語言學(xué)經(jīng)典第六章

1、Chapter6 The Earliest Changes張麗 李先婷 孫婷婷6.16.3 Loss of weak e 6.4 erar6.56.9Voicing of Consonnants in Englishloss of weak econditions consequencesThe loss of the weak e is one of the most important changes in the whole history of the language. North:beginning in Scotland completed before Barbours Bru

2、ce was writtenSouth:many es were retanined longer in Chaucers metreimmediate successors left out, Chaucer kepte becoming one of the best criteria of the genuineness of poems the loss of so many unstressed es the general tendency to slur over weak syllables their relative unimportance for the underst

3、anding of what is said only in very rare instances the leaving out e alters the signification of a word or a phrase Chaucer: with and without e were used indiscrminatelyThe loss not taking place in all positions at the same time the earliest instances of the loss of weak e:vsome words:habitually uns

4、tressed,their subordination, more valuable members vpossessive pronouns(our/your)vsome adverbs(before/tofore)vsome participles(come)Conditions (1).final e lost before a word beginning with a vowel: eg.sittesitt on hors(Ch.) the arrayth array the angelth angelspecial case:ne before a vowel(or h)ne ha

5、dde= nadde ne will he or yewilly-nillyThe elision in the was very frequent in early ModE.eg:have thair, thether(other) (2)two consecutive syllables had weak es, one of them was dropped in Chaucers languageeg: louede /luved/ louede /luvde/ three syllables: eg: banere baner millere millerthe stress is

6、 on the second syllable, the final e was kept in Chaucer: manere(3)About 1400 the remaining final weak es were dropped.eg: love, namethe before a constant, especially in the frequent combination: in the=i th on the =o th (4)e disappered was before a consontant in various endingseg:kingeskingsbut som

7、e time after Chaucers death e in such endings became silent kingeskingezkingz dukesdukezdukzretaining and developing of e (1)after a sibilants, z, , e retains its syllabic valueeg:kisseskisiz rosesrouziz wisheswiiz bridgesbriiz(2)the ending -ed, we have parallel developmet eg: lovedlvd missedmist, e

8、ndedendid wastedweistidretaining and developing of e (3)in four grammatical endings e is now always pronounced:-est in the superlative, eg:weakest-est in the second sg., eg:thou walkest-eth in ordinals after -ty, eg:twentieth -eth in the obsolete third person, eg:he walkethmanifold consequences turn

9、ing non-syllabic to syllabicmodifying the grammatical structures of the language having -e for adjectives in the definite form and in the pluralgiving up the distinction between adj. and the corresponding advbecoming identical in imperative, infinitive, indicative and subjective verb forms influenci

10、ng word-formationshowing syntactical relationshaving their origin for homonyms1.non-syllabic syllabic(1) /l/ able, stable, fable must have syllabic/l/more common in F, eg:fiddle, riddle, bubble/e/ was originally found after /l/ in the majority of cases, rarer cases /e/ was originally preceded the /l

11、/, eg: bridle OE bridelmuscle : animal tissue /musl/ /msl/mussel : shellfish (2)/n/eg: ridden, laden, spoken, takenthe spelling could remain -enME /e/ before n in the majority, though fastne(also spelt with fasten)(3)/m/ME botmebotm, ModE bottom(4)/r/generally consisting of a vowel e and lthe spelli

12、ng -er prevailed, eg: number, letter-re was retained, eg:sceptre, lustrecenter: 16th-18th centre in England center in Amercia(5)the ending /j/the result was a syllabic /j/, that is /i/eg: thank yethanky will ye nill yewilly nilly(6)/w/becoming /w/, that is /u/eg: ME folwe/folu/,shadwe/adu/ (7)e disa

13、ppeared from the pronunication, retained in the spelling accustomed to see and write a superfluous e eg: 53 instances of a mute e that is not written on the first page of Shakespeares MerchantMute e retained in spelling(1)after u: to show u was the constant /v/, not a vowel, eg:live, have(2)after g:

14、to show the sound is /d/and not /g/, eg:age(3)after c:to show the sound is /s/ and not /k/,eg:defence(4)after s:to indicate s is not the flexional ending, eg:else(5)after syllabic l and reg:able, stable; acre, sabre(6)after other consonantsthe preceding vowel was long, eg: bite, rodealso in a few wo

15、rds that have never been long, eg: come, someafter a vowel, e is very frequenteg:free, die,due, tie, vie, hueavoid words of two letters (7)to distinguish words, eg: bee n. doe n. toe be v. do v. toThe arbitrariness of the spelling is well shown by the fact that the same name is written at Oxford Mag

16、dalen College and Cambridge Magdalen College.in some derivatives the spelling has not been completely settled, eg:judg(e)ment, mov(e)able, lov(e)ableto avoid confusion, eg: fine-ish/finish2.modifying the grammatical structures of the languagethe dative sg. in OE and early ME ended in -e in most noun

17、s, eg:me thinks(據(jù)我看來）In Chaucers time, the dat. had nearly always become identical with the nomnow disappeared except of alive, in life /f/ in alive /v/(3)adjectives had -e in the definite form and in the plural eg:the gode man gode menadjectives(participles) show sometimes both forms: OE -enope(now

18、 obsolete)/drunk infl.-eneopen/drunken(4)giving up the distinction between adj. like long and the corresponding adv. ME longeME had two series of adv. of place:vto indicate direction or movement:he comes in vto indicate rest: he is inne(5)imperative had no e the infinitive the indicative had e identical now the subjunctivedue to the voicelessness of the final constant, a new imperative, eg: give, drive (6)influencing word-formation by discarding the difference between nouns and verbs of the same root, sleep ME slep n. account ME account n. slepe(n) v. accounte(n) v.(7)