The Introduction to the Study

of the English Language

1st semester

Lesson 1
1. What is language?
2. Features of language

language
etymology:
Middle English (14th century)
< Anglo-French langage
< Latin lingua tongue, language

What is language?
(natural or human language
as opposed to animal / sign / computer language etc.)
sounds like a naive question
naive - because we used to taking things for granted
Laymen do not even know how to give a definition.
Laymens definitions:
- Language is what we do things with.
- Language is what I think with.
- Language is used for communication.
- Language is what I speak with.
- Language is what I write with.

Professionals try to define it from their own point of

view, hence none is satisfied with the others definition

Pedagogical definitions of language

- Language is a medium of knowledge.
- Language is a medium of learning.
- Language is part of ones cultural quality.
- Language is part of the many requirements for
a future citizen.
- Language is an element of quality education.

Lexicographical definitions
- the word language means differently in different contexts
1. The common features of all human languages, or to be
more exact, the defining feature of human language
behavior as contrasted with animal language systems of
communication, or any artificial language,
e.g. He studies language.
(= He studies the universal properties of all speech /
writing systems, not just one particular language.)
2. The abstract system underlying the totality of the
speech / writing behavior of a community. It includes
everything in a language system (its pronunciation,
vocabulary, grammar, writing,
e.g. the English language, the Chinese language,
childrens language. Do you know French?

Lexicographical definitions (continued)

3. A particular variety or level of speech or writing,
e.g. scientific language, English for specific purposes,
trade language, formal language, colloquial
language, computer language
4. A consistent way of speaking or writing,
e.g. Shakespeares language, Faulkners language
(= the whole of a persons language; an individuals
personal dialect called idiolect)
5. Language means what a person says or said,
e.g. What he says sounds reasonable enough, but he
expressed himself in such bad language that many
people misunderstood him.
(= concrete act of speaking in a given situation)

Linguists responses
- there have been dozens of definitions
Language, as well as the faculty of speech, was the
immediate gift of God. (Noah Webster)
Language is the highest and most amazing achievement of
the symbolistic human mind. The power it bestows is
almost inestimable, for without it anything properly called
thought is impossible. The birth of language is the dawn
of humanity. The line between man and beast between
the highest ape and the lowest savage is the language
line. (Susanne K. Langer)
In his whole life man achieves nothing so great and so
wonderful as what he achieved when he learnt to talk. (Otto
Jespersen)
a purely human and noninstinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a
system of voluntarily produced symbols. (Edward Sapir)

(continued)
a symbolic system in which sounds and meanings are
assigned to each other, allowing humans to communicate
what we are thinking and how we are feeling. (Finegan &
Besnier)
a system of conventional spoken or written symbols used by
people in a shared culture to communicate with each other.
(Encyclopedia Britannica)
a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements. (Chomsky)
Language can be compared to a sheet of paper. Thought is
one side of the sheet and sound the reverse side. Just as it is
impossible to take a pair of scissors and cut one side of the
paper without at the same time cutting the other, so it is
impossible in a language to isolate sound from thought, or
thought from sound. (Ferdinand de Saussure)

- no all-encompassing definition of language

Assessing definitions
Language is a tool for human communication.
Yes: it is for communication, and this tells the function
of language.
No: it does not say anything about the defining
features or properties of language, and it does not
exclude many other systems (secret codes, traffic
signals, for example) performing the same function.
Language is a set of rules.
Yes: it is true that language contains rules
No: it says nothing about the function of language, it
does not exclude the other systems containing rules

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols used for human communication.
a definition that linguists seem to be in broad
agreement about, because this definition reflects some
of the important characteristics of human language
This definition does not appear to be very original at
first sight, but each word in it has been chosen with
great care to capture an important aspect of language.

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols used for human communication.
system:
- language elements are arranged according to certain
rules
- they cant be combined at will or deliberately
For instance, we dont hear people say the following in
English:
* bkli (as a possible word)
* He table a green (as an acceptable sentence)
If language were not systematic, it could not be learned
or used consistently.

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols used for human communication.
arbitrary:
- language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no
intrinsic/natural connection between the word pen
and the thing we use to write with

symbolic:
the symbolic nature of language means that words are
associated with objects, actions, ideas by convention
e.g. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
(Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet)

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols used for human communication.
vocalic:
- language has the primary medium in sound
no matter how well developed their writing
systems are
- all evidence shows that writing systems came
much later than the spoken forms
- the fact that children acquire spoken language
first before they can read or write also indicates
that language is primarily vocal

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols used for human communication.
human:
language is human-specific, very
different from the communication
systems of other forms of life, such as
bird song and animal cries

Some features of language:

Arbitrariness
There is no natural connection between the
word or sound and the thing it denotes, which
means we cannot tell what is the meaning of a
word simply by looking at it, e.g. dog
exceptions - onomatopoeias (words which
imitate sounds), e.g. cuckoo, bang, hiss ...
- present in the majority of contemporary
languages

features of language (continued)

