Specific features of Middle English

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1. Middle English Dialects

The language of the Middle English period was made up of a number of local dialects. The disunity inherited from the Old English times had considerably increased due to the isolation of districts in the feudal state and to the two foreign influences.

The following table (Table 1) shows the main dialect groups in Middle English and their Old English sources; it also shows the origin of the mixed dialect of London which shifted from the South Western to the East Midland type in the course of the Middle English period.

Table 1. Middle English Dialects

The earliest records of the Middle English period are written in the local dialects, for no literary standard was yet in existence. We ought to keep in mind that for some time after the Norman conquest (1066) literature in the English language was practically nonexistent. In some dialects this gap (пробел) covers almost two hundred years.

The earliest samples of Middle English prose are the new enties made in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles from the year 1122 to the year 1154 known as the Petersborough Chronicle.

2. The London Dialect and the Flourishing of literature in the late 14th Century

In the 14th century, when English revived as the official and the written language, the four main dialects, Northern, Southern, West Midland and East Midland, were struggling for supremacy but none of them was destined to predominate.

The Early Middle Englishrecords made in London - beginning with the London Proclamation of 1258 - show that the dialect of London came from an East Saxon dialect, or, in terms of the Middle English division, from the south-western variety of the Southern dialect group. Later records show that the speech of London becomes more mixed, with East Midland features gradually prevailing over the Southern features.

3. Changes in the Alphabet and Spelling

During thе 13th and 14th centuries manу changes were made in the English alphabet and the graphic system. They pertain to the number of letters used by the scribes, the shapes of letters and their sound values. These innivations bring the written form of the word much closer to what we are accustomed to in Modern English. Since for quite a long time practically all writing in England was in the hands of Anglo-Norman scribes, many of the changes - though not all - appeared due to French influence.

Several Old English symbols were discarded: the two runes P (“thorn”) and p (“wen”) as well as letters j (“yogh”) fell into disuse and gave place to the diagraph th, the doubled letter u (w “double u”) and g respectively. The ligature эe went out of use, as did the diacritics indicating the length of vowels. A number of new letters and especially diagraphs were added to indicate the old sounds or the new sounds arising in Middle English: k, v, q (in the digraph qu) j, the diagraph gh, etc. Some of the letters and diagraphs were borrowed directly from French: ou to denote [u:], ch for [tj]; others appear to have been introduced in order to avoid confusion: thus o with the value [u] came to be used instead of the former u when it stood next to the letters n, m, or v, as they were all made up of down strokes difficult to distinguish (thus OE munic became ME monk [munk], NE monk; lufu became ME love [luvэ], NE love). A few alterations must have been purely ornamental; thus the use of the letters y and w at the end of words with the same sound values as i and u can be attributed to the desire of the scribes to finish the word with a curve. Compare ME mine [`mi:nэ], NE mine and ME my [mi:], NE my.

4. The Formation of the Spoken Standard

The written form of the English language became standardised earlier than its spoken form. The literary form of English came into existence in the age of Chaucer, was fixed and spread with the introduction of printing and was further developed as the national English literary language during the rise of literature in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In the 17th century the type of speech used in London and in the Universities was unanimously proclaimed the best type of English. The phineticians and grammarians recommend it as a model of correct English.

During the 17th century, the gap between the written language and the spoken language of increasing numbers of people became narrower. With the spread of education more people learned to speak “correctly”, in the way prescribed by grammars and textbooks. The use of standard speech as distinguished from local dialect is insisted upon in the grammars and dictionaries of the 18th century.

However, by the 17th century the tongue of London (which was the basis of the spoken standard) had absorbed many new features of the local dialects, for as the country had become more unified, the ties between its region had strengthened, and the population of London had become still more mixed. The tongue of the middle class of London - which is regarded as the source of the spoken standard in the social sense - had become closer to the tongue of the common people.

In the 17th century - the age of English Revolution - the upper and middle classes were replenished by people of lower ranks and consequently their speech assumed many of the features of the lower varieties of English.

5. Evolution of Word-Stress in ME and early NE

The English sounds have changed very considerably in the nine hundred years that have elapsed since the OE period. The changes have effected not only the pronunciation of separate words but even more so the entire system of phonemes and the system of word-stress.

In OE, stress usually fell on the first syllable of the word and rarely - on its second syllable. Its position was determined by phonetic, morphological and semantic factors: in verbs with prefixes stress fell on the root-morpheme, although it was not the first syllable of the word, - which means that morphological factors prevailed over phonetic ones. In some polysyllabic words, for examle nouns, the first syllable was stressed irrespective ( ) of whether it was the root or the prefix, - in other words, here phonetic factors appeared to be more important. Word-stress was fixed, since it was never moved in inflection and rarely - in derivation.

