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1LING 2301
Old English Period (p. 55). 55 BC Julius Caesar attempts to invade Britain
CE 43-50 Emperor Claudius invades Britain
CE 410 Romans withdraw from Britain
CE 449 Angles, Saxons and Jutes invade Britain
597 St. Augustine of Canterbury re-introduces* Christianity to the English
787 Scandinavian invasion begins (Vikings)
878 King Alfred defeats the Danes at Eddington (Ethandun) Treaty of Wedmore (allows a truce b/t Scandinavians who settle on outskirts and the
Anglo-Saxons in Alfred’s territory which established a line between Anglo-Saxons and Danes – Danish side referred to as Danelaw.
899 King Alfred dies
1014 King Æthelred driven out by a new wave of Danish (political) aggression
1016 Danish King Cnut rules England
1042 Accession of Edward the Confessor (Æthelred's son) to the throne (died w/o an heir in 1066)
(* see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_of_Canterbury for more detail)
2LING 2301
General OE properties
When Anglo-Saxons move in the land was inhabited by Celts/Scots/Picts
OE synthetic/fusional rather than analytic/isolating
N, V, Adj, Det, ProN were highly inflected meaning word order would not be very ridged
Strong and weak declensions of nouns and adjectives
Strong and weak conjugations of verbs
Word formation by compounding, prefixing and suffixing rather than borrowing
Gender (like other Indo-European languages) – was a grammatical feature (based on formal linguistic criteria, not logical or "natural" classes)
3LING 2301
OE Consonants (very similar to
modern day English)
{voiced fricatives} were allophones – predictable by rules in context of voiceless segments (no contrast as in present day fan & van)
It also included some clusters that no longer exist phonetically: /kn/ /gn/ (knee, gnaw)
bilabiallabio-
dental
Inter-
dental
alveola
r
Alveo-
palatalvelar
-vce stop p t k
+vce stop b d g
-vce affr ʧ
+vce affr ʤ
fricative f {v} θ s ʃ {ʒ] h
nasal m n
lateral l
retroflex r
semi-vowel w j
4LING 2301
5LING 2301
OE syntax also used case inflections for grammatical function of
nouns (different suffixes on nouns showing the following relations within the sentence)
An example of Cases that would be inflected: Nominative case subjects
the DOG put the bone on the pillow.
Accusitive case direct objects the dog put THE BONE on the pillow.
Genitive case Possessives the dog put HIS bone on the pillow.
Dative case for indirect objects the dog put the bone on THE PILLOW.
Instrumental case "with/or by means of" phrase (rare in OE) the dog chewed the bone WITH HIS TEETH.
6LING 2301
Words from Latin in OE:
Some probably from regular Roman life
street, wine, butter, pepper, cheese, silk, copper, pound, inch,
mile.
Some came in with the Church
(St. Augustine 597)
bishop, candle, creed, mass, monk, priest
7LING 2301
Words Borrowed from Scandinavian
(the Danes) into OE: /sk/ shall, fish, shirt, skirt, sky, scale
birth, egg, guess, root, seat, sister, tidings
Other factors from Scandinavian —
pronouns (they, them, their) replaced 3rd Pl
inflected forms
prepositions (till, fro – as in to and fro),
infinitives (att + do as in 'ado')
and parts of the verb 'to be' (are)