EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. Theory of the English language history

EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

Theory of the English language history

1. The Germanic languages in the modern world, their classification, main features.

2. Periodization of the English language evolution. Invasions and their impact on the language.

3. The Old Germanic languages: their classification (East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic groups), principal features.

4. The Old English period in the history of the English language: historical background and linguistic situation.

5. The Runic alphabet and runic manuscripts. The OE alphabet and peculiarities of pronunciation.

6. The Old English written records (religious, lyric, historical).

7. The Old English vocabulary and its etymological characteristics.

8. The Middle English period in the history of the English language: historical background and linguistic situation.

9. The Middle English dialects. The formation of the national language. London dialect and its features.

10. Major written records of the Middle English period.

11. The New English period in the history of the English language: historical background and linguistic situation.

12. Latin borrowings in Old English. Borrowings from classical languages (Latin, Greek during the Renaissance).

13. French and Scandinavian borrowings in English (the Middle English period).

14. The New English vocabulary. Borrowings in New English.

15. Word formation in Old English: word-derivation, word-composition.

16. The Old English vowel system: monophthongs, diphthongs, breaking, lengthening, palatal mutation.

17. The Old English consonant system: hardening, voicing, rhotacism, germination, loss of consonants.

18. The development of vowel system in ME and NE.

19. The development of consonant system in ME and NE.

20. The Old English noun: grammatical categories and the system of declension.

21. The Old English adjective: grammatical categories, degrees of comparison.

22. The Old English pronoun: classification, the system of declension.

23. The development of the pronoun in ME. The rise of the articles.

24. The Old English verb: morphological types (strong and weak in comparison, anomalous, suppletive and preterite-present).

25. The Old English verb: grammatical categories and the system of conjugation.

26. The Old English syntactical system.

27. The non-finite forms in Old English and their development in ME and NE.

28. The development of analytical forms in ME (Future, Perfect, Passive and Continuous forms).

29. Major syntactical changes in the history of English (ME – NE).

30. Major vowel changes in NE. The interpretations of the Great Vowel Shift.

Practical assignment

Read the text aloud. Make the grammatical analysis of the words in italics. Translate the text into New English.