The Evolution of English Grammar: From Proto-Indo-European to Present Day English
I-Umlaut: A Key Feature of English Morphology, Examples from Old English to Present Day English The i-mutation is a process that depended on the vowels being articulated. Back vowels tended to become front once affected, whereas lower vowels became higher. Ex: foot > feet/ These irregularities had an effect in Old English morphology. For instance, all Old English diphthongs became /ie/, but the original /i/ sound tended to weaken and eventually disappeared from the word. Ex. PrOE àbætir; OE à bætr. Moreover, i-mutation is also significant as a result of the Great Vowel Shift (GVS), with this we can find a great number of “minimal pairs” with the same pronunciation but different in meaning: steel vs. steal/ To finish with, we also can see the effects of i-umlaut in PDE. For instance, its use to express comparative and superlative degrees (big > bigger > biggest) or noun plurals (man > men). In fact, we have weak verbs created from noun roots: Blêdan, Blôd, Bleed. Regarding the verbs, the structure of I-Umlaut has taken part of them. For example, the change of vowel /e/ to /i/. It happens in the strong verbs (2 and 3 persons of singular in present), beran “bear”, present 2, 3 singular bir(e)st, bir(e)δ. Almost in the strong verbs, there is another signal of I-Umlaut in the causative verbs formed from the preterit singular root. Besides, some class of weak verbs show I-Umlaut in the present but not the preterit, sellan “sell”, preterite 1, 3 sealde <>. In the transition from Proto-Germanic to Old English, harmonic processes were dominant in phonology. Although there are a lot of harmonization processes (restoration of a, a-umlaut…), i-umlaut is the most striking when it comes to discussing its importance.
The Rise of Weak Verbs in Germanic Languages examples in OE -PDE The three verbal times (present, perfect and aorist) in Proto-Indo-European were expressed through vocalic alternations. These vocalic alternations were called “Ablaut”. They were 7 types of strong verbs used for expressing verbal times/ Nevertheless, this verbal system became such a complex one, that even the speakers could not simply use it. Hence, the speakers offered a new alternative: weak verbs/ These verbs do not use vocalic alternation, unlike the strong ones. Their strategy is easier than the first type of verbs and is used in all their cases without exception. Ex. OE weorced – PDE worked. The verbal forms would make their past adding the morpheme –ed. Examples of these are all regular forms of the verbs in PDE (talk -talked-, listen –listened-…)
Thus, it was developed a new strategy in weak verbs to express the past. Ex. OE weorced – PDE worked. à Thus, the past morpheme -d was added to the past. Those verbs originally strong pasts came to express present and a new weak past form emerged: Preterit present verbs. f(f rara)allàPDE shall./ To finish with, preterit present verbs expressed action or mood as they were modal verbs. These changes in Proto-Germanic have made that PDE modals do not have neither the –s morpheme nor a “to infinitive” Ex. She should, She should come (without -s) .
The Evolution of Loanword Acceptance in English Meanwhile, other English ancient languages, such as Proto Germanic, contained many lexical borrowings from other languages, Old English did not. /Although we can find examples of loans from Celtic, French or Latin, the truth is that speakers of OE were so reluctant to borrow words massively from other languages due to the cultural isolation and the difficulties of adapting foreign words to the complex and verbal grammar of OE. These factors implied that the speakers preferred to create their own vocabulary./However, this tendency changed in later English because of the tendency of specialists to borrow words from Latin and Greek and to create new words out of Latin and Greek elements continued./In conclusion, I would say that the tendency to borrow words coincide with times of major cultural contact between English speakers and those who speak other languages. The morphological system of the name (weak and strong forms) makes the inclusion of names of other languages. The reason of this is that OE was very strict, as Proto Germanic was too. Nevertheless, some changes occurred in OE, as distinction of three new gender and personal pronouns, etc, which made of this stage of English a language that showed a lot of inflexions./For this, the creation and adaptation of new nominal forms were possible. In this period, English becomes in a quite flexible, allowing loans, especially notable in importance and number of French and classical languages.
