Early Modern English[edit]

The English language underwent extensive sound changes during the 1400s, while its spelling conventions remained rather constant.Modern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. English was further transformed by the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardising effect of printing. Consequent to the push toward standardization, the language acquired self-conscious terms such as "accent" and "dialect".^[16] By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th - early 17th century),^[17] the language had become clearly recognisable as Modern English. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published, the Table Alphabeticall.

Increased literacy and travel have facilitated the adoption of many foreign words, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek since the Renaissance. (In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with the original inflections, but these eventually disappeared). As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country. During the period, loan words were borrowed from Italian, German, and Yiddish. British acceptance of and resistance to Americanisms began during this period.^[18]

Modern English[edit]

The Dictionary of the English Language was the first full featured English dictionary. Samuel Johnson published the authoritative work in 1755. To a high degree, the dictionary standardized both English spelling and word usage. Meanwhile, grammar texts by Lowth, Murray,Priestly, and others attempted to prescribe standard usage even further.

Early Modern English and Late Modern English vary essentially in vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from the Industrial Revolution and the technology that created a need for new words as well as international development of the language. TheBritish Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. British English and American English, the two major varieties of the language, are spoken by 400 million persons. Received Pronunciation of British English is considered the traditional standard. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one billion.^[19]

6.The evolution of strong and weak verbs. Changes in the grammatical categories of the English verb.

The evolution of Strong verbs

The seven classes of OE strong verbs underwent multiple grammatical and phonetic changes. In ME the final syllables of the stems were weakened, in Early NE most of them were lost.

1.The OE endings •an, -on, and -en (of the 1st, 3rd and 4th principal forms) were all reduced to ME -en; consequently in Classes 6 and 7, where the infinitive and the participle had the same gradation vowel, these forms fell together. In Classes 1 and 3 it led to the coincidence of the3rd and 4th principal(основные) forms. 2. There were phonetic changes in root of verbs. The major factor is lengthening of root the vowel: in 4 and 5 class because the syllable is opened, also in 3 class - where after n goes d – (findan-> fiindan). Destruction of interchange [z~r] under Verner's law (remains only was-were). The 4 and 5 class in ME it begins to merge in favour of 4-th class. It is visible at Chaser. 4. Beren-bar-bren-boren.5. Treden-trad-trde-treden/trodden. The letter "o" gets into 2 and 3 form. Treden-trod - troden (ступать).

Early NE. Formation of a paradigm from 3 forms comes to the end. 1 class - has the form of Preterit Sg in all verbs, except bite. 2class has the form of мн.ч. In 3 class it is differently, basically the form мн.ч. find-found-found, but ring-rang-rung. 4 and 5 class has vowel of Participle2, and these classes completely coincide. In 6 and 7 class ед.и мн.ч пр.времени were identical.

2) presence/absence of the suffix of Partis2

The unaccented inflection of infinitive was lost already in the ME, and Part2 in ME was: Зe-treden, зe-writen, зe-funden.

As a result, ранне-NE has the form without prefix. Remains: speak-spoken, find-found, but ring-rung. 3 class has rejected a prefix and the form of Preterite and Part2 coincided, as well as at weak verbs. Part2 has no suffix.There were kept some distinction in 5 class: англ get/forget - got/forgot, амер gotten/forgotten.

One of the most important events in the history of the strong verbs was their transition into weak. In ME and Early NE many strong verbs began to form their Past and Participle II with the help of the dental suffix instead of vowel gradation. Therefore the number of strong verbs decreased. In OE there were about three hundred strong verbs. Some of them dropped out of use owing to changes in the vocabulary, while most of the remaining verbs became weak. The changes in the formation of principal parts of strong verbs extended over a long period — from the 12th to'18th c.

The strong verbs in OE are usually divided into seven classes. Classes from 1 to 6 use vowel gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG and Early OE sound changes. Class 7 includes reduplicating verbs, which originally built their past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme; this doubled root gave rise to a specific kind of root-vowel interchange. The principal forms of all the strong verbs have the same endings irrespective of class: -an for the Infinitive, no ending in the Past sg stem, -on in the form of Past pl, -en for Participle II.

Strong Verbs and their Development

1. As far as the strong verbs were a non-productive class, some strong verbs turned into weak with time, i.e. started to employ -t/-d suffix in their form-building (e.g. to climb, to help, to swallow, to wash, etc.). Thus in NE only 70 strong verbs out of 300 in OE remained.

2. The strong verbs were subdivided into 7 classes according to the type of vowel gradation/ablaut.

The classes that survived best through different periods of the history were classes 1, 3, 6.

