Pidgin Creole Lingua franca

1. The general characteristics of language system. ME phonetics, the basic phonetic changes. Changes in spelling. New sounds in ME.

2. Pidgin • Creole • Lingua franca

3. Great changes in all aspects and layers of the language. • Most of them are caused by extralinguistic factors

4. OE ‘fisc’ – ME fysh, fissh, fisch, fish

5. ME • Unstable period in: spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary (growth of variants). • Loss of flexions in grammar, fixed word order, loss of some categories on the one hand and development of new forms (analytical) on the other.

6. Changes in spelling • French scribes were the chief copyists(12-13th c.) • Old English spelling, especially some specific A-S letters not used on the continent, caused difficulties • Result: confusion in spelling • French scribes introduced some of their own Continental methods of spelling

7. Changes in spelling • No standard or common literary dialect (as in late OE) • Latin was used for learned work • Norman French - for official life and aristocratic entertainment • English existed only as a set of spoken dialects

8. The literary English we know emerged from the London dialect which became a widespread medium of written expression at the end of the 14th century.

9. New spelling conventions • Several consonant sounds came to be spelled differently, especially because of French influence • OE sc [ ʃ ] – ME sh or sch (scip - ship) • OE c [tʃ] – ME ch or cch (cīld - chīld) • OE cg/gg [dƷ] – ME dg (brigge - bridge)

10. New spelling conventions • long vowel sounds came to be marked with an extra vowel letter • OE sē, bōc – ME see, booc

11. New spelling conventions • OEƷ was spelt as g in most of the cases • þ – ME th • OE ƿ – ME w, uu

12. New spelling conventions • OE bysig – ME busy • The OE letter ‘y’ came to denote sounds [I, j] ME his/hys • OE cēpan – ME keepen

13. New spelling conventions • OE cw (cwēn)– ME qu (queen) • OE h – ME gh (night) • OE u – ME ou (hus – house [hu:s])

14. Because the letter ‘u’ was written in a very similar way to ‘v’, ‘n’, and ‘m’, words containing a sequence of these letters were difficult to read • So the ‘u’ was often replaced with an ‘o’ (come, love, son)

15. One pair of letters came to be used in complementary ways: v at the beginning of a word (vnder), u in the middle (haue) • f/v, s/z were used to distinguish pairs of words in ME

16. By the beginning of the 15th century, English spelling was a mixture of two systems, Old English and French.

17. Unstressed vowels • /ǝ/ and /i/ • OE fiscas – ME fishes • OE talu – ME tale • OE stān – ME stone

18. Stressed vowels • OE [ā] – ME [ō] (rād - rōd) • OE [ǣ] – ME [ē] (mǣl - meel) • OE [æ]– ME [a] (æt - at) • OE y,ӯ [ü] – ME i, ī (hyll - hill)

19. Diphthongs • OE ēō – ME ē (dēōp - deep) • New Diphthongs: [j] and [w], their second element was either [i] (the letters i, y) or [u] (the letter w) • OE weƷ- ME wey [ei] • OE cnāwan – ME knowen [knouen] [ou]

20. Consonants • OE [ɣ] (the letterƷ) – ME [w] (dragan – drawen) • Vocalization of [j] and [w] after vowels • [j] – [i] (the letters i, y) OE seƷl – ME seil • [w] – [u] (the letters w, u) • OE snāw – ME snōu

21. The principal changes in ME grammar. Changes in noun declension and in adjective and pronoun systems. The rise of the article.