Syllabus
zimní semestr
Weeks 1-7: Old English (seen against the background of the Germanic)
Weeks 8-13: Middle English letní semestr week1: Early Modern English: an introduction
Week 2: The Story of English (Old, Middle and Early Modern English on video)
Week 3: Early Modern English: language in the community
Week 4: Early Modern English: borrowing and word-formation
Week 5: Early Modern English: morphology
Week 6: Early Modern English: syntactic structures
Week 7: Early Modern English: changes in pronunciation
Week 8: Sound change
Week 9: Morphological change
Week 10: Syntactic change
Week 11: Lexical and semantic change
Week 12: Language contact and linguistic change
Week 13: Explaining change in language
Annotation
OBJECTIVES
The course seeks to present the English language both as a dynamic organism with a structural history of its own and a mirror reflecting much of the past of its speakers. Individual topics trace the origin and development of forms and functions which eventually gave rise to Modern English.
PROCEDURE
The lecture will be combined with a seminar based on directed readings of selected texts. Lecture topics include: Aims and Methods of Historical Linguistics, Change in Language; The Germanic; Old English; Old English and Anglo-Saxon England; Norsemen and Normans; Middle English; Early Modern English.
MATERIAL
Topic-related worksheets
Barber, Ch., The Story of Language, 1964
Barber, Ch., The English Language: A Historical Introduction, 1993
Baugh, A.C., Cable T., A History of the English Language, 1992
Berndt, R., A History of the English Language, 1984
Vachek, J., Historical Development of English, 1970
ASSESSMENT
Written and oral examination; knowledge of the topics and problems discussed is geared to the requirements of the B.A.-Level Exam (postupová zkouška).