A history of the english language

The Ancrene Riwle, the Ormulum, a series of paraphrases and interpretations of Gospel passages, and a group of saint's lives and short homiletic pieces showing the survival of an Old English literary tradition in the south-west are the principal works of this class. The two outstanding exceptions are Lagamon's Brut based largely on Wace, and the astonishing debate between The Owl and the Nightingale, a long poem in which two birds exchange recriminations in the liveliest fashion.

There was certainly a body of popular literature that circulated orally among the people, just as at a later date in the English and Scottish popular ballads did, but such literature has left slight traces in this period. The hundred years from 1150 to 1250 have been justly called the Period of religious Record [28].

The separation of the English nobility from France by about 1250 and the spread of English among the upper class are manifested in the next hundred years of English literature. Types of polite literature that had hitherto appeared in French now appear in English. Of these types most popular was the romance. Only one English romance exists from an earlier date than 1250, but from this time translations and adaptations from French begin to be made, and in the course of the 14th century their number become quite large. The period of 1250 - 1350 is a period of Religious and secular literature of the English language. The general adoption of English by all classes, which had taken place by the latter half of the 14th century, gave rise to a body of literature that represents the high point in English literary achievement in the Middle Ages.

The 15th century is sometimes known as the Imitative Period because so much of the poetry then written was written in emulation of Chaucer. It is also spoken of as a Transition Period, because it covers a large part of the interval between the age of Chaucer and the age of Shakespeare. That period has been unjustly neglected. Stephen Hawes is not negligible, though admittedly overshadowed by some of his great predecessors, and at the end of the century there appeared the prose of Thomas Malory and William Caxton. In the north the Scottish Chaucerians, particularly Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gawin Douglas and David Lindsay, produced significant work. These authors carry on the tradition of English as a literary medium into the Renaissance. Thus, Middle English literature follows and throws interesting light on the fortunes of the English language [20; 24; 28; 54].

The runic writing system is a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark.

The literature of the Old English period was presented by two main tenors epic and religious. Among the most important works of this period was the poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle otherwise proves significant to the study of the era, preserving a chronology of early English history, while the poem Cжdmon's Hymn from the 7th century survives as the oldest extant work of literature in English.

The effects of the Norman Conquest added new features to the regional and social differentiation of the language. New words, coming from French, could not be adopted simultaneously by all the speakers of English; they were first used in some varieties of the language.

The dialectal position of Middle English is basically a continuation of that of Old English. The most important extra linguistic fact for the development of the Middle English dialects is that the capital of the country was moved from Winchester (in the Old English period) to London by William the Conqueror in his attempt to diminish the political influence of native English.

Geoffrey Chaucer's literary standing had greatly added to the prestige associated with written language in the London dialect.

The introduction of the printing by William Caxton was one of the most significant factors of the Standard English diffusion. This resulted in the spread of a single norm over most of the country, so much that during the 15th century it becomes increasingly difficult to determine on internal linguistic grounds the dialects in which a literal work is written.

CHAPTER 2. CHANGING CONDITIONS IN THE PERIOD OF STANDARDISATION OF THE LANGUAGE

2.1 The origins of Standard English

The variety which we now call Standard English is a result of combination of influences, the most important of which do not emerge until the Middle English period. There is no connection between West Saxon, the written standard of old English, and the modern Standard.

The political heart of the country moved from Winchester to London after the Conquest, and majority of the linguistic trends increasingly relate to the development of the capital as a social, political and commercial centre. A written standard language began to emerge during the 15th century and, following the detailed study of the dialectal characteristics of the period it is now possible to isolate several factors which contributed to its identity.

A literally standardized language appeared in the last part of the 14th century, based on dialects of the Central Midland countries, especially Northunptonshire, Hutingtonshire, and Bedfordshire. This is chiefly found in the large number of John Wycliffe's manuscripts which have survived including sermons, tracts, plays, poems, and the different versions of the Wycliffe Bible, as well as several secular works. The Lollards spread this variety widely, even into South-West England, thus increasing its status as standard. In the long term it was unable to compete with quantity of material emanating from the capital; but its central Midland origins are nonetheless noteworthy (for the map of Middle English counties, see Appendix 1, p. 67) [27; 28; 53].

2.1.1 The Rise of Standard English

Out of the variety of local dialects there emerged toward the end of the 14th century a written language that in the course of the 15th century won general recognition and has since become the recognized standard in both speech and writing. The part of England that contributed most to the formation of this standard was the

East Midland district, and it was the East Midland type of English that became its basis, particularly the dialect of the metropolis, London. Several causes contributed to the attainment of this result.

