meanings which they have today with the exception of the Subj Mood, which was frequently used to express a problematic action and was found in indirect speech. It was much more often than in the Present.
2) The OE verbs had 2 tenses: the Present and the Past. The present form was used to denote both tenses present and future (..to denote Pr and Future actions as in other Germanic langeages). There were no analytical forms, only inflexion. Futurity was shown lexically with the help of adverbial modifiers and the context. It is true that in OE there were combinations with the verbs: sculan (shall), willan (will), but they had there own lexical meaning. They were not auxiliary verbs. From these constructions the future forms (the future tense was) were formed later.
3) The category of person was represented only in the Indicative sg and in the Imperative in OE. There was no indication of person in the Ind pl or in the Subj forms. (One form for all persons.) Three persons were distinguished only in the present tense of the Ind Mood.
4) The Ind and Subj had 2 numbers in both tenses. The Imp Mood also distinguished 2 numbers. No dual number. At that time they were ?homonymous? forms. In the Subj M the past and the present pl were the same and also in the sg present and past. In the Indicative they were homonymous forms in the sing and plural. Lōcian (look) wv2 (weak verb class 2).
Tense
Only two tenses are distinguished by inflexion, present and past (sometimes called preterite in the grammars); both cover a wider range of meanings than they would in Modern English. So he cymeth (present tense) could mean ‘he comes', ‘he is coming', or ‘he will come'; he com (past tense) could mean ‘he came', ‘he has come', ‘he was coming', or ‘he had come'. However, the periphrastic tense-forms (i.e. forms with ‘have', ‘will', ‘be', etc., plus infinitive or participle) illustrated in the translations here are already beginning to develop in Old English.
Mood
OE verbs, like MnE verbs, have three moods, indicative (for statements and questions), imperative (for commands), and subjunctive (for wishes, hypothetical conditions, etc.). The main point of difference here is that in MnE we use the subjunctive mood much less frequently, and have few distinctive subjunctive forms (see your Traditional Grammar booklet, 2.6.iii) c), and Mitchell & Robinson, Index of Subjects, under "Moods"); OE regularly indicates the subjunctive by inflexion, and you should learn to recognise subjunctive forms.
Strong and weak verbs
As in MnE, verbs may be ‘strong' (forming their past tense by vowel-change) or ‘weak' (forming their past tense by adding -d-); but in OE, the proportion of strong verbs is higher. You should concentrate particularly on the endings of these forms.
II. Verbal Paradigms: As in every other Gmc. language, the Old English verbal system had two principle divisions: the strong verbs (whose past-tense forms were formed via vowel gradation) and the weak verbs (whose past-tense forms were built by means of a suffix). In the Old English verbal system, moreover, there are only two tenses: past and non-past (i.e. present and future), there was no inflected passive voice (except the past passive hatte 'was called' < h'tan), three moods (indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. Verbs are inflected for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular and plural) in addition to tense. Dual subjects are treated as plurals. There are two participles, a present and a past.
4."Weak" Verb classes: In contrast to the strong verbs and their ablaut, the weak verbs are primarily identified by the fact that they form the past tense by means of a suffix. The weak verbs, however, are further divided into three classes, depending on the relation ship between the infinitive and the past tense forms. In Wk. Class I, the infinitive ends in either -an or -ian, and always has an umlauted stem vowel, and the preterite suffix is either -ed- or -d-. Wk. Class II verbs, on the other hand, have infinitives which always end in -ian, but do not have umlauted stem vowels, and the preterite suffix is always -od-. The third class of weak verbs contains only four verbs: habban 'to have', libban 'to live', secgan 'to say', and hycgan 'to think'.
5. The verb 'to be' in Old English. Among all the anomolous verbs in OE, the most necessary, and most anomolous is 'to be', owing to the fact that it reflects three different PIE roots: *es- 'to be', *bh+- 'to become', and *wes- 'to remain, dwell'. The forms from *es- and the forms from *bh+- are distinguished from one another in that the b- forms can have a sense of futurity to them. Strong verbs
Verbs are known as "strong" which form their preterite tenses by means of a change in the stem-vowel, i.e. by "ablaut". Many of these changes still exist in modern English, reflected in verbs such as sing (past tense sang, past participle sung).
