Lecture 7 Vocabulary of gl east Germanic Languages and Old English

Lecture 7

Vocabulary of GL East Germanic Languages and Old English

1. 
   The ways of developing the Vocabulary.
   
2. 
   Suffixes, Prefixes. Word- Composition. Loan Words.
   
3. 
   The main features of Middle English
   
4. 
   Main Historical events in Middle English
   

Composition of OE vocabulary. The OE vocabulary is mainly
homogeneous. Loan- words are an insignificant part of it. Among native words
we can distinguish the following layers:

1. Common Indo- European words, which were inherited from the IndoEuropean parent language. For example: (a) substantives: fæder ‘father’, mödor ‘mother’, nama ‘name’, tun3e‘tongue’, föt ‘foot’, niht ‘night’, heorte ‘heart’. (b) adjectives: neowe ‘new’, 3eon3 ‘young’, riht ‘right’, lon3 ‘long’.

(c) verbs: sittan ‘sit’, lic3an ‘kie’, beran ‘bear’, teran ‘tear’.

2. Common Germanic words. (a) substantives: eorþe ‘earth’, land ‘land’, sæ ‘sea’, heall ‘hall’, sand ‘sand’, earm ‘arm’. (b) adjectives: earm ‘poor’, 3rëne ‘green’.

(c)verbs: findan, ‘find’, sin3an ‘sing’, steorfan ‘die’.

3. Specifically English words, not found in any other language. These are

very few. The verb clipian ‘call’ in one of them.