Normalisation of the English Language

Normalisation is the fixing of the norms and standards of a language to protect it from corruption and change.

 

Type of Standard	Written Standard	Spoken Standard
Time Limits	by the 17th c.	end of the 18th c.
Sources	Language of Chaucer (the London Dialect)	· private letters; · speech of characters in drama; · references to speech be scholars.
Peculiarities	1. less stabilised than at later stage; 2. wide range of variation (spelling, gr. forms, syntactical patterns, choice of words, etc.); 3. rivalry with Latin in the field of science, philosophy, didactics.	1. As spoken standard the scholars considered the speech of educated people taught at school as “correct English”. This was the speech of London and that of Cambridge and Oxford Universities.

 

The normalisation of the English language started in the 17^th – 18^th c. In 1710 Jonathan Swift published in his journal “The Tatler” an article titled “A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue”. J. Swift was a purist (struggled for the purity of the language) and suggested that a body of scholars should gather to fix the rules of the language usage.

The Normalisation of the English language consisted in publishing:

1. Grammar’s of English:

· John Wallis, “Grammatica Lingæ Anglicanæ” (prescriptive/normative grammar);

· Robert Lowth, “A Short Introduction to English Grammar” (Lowth distinguished 9 parts of speech; made consistent description of letters, syllables, words and sentences; rules of no-double negation (I don’t want no dinner – incorrect!) and no-double comparison (more better – incorrect!) appeared, etc.).

2. Dictionaries (18^th c.):

· E. Coles, “Dictionary of Hard Words” (gave explanations of hard words and phrases);

· Samuel Johnson – one of the best-known English lexicographers. As well as J. Swift, he was a purist and believed that the English language should be purified and corrected. He was the first to compile a dictionary that resembles the present-day dictionaries. His “Dictionary of the English Language” is the finest example of his hard and productive work. The dictionary is organised as follows:

- entry;

- pronunciation;

- definition;

- illustrations (not self-invented examples but quotations from recognised authors that contain the word in question);

- notes on usage of the word;

- etymology of the word;

- stylistic comments.

The dictionary also contained a grammatical section describing the grammatical structure of the language.

Lecture 10

Phonetic Features of Old English

OE sound system developed from PG sound system.

 

OE Word Stress/Accent:

1. fixed (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix);

2. dynamic (force, breath stress);

3. in Noun and Adjective stress was mainly on the prefix if there was one:

E.g. ‘misd æ d (misdeed), ‘uðζenζ (escape), ‘oreald (very old)

in Verb stress was mainly on the root even if there was a prefix:

E.g. a’risan (arise), mis’faran (go astray)

4. stress served to distinguish Noun from Verb (and still does):

E.g. ‘andswaru (N answer) – and’swarian (V answer)

‘ onζin (N beginning) – on’ζinnan (V begin)

E.g. (modern English) – ‘present – pre’sent; ‘ally – al’ly.

 

OE Vowels

Unstressed vowels were weakened and dropped.

Stressed vowels underwent some changes:

· splitting – 1 phoneme split into several allophones which later become separate phonemes

e.g. à a

a à ã

à æ

· merging – separate phonemes become allophones of one phoneme and then disappear and are not distinguished any more as separate phonemes

e.g. a à

ã à a

æ à

 

Rise of Diphthongs

In PG there were no diphthongs. There was just a sequence of two separate vowels. Diphthongs appeared in OE: some (usually long diphthongs) – as a result of merging of two vowels:

 

Sounds	Diphth.	Gothic	OE
a + u à	ea:	au so	ea re (ear)
e + u à	eo:	þ eu dans	þ ēo den (king)
(i + u)à	(io:) (dialectal variant)	d iu ps	d īo p (deep)

 

others (usually short diphthongs) – as a result of the influence of the succeeding and preceding consonants (breaking of [æ, e]):

 

Monoph.	Diphth.	Influence	Gothic	OE
æ à	ea	before l	a lls	ea ll (all)
æ à	ea	before h	a htau	ea hta (eight)
e à	eo	before r	h e rza	h eo rte (heart)
æ à	ea	after sk’/k’	sk a dus	sc ea du (shade)
æ: à	ea:	after j	j â r	ζ ēa r (year)

 

Palatal Mutation/i-Umlaut

Mutation – a change of one vowel to another one under the influence of a vowel in the following syllable.

