History of the English language. Theme: the evolution of the adjectives, numerals, pronouns

Year III/2014-2015

Seminar №4 (1 hour):

THEME: The Evolution of the adjectives, numerals, pronouns.

QUESTIONS:

1. Grammatical peculiarities of the OE adjective and pronoun.
2. The evolution of strong and weak adjectives.
3. The evolution of degrees of comparison of the adjective.
4. The evolution of the personal pronoun.
5. The evolution of demonstrative and interrogative pronoun. (the appearance of articles)
6. Change in the system of pronouns, numerals in Middle and Modern English.

WRITTEN TASK:

1. Make a map of the grammatical categories of OE adjective and numeral.
2. Make a scheme of the ways of forming degree of comparison of the adjective.
3. Make a table of the evolution of the declension of personal pronoun. (1,2,3 person).

CASE STUDY:

All personal pronouns modified their graphic and sound form in accordance with the phonetic phenomena occurring in ME and NE.

The pronoun I originated from OE ic. In ME due to the palatalization, [k] in ic changed into [t∫]: ic > ich. In early NE [t∫] was lost and [i] was lengthened, ich > i[i:]. In later years long [i:] was subject to the Great Vowel Shift and changed into [ai]: i[i:] > I [ai].

The Great Vowel shift also affected the vowel [e:] in the forms wē, mē, hē. In accordance with this phenomenon [e:] changed into [i:].

OE hit lost the initial [h] and developed into NE it.

Modern you developed from OE ēow, the Dative form of gē.