The following changes occurred:

• In ME the inflections -an, -on, -en were all reduced to just one inflection  -en.

• In NE the ending -n was lost in the Infinitive and preserved in the Participle 2 in order to distinguish these two forms.

• In NE Past Singular and Past Plural forms were unified, usually with the Singular form preferred as a unified form because Past Plural and Participle 2 often had similar forms and it was hard to distinguish them (e.g. ME writen (Past Pl) – writen (Part. 2)) the category of Number disappeared in the Verb.

In ModE the subdivision into classes was lost though we still can trace some peculiarities of this or that class in the forms of the irregular verbs.

The evolution of weak verb.

Class I are described used as sources of modern non-standard verbs. ME verbs of Class I took the ending -de in the past without an intermediate vowel before the dental suffix — and the ending -ed in the Past Participle.

Several groups of modern non-standard verbs have developed from the weak verbs of Class I. (1) Verbs like OE sellan and txcan had an interchange in the root caused by palatal mutation in the Present tense stem and its absence in the other stems (Past tense salde/sealde, tahte.) In ME and NE they preserved the root-vowel interchange, though some of the vowels were altered due to regular quantitative and qualitative vowel changes: ME sellen — solde ME I'so:ld9]> NE sold [sould]), techen — taughte; NE sell — sold, teach — taught.

(2) Another group of weak verbs became irregular in Early ME as a result of quantitative vowel changes. In verbs like OE cepan fedan

me tan the long vowel in the root was shortened

before two consonants in the Past and ParticipleII; OE cepte> ME kepte ['kepta]. The long vowel in the Present tense stem was preserved and was altered during the Great Vowel Shift, hence the interchange[ i : ~ e ] , NE keep — kept, feed — fed.

(3) Verbs like OE settan, with the root ending in a dental consonant, added the dental suffix without the intervening vowel [e ] — OE sette.

When the inflections were reduced and dropped, the three stems of the verbs — Present, Past and Participle II fell together: NE set —set — set;

Class 2 formed a basis of the future irregular verbs. There are some verbs joined:

1.Some verbs of 1 class weak deem-deemed.

2.3 class live-lived.

The verbs of Class II, which were marked by -ode, -od in OE, had weakened these endings to -ede, -ed in ME. In Late ME the vowel [e] in unstressed medial and final syllables became very unstable and was lost. This change eliminated the differences between the two classes and also the. distinctions between the 2nd and 3rd principal forms.

3. All borrowings (unique loan word take from сканд remains in 6 class,).

Class 3 was destroyed. We have 2 classes by the end of this process:

1. Regular (on the basis of weak)

2. Irregular: 1) all remained strong 2) weak 1кл irregular 3) weak 1кл with devocalization in the end 4) 2 remained verbs of 3 class - have, say.

OE weak verbs and their further development.

W.v. form their Preterit and Participle2 by addition of a dental suffix (d/t) –love, loved. Weak verbs form the majority of OE verbs. There are three major classes of weak verbs in OE. The first class displays i-mutation in the root. The verbs of Class I usually were i-stems, originally contained the element [-i/-j] between the root and the endings. The verbs of Class II were built with the help of the stem-suffix -ō, or -ōj and are known as ō-stems. Class III was made up of a few survivals of the PG. Third and fourth classes of weak verbs, mostly -ǽj-stems.

Each Wv. is characterized by 3 basic forms: infinitive, Preterit and a participle 2.

Development:

1. The division of weak verbs into classes was based on the original stem-building suffix of a verb that was already hard to distinguish even in OE: 1^st class: OE (stem-suffix –j)> ME (most verbs – with front root-vowel)> NE (derived from nouns, adjectives); 2^nd class: OE (stem-suffix –oja)>ME (most numerous class)>NE (most verbs – with back root-vowel); 3^rd class: OE, ME, NE (3 verbs only: habban (to have), libban (to live), secζan (to say)).

2. Weak verbs were not as complex as strong ones and had a greater regularity and simplicity. That’s why they were productive, i.e. all borrowed verbs used weak model of form-building (suffix -t/-d) (e.g. Scand. to skate, Fr. to charm, Lat. to decorate, etc.) and, as it has already been mentioned above, many originally strong verbs turned into weak (e.g. to bake, to laugh, to help, to lie, etc.). The opposite process of turning of weak verbs into strong was very rare and was mainly based on phonetic similarity between some strong and weak verbs, i.e. was a result of mere confusion that later was accepted as a norm due to its persistent and regular character (e.g. to wear was originally weak and became strong because of the mistaken analogy with to swear, to ring (mistaken analogy with to sing), to hide (mistaken analogy with to ride)).