Strong declension Weak declension

N,G,D,A gōd gōde

Plural

Strong declension Weak declension

N,G,D,A gōde gōde

In northern dialects destruction of declension reached its logical end already in the Middle English period: there was lost the only flexion – e, the adjective became unchangeable: gōd in all cases, numbers and genders.

-distinction between strong/weak got lost;

-comparative OE -ra → ME -re, then -er (by metathesis), superlative OE -ost, -est →ME -est;

grēt – gretter – grettest

glad – gladder – gladdest

Some adjectives retained umlaut in the comparative and superlative degrees: old – elder – eldest, long – lenger – longest, strong – strenger – strengest, but together with them there started to appear forms without alternation (strong – stronger – strongest). In some cases the old form stood apart from the new formation with a change of meaning (older/elder, oldest/eldest).

Some adjectives formed degrees of comparison from a different root:

Gōd - bettre – best

Evil – werse – werst

Muchel – mōre – mōst

Litel – lasse - lēst

- beginnings of analytical comparison (French influence): swetter/more swete, more swetter, moste clennest; more and moste are used as intensifiers. Morphological forms with more, most are used irrespectively of syllables number: more kind, difficulter.

Verbs

- retained categories of tense, mood, number, person, strong, weak types

- addition of a new type of verb, two-part or separable verbal expression, use of adverbial particles instead of prefixes used in Old English (e.g. put in, blow out, pick up, take over)

- increased use of weak verbs. Due to general tendency – unification of different types and simplification of paradigm – many strong verbs joined the weak type during ME period. By the New English period 80 verbs joined the weak type. Thus, the verbs of the 7^th class (there still remained 7 classes) slēpen, wēpen, rēden already in OE formed weak forms: slēpte, wēpte, rēdde, while folden, helpen – in Late ME.

- as for strong verbs, there happened some important changes too: under the influence of weakening vowels up to –e letter, flexions of the infinitive and past plural changed too:

OE wrītan – wrāt – wrīton – wrīten

ME wrīten – wrōt – writen – writen

- use of passive constructions (with 'be' as auxiliary)

- use of modal auxiliaries instead of subjunctive (may, might, be going to, be about to)

- “tō” started to be used with infinitives as their indicator. However some verbs like beginnen, longen, wishen when next to other verbs were also used without “tō”: But atte laste speken she began. (But at last speak she began.) Infinitives without “tō” were also used with verbs of motion: Thow shalt com speken with thi ladi.

 

Personal Pronouns

- use of 2nd person plural (ye) to address one person as polite form (French influence), eventual loss of singular forms in the18th century

- loss of ch in the first-person singular - ich/I (pronounced as the 'i' in "kid"); me was used for the object case; min(e) and mi - before words beginning with vowel and consonant respectively

- emergence of absolute pronominal forms (ours, hers, yours, theirs)

- second person singular: þu, thou, etc.

- appearance of reflexive pronouns: myself (= myselven and the same form for the other pronouns), thyself, himself, herself, ourself, yourself, themselves

Middle English Syntax

- a trend towards modern word order: subject-predicate-object in affirmative independent clauses; predicate-subject-object in questions and imperatives

- double and triple negation was freely used for making it stronger

- the adjective was placed before the noun (erthely servaunt)

- prepositions were placed before objects; sometimes followed if the object was a pronoun (he seyde him to)

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 4

1. Decline of English covers the period:

a) 1204 - 1348 b) 1348 – 1457 c) 1066 – 1204 d) 1166 – 1248

2. Rise of English is connected with:

a) break with the Norman tradition of allegiance to the Roman church

b) decay of Anglo-Saxon traditions

c) invention of the printing machine by William Caxton

3. Which of these factors stipulated the dominance of English?

a) Black Death

b) Norman invasion

c) invention of the printing machine

d) separation of French and English nobility

4. Match the main features of the language development with the appropriate period.

Early Middle English Period	Central Middle English period	Late Middle English period

a) rise in use of English

b) Old English system of writing is still in use

c) z:\Documents and SettingsAdminРабочий столсреднеанглийскийtopic?idxStructId=102489&typeId=13beginning of standard English based on the London dialect

d) English became the official language of legal proceedings

e) decay of Anglo-Saxon literary practices

f) the basic lines of inflection as they appear in Modern English first established

g) Norman French - the prestige language

h) English – the everyday folk language

i) W. Caxton and other printers

j) the East Midland dialect as a standard

k) Latin - a written language of the Church and secular documents

l) use of orthography influenced by Anglo-Norman writing system

m) increase in dialectal differences, formation of literary dialects

n) English completely replaced French at home, education and government; Latin is used as the language of written communication

