614 Williams Hall
8-3212
kroch@change.ling.upenn.edu

Linguistics 310 is an introduction to the linguistic history of the English language. It concentrates on internal linguistic developments but does not require a background in formal linguistics.

The course is a survey of several of the most important ways in which the English language has changed over the 1600 years since the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes begin to settle on the island of Britain. We will proceed by picking out certain characteristic features of modern English that differentiate it from other European languages and asking where these features came from. In pursuing this question, we will uncover key structural features of English and learn how they developed over time.

The course requirement will be three short projects (3-5 pages). There are links to possible projects on this page. Some additional options will be posted as the course goes on. It will also be possible for you to develop projects of your own.

Readings for the class are posted on this page. A few more items may be added as the semester progresses.

Course Projects

Project 1 - Due 10/10/16

Project description: The evolution of strong and weak verbs in English.
Supplemental documentation: Some strong verb frequencies from Google.

Project 2 - Due 11/16/16

Project description: The evolution of the English auxiliary 'do'.

Project 3 - Project 3 - Due 12/16/16

Project description: Seeing Middle English grammar in Chaucer's meter and rhyme.
Background reading: Nigel Fabb. 1997. Linguistics and Literature, Chapter 2.

Course outline

0. Historical and social background:

The language spoken in England has been influenced in fundamental ways by population movements and social history. What socio-historical developments have most influenced the historical evolution of the English language?

Readings: •The Anglo-Saxon Invasions; William Bakken. 1994. The End of Roman Britain: Assessing the Anglo-Saxon Invasions of the Fifth Century.; •Medieval England; C. Warren Hollister. 1976. The Making of England. Chapter 1.; C. Warren Hollister. 1976. The Making of England. Chapter 2.; C. Warren Hollister. 1976. The Making of England. Chapter 3.; •The Norman Conquest; C. Warren Hollister. 1976. The Making of England. Chapter 4.; •The Viking Invasions; Else Roesdahl. 1998. The Vikings. The Expansion: England.; Don Ringe. nd. The family trees of Kings Alfred and Knut.; USA Today. Jul 19, 2011. Invasion of the Viking women unearthed.; McLeod, Shane. Warriors and women: the sex ratio of Norse migrants to eastern England up to 900 AD. Early Medieval Europe. Wiley. 19 (3): 332–353.

Miscellaneous handouts: •Tony Kroch. nd. Jabberwocky.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Origins of the Anglo-Saxons I.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Origins of the Anglo-Saxons II.

Handouts on the place of Germanic among the Indo-European languages: •Don Ringe. nd. Celtic loan words in Germanic.; •Don Ringe. nd. Germanic phonology.; •Don Ringe. nd. Shared morphology in Germanic and other IE subgroups.; •Don Ringe. nd. The Indo-European and the Germanic verb.; •Don Ringe. nd. Grimm's Law in brief.; •Don Ringe. nd. How mixed a language is English?

The historical grammar of Old English

•Moore and Knott. 1964. The Elements of Old English. Old English reference grammar.

•Ringe, Don and Ann Taylor. 2014. The Development of Old English.

I. Germanic verb class morphology:

The English past tense is formed by adding 'ed' to the stem but some verbs don't follow this rule. Why?

Readings: •Peter Baker. 2001. Electronic Introduction to Old English, Chapter 7, Verbs.; •Mosse. 1952. Handbook of Middle English. The present tense in Middle English.; •Steven Pinker. 1999. Words and Rules, Chapters 2 and 3.; •Don Ringe. nd. Handout on English verb classes.; •Don Ringe. nd. Weak class II verbs as productive class.; •Don Ringe. nd. Strong verbs with short u.; •Ann Taylor. 1994. Variation in past tense formation in the history of English.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 1 pp. 143-158.; •Ann Taylor. 1994. Ann Taylor slides.

II. The sounds of Old English and their evolution:

English spelling is very irregular. Some letters are even silent, like the 'k' and 'gh' in knight. Why? Also, the long and short vowels in English do not correspond phonetically. In other European languages, for example, the long variant of the vowel in bit is the vowel in beet, but in English, it is the vowel in bite. Why is the English vowel system the way it is?

Readings: •Samuel Moore. 1963. English Sounds and Inflections, Chapters 1, 2 and 8.; •Don Ringe. nd. final -f in Old English nouns.; •Don Ringe. nd. Earliest texts in Middle English.; •Don Ringe. nd. Dates of French loan words.; •Don Ringe. nd. The story of 'beef'.; •Don Ringe. nd. Early English sound changes involving vowels.; •Don Ringe. nd. Evidence from Orm on vowel lengthening.; •Don Ringe. nd. The Great English Vowel Shift.; •Don Ringe. nd. Handout on morphological stem alternants in the plural.; •Don Ringe. nd. Map of Middle English dialects.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Old to Middle English Phonology.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Middle English Morphology.

III. English vocabulary and English history:

English is said to have a very large vocabulary because it has borrowed so many words from other languages. How did this happen?

Readings: •Otto Jespersen. 1923. The Growth and Structure of the English Language, Chapters 3 - 6.; •Don Ringe. nd. Early loans into Old English.; •Don Ringe. nd. Loan words from Scandinavian.

IV. English metrics:

In traditional English poetry, there is an obvious connection between the meter or regular rhythm of the poem and the stresses we hear on words in ordinary speech. Was this always so? Can we learn anything interesting about the English language at various points in its history from the meter of its poetry?

Readings: •Nigel Fabb. 1997. Linguistics and Literature, Chapter 2.

V. The Germanic system of case marking and its evolution in English:

English nouns don't change form in different uses but pronouns do. Why?
I saw John / John saw me.

The morphology of nouns and verbs. Slides

VI. Germanic word order and how it has changed in the history of English:

In English the subject normally precedes the verb but not always. Where does English word order variation come from?
Mary likes pizza and so does John.
Here comes the judge.

Readings: •Olga Fischer et.al. 2002. The Syntax of Early English, Chapter 2, Old English.; •Olga Fischer et.al. 2002. The Syntax of Early English, Chapter 3, Middle English.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Syntactic trees for basic word order options.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Word order changes in Old and Middle English.; •Tony Kroch. nd. Changes in the syntax of verb prefixes and particles in Old and Middle English.; •Tony Kroch. nd. The change from OV to VO order in Old and Middle English.; •Eric Haeberli. 2000. Adjuncts and the syntax of subjects in Old and Middle English.

VII. The evolution of English verbal syntax:

Why do English negative sentences contain the meaningless auxiliary verb do, which is missing in ordinary positive sentences?
Mary does not like pizza.
Mary likes pizza.

The evolution of auxiliary do.

Quicktime movie of class slides on the history of the syntax of English

Download third term project here. Due 12/12/16.

VIII. The place of English in the Indo-European language family:

Basic English words like mother and father look similar to corresponding words in all of the other European languages; for example, German Mutter/Vater and Spanish madre/padre. Why is this?

Online Resources

Indo-European Family Tree (partial)

Maps of Great Britain

Scandinavian influence on English