Displacement
- the ability to speak not only about what is
happening at the time and place of talking,
but also about other situation, future and
past, real or unreal.
e.g. we can talk about Indians while
playing cards and without ever seeing one

features of language (continued)

Productivity (also: 'creativity')
- the ability to say things that have never been said
before, including the possibility to express invented
things or lies
Cultural transmission
- human language is not something inborn
- although humans are probably born with an ability to
do language, they must learn, or acquire, their native
language from other speakers
e.g. a Chinese baby brought as a toddler in Great
Britain and raised by a British family is going to speak
English and not Chinese, though it will still look like a
Chinese

features of language (continued)

Duality
Human languages have two levels:
1. minimal units which do not have a meaning on their
own - the letters of alphabet for writing and phonemes
for speech
2. the level where the meaning emerges as a result of
combination of the units from level 1
- with a limited set of phonemes or letters in the
alphabet an unlimited number of words and
expressions may be produced

ambiguity of language
de Saussure:
the term language is totally ambiguous and certain distinctions must
be made
- saw langage (human speech as a whole or the language faculty) as
composed of two aspects:
langue (the language system)
parole (the act of speaking)
Chomsky, the founder of generative linguistics:
- introduced a similar distinction with the terms
language competence (the system)
language performance (the actual utterances)
language-system - langue - parole (de Saussure)
language-behaviour - competence - performance (Chomsky)

Lesson 2
1. Linguistics as the scientific study of
language
19th century: historical linguistics
2. Language families
3. Indo-European family

linguistics the scientific study of

language
Linguistics has a twofold aim:
to uncover general principles underlying human language,
to provide reliable descriptions of individual languages
the basic questions asked in linguistics:
What is language?
How did it/does it evolve?
How does language serve as a medium of communication?
How does language serve as a medium of thinking?
What is common to all languages?
How do languages differ?

Modern linguistics the beginning of the 19th

century

While ancient India and Greece had a remarkable

grammatical tradition, throughout most of history,
linguistics had been the province of philosophy,
rhetoric, and literary analysis to try to figure out how
human language works.
The modern field of linguistics dates from the
beginning of the 19th century.

In 1786, an amazing discovery was made:

there are regular sound correspondences among many
of the languages spoken in Europe, India, and Persia
e.g. the English 'f' sound often corresponds to a 'p'
sound in, among others, Latin and Sanskrit, an
important ancient language of India:
ENGLISH
father
full
for

LATIN
pater
plenus
per

SANSKRIT
pitar
purnas
pari

Scholars realized that these correspondences found in

thousands of words could not be due to chance or to
mutual influence.
the only reliable conclusion:
these languages are related to one another because they
come from a common ancestor
Much of 19th century linguistics was devoted to working
out the nature of this parent language, spoken about
6,000 years ago, as well as the changes by which 'ProtoIndo-European', as we now call it, developed into
English, Russian, Hindi, and its other modern
descendants.
This program of historical linguistics continues today.
Linguists have succeeded in grouping the 5,000 or so
languages of the world into a number of language
families sharing a common ancestor.

parent language
- in time, with enough migrations, a single language can
evolve into an entire family of languages
language family - a group of related languages with a common
ancestor
languages in the same branch of the same family are sister
languages (they diverged within the last 1000 to 2000 years),
e.g. Latin gave rise to the Latin Branch languages in the IndoEuropean Family
languages in different branches of the same family can be
referred to as cousin languages (for most families, these languages
diverged more than 2000 years ago)
language isolate - a language that cannot to our knowledge be
assigned to any larger family
A classic example - Basque

- languages in the same family share many common grammatical

features, and
- many of the key words (esp. older words) show their common
origin
e.g. words for family members in several Indo-European languages
P.I.E.
*pater- *mater- *swesor- *bhrater- *dhugheter *sunu- *widhewa
Sanskrit pitar
matar svasar
bhratar duhitar
sunu widuwe
Modern
English father mother sister
brother daughter
son
widow
Old
English faeder modor sweostor brothor dohtor
sunu widuwe
German Vater Mutter Schwester Bruder Tochter
Sohn Wittwe
Latin
pater mater
soror
frater
----------- vidua
Greek
pater meter
-----phrater thugater
huios -----Russian ------ mat'
sestra
brat
-----syn
vdova
Spanish padre madre
----------hija
hijo
viuda
French
pere
mere
soeur
frere
----------- veuve

