1.1. Evolution of the grammatical system (from 11th to 18 th c)

In the course of ME and Early NE the grammatical system of the language underwent profound alteration. Since the OE period the very grammatical type of the language has changed, from what can be defined as a synthetic or inflected language, with a well developed morphology English has been transformed into a language of the “analytical type”, with analytical forms and ways of word connection prevailing over synthetic ones. This does not mean, however, that the grammatical changes were rapid or sudden; nor does it imply that all grammatical features were in a state of perpetual change. Like the development of other linguistic levels, the history of English grammar was a complex evolutionary process made up of stable and changeable constituents. Some grammatical characteristics remained absolutely or relatively stable; others were subjected to more or less extensive modification. The division of words info parts of speech has proved to be one of the most permanent characteristics of the language. Through alt the periods of history English preserved the distinctions between the following parts of speech: the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection. The only new part of speech was the article which split from the pronouns in Early ME (provided that the article is treated as an independent part of speech).

Between the 10th and the 16th c., that is from Late OE to Early NE the ways of building up grammatical forms underwent considerable changes. In OE all the forms which can be included into morphological paradigms were synthetic. In ME and Early NE, grammatical forms could also be built in the analytical way, with the help of auxiliary words. The proportion of synthetic forms in the language has become very small, for in the meantime many of the old synthetic forms have been lost and no new synthetic forms have developed..

In the synthetic forms of the ME and Early NE periods, few as those forms were, the means of form-building were the same as before: inflections, sound interchanges and suppletion; only prefixation , namely the prefix je-, which was commonly used in OE to mark Participle II, went out of use in Late ME (instances of Participle II with the prefix y- (from OE se-) are still found in Chaucer’s time.

1.2. Spelling changes in Middle English . Written standardisation.

The written forms in ME resemble modern forms, though the pronunciation was different.

- In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn “ђ” and the crossed d: “đ” were replaced by the digraph –th-, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] & [ð]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u”: -w-;the ligatures æ & œ fell into disuse.

Many innovations reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie & ch were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:] & [t∫] : e.g. OE ūt, ME out [u:t]; O Fr double, ME double [duble].

The letters j,k,v,q were first used in imitation of French manuscripts.

The two-fold use of –g- & -c- owes its origin to French: these letters usually stood for [dz] & [s] before front vowels & for [g]&[k] before back vowels: ME gentil [dzen’til], mercy [mer’si] & good[go:d].

A wider use of digraphs: -sh- is introduced to indicate the new sibilant [∫]: ME ship(from OE scip); -dz- to indicate [dz]: ME edge [‘edze], joye [‘dzoiə]; the digraph –wh- replaced –hw-: OE hwæt, ME what [hwat].

Long sounds were shown by double letters: ME book [bo:k]

The introduction of the digraph –gh- for [x]& [x’]: ME knight [knix’t] & ME he [he:].

Some replacements were made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: “o” was employed to indicate “u”: OE munuc > ME monk; lufu > love. The letter “y” – an equivalent og “i” : very, my [mi:]. [19(154)]

We have seen that towards the end of the ME period, English was developing at the end of the Middle Ages as an ‘elaborated’ language, available across the country for use in a range of functions. As English took on these national functions, there is evidence from at least the fifteenth century onwards of the emergence of sociolinguistic variation in the use of English. In other words, it became possible to write and speak English in ‘more’ or ‘less’ proper ways. As French ceased to be used as a prestigious spoken language, prestigious forms of English emerged, studded with loanwords from French, used to mark social difference; with the rise of humanism in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Latin vocabulary was also transferred wholesale into the English lexicon. The standardisation of English correlates with the functional extension of the vernacular back into national life beyond the parochial. John Fisher has gone so far as to express the view that precise spelling-forms were adopted as the result of a particular royal initiative on the part of Henry V (see, for example, Fisher 1984, 1996). However, Fisher’s views, although they derive in part from insights developed during the creation of LALME, have been challenged by the LALME team .

The standardisation of spelling seems to have been a byproduct of the general elaboration of English, and not the result of a centrally controlled codification. in 1963 offered what has become the seminal account of the

evolution of ‘Types’ of what he called ‘incipient standard’ during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries:

Type I: Central Midlands Standard ( ‘Wycliffite’)

Type II: Earlier fourteenth-century London (‘Auchinleck’)

Type III: Later fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century London ( ‘Ellesmere’)

Type IV: Post-1430 London (‘Chancery’/’King’s English’)

These types represent, within the cline of ME usages, focused varieties found in several manuscripts, characterised by the prototypical appearance of particular forms. It is important not to overstate their cultural hegemony.[14(p.34)]