Lecture introductory. General characteristics of germanic languages list of principal questions

1.2. Effect of the Scandinavian Invasions

Though the Scandinavian invasions of England are dated in the OE period, their effect on the language is particularly apparent in ME.

We may recall that since the 8^th century the British Isles were ravaged by sea rovers from Scandinavia, first by Danes, later by Norwegians. By the end of the 9^th century the Danes had succeeded in obtaining a permanent footing in England, more than half of England was yielded to the invaders and recognized as Danish territory – “Danelaw”.

While some of Scandinavians came to England, merely to plunder and return their homeland, others made their permanent home in North East England.

In the early years of the occupation the Danish settlements were little more than armed camps. But gradually the conditions stabilized and the Danes began to bring their families. The new settlers and the English intermarried and intermixed, they lived close together and did not differ either in social rank or in the level of culture and customs. They intermingled the more easily as there was no linguistic barrier between them. OE and O Scand belonged to the Germanic group of languages and at that time were much closer than their descendants are today.

The colonization and the intermixture of the newcomers with their former foes continued from the 9^th century during 200 years, which witnessed diverse political events, the reconquest of Danelaw under Alfred’s successors, the renewal of Scandinavian onslaughts in the late 10^th century under Sweyne, and the political annexation of England by Denmark under Canute.

1.3. The Norman Conquest

For a short time England was part of an Anglo-Scandinavian Empire under Canute but after 1042 Norman influence increased under Edward the Confessor who promised the succession to William of Normandy.

When Edward died early in 1066, the Saxon “Assembly of Wise Men” [“the Witeagemot” it means “Council of the Wisest”, the members were big landowners, thanes, bishops, the king was supposed to ask their advice on important decisions of the state.] declared Harold king. William, the duke of Normandy, cousin to Edward the confessor, declared himself heir to the throne of England. Having got the support and the agreement to the right of the throne from the Pope of Rome he started preparations for the English campaign in order to sweep the Saxon dynasty forever.

The Normans were the same Northmen who had invaded Britain three centuries earlier. They had assimilated the local people, who were Romanized Gaul Celts by origin, borrowed their language and culture, their advanced civilization, so that the Duke of Normandy headed an already complex society, which was situated in the north of France. Being fully under the influence of Rome, Normans exercised its cultural influence to the benefit of Norman civilization. Church architecture had reached an advanced stage in Normandy.

The Norman army was much better equipped than the English one. The tactics of the Anglo-Saxons did not change since Alfred the Great’s time. They used the great axes and horses to cover great distances. The core of the Saxons army consisted the housecarls, the ordinary people consisted the other part of the army, which was less equipped and worse trained, wished they had been at home to harvest their crops. The Normans had a very effective cavalry and a great number of bowmen, shooting from the safe distance, to let the arrows down hitting the less protected portions of their opponents’ bodies. It was in this manner that Harold, the king of England shot in the eye.

Harold’s acceptance of the Witenagemot’s offer of the crown, was taken by William as sacrilege (he had made Harold’s swear he would support his claim to the throne) and he appealed to all European knights to get on the march against oath breaker. He promised them land and opportunities of plunder.

On September 28, 1066, William of Normandy landed near Hastings. The last Anglo-Saxon king Harold, who a few days earlier had defeated a Norwegian army at Stamford Bridge, in Yorkshire hurried south. On October 14 William marched out of his camp and attached. In six hours fighting the Anglo-Saxon host was crushed and Harold slain. It was the last successful invasion of England. The strong centralized government imposed by thousand Continental adventurers, distributed Anglo-Saxon estates among Norman barons and their French followers.

The Great Council replaced the Anglo-Saxon Witan (Cora Regis). The majority of English nobles were killed and exiled.

William took their lands and redistributed them among his Norman nobles on terms of feudal military service. The Norman Conquest tied England dynastically, commercially and culturally to the Continent. Many of the ties were beneficial, but England was also committed to an ultimately futile struggle for control of France, which delayed attempts to unity the British Isles.

William the Conqueror installed his followers in castles strategically placed against invasion and revolt. Northumbria was laid waste as a penalty for rebellion. Four fifths of All England’s land changed ownership. As a result of the conquest the English church was more closely linked with Rome and increased its powers Norman bishops were appointed and special over the church and limited interference from Rome. French became the language of the upper classes and Latin the language of the people.

The English village economy was not greatly affected by the Conquest. The Domesday Book, an inquiry into the nature and value of all land herd of the king, was a remarkable and ambitions survey of England conducted by William in 1086 to assess the land, livestock, and population of the country. It is far from complete. It does not cover most of the northern counties, or large town such as London, Bristol and Winchester.

The arrival of the Normans added surprisingly little to the existing place names of the British Isles. There is little significance in the distribution of the few Norman-French names that survive, for they were symbols of class rather than of geographical language units.

Whatever the actual number of Normans settled in England it is clear that the members of the new ruling class were sufficiently predominant to continue to use their own language. This was natural at First, since they knew no English, but they continued to do so for a long time to come.