In the first place, as a Midland dialect the English of this region occupied a middle position between the extreme divergences of the north and south. It was less conservative than the Southern dialect, less radical than the Northern. In its sounds and inflections it represents a kind of compromise, sharing some of the characteristics of both its neighbors [20].

In the second place, the East Midland district was the largest and most populous of the major dialect areas. The land was more valuable than the hilly country to the north and west, and in an agricultural age this advantage was reflected in both the number and the prosperity of the inhabitants. If we leave Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk out of account we are to all appearances leaving out of account not much less than a quarter of the whole nation. No doubt all inferences drawn from medieval statistics are exceedingly precarious; but, unless a good many figures have conspired to deceive us, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk were at the time of the Conquest and for three centuries afterwards vastly richer and more populous than any tract of equal area in the West. Only the southern counties possessed natural advantages at all comparable, and they were much smaller. The prominence of Middlesex, Oxford, Norfolk, and the East Midlands generally in political affairs all through the later Middle Ages is but another evidence of the importance of the district and of the extent to which its influence was likely to be felt [20; 27; 53].

A third factor, more difficult to evaluate, was the presence of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, in this region. In the 14th century the monasteries were playing a less important role in the dissemination of learning than they had once played, while the two universities had developed into important intellectual centers. So far as Cambridge is concerned any influence that it had would be exerted in support of the East Midland dialect. That of Oxford is less certain because Oxfordshire is on the border between Midland and Southern and its dialect shows certain characteristic Southern features. Moreover, we can no longer attribute to Wycliffe an important part in the establishment of a written standard. Though he spent much of his life at Oxford, he seems not to have conformed fully to the Oxford dialect. Supposedly, the dialect of Oxford had no apparent influence on the form of London English, which was ultimately adopted as standard. Such support as the East Midland type of English received from the universities must have been largely confined to that furnished by Cambridge.

Much the same uncertainty attaches to the influence of Chaucer. It was once thought that Chaucer's importance was paramount among the influences bringing about the adoption of a written standard. And, indeed, it is unbelievable that the language of the greatest English poet before Shakespeare was not spread by the popularity of his works and, through the use of that language, by subsequent poets who looked upon him as their master and model. But it is nevertheless unlikely that the English used in official records and in letters and papers by men of affairs was greatly influenced by the language of his poetry. Yet it is the language found in such documents rather than the language of Chaucer that is at the basis of Standard English. Chaucer's dialect is not in all respects the same as the language of these documents, presumably identical with the ordinary speech of the city. It is slightly more conservative and shows a greater number of Southern characteristics. Chaucer was a court poet, and his usage may reflect the speech of the court and to a certain extent literary tradition. His influence must be thought of as lending support in a general way to the dialect of the region to which he belonged rather than as determining.

A later and much larger group of diverse manuscripts include the work of Chaucer and Langland. These texts in their different ways represent London English of around 1400, but the amount of variation of their displays suggests that they cannot be called standard, in any strict sense. Not even Chaucer's writing traditionally thought to be a precursor of modern Standard English, exercised a specific influence on the form this standard took - nor it is likely that poetic usage would ever influence general usage in any real way. It can be hardly doubted though that Chaucer's literary standing would have greatly added to the prestige associated with written language in the London dialect.

The final factor in the emergence of the southern literary standard was the development of printing. This resulted in the spread of a single norm over most of the country, so much that during the 15th century it becomes increasingly difficult to determine on internal linguistic grounds the dialects, in which a literal work is written- apart from the northern dialects, such as Scots, which retained their written identity longer [20; 27; 28; 53].

2.1.2 The importance of London English

By far the most influential factor in the rise of Standard English was the importance of London as the capital of England. Indeed, it is altogether likely that the language of the city would have become the prevailing dialect without the help of any of the factors previously discussed. In doing so it would have been following the course of other national tongues - French as the dialect of Paris, Spanish as that of Castile, and others. London was, and still is, the political and commercial center of England. It was the seat of the court, of the highest judicial tribunals, the focus of the social and intellectual activities of the country. In the practicalities of commerce the London economy was especially important as an engine of communication and exchange which enabled ideas and information to be distributed and business to be done across an increasingly extensive, complex and varied field. Patterns of migration at this time cannot be fully reconstructed, but clearly London drew in a constant stream those whose affairs took them beyond the limits of their provincial homes. They brought to it traits of their local speech, there to mingle with the London idiom and to survive or die as the silent forces of amalgamation and standardization determined. They took back with them the forms and usages of the great city by which their own speech had been modified. The influence was reciprocal. London English took as well as gave. It began as a Southern and ended as a Midland dialect. By the 15th century there had come to prevail in the East Midlands a fairly uniform dialect, and the language of London agrees in all important respects with it. It is undoubtedly that the importance of the eastern counties, pointed out above, is largely responsible for this change. Even such Northern characteristics as are found in the standard speech seem to have entered by way of these counties. The history of Standard English is almost a history of London English.

