History Of The English Language, Test 2

Front 1

3 cases of modern English

Back 1

objective, possessive, subjunctive

Front 2

1250-1400

Back 2

period of greatest vocabulary influence

40% of the language became French (~10,000 words)

Front 3

Why were so many French words introduced?

Back 3

Needs for words that didn't have English counterparts

Natural impulse to use familiar French words

Front 4

How did grammar change in the Middle Period?

Back 4

loss of inflection due to phonetic changes and linguistic analogy

Front 5

Why did so many changes occur in the Middle Period?

Back 5

The common people were speaking English without general education available. No one was there to correct their mistakes (pg 167)

Front 6

How are words assimilated?

Back 6

through suffixes, prefixes, and self-explaining compounds

Front 7

Vocabulary change

Back 7

Was a result of the Norman Conquest

Front 8

Grammatical change

Back 8

was simply facilitated by the Norman Conquest

Front 9

Synonyms at 3 levels

Back 9

1. Popular: simple, Germanic words

2. Literary: polished, French words

3. Learned: recondite, Latin words

Front 10

Dialects of Middle English

Back 10

1. Kentish

2. Southern

3. Northern

4. West Midland

5. East Midland (was becoming standard; most like modern English)

Front 11

Why was the East Midland becoming the standard?

Back 11

1. Occupied a middle position both geographically and linguistically

2. Largest, most populated, wealthiest area

3. Home to universities (Cambridge and Oxford)

4. Chaucer's influence

5. London (economy, political powerhouse, printing press)

Front 12

1476

Back 12

Printing press is introduced to London and spreads the standard language

Front 13

Dialectal differentiation today and in the Middle Period

Back 13

Today, it is more noticeable in speech, not writing. The opposite was true in the Middle Period.

Front 14

Changing conditions in the Middle Period

Back 14

1. Printing press spreads literature and a standard language

2. The rapid rise of popular education

3. Increased communication and transportation

4. The growth of specialized knowledge

5. The growth of social conciousness

Front 15

Orthography

Back 15

the study of correct spelling according to established usage

Front 16

Problems faced by all vernaculars of Europe

Back 16

1. Recognition in fields where Greek and Latin had been supreme

2. Establishment of standard, uniform orthography

3. Establishment of vocabulary to meet the demands of wider use

Front 17

Why Latin was eventually replaced

Back 17

1. commercial use

2. Protestant Reform

3. Classical Latin could not meet vocabulary needs

Front 18

1712

Back 18

Swift's Proposal

Front 19

Swift's Proposal

Back 19

marks the culmination of the movement for an English academy

Front 20

3 goals of ascertainment

Back 20

1. to reduce the language to rule and to set up a standard of correct usage

2. to refine (remove defects/improve)

3. fix it permanently in the desired form

Front 21

Problems of refinement

Back 21

The academy didn't want:

1. shortened words (contractions, abbreviations)

2. contract verbs (depriv'd, fledg'd)

3. slang

Front 22

2 things missing from English before academy

Back 22

1. Grammar

2. Dictionary

Front 23

1755

Back 23

Samuel Johnson publishes first true English dictionary

Front 24

3 goals of grammarians

Back 24

1. to codify the principles of the language and reduce it to rule

2. to settle disputed points and decide cases of device usage

3. to point out common errors or what were supposed to be errors, and thus correct and improve the language

Front 25

Methods to achieve these goals

Back 25

1. reason

2. etymology

3. example of Latin and Greek

Front 26

Weaknesses of grammarian's

Back 26

1. failure to recognize the importance of usage as the sole arbiter in linguistic matters

2. using a synthetic language like Latin as a model for an analytic one

3. ignorance of the processes of linguistic change

Front 27

George Campbell- authoritative usage

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1. present

2. national

3. reputable

Front 28

What did classical Latin lack that Modern English needed?

Back 28

Latin had changed so much over 1,000 years to accommodate social needs. It simply didn't have the vocabulary for 1600's culture.

Front 29

Problems with Middle English transcriptions

Back 29

1. lack of reference works

2. lack of standard technique

3. differences in dialect

(The Bible was the exception)

Front 30

3 things that happened to the verb

Back 30

1. development of emphatic forms of the verb

2. using do/did to ask questions

3. progressive participial forms (ex: she is singing, I have been singing)

Front 31

Coinage

Back 31

deliberate invention of a word

Front 32

Semantics

Back 32

branch of linguistic study concerning the meanings of words and the way meanings develop

Front 33

Chaucerism

Back 33

words Chaucer made up (ex: woo, grooch, toothsome)

Front 34

3 cultural levels of language

Back 34

1. written standard

2. spoken standard

3. popular/illiterate speech

Front 35

linguistic analogy

Back 35

desire for uniformity commonly felt where similarity of function of use is involved

Front 36

doctrine of usage

Back 36

the most important criterion of language is usage