1. Linguistic science uses several classification systems. One system groups languages based on similarities in their grammatical structure (for example, analytic or synthetic). Another, crucial for historical study, groups languages based on their descent from a common ancestral language, forming families like Indo-European and groups like Germanic. Which system of language classification is primarily used for studying the history and evolution of languages?
2. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 was a pivotal historical event. For several centuries afterwards, the country had a complex linguistic situation with three languages functioning in parallel, each serving different societal functions. Which language was used by the ruling elite, government, and law courts in England for centuries after the Norman Conquest?
3. The vocabulary of the Old English period was constantly renewed and enriched. One of the two main channels for this expansion was internal word-formation, which demonstrated the independent development of the language. This highly productive method involved creating new words by combining two existing stems to form capacious and semantically complex concepts, such as boc-cræft («book-craft» ˃ «grammar») or mann-cynn («mankind»). Which internal word-formation method of Old English is described above?
4. Linguistic contacts with other peoples served as the second significant source for the expansion of the Old English vocabulary. Despite close interaction with the indigenous population of Britain, the number of borrowings from this particular language is surprisingly small and consists mainly of toponyms (for example, London, Thames) and words related to geography. Which language is the source of these early, limited borrowings into Old English?
5. The phonetic system of the Old English (OE) language underwent significant and systematic changes. One of the most important early processes was the First Germanic Consonant Shift. This law describes a set of regular changes where Indo-European voiceless stops shifted into Germanic voiceless fricatives. For example, Indo-European *p* became *f* (Latin pēs → OE fōt), *t* became þ [θ] (Latin trēs → OE þrīe), and *k* became *h* (Latin cor → OE heorte). What is the common name for this phonetic law?
6. A key phonetic process of the Old English period was i-mutation (i-umlaut). This change involved the fronting and raising of a root vowel under the influence of an *i* or *j* sound in the following syllable, which later was lost or changed. This process explains many modern English irregular forms, such as the plural men from the singular man. What was the primary cause of i-mutation in Old English?
7. The history of the English language is marked by a major typological shift in how grammatical relationships are expressed. In its earliest stage, Old English, the language had a complex system of inflections (case endings on nouns, adjectives, and pronouns) which explicitly marked a word’s function in a sentence (for example, subject, object). This allowed for a relatively free word order. In its modern form, the language relies on a fixed word order (Subject-Verb-Object) and prepositions to convey these same relationships. What is the term for this major transition in the history of English grammar?
8. The grammatical structure of Old English was fundamentally different from today. One of its key features was a rich system of inflections. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined for case, number, and gender. This intricate morphological system meant that the grammatical function of a word was clear from its form, not its position. Which of the following is a defining characteristic of a synthetic language like Old English?
9. … classification is a system that groups languages based on their origin from a common ancestral language, tracing their historical development like a family tree
10. The English language is a member of the … branch of the Indo-European language family
11. It is not true that … is a group within the Germanic branch of languages
12. … is a modern representative of the North Germanic group
13. The systematic sound changes that helped define the Germanic languages, such as p → f (for example, Latin pater → English father), are described by … Law
14. The traditional starting point for the history of the English language is associated with the …
15. The Old English period is traditionally considered to end around the …
16. Speaking about Old English, it can be said that it was…
17. The year 1066 (the Norman Conquest) is considered more of an ethnic boundary than an immediate linguistic one because …
18. It is … that became politically dominant in England during the later Old English period, leading its dialect to become the most prominent
19. The term … began to be used for all inhabitants of Britain of Anglo-Saxon origin and their language
20. … is the most significant figure of the Anglo-Saxon period, known for promoting education and the preservation of Old English texts
21. … is the most valuable original written record from the Old English period
22. The … was the most significant external factor that triggered the major typological shift in English from synthetic to analytic
23. The Middle English period is characterized as a time of …
24. … became the language of the ruling class, government, and law in England after the Norman Conquest
25. The … was the major technological innovation in the late 15th century that greatly accelerated the standardization of English spelling and grammar
