The Linguistic System in

Middle English
 Decay of the Inflectional System

The changes in English grammar may be described as a general reduction of

inflections.

1. Partly to phonetic 2. Partly to the operation

changes of analogy
 1. The change of final -m > -n mūðum > mūðun

2. This -n was then dropped *mūðu

3. 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.

4. The grammatical distinctions

were no longer conveyed
 The Noun

mūð, mūðes, mūðe, mūð (singular) mūðas, mūða, mūðum, mūðas (plural)

mūð, mūðes, mūðe

The only distinctive termination is the –s of the

possessive singular and of the nominative plural.
 The expression of plural in nouns

In early Middle English only two The –s or –es from the

methods of indicating plural strong masculine
remained fairly distinctive: declension.

The –n (as in oxen) from

the weak.

Until the thirteenth century the –en plural

enjoyed great favour in the south.

In the rest of England the –es plural of the

old first declension (masculine) was
apparently felt to be so distinctive that it
spread rapidly.
 The Adjective
The form of the nominative was early extended to
all cases of the singular, and that of the nominative
plural to all cases of the plural both in the weak and
strong declensions.

In the weak declension there was no longer any

distinction between the singular and the plural: both
ended in –e, (blinda>blinde and blindan>blinde)

The strong declension, by about 1250, had

distinctive forms for the singular and plural only in
certain monosyllabic adjectives which ended in a
consonant in Old English (sing. glad; plural glade).
 The Pronoun
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.

sē, sēo, þæt THE THAT

þēs, þēos, þis þis THESE THOSE

 The personal pronoun

The forms of the dative and accusative cases were

early combined generally under the dative: him,
her, (t)hem.

In the neuter the form of the accusative (h)it

became the general objective case.

The pronoun she had the form sēo in Old English. It

is believed by some that it is due in part at least to
the influence of the demonstrative sēo.
The normal development of the Old English
pronouns would have been hi (he), here, hem.

In the districts, however, where Scandinavian

influence was strong, the nominative hi began early
to be replaced by the Scandinavian form þei, a
somewhat later a similar replacement occurred in
the other cases, their and them.

By the end of the Middle English period these forms

were regarded as the normal English plurals.
 The Verb
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.
Occasionally a 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.

After the Norman Conquest the loss of native words

further depleted the ranks of the strong verbs
 Strong verbs becoming weak

The tendency was not unknown even in Old

English: ræddan (to advise) or sceððan (to injure)
had already become weak in Old English.

In the thirteenth century the trend becomes clear in

the written literature. Such verbs as bow, brew,
burn, climb, flee, flow, help, mourn, row, step, walk
and weep.
 Syntax

As a result of the leveling of inflections, syntactic

and semantic relationships that had been signaled
by the endings on words now became ambiguous.

The most direct way to avoid this kind of ambiguity

is through limiting the possible patterns of word
order.
 Peterborough Chronicle

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.

SV S…V VS
 Pronouncing Middle English

Even though it started in the fifteenth century, which is

conventionally considered to be the Late Middle English period,
some scholars regard it as an Early Modern English development.

These scholars usually place the beginning of Early Modern English

at 1450.

The Great Vowel Shift, to a large extent shaped the modern

English vowel system.
 Great Vowel Shift

Middle English became Early Modern English Became Modern English

[a:] [na:mə] ‘name’ [ɛ:] [nɛ:m] [eI] [neIm]

[ɛ:] [mɛ:t] ‘meat’ [e:] [me:t] [i:] [mi:t]

[e:] [me:t] ‘meet’ [i:] [mi:t] [i:] [mi:t]

[i:] [ri:d] ‘ride’ [əI] [rəId] [ai] [raid]

[Ɔ:] [bɔ:t] ‘boat’ [o:] [bo:t] [ou/əu] [bout/bəut]

[o:] [bo:t] ‘boot’ [u:] [bu:t] [u:] [bu:t]

 French Influence on the Vocabulary
Where two languages exist side by side for a long time and the
relations between the people speaking them are as intimate as they
were in England.

A considerable transference of words from one language to the other

is inevitable.

English representing a culture that was regarded as inferior, had more

to gain from French, and there were other factors involved.
The influx of French words was brought about by the victory of the
Conqueror and by the political and social consequences of that
victory.

It was not sudden

or immediately
apparent.