- over 250 language families in the world

The most widely studied family of languages and
the family with the largest number of speakers

the Indo-European Family

parent language - 'Proto-Indo-European'
include English, Spanish, Portuguese, French,
Italian, Russian, Greek, Hindi, Bengali, Serbian etc.
as well as the classical languages of Latin, Sanskrit,
and Persian

some other language families

The Uralic Family - found in Europe (Hungarian, Finnish) and Siberia (Mordvin)
with complex noun structures
The Altaic Family - spread from Europe (Turkish) through Central Asia (Uzbek),
Mongolia (Mongolian), to the Far East (Korean, Japanese). These languages have
the interesting property of vowel harmony.
The Sino-Tibetan Family - an important Asian family of languages that includes the
world's most spoken language, Mandarin. These languages are monosyllabic and
tonal.
The Malayo-Polynesian Family - a family consisting of over 1000 languages spread
throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well South East Asia. Languages
include Malay, Indonesian, Maori and Hawaiian.
The Afro-Asiatic Family - contains languages of northern Africa and the Middle East.
The dominant languages are Arabic and Hebrew.
The Caucasian Family - based around the Caucas Mountains between the Black Sea
and the Caspian Sea. Georgian and Chechen are the main languages. They are
known for their large number of consonants.
The Dravidian Family - the languages of southern India (in contrast to the IndoEuropean languages of northern India). Tamil is the best known of these languages.
Austro-Asiatic Family - this family are a scattered group of languages in Asia. They are
found from eastern India to Vietnam. Languages include Vietnamese and Khmer.
Niger-Congo Family - this family features the many languages of Africa south of the
Sahara. The large number of languages include Swahili, Shona, Xhosa and Zulu.

Lesson 3
The historical development of
the English language

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

- belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family
- a West-Germanic language

The History of the English language

The figure above shows the timeline of the history of the English language.
The earliest known residents of the British Isles were the Celts, who spoke
Celtic languagesa separate branch of the Indo-European language family
tree.
Over the centuries the British Isles were invaded and conquered by
various peoples, who brought their languages and customs with them as
they settled in their new lives. There is now very little Celtic influence left
in English. The earliest time when we can say that English was spoken
was in the 5th century CE (Common Eraa politically correct term used
to replace AD).
In case you hadnt made the connection, England < Engla Land <
Angle Land (Land of the Angles, a people of northern old Germany).
Their name lives on in the district of England named East Anglia, and also
in the Anglican Church. In the present day there is still a region of
Germany known as Angeln, which is likely the same area from which the
original Angles came. Angeln lies in Schleswig-Holstein on the eastern
side of the Jutland peninsula near the cities of Flensburg and Schleswig.

Key Dates in the History of the English Language

by Richard Nordquist
The Prehistory of English
The ultimate origins of English lie in Indo-European, a family of languages,
consisting of most of the languages of Europe as well as those of Iran, the
Indian subcontinent, and other parts of Asia. Because little is known about
ancient Indo-European (which may have been spoken as long ago as 3,000
B.C.), we'll begin our survey in Britain in the first century A.D.
43 The Romans invade Britain, beginning 400 years of control over much of the
island.
410 The Goths (speakers of a now extinct East Germanic language) sack Rome. The
first Germanic tribes arrive in Britain.
Early 5th century With the collapse of the empire, Romans withdraw from Britain.
Britons are attacked by the Picts and by Scots from Ireland. Angles, Saxons, and
other German settlers arrive in Britain to assist the Britons and claim territory.
5th-6th centuries Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) speaking
West Germanic dialects settle most of Britain. Celts retreat to distant areas of
Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales.

500-1100 A.D.
The Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period
The conquest of the Celtic population in Britain by speakers of West Germanic dialects
(primarily Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) eventually determined many of the essential
characteristics of the English language. (The Celtic influence on English survives for
the most part only in place names --- London, Dover, Avon, York.) Over time the
dialects of the various invaders merged, giving rise to what we now call "Old English.
7th century Rise of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex; the Saxon kingdoms of Essex and
Middlesex; the Angle kingdoms of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. St.
Augustine and Irish missionaries convert Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, introducing
new religious words borrowed from Latin and Greek. Latin speakers begin referring
to the country as Anglia and later as Englaland.
700 Approximate date of the earliest manuscript records of Old English.
Late 8th century Scandinavians begin to settle in Britain and Ireland; Danes settle in
parts of Ireland.
Early 9th century Egbert of Wessex incorporates Cornwall into his kingdom and is
recognized as overlord of the seven kingdoms of the Angles and Saxons (the
Heptarchy): England begins to emerge.
Mid 9th century Danes raid England, occupy Northumbria, and establish a kingdom at
York. Danish begins to influence English.