1.4. Effect of the Norman Conquest

on the linguistic situation
The Norman Conquest was not only a great event in British political history but also the greatest single event in the history of the English language. Its earliest effect was a drastic change in the linguistic situation.

The Norman conquerors of England had originally come from Scandinavia (North, Norman). About one hundred and fifty years before they had seized the valley of the Seine and settled in that area which was henceforth known as Normandy? They were swiftly assimilated by the French and in the 11^th century came to Britain as French speakers and bearers of French culture. They spoke the Northern dialect of French, which differed in some points from central, Parisian French.

Their tongue in Britain is often referred to as “Anglo-French” or “Anglo-Norman”, but may just as well be called French, since we are less concerned here with the distinction of French dialects than with the continuous French influence upon English, both in the Norman period of history and a long while after the Anglo-Norman language had ceased to exist. In the early 13^th century, as a result of lengthy and inefficient wars with France John Lackland lost the French provinces, including the dukedom of Normandy. Among other consequences the loss of lands in France cut off the Normans in Britain from France, which increased the decline of the Anglo-French language.

The most immediate consequence of the Norman domination in Britain is to be seen in the wide use of the French language in many spheres of life. For almost three hundred years French was the official language of administration: it was the language of the king’s court, the law courts, the church, the army and the castle.

1.4. Early Middle English dialects

The regional ME dialects had developed from respective OE dialects.

The following dialects can be distinguished in Early ME.

The Southern group included the Kentish and the Southwestern dialects. Kentish dialect was a direct descendant of the OE dialect known by the same name, though it had somewhat extended its area. The South Western group was a continuation of the OE Saxon dialects, not only West Saxon, but also East Saxon. The East Saxon dialect was not prominent in OE but became more important in Early ME, since it made the basis of the dialects of London in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. Among the dialect of this group we may mention the Gloucester dialect and the London dialect, which must have been an influential form of speech at all times.

The group of Midland (“Central”) dialects – corresponding to the OE Mercian dialect – is divided into West Midland and East Midland as two main areas, with further subdivisions within: South – East Midland and North – East Midland and North – West Midland.

In ME the Midland area became more diversified linguistically than the OE Mercian kingdom occupying approximately the same territory: from the Thames in the South to the Welsh speaking area in the West and up north to the river Humber.

The Northern dialects had developed from OE Northumbrian. In early ME the Northern dialects included several provincial dialects, e.g. Yorkshire and the Lancashire dialects and also what later became known as Scottish.

The earliest sign of the official recognition of English by the Norman kings was the famous Proclamation issued by Henry III in 1258 to the Councilors in Parliament. It was written in three languages: French, Latin and English affected English more than any other foreign influence before or after. The early French borrowings reflected accurately the spheres of Norman influence upon English life; later borrowings can be attributed to the continued cultural, economic and political contacts between the countries.

The French influence 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, namely in the regional dialects of Southern England and in the speech of the upper classes, but were unknown in the other varieties. This led to growing dialectal differences, regional and social. Later the new features adopted from French and extended to other varieties of the language.

It was also the everyday language of many nobles, of the higher clergy and of many towns’ people in the South. The intellectual life, literature and education were in the hands of French speaking people, French, alongside Latin, was French and boys at school were taught to translate their Latin into French instead of English.

For all that, England never stopped being an English – Speaking country. The bulk of the population held fast to their own (language) tongue: the lower classes in towns, and especially in the country-side, those who lived in the Midlands and up the north, continued to speak English and looked upon French as foreign and hostile. Since most of the people were illiterate, the English language was almost exclusively used for spoken communication.

At first the two languages existed side by without mingling. Then, slowly and quietly, they began to permeate each other. The Norman barons and the French town-dwellers had to pick up English words to make them understood, while the English began to use French words in current speech. A good knowledge of French would mark a person of higher standing giving him a certain social prestige. Probably many people became bilingual and had a fair command of both languages.

These peculiar linguistic conditions could not remain static. The struggle between French and English was bound to end in the complete victory of English, for English was the living language of the entire people, while French was restricted to certain social spheres and writing. Yet the final victory was still a long way off.
5. Formation of the National language
There were several causes contributing to the use of the dialect of East Midland and particularly the dialect of London as Standard English. In the first place, as а Midland dialect the English of this region occupied в middle position between the extreme divergences of the north and south. In sounds and inflections it represents а kind of compromise, sharing some of the characteristics of both its neighbors. In the second р1асе, the East Midland district was the largest and most populous of the major dialect districts. А third factor was the presence of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, in this region. These two universities had developed into important intellectual cent- res. By far the most influential factor in the rise of Standard English was the importance of London as the capital of England. It was the seat of the court, the center of social and cultural activities of the country. We should say that the history of Standard English is almost a history of London English.

In the latter part of the 15th с. the London standard had been accepted, at least in writing, in most parts of the country. Caxton, the first English printer, in his numerous translations used the current speech of London, and the books gave а currency to London English that assured its rapid adoption as well. In confirming the establishment of London English as а specific literary standard for the rest of the country, Chaucer’s writings exercised а certain influence.