There are seven classes of strong verb in Old English, denoted on Wiktionary with Roman numerals. Each class has a different ablaut-series (though confusingly, there are three types of Class III). Class I ī ‧ ā ‧ i ‧ i eg scīnan, 1st pret scān, pret pl scinon, past ppl scinen Class II ēo ‧ ēa ‧ u ‧ o eg ċēosan, 1st pret ċēas, pret pl curon, past ppl coren Class III
IIIa: i ‧ a ‧ u ‧ u eg bindan, 1st pret band, pret pl bundon, past ppl bunden
IIIb: e/eo ‧ ea ‧ u ‧ o eg helpan, 1st pret healp, pret pl hulpon, past ppl holpen
IIIc: e ‧ æ ‧ u ‧ o eg bregdan, 1st pret brжgd, pret pl brugdon, past ppl brogden Class IV e ‧ æ ‧ ǣ ‧ o eg beran, 1st pret bær, pret pl bǣron, past ppl boren
Class V e ‧ æ ‧ ǣ ‧ e eg cweþan, 1st pret cwæþ, pret pl cwǣdon, past ppl cweden Class VI a ‧ ō ‧ ō ‧ a eg standan, 1st pret stōd, pret pl stōdon, past ppl standen
Class VII ea ‧ ēo ‧ ēo ‧ ea eg healdan, 1st pret hēold, pret pl hēoldon, past ppl healden
Weak verbs
Weak verbs are more predictable. They form their preterite tense by adding -de in the singular and -don in the plural. This is the root of the common English past-tense suffix -ed. Weak verbs are often formed from nouns, or are in general "newer" words.
There are three classes of weak verb, denoted on Wiktionary with Arabic numerals. Class 1 are weak verbs have an infinitive ending in -an or -rian. Third-person singular present ends in -eю, and present plural ends in -aю. Class 2 are weak verbs have an infinitive ending in -ian (except -rian, above). Their third-person present singular ending is -aю, like Class 1 plurals. Class 2 present plurals end in -iaю. Class 3 are weak verbs are more unpredictable, and often combine features of the first two weak classes. There are four Class 3 verbs: habban, libban, secgan and hycgan.
Вопрос 23 OE Strong verbs
The majority of OE verbs fell into two great divisions: the strong verbs and the weak verbs. Besides these two main groups there were a few verbs which could be put together as “minor” groups. The main difference between the strong and weak verbs lay in the means of forming the principal parts, or “stems” of the verb. The strong verbs formed their stems by means of ablaut and by adding certain suffixes; in some verbs ablaut was accompanied by consonant interchanges. The strong verbs had four stems, as they distinguished two stems in the Past Tense – one for the 1st and 3rd p. sg Ind. Mood, the other – for the other Past tense forms, Ind. and Subj. the weak verbs derived their Past tense stem and the stem of Participle II from the Present tense stem with the help of the dental suffix -d- or -t-; normally they did not interchange their root vowel, but in some verbs suffixation was accompanied by a vowel interchange. Minor groups of verbs differed from the weak and strong verbs. Some of them combined certain features of the strong and weak verbs in a peculiar way (“preterite-present” verbs); others were suppletive or altogether anomalous.
Strong Verbs The strong verbs in OE are usually divided into seven classes. Classes from 1 to 6 use vowel gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG and Early OE sound changes. Class 7 includes reduplicating verbs, which originally built their past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme; this doubled root gave rise to a specific kind of root-vowel interchange. The principal forms of all the strong verbs have the same endings irrespective of class: -an for the Infinitive, no ending in the Past sg stem, -on in the form of Past pl, -en for Participle II.
Strong verb indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel. They are original(germ. Europ). Restrictive group of verb. Oe – over 300Sv. 1 class –i class, a. 2 class-u-classu+root=diphthong,. Root consonant changed(rotasism). 3,4 class- the gradation was caused by consonant.(breaking), 6- qualitative-quantities ablaut 7 class –reduplication of the root-morpheme. They use form of conjugation known as ablaut. And this form of conjugation the stem of the word change to indicate the tense.
Вопрос 24the origin of Modern English irregural verbs.
Strong Verbs and their Development
As far as the strong verbs were a non-productive class, some strong verbs turned into weak with time, i.e. started to employ -t/-d suffix in their form-building (e.g. to climb, to help, to swallow, to wash, etc.). Thus in NE only 70 strong verbs out of 300 in OE remained.