The Old English Period (2)

Late 9th century King Alfred of Wessex (Alfred the Great) leads the Anglo-Saxons to
victory over the Vikings, translates Latin works into English, and establishes the
writing of prose in English. He uses the English language to foster a sense of
national identity. England is divided into a kingdom ruled by the Anglo-Saxons
(under Alfred) and another ruled by the Scandinavians.
10th century English and Danes mix fairly peacefully, and many Scandinavian
loanwords enter the language.
1000 Approximate date of the only surviving manuscript of the Old English epic poem
Beowulf.
Early 11th century Danes attack England, and the English king (Ethelred the Unready)
escapes to Normandy. Danish king (Canute) rules over England and encourages the
growth of Anglo-Saxon culture and literature.
Mid 11th century Edward the Confessor, King of England who was raised in
Normandy, names William, Duke of Normandy, as his heir.
1066 The Norman Invasion: King Harold is killed at the Battle of Hastings, and William
of Normandy is crowned King of England. Over succeeding decades, Norman
French becomes the language of the courts and of the upper classes; English
remains the language of the majority. Latin is used in churches and schools. For the
next century, English, for all practical purposes, is no longer a written language.

1100-1500 A.D.
The Middle English Period
The Middle English period saw the breakdown of the inflectional system of
Old English and the expansion of vocabulary with many borrowings from
French and Latin.
1150 Approximate date of the earliest surviving texts in Middle English.
1171 Henry II declares himself overlord of Ireland, introducing Norman French and
English to the country. About this time the University of Oxford is founded.
1204 King John loses the Duchy of Normandy to French kings; England is now the only
home of the Norman French/English.
1209 The University of Cambridge is formed by scholars from Oxford.
Late 13th century Under Edward I, royal authority is consolidated in England and
Wales. English becomes the dominant language of all classes.
Mid to late 14th century The Hundred Years War between England and France leads to
the loss of almost all of England's French possessions. Geoffrey Chaucer composes
The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. English becomes the official language of
the law courts and replaces Latin as the medium of instruction at most schools. John
Wycliffe's English translation of the Latin Bible is published. The Great Vowel Shift
begins, marking the loss of the so-called "pure" vowel sounds (which are still found
in many continental languages) and the loss of the phonetic pairings of most long
and short vowel sounds.

The Middle English Period (2)

1362 The Statute of Pleading makes English the official language in England.
Parliament is opened with its first speech delivered in English.
Late 15th century William Caxton brings to Westminster (from the Rhineland) the first
printing press and publishes Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Literacy rates increase
significantly, and printers begin to standardize English spelling. The monk Galfridus
Grammaticus (also known as Geoffrey the Grammarian) publishes Thesaurus
Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, the first English-to-Latin wordbook.

1500 to the Present

The Modern English Period
British exploration, colonization, and overseas trade hastened the acquisition of
loanwords from countless languages and fostered the development of new varieties of
English, each with its own nuances of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
Early 16th century The first English settlements are made in North America. William
Tyndale's English translation of the Bible is published. Many Greek and Latin
borrowings enter English.
1549 The first version of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England is
published.
1564-1616 The life of William Shakespeare.
1586 The first grammar of English--William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar--is
published.
1604 Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabetical, the first English dictionary, is published.
1611 The Authorized Version of the English Bible (the "King James" Bible) is
published, greatly influencing the development of the written language.
1622 Weekly News, the first English newspaper, is published in London.
1623 The First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays is published.
1662 The Royal Society of London appoints a committee to consider ways of
"improving" English as a language of science.

The Modern English Period (2)

1688 Aphra Benn, the first woman novelist in England, publishes Oronooko, or the
History of the Royal Slave.
1697 In his Essay Upon Projects, Daniel Defoe calls for the creation of an Academy of
36 "gentlemen" to dictate English usage.
1702 The Daily Courant, the first regular daily newspaper in English, is published in
London.
1707 The Act of Union unites the Parliaments of England and Scotland, creating the
United Kingdom of Great Britain.
1712 Anglo-Irish satirist and cleric Jonathan Swift proposes the creation of an English
Academy to regulate English usage and "ascertain" the language.
1721 Nathaniel Bailey publishes his Universal Etymological Dictionary of the English
Language, a pioneer study in English lexicography: the first to feature current
usage, etymology, syllabification, clarifying quotations, illustrations, and
indications of pronunciation.
1715 Elisabeth Elstob publishes the first grammar of Old English.
1755 Samuel Johnson publishes his two-volume Dictionary of the English Language.
Also at this time, rule books, based on prescriptive notions of grammar, become
increasingly popular.

The Modern English Period (3)

1760-1795 This period marks the rise of the English grammarians, whose prescriptions
and proscriptions still appear in handbooks and usage manuals: Joseph Priestly,
Robert Lowth, James Buchanan, John Ash, Thomas Sheridan, George Campbell,
William Ward, and Lindley Murray.
1762 Robert Lowth publishes his Short Introduction to English Grammar.
1776 The Declaration of Independence is signed, and the American War of
Independence begins, leading to the creation of the United States of America, the
first country outside the British Isles with English as its principal language.
1783 Noah Webster publishes his American Spelling Book.
1785 The Daily Universal Register (renamed The Times in 1788) begins publication in
London.
1789 Noah Webster publishes Dissertations on the English Language, which advocates
an American standard of usage.
1791 The Observer, the oldest national Sunday newspaper in Britain, begins
publication.
Early 19th century Grimm's Law (discovered by Friedrich von Schlegel and Rasmus
Rask, later elaborated by Jacob Grimm) identifies relationships between certain
consonants in Germanic languages (including English) and their originals in IndoEuropean. The formulation of Grimm's Law marks a major advance in the
development of linguistics as a scholarly field of study.