In the Modern English period, the beginning of which is usually placed at 1500, some new conditions came into р1ау. The new factors were the printing press, the rapid spread of popular education, the increased communication and means of communication, and the growth of what may be called social consciousness.

The printing press was а powerful force for promoting а standard form of language and spreading that language throughout the country. The education was making rapid progress among the people and literacy was becoming much more common. Literacy meant contact with written texts in English (the standard, speech of London). In other words, as а result of popular education the printing press was able to exert its influence upon the establishment of the standard national form of English.

The changes in the class structure of England affected the 1inguistic situation precisely at the time when the standard form of the national language was being definitely established.

The beginnings of the modern period saw the growth of social consciousness. It is every one’s natural tendency to identify himself with а certain social group with the efforts to adopt the standards of grammar and pronunciation peculiar to this group.

In the Middle Ages the development of English took place under conditions which, because of the Norman Conquest, were largely peculiar to England. But by the close of the Middle English period the language faced three great problems like the other important European languages: (1) recognition in the fields where Latin had for centuries been supreme, (2) the establishment of а more uniform orthography, and (3) the enrichment of the vocabulary.

Although Latin had the advantage of universal currency, so that the educated all over Europe could freely communicate with each other, both in speech and writing, the recognition of English in this field was assured as the real force, behind the use of English was а popular demand of all sorts of men in practical life to use the national language in all social and cultural spheres.

The spelling of the modern languages in the Middle Ages had attempted with fair success to represent the pronunciation of words, and this is true of English in spite of the fact that Norman scribes introduced considerable confusion when they tried to write a language which they imperfectly knew. The confusion was increased when certain spellings became conventional while the pronunciation slowly changed. To many people it seemed that English spelling was chaotic. For instance, in one of Greene's Coney catching pamphlets (1591), we find 'соnеу' spelled 'cony', 'connу', 'соnуе', 'соniе' 'соnniе', 'соni', 'cuny' 'conny,' 'cunnie'. But in spite of all variety of spelling, by 1550 many of the features of English spelling were clearly becoming established.

In order to appreciate the importance of the Renaissance in enriching the English vocabulary it is worth while to count new words added at this time. А calculation based, upon the data available in the Oxford Dictionary gives а figure somewhat above 12,000. About half of the total number has become а permanent part of the language. Most of the new words entered English by way of the written language they are а striking evidence of the new force exerted by the printing press and the rapid spread of popular education. The mobility of English workers in the 16^th с. was the chief social factor, besides the expansion of education, which affected the language. We know that the enclosure of farm lands, the depopulation of villages, the closing down of monasteries and the dissolution of feudal households cast adrift а large number of people who were not only made homeless and workless; they were also subject to severe punishment by the state for being so. Some of them, those who became citizens of London under- world - developed а jargon of their own. By the way, the same phenomenon can be observed in the history of all major European languages.

Other social changes had а more limited influence on the language. Thus, the increased trade and cultural exchange with other countries enriched the language with new words and new turns of expression.

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries the rise of experimental science and the rationalist trend in philosophy, both of them of course socially conditioned. contributed a strong additional influence reinforcing the tendency to regularity in language.

One of the achievements of early 17^th -century scholarships was the translation of the Bible into English (1611) by а commission of scholars. The outcome of their labours was not merely а more accurate version but it was also а document of Early Modern English that entered every family in England to be read and listened to every day or so. The intellectual tendencies are seen quite clearly in the 18^th century efforts to standardize, refine, and fix the English language.

Today the linguistic situation in England is such that there is a divergence between the English officially used and taught in the schools, and, the various forms of native speech current among many people. This situation can be observed in the Early Modern English period as well. The regional forms of Middle English include the native Lowland English of Scotland, the Northern dialects, the Southern English dialects and town dialects such as Cockney and Scouse of Liverpool.

The Lowland English of Scotland in its literary form as Literary Scots was used first in the 15^th с. by an important school of writers who carried on Chaucer's literary tradition in the North. Scottish poets of the 15^th and early 16^th c. wrote in two contrasting styles: а fairly simple one and an artificial style decorated with the learned terms of poetic diction. In the second part of the 18^th century Robert Burns wrote in this grammatical form of Middle English and made it extremely popular; Sir Walter Scott used it in dialogue passages in his famous historical novels.

The dialects in the North of England have had no such literary tradition in modern times as that enjoyed by the Scottish. The reasons lie of course in the quite, different social and political conditions. Vanished and forgotten by most were the days of Richard Rolle who in the 14^th с. wrote lyrical prose in the Yorkshire dialect. For Northern English we have а curious body of songs, which have come down to us from the mid-19^th с. а period of bitter proletarian struggles in the mining and textile industries.

