1. 11-18-08 1 LING 2301 Old English Period (p. 55). 55 BC Julius Caesar attempts to invade Britain CE 43-50 Emperor Claudius invades Britain CE 410 Romans withdraw from Britain CE 449 Angles, Saxons and Jutes invade Britain 597 St. Augustine of Canterbury re-introduces* Christianity to the English 787 Scandinavian invasion begins (Vikings) 878 King Alfred defeats the Danes at Eddington (Ethandun) Treaty of Wedmore (allows a truce b/t Scandinavians who settle on outskirts and the Anglo-Saxons in Alfred’s territory which established a line between Anglo-Saxons and Danes – Danish side referred to as Danelaw. 899 King Alfred dies 1014 King Æthelred driven out by a new wave of Danish (political) aggression 1016 Danish King Cnut rules England 1042 Accession of Edward the Confessor (Æthelred's son) to the throne (died w/o an heir in 1066) (* seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_of_Canterbury for more detail)
2. 11-18-08 2 LING 2301 General OE properties When Anglo-Saxons move in the land was inhabited by Celts/Scots/Picts OE synthetic/fusional rather than analytic/isolating N, V, Adj, Det, ProN were highly inflected meaning word order would not be very ridged Strong and weak declensions of nouns and adjectives Strong and weak conjugations of verbs Word formation by compounding, prefixing and suffixing rather than borrowing Gender (like other Indo-European languages) – was a grammatical feature (based on formal linguistic criteria, not logical or "natural" classes)
3. 11-18-08 3 LING 2301 OE Consonants (very similar to modern day English) {voiced fricatives} were allophones – predictable by rules in context of voiceless segments (no contrast as in present day fan & van) It also included some clusters that no longer exist phonetically: /kn/ /gn/ (knee, gnaw)
4. 11-18-08 4 LING 2301 Vowels in OE: A major feature of vowels in OE from Germanic is called "front mutation" or "i-umlaut" If a stressed syllable was followed by an unstressed syllable containing [i] or [j], the vowel sound of the stressed syllable was fronted or raised (or partly assimilated to the following high front [i] or [j]). The vowel that caused the mutation would then be dropped out of the changed forms (so it does not occur itself in the new forms) Example: The plural for mūs 'mouse' would have been mūsiz. The vowel of /-iz/ raised and fronted the /ū/ Then the /iz/ would be dropped Thus changed to mȳs 'mice' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_Umlaut Also produced vowel mutation plurals forms such as 'foot' 'feet' And adjectives strang, strengra, strengest & old, elder, eldest And some verb forms lie/lay, sit/set
5. 11-18-08 5 LING 2301 OE syntax also used case inflections for grammatical function of nouns (different suffixes on nouns showing the following relations within the sentence) An example of Cases that would be inflected: Nominative case subjects the DOG put the bone on the pillow. Accusitive case direct objects the dog put THE BONE on the pillow. Genitive case Possessives the dog put HIS bone on the pillow. Dative case for indirect objects the dog put the bone on THE PILLOW. Instrumental case "with/or by means of" phrase (rare in OE) the dog chewed the bone WITH HIS TEETH.
6. 11-18-08 6 LING 2301 Words from Latin in OE: Some probably from regular Roman life street, wine, butter, pepper, cheese, silk, copper, pound, inch, mile. Some came in with the Church (St. Augustine 597) bishop, candle, creed, mass, monk, priest
7. 11-18-08 7 LING 2301 Words Borrowed from Scandinavian (the Danes) into OE: /sk/ shall, fish, shirt, skirt, sky, scale birth, egg, guess, root, seat, sister, tidings Other factors from Scandinavian — pronouns (they, them, their) replaced 3rd Pl inflected forms prepositions (till, fro – as in to and fro), infinitives (att + do as in 'ado') and parts of the verb 'to be' (are)