In the latter part of the 15th century the London standard had been accepted, at least in writing, in most parts of the country. Its prestige may possibly be reflected in the fact that Mak the sheep-stealer in the Towneley Plays attempts to impose upon the Yorkshire shepherds by masquerading as a person of some importance and affects a “Southern tooth.” Considerable diversity still existed in the spoken dialects, as will be apparent from what is said in the next paragraph. But in literary works after 1450 it becomes almost impossible, except in distinctly northern texts, to determine with any precision the region in which a given work was written. And in correspondence and local records there is a widespread tendency to conform in matters of language to the London standard. This influence emanating from London can be seen in the variety of English used in documents of the national bureaucracy as written by the clerks of Chancery. By the middle of the century a fairly consistent variety of written English in both spelling and grammar had developed, and as the language of official use it was likely to have influence in similar situations elsewhere. With the introduction of printing in 1476 a new influence of great importance in the dissemination of London English came into play. From the beginning London has been the center of book publishing in England.

2.1.3 The importance of Chancery Line

The most important area for the development of writing standards is that of London and its immediate environs. The London dialect is portrayed in broad terms as one which turned from being an essentially Southern dialect to one which became an East Midland one. However, it is possible to be much more specific about various standards within the London area itself. These may be associated with different types of work so that in the Chancery scribes developed their own standard which was by no means constant since it changed with time, whereas other standards developed in association with particular scribes who wrote literary and other works. The copying of manuscripts often produced mixed dialects or Mischsprachen as one scribe superimposed his own conventions on those of the manuscript he was copying, but this is something which is more particularly associated with literary and didactic texts since these are the texts which are copied most frequently. They are also the texts read most frequently today. It might be said that each local standard draws its conventions from a pool which consists of traditional, national and local features, with the local and traditional features being more important at first and the national gaining in importance as the 15th century progresses. In London itself it is perhaps surprising that so much standardization is found, for although one might expect such standardization in religious houses with their traditions, London is characterized by secular copying. As far as it is probable to tell, secular scribes worked individually on a piece-work basis, though they might occasionally have teamed up to form a loose co-operative. However, many individual scribes may, like Hoccleve, have worked for a major organization such as the Chancery during the day and done private copying at other times. Hence even in secular private copying the process of standardization would gradually manifest itself.

The Chancery hand developed in Italian chancelleries in the 13th century and spread to France in the early 14th century. Later in that century it spread to London, and the standardization of the handwriting went hand in hand with the standardization of the spelling.

The Chancery clerks fairly consistently preferred the spellings which have since become standard. The documents in this anthology show the clerks trying to eliminate the kind of orthographic eccentricity found in the Privy Seal minutes, the petitions passed on to them for entering in the rolls, and most of the documents printed by Chambers and Daunt. At the very least, we can say that they were trying to limit choices among spellings and that by the 1440's and 1450's they had achieved a comparative regularization.

Among examples of this regularization process they note that such is the preferred Chancery form which had ousted sich, sych, seche and swiche. Which replaced wich. The auxiliary verbs appear more regularly in their modern forms: can, could, shall, should and would. Furthermore it is difficult to detect spellings used by the Chancery scribes that can be described as phonetic. In other words a standardized spelling was developing which was divorced from the immediate phonetic environment so that sound and spelling were becoming two separate, if parallel, systems (for more details see Appendix 2, p. 68) [24; 27; 28].

2.2 The Middle English Spelling and Sounds

What is immediately noticeable is the extraordinary diversity of Middle English spelling - far greater than that found in Old English.

This situation results from a combination of historical, linguistic, and social factors. The sociolinguistic impact of the French invasion, the continuation of the processes of sound change which began in Anglo- Saxon times, and the considerable growth and movement in population during the medieval period, especially in the south-east of the country, all helped to influence the shape of the writing system. The change is quite dramatic. There is a marked contrast between the diverse and idiosyncratic forms used at the beginning of the period and the highly regularized system of spelling which begins to appear in the 15th century, in the work of the Chancery scribes and William Caxton [28].

