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Aspect There were two aspects in the OE verbs the perfective and the imperfective. OE don do, gedon to have done. Aspect was a lexico-grammatical category since it was expressed by prefixes, the latter being often use for changing the lexical meaning of the verb at the same time. e.g. slan to beat afslean to kill The prefix in these cases was a word building element. Aspect in OE was unstable as a grammatical category. Not all the verbs possessed it. Voice There was no special system of the passive voice in OE. There were combinations of the verbs beon/wesan, weorpan with PII which were often used. They were nominal predicates. e.g. Se bera waes ofslaegen. That bear was a killed one. In the plural: ba beran waere ofslaegenne OE forms: slean slh - slaegen Mood There were 3 moods in OE: the indicative, the imperative, the subjunctive. The last one (subjunctive) was oftener used than in MnE, because it was used in the indirect speech (like in German). Only the simple forms of the subjunctive were in existence although should and would+infinitives existed. Yet they still their lexical meanings and only in ME they began to lose their meanings and turned into auxiliaries. Indicative Mood Sing. 1 2 3 Subj.Mood Singular 1, 2, 3 Plural Imper.Mood Singular 2p. Plural 2p. Part I Part II present cpe cpst cpp c p cpap c p cpap cpende gecped preterite cpte cptest cpte cpte cpen cpte cpen
c) Strong verbs
Strong verbs (verbs with vowel gradation) are divided into seven classes according to vowel gradation (mutation). Infinitive Class I I Wrtan (write) Class II o cosan (choose) past sing. a wrt a cas Past. PI. i wrtan cron Participle II i wrten
o coren
u druncon
u drunken
b) (before) I + cons. i ea helpan (help) healp c) Before r + cons., h + cons. eo ea weoran (become) wear class IV before I, r e beran (bear)
u hulpon
o holpen
u wurdon
o worden
b r
bron
o boren
class V before a consonant other than nasal e cwean (say) cwp class VI a faran (go) class VII htan (call) ht fr hton
e cweden a faren
d) Weak Verbs
The main feature of weak in OE was they the formed the Past Tense by adding a dental suffix. Weak verbs were grouped in 3 classes. Verbs with long root vowel i Infinitive Heran past hierde part.II hiered
Class II a) verbs with short root vowel followed by r Nerian (save) nerede nered b) short rood vowel followed by other consonants than r cnyssan (push) cnysede cnysed c) O stem Lufian (love) lufode lufod
Class III Corresponds to Gothic class III verbs with the suffix ai a) Ai stem In OE this suffix is no longer found. The suffix of the Past Tense and Part. II is joined to the root. Habban hftde hafd
motan
mot
moton
moste
f) Suppletive Verbes
There were two supplitive verbs in OE beon, gan. Supletive verbs are those including different roots in their system of conjugation. There were two infinitive both meaning to be OE beon and wesan, each of them had their Present forms forms and common Past forms. Present tense sing. Wesan to be Sing. 1 eom, am 2 eart 3 is Pl. 1. Sint sindom 2. sien, sin, syn beon beo bist bi beo beop Preterite sing. w s wre waes waeron
Conjugation of the verb to do Present Sg. I. II. III. Do Dst de Pl. d Past Sg. dyde dydest dyde Pl. dydon
Irregular verbs: Beon/wesan = be Zn = go They differ from all other verbs in thet their forms are derived from different roots, that is, their system is based on suppletivity. Forms of the verb to be are derived from 3 roots: wes, es, be, though there are options that the verb beon has no past tense. Similar henomena are found in other Indo European languages: German sein-wae; Ich-bin. Russian , .
OG
THE
NATIONAL
LITERARY
The formation of a national language was greatly fostered by two events of the late 15th century. The events contributing to the formation of the national language. The most significant event of the period was the Wars of the Roses (1455 1485) which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order. They came to an end in the battle of Bosworth, when Richard III eas defeated by Henry Tudor, who became king of England as Henry VII. The political result of this prolonged structure was the rise of an absolute monarchy. This meant a high degree of political centralization and thus contributed to centralization in language as well, that is, to a predominance of the national language over local dialects. Another great event was the introduction of printing Printing was invented in Mayence (Germany) by Johann Gutenberg in 1438 From Mayence printing spread to Stransburg, then to Italy and to the Netherlands In the town of Bruges, in Flanders, the Englishman William Caxton (1422 1491) became acquainted with his art. He published the first English printed book history of Troy in Bruges. Returning to England, he founded the first English printing office in London in 1476, and In 1477 appeared the first book to be printed in England, namely, The Ditches and Sayings of the Philosophers. As a result Vowel letters in English acquired meaning different from those they have in French, German, Italian and other IE languages. Each vowel letter acquired different sound values depending on its environment. E.g. letter a denotes different vowel sounds in the words Make, cat, water, watch, any. Existence of a language norm becomes evident in the 16th century On the entire territory of Southern and Midland dialects, in all written documents including private letters only literary English is used, All other dialects, except the Scottish were reduced to the state of mere oral languages. When the English national language was forming, a similar process was developing in another centre of the British Isles, in Scotland. The basis of the Scottish language was the northern dialect which differs very little from Scots. The English language began to spread at the expense of Celtic. Malcolm III, king of Scotland (1057 1093) who reigned at the time of the Norman conquest of England, was
educated in English traditions and fostered the spread of English in this country, though this policy caused widespread oppositions. Social changes of the 16th century created the conditions for a great cultural progress and growth of a national literature. The 16th century was a time of great literary achievement. The 80s and 90s witness the rise of a great number of dramatists. The greatest of these was: William Shakespeare (1564 1616) His contemporaries were: Christopher Marlowe (1564 1593) Benjamin Jonson (1573 1637) John Fletcher (1579 1625) This epoch, called by historians usually Elizabethan after Queen Elizabeth I who reigned 1558 1603, belongs to the period of Early Modern English.