And vowel digraphs:

ou/ow [u:]: hus – hous, tun – town;

ea [e]: mete – meat;

ee [e]: fet – feet;

oo [o]: fot – foot;

ie [e:]: feld – field;

oa [o]: bat – boat.

Another major event that resulted in spelling shifts the revival of learning in XVI c. It led to the introduction of a new, etymological, principle of spelling. It was believed that the spelling should reflect the origin of the word, the spelling of the word from which it was derived (the tendency was especially strong in words of Greek or Latin origin): the new spelling of the French borrowing dett was debt, as it could be traced back to Latin debitum, dout borrowed from French douter was respelled as doubt from Latin dubitare. Anyway, sometimes the origin of the word was wrongly defined, and that entailed the wrong etymological spelling, e.g. ME iland was respelled as island from a wrongly supposed connection with French isle and Latin insula (the word came from OE igland).

The major phonetic changes of the period, mainly the Great Vowel Shift, sometimes did not find any reflection in spelling, that resulted in such a phenomenon today when one and the same sound can be indicated in several ways, e.g. [Λ]: love, son, cut; [ε:]: learn, burnt, stir; [i:]: he, green, read, field, receive; [a:]: car, class, half, calm, plant, heart; [כ:]: short, all, sauce, draw, taught, thought, war.

All these changes resulted in the creation of one of the most complex spelling systems in the world.

6. Since Old English the English vocabulary has increased greatly. Among the changes in the vocabulary linguists distinguish losses of words or their meanings, replacements and additions. Losses of words were connected with extralinguistic factors: with the changing mode of life and dying out of many old concepts and traditions, e.g.

• OE witenagemōt "assembly of the elders" ceased to exist in Middle English under the Norman rule, and the word, consequently, became useless and died out;

• the Old English word Danegeld denoting the tax paid to the Scandinavian invaders disappeared after the collapse of the Danish empire;

• OE wergeld stood for a fine paid by the murderer to the family of the murdered man – the word went out of use after the abolishment of the custom.

Some of the words, which generally became obsolete were preserved in some dialects.

Sometimes the word survived but the loss of one of its meanings took place that reflected the changing life of the speakers and the impact of the contacts with other nations, e.g.

• OE gift meant "price of a wife" connected with one of the meanings of the verb "gyfan" (NE give) "give in marriage", later the meaning was lost;

• OE sellan lost the meaning "give" which it once had alongside "sell";

• OE talu meant "number, series" and "story, narrative" while in NE only the latter meaning is preserved.

It has been calculated that from 80 to 85 % of the Old English words went out of use in later periods. Most of them were replaced by other words of the same or similar meanings. The replacement was the result of the selection of one of the existing synonyms, e.g.

OE clipian was replaced by ME callen (NE call);

OE niman > ME taken (NE take);

OE hīe and hēo > they and she;

OE weorðan > become;

OE ēa > river.

Like losses, replacements could also occur in the content, when the word was retained but one of its meanings was replaced by a new one, e.g. OE cniht "boy, servant" changed its meaning to ME and NE "knight"; OE cleric "clergyman" changed into ME clerk "student, scholar" and NE "secretary in an office".

Such replacements did not increase the number of words in the vocabulary, but many of the replacements were of the "split"-type, when one meaning developed into two or one word was replaced by two or more. These changes are called additions to the vocabulary. Among additions we can find words denoting new things, qualities, ideas and notions, e.g. ME citee "town with a cathedral", duke, duchesse and prynce stood for new ranks and titles; NE innovations were bourgeois, potato, nylon, etc. Many additions took place due the differentiation in the meanings of the synonyms. The development of new meanings in the existing words led to the extension of the vocabulary and the growth of polysemy and homonymy.

The sources of new words are usually divided into external and internal, the latter ones being very productive at all stages of the linguistic history. Here belong word-formation and semantic changes, which were especially productive in the periods of the rapid vocabulary growth, e.g. the Renaissance period.

The external sources played an important role in the extension of the English vocabulary. The Old English word stock included words mostly of Germanic origin; the language of the period was resistant to borrowing. In the succeeding periods, though, the situation changed: as a result of the invasions and the political, social changes in the country lots of words were borrowed from other languages, and the proportion of the native element fell. Modern statistics says that from 30 to 50 % of New English vocabulary is etymologically Germanic.