In the Middle and Early NE periods - roughly between 13th and 16th centuries - the system of word-stress in English was considerably altered. In Middle English texts stress is no longer the exclusive property of the root-morpheme or the first syllable; on the contrary, its position seems to be free, as we come across a great variety of differently stressed words, e.g. ME nature [na`ty:r] or [na`tjy:r], NE nature. The main innovation of the ME period was that in contrast to OE, stress could fall not only on the first syllable of the word or the root-morpheme but also on the syllables following the root-morpheme or on the second syllable of the root. Only the grammatical inflections remained unstressed the same as before.

As the loan-words were assimilated by the English language the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. In words of three and more syllables the changes proceeded in different ways due to the recessive ( ) tendency (in disyllabic words stress was shifted from the second to the first syllable - ME virtu [ver`tju:] > NE virtue [`v3:tjэ]), and also due to the rhythmic tendency which required a regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Thus stress could be shifted to the syllable immediately preceding in line with the recesive tendency, as in ME condicioun [kondi`sju:n] > NE condition;

ME disobeie [dizo`beiэ] > NE disibey[`diso`bei].

Words with the stress falling on the third syllable from the end are common in Modern E (NE comfortable, concentrate, ability, evident, etc.). Etymologically they are borrowed words of the given type with the stress re-adjusted due to the rhythmic tendency.

Some alterations in the position of stress are associated not only with the phonetic tendencies but also with certain morphological factors. Thus stress was not shifted to the prefixes of many verbs borrowed or built in Middle and Early NE in spite of the recessive tendency - which conforms to the native OE morphological regularity in the word-stress (to keep verb prefixes unstressed), e.g. NE imprison, recover, mistake.

6. Changes of unstressed vowels in ME and Early NE

In the Middle and NE periods the main character and directions of the evolution of unstressed vowels were the same as before: the unstressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions - their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality were neutralised.

In the Middle English period the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position (representing three phonemes [e/i], [a] and [o/u]), ME reduced them to [e/i] or rather [э/i], the first variant being a neutral sound. Compare: OE fiscas ME fishes [`fijэs]

Fisces.

The occurrence of only two vowels [i] and [э] in unstressed final syllables is regarded as an important mark of the ME language distinguishing it on the one hand, from OE with its greater variety of unstressed vowels, and on the other hand, from the NE, when this final [э] was altogether lost. (Compare NE risen, tale.)

Some of the new unstressed vowels were not reduced to the same degree as the OE vowels and have retained their quantitative and qualitative differences, e.g. NE consecrate [ei], disobey [o].

These examples, as well as modern polysyllabic words like alternant with [o] and [o:], direct with [ai] and [i] and others show that a variety of vowels can occur in unstressed position, although the most frequent vowels are [i] and [э], the latter confined to unstressed position alone, being the result of phonetic reduction of various vowels.

These development show that the gap between the set of stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in Middle and NE we need no longer strictly subdivide the system of vowels into two sub-systems - that of stressed and unstressed vowels (as was done for OE), - even though the changes of the vowels in the two positions were widely different and the phonetic contrast between the stressed and unstressed syllables remained very strong.

7. Changes of stressed vowels

No other part of the English phonetic system has undergone such considerable changes as the stressed vowels. They changed both in quality and quantity, under the influence of the environment and independently, alone or together with the surrounding sounds. Not a single OE long vowel or diphthong has remained unaltered in the course of history; only a few short vowels have not altered at all (unless in certain positions they were at some time lengthened and then shared the fate of long vowels).

The prevailing type of changes of stressed vowels in OE were assimilative changes affecting the quality of the vowel. Towards the end of the OE period and especially in Early ME quantitative vowel changes appear to have assumed greater importance; these were positional changes, which affected many vowels and led to an alteration in the phonological load of vowel quantity.

The regular qualitative changes of all the long vowels between the 14th and the 17th centuries are known in the history of the English language as the Great vowel shift. The Great vowel shift was a series of consistent changes of long vowels accounting for many features of the ME vowel system and also of the modern spelling system. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were diphthongised. Some of the vowels occupied the place of the next vowel; [e:] > [i:], [o:] > [u:], while the latter changed to [au].

Vowel length was an inherited feature: OE short vowels had developed from short vowels, while long ones usually went back to Common Germanic long vowels or vowel combinations.

In later OE and in early ME many vowels became long or short depending on phonetic conditions and irrespective of their origin.

The earliest of the positional quanitative changes was the reajustment of quantity before some consonant clusters:

1) A sequence of two homorganic consonants, a sonorant and a plosive, brought about a lengthening of the preceding vowel; consequently all vowels occuring in this position remained or became long, e.e. OE wild > ME wild [wi:ld], NE wild.

2) All other sequences of two or more consonants produced the reverse affect: they made the preceding long vowels short, and thus all vowels in this position became or remained short, e.g. OE cepte > ME kepte [`keptэ], NE kept.

3) The short vowels [e], [a] and [o] (that is, the more open ones of short vowels) became long in open syllables, e.g. OE nama > ME name [`na:mэ], NE name.

