Lecture 1.

Introduction into the course

Goal: to introduce the main concepts of the course
Outline:
1. Language as a system and structure
2. Some facts on the history of the English language.
2.1. Synchronic and diachronic approaches in studying linguistic facts.
2.2 Comparative linguistics.
2.2. Inner and outer history of the language. Rate and causes of language
evolution.
2.3. A short survey of periods in the history of English.
1. Language as a system and structure
Language is the system, including phonological, lexical, and grammatical subsystems,
which lies at the base of all speaking and writing.
Language is regarded as a system of elements (or: signs, units) such as sounds, words,
etc.
System implies the characterization of a complex object as made up of separate parts
(e.g. the system of sounds). Language is a structural system.
Structure means hierarchical layering of parts in `constituting the whole.
In the structure of language there are four main structural levels: phonological,
morphological, syntactical and supersyntatical.
The levels are represented by the corresponding level units:
The phonological level is the lowest level. The phonological level unit is the
`phoneme. It is a distinctive unit (bag – back).
The morphological level has two level units:
the `morpheme – the lowest meaningful unit (teach – teacher);
the word - the main naming (`nominative) unit of language.
The syntactical level has two level units as well:
the word-group – the dependent syntactic unit; the sentence – the main
communicative unit.
The supersyntactical level has the text as its level unit.
As a system, language is subdivided into three basic subsystems, each of which is a
system in its own turn. They are the phonetical (phonological), lexical and
grammatical systems.
The phonetical system includes the material units of which language is made up:
sounds, phonemes, different intonation models, and accent models. The phonetical
system of language is studied by a separate branch of linguistics called phonetics and
phonology.
The lexical system includes all the nominative (naming) means of language – words
and stable word-combinations. The lexical system is studied by lexicology.
The grammatical system includes the rules and regularities of using lingual units in the
construction of utterances in the process of human communication. The grammatical
system is described by grammar as a branch of linguistics
2. Some facts on the history of the English language
2.1. Synchronic and diachronic approaches in studying linguistic facts
 Any language is a historical phenomenon. It changes throughout the history at all
its levels. Being influenced by different events in the history of the nation every
language undergoes gradual changes and that makes some facts of today’s language
incomprehensible from the point of view of modern linguistics. Such phenomena can be
traced out at all language levels.
Language evolution is characterized by the processes of growth and decay.
Throughout its history the English language develops the analytical forms but the
system of noun and adjective declensions dies out; some words are not used any longer
but the others are borrowed or newly formed.
The purpose of History of English is a study of the language’s development at all
its levels from the earliest times to the present day. It shows phonetic, grammatical and
lexical phenomena as they developed.
When discussing the history of the English language one necessarily deals with
such concepts as synchrony (modern state of the language) and diachrony (process of
evolution) which were introduced at the beginning of the XX century by Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857-1913) in his work on language "Course in General Linguistics".
Today the diachronic development of the language is understood as the evolution
of its different levels, and the synchrony of the language is its statics at a definite
period, e.g. today.
2.2 Comparative linguistics.
The method employed in studying the history of the language is called
comparative linguistics. The method of comparative linguistics implies that languages
do not develop uniformly. Language development is sometimes slower, sometimes
faster. There are periods in the history of every language when it undergoes a lot of
changes, but there are other periods when the innovations are few. The method of
comparative linguistics can be applied only when there are written documents.
The discovery of kinship of the Indo-European family enabled linguists to work
out a classification of languages according to their descent and kinship. The
classification is called genealogical. According to it languages are divided into families.
A family consists of languages which developed from tribal dialects of ancient people.
A family includes several groups of languages characterized by similar features at
different linguistic levels.
Another classification is called morphological and it is based on the
morphological structure of the word.
The main source in studying the history of the language is written documents. As
for the phonetic structure they do not always present a clear enough picture of spelling
and pronunciation because they often do not coincide. In this case private letters, diaries
containing illiterate spelling which reflects pronunciation can be of great help.
2.3. Inner and outer history of the language. Rate and causes of language
evolution.
The evolution of the language is made up of diverse facts and processes. The
history of the language may be divided into internal and external. External development
includes all the facts which can be referred to and connected with functioning of the
language in speech community.
 Internal development of the language is also called structural development and it
is connected with the division of language system into subsystems.
Linguistic changes usually proceed at minor steps, they are slow and gradual, as
demanded by the communicative function of the language, otherwise these changes
would have been an obstacle in communication between generations. An important
thing to note here is that different language levels do not develop uniformly.
The two main factors, the driving forces of the language historical mutation are
continuity (преемственность) and causality (причинность). The first term may be
decoded in the following way. Generally, the phonemes and the morphemes of the
language preserve the components and the processes which characterize the parent
language and the related tongues. For example, the principle of making plural forms in
nouns are similar in Indo-European languages (endings of plurality are employed for the
purpose); in Indo-European languages there are many words with identical roots
(English night - German nacht- French nuit - Italian notta - Russian ночь - Bulgarian
нощта). As a consequence, to understand the main characteristics of the Germanic
languages, including English, it is necessary to trace back the phenomena under
consideration.
