Questions for exam preparation: Historical Linguistics



Study Questions for Historical Linguistics

You can find the answers to the study questions in Barber’s The English Language: A Historical Introduction or even on the internet. However, please note that there may be discrepancies on the internet sites. I will mark exam questions, etc based on Barber.

The Flux of Language

1. Some language are dead but have not died! Expand on this (weird) statement.

2. Comment of the ‘rate of change’ as regards English c.f. Icelandic.

3. Study the OE, ME texts on pages 34, 35 & 37 (The Prodigal Son). Comment on two aspects of syntax and two aspects of lexis.

4. What are the mechanisms of language change. Make titles and brief summaries of each description.

5. Using pages 53-55 (and an internet search) make a ‘tree diagram’ of the major language families of the world

Indo-European Roots

1. What does proto- mean?

2. What do scholars base their assumptions on when they try to localise the original Indo-European homeland (and the state of culture before migrations to Europe and Asia)? (74-80)

3. Traditionally Indo-European languages are divided into two groups. What are they called and why? (71)

4. Name 4 of the main branches of the Indo-European tree. (71)

5. Which of the following languages are NOT of Indo-European origin? Estonian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Russian, Italian, Basque, Gaelic, Greek, Hungarian. (Chap 3)

6. Name three Celtic languages that are still spoken. (65)

7. Which is the odd one out? Swedish, Icelandic, English, Spanish, Frisian (Chap 3)

8. What Indo-European language in India can be described in the following way? “It is in no sense a dead language; its status is roughly comparable to that of Latin in medieval and Renaissance Europe”. (63)

9. What do linguists study in order to show that that two or more languages are related? (60)

Germanic Roots

10. What are the three main branches of the Germanic languages? (85-85)

11. What evidence exists of an East Germanic branch? (85)

12. What is the main difference between the tense system of Germanic languages and those of other Indo-European languages? (90)

13. P-IE had strong verbs which Proto-G adopted. However, Proto-G also introduced weak verbs. Expand on this. How do weak verbs differ from strong verbs? (91)

14. What happened to the stress on words in Proto-G, compared to P-IE? (92)

15. During the 4th, 5th and 6th century, the Germanic ancestors of English settled in (what is now known as) England. Who were they and from where did they come? What languages did they bring with them?(101-104)

16. Why did the West Saxon dialect become the literary standard? (104)

17. Old English (OE) had greater freedom of word order than modern English. Describe and explain this using the following phrase: The King held a great council [((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((] (118-119)

Vikings

18. Why are there so few OE manuscripts from the north of England, compared to the south? (127-129)

19. Who is the only English monarch that was honoured with the epithet “the great”? When did this monarch reign? Why the honour? (128)

20. Provide examples of Scandinavian influence on place names. (128)

21. Provide 8 examples (not place names) of Scandinavian words that became a part of English and that are in use in modern English. (130-132)

22. Identify the Scandinavian loanwords, or words influenced by Scandinavian in the following text:

John and Mary were sitting under the open sky. John was very shy and Mary wished she had not been wearing such a scanty skirt because her legs were cold. John wished that he had bought his sweater so that he could have given it to Mary. Then all of a sudden it started to rain and they had to run home. They ran to their cottage but they got wet to the skin.

23. The most striking thing about the influx of Scandinavian loanwords into English is that they are ordinary words. In which way are they ordinary? Why is this striking? What does it reveal about the nature of contact between the Vikings and the Anglo Saxons? (131)

24. How do the loanwords of Old Norse differ from the later borrowings of Latin and French, in terms of types of words and the number of borrowings? (134 & 146)

25. The Viking invasion was forced back at the Danelaw. Had Alfred been defeated, then what would have been the linguistic environment in England. Hypothesise on which language would have become dominant?

Middle English

26. The OE period lasted until 1100, when the Middle English (ME) period began. Why 1100? (134-136)

27. Why did French become the language of the ruling upper class in England, for almost 300 hundred years? Use the term diglossia in your answer. (Chap 6, 134 onwards)

28. Describe the roles of French and English among the population of England between 1066-1280. Who spoke French? Who spoke English? Who were in the majority? (140-141)

29. Eventually, English triumphed over French, even among the ruling class. An important event hurried this process. What event and how? (141)

30. Henry IV coming to the throne (in 1399) marked a significant event. Expand on this. (143)

31. Where and why did the New Standard English originate? (144)

32. As regards loanwords, French tended to penetrate downwards into society, whereas Scandinavian came from below. Expand on this. (146)

33. Loan words from 1100-1280 came from one source of French but during the 13th and 14th century the source of French was different. Expand on this. (148)

34. Old English tended to invent its own new words. In contrast, Middle and modern English has been very willing to borrow or adapt words from other languages. What reasons could be provided for this? (149)

35. The period between 900-1400 is marked by a great reduction in the number of morphological affixes in English. Describe two causes for this. (157-158)

36. By the end of the ME period, the indefinite article had become indeclinable. This meant a major change in the structure of the language. In effect, the definite article - which showed three genders, and which was declined through (i) four cases, and (ii) single/plural - now only had one form. Expand on this. (160)

37. The inflectional system of OE decayed but had to be replaced. What exactly had to be replaced? State and describe the two main devices did the replacing. (161)

General Questions

1. The words in each of the following pairs are related to one another. In what way is the relationship interesting from the viewpoint of English language history?

sing-sang, kingly-royal, shirt-skirt

2. What are the main significant periods in the history of the English language up to 1500.

3. What historical events, periods or other facts do the following place names make you think of?

• Avon, Dover

• Lincoln, Manchester

• England

• Sussex/ Wessex

• Derby/ Grimsthorpe

4. What do the following word pairs tell us about the social conditions in England after the Norman conquest?

sheep/mutton, calf/veal, ox/beef, deer/venison

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