Palatal mutation(or i-Umlaut) happened in the 6^th -7^th c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Languages, except Gothic (that’s why later it will be used for comparison).

Palatal mutation – fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable (to approach the articulation of these two sounds). As a result of palatal mutation:

· [i] and [j] disappeared in the following syllable sometimes leading to the doubling of a consonant in this syllable;

· new vowels appeared in OE ([ie, y]) as a result of merging and splitting:

before palatal mutation	after palatal mutation	Gothic	OE
a à o à æ à	e	b a di	b e dd (bed)
a: à	æ:	d a ils	d æ lan (deal)
ŏ/ō à	ĕ/ē	m ō tjan	m ē tan (meet)
ŭ/ū à	ŷ/ỹ(labialised) (new!)	f u lljan	f y llan (fill)
ĕă/ēā à ĕŏ/ēō à	ĭě/īē (new!)	ea ld (early OE)	ie ldra (late OE)

 

Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English:

1. irregular Plural of nouns (man – men; tooth – teeth);

2. irregular verbs and adjectives (told ←tell; sold ←sell; old – elder);

3. word-formation with sound interchange (long – length; blood – bleed).

 

OE Vowel System (symmetrical, i.e each short vowel had its long variant)

 

	Monophthongs	+	Diphthongs
Short	ĭ	ĕ	ă	ǽ	ŏ	ŭ	ŷ	ĕŏ	ĕă	ĭě
Long	ī	ē	ā	æ	ō	ū	ỹ	ēō	ēā	īē

 

The length of vowels was phonologically relevant (i.e. served to distinguish words):

e.g. (OE) is (is) – īs (ice); col (coal) –cōl (cool); god (god) – gōd (good), etc.

 

OE Consonants

OE consonants underwent the following changes:

1. Hardening (the process when a soft consonant becomes harder)– usually initially and after nasals ([m, n])

[ð] à	[d]	rau ð r (Icelandic)	rēa d (OE) (red)
[v] à	[b]	-	-
[γ] à	[g]	g uma (Gothic)	ζ uma (OE) (man)

 

2. Voicing (the process when a voiceless consonant becomes voiced in certain positions) – intervocally and between a vowel and a voiced consonant or sonorant

[f, q, h, s] à [v, ð, g, z] e.g. wul f os (Gothic) – wul f [v] as (OE) (wolves)

 

3. Rhotacism (a process when [z] turns into [r])

e.g. mai z a (Gothic) – mā r a (OE) (more)

 

4. Gemination (a process of doubling a consonant) – after a short vowel, usually happened as a result of palatal mutation (e.g. fu ll an (OE) (fill), se tt an (OE) (set), etc.).

5. Palatalisation of Consonants (a process when hard vowels become soft) – before a front vowel and sometimes also after a front vowel

[g, γ, k, h] à [g’, γ’, k’, h’] e.g. c [k’] ild (OE) (child); ecζ [gg’] (OE) (edge), etc.

6. Loss of Consonants:

· sonorants before fricatives (e.g. fi m f (Gothic) – fīf (OE) (five));

· fricatives between vowels and some plosives (e.g. s æ ζ de (early OE) – s æ de (late OE) (said));

· loss of [j] – as a result of palatal mutation (see examples above);

· loss of [w] (e.g. case-forms of nouns: s æ (Nominative) – s æ w e (Dative) (OE) (sea).

 

OE Consonant System

See table 9 on p. 90 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).

Lecture 11