tailieunhanh - Introdungcing English language part 9

Introdungcing English language part 9: 'In this exciting new textbook, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell have provided a fresh and imaginative set of alternatives for teaching and learning a huge amount about the English language. The book allows tor creative and lateral approaches to developing an understanding of important linguistic concepts and, together with the thought-provoking activities, and accessible readings, guarantees there is something to stimulate every learner. | A8 34 INTRODUCTION KEY BASIC CONCEPTS I ic accusative pronoun me mê genitive pronouns mine mĩn and our ũre . The possessive apostrophe in modern English Peter s book preserves the genitive singular endings -es for masculine and neuter nouns see Table above with the apostrophe indicating that the e has been omitted. Given this complicated history it is no wonder the possessive apostrophe is so often wrongly used in modern English. The case system was generally lost in favour of a more fixed word-order for several reasons. The gradual influence first of Norman French and in the later medieval period Orléans French brought a ruling class speaking a non-case language. A huge number of French words were borrowed by English in this period largely but not exclusively in the domains of law and administration cuisine and fashion education and manners architecture and medicine. Many of these words would have seemed odd with inflectional endings. Furthermore Danish influence in the form of Viking invasions and settlement in the east of England before the Norman Conquest and the speakers of the diverse Old English dialects produced a contact situation in which many of the root words were very similar but the inflectional endings were variable it was natural that these different endings tended to be assimilated towards a single form. Given these other factors the typical Germanic stress on first syllables also meant that inflectional endings came to be assimilated towards an undifferentiated mid-vowel ZaZ. At the same time many inflectional forms were altering. The northern -s suffix for third person verbs began to spread to the south displacing the original -e2 now spelled -eth . Caxton did not in fact have a 2 block on his Dutch-imported printing press and used Y instead giving rise to the Ye Olde Englishe characterisation Ye was never pronounced ZjiZ but always ZSaZ . The King James Bible form My cup runneth over was already archaic by 1611. Standard plural -s was being