A History of the English Language

preface by halliday

王宗炎序

preface by chomsky

沈家煊序

导读

preface

1 english present and future

1. the history of the english language a cultural subject. 2. influ-

ences at work on language. 3. growth and decay. 4. the impor-

tance of a language. 5. the importance of english. 6. the future

of the english language. 7. english as a world language. 8. assets

and liabilities. 9. cosmopolitan vocabulary. 10. inflectional sim-

plicity. 11. natural gender. 12. liabilities.

2 the indo-european family of languages

13. language constantly changing. 14. dialectal differentiation.

15. the discovery of sanskrit. 16. grimm's law. 17. the indo-

european family. 18. indian. 19. iranian. 20. armenian.

21. hellenic. 22. albanian. 23. italic. 24. balto-slavic. 25. ger-

manic. 26. celtic. 27. twentieth-century discoveries. 28. the

home of the indo-europeans.

.3 old english

29. the languages in england before english. 30. the romans in

britain. 31. the roman conquest. 32. romanization of the island.

33. the latin language in britain. 34. the germanic conquest.

35. anglo-saxon civilization. 36. the names "england" and

"english." 37. the origin and position of english. 38. the periods

in the history of english. 39. the dialects of old english. 40. some

characteristics of old english. 41. the noun. 42. grammatical

gender. 43. the adjective. 44. the definite article. 45. the per-

sonal pronoun. 46. the verb. 47. the language hlustrated.

48. the resourcefulness of the old english vocabulary. 49. self-

explaining compounds. 50. prefixes and suffixes. 51. old english

syntax. 52. old english literature.

4 foreign influences on old english

53. the contact of english with other languages. 54. the celtic

influence. 55. celtic place-names and other loanwords. 56. three

latin influences on old english. 57. chronological criteria.

58. continental borrowing (latin influence of the zero period). 59.

latin through celtic transmission (latin influence of the first period).

60. latin influence of the second period: the christianizing of

britain. 61. effects of christianity on english civilization.

62. the earlier influence of christianity on the vocabulary. 63. the

benedictine reform. 64. influence of the benedictine reform on

english. 65. the application of native words to new concepts.

66. the extent of the influence. 67. the scandinavian influence: the

viking age. 68. the scandinavian invasions of england. 69. the

settlement of the danes in england. 70. the amalgamation of the

two peoples. 71. the relation of the two languages. 72. the tests

of borrowed words. 73. scandinavian place-names. 74. the ear-

liest borrowing. 75. scandinavian loanwords and their character.

76. the relation of borrowed and native words. 77. form words.

78. scandinavian influence outside the standard speech. 79. effect

on grammar and syntax. 80. period and extent of the influence.

5 the norman conquest and the subjection

of english, 1066-1200

81. the norman conquest. 82. the origin of normandy. 83. the

year 1066. 84. the norman settlement. 85. the use of french by

the upper class. 86. circumstances promoting the continued use of

french. 87. the attitude toward english. 88. french literature at

the english court. 89. fusion of the two peoples. 90. the diffusion

of french and english. 91. knowledge of english among the upper

class. 92. knowledge of french among the middle class.

6 the reestablishment of english, 1200-1500

93. changing conditions after 1200. 94. the loss of normandy.

95. separation of the french and english nobility. 96. french re-

inforcements. 97. the reaction against foreigners and the growth

of national feeling. 98. french cultural ascendancy in europe.

99. english and french in the thirteenth century. 100. attempts to

arrest the decline of french. 101. provincial character of french

in england. 102. the hundred years' war. 103. the rise of the

middle class. 104. general adoption of english in the fourteenth

century. ,105. english in the law courts. 106. english in the

schools. 107. increasing ignorance of french in the fifteenth cen-

tury. 108. french as a language of culture and fashion. 109. the

use of english in writing. 110. middle english literature.

7 middle english

111. middle english a period of great change. 112. decay of in-

flectional endings. 113. the noun. 114. the adjective. 115. the

pronoun. 116. the verb. 117. losses among the strong verbs.

118. strong verbs that became weak. 119. survival of strong par-

ticiples. 120. surviving strong verbs. 121. loss of grammatical

gender. 122. middle english syntax. 123. french influence on the

vocabulary. 124. governmental and administrative words.

