Classifications of dictionaries.

Encyclopaedic and linguistic Dictionaries: The dictionaries, giving information of the former type, are called linguistic or general dictionaries and those giving information of the latter type, the encyclopaedic dictionaries. But before these are described it would be useful to make a distinction between an encyclopaedia and an encyclopaedic dictionary. The encyclopaedia are more concerned with the concepts and objects of extra linguistic would, that is the things and in a narrow sense they may be called 'thing books'. Information presented in them is under few general topics. Their aim is to present information, as noted earlier, on all aspects of human knowledge. The items presented are more of denotational character including names of plants, animals, diseases. They also give historical events, geographical features, biographical sketches of important personalities. Many items found in linguistic or general dictionaries do not find place in them. Such items are function words, verbal forms, and variety of other words e.g. Eng. he, she, Hindi jaanaa, 'go' agar 'if' Eng. father, mother etc. The information provided is more detailed and relates to the history and the description of the item.

The encyclopaedic dictionary is a combination of an encyclopaedia and a linguistic dictionary. It also includes items that are generally characteristic of an encyclopaedia in addition to the items of a linguistic dictionary. In the amount of the information and the manner of its presentation, again, it combines the features of both. As a matter of fact, there can be no division like a linguistic dictionary and non-linguistic dictionary equating the latter with encyclopaedic dictionary. As already stated any dictionary combines the features of both. The bigger dictionaries like The Century Dictionary, The Oxford English Dictionary, Malayalam Lexicon, Tamil Lexicon, Hindi Sabda Sagar etc., are encyclopaedic but all of them are linguistic dictionaries.

Historical and Etymological Dictionaries: The main function of both the historical dictionary and the etymological dictionary is to present the history of a lexical item. The difference lies in their approach. The historical dictionary records the development of a lexical item in terms of both the form and the meaning of the particular lexical unit, whereas the etymological dictionary presents the origin of words by tracing the present day words to their oldest forms.

Special Dictionaries:

(a) Spelling or orthographical dictionaries,
(b) Pronouncing dictionaries,
(c) Word formation dictionaries (including dictionaries of roots, verbs etc.),
(d) Dictionaries of homonyms,
(e) Dictionaries of paronyms,
(f) Grammatical dictionaries,

General Dictionaries:

(a) Academic or normative dictionary,
(b) Referential or overall descriptive dictionary.

3.Explain the Modern English pronunciation of the words from the historical point of:time

The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English is in the value of the long vowels. Long vowels in Middle English had "continental" values much like those in Italian and Standard German, but in standard Modern English they have entirely different pronunciations. This change in pronunciation is known as the Great Vowel Shift

Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. These vowels occurred in the words time, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and out.

These words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English. Long i in bite was pronounced as /iː/, so that Middle English bite sounded like Modern English beet /biːt/; long e in meet was pronounced as /eː/, so Middle English meet sounded similar to Modern English mate /meɪt/;

Late Middle English- ti:m, teim, modern engl- taim.

Билет № 13

1. The Anglo-Saxon conquest and its historical and linguistic importance.

Germanic tribes from northwestern Europe began to raid Roman-occupied Britain in the third century, carrying away grain, cattle, and other valuables. Not long after Roman troops were withdrawn from Britain, 407–10, bands from three distinct but closely related tribes—the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—sailed across the North Sea in search of land for settlement.

According to tradition, the first important settlement was made about 449 by the Jutes on Britain's eastern coast. For nearly two centuries, a steady stream of Teutonic invaders followed. They penetrated the island by way of its inland rivers, ravaging as they advanced. Roman civilization was destroyed; its language, religion, and customs disappeared. Most of the native Britons, a Celtic people, were killed, enslaved, or driven into Wales and to Brittany (in France).

About 613 the Anglo-Saxon conquest of central Britain was completed. Anglo-Saxon England was divided into a number of small kingdoms. The Jutes occupied the region called Kent, between the Thames River and the Strait of Dover. The Saxons settled to the south and west of London. Their major kingdoms were Sussex, Essex, and Wessex. The Angles, who gave their name to the country, inhabited the eastern coast from the territory of the Saxons northward into the Scottish lowlands.