А few of the most striking characteristics of Southern Middle English, persisting into the 16^th and 17^th centuries, were used by dramatists of that time to represent а kind of generalized rural speech. Among the modern English writers it was Thomas Hardy who used scraps of local dialect in his stories about the Southwest region he called Wessex (cf. the speech of Tess of the D’Ubervilles).

In the Southeast, the dialect, which has attracted most attention in literary treatments, is the dialect of London speech known as Cockney. Dickens as spoken by the uneducated first recorded Cockney in "Pickwick Раpers"; and G.В. Shaw's play "Pygmalion" clearly portrays the sосiа1 implications"- of the contrast in speech using this kind of Cockney side by side with Standard English. Cockney is an urban dialect; no 1еss а dialect than that of Devon shire or Yorkshire. The same words may be said about Scouse - the dialect of Liverpool speech.

It is to be noted that in the neighboring island of Ireland, the English language has had a special history. When Ireland was reduced to the status of an English colony, to political and economic oppression there was added a harsh discrimination against the native Irish tongue. Ireland is a classical example of a situation in which national oppression was related to linguistic discrimination. The modified form of English spoken in Ireland is termed Anglo-Irish.

Despite the pressure of Standard English regional speech lives on in Dover and Inverness, Newcastle and Bristol. Different types of English are spoken and the form of speech that is often called King's or Queen's English is not always in general use. The broadest forms of regional speech are local dialects. Historically these are developments of the parent tongue and are as 'correct' in their own areas as Standard English. Through the Middle English period (1100-1500) many forms of the language were acceptable. Writers had no standard spelling system to guide them and so tried to spell phonetically, writing their words as they were pronounced locally. In the 16^th century the growing social importance of the court of London increased. The scholarly influence of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the establishing printing in London exerted a combined pressure towards a standard form of English.

Although the local speech of London and the South-east Midlands became increasingly important throughout the 16^th century. It was still influenced by the speech of nearby areas. Provincial pronunciations were accepted from time to time and resulted in different pronunciations for spellings that had become standard: thus daughter and laughter, which at one time rhymed, now have quite different vowel sounds.

Writers about 1600 began to be very conscious of the variants in the language and to set out arguments for what was 'right' and 'wrong'. Early dictionary makers strengthened the growing belief that one type of English was 'better' than others.

From the time when the language of the South-east Midlands became predominant as the speech of the upper and edl1cated classes, the speech of the ordinary people of the area continued to develop separately as a local dialect. The north and west, which were outside the area of great prestige, had also continued their separate speech development.

The modern local dialects of all these areas and not merely slipshod versions of Standard English, but the products of linguistic history, often more regular in their forms and development than the standard language.

Various factors combine to weaken local speech traditions and. it is increasingly difficult to find in any community lifelong natives who use only local language habits. It is uncertain whether dialects will survive modern pressures towards standardization but for the moment fascinating variants in sounds and words are used by the people of different areas (Cf., for instance, she - -sheer, shur, shoo, shay, oo, her; I am - I bin, I is, I be, I are; children — baims, bairns, weans, children; to brew (tea) - mask, mash, wet, soak, make, draw, dame, scald, steep).

1.6. Roman Church influence on civilization culture and literature

Christian ideology was predominant in feudal Europe, and England was no exception to the rule. The feudal system was interested in strengthening of the Christian religion, a lot of monasteries were opened, and a lot of beautiful churches were built. The majority of the cathedrals and monasteries were built late in the 11^th and in the 12^th centuries by French architects and craftsmen in the so-called Romanesque style. They were very large and solid with a tall central part. The arches were round with lots brickwork decorations, ornament, beak-head edges and chevron design. The building seemed to be weight down to the ground by solidity of its round-arched shape.

The Gothic style in architecture followed the Romanesque one. It was introduced as it had been before, from Romanic countries, first of all from France. It was a style harmoniously blending architecture, sculpture and pictorial art. Gothic architecture was born out of the experiences gained during the final phases of Romanesque architecture. The new architects took over many features of late Romanesque architecture, subjecting them, however, to a new idea of structural lightness, less massive, and demanding more sophisticated forms. Gothic architecture endeavoured to organize the space of the basilica into a unity, in which the significance of the walls minimized, and the building was raised to soaring heights, stressing the vertical principal throughout in the compositional rhythm of all the parts of the structure. The final and predominant aim was the attainment of imaginary space, elevating human’s mind into the supernatural sphere.

The 12^th century marked the beginning of a great movement in religious construction in the form of cathedrals, which proved the greatest design achievement of the age.

Art historians usually distinguish three periods of Gothic architecture in England. An early English cathedral produced an impression of soaring into the air. Salisbury cathedral is usually shown as an example of pure English Gothic.

Later in the 13^th century the so-called Perpendicular Gothic was introduced with a lot of parallel-placed tall perpendicular shapes and lines emphasizing the upward directed movement of the structural rhythm.

The 11^th – 13^th centuries were remarkable for glass-staining. Stained glass with religious themes usually pictures of Saints, etc. was an important element of Gothic church architecture. Pictorial art at that time was often represented by miniature painting and drawing. The 14^th century is considered to be the so-called “Decorated Gothic” where the pure Gothic outlines are marred.

