HEL 9

Middle English Grammar

Biggest dialect areas:

North:

much more innovative:

contact with Norse, less French influence

Source of our inflections (= simplified inflections)

innovative pronouns:

they, them, their

she?

South:

much more conservative:

retain more inflection longer

more French contact

General Middle English:

Reduction

Leveling

Analogy spreads!

“simplification” of inflectional system

with attendant increase in rigidity of word order

Ex: Peterborough Chronicle:

1083: On þissum geare

1117: On þison geare

1135: On þis geare

1154: On þis gear

Vowel Reduction:

centralization and laxing of unstressed/weak stressed vowels

“leveling” of inflections: merger, followed by loss

/a/, /u/, /o/, > /ə/

silencing, then loss

Final ‘e’ is silenced, even though often kept in spelling

loss of all final ‘e’ inflections

pronunciation of final ‘e’ maintained in poetry into 14^th century

even false final ‘e’s:

lore < OE lar

Medial ‘e’ disappears—syncope

–es genitive > s (except following sibilants)

–eth generally reduced > –th

–ed retained in past participle, but not in past tense (pronounce)

“though some have calléd thee”

“banishéd”

“marked / mark’d”

“learned / learned”

Adjectives:

Comparatives and superlatives stick around: as in modern English

OE –ra > –er OE –ost > –est

periphrastic method: in OE, but the norm in French

double comparatives / superlatives

“most best”

Nouns inflections:

Genders and hence classes disappear

NOM/ACC –0

Dat: sometimes –e

gen sing: --(e)s Analogical/productive

pl: --(e)s Analogical/productive

no CASE in pl at all

But in south, including London, a rival analogical plural form: –en

shooen—even in Shakespeare’s time

develen, children, kyn

Personal Pronouns

Third person singular FEM: they mystery of SHE

he / ho / heo / scho / seo / hi

Third Plural: borrowed from Norse, esp in North

h-forms last longer in South

Birth of the Article

se, seo, þæt > the

þæt > that

VERBS:

Inflections: greatly reduced

in North, only inflection is –s (as modern English)

South keeps –st/–th around longer

Thou makest

he maketh

Subjunctive –e, reduced to –0 (but not –s):

“Thy kingdom come”

“God save the Queen”

Present Participle: –ende, in OE:

mysterious rise in –ING

based on gerundial –ung?

“he was in huntung” > “he was a-hunting” > “he was hunting”

SYNTAX:

Increased use of periphrasis

Greater reliance on word order (though much freer than ModEng)

Dative: “to –“ periphrasis

Gen: “of –“ periphrasis

Perfect tense: formed with “is” or “have”

“he is come”

“he has come”

Big Pictures:

Move from Synthetic to Analytic Language:

but which came first?

“nobody looks at the ending in OE”

Middle English as Creole?

What’s a Creole?

The growing up of a pidgin: (contact language)

(not everything that’s called a pidgin is one)

French and English:

yes massive lexical borrowing

but structural changes? not so much

plus the South was the most conservative (greatest French influence)

Massive changes underway; suppression of English as official language accelerated internal changes; but none of the changes are really borrowed from French

Think of the Verb

But what of Norse: Shouting cognates?

In the North: (the most innovative); add to reduction of inflections

Scandinavian languages even more analytic

Standard Dialect:

Literary Texts produced throughout Middle English

in the whole variety of diversified Dialects

No strong need for Unified Standard, because French and Latin did this work

Factors:

William Caxton 1476 brought printing press to England; he was in London

Rise of Urbanization: especially London: becomes center of economic life

Patriotism vis-à-vis the Hundred Years War

East Midlands: good compromise:

not as innovative as North or Conservative as South

(cf. New England and Southern American English

Standard American English is derived from Philadelphia English)

Traditional importance assigned to the Chancery: state documents copied and standardized (perhaps written standard, but spoken?)