KAA 3A05 Historical Development of the English Language
Historický vývoj angličtiny (3 credits)
Where do discrepancies between English spelling and pronunciation come from? And how do
we account for asymmetries in the other language levels? Explaining present-day English by
looking at its earlier stages – past as a way to Modern English.
Kurz si klade za cíl vysvětlit rozpor mezi psanou a mluvenou podobou současné angličtiny
zpětným pohledem na stav fonematického systému v době ustalování anglického pravopisu.
Probírají se změny, které se od té doby odehrály, a důvody, které k nim vedly. Podobným
způsobem se v historické perspektivě předvádějí gramatické kategorie a zásady syntaktické
stavby.
Tentative sylabus:
1. Introduction: Milestones in the story of English: Video: The Story of English (2): Mother
Tongue.
2.- 8. Back to Caxton's times. Sources of Modern English vowels and consonants. Changes in
the systems of English vowels and consonants over time.
9.-12. 'Irregularities / asymmetries' in the morphological system of Modern English seen in a
diachronic perspective: Nouns (irregular plurals, possessive case) and verbs (strong and weak
verbs vs irregular and regular verbs, modal verbs, -ing forms). Pronouns (personal,
possessive, demonstrative, reflexive pronouns). The story of articles. Adjectives and adverbs
(periphrastic versus inflectional comparison of adjectives and adverbs, suppletive forms;
adjectives and adverbs identical in form, adjectives and adverbs ending in -ly).
Syntax: Negation. Questions.
Requirements for 3 credits:
written test, oral exam
You should be able to answer the following questions:
Historical context:
1. Which historic events had greatest impact on English? Name stages in the development of
English. Old English dialects.
2. From a diachronic perspective, explain discrepancies between ModE spelling and
pronunciation. What was taken as the standard for ModE spelling? Middle English dialects.
3. Scandinavian influence upon English. Who were the Scandinavians, when had they come
to the British Isles and how did they contribute to the making of English? (Grammar, sounds,
lexicon).
4. Celtic influence on English.
5. Influence of Norman French upon English:
a) sounds
b) spelling
c) grammar
d) vocabulary
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6. Latin influence upon English throughout the development of English
7. As you know, sometimes the same word found its way into English more than once.
Sometimes what we end up with is words different in meaning, sometimes near-synonyms.
Give such examples (think about all the possible cases of ‘foreign’ influence upon English –
Scandinavian, French, Latin…).
Phonetics and phonology:
1. What is generally referred to as the ‘great vowel shift’ and when did it take place? What
major consequence did it have for English? What do the two main theories say about where it
all started (pull change, push change)?
2. What was i-umlaut and when was it operating? Give examples from nominal, adjectival
and verbal paradigms.
3. New Verner’s Law and its effect on English
4. The status of voiced and voiceless fricatives in the history of English
5. Give sources of the /ʒ/, /ʤ/, /tʃ/, /ʃ/ phonemes
6. R and its influence of on the preceding vowels in the development of English
7. Centring diphthongs in RP and GA and their sources
8. Simplification of consonantal clusters in word initial, medial and final position
9. Diachronic sources of stem vowel alternation in nominal and verbal paradigms
10. Differences between RP and GA viewed in historical perspective
11. Which Present-day English consonantal phonemes did not have a phonemic status in Old
English? Give a detailed story of their phonemic birth.
12. Describe phonetic changes that happened in the history of English and that can be seen in
progress again (think about dialects).
Grammar:
1. Describe in detail what (and when) caused the following ModE ‘irregularities’ in the
plurals of nouns:
a) zero plural
b) suffixes other than -s
c) alternation of a voiced and voiceless fricative
d) alternation of the stem vowel.
How do you account for She is only five foot two?
2. Three different processes resulted in distinct stem vowels in the present and past tense
forms of the following nine verbs: keep, tell, think, bind, sell, write, hear, sing, lose. Each
process is represented in three of these verbs. Divide the verbs into such three groups and
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describe the three processes in detail, using one verb from each group as an example. Which
of the verbs were strong and which were weak? How much back in time do we need to go?
3. The dichotomy strong-weak and regular-irregular in the history of the English verbs.
4. -ly as an adverbial and adjectival suffix
5. What are the sources of ModE pronouns this-these, that-those? Explain in detail what
happened in the paradigms of demonstrative pronouns throughout the history of English. How
and when was the category of determination established?
