English Language

SIZE AGE/TIME SHAPE COLOUR ORIGIN/SOURCE MATERIAL

Little Recent Round Pink Japanese Plastic

Small Ancient Square White European Silk

Short Old Twisted Green Arabic Cotton

Tiny Dated Oval Red American Lace

Big Brand-new Wedge-shaped Black Victorian-style Leather

Huge Modern Circular Blue Chinese Glass

A subjective adjective (fantastic, wonderful, ecc.) will generally be placed first.

- The most significant adjective is placed closest to the noun.

- Normally, no more than three adjectives are used before a noun.

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Position of Adjectives

Adjectives can also be placed after the noun:

The result was both satisfactory and convincing.

- This is a smoke-free area.

- The project is becoming increasingly difficult.

- They appeared to be careful and efficient.

- They worked carefully and efficiently.

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Position of Adverbs

Adverbs can (in theory) be placed at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a sentence.

Generally, they are placed at the beginning and before the verb.

Usually, prices increase before a holiday period.

- Word Order Pagina 31

Usually, prices increase before a holiday period.

- Prices usually increase before a holiday period.

- Prices increase before a holiday period usually.

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Adverbial Openings

Having reviewed the past situation, the president moved on to the future plans.

- Unlike last year, this year's sales are improving.

- Given the current situation, this was surprising.

- Nevertheless, caution is recommended.

- Looking to the future, we need to be more consolidated.

- All in all, we can be satisfied.

-

Why? Question of register

- Emphasis

- Prepositions at the end are a characteristic of spoken language.

- Historical dimension: "to whom are you speaking" is not so common (different historical

- context)

Formality/informality: "Had I understood…" To modify the level of formality of the sentence.

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FROM GRAMMATICAL TO LEXICAL ANALYSIS

Characteristics of Grammatical Structure

Characteristics of Syntactical Structure

REGISTER

Word origin, word formation, word frequency

Language variations, Medium, Context

Text types, Text objectives Word Order Pagina 32

Development of English

martedì 5 dicembre 2017 19.20

Lexis: Development of English and Word Origins

The differences between styles, between levels of formality and between registers are much more

evident and much more important when you look at lexis (rather than from a grammatical and

syntactical point of view).

Development of English

Timeline:

● Original inhabitants of Britain (Britons): Celtic-speaking tribes

The inhabitants of what today is called England were Celtic populations with their language. (The

starting point of most languages across Europe is somewhere in a Celtic group.) These Celtic

populations progressively got pushed to the periphery, out of the central part of Europe by new

dominating forces, such as the Roman Empire. Before the Roman invasion: Celtic populations called

“the britains” in what is now recognised as England (hence the name “Britain”). There were other

Celtic populations, they maintained the denominations of “Celts” and they still exist in Ireland,

Wales and Scotland with their languages (Gaelic).

● Roman invasion: Julius Caesar (54-55 BC), Claudius AD 43

Rome progressively expanded primarily as a result of greater military confidence and later thanks to

the formation of the Roman Empire. What today is called England was integrated into the Roman

Empire, there were two invasions: the first one (not successful) when the emperor was Caesar, the

second one when the emperor was Claudius. What today is called England became part of the

Roman Empire and the city of London became the capital of this part of the Roman Empire and got

its Latin name “Londinium”. The Romans tried and failed to conquest what we know as Scotland and

confronted the Scottish populations called “Picts”, in the end Rome gave up and the Hadrian Wall

was built, it is effectively the cultural border between Scotland and England. Between England and

Wales there is and actual division, a dyke (=diga). Only what is today called England was really part

of the Roman Empire. The Romans left Britain.

● Germanic tribes (AD 449): Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians

Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons from Germany, Jutes from Denmark, Frisians) entered into the

country. The Saxons began to become dominant, eventually they managed to unify the various

groups that entered the country, created a dominant family and effectively created a race by

crossbreeding with the Angles. Eventually they became the dominant group in England.

Timeline:

● Vikings: Destruction of Lindisfarne Monastery (793)

Development of English and Word Origin Pagina 33

● Vikings: Destruction of Lindisfarne Monastery (793)

Later there was the incursion from the Vikings (from Norway) and they occupied the North-Eastern

part of England. The Angles and the Saxons the area further to the South.

● Normans: Battle of Hastings (1066) = invasion from Normandy (France), last time the country was

invaded.

(The Normans colonised France and Sicily as well.)

England’s history is fundamental to the development of the English language, to the way you

interpret the English language and to the way it is used.

Placenames

The placenames show you the impact of these various stages of British history.