2.2.1 Changes in Spelling due to the introduction of French scribal tradition

The striking change in the written language of England during the 12th century was, to a considerable extent, a matter of mere spelling. After the Norman Conquest children ceased to be regularly taught to read and write English, and were taught to read and write French instead. When, therefore, the mass of the new generation tried to write English, they had no orthographical traditions to guide them, and had to spell the words phonetically according to French rules. They used ch instead of the old c, when it was pronounced as in cirice `church'. The sound of the Old English sc in sceamu `shame', which did not exist at that time in French, was rendered by ss,ssh,sch, or sh. The French qu took the place of hw. The f between vowels [v] was replaced by u or v (these being still, as long afterwards, treated as forms of one and the same letter, used indifferently for vowel and consonant). The Old English symbol ж was dropped, its place being taken by a or e. The sound of the Old English y, in the dialects where it survived, was expressed by u; and that of the Old English long u was written ou, as in French.

Of course these changes did not take place all at once. It is not to be supposed that no one ever read an Old English Manuscript and there was, for a long time, some mixture of the traditional spelling with the new one. Some few English sounds admitted of no tolerable representation in the French alphabet; and for the expression of these the native characters were retained in use. The letters, ю, р and were used, though often blunderingly, even by scribes who, in other respects, were thoroughly French in their spelling; though often the sounds were awkwardly rendered by t, th, ht, or d, and u. And in the 12th century, though the continental variety of the Roman alphabet was generally used for writing English, it was found convenient to retain the native form of the letter g for those two of its sounds that the French g lacked, namely, those of gh and y (as in year). A new letter was thus added to the alphabet, and, though it came to be written exactly like the contemporary form of z, it preserved its name `yok' until the 14th century. It may be remarked in passing that the ambiguity of pronunciation of this letter has misled modern writers into calling the author of the Brut Layamon instead of Laghamon; the incorrect form, however, has become too well known to be displaced. In addition to the two original values of the `yok', it very early obtained a third use, being employed (without indicating any change of pronunciation) instead of the Old English h in certain positions, as in kni[x]t, ibro[x]t, rou[x], for which the older spelling was cniht, gebroht, ruh.

The letter was retained; but, although it was still called `thorn' in the 14th century, it seems in Geoffrey Chaucer's time to have been regarded as a mere compendium for th, which generally took its place except initially. It may be noted that Thomas Usk, in the acrostic sentence of his Testament of Love (1387) spells in `thine' with the four letters THIN. The adoption of a number of French words like ioie `joy', in which i was pronounced like the modern English j, introduced the consonantal use of this letter into English orthography.

The Old English initial combination hl survived (written lh) in some dialects down to the 14th century; but hr was very early reduced to r. For the Old English hw, Middle English writers substituted wh, though the h was, at first, often omitted in this combination, as in other positions, by scribes of French education. The northern spelling qua, quilk for Wha, whilk `who', `which' arose from a dialectal pronunciation of qu as wh, which still survives locally in a few words.

From the 12th century onwards, the letter y, when used as a vowel, was treated as a mere alternative form of i.

The Ormulum is written in a peculiar phonetic spelling devised by the author himself. This is based, to a considerable extent, on native tradition, though the handwriting is of the continental type. There are, however, some of the new features. Orm uses ch and sh as we do now, and retains the Old English form of for the two sounds which the French letter had not. A device peculiar to himself is the appropriation of different shapes of the letter g to the two sounds in god `good' and egge `edge'.

But the most noteworthy characteristic of his orthography is the method of indicating the quantity of the vowels. The shortness of a vowel, in a syllable ending with a consonant, is shown by doubling the following consonant, as in Crisstenndom. When the short vowel ended a syllable in the middle of a word, Orm indicated a long vowel by one, two, or even three acute accents over the letter. This elaborate and cumbrous system found no imitators, but, as preserved in the author's autograph Manuscript, it is one of the most important aids that we possess for ascertaining the English pronunciation of the time [2; 11; 20; 28; 54].

2.2.2 Middle English pronunciation

Several sounds altered during the early Middle English period. Some took on a different value; some disappeared altogether. In particular, there was a restructuring of the Old English vowel system. The original diphthongs became pure vowels, and new diphthongs emerged. Some of the new units arose when certain consonants at the end of a syllable came to be pronounced in a vowel-like manner an example is wei `way', from Old Engliss weg. French loan words also introduced new diphthongs, in the form of [oi] and [ui] - unusual sounds for English, and the ancestors of modern [?i] in joy, point, etc.

Several of the pure vowels also changed their values. For example, in most parts of the country (except the north), Old English [a:] came to be articulated higher at the back of the mouth, as is shown by such spelling changes as ban becoming bon `bone' or swa becoming so. Northern speech followed its own course in several other areas too; for example, several of the new diphthongs were far more evident in the south, being replaced by pure vowels in the north (light vs licht).