6. Old English sources of present English personal pronouns and their development:
a) I
b) the story of second person sg and pl pronouns
c) history of 3rd person plural pronouns
7. As you know, we often use me instead of I in positions where the nominative would be, at
least according to the prescriptive tradition, more appropriate. Déja vu, that is, we have
already seen this happening in one paradigm of a personal pronoun. Describe it in detail.
8. What are the sources of ModE possessive pronouns? What is the distribution of my/mine in
ModE and has it always been the case?
9. Did reflexive pronouns exist in OE? Give a story of their development.
10. Describe the origin of the negative particle not and give a story of the development of
negation from Old English to the present day. Is something similar happening again?
11. Word order in questions in a diachronic perspective.
12. As you know, the source of the ModE indefinite article is the numeral one. Account for
the ModE difference in spelling and pronunciation between the numeral one and the indefinite
article an. When was the indefinite article grammaticalized?
13. Give examples of foreign influence on the structure (grammar) of English.
14. Periphrastic and inflectional comparison of adjectives. Which is older, what are the
origins and how much back in time do we need to go?
15. Analogies operating in the adjectival, nominal and verbal paradigms.
16. Give a detailed story of the –ing forms. How will you, diachronically, account for the
spelling of the –ing form of the verb to lie?
17. Present perfect in a diachronic perspective
18. From the point of view of language typology, how did OE differ from ModE? Give examples
of some typological changes in the history of English.
19. Remnants of OE conjugations and declensions in ModE
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In the written test you may also come across the following (sample) questions:
1. Give sources of ModE phonemes /iː /, /ɔː /, /eɪ /….
2. Account for the phonetic changes and their relative chronologies in the following words:
howl, friend, holy, holly, law, blind…
3. How will you explain the difference in pronunciation between south-southern, wax-wash,
blood-good, gone-done…?
4. Give a diachronic explanation of the pronunciations /stoʊn/ vs /stəʊn/……..:
a) Mark the words as either RP or GA.
b) Give a detailed relative chronology of the changes in the stem vowel.
c) Which of the varieties of English (RP or GA) reflects an earlier stage of pronunciation?
Why?
5. Words easily confused: How will you pronounce stuff and staff and why?
6. Account – diachronically – for the pronunciations of sculptor and sculpture.
7. Explain diachronically why modal verbs do not have –s in the 3rd person sg. What were the
original meanings of modal verbs and how have they been changing?
…
Literature:
Required:
VACHEK, Josef. 1978. A Brief Survey of the Historical Development of English. SPN, Praha.
VACHEK, Josef. 1972. Historický vývoj angličtiny. SPN, Praha.
MACHÁČEK, Jaroslav. 1963. Stručný přehled historického vývoje angličtiny s příklady a texty.
SPN, Praha.
VACHEK, Josef. 1962. Historický pohled na dnešní angličtinu. SPN, Praha.
CRYSTAL, David. 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. CUP. Part I:
The History of English 2-5 (pp.5-75).
BARNETT, Lincoln. The English Language. Where it began and how it became a great tongue.
Textbooks on phonetics:
GIMSON, A.C. 1970. An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. Edward Arnold, London.
LADEFOGED, Peter. A Course in Phonetics. Hartcourt Brace College Publisher. 3rd edition.
Phonetic Dictionaries:
Wells, J.C. 2000. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.
Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. CUP.
For etymology, see
Oxford English Dictionary. http://dictionary.oed.com (Palacky University subscribes to the online
version).
Onions, C.T. 1966. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. OUP.
Recommended:
Lass, Roger. (ed.) 2001. The Cambridge history of the English language. Vol. 3, 1476-1776. CUP.
Strang, Barbara. 1970. A History of English. Routledge.
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Baugh, Albert C, and Thomas Cable. 2002. A History of the English Language. Routledge.
Cable, Thomas. 2002. A Companion to Baugh and Cable’s A History of the English Language.
Routledge.
Wright, Joseph, and Elisabeth M. Wright. 1924. An Elementary Historical New English Grammar.
OUP.
McCRUM, Robert, CRAN, William, and Robert MACNEIL. 1986. The Story of English. Viking
Penguin Inc. Ch. 2: The Mother Tongue, ch. 3: A Muse of Fire.
Lass, Roger. 1976. English Phonology and Phonological Theory: Synchronic and Diachronic Studies.
CUP.
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html
http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/
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