OE vocabulary and its etymological characteristics.

Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological lagers coming from different historical periods the three main are:

· common IE (names of natural phenomena, plants, animals, human body);

· common Germanic (connected with nature, sea and everyday life);

· borrowings from other languages.

The greatest borrowings – in English (70%);

The smallest – Icelandic. Why? (geography, history, economy, politics).

The vocabulary of all the lang. shows an obvious and strong influence.

English occupies a specific place among the Germanic lang for the reasons:

1. very conservative spelling;

2. it is highly advanced reduction in phonemes;

3. it’s highly developed analytical structure (continuous forms);

4. it’s high % of borrowed words (60 – 70%).

 

 

The rise of analytical forms in the verbal system in ME.

Analytical forms developed within the ME period:

· Future tense;

· the passive voice;

· perfect tense.

They developed from free syntactical combinations. The 1^st was a verb with broad meaning, the 2^nd non-future form.

1. Future tense: shall + inf – future action; willen + inf. Eg: wol ye maken assurance – will you make assurance.

2. The Passive Voice: ben + Past Part → analytical forms to express state action. Eg: the conseil that was accrded (the advice that was given). The wide use of pass. constr. in the 18^th – 19^th cent → high productively of the P.Voice.

3. Perfect forms: go down to 2 types of syntactical combination.

· habbon (have)

· bēon (be) → + Part II

Eg: Ic habbe þonne bēsc getengenne – я имел ту рыбку пойманной. The auxiliary ‘to have’ for perf forms was established in the 18^th cent.