125. ecclesiastical words. 126. law. 127. army and navy.

128. fashion, meals, and social life. 129. art, learning, medicine.

130. breadth of the french influence. 131. anglo-norman and cen-

tral french. 132. popular and literary borrowings. 133. the pe-

riod of greatest influence. 134. assimilation. 135. loss of native

words. 136. differentiation in meaning. 137. curtailment of oe

processes of derivation. 138. prefixes. 139. suffixes. 140. self-

explaining compounds. 141. the language still english. 142. latin

borrowings in middle english. 143. aureate terms. 144. synonyms

at three levels. 145. words from the low countries. 146. dialectal

diversity of middle english. 147. the middle english dialects.

148. the rise of standard english. 149. the importance of london

english. 150. the spread of the london standard. 151. complete

uniformity still unattained.

8 the renaissance, 1500-1650

152. changing conditions in the modern period. 153. effect upon

grammar and vocabulary. 154. the problems of the vernaculars.

155. the struggle for recognition. 156. the problem of orthography.

157. the problem of enrichment. 158. the opposition to inkhorn

terms. 159. the defense of borrowing. 160. compromise.

161. permanent additions. 162. adaptation. 163. reintroductions

and new meanings. 164. rejected words. 165. reinforcement

through french. 166. words from the romance languages.

167. the method of introducing the new words. 168. enrichment

from native sources. 169. methods of interpreting the new words.

170. dictionaries of hard words. 171. nature and extent of the

movement. 172. the movement illustrated in shakespeare.

173. shakespeare's pronunciation. 174. the importance of sound-

changes. 175. from old to middle english. 176. from middle

english to modern. 177. the great vowel shift. 178. weakening of

unaccented vowels. 179. grammatical features. 180. the noun.

181. the adjective. 182. the pronoun. 183. the verb. 184. usage

and idiom. 185. general characteristics of the period.

9 the appeal to authority, 1650-1800

186. the impact of the seventeenth century. 187. the temper of the

eighteenth century. 188. its reflection in the attitude toward the

language. 189. "ascertainment." 190. the problem of "refining"

the language. 191. the desire to "fix" the language. 192. the

example of ltaly and france. 193. an english academy. 194. swift' s

proposal, 1712. 195. objection to an academy. 196. substitutes for

an academy. 197. johnson's dictionary. 198. the eighteenth-

century grammarians and rhetoricians. 199. the aims of the gram-

marians. 200. the beginnings of prescriptive grammar. 201. meth-

ods of approach. 202. the doctrine of usage. 203. results.

204. weakness of the early grammarians. 205. attempts to reform

the vocabulary. 206. objection to foreign borrowings. 207. the

expansion of the british empire. 208. some effects of expansion on

the language. 209. development of progressive verb forms.

210. the progressive passive.

10 the nineteenth century and after

211. influences affecting the language. 212. the growth of science.

213. automobile, film, broadcasting, computer. 214. the world

wars. 215. language as a mirror of progress. 216. sources of the

new words: borrowings. 217. self-explaining compounds.

218. compounds formed from greek and latin elements. 219. pre-

fixes and suffixes. 220. coinages. 221. common words from proper

names. 222. old words with new meanings. 223. the influence of

journalism. 224. changes of meaning. 225. slang. 226. cultural

levels and functional varieties. 227. the standard speech.

228. english dialects. 229. english in the empire. 230. pidgins and

creoles. 231. spelling reform. 232. the international aspect.

233. purist efforts. 234. the oxford english dictionary. 235. gram-

matical tendencies. 236. verb-adverb combinations. 237. a lib-

eral creed.

11 the english language in america

238. the settlement of america. 239. the thirteen colonies.

240. the middle west. 241. the far west. 242. uniformity of amer-

ican english. 243. archaic features in american english.

244. early changes in the vocabulary. 245. national consciousness.

246. noah webster and an american language. 247. webster' s in-

fluence on american spelling. 248. webster's influence on american

pronunciation. 249. pronunciation. 250. the arnerican dialects.

251. the controversy over americanisms. 252. the purist attitude.

253. present differentiation of vocabulary. 254. american words in

general english. 255. scientific interest in american english.

256. is american english good english?

appendix a specimens of the middle english dialects

appendix b english spelling

index

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