During the reign of the first Norman kings three languages existed side by side within the kingdom: Latin as the language of the clergy and the learned, French as the language of nobility and power and the language of polite intercourse and English as the language of the ordinary people. Latin was the language used in nearly all public documents for it was the language of Western Christendom and as such made many contacts possible.

The English or, rather, the Anglo-Norman literature of the 11^th – 13^th centuries reflected the complex linguistic situation: church literature was Latin; the so-called chivalric poetry was predominantly French while folklore continued to develop in Anglo-Saxon. The language of the common people could not but have words and expressions penetrating from the language of the upper classes, French and Latin.

Thus without losing its native basis, English borrowed a lot of words from those languages, getting a rich sets of synonyms to denote the subtlest shades of meaning or impressions to express the subtlest twist of thought.

The flourishing of feudal culture and the crusades meant contacts with other cultures. English literature could profit by the poetical achievements of other nations.

Church literature was didactic in keeping with the scholastic philosophy of the time it preached asceticism, neglect of earthy existence, preparation for the better world. Didactic poems like “Poema Morale” (ab. 1170, anonymous) or a manual teaching how to avoid sin called “Handlyng Synne” translated from French by Robert Mannyng early in the 14^th century characterized this sort of literature.

Chivalric poetry in French at first and later in English was represented by versified romance. Contrary to the Anglo-Saxon epic, it is not self-sacrifice for the good of the people but defence of individual honour and dignity, individual interest that is in the center of attention. King Arthur, the hero of the Celtic anti-Saxon struggle of the 6^th century transformed into a hero of knightly literature. The poem was at first written in French in 11^th – 13^th centuries then it was translated into English in the 13^th century. Such knightly poems came to present times as “Arthur”, “Arthur and Merlin”, “Lancelot of the Lake”, “Morte d’Arthur” and a few others.

As it concerned to the folklore it was oral and did not all survived.

The 12^th century was the time when the oldest English university was founded in Oxford (1167) to remain the principal center of science and learning. It had a great influence on the development of English culture and science.

In 1209 another university was established in Cambridge. The clerical influence on the universities was very strong. Being founded on the basis of the churches medieval universities became the centers of resistance and struggled for the autonomy. The townsmen and the scholars “the Town and Gown” in the phrase of the time, were two hostile camps, sometimes at war sometimes allies at the time of the Civil war.

All this period the cultural influence of France never ceased. French monks, the religious orders of Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites came in the 13^th century. Among these monks were the first educated people, who lighted the torch of knowledge in the darkness of the medieval scholastic logics. They made theology the center of all their philosophical searching and made the deduction as their main method of investigation. Their idea was that the earthy life is regarded to be the preparation for eternity.

Robert Grosseteste (died in 1253) the Bishop of Lincoln, was one of the Franciscan monks who actively came out in favour of the monarchy restriction. One of his followers was Roger Bacon (ab. 1214-1292), a great English thinker and philosopher with whose name the beginning of natural sciences in England is inseparably connected. He remarked that science at medieval period tended to encyclopedic form. The follower of the scholastic science Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) stated that the most proper method of cognition is scholastic methods of deduction and reference to authorities made the thing dead for the scientists turned away from facts of changing life which doomed science to failure. Albert Magnus one of Roger Bacon’s teachers had seen the deficiencies of that approach and must have imparted the skepticism to Bacon.

2. Inner history
The Middle English period was the time of rapid development of the language. For the first three centuries English was a spoken language, and as such had no norm and could develop without any restrain. All the elements of the language changed fundamentally.

2.1. Phonetics

The stress is dynamic and fixed in the native words. But in the borrowed French words the stress was on the last syllable:

Licour [li′ku:r], nature [na′tu:r], etc.

New consonant sounds developed in native words:
ME [∫] ship [∫t] child [dЗ] bridge
OE scip cild brycз
The resonance of the consonant does not depend so much on the position of the consonant, voiced consonants can appear not only in the intervocalic, but also in initial and other positions.

Vowels in the unstressed position were reduced:

Old English Middle English
a

o e [ә]

e

u
These sounds were in the end of the word, and it neutralized the difference between the suffixes – the main grammar means.