The strong verbs were subdivided into 7 classes according to the type of vowel gradation/ablaut.
The classes that survived best through different periods of the history were classes 1, 3, 6:
Class 1
Infinitive
Past Sg
Past Pl
Participle 2

OE wrītan wrāt writon writen

ME writen wrot writen writen

NE write wrote written Class 3
Infinitive
Past Sg
Past Pl
Participle 2
OE
findan fand fundon funden ME finden fand founden founden
NE
find found found
Class 6
Infinitive
Past Sg
Past Pl
Participle 2

OE scacan scoc scōcon scacen

ME shaken shook shoken shaken

NE shake shook shaken Analysing the tables above, we can see that the following changes occurred:
In ME the inflections -an, -on, -en were all reduced to just one inflection  -en.
In NE the ending -n was lost in the Infinitive and preserved in the Participle 2 in order to distinguish these two forms.
In NE Past Singular and Past Plural forms were unified, usually with the Singular form preferred as a unified form because Past Plural and Participle 2 often had similar forms and it was hard to distinguish them (e.g. ME writen (Past Pl) – writen (Part. 2)) the category of Number disappeared in the Verb.
In ModE the subdivision into classes was lost though we still can trace some peculiarities of this or that class in the forms of the irregular verbs.
25. Weak verbs
Weak verbs are relatively stronger than strong verbs. They reflect a later stage in the development of the Germ.languages. There were an open class in OE as new verbs that entered the language generally formed their forms on analogie with the weak verbs. Whereas, the strong verbs used vowel interchange as means of differentiation among the principal verb tense, the weak verbs used for that purpose suffixation(suffixes –t,-d) : cēpan, cepte, cept. The weak verbs had a stem-forming suffix, that followed the root & the grammatical endings. In accordance of the character of the stem-suffix the weak verbs are classified into 3 classes:
The stem suffix “i”, the class includes many words from other nouns, adjectives and verbs. All of them have a front- root vowel – the result of the palatal mutation due to the “i” element of the stem suffix.( dōn-deman; ful-fyllan). In the cause of time this palatal suffix was lost. It was preserved only in some participles in the form of “e”: dēman, demd, demed.
The stem-suffix “oi”.The “o” element of the suffix is preserved in the past tense & in the Participle II. The root vowel of this class remained unchanged because of the preceding ō (lufo-ian) in all forms.
Only 3 verbs: -habban –have;-libban-live; seezan-say.
26. Grammatical categories of the English verb: growth of the future tense and continuous forms in English language.
In the OE language there was no form of the future tense. The category of tense consisted of two members: past and present. The present tense could indicate both present and future actions, depending on the context. Alongside this form there existed other ways of presenting future happenings: modal phrases and the infinitive of the notional verb. In these phrases the meaning of futurity was combined with strong modal meanings of volition, obligation and possibility.
In ME the use of modal phrases, especially with the verb shall, became increasingly common. Shall + inf. was now the principal means of indicating future actions in any context. One of the early instances of shall with a weakened modal meaning is found in the early ME poem ORMULUM.
In late ME texts shall was used both as a modal verb and as a future tense auxiliary, though discrimination between them is not always possible. In the age of Shakespeare the phrases with shall and will, as well as the present tense of notional verbs occurred in free variation; they can express “pure” futurity and add different shades of modal meanings.
The development of aspect is linked up with the growth of the continuous forms. In the OE verb system there was no category of aspect; verbal prefixes especially зe-, which could express an aspective meaning of perfectivity in the opinion of most scholars, were primarily word-building prefixes. The growth of continuous forms was slow and uneven.
Verb phrases consisting of bēon (NE be) + Part.I are not infrequently found in OE prose. They denoted a quality, or a lasting state, characterizing the person or thing indicated by the subject of the sentence.
In early ME ben + Part.I fell into disuse; it occurs occasionally in some dialectal areas.
In the 15th and 16th c. be + Part.I was often confused with a synonymous phrase – be + the preposition on + a verbal noun.
It was not until the 18th c. that the cont. forms acquired a specific meaning of their own; to use modern definitions, that of incomplete concrete process of limited duration. Only at the stage the cont. and non-cont. made up a new gram. category – aspect.
