Last modified 23 Sept 11
Nature of the English language and English Words
number of words in English countability of words in English comparison of sizes of vocabulary of languages closest linguistic relations of English native vs. borrowed words
English as a World Language
dialects of English (geographical and social varieties of English) major national varieties of English richness of English vocabulary synonyms in English absence of national language academies in English-speaking world
History of English
Old English (Anglo-Saxon lg.) Harold Godwinson, Harold King of Anglo-Saxons
Middle English Normans
Early Modern English William of Normandy = William the Conqueror
Present Day English (PDE) Battle of Hastings (1066)
Celts (Native Britons) Norman Conquest
Romans Norman French
Anglo-Saxons relative positions of English and Norman French, post-conquest
Beowulf Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
Kingdom of Wessex William Caxton, printing press
King Alfred beginnings of standardization (of language, of spelling)
= Alfred the Great, late 800s mismatch of spelling and pronunciation in English
Vikings, Danes King James Bible = King James Version
sacking of monasteries by bands Great Vowel Shift
of pagan adventurers Shakespeare
Alfred's victory Other greats of Elizabethan English:
Danelaw Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson
Watling Street European conquest and colonialization
(line of partition) 18th century--start of prescriptive movement
Height of Anglo-Saxon power and Increasing standardization:
cultural success: -privileging of London-Cambridge-Oxford variety of spoken English
900s-early 1000s - establishment of conventions for
written English syntax
2nd wave of Vikings attacks from - less and less variability in spelling
about 1014: armies under kings - more conventions for punctuation
Athelred the Unready Dictionary makers
(driven to Normandy) Samuel Johnson - first DESCRIPTIVE dictionary of English
Canute (Cnut) Noah Webster
Edward the Confessor British vs. American spellings
Review the Periods of the various major waves of loanwords
(borrowings) in English:
Loanwords
Words in English
native synonyms, synonymy borrowed homonyms, homonymy = homophones, homophony nativized words, nativization [polysemy: same sound; meanings are different loanword, borrowing but closely related. Covered in Ch. 7] place names vs. common words descriptive, descriptivism doublets, triplets prescriptive, prescriptivism Classical (or Latinate) standard, nonstandard varieties word elements etymology (word origin); difference from parsing Oxford English Dictionary
Morphology, also known as Word Formation
word structure inflection (grammatical variants of one word: plural, tense marking etc.)
word element derive, derivation (creates new word; makes a new part of
morph, morpheme speech or new function)
root zero-derivation
affix compounds, compounding
prefix endocentric, exocentric
suffix onomotopoeia
superfix blends, blending
base, stem acronym, initialism
filler or linker morpheme clipping, clippings
hypernym backronym
hyponym reanalyis
parse, parsing folk eytmology
novel creation
relation of meaning of component morphemes to meaning of whole word
© 2011
Suzanne Kemmer
Last modified 23 Sept 11