2.2 Old English外国文学名著导读.pdf

Chapter Two 2.2 Old English Old English OLD ENGLISH (Anglo-Saxon): 5th – 11th centuries: OE sounds OE grammar OE vocabulary OE literature Coming of Christianity: 6th century- (Latin) Viking invasions: 9th century (Norse) Old English Sounds There is a correspondence between spelling and pronunciation in Old English. E.g., In the following three Old English words, stan, mann, dagas, the letter “a” has almost the same pronunciation, that is /a/. In Modern English, the letter “a” is often pronounced differently in different environments. Lexico-Grammar Old English is a synthetic language with rich inflections. E.g., Nouns in Modern English have mainly two forms: singular and plural Nouns in Old English: four cases Nominative case(the subject) Accusative case(the object) Genitive case (in possessive) Dative case(indirect object) Gender “Stan”in Old English Old English Grammar Old English has a flexible word order. “Se cyning meteth thone biscop”. The king meets the bishop. “Thone biscop meteth se cyning”. The bishop meets the king. Old English Grammar E.g. The extract is from OE translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History ( 教会史). It tells the story of Caedmon, the cowherd who became England’s first Christian poet, sometime in the late 7th century. Word order was varied. OE was inflected. Verbs were often placed before the subject, and also at the very end of the clause. Old English Vocabulary The effect of Latin: loan words abbot, accent, alb, alms, anchor, angel, antichrist, ark, cancer, candle, canon, canticle, cap, cedar, celandine, cell, chalice, chest, cloister, cuc