27. Minor groups of verbs in OE.
Among them the most important group:
1)Preterite – present verbs.
Originally the Present Tense forms of these verbs were Past tense forms. Later these forms acquired a present meaning but preserved many formal features of the Past tense. Most of these verbs had new Past tense forms built with the help of the dental suffix. Some of them also acquired the forms of the verbals: Participles and infinitives. Most verbs didn’t have a full paradigm and were in this sense “defective”.
The verbs were inflected in the Present like the Past tense of strong verbs: the forms of the 1st and 3rd person sing. Unlike strong verbs had the same root-vowel in all the persons; the plural had a different grade of ablaut similarly with strong verbs. In the Past the preterite-presents were inflected like weak verbs: the dentak suffix + the endings –e, -est,-e. In OE there were 12 preterite-present verbs. 6 of them have survived in modern E. (cunnun, sceal, mazan:ought, may, must). Most of the Preterite-presents did not indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action, denoted by another verb-an infinitive which followed the preterit-present. They were used like modal verbs and eventually developed into modern modal verbs.
Among the verbs of the minor groups:
-anomalous verbs with irregular forms(willan – the meaning of volition and desire, indicated an attitude to an action and was often followed by an infinitive.
2 OE verbs were suppletive (OE zān, bēon=be)
28. Grammatical categories of the English verb: growth of the passive voice and perfect forms in English language.
In OE the finite verb had no category of voice.
The analytical passive forms developed from OE verb phrases consisting of OE bēon (NE be) and weorðan (become) and Part.II of transitive verbs.
OE bēon was used as a link-verb with a predicative expressed by Part.II to denote a state resulting from a preveous action, while the construction with OE weorрan “become” indicated the transition into the state expressed by the Part. The Part. in OE agreed with the subject in number and gender.
In ME ben + Past Part. developed into an analytical form. Now it could express not only a state but also an action.
The new passive forms had a regular means of indicating the doer of the action or the instrument with the help of which it was performed.
Late ME saw the appearance of new types of passive constructions. Passive forms began to be built from intransitive verbs associated with different kinds of objects. The passive voice continued to spread to new parts the verb paradigm: the gerund and the continuous forms.
The perfect forms have developed from OE verb phrases.
The main source of the perf. form was the OE “possessive” construction, consisting of the verb habban (NE have), a direct object and Part.II of a transitive verb, which served as an attribute to the object.
The Part. agreed with the noun-object in numver, gender, case.
Originally the verb habban was used only with Participles of transitive verbs; than it came to be used with verbs taking genitival, datival and prepositional objects and even with intransitive verbs, which shows that it was developing into a kind of auxiliary.
Towards ME the two verb phrases turned into analytical forms and made up a single set of forms termed “perfect”. The Participles had lost their forms of agreement with the noun. The Part. usually stood close to the verb have and was followed by the object which referred now to the analytical form as a whole – instead of being governed by have.
In the perf.form from the auxiliary have had lost the meaning of possession and was used with all kinds of verbs, without restrictions.
By the age of the Literary Renaissance the perf.forms had spread to all the parts of the verb system, so that ultimately the category of time correlation became the most universal of verbal categories.
29. OE noun, its grammatical categories. Weak declension. Nouns in OE had the categories of number, gender and case. Gender is actually not a gram. Category in a strict sense of the word, for every noun with all its forms belongs to only one gender; but case and number had a set of endings. Nouns used to denote males are normally masculine – mann, ѓжder (man, father). Naturally, those denoting females should be all feminine, - modor, sweostor (mother, sister).
There are two numbers – sing. and pl., and 4 cases – nominative, genitive, dative, accusative. The number proved to be a stable category, relevant for rendering the meanings and expressing the true state of things in reality. Case is supplanted by other means to express the relations between words in an utterance, whereas gender disappeared altogether.
All the nouns can be classified according to the different principles. In traditional historical studies the nouns are divided into classes according to the former stem-forming suffixes. These stem-forming suffixes determined what inflections were taken by the nouns.
The nouns in OE are commonly classified as belonging to strong and weak declension, within each of these groups there are several subgroups.
This class of nouns consists of a rather numerous group of nouns originally having – n-stems; the suffix is well-preserved in declension of nouns in OE, but disappeared in the nom. Case n-stem nouns may be of all three genders. But actually no difference in declension of nouns of different genders can be found.
e.g.: masculine: wita (wise man), steorra (star), neuter: cofa (chamber) feminine: heorte (heart), sunne (sun).
