General characteristic of Middle English Grammar

After the Norman Conquest, when French became the l-ge of the elite, people were no longer taught to read and write in English. Although there were some attempts to continue an English literary tradition, it is clear that the writers could not reproduce or even completely understand Old English. Instead, they tended to represent their own spoken language – early Middle English – often in unsystematic ways.

To make matters worse they wrote in their own local dialects, so that the modern reader who becomes familiar with one text must learn another system to read a text from a different part of the country. This, combined with the archaic meanings of words and older grammatical forms, can make early Middle English a challenge for today’s student. For the most part, however, these problems are overcome through practice and memorisation of vocabulary.

Here are some tips to remember:

• There is no set spelling system in Middle English; the same words are often spelt more than one way.

• In Middle English the endings – (e)s and – (e)n had multiple functions: the plurals and possessives of nouns, and various forms of verbs.

• Middle English words that have survived in Modern English sometimes had different meanings in the earlier period (e.g. silly meant ‘blessed’ and buxom meant ‘obedient’).

• Many Middle English words did not survive in Modern English but occur very frequently in Middle English literature.

Grammar

Nouns. The plurals of nouns generally end in – s or – es. Possessive forms end in – s or – es. There is no apostrophe; possessives are distinguished from plurals by context.

Verbs

The infinitive form ends in – n or – en: e.g. goon, slepen, singen.

In later texts, the – n may disappear.

The – n or – en ending can also indicate a plural form of the verb: e.g. they goon, they slepen, they

singen. In the past tense, the ending may be – n, - en, or – ed.

The – n or – en can also be a past participle (like Modern English eaten). In this case the word will

generally be preceded by a form of have or be, or else it will function as an adjective describing a

noun.

The past tense is generally indicated, as in modern English, with an ending containing – t, - d, or –

ed. Verbs of this type have similar past participle forms. The past tense and past participle may also be indicated by a change in the root vowel of the word, as in Modern English sing, sang, sung. Middle English possessed more verbs of this ‘irregular’ type than

Modern English expressions like ‘if he be’, ‘let him be’, or ‘may he be’, which suggest hypothetical or desirable situations, are indicated by the subjunctive form of the verb, which ends in – e, or – en in the plural. Examples: God yelde yow ‘may God reward you’, if God yelde yow ‘if God rewards you’.

 

 

1. The Structure of the Simple sentence in OE
2. Formation of New short vowels in Mod E
3. The Peculiarities of the Complex Sentence structure in OE and its Historical development.
4. Formation of New Long Vowels in Mod E.

 

 

1. The old English vowel system. Phonological Processes in OE and their Traces in Modern English (OE Breaking, Velar Umlaut, I-Umlaut, Palatal Diphon)

The phonetics of the OE period was characterized by a system of dynamic stress. The fixed stress fell on the 1^st root syllable.

The vowels had the following characteristic features:

f) the quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its position in the word. Under stress any vowel could be found, but in unstressed position there were no diphthongs or long monophthongs, but only short vowels a, e, I, o, u.

g) the length of the stressed vowels was phonemic, which means that there could be two words differing only in the length of the vowel.

h) there was an exact parallelism of long and short vowels.

There were the following vowel phonemes in Old English:

Monophthongs: i, i:, y, y:, u, u:, e, e:, o, o:, ae, ae:, a, a:

Diphthongs: eo, eo:, ea, ea:

The Old English vowel system formed on the basis of Common Germanic vowel system and also under the influence of different processes.

Changes in OE vowel phonemes

The changes that took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which explain the difference between OE and Common Germanic vowels were of two types: assimilative changes and independent changes. Independent changes do not depend upon the environment in which the given sound was found. They cannot be explained, but they are merely stated. Assimilative changes are explained by the phonetic position of the sound in the word and the change can and must be explained. Among the many phonetic assimilative changes which took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which account for the discrepancy between the OE and the Common Germanic vowel system the most important are breaking and palatal mutation.