Anyway, the native element could fail to be preserved as the surviving native words denote the most frequently mentioned units, the native word deriving element is widely used to make new words, as well as in word phrases and phraseological units.

The main sources of borrowings for the English language were Latin and Greek, Scandinavian and French.

The first Latin borrowings came into the language even prior to the Introduction of printing due to the trade contacts with the Roman empire. They denote the names of household things and products:

pepper, cheese, apple, kettle, dish, etc.

The Introduction of the Christian religion gave an impetus to a new wave of borrowing, which brought into the language many religious terms:

bishop, psalm, candle, devil, martyr, monk, pope, altar, etc.

Another group of the Latin borrowings entered the language in Early New English, in XV-XVI c., that was connected with the development of science. The learned men of the time tried to preserve the Latin words to denote scientific terms. Hence such words as:

antenna – antennae, index – indices, datum – data, phenomenon – phenomena, etc.

It is easy to recognize Latin borrowings by the typical suffixes and combinations of letters: –ate, -ute, -ant, -ent, -ior, -al, -ct-:

anticipate, prosecute, important, evident, prior, individual, correct.

Loan-words from another classical language, Greek can also be identified by the typical elements – a) derivational suffixes and prefixes; b) peculiarities in spelling:

a) –ism, -ist, anti-, neo-, etc.: communism, monopolist, antidepressant, neoclassicism;

b) ph for [f], ps for [s], ch for [k]: photography, psychology, scheme, archaic.

The total number of Scandinavian borrowings in English is about 900 words. They do not differ from native words as both languages belong to the same linguistic group and penetrated the English language so deeply that it is not always easy for linguists to determine their real origin. These words mostly denote things of everyday life and habitual actions:

they, husband, knife, law, leg, bag, birth, egg, happy, ill, ugly, call, cut, die, take, want, forget, forgive, get, give, etc.

There is also the characteristic Scandinavian element that helps to identify the origin of the words:

- the sk/sc combination: sky, skin, scare, score (some words with the same combination of letters, however, are traced back to the French roots);

- words with the sound [g] or [k] before front vowels [i], [e], [ei], in the spelling i, e, ue, ai, a (open syllable) or at the end of the word: give, get, again, game, kid, kilt, hug, drag, etc.

Some personal names, containing the –son element are also Scandinavian loan-words:

Johnson, Jefferson.

The number of French borrowings exceeds the number of borrowings from any other foreign language. Words of this origin entered the language in Middle English and New English.

Middle English saw two stages of borrowing, the first being of the Norman origin. These are the words which entered the language beginning with the time of Edward the Confessor and up to the loss of Normandy in 1204. These words are often fully assimilated in English:

court, crime, government, justice, parliament, peace, prison, etc.

Later Middle English borrowings are traced back to Parisian French dated from the end of the 13^th century up to 1500. They are more colloquial words:

air, branch, cage, calm, chair, cost, mountain, river, table, etc.

French borrowings of the New English period began to enter the language in the 17^th century that was connected with the reign of Charles II, who had long lived in exile in France:

aggressor, apartment, brunette, campaign, caprice, caress, console, coquette, cravat, billet-doux, carte blanche, etc.

Later New English borrowings;

garage, magazine, policy, machine.

Since the French borrowings are numerous it is possible to divide them according to semantic spheres:

- government and administration: authority, country, crown, government, nation, parliament, people, power, realm, etc.;

- military terms: army, battle, captain, force, navy, regiment, victory, etc.;

- war and jurisdiction: accuse, case, crime, defendant, guilt, heir, judge, jury, justice, marry, money, poor, robber, etc.;

- church and religion: abbey, Bible, charity, clergy, divine, honour, glory, miracle, paradise, passion, pray, religion, sacrifice, etc.;

- house, furniture and architecture: castle, chimney, column, curtain, lamp, palace, table, wardrobe;

- art and fashion: art, beauty, colour, design, figure, image, paint, costume, fur, dress, jewel, etc.;

- entertainment: dance, leisure, partner, pleasure, sport, etc.;

- miscellaneous: advice, air, carry, change, close, double, enjoy, face, flower, hour, joy, letter, manner, necessary, obey, pass, pale, remember, scissors, single, travel, very, use, etc.

