Dialect Representations in Middle English
The language of the Middle English period was made up of a number of local dialects. The disunity inherited from the Old English times had considerably increased due to the isolation of districts in the feudal state and to the two foreign influences.
The following table (Table 1) shows the main dialect groups in Middle English and their Old English sources; it also shows the origin of the mixed dialect of London which shifted from the South Western to the East Midland type in the course of the Middle English period.
| OE | ME |
| Northumbrian Mercian West Saxon Kentish | NORTHERN (Northern, Lowland, Scottish) MIDLAND (West Midland, East Midland, South-West Midland) LONDON SOUTHERN (South-Western) KENTISH |
Вопрос
Early Modern English Syntax and Grammar
During the centuries 16 th and 17 th there were many changes referring to the idiomatic quality of English. A special change was in the verb “do” . In the old English old this verb has the meaning of perform an action and also it can be used in order to replace a verb for example “ I went to the store and having done that I will…. In this case do replaces the verb go in the second part of the sentence but this was developed till Middle English period. In addition, the modal verbs or helping verbs include shall, will, can, may and ought can modify the tense or mood of a main verb. In Modern English the modal verbs cannot work by themselves being used individually without a verb because is necessary to use another verb in order to do a complete sentence. Originally, these models were full verbs. In the 17 th century be grammatically to say, “ I can music”
The distinctions between shall/should, will/would and can could appear during 16th and 17th periods to create a subjunctive mood in English comparable to that in Latin. Shall/ will came to be restricted for forms of the future losing their full verbal sense. Shall was no longer used as a form of obligation, and will no longer expressed an individual’s will or desire.
In addition, a different kind of colloquialism emerged with these changes that have an important relationship to the language of ritual. Such phrases as “How’s it going?” or “How do you do?” have become idioms of everybody speech, but they rely on grammatical forms newly developed in the 16th and 17th centuries.
|
|
|
Old Germanic morphology
In Germanic the principal new creation was the weak past tense (ending in a t or d), such as English loved, thought, German liebte, dachte, made by combining the verb stem with a past tense of the Germanic verb for ‘do.’ (The strong past tense formed by vowel alternations, like “sing, sang,” “run, ran” comes from the Proto-Indo-European stative aspect.)
The system of verbs in old Germanic languages consists of b and weak verbs. The terms b and weak verbs were proposed by J. Grimm. He called the verbs b because they had preserved the richness of form since the age of the parent-language and in this sense could be contrasted to weak verbs lacking such variety of form. The main difference between these groups lies in the means of building of principal forms: the Present tense and Participle II. The b verbs built there principal forms with the help of root vowel interchanges plus certain grammatical endings; they made use of IE abaut with certain modifications due to phonetic changes and environment. Weak verbs derived these forms by means of dental suffixes –d, -t, ƀ. These suffixes were inserted between the root and the ending. The weak verbs are a specifically Germanic innovation.
The Old Germanic languages have a system of two tenses, present and past. Originally the distinction was not between tenses, but between aspects, that is between forms characterizing the way the action is developing. Every b verb is characterized by four basic forms: the infinitive, the past singular, the past plural, the second participle. All b verbs fall into seven classes according to the type of gradation: reisan-rais-risum-risans; kuisan-kaus-kusum-kusans; bindan-band-bundum-bundans; stilan-stal-stelum- stuland; giban-gaf-gebum-gibans; faran-fōr-fōrum-farans; haitan-haihait-haihaotum-haitans / letan-lailōt-lailōtum-letans.
The weak verbs are a specifically Germanic innovation, for the device used in building their principal forms is not found outside the Germanic group. They built the Past tense and Participle II by inserting a special suffix between the root and the ending. So suffixes d, -t, ƀ were the markers of the Past and Participle II. Weak verbs in Germanic languages except Gothic had 3 classes. They derived their past tense and second participle by means of a dental suffix. So suffixes d, -t, ƀ were the markers of the Past and Participle II, gor example: O Icel kalla – kallaƀa - kallaƀr (call-called), OE macian – macode –macod (make–made).
|
|
|
Дата добавления: 2019-09-02; просмотров: 330; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!