The Modern English Period (4)

1803 The Act of Union incorporates Ireland into Britain, creating the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland.
1810 William Hazlitt publishes A New and Improved Grammar of the English
Language.
1816 John Pickering compiles the first dictionary of Americanisms.
1828 Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language is published.
1842 The London Philological Society is founded.
1844 The telegraph is invented by Samuel Morse, inaugurating the development of rapid
communication, a major influence on the growth and spread of English.
Mid 19th century A standard variety of American English develops. English is
established in Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonial outposts.
1852 The first edition of Roget's Thesaurus is published.
1866 James Russell Lowell champions the use of American regionalism, helping to end
deference to the Received British Standard.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, thus modernizing private
communication.
1879 James A.H. Murray begins editing the Philological Society's New English
Dictionary on Historical Principles (later renamed The Oxford English Dictionary).

The Modern English Period (5)

1884 Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn introduces a colloquial
prose style that significantly influences the writing of fiction in the U.S.
1901 The Commonwealth of Australia is established as a dominion of the British Empire.
1906 Henry and Francis Fowler publish the first edition of The King's English.
1907 New Zealand is established as a dominion of the British Empire.
1919 H.L. Mencken publishes the first edition of The American Language, a pioneer
study in the history of a major national version of English.
1921 Ireland achieves Home Rule, and Gaelic is made an official language in addition to
English.
1922 The British Broadcasting Company (later renamed the British Broadcasting
Corporation, or BBC) is established.
1925 The New Yorker magazine is founded by Harold Ross and Jane Grant.
1925 George P. Krapp publishes his two-volume The English Language in America, the
first comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the subject.
1926 Henry Fowler publishes the first edition of his Dictionary of Modern English
Usage.
1928 The Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1947 India is freed from British control and divided into Pakistan and India. The
constitution provides that English remain the official language for only 15 years.

The Modern English Period (6)

1949 Hans Kurath publishes A Word Geography of the Eastern United States, a
landmark in the scientific study of American regionalisms.
1957 Noam Chomsky publishes Syntactic Structures, a key document in the study of
generative and transformational grammar.
1961 Webster's Third International Dictionary is published.
1967 The Welsh Language Act gives the Welsh language equal validity with English in
Wales, and Wales is no longer considered a part of England.
1969 Canada officially becomes bilingual (French and English).
1972 A Grammar of Contemporary English (by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum,
Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik) is published.
1978 The Linguistic Atlas of England is published.
1989 The second edition of The Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1994 Text messaging is introduced.
1995 David Crystal publishes The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.
2000 The Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED Online) is made available to
subscribers.
2002 Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum publish The Cambridge Grammar of
the English Language. Tom McArthur publishes The Oxford Guide to World
English.

Chronology of Events in the

History of English by S. Kemmer
THE PRE-ENGLISH PERIOD
ca. 3000 B.C.(or 6000 B.C?) Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area.
(or Anatolia?)
ca. 1000 B.C. After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have
become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic
peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany, Austria, eastern Europe, and
the British Isles.
55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D. Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established.
Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).
200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over
Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times
antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other
colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome
sacked by Goths.

Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into
ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors" even
though the imperial administration had relocated to Byzantium in the 300s. The new
Germanic rulers adopted the Christianity of the late Roman state, and began what later
evolved into the not-very-Roman Holy Roman Empire.
ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England.
410-600 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes,
some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic.
These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin
borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite
occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland,
Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich
English farmland.
By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language
distinct from the continental Germanic languages.

ca. 600-1100
THE OLD ENGLISH OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
600-800 Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria,
Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.
ca. 600 Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from
Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.
793 First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked. 800 Charlemagne,
king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in
Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if
possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
840s-870s Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up
permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East
Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a
Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in
Britain.
871 Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but
fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally
wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the
battles, is crowned king.
871-876 Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view
England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.

THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD (2)

876 Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few
months later. His cause looks hopeless.
878 Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate AngloSaxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the
Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving
them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath
that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the
Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the
Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling
Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous
kingdom. First called "Alfred the Great".
925 Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York
from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts.
Continues Alfred's mission of making improvements in government, education,
defense, and other social institutions.
10th century Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become
indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even
borrows pronouns like they, them, their.
978 Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.

THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD (3)

991 Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks.
Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle,
Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. Mistake. Sveinn, king of
Denmark, takes note.
994-1014 After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly
military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark
(later also of Norway). Sveinn sets up a Norse court at the new capital of Viking
England, Jorvik (a city which survives as York, capital of the English county of
Yorkshire). Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.
1014 Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to
follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom.
Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow
Emma, brought over from Normandy.
1050s After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue,
the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex. The new king is Edward, son of
Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. Edward is a pious,
monkish man called "The Confessor".
Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the
descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of
Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl
Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes
less and less interest in governing.

THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD (4)

1066
January. Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as
successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is
only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice
of Harold.
William of Normandy claims that Harold once promised to support HIM as
successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion.
Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
September. Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England.
Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge.
The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south
coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to
march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them.
October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings.
December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on
Christmas Day

ca. 1100-1500
THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
1066-1075 William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants with a brutal
hand; in Mercia and Northumberland, uses (literal) scorched earth policy,
decimating population and laying waste the countryside. Anglo-Saxon earls and
freemen deprived of property; many enslaved. William distributes property and
titles to Normans (and some English) who supported him. Many of the English
hereditary titles of nobility date from this period.
English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman
French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. The legal system
is redrawn along Norman lines and conducted in French. Churches, monasteries
gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for recordkeeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors
write literature in French, not English. For all practical purposes English is no
longer a written language.
Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among those who deal
with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as a commercial center draws
many from the countryside who can fill this socially intermediate role.
1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now
the only home of the Norman English.
1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258 First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.

THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (2)

ca. 1300 Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are English, not
French. Nobility begin to educate their children in English. French is taught to
children as a foreign language rather than used as a medium of instruction.
1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are
writing in English.
ca. 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows
French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The London dialect, for the
first time, begins to be recognized as the "Standard", or variety of English taken as
the norm, for all England. Other dialects are relegated to a less prestigious position,
even those that earlier served as standards (e.g. the Wessex dialect of southwest
England).
1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the
first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of
spelling.

1500-present
THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD
1500-1650 Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift gradually
takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and
neologisms.
1611 King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing down
to the present day.
1616 Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English
language. Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and
pleasing combinations.
1700s Classical period of English literature. The fashion for borrowing Latin
and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek
morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate
vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson). The rise of English purists,
e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to
'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.
17th-19th centuries British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around
the world. Development of American English. By 19th century, a standard
variety of American English develops, based on the dialect of the MidAtlantic states. Establishment of English in Australia, South Africa, and
India, among other British colonial outposts.

THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD (2)

19th century Recognition (and acceptance) by linguistic scholars of the ever-changing nature of
language. Discovery of the Indo-European language family. Late in century: Recognition that all
languages are fundamentally the same in nature; no "primitive" or "advanced" languages.
19th-20th centuries Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Development of technical vocabularies.
Within a few centuries, English has gone from an island tongue to a world language, following the
fortunes of those who speak it.
20th century Communications revolution. Spread of a few languages at the expense of many.
Languages of the world begin to die out on a large scale as mastery of certain world languages
becomes necessary for survival. Classification and description of non-Indo-European languages by
linguists continues, in many cases in a race against the clock.
1945-? American political, economic, military supremacy. Borrowing patterns continue. English has
greater impact than ever on other languages, even those with more native speakers. Becomes most
widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.
By the 1990s, preferences begin to shift in many places from British to American English as the
selected standard for second language acquisition. The twin influences of British and American
broadcasting media make the language accessible to more and more people. Hollywood and the
pop music industry help make English an irresistible medium for the transmission of popular
culture. Even long-established European cultures begin to feel linguistically and culturally
threatened, as English comes into use in more and more spheres and large numbers of English
borrowings enter their languages.
New waves of immigrants to the U.S. Linguistic diversity increases where the newcomers settle,
but immigrants repeat the pattern of earlier settlers and lose their language within a generation or
two. The culture at large remains resolutely monolingual (despite the fears of cultural purists). But
as ever, the language continues to absorb loanwords, continually enriched by the many tongues of
the newcomers to these shores.

Lesson 4
1. Linguistics in the 20th century
diachronical vs. synchronical study
2. Basic linguistic levels
3. Linguistic units

Linguistics in the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, attention shifted to the fact that not
only language change, but language structure as well, is systematic and
governed by regular rules and principles. The attention of the world's
linguists turned more and more to the study of the organization of the
sound system of a language and the internal structure of its words and
sentences. By the 1920s, the program of structural linguistics, inspired in
large part by the ideas of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, was
developing sophisticated methods of grammatical analysis.
The last half-century has seen a deepening of understanding of these rules
and principles and the growth of a widespread conviction that despite their
seeming diversity, all the languages of the world are basically cut from the
same cloth. As grammatical analysis has become deeper, we have found
more fundamental commonalities among the languages of the world. The
program initiated by the linguist Noam Chomsky in 1957 sees this fact as
a consequence of the human brain being 'prewired' for particular
properties of grammar, thereby drastically limiting the number of possible
human languages. The claims of this program have been the basis for a
great deal of recent linguistic research.