8. Development of consonants

In the history of the English language the consonants were far more stable than the vowels. A large number of consonants have remained unchanged since the OE period. Such consonants as [t], [d], [n],[l],[m],[k] have not been subjected to any alteration.

One of the most important consonant changes in the history of English was the appearance of affricates and sibilants, lacking in the OE period. Sets of these sounds appeared in the language at various periods due to different assimilative changes and the phonologisation of positional variants. Another important development was the voicing of fricatives in Early NE and the new treatment of fricatives from the phonological viewpoint. As a result of these changes a number of new consonant phonemes were added to the system.

On the other hand, at different historical periods we can observe the loss of consonants and instances of consonant system and on the vowel system: owing to the vocalisation of consonants there developed a number of new diphthongs and long vowels.

English consonants were considerably simplified as far as consonant clusters are concerned, and also as a system, correlated through certain principles.

1) During the ME period the consonants lost their quantitative distinctions, as the long or double consonants disappeared. The number of consonant phonemes was reduced and one of their principal phonemic distinctive feature - opposition through quantity - was lost. e.g. OE settan, ME setten [`settэn], later [`setэn], NE set.

2) Some consonant clusters were simplified. One of the consonants, usually the first, was dropped. E.g. kn> n, gn >n, hw> w.

9. Historical Grammar (changes in the nominal system, verbal systems)

dialect alphabet grammar verbal

The historical changes in the grammatical structure of the English language from the OE period to the present time are no less striking than the changes in the sounds. Since the OE period the gramatical type of the language has changed: from what could be termed a largely synthetic or inflected language into a language of the analytical type, with analytical means of word connection prevailing over the synthetic ones. The syntax of the word group and of the sentence came to play a more important role in the language than the morphology of the word.

The devision of the words into parts of speech, being a most general characteristic of the language, has in the main remained the same. The only new part of speech was the article, which split from the numerals and the pronouns in Early ME.

The nominal and the verbal systems developed in widely different ways. The morphology of the noun, the adjective and the pronoun has on the whole become simpler: many grammatical categories were lost (e.g. gender in adjectives and nouns, case in adjectives); the number of forms within the surviving grammatical categories diminished (e.g. the number of cases); the morphological division into stems or types of declension disappeared.

The nouns in OE had the grammatical categories of gender, number and case, and were grouped into an elaborate system of declensions based on an earlier division into stems and correlated with gender. In the Early ME period the noun lost the grammatical category of gender. The two other categories of the noun, case and number, were preserved in a modified shape. The number of cases in the noun paradigm was reduced from four (distinguished in OE) to two in ME. In OE the forms of the Nominative and the Accusative cases were not distinguished in the plural, and in some stems they coincided also in the singular. The Dative case fell together with the former Nominative-Accusative into what can be termed the Common case. Only the Genitive case was kept distinctly separate from the other cases. The category of number proved to be the most stable of the grammatical categories of the noun.

In the OE period personal pronouns had three genders (in the 3-rd person), four cases like nouns, but unlike nouns, had three numbers in the 1-st and 2-nd persons.

There developed one more class of pronouns, reflexive. (myself, themselves).

The other classes of pronouns, Interrogative, relative, indefinite and demonstrative pronouns, displayed great changes too.

The other direction in the development of the OE demonstrative pronoun se, seo, pet “that” led to the formation of the definite article the pronounced as [Oэ] in ME).

Of all the parts of speech the adjective has undergone the most profound grammatical changes. In the course of time it has lost all its grammatical categories except the degrees of comparison.

In OE the adjective was declined to show the gender, number and case of the noun it modified: it had a five-case system and two types of declension, weak and strong, often serving, together with the preceding pronoun or alone, to present a thing as “definite” or “indefinite”.

The agreement of the adjective with the noun became looser and in the course of the 12th century it was almost lost.

The degrees of comparison are the only set of forms which the adjective has preserved through all the historical periods. In OE the comparative and the superlative degree, like all the grammatical forms, were synthetic: they were built by adding the suffixes - ra and est/ost to the form of the positive degree. In ME the suffex had been weakened to -er ans -est and the alternation of the root-vowel became far less frequent than before.

The most important innovation in the adjective system in the ME period was the growth of analytical forms of the degrees of comparison.

As to the verbal system, its grammatical evolution was less uniform and cannot be described in terms of one general trend: alongside many simplifying changes in the verb conjugation, such as the loss of some person and number distinctions or the loss of the declension of participles, many developments testify to the enrichment of the morphological system and the growth of new grammatical distinctions. The number of grammatical categories grew, as did the number of categorial forms within the existing categories (e.g. a new category of aspect, or the future tense forms within the category of tense). The changes involved the non-finite forms too, for the infinitive and the participle developed verbal features; the gerund, which arose in the Late ME period as a new type of verbal, has also developed verbal distinctions: passive and perfect forms.

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