26. The first major English dictionary to aim for comprehensive coverage and have a significant lasting impact was compiled by …
27. By the end of the … th century, the English language had a fully formed standard, enshrined in grammars and dictionaries (write down only the number)
28. Establish a correspondence between the historical event/process and the primary language it is associated with in the context of English history:
29. Establish a correspondence between the period of English and its characteristic written or cultural milestone:
30. Place the following languages in the correct historical sequence of their dominance or significant influence on the territory of England (from earliest to latest):
31. Place the following key figures in the history of the English language in the correct chronological order of their activities (from earliest to latest):
32. … is described as a «mirror of culture» that reflects the material and spiritual existence of a society
33. The main internal method of lexical enrichment in Old English was …
34. Establish a correspondence between the types of Old English vocabulary and their examples:
35. … are words that descend from the same etymon but entered the language by different routes and acquired different meanings (for example, shirt (Old English) and skirt (Scandinavian))
36. … had the most significant impact on the Middle English vocabulary after the Norman Conquest of 1066
37. The core of the Middle English vocabulary, consisting of words for fundamental concepts, was inherited from …
38. A key consequence of the Scandinavian influence on Middle English was the borrowing of …
39. The method of word formation that emerged in Middle English due to the reduction of vowels and loss of inflections, creating new words without affixes (for example, to comb from comb), is called …
40. In the Middle English period, the names of the live animals (for example, swine, cow, sheep) were of English origin, while the terms for their meat (for example, pork, beef, mutton) were borrowed from …
41. The Modern English period (16th century onwards) saw a massive influx of borrowings from Classical Latin and Greek, primarily due to …
42. A highly productive method of word formation in Modern English where a word changes its part of speech without changing its form (for example, a call -˃ to call) is called …
43. The process of forming new words by shortening existing ones (for example, lab from laboratory) is known as …
44. … is the etymological stratum from which the majority of the most frequent words in Modern English (for example, function words, basic verbs, body parts) come
45. The formation of words from initial letters, such as NASA or scuba, is called …
46. The … language is primarily associated with the development of shipbuilding and navigation vocabulary (for example, yacht, skipper, dock)
47. The phenomenon where an English noun has a semantically corresponding adjective of Romance origin (for example, town — urban, son — filial) is called …
48. A defining feature of Modern English vocabulary is its …
49. The method of word formation that combines two or more stems to create a new word (for example, laptop, smartphone) is …
50. Despite making up a smaller percentage of the total vocabulary, the … words form the core of the language due to their high frequency of use
51. Establish a correspondence between the etymological origin of Modern English words and a typical example:
52. Place the following major sources of loanwords in the history of English vocabulary in the approximate chronological order of their peak influence (from earliest to latest):
53. Place the following methods of word formation in English in the order reflecting their typical historical «layering» or peak of productivity from a structural perspective (from most foundational/early to most innovative/recent):
54. i-Mutation was a key phonetic change in … English where a root vowel was altered under the influence of a following [i] or [j] sound
55. … is the set of sounds that appeared in English as a direct result of the palatalization process described in the Old English period
56. … describes the systematic change of Indo-European stops into Germanic fricatives and is a key distinguishing feature of Germanic languages
57. Verner’s Law explains exceptions to Grimm’s Law and is connected to the role of the …
58. The Great Vowel Shift, occurring from the 15th to the 17th century, primarily affected …
59. A major consequence of the Great Vowel Shift was …
60. In the Middle English period, vowels in unstressed positions were commonly reduced to …
61. The sound [x] (as in German «Bach») was present in Old English but was eventually lost. In some positions, it changed to …
62. The Modern English phonemes /v/, /ð/, and /z/ became independent phonemes (not just allophones) mainly due to …
63. … are the two sound complexes recognized as monophonemic affricates in the Russian phonological tradition
64. … were the runic letters used in Old English orthography to represent dental fricatives
65. The process where [s] ˃ [z] ˃ [r] (for example, Old English cēosan — curon), a specific case of Verner’s Law, is known as …
66. … is the consonant cluster before which short vowels [i] and [u] were often lengthened in Old English
67. … was a characteristic feature of the Old English vowel system that was lost over time
68. The Modern English sound [æ] (as in cat) was lost and then returned to the language from …