It was Saussure, who emphasized the importance of studying language as a living

phenomenon (in contrast to studying only its history), of studying speech (as opposed
to written texts) and of analyzing the underlying system of a language in order to
demonstrate an integrated structure.
Studying language as a living phenomenon was a new way of looking at language,
as the 19th century had mostly investigated dead languages in trying to trace the
changes from an Indo-European- Proto-language through Sanskrit, Latin and Greek,
Old Norse, Gothic, Old English or Old French to the Romance or the Germanic
languages.
Saussure introduced the distinction between
synchronic linguistics, which deals with language as a system at a given time, and
diachronic linguistics, which traces the history of a language and describes its
changes in development.
Saussure also pointed out that the term language is totally ambiguous and that
certain distinctions must be made. He saw langage (human speech as a whole or the
language faculty) as composed of two aspects, which he called langue (the
language system) and parole (the act of speaking). This distinction has become
famous because Chomsky, the founder of generative linguistics, introduced a similar
distinction with the terms language competence (the system) and language
performance (the actual utterances).

Language as a system

lexis

sound

meaning

grammar

Basic linguistic levels

/ basic branches of linguistics
Basic linguistic units

phonetics
phonology
morphology
syntax
semantics

sound (of speech)

phoneme
morpheme, word
word, phrase,
clause, sentence
sememe, semantic
components

Phonetics
The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their
production, combination, description, and representation by written
symbols.
Phonetics is divided into three main branches, corresponding to these
three distinctions:
articulatory phonetics is the study of the way the vocal organs are used
to produce speech sounds
acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech
sounds
auditory phonetics is the study of the way people perceive speech sounds

Phonology
Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the
sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a
given language or across languages. .
An important part of phonology is studying which sounds are distinctive
units within a language.
In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are distinctive units of sound, (i.e. they
are phonemes). This can be seen from minimal pairs such as "pin" and
"bin", which mean different things, but differ only in one sound.
On the other hand, /p/ is often pronounced differently depending on its
position relative to other sounds, yet these different pronunciations are
still considered by native speakers to be the same "sound".
For example, the /p/ in "pin" is aspirated while the same phoneme in
"spin" is not. In some other languages, for example Thai, this same
difference of aspiration or non-aspiration does differentiate phonemes.
In addition to the minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology
studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English described above,
and topics such as syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.

Phonology (2)
A phoneme is the smallest structural unit that distinguishes meaning. It does not
have its own meaning.
An example of a phoneme is the /t/ sound in the words tip, stand, water, and cat. (In
transcription, phonemes are placed between slashes, as here.)
These are conceived of as being the same sound, despite the fact that in each word
they are pronounced somewhat differently; the difference may not even be audible
to native speakers.
That is, a phoneme may encompass several recognizably different speech sounds,
called phones. In our example, the /t/ in tip is aspirated, [t?], while the /t/ in stand is
not, [t]. (In transcription, speech sounds that are not phonemes are placed in
brackets, as here.)
Phones that belong to the same phoneme, such as [t] and [t?] for English /t/, are
called allophones.

Morphology
The branch of linguistics (and one of the major component of grammar)
that studies word structure, especially in terms of morphemes.
Divides into two domains:
lexical or derivational morphology studies the way in which new items
of vocabulary can be built up out of combinations of elements (e.g. indescrib-able);
inflectional morphology studies the ways words vary in their form in
order to express a grammatical contrast (as in the case of horses, where
the ending marks plurality).
A morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word (such as
dog) or a word element (such as the -s at the end of dogs) that cannot be
divided into smaller meaningful parts.
In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes (the smallest
linguistically distinctive units of sound), and in written language morphemes
are composed of graphemes (the smallest units of written language).

Morphology (2)
The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes cannot
stand as words on their own.
A morpheme is free if it can stand alone, or bound if it is used exclusively
alongside a free morpheme. Its actual phonetic representation is the morph, with
the morphs representing the same morpheme being grouped as its allomorphs.
English example:
The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes: "un-" (meaning not x), a bound
morpheme; "-break-", a free morpheme; and "-able", a free morpheme. "un-" is also
a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both are affixes.
A base is the form of a word to which prefixes and suffixes are added to create new
words.

