eng lang sem. 2 exam revision

When did the Old English period occur?

c. 450-1100 CE

Which language family does Old English belong to?

Germanic branch of Indo-European family

What did Old English look like compared to later stages?

Highly inflected with complex morphology, grammatical gender and a Germanic lexicon

Why did Old English have grammatical gender?

Inherited from Germanic languages: masculine, feminine and neuter noun classes

What was the typical Old English word order?

Flexible, but often SOV or SVO because inflections showed grammatical roles

Who influenced Old English and why?

Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought Germanic dialects; Vikings added Norse influence through contact

How did Old Norse influence Old English?

Loanwords (e.g. sky, egg) and caused simplification of grammar

Why did language change occur in Old English?

Migration, language contact with Norse, and inflectional levelling for communication

What was the role of the Church?

Christianisation brought Latin influence on religion, education and literacy

How did Latin influence Old English?

Borrowed words for religion and learning (e.g. altar, school)

What writing system was first used in Old English?

Runes, later replaced by the Latin alphabet

What major text provides evidence of Old English?

Beowulf

Borrowing

Taking words from another language and adding them to English

Inflectional morphology

Word endings marking case, number, gender and tense e.g. noun endings like -um and -as

Why did inflections weaken?

Norse–English contact led to simplification to help mutual understanding

Language contact

Interaction between languages causing borrowing, code-switching and structural change

Which subsystem was most affected by Norse?

Lexicon; added words like sky, egg, they, them

Why is Old English hard for Modern English speakers?

Germanic vocabulary, inflections, grammar, spelling

Why is Old English considered synthetic?

Relied on inflectional endings rather than fixed word order

When did Middle English occur?

c. 1100–1500 CE

What influenced Middle English vocabulary?

Norman French (post-1066) and Old Norse

How did Norman French influence English?

Introduced 10,000 loanwords, especially legal, governmental, and artistic terms

How did syntax change in Middle English?

More fixed SVO word order emerging due to loss of inflections

What happened to Old English inflections?

Simplified or lost; English became more analytical

Which text reflects Middle English?

The Canterbury Tales

Why did French dominate certain semantic fields?

Normans held power; French words had prestige

Define semantic shift

Change in meaning of a word over time

Define broadening

Word meaning becomes more general

Define narrowing

Word meaning becomes more specific

Define deterioration

Word takes on negative meaning

Define elevation

Word takes on more positive meaning

Who influenced spelling and writing?

Scribes using French-influenced conventions and Latin letters

How did dialects develop?

Regional variation due to local pronunciations and influence of French

Why did English survive Norman domination?

Spoken by lower classes; gradually reasserted after 1200s

Why is Middle English considered analytical?

Relied on word order rather than inflection to show meaning

What happened to phonology?

Consonant clusters simplified; vowels shifted (prelude to Great Vowel Shift)

What was Chaucer’s influence?

Standardised London dialect

How did French contact affect morphology?

Borrowed words sometimes retained French plural/verb forms

Which subsystem is most affected in Middle English?

Lexicon and syntax; due to Norman French influence.

When did Early Modern English occur?

c. 1500–1700 CE

Which historical events influenced Early Modern English?

the invention of the printing press, the Renaissance

What is the Great Vowel Shift?

Major changes in vowel pronunciation that distinguished Modern English from Middle English

How did printing affect English?

Standardised spelling

How did vocabulary expand?

Borrowing from Latin and Greek; creation of neologisms

Define abbreviation

Shortening a word (e.g. street -> st)

Define acronym

Initial letters forming a word (e.g. NASA)

Define initialism

Initial letters pronounced separately (e.g. BBC)

Define shortening

Trimming a word (e.g. lab from laboratory)

Define contraction

Combining words (e.g. don’t = do not)

Define compounding

Combining words into one (e.g. toothpaste)

Define blending

Merging parts of words (e.g. brunch = breakfast+lunch)

Define conversion

Changing word class without changing form (e.g. noun -> verb: ‘email’)

Define affixation

Adding prefixes or suffixes to form new words (e.g. unhappy)

Define backformation

Removing a perceived affix to create a new word (e.g. editor -> edit)

Why did Early Modern English change?

Renaissance learning

Which subsystem was most affected in EME?

Phonology; the Great Vowel Shift

When did Modern English begin?

c. 1700 CE

Who influenced standardisation?

Samuel Johnson (dictionary)

What are synthetic vs analytical grammars?

Synthetic uses inflection; analytical relies on word order

Define nominalisation

Turning verbs/adjectives into nouns (e.g. decide into -> decision)

Define commonisation

Proper noun becomes common noun (e.g. Kleenex)

Define neologism

new words introduced to the language or being repurposed existing lexeme(s) due to popularity and usage (e.g. selfie)

Lingua franca

Language used for communication between speakers of different native languages

Pidgin

Simplified language for trade/contact

Examples of English-based creoles

Jamaican Patois

Australian English

Features: flapping (t→d), broad vowels, lexical items (arvo, thongs)

Aboriginal Australian English

Features: discourse particles (eh, y’know), semantic shifts, cultural lexicon

Singlish

Features: topic-comment structures, discourse particles (lah, leh), reduced inflection

Language expresses culture

Represents worldview

Language maintenance

Continued use of a language in a community

Language shift

Community gradually abandons language in favor of another

Language reclamation

Reviving a language that has declined or become dormant

archaism

a term or phrase that only exists within specific contexts and has otherwise dropped out of the language

brevity

words becoming too short and are cut from the language or exist only as morphemes attached to other words