69. … were the consonant clusters simplified in the history of English, which led to silent letters in words like know [nəʊ] and climb [klaɪm]
70. The development of new long vowels [ɑː], [ɔː], and [ɜː] in Early Modern English was influenced by all except …
71. Old English diphthongs, such as ea and eo, underwent a process of … in the 9th-12th centuries, becoming monophthongs
72. The sound [y] (similar to German «ü») in Old English eventually …
73. The invention of the printing press by William Caxton in 1476 played a crucial role in …
74. Establish a correspondence between the phonetic process and its primary consequence for the Modern English language:
75. Establish a correspondence between an Old English sound/feature and its typical Modern English reflex or fate:
76. Place the following key phonetic changes in the history of English in the correct chronological order of their main active phase (from earliest to latest):
77. Place the following stages in the development of a single word’s pronunciation, reflecting major historical changes (from its Old English form to Modern English):
78. … is the smallest meaningful and indivisible unit of linguistic analysis
79. … is the type of language Old English is classified as based on its grammatical structure
80. It is not true that … was a case in the Old English noun system
81. … was the primary phonological change that acted as a catalyst for the erosion of Old English inflections
82. Establish a correspondence between the linguistic period and its primary syntactic characteristic:
83. … is the verb class that formed its past tense through internal vowel change (ablaut)
84. … is the grammatical feature that adjectives lost almost completely during the Middle English period
85. The predominant plural marker that emerged in Middle English was …
86. … helped compensate for the loss of the case system in Middle English
87. … is the primary grammatical function of word order in Modern English
88. … is the Old English case from which the Modern English possessive case (‘s) is a remnant
89. … English is the period during which the definite (the) and indefinite (a/an) articles underwent grammaticalization
90. … is the characteristic feature of Modern English verbs that developed extensively during the New English period
91. The shift from synthetic to analytic structure in English was caused by …
92. … is the pronoun form that was completely displaced by «you» during the New English period
93. … is the term for the process where grammatical information is expressed by separate words rather than inflections
94. … is a distinctive analytic feature that proliferated in Modern English
95. The third person singular present tense ending that became standard in Modern English is …
96. The transition from synthetic to … structure demonstrates language’s capacity for functional adaptation and compensatory development
97. Establish a correspondence between the grammatical feature and the strategy Modern English uses to express it, compared to Old English:
98. Place the following stages in the typological evolution of English syntax in the correct historical sequence (from earliest to latest dominant pattern):
99. Place the following specific morphological simplifications in the order they are described as becoming widespread in the history of English (from earliest onset to latest completion):
100. Old English is classified as a … language, where grammatical relationships were expressed primarily through inflections and stem variations
101. The smallest meaningful and indivisible unit of language, representing a pairing of a specific meaning with a sound form, is called a …
102. In Old English, verbs were divided into two major classes: … verbs, which formed their past tense through internal vowel change (ablaut), and weak verbs, which used a dental suffix
103. The most significant typological transformation in the history of English was the shift from a … structure to an analytic one
104. Establish a correspondence between the grammatical feature and the historical period of English in which it was most prominent:
105. The phonological process of … , where final unstressed vowels were reduced to a schwa [ə] and then lost, was a primary catalyst for the morphological simplification in Middle English
106. In the transition to analytic syntax, the decay of the genitive case was compensated by the increased use of the preposition … , while the decay of the dative was compensated by prepositions like to and for
107. Establish a correspondence between the linguistic concept and its description:
108. A key feature of the Modern English verb system is the expansion of … constructions, such as have + past participle (for perfect tenses) and be + present participle (for progressive aspect)
109. The … of the 18th century (for example, Lowth, Murray) played a significant role in codifying and standardizing English grammatical rules, often based on Latin models
110. Place the following grammatical developments in the history of English in the correct chronological order of their main establishment or widespread adoption (from earliest to latest):
111. The transition from the synthetic system of Old English to the analytic system of Modern English was caused by several key factors. One primary cause was a phonological change: the gradual erosion and loss of unstressed vowels at the ends of words. This process neutralized the distinctions between different case endings, making the inflectional system ambiguous and unreliable. What was the major phonological change that triggered the breakdown of the Old English case system?
