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)