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 1st was a verb with broad meaning, the 2nd 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 18th – 19th 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 18th cent.