● Celtic origin (Cities: London, Glasgow, Cardiff; Regions: Kent; Rivers: Thames)

● Anglo-Saxon origin (Cities: Stratford, Portsmouth; Regions: Sussex, East Anglia)

STRAT (Latin) = street + FORD (Germanic)= a place where it was possible to pass over a river

PORT (Latin) + MOUTH (Germanic)

● Latin origin (Cities: Lancaster, Stratford, Portsmouth)

Lancaster = CASTRO, Roman camps

There are still regions In England that bear the connection to the Saxons’ period. The region (county)

of Sussex was the area of the Southern Saxons. There also used to exist “Wessex” the area of the

western Saxons, but today it doesn’t exist because the leaders of Wessex eventually became the

leaders of England, so the name of Wessex was substituted with the name “England”.

Old English

Development of English as a spoken language

The development of English was mostly vernacular (that of a spoken language). The prime influence

of the spoken language was obviously from the later invaders (Angles and Saxons) and so English

began as (and still is) a Germanic language. At the time of the Romans there was a very clear

subdivision between those who had the authority (Romans) and those who didn’t (the inhabitants)

and there weren’t many interactions between the two. So, the impact of Latin on that area probably

was limited to the placenames.

First written texts in Old English:

● Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (890 on) = basically a record of what was happening in the area and it was

written in Old English.

● Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Latin original 731; OE 890-930) = written by the

Venerable Bede. The original text was written in Latin, but 200 years later it was translated in order

to facilitate the conversion process.

At the time there was the expansion of Christianity that was distributed primarily through Latin.

● Beowulf (975-1010) = considered to be the first example of English literature. Typical story of the

Germanic hero doing honourable deeds.

Towards a ‘Standard English’

The history of written English is much shorter than the story of written Latin.

There was a development towards Standard English, towards the establishment of what could be

considered to be a standard form of English.

Process of standardisation involves:

Development of English and Word Origin Pagina 34

Process of standardisation involves:

● Selection

● Acceptance

● Elaboration

● Codification

Selection

The selection process started with the people who had the authority and where there was a greater

cultural and economic development, i.e. London. The model was mostly Anglo-Saxon, but there

were also influences from Old Norse, so from Northern Germanic dialects rather than from the

Central Germanic dialects, e.g. “does” is an influence from Norse rather than from Anglo-Saxon

(“doeth” is more typically Anglo-Saxon).

‘Standard’ mostly defined by power, status, public position, class

● London – political, economic, social power

● Oxford/Cambridge – intellectual influence

Mostly the Anglo-Saxon model, but some examples from Norse/Viking influence, e.g. does for doeth;

their, them)

Acceptance

● Spread of model by movement of people (merchants scholars, etc.)

● Development of Middle English

● Use in literature (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1400)

After the model was spread, it led to later refinements of the language which are now generally

considered under the title of “Middle English”→ presented in the works of Chaucer.

● National identity

It progressively led to a sense of national identity.

Elaboration

You decide on the standard, it gets accepted and then further elaborated.

Elaboration= Beginning of differentiation between the Anglo-Saxon origins of the language and the

new impact (Norman invasion) of French. Middle English is a development of the Anglo-Saxon root

together with French (and indirectly Latin). You begin to get a differentiation between Anglo-Saxon

vocabulary/word origin and Latin vocabulary/word origin, a differentiation that becomes evident

and recognisable.

● Expansion and differentiation of vocabulary (Anglo-Saxon v Latin/French)

● Latin maintained through Church and Law = Latin was maintained through the continued

expansion of the Church and also through the development of a legal system that was often based

on codes derived from Latin.

● London - Printing press (Caxton 1476) = End of 1400s: William Caxton introduced the printing

press into England.

Codification = establishment of the standard form

● Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson (1755) (=Samuel Johnson elaborated the first

substantial dictionary of English)

● OED (1928)

● Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, Walker (1791)

● English Grammar, Lindley Murray (1795) (=prescriptive grammar)

However, disparity between spoken forms and written forms remains.

There is a great disparity between spoken forms (pronunciation) and written forms, because there

may be a word with a Germanic root transcribed by a Latin-speaking monk who transcribes in a way

that normally respects a Latin logic.

Development of English and Word Origin Pagina 35

Word Origin

martedì 5 dicembre 2017 19.22

Word Origins

If you look at the English language you can recognise pretty easily words with an Anglo-Saxon root

and those with a Latin root.

Anglo-Saxon

● Basic vocabulary

Anglo-Saxon words usually refer