An interesting change happened to [h]. This sound appeared before a consonant at the beginning of many Old English words, such as hring `ring' and hnecca `neck'. It was lost early on in the Middle English period - the first sign of the process of `aitch-dropping' which is still with us today. The loss of h before a vowel began some time later, producing variations in usage which continued into the 16th century. Middle English manuscripts show many examples of an h absent where it should be present (adde for had, eld for held) or present where it should be absent (ham for am, his for is). The influence of spelling (and doubtless the prescriptive tradition in schools) led to the h-forms being later restored in many words in Received Pronunciation (though not in such Romance loans like honour), and thus to the present-day situation where the use of [h] in socially diagnostic [20; 28].

In a few cases, new contrastive units emerged. The [v] sound became much more important, because of its use in French loan words, and began to distinguish pairs of words, as it does today f (feel vs veal). Although both [f] and [v] sounds are found in Old English, the language did not use them to differentiate words. Similarly, French influence caused [s] and [z] to become contrastive (zeal vs seal). And the ng sound [ ?] at the end of a word also began to distinguish meanings at this time thing vs thin. In Old English, this sound had always been followed by a [g] - cyning `king', for example, was kyni?g. However, the [g] died away at the end of the Old English period, leaving [?] as the sole distinguishing unit.

The study of Middle English phonology is made increasingly difficult (and fascinating) by the intricate dialect situation. On the one hand, a letter might be given different pronunciations depending on the dialect area in which it appears; an example is the letter y, which for a while represented an unrounded sound quality in the south and a rounded sound quality in the north. On the other hand, a sound might be given different spellings depending on the dialect area in which it appears; an example here is Old English [х], spelled in the middle of words as gh in the south, and as ch in the north (night vs nicht). Finally, we should note the continuing need for analytical caution because spelling was not standardized. Problems of authorial idiosyncrasy and copyist error abound, contributing to both the complex character of the period and the moral fibre of its students [28; 31; 38; 43].

2.3 Changes in Grammar in Middle and Early New English

The changes in English grammar may be described as a general reduction of inflections. Endings of the noun and adjective marking distinctions of number and case and often of gender were so altered in pronunciation as to lose their distinctive form and hence their usefulness. To some extent the same thing is true of the verb. This leveling of inflectional endings was due partly to phonetic changes, partly to the operation of analogy. The phonetic changes were simple but far-reaching. The earliest seems to have been the change of final m to n wherever it occurred, i.e., in the dative plural of nouns and adjectives and in the dative singular (masculine and neuter) of adjectives when inflected according to the strong declension. Thus, mырum >mырun, gфdum>gфdun. This n, along with the n of the other inflectional endings, was then dropped (*muрu, *gфdu). At the same time, the vowels a, o, u, e in inflectional endings were obscured to a sound, the so-called “indeterminate vowel”, which came to be written e (less often i,y, u, depending on place and date). As a result, a number of originally distinct endings such as a, u, e, an, um were reduced generally to a uniform e, and such grammatical distinctions as they formerly expressed were no longer conveyed. Traces of these changes have been found in Old English manuscripts as early as the 10th century. By the end of the 12th century they seem to have been generally carried out. The leveling is somewhat obscured in the written language by the tendency of scribes to preserve the traditional spelling, and in some places the final n was retained even in the spoken language, especially as a sign of the plural. The effect of these changes on the inflection of the noun and the adjective, and the further simplification that was brought about by the operation of analogy, may be readily shown [10; 20; 22; 46].

2.3.1 Middle English Noun

A glance at the few examples of common noun declensions in Old English will show how seriously the inflectional endings were disturbed. For example, in the London English of Chaucer in the strong masculine declension the forms muр, mырe, mырe, mыр in the singular, and mырa, mырa and mырum, mырas in the plural were reduced to three: mыр, mырes, and mырe. In such words the e, which was organic in the dative singular and the genitive and dative plural (i.e., stood for an ending in the Old English paradigm), was extended by analogy to the nominative and accusative singular, so that forms like stфne, mырe appear, and the only distinctive termination is the s of the possessive singular and of the nominative and accusative plural. Because these two cases of the plural were those most frequently used, the s came to be thought of as the sign of the plural and was extended to all plural forms. We get thus an inflection of the noun identical with that which we have today. Other declensions suffered even more, so that in many words like giefu, sunu, the distinctions of case and even of number were completely obliterated.

