Middle English Vocabulary

The main sources of enriching M.E.V are Old Norse and French. French borrowings: French literature. French words: literary and technical, not generally used in spoken language. ( in writing).

The Old Norse words: ordinary. The use of “they” and “though”. O.E- “hie” and “peah” M.E- “hi” and “peih” (theigh). Early Old Norse * pough (th) had resulted in northern English.

Old Norse: anger,both, call, neck, window.

Old Norse (affixes and suffixes): by, fell , thwaite to denote the place names

Get (ON geta) Mod E- forget

A lot of phrasal verbs adopted from the old North in the M.E period.

The French words borrowed at this time are not often so much part of our everyday vocabulary as those from Old Norse.

A poet of this period-Chaucer “Treatise on the Astrolabe” used : ascensioun, ascendant, eauynoxial, operaciouns, mansioun.

Less technical: daliaunce, oynement, galayntyne, jocounde.

French did provide English with a large number of prepositions: ex: Byeause

Affixes from the F.L: ant, ent, fry, ment, con, en, pre.

14 century: prefix en: engendre, enhaunce, entune.

Latin words dropped of the language: contradiction, collect, diocese, executor, heutor, psalm, simile.

With the fall of inflections it was impossible to tell from its form alone whether a word was a noun, adjective or adverb.

Nouns: chill, fellow, hammer, hawk, spire, sleet.

French: avaunt, forfeit, gest(story), issue, outrage, trespass-occurred at 1 time as verbs.

As nouns: fart, hunt, among Germanic Words

Assure, support among French words.

Authors and Writers invented their own vocabulary. Wycliffites or Lollards.

Prefixes continue to fall out language: a, ge, to, ymb

Ful (i) and ish remain -productive.

A new ending-ling-darling.

Middle English Grammar. Syntax.

English syntax and morphology changed drastically during the Middle English period (1066-1500). The changes in syntax were hastened by the aftermath of the Norman Conquest, but they were NOT a result of contact with the French language, and they did not happen overnight.

For the most part, Middle English syntax (or sentence structure) is similar to Modern English. The default, or basic, word order is Subject-Verb-Object. Still, you will find that word order is somewhat less rigid than in the current tongue, specifically:

• The object and even the "rest of sentence" (adjuncts, prepositional phrases) may precede the verb: Whan he his papir soghte when he sought his paper.

• In helping verb constructions (comparable to will buy or can go), the helping verb and the main verb may be split by the object and even the rest of the sentence: His maister shal it in his shoppe abye his master will buy it in his shop.

• One of the commonest examples of reversed word order is found alongside quotations: quod he he said or quod I I said.

• The famous first lines of the Canterbury Tales have the auxiliary and main verb after the object but before the adjunct: Whan that Aprille...the droghte of March hath perced to the roote When April...has pierced the drought of March to the root.

Negation. Typically, negative sentences use the post-verbal negative particle nat: I may nat ete I may not eat. The preverbal ne also occurs frequently: ne make the... don't make yourself.... The use of the "double negative" is common enough to attract attention, since double negatives are booed and touted as ungrammatical in the modern standard language: For I ne ken nat finde a man...that wolde chaunge his youthe for myn age For I [ne] cannot find a man...that would trade his youth for my age. Lastly, the basic interjection no (the opposite of yis yes) remains the same: "No," quod I "No," I said.

Questions. Subject and verb inversion is the commonest way of forming a question. An inverted word order places the subject after the main verb in Middle English, just as in the modern examples can you? or what is that? (rather than you can or that is). Questions with do and don't hadn't developed yet: eteth he does he eat? (and NOT "doth he eten"). There are examples of thou suffixed to the verb as -tow: Why lyvestow so longe in so greet age why do you live.... General question words tend to look and work like their modern counterparts: And whi nat?