Morphology
How many numbers (ex. singular) did Old English pronouns contain?
3. Singular, Plural, Dual
What was the Old English writing system based on?
On the modified Latin Alphabet brought by Irish Monks to England
Describe 2 historic events: one which started the OE period and the second which ended it. You can add dates to make the answer more comprehensive.
Anglo-Saxon migration in 450 and Norman Invasion in 1066
Identify the word order in the following sentence:
cwalu com to þam fægum mannum
Eng: death came to the doomed men
SVO: Subject - cwalu, Verb - com to, Object - þam fægum mannum
What is the suffix added to Old English verbs when they are used with: we, you (plural), they?
-aþ
Translate these Old English words into Modern English: hūs, ealu, dǣl, syfan, fyllan, macien, gāt, geˈlȳfe, geþeode.
House, all, deal, seven, fill, make, goat, belief, language.
There are Angles, Saxons and Jutes and other varieties of Germanic tribes. Did they consider themselves as divided people or united? Prove your point.
They considered themselves as united. Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum by Bede in which the gens anglorum (Церковная история народа англов) of the title comprises all Germanic inhabitants of Britain and not only the Angles.
Why did the word order in Old English shift from relatively free to fixed in Modern English?
Shift occurred due to Case Syncretism, according to which the case system of OE weakened over time.
What is stress shift? Give examples
The non-occurrence of primary stress on suffixes. Examples: cyrice(OE) - church
What symbols and sounds from Old English no longer exist in Modern English?
Sounds: /y/ as in ‘fyllan’, /x/ as in ‘eahta’, /r/ (trill) as in ‘driven’
Symbols: /æ/ as in ‘hwæt’, /ī, ā, ē,.../ macrons indicating vowel length, /þ/ and /ð/
Why are the linguistic consequences of the Viking rule in England difficult to measure?
England was divided into Danish(north) and English political sphere(south), in the south, where king Alfred led a stable situation and started an educational reform, initiating translation of Latin books into OE. In the north, Viking influence was stronger and because OE texts were mainly in the south, there is less contact evidence: 150 words of Scandinavian origin.
Identify words in accusative case in the following sentence:
ure wigan hydaþ hira torn, ac hie hine habbað
Eng: our warriors hide their grief, but they have it
hira torn (their grief), hine (it)