112. The … was a systematic change of Indo-European stop consonants in the Germanic languages, where IE p, t, k shifted to Germanic f, þ [θ], h
113. … Law explains exceptions to the First Consonant Shift, stating that voiceless fricatives voiced to v, đ [ð], ȝ [ɣ] if the Indo-European stress did not precede the consonant
114. The phonetic process where a root vowel changed under the influence of a following [i] or [j] (for example, manniz ˃ menn «men») is called …
115. The large-scale phonetic change in the 15th-17th centuries that involved the narrowing of all long vowels and the diphthongization of high vowels is known as the …
116. Establish a correspondence between the Old English (OE) sound and its typical Modern English (ModEng) reflex, resulting from the Great Vowel Shift:
117. The process in Middle English where unstressed vowels [a], [o], [u], [e] were reduced to a single sound [ə] (schwa), spelled as *e*, is called vowel …
118. The phenomenon of … , a specific effect of Verner’s Law, is an alternation where s ˃ z ˃ r, seen in pairs like was/were and lose/forlorn
119. Establish a correspondence between the phonetic process and its description:
120. A key consequence of the Great Vowel Shift and other sound changes was a significant … between the phonetic and orthographic systems of English, as spelling remained largely unchanged
121. According to the Russian phonological tradition, English has two monophonemic affricates: the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate [tʃ] (as in chair) and its voiced counterpart, …
122. Place the following phonetic processes in the history of English in the correct chronological order of their main active phase (from earliest to latest):
123. The most significant transformation of the English vowel system occurred between the late 15th and the 17th centuries. This process, which fundamentally altered the pronunciation of all long vowels, involved their systematic raising and diphthongization. For instance, Middle English [iː] became [aɪ] (for example, mȳce → mice), and [uː] became [aʊ] (for example, hūs → house). A major consequence of this shift is the modern mismatch between English spelling and pronunciation. What is the name of this pivotal historical phonetic process?
124. The two main sources of vocabulary expansion in the Old English period were internal word-formation and external …
125. … was an extremely characteristic method of word formation in Old English, involving the combination of two stems to create a new concept (for example, boc-cræft – «book-craft» ˃ «grammar»)
126. Despite close interaction with the indigenous Celtic population of Britain, the number of Celtic borrowings in Old English is surprisingly small. They consist mainly of …
127. Words that exist in all or many Indo-European languages because they descend from a common ancestor (for example, OE fæder — Lat. pater) are classified as … words
128. Establish a correspondence between the etymological stratum of Old English vocabulary and its description:
129. The massive influx of Anglo-Norman and … borrowings after the Norman Conquest in 1066 introduced a vast layer of vocabulary related to government, law, military affairs, and luxury goods (for example, government, judge, army, jewel)
130. … borrowings from the Viking invasions are notable for including core vocabulary and even function words, such as the pronouns they, them, andtheir
131. Establish a correspondence between the word-formation method in Middle and Modern English and its example:
132. The … method of word formation, which became prominent in Modern English, involves creating a new word by combining parts of two existing words (for example, smog from smoke+ fog)
133. A defining feature of the Modern English lexicon is its «cosmopolitan» nature, having borrowed words from languages all over the world, such as shampoo(from Hindi), tomato (from Nahuatl), and … (from Japanese)
134. Place the following methods of word formation in the approximate historical order in which they became highly productive or emerged in the English language (from earliest to latest):
135. The Norman Conquest of 1066 resulted in centuries of Anglo-French bilingualism, which led to a massive influx of French vocabulary into Middle English. These borrowings are distinguished by a pronounced socio-thematic orientation, often filling lexical gaps in areas of power, law, and high culture. A key linguistic phenomenon that emerged from this contact was the creation of word pairs where a native English word and a French borrowing coexisted, often with the French word acquiring a more prestigious or specialized meaning. What is the term for such pairs of words that coexist in the language with different nuances, such as begin (Old English) / commence (French) or freedom (Old English) / liberty (French)?
136. The … classification groups languages based on similarities in their grammatical structure, without considering their historical origin
137. … classification is the most important for studying the history and evolution of a language, as it establishes genetic relationships among languages descended from a common ancestor
138. The vast majority of European languages, including English, belong to the … language family
139. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: East Germanic (now extinct), North Germanic, and … Germanic, which includes English, German, and Dutch.
140. Establish a correspondence between the historical period of English and its approximate timeframe:
141. The … Conquest of England in 1066, by William the Conqueror, was a major turning point in the country’s history, leading to the dominance of the French language among the ruling class for centuries
142. The most valuable written record of the Old English period is the Anglo-Saxon … , an original text (not a translation) that covers events from 60 BC to 1154 AD
143. Establish a correspondence between the Old English dialect and its corresponding Middle English name:
144. After the Norman Conquest, a complex triglossic situation developed in England, where the three languages in use were English, Latin, and …
145. A key event that accelerated the standardization of English spelling and grammar was the invention and spread of the … by William Caxton in 1476
146. Place the following key events in the history of the English language in the correct chronological sequence (from earliest to latest):
147. A key event in the New English period was the invention and spread of the printing press. This technology played a crucial role in standardizing the language by allowing for the mass production of texts in a consistent form. Who established the first printing press in England and printed the first book in English in 1476?