This movement had its start a time in the centuries following the
Conquest and a stream of French words poured into English with a
momentum that continued until toward the end of the Middle English
period.
In this movement two stages can be observed, an earlier and a later,
with the year 1250 as the approximate dividing line.

The borrowings of the first stage differ from those of the second in:

-Being much less numerous -900

-Showing peculiarities of Anglo- -Lower classes
Norman phonology would become
familiar (servant,
-The circumstances that brought
feast, juggler,
about their introduction
baron)
-Literary channels
(story, rime, lay)

-Associated with the

church
 -In the period after 1250 the conditions under which French words had
been making their way into English were supplemented by a new and
powerful factor:

Those who had been accustomed to

speak French were turning
increasingly to the use of English.

In their own imperfect command of

To supply deficiencies in the English
vocabulary or in their own imperfect
command of that vocabulary.
that vocabulary
Yielding to natural impulse to use a
word long familiar to them and to
those they addressed.
 In changing from French to English

-Governmental In the century and a half

following 1250, when all
-Administrative vocabulary
classes were speaking or
-Ecclesiastical learning to speak English,
they transferred also such
-Legal
words as people who had
-Military been accustomed to speak
French would carry over
-Fashion
with them into their
-Food language of their adoption.
-Social life
-Art
-Learning
-Medicine
 Assimilation of French words and loss of native
words

-The rapidity with which the -The adjective gentle is

new French words were
assimilated is evidenced by
the promptness with which
many of them became the
basis of derivatives.
recorded in 1225 and within
five years we have it
compounded with an English
noun to make
gentlewoman.

gentleman (1275) gentleness (1275) gently (1330)

 The adverbial ending –ly seems to have been added to
adjectives almost as soon as they appeared in the language.
The adverbs peacefully, commonly, feebly, fiercely and
many more occur almost as early as the adjectives from which
they are derived.

faintly
- lecherness

French root with - debonairship

Hybrid forms English prefix or
suffix
- spusbruche
DUPLICATION

1. Of the two words 2. Where both

one was eventually survived they were
lost differentiated in
meaning

The substitution was not always immediate; often

both words continued in use for a longer or shorter
time, and the English word occasionally survives in
the dialects today.
1. Of the two words one was eventually lost

1 ēam uncle eme

2 anda envy

andig

3 æÞele noble

æÞeling nobleman
2. Differentiation in meaning

doom judgment deem judge

15th c hearty cordial

smell stench aroma

odor

scent
 Dialectal Diversity
In the absence of any recognized literary standard before the
close of the period, writers naturally wrote in the dialect of
that part of the country to which they belonged.

It is customary to distinguish four principal dialects of Middle

English: Northern, East Midland, West Midland, and
Southern.

Northern dialect East Midland and West Southern dialect

extends as far south Midland together cover the area occupies the district
as the Humber between the Humber and the south of the
Thames Thames
 The feature most easily recognized is the ending of the
plural, present indicative of verbs.

In the North
In Old In Middle In the it was altered
English English this Midland to –es, an
this form ending was district it was ending that
always preserved as replaced by – makes its
ended in –eth in the en. appearance in
–th Southern Old English
dialect times.

loveth loven loves

Another fairly distinctive form is the present participle before
the spread of the ending –ing.

North lovande

Midlands lovende

South lovinde
The characteristic forms of the pronoun they

In the south were hi, here, (hire,

hure), hem

In the north forms with th-, they,

their, them
OE ā > ǭ south of the Humber, was retained in the
north

Southern stone and home, beside stane and

hame in Scotland today.

Initial f and s were often voiced in the south to v

and z.

In Southern Middle English we find

vor, vrom, vox,
vorzoÞe instead of for, from, fox, forsoÞe
The Rise of Standard English

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.
 Causes:

1. As a Midland dialect the English of this region

occupied a middle position between the extreme
divergences of the north and south.

- In its sounds and inflections it represents a

kind of compromise, sharing some of the
characteristics of both its neighbours.
2. 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.
3. The presence of the universities, Oxford and
Cambridge.

- In the fourteenth 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.

Cambridge: Any influence that I had would be

exerted in support of the East Midland dialect.

Oxford: Its role is less certain, Oxforshire is on the

border between Midland and Southern and its
dialect shows certain characteristic Southern
features.