Compare:

Old English Middle English

Genitive Singular fisces fishes

Nominative Plural fiscas fishes
Vowels under stress underwent mainly quantitative changes. In Middle English we observe a rhythmic tendency, the aim of which to obliterate overlong and over short sequences. The tendency is to have in the word one long vowel + one consonant or one short vowel + two consonants.
2.2. Grammar
The grammar system in Middle English gradually but very quickly changed fundamentally: Old English was a synthetic language, Middle English at the end of the period – an analytical language. The principal grammatical means of Old English were preserved, but were no longer principal. At the end of Middle English the analytical means, which began to develop in Middle English, are predominant. They are:
1. Analytical verb-forms (Chaucer: perfect – hath holpen (has helped); passive – engendered is (is born) ;

2. The use of prepositions for grammatical purposes (Chaucer; drought of March);

3. A fixed word-order began to develop.
Some grammatical features viewed diachronically

The changes in English grammar may be described as general reduction of inflections. Thus in early Middle English only two methods of indicating the plural remained fairly distinctive the -s or

-es from the strong declension and the -en (as in ox- en) from the weak. In the adjective the reducing of forms had even greater consequences. Partly as а result of the sound-changes, partly through the extensive working of analogy, except for а few archaic forms, the adjective had become an uninflected word by the close of the Middle English period. The decay of inflections which brought about such а simplication of the noun and the adjective made it necessary to depend less upon formal indications of gender, case, and (in adjectives) number, and to rely more upon word order and the use of prepositions to make clear the relation of words in а sentence. Apart from some leveling of inflections and weakening of endings with the general tendency (for example), the -an of the OЕ infinitive became

-en and later -е: OE drifan - МЕ driven - drive), the principal changes in the verb during the Middle English period were 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. Today more than half of the OE strong verbs have disappeared completely from the standard language. When we subtract the verbs that have been lost completely and the eighty-one that have become weak, there remain just 68 the OE strong verbs in the language today. To this number may be added 13 verbs, which are conjugated in both ways or have kept one strong form. These figures indicate how extensive has been the loss of strong verbs in the language.

One of the consequences of the decay of inflections was the elimination of grammatical gender. With the disappearance of grammatical gender the idea of sex became the only factor in determining the gender of English nouns.

It should be pointed out that by making English the language mainly of uneducated people the Norman Conquest made it easier for grammatical changes to go forward unchecked. Beyond this it is not to be considered а factor in them, towards the close of the Middle English period the language had undergone much simplification of its inflections, but its grammar was still English.

English grammar in the 16^th and early 17^th centuries is marked more by the surv1val of certain forms and usages that have since disappeared than by any fundamental developments. The great changes that reduced the inflections of Old English to their modern proportions had already taken place. The only inflections in the noun were those marking the plural and the possessive singular. Since the adjective had already lost all its endings, so that it no loner expressed distinctions of gender, number, and case, the chief interest of this part of speech is the modern period is in the forms of the comparative and superlative degrees. In the 16 th century. these were not always precisely those now in use. For instance, а double comparative or superlative is fairly frequent in the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: more larger, 'most boldest, or Mark Antony’s. “This was the most unkindest cut of all”. The chief development affecting the adjective in modern times has been the gradual settling down of usage so that monosyllables take -er and -est while most adjectives of two and more syllables take 'more and 'most'. The 16^th сentury. saw the establishment of the personal pronoun in the form which it has had. ever since In attaining the result three changes were involved: the disuse of 'thou, thy, thee'; the substitution of 'уоu' for 'уе' as а nominative case; and the introduction of 'its' as the possessive of 'it'. Another noteworthy development of the pronoun in the 16^th c. is the use of 'who' as а relative.

English grammar in the 18^th century. is marked by the development of Continuous Tense Forms. It is а commonplace that English is distinctly more varied and flexible in some of its verbal expressions than other modern languages. Thus where German says "ich singe", English may say ""I sing, I do sing," or "I am singing"„ The do-forms are often called emphatic forms, and this they sometimes are; but their most important uses are in negative and interrogative sentences

(I don’t sing, do you sing?). The forms with 'to be common use is to indicate an action as in progress at the time implied by the auxiliary. The wide extension of the use of continuous forms one of the most important developments of the English verb in the modern period. The chief factor in their growth is the use of the participle as а noun governed by the preposition 'on' (he burst out on laughing) This weakened to 'he burst out а-laughing' and finally to 'he burst out laughing' In the same way 'he was on laughing' became 'he was а-laughing' and 'he was laughing'. Today such forms are freely used in all tenses (is laughing, was laughing, will be laughing, etc.).

The extension of such forms to the passive (the house is being built) was an even later development. It belongs to the very end of the 18^th с. The construction 'the man is on laughing' was capable also of a passive significance under certain circumstances. Thus 'the house is on building' can only suggest that the house is in process of construction This use is found from the 14^th с. on, and its weakened form can be met today' In the last years of the 18^th с. we find the first traces of the modern expression 'the house is being built'. The combination of 'being' with participle II to form а participial phrase had been in use for some time. The history of the new continuous passive shows that its grammar is not fixed, that it will change in the future as it has changed in the past.

The gerund, which came into being in Middle English, developed further in Modern English; it was gradually more and more clearly separated. From the verbal noun in -ing. In Modern English analytical gerund forms appear: the perfect and, the passive gerund.

The mood. System developed in Modern English mainly towards creating more precise means of expressing modal meanings, and, in this connection, towards growth of analytical verb forms, Thus, in the sphere of the subjunctive, use of the pattern 'should/would plus infinitive' gradually grew in main clauses of а conditional sentence.