The French borrowings are rather easy to identify because of some phonetic features and affixes. First, if the word does not have stress on the first syllable (provided the syllable is not a prefix) it can be identified as French. Second, words containing the sounds [∫] spelled not sh, [dg] spelled not dg, [t∫] spelled not ch are of French origin:

aviation, social, Asia, soldier, jury, literature, pleasure, treasure.

Besides, the French suffixes –able, -ess, -ee, -or and Latin-French prefixes re-, dis-, in- also show that the word was borrowed from French.

There are also word-hybrids containing elements of different origin, as in the table below:

English – French	be-cause, a-round, out-cry, over-power, false-hood, fore-front
French – English	hobby-horse, scape-goat, trouble-some, plenty-ful, aim-less, re-take
English – Scandinavian	par-take, bandy-leg
French – Scandinavian	re-call
Latin – French	juxta-position

Word formation in Middle English and New English fell into word derivation and word composition. Word derivation included such means of word formation as suffixation, prefixation, sound interchanges and shifting of word stress and conversion. Affixation, as before, was the most productive way of deriving new words because many OE derivational suffixes were preserved and, as mentioned above, new suffixes and prefixes came from both external and internal sources.

Sound interchanges and shifting of word stress were mainly used to differentiated between the words.

Conversion was the new, typically English way of word formation that sprang up in the Early New English period. Conversion is the transportation of one word into another part of speech without changing the initial form. It has developed into a productive way of derivation.

Word composition became more productive in New English. The words have been built according to the definite patterns:

2. noun + noun: football, puppetshow, tablecloth, etc.;

3. gerund + noun: reading-room, working-day, looking-glass, etc.;

4. two noun-stems + -er: type-writer, baby-sitter, landholder, etc.;

5. noun + adjective: sea-green, stone-dead, country-wide, etc.;

6. adjective + noun + -ed: light-hearted, absent-minded, long-legged, etc.

Another innovation of New English was simplification, a process of word-building based on analogy. Some verbs were formed by dropping the suffix –er/-or/-ar of the nouns:

beggar – to beg

editor – to edit

to televise – television

to enthuse – enthusiasm.

7. In Middle English and Early New English the grammatical system of the English language changed a lot. From a synthetic language it turned into an analytical one. Analytical forms developed from free word groups, which consisted of two components: the first one gradually lost its lexical meaning and was preserved as a grammatical marker while the second retained its lexical meaning and acquired a new grammatical value in the compound form.

The parts of speech in ME and Early NE were the same as before: the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction and the interjection. The article was the only new part of speech, which developed form the pronouns in Early New English.

The ways of building up grammatical forms underwent considerable changes. The proportion of synthetic forms in the language had fallen as the new analytical forms appeared and replaced the old synthetic ones. The synthetic forms were the same as before: inflections, sound interchanges and suppletion.

Morphological simplification has always been the main direction of development for the nominal parts of speech. The evolution of the verbal system was a more complicated process: on the one hand, the morphology of the verb has undergone essential simplifying changes, on the other hand, the paradigm of the verb grew, as there came into being the new analytical forms and new categories.

The noun paradigm was subjected to simplification of declensions in Middle English that affected the grammatical categories of the noun. The Old English gender gradually disappeared; in Chaucer's time gender was already purely a lexical category, nouns could be substituted by "he" or "she" if they denoted human beings.

The category of case was preserved but the number of its members altered: it was changed from four to two in Late Middle English, which was connected with the change in the meaning and functions of the cases. Today's Common case is the result of the fusion of the Old English Nominative, Accusative and Dative cases.

Number has always been the most stable of all the nominal categories: it has preserved the distinction between two members. By Late Middle English –es has become the main plurality ending. The Middle English ending –en lost its productivity in the course of time, and nowadays it is only found in oxen, children, brethren (poetic).

The adjective lost all its grammatical categories except the degrees of comparison in Middle English. Anyway, the means to build up the degrees of comparison have altered. In Old English the endings –ra, -est/-ost were used, sometimes they were combined with root vowel interchange, the other times suppletive forms were engaged. In Middle English the suffixes have been weakened to –er, -est, the vowel interchange gradually fell into disuse (today it can be exemplified by old-elder-eldest).

