41. Reduction of Vowels in Final Unstressed Syllables in me.

All unstressed vowels were weakened and reduced to a neutral vowel:

• -a,u,o>e (sunu>sune, tima>time),

• -an, ian, um>en, e (helpan>helpen, hwilum>while)

• -on>en (heofon>heven)

• -od>ed (hesfod>heafed)

• -ord>erd (hlaford> laverd)

• -iƷ>y (maniƷ>many)

• -as>es (tunas>townes)

• -a>e (drifa>driveth).

The system of stress changed. It’s position became to some extent free under the influence of French borrowings

42. Me Vowels: Quantitative changes.

Quantity of vowels becomes dependant on their environment – to be exact, on what follows. With few exceptions, the situation in ME is briefly this – in some phonetic environments only short vowels can appear, while in other phonetic environments only long vowels can appear. The quantity of environment still to be considered predetermined by environment

43. Changes within the System of Vowels in me. Таблица 71

44. Sources of New me diphthongs.

The new diphthongs originate from groups consisting of a vowel &either a palatal or a velar fricative. The palatal fricative z (j) and the velar spirant z(y) are vocalized, combine with the preceding vowel, and yield diphthongs of a new type. The palatal consonant yields diphthongs in –I, and the velar one, which seems to have possessed a labial element in its articulation, yields diphthongs in –w. The following changes took place accordingly

1) rise of diphthongs in –I (dai, mai, lai) 2) rise of diphthongs in –w(sawe, drawen)

45. Formation of New Diphthongs in me.

Тбл 73

46. Changes within the Noun System in me.

Many endings become homonymous, the gender remained to be only lexical category. Mostly used endings – es(neutral, masc. gender), en (fem). In ME genitive case developed. Тбл 75. 76

47. Changes within the Adjective System in me.

Adjectives lost almost all their endings. But the difference between strong and weak declension remained – in strong declension the ending –e was only in plural, while in weak declension both singular and plural had –e. The grades of comparison were created with the help of suffixes –er, -est (hard-harder-hardest), though suppletive type of adjectival formation was also preserved (good-bettre-best, litel-lesse-lest).

48. Changes within the Pronoun System in me.

In the system of pronouns in ME disappeared all the cases and genders (because of reduction of endings). Appeared new type of pronouns – possessive (from the genitive case). There remained only 4 demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) and they preserved only the category of number and far-close category. Such changes occurred in ME

• dual number pronouns have disappeared

• genitive case forms no longer exist as such

• the Dat&Acc have been merged into one objective case

• the 3rd person Pl. pronouns “he” is gradually superseded by the pronoun “they”

• initial “h” of the neuter pronoun “hit” is often lost

49. Rise of the Article System in me.

The definite article was the first to appear Demonstrative pronoun in some cases lost their demonstrative meaning. It reduced in form and articles showed that it was noun. The second one to appear was the indefinite article.

50. Changes within the System of Strong and Weak Verb in me.

Strong verbs built their forms with the help of the gradation going back to the IE ablaut.

• The number of strong verbs in ME continued to reduce.

• New verbs were usually weak. The verbs were conjugated according to the pattern of weak verbs.

• Some of the strong verbs died out: ʒewitan (йти), liðan (йти)

• Some other strong verbs began to build their forms with the help of the dental suffix: gripen, gliden, seethen, lien (to lie), so they passed from the class of weak.

• The number of basic forms of strong verbs formally remained the same (four), but due to the reduction of vowels in unstressed positions some of forms fell together (Table 79)

Weak verbs.

• There were 3 classes of weak verbs in OE though the 3^rd class included a very small number of verbs. In ME the 3^rd class cease to exist altogether.

• It was easily influenced by other classes already in OE; In ME the verbs of this class either joined the other classes of weak verbs (OE libban > ME liven) or became irregular (OE habban > ME haven, OE sec_an > ME seyen).

• The two classes can still be distinguished in ME with some rearrangements between them. A few verbs of the 1^st class joined the 2^nd class. Class 1 had the endings –en, -de, -ed; Class 2 had –en, -ede, -ed.

• The difference between the classes in ME was very slight (Table 80)

• In late ME the final [e] became unstable and was lost. The fact led to the elimination of the differences between the two classes.

• They also reduced the number of principal forms from 3 to 2, as the difference between the Past tense and the Past Participle was lost.

• The number of weak verbs greatly increased in ME, though a few weak verbs passed to the class of strong (due to phonetic changes or by analogy), among them: sleep, weep, flee.