In early Middle English only two methods of indicating the plural remained fairly distinctive: the s or es from the strong masculine declension and the en (as in oxen) from the weak. And for a time, at least in southern England, it would have been difficult to predict that the -s would become the almost universal sign of the plural that it has become. Until the 13th century the en plural enjoyed great favor in the south, being often added to nouns which had not belonged to the weak declension in Old English. But in the rest of England the s plural (and genitive singular) of the old first declension (masculine) was apparently felt to be so distinctive that it spread rapidly. Its extension took place most quickly in the north. Even in Old English many nouns originally of other declensions had gone over to this declension in the Northumbrian dialect. By 1200 s was the standard plural ending in the north and north Midland areas; other forms were exceptional. Fifty years later it had conquered the rest of the Midlands, and in the course of the 14th century it had definitely been accepted all over England as the normal sign of the plural in English nouns. Its spread may have been helped by the early extension of s throughout the plural in Anglo-Norman, but in general it may be considered as an example of the survival of the fittest in language.

One of the consequences of the decay of inflections described above was the elimination of that troublesome feature of language, grammatical gender. The gender of Old English nouns was not often determined by meaning. Sometimes it was in direct contradiction with the meaning. Thus woman (OE wоf-mann) was masculine, because the second element in the compound was masculine; wife and child, like German Weib and Kind, were neuter. Moreover, the gender of nouns in Old English was not so generally indicated by the declension as it is in a language like Latin. Instead it was revealed chiefly by the concord of the strong adjective and the demonstratives. These by their distinctive endings generally showed, at least in the singular, whether a noun was masculine, feminine, or neuter. When the inflections of these gender distinguishing words were reduced to a single ending for the adjective, and the fixed forms of the, this, that, these, and those for the demonstratives, the support for grammatical gender was removed. The weakening of inflections and the confusion and loss of the old gender proceeded in a remarkably parallel course. In the north, where inflections weakened earliest, grammatical gender disappeared first. In the south it lingered longer because there the decay of inflections was slower.

The present method of determining gender was no sudden invention of Middle English times. The recognition of sex that lies at the root of natural gender is shown in Old English by the noticeable tendency to use the personal pronouns in accordance with natural gender, even when such use involves a clear conflict with the grammatical gender of the antecedent. For example, the pronoun it in Etaр юisne hlaf (masculine), hit is mоm lоchama (Жlfric's Homilies) is exactly in accordance with modern usage when we say, Eat this bread, it is my body. Such a use of the personal pronouns is clearly indicative of the feeling for natural gender even while grammatical gender was in full force. With the disappearance of grammatical gender sex became the only factor in determining the gender of English nouns [20; 28; 54].

2.3.2 Middle English and Early New English Adjective and Pronoun

In the adjective the leveling of forms had even greater consequences. Partly as a result of the sound-changes already described, partly through the extensive working of analogy, the form of the nominative singular was early extended to all cases of the singular, and that of the nominative plural to all cases of the plural, both in the strong and the weak declensions. The result was that in the weak declension there was no longer any distinction between the singular and the plural: both ended in e as in blinda> blinde and blindan>blinde. This was also true of those adjectives under the strong declension whose singular ended in e .By about 1250 the strong declension had distinctive forms for the singular and plural only in certain monosyllabic adjectives which ended in a consonant in Old English (sing. glad, pl. glade). Under the circumstances the only ending which remained to the adjective was often without distinctive grammatical meaning and its use was not governed by any strong sense of adjectival inflection. Although it is clear that the e ending of the weak and plural forms were available for use in poetry in both the East and West Midlands until the end of the 14th century, it is impossible to know the most usual status of the form in the spoken language. Certainly adjectival inflections other than e, such as Geoffrey Chaucer's oure aller cok, were archaic survivals by the close of the Middle English period.

The decay of inflections that brought about such a simplification of the noun and the adjective as has just been described made it necessary to depend less upon formal indications of gender, case, and (in adjectives) number, and to rely more upon juxtaposition, word order, and the use of prepositions to make clear the relation of words in a sentence. This is apparent from the corresponding decay of pronominal inflections, where the simplification of forms was due in only a slight measure to the weakening of final syllables that played so large a part in the reduction of endings in the noun and the adjective. The loss was greatest in the demonstratives. Of the numerous forms of sз, sзo, южt. only the and that survived through Middle English and are used today. A plural tho `those' survived to Elizabethan times. All the other forms indicative of different gender, number, and case disappeared in most dialects early in the Middle English period. The same may be said of the demonstrative юзs, юзos, юis `this'. Everywhere but in the south the neuter form юis came to be used early in Middle English for all genders and cases of the singular, while the forms of the nominative plural were similarly extended to all cases of the plural, appearing in Modern English as those and these.