The second factor is closely connected with the first one. Any historical study of
the linguistic facts is not only aimed at discovering the stages of their development but
also at finding the reasons of all the alterations, at explaining their result.
The reasons (or causes) of linguistic changes are usually divided into external and
internal. External causes are connected with the history of the nation, with the various
events in people’s life.
The internal causes are those which are predetermined by the language system,
they are stimulated by the processes arising from the language itself. Internal factors can
be subdivided into general (operating in all languages) and specific (operating in one
language or a group of related languages at a certain period of time). The most general
cause of language evolution is in the tendency to improve the language technique. The
other internal tendency is to preserve the language as a means of communication.
There have been several theories explaining the causes of language evolution. In
the first half of the XIX century philologists of the romantic trend (J.G. Herder, W.
Grimm) described the history of the Indo-European languages as decline and
degradation. They considered that most of these languages have been losing their
richness and grammatical forms, declensions, conjugations and inflections since the
“Golden Age” of the parent language.
The representatives of another trend, naturalists (A. Schleicher and others),
compared language with a living organism and associated stages in language history
with stages in life: birth, youth, maturity, old age and death.
Sociologists in linguistics (J. Vendryes, A. Meillet) were of the opinion that
linguistic changes are caused by social conditions and events in external history.
W.Wundt and H.Paul, representing the psychological trend, insisted that
linguistic changes are caused by individual psychology and accidental individual
fluctuations.
 The Prague school of linguists was the first to recognize functional diversity of
the language dependent on external conditions. In present-day theories much attention is
paid to the variability of speech in social groups as the main factor of linguistic change.
The "phonetic" theory representatives of the XIX century saw the basis for the
morphological simplification in the phonetic changes, particularly, in the reduction and
loss of the unaccented final syllables caused by the stress fixation in the Germanic
languages. As a result, many grammatical forms coincided that led to the difficulties in
comprehending the case, gender, number and person forms. Instead of the old ways of
building up the grammatical forms the new ones appeared, those of prepositions and
fixed word order.
The representatives of the "functional" theory consider that the loss of endings
and the appearance of the analytical forms should be explained by the fact that the
endings lost their grammatical meanings and died out as useless, being ousted by the
other means of denoting the same ideas.
The theory of the "least effort" explains the cause of the linguistic changes by the
fact that the native speakers are in constant need and search of more expressive
language means as the existing ones gradually lose their expressivity. This necessity is
the reason for the simultaneous use of both prepositional phrases and case forms and for
the appearance of the prepositional verbs and analytical forms alongside the use of
simple verb forms.
Some scholars reckon that the reason of the English morphology simplification
and the change of the language type is to be found in the external history, particularly,
in contacts with other tongues.
Another popular theory, the so-called "theory of progress", was put forward by O.
Jesperson who was against the considerations of the Indo-European linguistic history as
the process of decay and degradation and tried to show the advantages of the analytical
type of language over the synthetic one.
Today a very interesting theory is put forward by Martin Nowak. He tries to find
direct dependence of language forms evolution and frequency of their usage. M. Nowak
proposes that the frequency with which specific words are used in everyday language
exerts a general and law-like influence on their rates of evolution.
2.4. A short survey of periods in the history of English.
History of English is traditionally divided into three periods:
1) Old English – the period beginning with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5 th
century) or with the beginning of writing (7th century) and ends with the Norman
conquest (11th c.);
2) Middle English – begins with the Norman conquest and ends on the introduction of
printing (II half of the 15th c.);
3) New English – starts after the introduction of printing and lasts to the present day.
Henry Sweet, the author of the first historical phonetics and grammar of English
considered that the traditional periods coincide with the morphology of the three main
periods: period of “full endings”, of “leveled endings” and of “lost endings”.
Sometimes history of English is subdivided into seven periods. This classification
mainly coincides with the traditional one with some further subdivisions:
1) Early OE (pre-written OE;
 2) OE (written OE);
3) Early ME;
4) ME (Classical ME);
5) Early NE;
6) Normalization period (Neo-Classical period);
7) Late NE (Modern English).
The first period lasts from the first Germanic invasion of Britain till the beginning
of writing (5th-7th c.).
The second historical period extends from the 8th century till the end of the 11th.
Early Middle English starts after 1066, the year of the Norman conquest, and
covers the 12th, the 13th and the first half of the 14th centuries.
Classical Middle English lasts from the later 14th till the end of the 15th century
and it is called the age of Chaucer, the greatest English medieval writer.
Early New English lasts from the introduction of printing to the age of
Shakespeare, that is from 1475 till 1660.
Normalisation, or Neo-Classical, period, extends from the mid-17th century to the
close of the 18th century.
Late New English represents English of the 19 th and 20th centuries and the
language of today.