5. Which of these are Middle English dialects?

a) Eastern b) Western c) Northern

d) Southern e) Midland f) Central

6. Due to which of the dialects is there such feminine form of the word as “fox” as “vixen”?

a) Eastern b) Western c) Northern d) Southern

e) Midland f) Central

 

7. Which of the Middle English dialects was characterized by a rich Scandinavian vocabulary and a set of sounds also keyed to certain Scandinavian habits of pronunciation?

a) Eastern b) Western c) Northern d) Southern

e) Midland f) Central

8. Chancery English is:

a) a dialectal variant of English having specific features

b) a written form of English used by government bureaucracy and for other official purposes from the late 14th century

c) the original language of Geoffrey Chaucer

9. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in

a) the East Midland dialect

b) the Southern dialect

c) the Northern dialect

10. W. Caxton and other printers used

a) the East Midland dialect

b) the Southern dialect

c) the Northern dialect

 

11. Which of the following alternation (s) did OE runes undergo in the ME period?

a) þ is sporadically replaced by -w

b) þ is sporadically replaced by -th

c) ρ is sporadically replaced by -w

d) ρ is sporadically replaced by - uu

e) ρ is sporadically replaced by - th

f) 3 is replaced by –g

g) 3 is replaced by –z

h) æ is sporadically replaced by a

12. Complete the following theses to demonstrate the changes that OE consonants underwent in the ME period:

a) cw change for qu (cwic → quick) 1) after l and r

b) gu for g (guard) 2) after s or t

c) h lost (OE hlæfdige → ME ladi) 3) in French loans

d) g became w (OE swelgan → ME swolwen) 4) under French

influence

e) unstressed final consonants tended to

be lost (OE ic → ME) 5) before cons +cons

or vow+const

f) w generally dropped (OE sweostor → 6) in the vicinity of

palatal c sister)

g) l lost (OE micel → much) 7) in clusters

h) fricative f/v tended to drop out

(OE hlaford → ME lord) 8) in final position after m

i) b lost (lamb, comb) 9) initially

j) h often lost (OE hit → ME it) 10) after a vowel

13. Tick the right items demonstrating the changes that OE consonants underwent in the ME period:

a) appearance of long –s symbol

b) gh instead of h [х]

c) ch instead of c3

d) introduction of French letters k, z, v and j

e) sc turned into d3

f) hw turned into wh

g) c for s

h) prefix ge- lost initial consonant and was reduced to y or i

i) kn cluster lost the first phoneme

 

14. A minim is a

a) a word in which - u was replaced by - o

b) a phenomena of changing – u for – o which took place in front of –u, m, v, w (uu)

c) a short vertical stroke of a penwhich in adjacent position is difficult to read

15. Which of the vowels modifications took place in the ME period?

a) u replaced by ou

b) g palatal merged with the preceding front vowel into a diphthong

c) disappearance of schwa - Ə

d) complete loss of final -e

e) disappearance of diphthong –[oi]

f) lengthening of short vowels before certain consonant clusters –ld, -nd, –mb, etc.

g) lengthening of short vowels in open syllables

h) lengthening of long vowels in stressed closed syllables

i) changing - er for - ar

j) æ turned to a before r

 

16. Which of the following statements about ME noun are (is) correct?

a) all noun case ending except for Genitive and Accusative got lost

b) the plural is formed with by means of adding -en, -es to the singular form

c) Genitive is formed by means of suffix –es

d) nouns ending with –f and –th did not exchange voiceless for voiced: līf - līfes

e) noun class distinctions were still preserved

f) grammatical gender got lost

g) flective forms are still more preferable than prepositional constructions

 

17. The ME adjective has distinction in

a) case b) gender c) case, gender, number

d) number

18. The degrees of comparison are formed by means of the suffixes:

a) -re,(later -er); -est b) -ra, -ost c) -er, -ost d) -re, -est

19. Were perfect and continuous aspects presented during the period?

a) yes, they were b) no, they were not

20. How many negations were possible to use in a ME sentence?

a) only one b) two c) two or three

MODULE 5