The vocabulary of Old English consists of a bulk of native lexemes directly inherited from Proto-Indo-European and from Proto-Germanic plus a very limited number of borrowings from other languages speakers of Old English were in contact with, such as Latin, Celtic and Old Norse. Based on your knowledge of the grammar of Old English, please write a short essay describing some of the linguistic reasons why Old English speakers were so reluctant to borrow words from other languages and why this tendency has changed in later English, Present Day English being one of the languages with a highest rate of foreign words in its vocabulary in the whole world.
Although practically isolated, Old English welcomed many words from foreign languages such as Latin, Celtic and Scandinavian. 50% of Old English’s core-local vocabulary describe the physical world and family, whereas the remaining 50% come from loan foreign words in order to define new cultural concepts and geography from that time./However, due to the highly complex nominal and grammar system, it was extremely difficult to adapt those new words to their own languages. In fact, it was easier for them to coin new words. They had numerous techniques to do so, such as compounding (money-eager) or loan translation (margarita > meregrot). / Thanks to the gradual evolution of Present Day English’s simplicity, speakers are now able to use regular ways to adapt new words or even borrow them directly to the lexicon.
related to VERBS. SENTENCES MODAL VERBS(PDE) These sentences show modal verbs with inflexive morphemes which is quite strange in PDE. This was difficult because the great amount of verbs was extremely complicated, even the natives, so, a simplification was not only obligated, but necessary./The modal verbs had all information about grammar and were in the end of the sentence. When they were in contact with the Germanic languages, there were mistakes of communication so, these modal verbs were transformed in static. Now, they are always in the second position in a sentence. For example, this happens with will, shall, going to. /To sum up, the modal verbs are transformed in static verbs because there is a necessity of simplifying and announcing together. Thus, in PDE, it is strange because if a verb has the grammar load, the modal verb has not to show the time or person. PDE sentences are grammatically incorrect:John goes to church as often has he cansWe hate to must study so much during the weekend. Essay explaining, on diachronic grounds the reasons for the apparent ‘grammatical irregularities’. I will begin by correcting the previous sentences. As I can see, there are 2 obvious mistakes: the third person singular inflection in “can” and the use of the infinitive in “must”. Present Day English modal verbs follow a different structure when we use it in everyday speech. John goes to church as often as he can. We hate having to study so much during the weekend.= We must study so much during the weekend [even though we hate it]. The origin of this irregularity comes from Proto-Germanic Preterit-Present verbs. Their past sense was eventually lost and obtained a new present meaning, giving way to new past forms. Since its ancient form lacked 3rd person singular inflection and infinitive, their evolved forms also lacked them. Historically, the origin of modal verbs is similar to the irregular past verb forms (He can ≈ He sang ≠ He sings).
The Shift from SOV to SVO Word Order in English Based on Lass and the presentation of the topic 13 by JEDV: To begin with, English as many other languages have numerous word-order possibilities, but all of them have one which is their favorite and which is knows as dominant order of major constituents. /In the case of Proto-Indo-European was basically Subject, (direct) Object, Verb, a basic order inherited by Proto-Germanic: I the runes write (SOV). Also, Proto-Germanic inherited postmodification from Proto-Indo-European, that is for example noun plus adjective (house big) or noun plus genitive noun (house John’s)./The general tendency in OE is basically SOV order to be progressively substituted by SVO and for the postmodification to be replaced by premodification. Only in subordinate clauses, the old SOV order was kept./Another aspect that is important is the so-called clausal brace. This means that if a main clause contains a finite auxiliary and a non-finite main verb (infinitive, participle), the auxiliary appears in second position; the main verb however comes at the end of the clause. The auxiliary and the main verb thus form a ‘brace’ around the rest of the clause-constituents.
clause-constituents.