In the personal pronoun the losses were not so great. Most of the distinctions that existed in Old English were retained. However the forms of the dative and accusative cases were early combined, generally under that of the dative (him, her, [t]hem). In the neuter the form of the accusative [h]it became the general objective case, partly because it was like the nominative, and partly because the dative him would have been subject to confusion with the corresponding case of the masculine. One other general simplification is to be noted: the loss of the dual number. A language can get along without a distinction in pronouns for two persons and more than two: the forms wit, and their oblique cases did not survive beyond the 13th century, and English lost the dual number.

It will be observed that the pronoun she had the form hзo in Old English. The modern form could have developed from the Old English hзo, but it is believed by some that it is due in part at least to the influence of the demonstrative sзo. A similar reinforcing influence of the demonstrative is perhaps to be seen in the forms of the third person plural, they, their, them, but here the source of the modern developments was undoubtedly Scandinavian. The normal development of the Old English pronouns would have been hi (he), here, hem, and these are very common. In the districts, however, where Scandinavian influence was strong, the nominative hi began early to be replaced by the Scandinavian form юei (ON юeir), and somewhat later a similar replacement occurred in the other cases, their and them. The new forms were adopted more slowly farther south, and the usual inflection in Chaucer is thei, here, hem. But by the end of the Middle English period the forms they their, them may be regarded as the normal English plurals [8; 20; 38].

2.3.3 Middle English and Early New English Verb

Apart from some leveling of inflections and the weakening of endings in accordance with the general tendency, the principal changes in the verb during the Middle English period were the serious losses suffered by the strong conjugation. This conjugation, although including some of the most important verbs in the language, was relatively small as compared with the large and steadily growing body of weak verbs. While an occasional verb developed a strong past tense or past participle by analogy with similar strong verbs, new verbs formed from nouns and adjectives or borrowed from other languages were regularly conjugated as weak. Thus the minority position of the strong conjugation was becoming constantly more appreciable. After the Norman Conquest the loss of native words further depleted the ranks of the strong verbs. Those that survived were exposed to the influence of the majority, and many have changed over in the course of time to the weak inflection.

Nearly a third of the strong verbs in Old English seem to have died out early in the Middle English period. In any case about ninety of them have left no traces in written records after 1150. Some of them may have been current for a time in the spoken language, but except where an occasional verb survives in a modern dialect they are not recorded. Some were rare in Old English and others were in competition with weak verbs of similar derivation and meaning which superseded them. In addition to verbs that are not found at all after the Old English period there are about a dozen more that appear only in Layamon (c. 1200) or in certain 12th -century texts based directly on the homilies of Жlfric and other Old English works. In other words, more than a hundred of the Old English strong verbs were lost at the beginning of the Middle English period.

But this was not all. The loss has continued in subsequent periods. Some thirty more became obsolete in the course of Middle English, and an equal number, which were still in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, finally died out except in the dialects, often after they had passed over to the weak conjugation or had developed weak forms alongside the strong. Today more than half of the Old English strong verbs have disappeared completely from the standard language.

The principle of analogy - the tendency of language to follow certain patterns and adapt a less common form to a more familiar one -is well exemplified in the further history of the strong verbs. The weak conjugation offered a fairly consistent pattern for the past tense and the past participle, whereas there was much variety in the different classes of the strong verb. We say sing--sang--sung, but drive--drove--driven, fall--fell--fallen, etc. At a time when English was the language chiefly of the lower classes and largely removed from the restraining influences of education and a literary standard, it was natural that many speakers should apply the pattern of weak verbs to some which were historically strong. The tendency was not unknown even in Old English. Thus rжdan `to advise' and sceddan `to injure' had already become weak in Old English, while other verbs show occasional weak forms. In the 13th century the trend becomes clear in change. By the 14th century the movement was at its height. No less than thirty-two verbs in addition to those already mentioned now show weak forms. After this there are fewer changes. The impulse seems to have been checked, possibly by the steady rise of English in the social scale and later by the stabilizing effect of printing. At all events the 15th century shows only about a dozen new weak formations and in the whole modern period there are only about as many more.

In none of the many verbs which have thus become weak was the change from the strong conjugation a sudden one. Strong forms continued to be used while the weak ones were growing up, and in many cases they continued in use long after the weak inflection had become well established. Thus oke as the past tense of ache was still written throughout the 15th century although the weak form ached had been current for a hundred years. In the same way we find stope beside stepped, rewe beside rowed, clew beside clawed. In a good many cases the strong forms remained in the language well into modern times. Climb, which was conjugated as a weak verb as early as the thirteenth century, still has an alternative past tense clomb not only in Chaucer and Spenser but in Dryden, and the strong past tense crope was more common than crept down to William Shakespeare's day. Low for laughed, shove for shaved, yold for yielded, etc., were still used in the 16th century although these verbs were already passing over to the weak conjugation two centuries before. While the weak forms commonly won out, this was not always the case. Many strong verbs also had weak forms blowed for blew, knowed for knew, teared for tore that did not survive in the standard speech, while in other cases both forms have continued in use such as cleft -clove, crowed -crew, heave -hove, sheared -shore, shrived -shrove.