BREAKING (I-MUTATION). The process of breaking took place in the 6^th century. It affected two vowels – [ ae] and [e] when hey were followed by the consonant [r], [l], [h] generally followed by another consonant. The resulting vowel was a diphthong; consequently the process may be summed up as diphthongization of short vowels [ae] and [e] before certain consonant clusters.

PALATAL MUTATION it occurred somewhere during the 6^th-7the centuries. The process affected Germanic words where a vowel in a stressed syllable was immediately followed by the sound [i] or [j] in the next syllable. Almost all vowels, both diphthongs and monophthongs, in the context described above became further forward and higher, or more palatal and more narrow, with the exception of [e] and [i] which could go no further.

As a result of this process a new phoneme entered the vowel system in Old English – y/y/. It appeared as a result of narrowing u/u/.

UMLAUTS

This is a case of regressive assimilation, when the vowelc is changed under the influence of following vowel. We distinguished: I-umlaut (front mutation), and u-umlaut (back mutation).

I-umlaut

The name reflects the two main elements of the change, namely that when there was i, i, or j in the syllable following one that contained a back vowel, then the back vowel was fronted to the equivalent front vowel. Over time i, i, or j disappeared, or changed to e, but their original presence can be established by examining cognate words in other languages. The mutation of the back vowels led to the following results in OE:

aa> ae >e

a >ae

o> e

o >oe> e

u >y

u >y

ea> ie

ea >ie

eo> ie

eo >ie

One important effect of this mutation was the creation of {y} a new, rounded front vowel. Another was that it created differences within the paradigms of both verbs and nouns. For instance, in the nouns some paradigms had formed their plural with an i/j in the inflection ending, and this led to a variation in the stem vowel between the singular and the plural, which is still found in some words as foot/feet, man/men

 

Towards the end of the prehistoric period of OE a change, usually referred to as a BACK MUTATION, (7/8 centuries) occurred, whereby the short front vowels [ae, e, i] were diphthongzed when the back vowels [u, o, a] were present in the following syllable.

i>io

e>eo

ae>ea

This process differs from I-umlaut in three respects:

a) it affected almost exclusively short vowels

b) it affected only front vowels

c) its results are less uniform due to various leveling and further modification as well as to the fact that it was probably not carried out so completely everywhere as the case with I-umlaut.

 

 

1. The Great Vowel Shift

 

1. Common Germanic and classical Old English Phonemic System Compared

 

1. Development of vocabulary in Mod E.

The language in NE is growing very rapidly, the amount of actually existing words being impossible to estimate. The principal inner means in NE is the appearance of new words formed by means of conversion. Usually new words are formed by acquiring a new paradigm and function within a sentence. Very many new words appear in NE due to borrowing. It is necessary to say that the process of borrowing, the source of loan words, the nature of the new words is different from Middle English and their appearance in the language cannot be understood unless sociolinguistic factors are taken into consideration.

New English borrowings may be subdivided into borrowings of the Early New English period – 15-17 centuries, the period preceeding the establishment of the literary norm, and loan words which entered the language after the establishment of the literary norm – in the 18-20 centuries, the period whish is generally alluded to a slate New English.

Early new English borrowings – borrowings into the English language are primarily due to political events and also to the cultural and trade relations between the English people and peoples in other countries. In the 14 century the epoch of renaissance, there appeared in the English language many words borrowed from the Italian: cameo, fresco, violin, balcony, grotto, volcano.

In the 16 century – Spanish and Portuguese words: armada, negro, matador.

And also Latin: - verbs with the characteristic endings – ate, -ute (separate, irritate, contribute)

- adjectives ending in –ant, -ent, -ior, -al (reluctant, superior, senior, junior, dental, filian)

 

In the 17 century due to relations with the peoples of America such words were borrowed as: potato, tobacco, cannibal, wigwam

 

French borrowings – after the restoration:

Ball, ballet, naive …