Root stems. This group comprises the nouns that never had a stem suffix.
e.g.: wimman (woman), tōð (tooth), mūs (mouse).
The nouns belonging to r-stems were of masculine and feminine gender, the group is a closed system. It included only the terms of kinship. The endings here are scarce, a distinctive feature is that the dative case sing. had a mutated vowel.
e.g.: dohtor (daughter), sweostor (sister).
Less numerous and less significant for the development of the present-day nominal system are the nouns that had other consonants as a stem-forming suffix. S-stems had this suffix in older times, they changed it into occasional appearance of r-sound in indirect cases. They are all neuter.
e.g. lamb (lamb), cealf (calf), cild (child).
-nd-stems are all masculine and their declension combines the peculiarities of the declension of a-stems and, to some extent, r-stems as they all denote persons.
e.g. frēond (friend), fēond (accuser).
30. Growth of the interrogative and negative forms with “do” in the English language.
The early NE period witnessed the development of a new set of analytical forms which entered the paradigms of the present and past tense of the indicative mood: interrogative and negative forms with the auxiliary verb do.
It first the do – periphrasis was more frequent in poetry, which may be attributed to the requirements of the rhythm. Then it spread to all kinds of texts. In the 16th and 17th c. the periphrasis with do was used in all types of sentences – negative, affirmative and interrogative.
The growth of new interrogative and negative forms with do be accounted for by syntactic conditions. By that time the word order in the sentence had become fixed: the predicate of the sentence normally followed the subject. The use of do made it possible to adhere to this order in questions, for at least the notional part of the predicate could thus preserve its position after the subject.
Likewise, the place of negative particle not in negative sentences with modal phrases and analytical forms set up a pattern for the similar use of not with the do-periphrasis.
In the 18th c. the periphrasis with the do as an equivalent for the simple form in affirmative statements fall into disuse.
31. OE noun. Strong declension.
The strong declension includes nouns that had had a vocalic stem-forming suffix. a-stems may be either masculine (earm – arm, biscop – bishop, hām - home) or neuter (dōr – door, bearn – child, hūs - house).
There are some peculiarities of declension of the nouns that had originally –j- or –w- in the stem (they are called –ja- and –wa- stems);they may preserve this sound in declension; but otherwise the differences are minor. Also, some nouns might have become still clumsier when an inflection was added. So we may see the omission of such sound (the second root vowel in such words as heafod – heafdes (head)).
e.g. of –ja-stems are: fiscere (fisherman), net (net),
-wa-stems: trēo (tree), cnēo (knee).
Nouns belonging to ō-stems are all feminine. In the form of the nom. case monosyllabic nouns with a short root vowel of this class have ending –u; if there are two and more syllables or the root vowel is long, there is no ending at all.
e.g. caru (care), scamu (shame), lufu (love).
In this group of nouns the suffix –ō- may also be accompanied by additional i and w, that is –jō- and –wō-stems will give variants of declension: hild (battle), sceadu (shade).
The nouns formerly having –i-suffix, now called –i-stems might belong to all the three genders, and the case endings are different for different genders – masculine and neuter have the same endings as masc. and neuter nouns of the a-stems, and feminine noun endings repeated the endings of the o-endings.
e.g. masc.: mere (sea), mete (food) neuter: sife (sieve), mynster (monastery) feminine: wiht (thing), hyde (hide).
Nouns belonging to u-stems may be of masculine (wudu – wood, medu - honey) or feminine gender (nosu – nose, flōr - floor).
33.The OE NOUN The OE noun had two grammatical or morphological categories :number and case. In addition, nouns distinguished three genders, but this distinction was not a grammatical category.The category of number consisted of two members, singular and plural.The noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. 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, including both the major and minor types, exceeded twenty-five. The OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in the final syllables.
The morphological classification of OE nouns rested upon the most ancient (IE) grouping of nouns according to the stem-suffixes. The morphological classification OE nouns rested upon the most ancient grouping of nouns according to the stem-suffixes. Some groups jf nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a “zero-suffix”; they are usually termed “root-stems” and are grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants, e.g. OE man, boc (NE man, b