The category of aspect seems to have arisen only in the Modern English period. In Modern English a continuous aspect was gradually formed, ехрrеssed by a very obvious morphological pattern (be plus participle I). Verbal forms lacking this pattern became а system of common aspect. It is hard to state a definite point at which the category of aspect came into being, as the process developed slowly, and even as late as the 19^th c. it was still possible to use forms of the common aspect to denote an action as in progress at а definite moment.

The system of perfect forms, which had arisen in Old English and developed in Middle English, goes on spreading in the modern period. Thus in Shakespeare’s text there is а fully developed system of perfect forms. The perfect forms of the continuous aspect (has been writing, had been writing, will have bee writing) appeared only after the formation of the continuous aspect.

The number of French words, which was borrowed by English, was great. There is nothing comparable to it in the previous or subsequent history of the language. Two stages can be observed, an earlier and, а later, with the year 1250 as the borderline. The borrowings of the first stage differ from. Those of the second in being much less numerous, being more likely to show peculiarities of Anglo-Norman phonology, and, especially, in the circumstances that brought about their introduction (Roughly 900 in number). The largest single group of words was associated with the church; another single group was associated with а French-speaking society.

(1) The Normans became masters of England, and they remained masters for а sufficiently long time to 1еаvе а deep impress on the language. It is true that they left the old words 'king' and 'queen' intact, but apart from these пеаг1у all words relating to government and. to the highest administration are French: government, govern, administer, crown, state, empire, realm, reign, authority, sovereign, majesty, tyrant; oppress , court, parliament, assembly, treaty, alliance, tax, revenue, tally, exchequer; subject, treason, traitor, rebel, exile, liberty; office, chancellor, treasurer, marshal, governor, councilor, minister, warden, mayor, coroner; noble, nobility, peer, prince, princess, duke, duchess, count, countess, marquis, baron, page, squire, courtier, sir, madam, mistress, vassal, peasant, slave.

(2) as ecclesiastical matters were also chiefly under the control of the upper classes; there are many French words connected with the church, such as religion, service, trinity, savior, virgin, saint, relic, abbey, cloister, friar, clergy, parish, sacrifice, homily, altar, miracle, preach, pray, prayer, sermon, feast; rule, lesson, save, 'blame, order, nature; virtue, vice, duty, grace, charity, cruel, chase, desire, jealousy, pity, mercy, discipline, piety, mystery, immortality, vicar, hermitage; crucifix, image, sanctuary, creator, savior, Ха1th, heresy, temptation, damnation; solemn, devout, preach, chant, confess, adore.

(3) The upper classes, as a matter of course, took into their hands the management of military matters; there is а host of French military terms, many of them of very early introduction. Such are war, peace, battle, arms, armour, mail, lance, dart, cutlass, banner, ensign, assault, siege, defence, ambush, retreat, guard, soldier, officer, sergeant, lieutenant, chieftain (captain' and colonel' аrе later), troops, navy, enemy, company, force, march. Some words which are now used very extensively outside the military sphere were without any doubt: at first purely military, such as challenge, danger, escape, aid, prison, gallant, etc.

(4) Another natural consequence of the power of the Norman upper classes is that most of the terms pertaining to the law are of French origin, such as justice, just, judge; suit, sue, plaintiff and defendant, plea, plead, summon, cause, assize, session, attorney, fee, accuse, crime, felony, damage, dower, heritage, property, real estate, tenure, penalty, injury, privilege. Some of these are now hardly to be called technical juridical words, and there are others which belong still more to the ordinary vocabulary of everyday life, but which were undoubtedly at first introduced by lawyers at the time when procedure was conducted, entirely in French; for instance, case, marry, marriage, prove, fault, heir, male and. female, while 'defend' and 'prison' are common to the juridical and the military worlds. There are many French verbs associated with legal processes: sue, implead, accuse, indict, depose, blame, arrest, seize, pledge, arrant, assail, condemn, convict, award, distrain, imprison, banish, acquit, pardon, the names of many crimes and misdemeanors are French: felony, trespass, arson, fraud, libel, slander perjury, adultery, and many others. Suits involving property brought into use such words as property, estate, tenement, chattels, bounds, tenant, dower, legacy, patrimony, heritage, heir, executor, etc.

(5) The upper classes set the standard in fashion, meals, dress and social life. The words 'fashion' and 'dress' are themselves French, as are apparel, gown, robe, саре, cloak, frock, veil, petticoat, lace, pleat, embroidery, button, kerchief, garter; satin, taffeta, fur, beaver, ermine; jewel, ornament, brooch, ivory, enamel, topaz, garnet, ruby, emerald, sapphire, pearl, diamond, etc. The superiority of the French cuisine can be shown by such words as dinner and supper, feast, repast, mackerel, sole, perch, bream, sturgeon, salmon, sardine, oyster; venison, beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, sausage, etc. One could have pottage, toast, biscuit, cream, sugar, olives, salad, lettuce, and for dessert almonds and many fruits, including raisin, fig, date, grape, orange, lemon, cherry, peach, or а confection, pastry, tart, jelly. The verbs roast, boil, stew, fry, grate, and mince describe various culinary processes, and goblet, saucer, cruet, plate, platter suggests French refinements in the serving of meals. It was а popular remark by Sir Walter Scott in 'Ivanhoe' that has been often repeated that while the names of several animals in their lifetime are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, boar, deer), they appear on the table with French names (beef, veal, mutton, port, bacon, brawn, venison). The use of the French words here is due to the superiority of the French cuisine.

