hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2016-06-11

■ #2602. Baugh and Cable の英語史からの設問 --- Chapters 9 to 11 [hel_education][terminology]

　「#2588. Baugh and Cable の英語史からの設問 --- Chapters 1 to 4」 ([2016-05-28-1])，「#2594. Baugh and Cable の英語史からの設問 --- Chapters 5 to 8」 ([2016-06-03-1]) に続き，最終編として9--11章の設問を提示する．

[ Chapter 9: The Appeal to Authority, 1650--1800 ]

1. Explain why the following people are important in historical discussions of the English language:
   John Dryden
   Jonathan Swift
   Samuel Johnson
   Joseph Priestley
   Robert Lowth
   Lindley Murray
   John Wilkins
   James Harris
   Thomas Sheridan
   George Campbell
2. How were the intellectual tendencies of the eighteenth century reflected in attitudes toward the English language?
3. What did eighteenth-century writers mean by ascertainment of the English language? What means did they have in mind?
4. What kinds of "corruptions" in the English language did Swift object to? Do you find them objectionable? Can you think of similar objections made by commentators today?
5. What had been accomplished in Italy and France during the seventeenth century to serve as an inspiration for those in England who were concerned with the English language?
6. Who were among the supporters of an English Academy? When did the movement reach its culmination?
7. Why did an English Academy fail to materialize? What served as substitutes for an academy in England?
8. What did Johnson hope for his Dictionary to accomplish?
9. What were the aims of the eighteenth-century prescriptive grammarians?
10. How would you characterize the difference in attitude between Robert Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) and Joseph Priestley's Rudiments of English Grammar (1761)? Which was more influential?
11. How did prescriptive grammarians such as Lowth arrive at their rules?
12. What were some of the weaknesses of the early grammarians?
13. Which foreign language contributed the most words to English during the eighteenth century?
14. In tracing the growth of progressive verb forms since the eighteenth century, what earlier patterns are especially important?
15. Give an example of the progressive passive. From what period can we date its development?

[ Chapter 10: The Nineteenth Century and After ]

1. Explain why the following people are important in historical discussions of the English Language:
   Sir James A. H. Murray
   Henry Bradley
   Sir William A. Craigie
   C. T. Onions
2. Define the following terms and for each provide examples of words or meanings that have entered the English language since 1800:
   Borrowing
   Self-explaining compound
   Compound formed from Greek or Latin elements
   Prefix
   Suffix
   Coinage
   Common word from proper name
   Old word with new meaning
   Extension of meaning
   Narrowing of meaning
   Degeneration of meaning
   Regeneration of meaning
   Slang
   Verb-adverb combination
3. What distinction has been drawn between cultural levels and functional varieties of English? Do you find the distinction valid?
4. What are the principal regional dialects of English in the British Isles? What are some of the characteristics of these dialects?
5. What are the main national and areal varieties of English that have developed in countries that were once part of the British Empire?
6. Summarize the main efforts at spelling reform in England and the United States during the past century. Do you think that movement for spelling reform will succeed in the future?
7. How long did it take to produce the Oxford English Dictionary? By what name was it originally known?
8. What changes have occurred in English grammatical forms and conventions during the past two centuries?

[ Chapter 11: The English Language in America ]

1. Explain why the following people are important in historical discussions of the English language:
   Noah Webster
   Benjamin Franklin
   James Russell Lowell
   H. L. Mencken
   Hans Kurath
   Leonard Bloomfield
   Noam Chomsky
   William Labov
2. Define, identify, or explain briefly:
   Old Northwest Territory
   An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
   The American Spelling Book
   "Flat a"
   African American Vernacular English
   Pidgin
   Creole
   Gullah
   Americanism
   Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada
   Phoneme
   Allophone
   Generative grammar
3. What three great periods of European immigration can be distinguished in the peopling of the United States?
4. What groups settled the Middle Atlantic States? How do the origins of these settlers contrast with the origins of the settlers in New England and the South Atlantic states?
5. What accounts for the high degree of uniformity of American English?
6. Is American English more or less conservative than British English? In trying to answer the question, what geographical divisions must one recognize in both the United States and Britain? Does the answer that applies to pronunciation apply also to vocabulary?
7. What considerations moved Noah Webster to advocate distinctly American form of English?
8. In what features of American pronunciation is it possible to find Webster's influence?
9. What are the most noticeable differences in pronunciation between British and American English?
10. What three main dialects in American English have been distinguished by dialectologists associated with the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada? What three dialects had traditionally been distinguished?
11. According to Baugh and Cable, what eight American dialects are prominent enough to warrant individual characterization?
12. What is the Creole hypothesis regarding African American Vernacular English?
13. To what may one attribute certain similarities between the speech of New England and that of the South?
14. To what may one attribute the preservation of r in American English?
15. To what extent are attitudes which were expressed in the nineteenth-century "controversy over Americanisms" still alive today? How pervasive now is the "purist attitude"?
16. What are the main historical dictionaries of American English?

　・ Cable, Thomas. A Companion to History of the English Language. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2002.

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