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Questions and assignments
Seminar I
1. Subject and aims of the history of the English language.
2. Linguistic change.
3. Common characteristics of Germanic languages.
3.1. Modern Germanic languages. History of Germanic languages. Genealogical
classification of Germanic languages.
3.2. Principal features of Germanic languages: phonetics; morphology; word- stock.
Questions and assignments
1. Explainwhy linguistic changes are always slow and gradual. In answering
recall the functions of the language and its main properties.
2. How can the evolution of the language be affected or be dependent upon
the history of the people who speak it?
3. Point out the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation, if any, in the
words given below bearing in mind the original values of Latin letters: thought,
note, nut, neat, knight, loved, nature and riser.
4. Find ten words that have recently come into usage and explain, if possible,
their appearance and formation.
Seminar II
1. Old English. Historical background.
2.Chronological divisions in the history of the English language.
2.1.Pre-Germanic period.
2.2.Germanic settlement in Britain.
3. Old English dialects.
4.Old English Phonetics.l. Old English written records.
5.ОE English written monuments(the runic alphabet and the Latin alphabet in Old English).
6. Word-stress in Old English.
7.Systems of Old English vowels and consonants.
8. Old English phonetic changes
Questions and assignments
l. Name the seven main periods in the history of the English language. What historical events are regarded as their dividing lines?
2. What languages were spoken on the British Isles before the Germanic invasion? Are any of their descendants spoken there today?
3. Which West-Germanic tribes settled in Britain in the 5th century? Where did they come from?
4. The language of Old English is often referred to as «Anglo-Saxon». Why is the name not fully justified?
5. What dialects did Old English consist of?
6. Wrhat kind of poetry, besides religious poems, has survived from Old English?
7. Were the runes used only as letters or for other purposes as well?
8. Name the earliest monuments of Old English writing made in runic and Latin characters.
9. What regular place of word-stress can you point out?
10. Say in what respects the Old English system of vowels is different from the Modern English one.
11. What vowel changes were characteristic of Old English since prehistoric
times?
12. Account for the differences in the root-vowels in the following groups of
words:
a) OE tab - NE tale; OE tellan (from 'taeljan') - NE tell; OE tealde (Past
tense^ffi told);
b) OE feallan - NEfall; OEfiellan (from an earlier feallian 'cause to
13. Did the OE system of consonants consist of the same sets of sounds as the modern system?
Seminar III
.1. Did the Old English verb has as many grammatical categories as the Modern
English verb? Which categories were wanting?
2.Point out the main differences between the weak and strong verbs.
3.Why are the verbs like the OE cunnan and sculan called «preterite-pre
sents»? Have they retained any of their specific features today?
4.State the class of the verbs in the following fragments of sentences. Give
their principal forms:
a)... wiciaD Finnas;
b) pæt land 1æзе;
c)fōr he;
d) beaZ Þæt land; he bad;
e) mette he;
f) pa Beormas spræcon;
g) he erede...
5.Did nouns, adjectives and pronouns have the same number of cases in Old
English?
6.Why were the different types of declensions in Old English referred to as
stems? What was meant by the term «root-stems»?
7.What was there in common and what was there different in the division of
nouns and adjectives into types of declension?
8. Define the forms of nouns, adjectives and pronouns in some noun
combinations (from Ohthere's account):
Pa wildan hranas; pa Beormas; on hiora topum.
Give the Nominative Singular of all these nouns, adjectives and pronouns.
9. What etymological layers does the Old English wordstock consist of?
10.When were Latin words borrowed into English? What semantic spheres
did they belong to?
11.What were the principal means of word-formation in Old English?
12.What Old English affixes have survived in Modern English?
13.What is the origin of the connecting vowel? Is this type of composition
represented in Modern English?
14.What stylistic spheres of vocabulary can be singled out in the Old English
wordstock?
Seminar IV
1. Middle English. Historical Background.
1.1.The Scandinavian invasions.
1.2 The Norman Conquest
2. The struggle between English and French .
3. Middle English dialects.
4. The London dialect and the flourishing of literature in the late 14th century.
5. Changes in the alphabet and spelling.
6. Principal Middle English written records.
Questions and assignments
1. Give some English place-names ending in -by, -toft, and explain their origin. Name some English words of Danish origin.
2. What were the reasons and the pretext for the Norman invasion?
3. Name the Middle English dialects and a written record in each of them.
4. Account for the shift of the dialect type of London during the Middle English period.
5. Describe the life and literary activities of Chaucer.
Seminar V