(6) А variety of new words suggests the innovations made by the French in domestic economy and social life. Improvements in domestic arrangements were implied in such words as recreation, jollity, leisure, рlеаsure, dance, revel, lute, music, melody, chess, checkers, conversation, parlor, wardrobe, closet, pantry, scullery; chase, tournament, pavilion, sport, cards, dice, асе, deuce, trey, size, etc.

(7) The French were the teachers of the English in most things relating to art; not only such words as art, beauty, colour, image, design, figure, ornament, to paint, but also the greater number of the more special words of technical significance are French: arch, tower, pillar, porch, column, aisle, choir, chapel, cloister, palace, castle, manor, mansion, etc. One cannot fail to be struck with the difference between the more elementary occupations (such as English baker, miller, smith, weaver, shoemaker, fisherman, shepherd. and others) and the more fashionable ones (French tailor, mason, painter, carpenter, butcher, and joiner).

(8) Literature is represented by the word itself and by poet, rime, prose, romance, lау, story, chronicle, tragedy, соmedy, prologue, preface, title, volume, chapter, paper, pen, parchment; and learning is represented by study, grammar, logic, geometry, compilation, noun, gender, clause, and many more. Among the sciences medicine has brought in the largest number of early French words still in common use, among them being the word medicine itself, ch1rurgy, physician, surgeon, apothecary, malady, pain, ague, palsy, gout, leper, paralytic, plague, pestilence, anatomy, anatomy, remedy, ointment, balm, alkali, poison.

(9) One has only to glance over а misсе11аneous list of words - nouns, adjectives, and verbs - to realize how universal was the French contribution. For instance, nouns which were already in English by 1300: action, adventure, affection, age, air, bucket, bushel, business, calendar, cheer, city, coast, country, courage, coward, cruelty, damage, deceit, debt, envy, error, face, fame, fault, flower, folly, force, grief, glutton, harlot, hour, jest joy, malice, manner, marriage, metal, mischief, mountain, noise, number, ocean, opinion, order, pair, people, реr11, person, рiесе, point, poverty, powder, quality, quart, rage, reason, river, scandal, seal, season, sign, sound, spirit, square, strife, substance, sum, task, tavern, tempest, unity, use, vision, waste. The same universality is shown in the adjectives: able, active, actual, am1sble, amorous, barren, blank, brief, calm, certain, chief, clear, common, contrary, courageous, courteous, соу, cruel, curious, debonair, double, eager, easy, faint, feeble, fierce, final, firm, foreign, frail, frank, gay, gentle, gracious, hardy, hasty, honest, horrible, innocent, jо11у, large, liberal, luxurious, malicious, mean, moist, natural, nice, obedient, original, perfect, pertinent, plain, poor, precious, principal, probable, proper, рurе, quaint, real, rude, safe, savage, scarce, second, secret, simple, single, sober, solid, special, stout, strange, subtle, sudden, sure, tender, treacherous, universal, usual. А list of the verbs borrowed at the same time shows equal diversity. Examples are: advance, advice, aim, allow, approach, arrange, arrive, betray, carry, change, chase, close, commence, complain, conceal, consider, continue, count, cover, cry, deceive, declare, defeat, defer, defy, delay, desire, destroy, embrace, enclose, endure, enjoy, enter, err, excuse, flatter, flourish, force, forge, form, furnish, grant, increase, inform, join, lmgu1sh, marry, mount, move, murmur, muse, nourish, obey, oblige, observe, pass, рау, pinch, please, practice, praise, prefer, proceed, propose, prove, purify, pursue, quash, quit, receive, refuse, rejo1cе, relieve, remember, reply, rob, satisfy, save, serve, spoil, strive, succeeded, suppose, surprise, tempt, trace, travel, tremble, wait, waste, wince, Finally, the influence of French may be seen in numerous phrases and turns of expression, such as to take leave, to draw near, to hold one’s peace, to do justice, on the point of, according to, subject to, at large, in vain, without fail. In these and other phrases, even when the words are English the pattern is French.

The calculations of French words show that the total number of borrowings adopted during the Мiddle English period was slightly over ten thousand, of these about 75 per cent are still in current use.

It must not be thought that the extensive modification of the English language caused by the Norman Conquest had made of it something else than English. It had absorbed several thousand French words as а natural consequence of а situation in which larger numbers of people were for а time bilingual and then gradually turned from the habitual use of French to the habitual use of English. It had lost а great many native words but basic elements of the vocabulary were still English.