The adjective was the first part of speech to develop analytical forms distinctly. In Middle English the words more and most (since the combinations with them are considered to be analytical forms) were used with all the adjectives regardless of the number of syllables: more kind, difficulter – difficultest.

Another interesting peculiarity of the Early New English adjectives is the use of "double comparatives" and "double superlatives", that is the use of both the endings and the auxiliary words to build up the comparative and superlative degrees: more better, the most unkindest (Shakespeare).

The pronouns was another part of speech to undergo extensive grammatical changes. The category of number was simplified as it lost the form of the dual number in Early Middle English; the category of case preserved only two members as the Accusative and the Dative cases had merged by the end of Middle English, and the Genitive case turned into a new class of pronouns – possessive. In the 17^th an 18^th c. the possessive pronouns developed two distinct sets of forms known today as "conjoint" and "absolute": my / mine, your / yours, her / hers, our / ours, their / theirs.

The Old English oblique case forms of personal pronouns combined with the adjective self gave rise to reflexive pronouns.

The Old English demonstrative pronouns þes, þeos, þis (NE this) and sē, sēo, þæt (NE that) lost most of their inflected forms with the exception of two, which today make up the paradigm of the demonstrative pronouns: this – these, that – those.

The other classes of the Old English pronouns – interrogative (hwā {NE who}, hwæs {NE whose}, hwī {NE why}, hwelc {NE which}, hwæþer {NE whether}) and indefinite (ænig {NE any}, nan {NE none}, nanþing {NE nothing}, nawiht/nowiht/noht {NE nothing}, hwæt-hwugu {NE something}) – were also subjected to some simplifying changes, which in the course of time led to the development of modern system of pronouns. The Old English demonstrative and interrogative pronouns became the source of relative pronouns (who, what).

During Middle English and Early New English the Old English morphological classification of verbs into seven classes degenerated due to several reasons: 1) weakening and later loss of the final syllables, which led to the coincidence of some forms; 2) phonetic changes made root vowel interchanges less consistent; 3) development of analytical forms, due to which the strong verbs lost consonant interchanges; 4) the reduction in the number of past tense forms from two to one; 5) the transition of some strong verbs into weak.

The grammatical forms of the finite verbs and the ways of their formation were affected greatly by the simplifying changes. Number distinctions were preserved and became more regular. In the 13^th and 14^th c. there were two ways to indicate plurality in verbs: the ending –en and root vowel interchange in strong verbs. Both of them went out of use in the 15^th c. The only number distinction remaining was that of singular forms of the 2^nd and 3^rd person Present Indicative indicated with the help of –est and –eth/-es (number distinctions of the 2^nd person existed as long as thou).

The OE endings –þ, -eþ, -iaþ denoting the 3^rd person singular merged into a single ending -(e)th. At the same time a new marker of the 3^rd person singular, -es, came from the Northern dialects and by the end of th18th century it was the dominant inflection of the 3^rd person singular.

The reduction of endings and leveling of forms influenced the formal differences between the moods. When –en became the dominant flection of the Indicative plural in Present and Past the Indicative and the Subjunctive moods could no longer be distinguished. Middle English and Early New English witnessed the appearance of the new analytical forms of the Subjunctive Mood: the modal phrases sholde and wolde, which gradually turned into auxiliaries should and would. Today would and 'd tend to replace should.

In the Past tense the differences between the moods could be distinguished by the root vowel interchange, but after the two stems of the strong verbs had merged, all the forms of the moods in the Past coincided with the exception of the verb to be (was – were).

Tense distinctions were preserved in all historical periods. The Past Tense was shown with the help of the dental suffix in the weak verbs and with the help of the root vowel interchange in strong verbs. The only exception were a few verbs of OE Class I, in which the dental suffix merged with the final stem consonant [t], and the three stems coincided: set – set – set (OE settan – sette – geset(ed); ME seten – sette – set).

In Old English there was no form of the Future Tense, the meaning was denoted by lexical means and modal phrases with sculan (shall), willan (will) magan (may) and cunnan (can) and the infinitive of the main verb.

OE: Þonne sculon hīē þās helle sēcan and þas grimman grund.

Then shall they that hell seek and that horrible ground.

NE: Then they will have to seek that hell and that horrible ground.

OE: Ic wille wyrcean mīn setl on norðæle.

