Ne Changes in Morphology, Syntax and Vocabulary
The NE Noun
The NE Pronoun
The NE Adjective
The NE Verb
The changes in syntax
NE vocabulary changes
Rastorgueva T.A. A History of English. – M., 1983. – Pp. 220-328
Костюченко Ю.П. Історія англійської мови. – Київ, 1963. – C. 319-333
Аракин В.Д. История английского языка. – М, 1985. – C. 208-247
Lukianova G.L. History of the English Language. – Cherkasy, 2004. – Pp. 97-106
The ne Noun
Category of Number
In Early New English the ending –es which was the marker of nouns in plural in ME extended to more nouns. The new words of the growing vocabulary and many words that built their plural forms in a different way used now –es in plural. This inflexion in Early NE underwent different phonetic changes:
After a voiced consonant or a vowel it was pronounced as /z/
ME stones /stLnqs/ > /stEVnqz/ > /stEVnz/ (NE stones)
ME (days) /dQIs/ > NE /deIz/
After a voiceless consonant as /s/
ME bookes /bLkqs/ > /bHks/ > /bVks/
After sibilants and affricates /s, z, S, C, G/ as /Iz/
ME /dISqs/ > /dISIz/ (dishes)
The ME plural ending –en which was used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its productivity. In Modern English it is only found in “oxen”, “brethren”, “children” (OE cild – cildru)
The small group of ME nouns with homonymous forms of number (ME deer, hors, thing) was reduced to “deer”, “swine”. The group of former root-stems survived as exceptions: “man”, “tooth”.
Category of Case
The range of the Genetive Case nouns has been narrowed. It has come to be used almost with nouns denoting living beings. As a spelling device the apostrophy was introduced in the 18-th century.
OE Early ME Late ME
N
ominative
A
ccusative
Common
D ative Dative Common
Genitive Genitive Genitive
The ne Pronoun
The Late ME as well as the NE pronouns of the third person are separate words with no generic ties: he, she, it, they. “It” is a direct descendant of OE “hit”, /h/ was lost.
In the 17-18th centuries the plural forms of the second person “ye”, “you”, “your” were used to apply to individuals. They ousted the corresponding singular pronouns “thou”, “thee”, “thine” from every day usage. Nowadays “thou” is found only in poetry, in some dialects.
Plural
2-nd person ME Early NE
Nominative ye you/ye
Objective (from OE
Accusative and Dative) you you
Possessive (OE Genitive) your(e), yours your, yours
Plural
3-rd person ME Early NE
Nominative hie/they they
Objective hem/them them
Possessive her(e)/their(e) their, theirs
The Category of Case
In Early NE the syncretism of case entered a new phase: the Nominative case began to merge with the Objective case. The modern pronoun “you” comes of the ME objective case you (OE eow). Its Nominative case “ye” has become obsolete.
In Early NE there developed a new possessive pronoun “its” derived form “it”.
In the 17-18th centuries two variants of the possessive pronouns split into two distinct sets of forms (in modern grammars called “conjoint” and “absolute”.
E.g. the possessive pronouns my, mine (ME mi, min) that were originally phonetic variants have acquired different combinability (this is my book – this is mine).