For some reason the past participle of strong verbs seems to have been more tenacious than the past tense. In a number of verbs weak participles are later in appearing and the strong form often continued in use after the verb had definitely become weak. In the verb beat the principle beaten has remained the standard form, while in a number of other verbs the strong participle (cloven, graven, hewn, laden, molten, mown, (mis)shapen, shaven, sodden, swollen) are still used, especially as adjectives.

When we subtract the verbs that have been lost completely and the eighty-one that have become weak, there remain just sixty-eight of the Old English strong verbs in the language today. To this number may be added thirteen verbs that are conjugated in both ways or have kept one strong form. These figures indicate how extensive the loss of strong verbs in the language has been. Beside this loss the number of new strong formations has been negligible. Since the irregularity of such verbs constitutes a difficulty in language, the loss in this case must be considered a gain.

The surviving strong verbs have seldom come down to the present day in the form that would represent the normal development of their principal parts in Old English. In all periods of the language they have been subjected to various forms of leveling and analogical influence from one class to another. For example, the verb to slay had in Old English the forms slзan -slфg -slфgon--slїgen. These would normally have become slea (pronounced slee) -slough -slain, and the present tense slea actually existed down to the 17th century. The modern slay is reformed from the past participle. The past tense slew is due to the analogy of preterites like blew, grew. In Old English the past tense commonly had a different form in the singular and the plural, and in two large classes of verbs the vowel of the plural was also like that of the past participle bindan -band -bundon -bunden. Consequently, although normally the singular form survived in Modern English, in many cases the vowel of the plural or of the past participle has taken its place. Thus cling, sting, spin, etc., should have had a past tense clang, stang, span (like sing), but these forms have been replaced by clung, stung, spun from the plural and the past participle. The past tense of slide should have been slode, but the plural and the past participle had i and we now say slide -slid -slid. Sometimes a verb has changed from one class to another. Break belonged originally to the fifth class of strong verbs, and had it remained there, would have had a past participle breken. But in Old English it was confused with verbs of the fourth class, which had o in the past participle, whence our form broken. This form has now spread to the past tense. We should be saying brack or brake, and the latter is still used in the Bible, but except in biblical language the current form is now broke. Speak has had a similar development. Almost every strong verb in the language has an interesting prehistory, but the present purpose will be sufficiently served by these few examples of the sort of fluctuation and change that was going on all through the Middle English period and which has not yet ended.

As a result of the leveling of inflections, syntactic and semantic relationships that had been signaled by the endings on words now became ambiguous. Whereas in Old English the grammatical functions of two consecutive nouns were clear from their endings in, say, the nominative and dative cases, in Middle English their functions might be uncertain. The most direct way to avoid this kind of ambiguity is through limiting the possible patterns of word order. The process of development from the highly synthetic stage of Old English to the highly analytic stages of Late Middle English and Modern English can be seen in the Peterborough Chronicle. Written in installments between 1070 and 1154, this text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle spans the period from Old English to Early Middle English. Within the continuations of the text it is possible to trace first a significant loss of inflections and afterwards a corresponding rigidity of word order, making clear the direction of cause and effect. This process of development and the reality of Middle English as a separate stage of the language grammatically (as well as phonologically and lexically) can be seen in the patterns of subject and verb. In addition to the Modern English order SV, Old English had VS and, in subordinate clauses, S...V (with the finite verb in final position). All of these patterns are still possible even in the last years of the Peterborough Chronicle. Thus, the word order looked much like that of Old English at a time when the inflectional system looked much like that of Modern English. As Bruce Mitchell writes, “the language of the Peterborough Chronicle 1122-1154 is Middle, not Modern English. It is transitional [1; 4; 20; 46].

It is important to emphasize that these changes which affected the grammatical structure of English after the Norman Conquest were not the result of contact with the French language. Certain idioms and syntactic usages that appear in Middle English are clearly the result of such contact. But the decay of inflections and the confusion of forms that constitute the truly significant development in Middle English grammar are the result of the Norman Conquest only insofar as that event brought about conditions favorable to such changes. By removing the authority that a standard variety of English would have, the Norman Conquest made it easier for grammatical changes to go forward unchecked. Beyond this it is not considered a factor in syntactic changes [4; 20; 38; 43; 46; 54].