I will construct my seat on north part.

NE: I shall construct my residence in the northern part.

OE: Ic lufige tō dæg oððe tō mergen.

I love today or tomorrow.

NE: I shall love today or tomorrow.

The modal phrases combined the meaning of futurity with that if modality (volition, obligation, possibility). Gradually shall and will began to indicate future actions:

ME: I wol telle forth as I bigan.

I will tell forth as I began.

ME: Me thinketh that I shal reherce it here.

I think that I shall rehearse it here.

Nevertheless, today shall still retains its modal meaning in some situations:

What shall we do? (Asking for instructions)

Someone's knocking at the door. It'll be our guest. (Assumption)

Besides, in Early New English there has developed a set of analytical forms with the auxiliary do / did used to build up interrogations, negations and emphatic forms in Present and Past Indicative, e.g.:

ME: Did he ask for me?

Didst thou not swear?

Doth he know that I am in thin forest?

Only then did I see her.

The new verbal categories to develop in Middle English and Early New English were Voice, Aspect and Time-Correlation. The category of Voice developed from the OE verb phrases consisting of bēon (NE be) and weorðan (NE become) and Participle II of transitive verbs. In Middle English the combination of bēon and Participle II turned into an analytical form of the Passive Voice, which could express both a state and an action.

ME: And that was sayd in forme and reverence.

And that was said in form and reverence.

The category of Aspect developed from the OE phrases consisting of bēon and Participle I, which denoted a quality, a lasting state, or a continuous action, e.g.

OE: Sē wer wæs swīðe belewite, and ondrædende god and forbūgende yfel.

This man was exceedingly innocent and feared god and avoided evil.

(warrior)

OE: Ond hīē wæron feohtende ealne dæg.

And they were fighting all day.

Later, in the 18^th century, these meanings were lost but the combination acquired a new meaning, identical with the modern one.

The Perfect forms have also developed from OE 'possessive' verb constructions comprising the verbs bēon (NE be) and Participle II of an intransitive verb or habban (NE have), a direct object and Participle II of a transitive verb, e.g.:

OE: Sē hālga fæder wæs inn āgān.

This saint father was in gone.

OE: Hīē hæfdon heora lufsang gesungene.

They have their love song sung.

Gradually the combinations with be stopped to denote actions, preserving only the meaning of a state (he is gone; the tree is fallen), and those of the have + Participle II type acquired the definite meaning of the Perfect Tense forms (he has gone; the tree has fallen).

The alternations also had a definite impact on the system of verbals, or non-finite verbs. In Old English there were only two non-finite forms: the Infinitive and the Participle, which had more nominal characteristics that the verbal ones. In Middle English they developed the verbal features. The formal sign of the Infinitive, the preposition to, came from the OE Dative case marker tō; the inflected form of the Infinitive (the one of the Dative case) was lost, e.g.:

ME: He hade schame to schryfe hym of many synns.

He had shame to write him of many sins.

ME: And gaffe hem londe to lyve upon.

And gave him land to live upon.

Both Participles were preserved with their meanings and ways of formation unaltered. Participle I in Middle English and New English had an active meaning and denoted a process simultaneous with the events described by the predicate of the sentence or a continuous action; it was normally formed from the Present Tense stem and the suffix –ing(e), e.g.:

ME: He was singinge al the day.

He was singing all the day.

Participle II had an active or passive meaning depending on the transitivity of the verb, it had the meaning of a preceding action or its results; Participle II was built up with the help of the suffix –e(d), -t in weak verbs and in strong verbs it employed vowel gradation and the suffix –en, e.g.:

ME: The seid Duke of Suffolk being most trostid with you.

The said Duke of Suffolk being most trusted by you.

Late Middle English witnessed the appearance of another verbal, the Gerund, the source of which is difficult to define; it might have developed from the OE verbal noun ending in –ung/–ing, the Present Participle and the Infinitive. The verbal feature of the Early New English Gerund consisted in the fact that it could be used with an adverbial modifier and with a direct object; the nominal ones were those of its specific functions and the ability to be modified by a possessive pronoun or a noun in the Genitive case.

The development of the English grammar system was a very complicated process, which included both simplification of the old synthetic forms and growth of the new analytical ones, and which gradually led to the change of the whole structure of the language.

Additional reading…