Morphology (3)
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification or marking of a word (or
more precisely lexeme) to reflect grammatical (that is, relational) information, such
as gender, tense, number or person. The concept of a "word" independent of the
different inflections is called a lexeme.
Derivation is used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from
happy, or determination from determine.
A derivational suffix usually applies to words of one syntactic category and
changes them into words of another syntactic category. For example, the English
derivational suffix -ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow > slowly).
Some examples of English derivational suffixes:
adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow > slowness)
adjective-to-verb: -ise (modern > modernise)
noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation > recreational)
noun-to-verb: -fy (glory > glorify)
verb-to-adjective: -able (drink > drinkable)
verb-to-noun: -ance (deliver > deliverance)

Word
A speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that
symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme
or a combination of morphemes.
"[A word is the] smallest unit of grammar that can stand alone as a complete
utterance, separated by spaces in written language and potentially by pauses in
speech." (D. Crystal)
"A grammar . . . is divided into two major components, syntax and morphology.
This division follows from the special status of the word as a basic linguistic unit,
with syntax dealing with the combination of words to make sentences, and
morphology with the form of words themselves."

Parts of Speech
PART OF SPEECH
noun
pronoun

BASIC FUNCTION
names a person, place, or thing
takes the place of a noun

verb
adjective
adverb

identifies action or state of being

modifies a noun
modifies a verb, adjective,
or other adverb
shows a relationship between
up, over, against, by,
a noun (or pronoun) and other
for
words in a sentence
joins words, phrases, and clauses and, but, or, yet
expresses emotion
ah, whoops, ouch
identifies and specifies a noun
a, an, the

preposition

conjunction
interjection
article

EXAMPLES
pirate, Caribbean, ship
I, you, he, she, it, ours, them,
who
sing, dance, believe, be
hot, lazy, funny
softly, lazily, often

Word class
A set of words that display the same formal properties, especially their inflections and
distribution. Similar to the more traditional term parts of speech
"When linguists began to look closely at English grammatical structure in the 1940s and
1950s, they encountered so many problems of identification and definition that the term
part of speech soon fell out of favour, word class being introduced instead. Word classes
are equivalent to parts of speech, but defined according to strict linguistic criteria."
(David Crystal)
"[The] distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning determines the first
division in our classification: form-class words and structure-class words. In general,
the form classes provide the primary lexical content; the structure classes explain the
grammatical or structural relationship. We can think of the form-class words as the
bricks of the language and the structure words as the mortar that holds them together.
form-class words (also known as content words or open classes): nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs
structure-class words (also known as function words or closed classes): determiners,
pronouns, auxiliaries, conjuctions, qualifiers, interrogatives, prepositions, particles
Probably the most striking difference between the form classes and the structure classes
is characterized by their numbers. Of the half million or more words in our language,
the structure words--with some notable exceptions--can be counted in the hundreds.
The form classes, however, are large, open classes; new nouns and verbs and adjectives
and adverbs regularly enter the language as new technology and new ideas require them.

Syntax
(1) The study of the rules that govern the way words combine to form phrases,
clauses, and sentences (and one of the major components of grammar).
(2) The arrangement of words in a sentence.
A phrase is a word or group of words not ordinarily consisting of a subject and a
predicate
Phrases may be classified by the type of head they take
Prepositional phrase (PP) with a preposition as head (e.g. in love, over the
rainbow).
Noun phrase (NP) with a noun as head (e.g. the black cat, a cat on the mat)
Verb phrase (VP) with a verb as head (e.g. eat cheese, jump up and down)
Adjectival phrase (AdjP) with an adjective as head (e.g. full of toys)
Adverbial phrase (AdvP) with adverb as head (e.g. very carefully)
In linguistics, grammatical functions or grammatical relations refer to syntactic
relationships between parts of speech such as subject, object, adjunct, complement.

Syntax (2)
A clause is a group of words ordinarily consisting of a subject and a predicate,
although in some languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear
explicitly.
The most basic kind of sentence consists of a single clause simple sentence
More complicated sentences may contain multiple clauses complex and
compound sentences
It is possible for one clause to contain another.
Clauses are often contrasted with phrases. Traditionally, a clause was said to have
both a finite verb and its subject, whereas a phrase either contained a finite verb but
not its subject (in which case it is a verb phrase) or did not contain a finite verb.
Hence, in the sentence "I didn't know that the dog ran through the yard", "that the
dog ran through the yard" is a clause, as is the sentence as a whole, while "the yard",
"through the yard", "ran through the yard", and "the dog" are all phrases. Modern
linguists do not draw quite the same distinction, however, the main difference being
that modern linguists accept the idea of a non-finite clause, a clause that is
organized around a non-finite verb.

Semantics
The field of linguistics concerned with the study of meaning, as inherent at the
levels of words, phrases, sentences, and even larger units of discourse (referred to as
texts).
The basic area of study is the meaning of signs, and the study of relations between
different linguistic units: polysemy, homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy
etc.

Other branches of linguistics

Applied linguistics
Language acquisition
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Generative linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Computational linguistics
Descriptive linguistics
Historical linguistics
Comparative linguistics
Etymology
Stylistics
Prescription
Corpus linguistics
Neurolinguistics
Biolinguistics