SEMINAR V

Evolution of grammatical system in ME and

NE periods

I. The main direction of development in the nominal parts of

speech. The meaning and function acquired Common
case. The process of syncretism in the case system of
noun. The noun. Decay of noun declensions. Grammatical
categories of the noun.

Main Direction of Development:

a. Throughout Middle English (ME) and New English (NE) periods,

the nominal parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, and adjectives)
evolved through morphological simplification. This process
started in Proto-Germanic and continued slowly in Old English
(OE), but it intensified from 1000 to 1300 CE, referred to as the
"age of great changes."
b. Key changes included the loss of grammatical categories, such
as Gender in nouns and Case in adjectives. The morphological
classification system and declensions (groups of noun endings)
also became far less complex, with only a few remnants of the
original system surviving into NE.

Meaning and Function of the Common Case:

c. By early ME, the Common Case had emerged from the fusion
of the OE Nominative, Accusative, and Dative cases. This case
was not specific to any single grammatical function but could
indicate both the subject and object roles in a sentence.
d. This simplification significantly reduced the inflectional burden
on nouns and made English more reliant on word order and
prepositions for conveying grammatical relations.
The Genitive Case remained distinct to indicate possession.

Process of Syncretism in the Case System:

e. Syncretism, or the merging of case functions into fewer forms,

led to the gradual collapse of multiple cases into one
generalized case, the Common Case. This shift saw nouns
losing unique endings that distinguished functions (subject,
object, indirect object) and collapsing into a single form.
f. The new case structure, with just the Common and Genitive
cases, simplified the noun system by eliminating most
inflectional endings and relying on word placement and
context for clarity.
 Decay of Noun Declensions:

g. OE noun declensions followed distinct patterns, such as the a-

stem, n-stem, and root-stem groups. By ME, many of these
were reduced, with the a-stem forms expanding as more nouns
were shifted to this pattern.
h. In NE, declensions nearly disappeared, with most nouns
following a regular pattern of adding -s or -es for plurals. Only a
few irregular forms from the original n-stem, root-stem, and
minor declensions survived, as in words like "children," "oxen,"
and "feet."
i. Borrowed nouns from Romance languages, which generally did
not use extensive inflections, also contributed to this
simplification, influencing English nouns to adopt a standard
pattern.

Grammatical Categories of the Noun:

j. Number: The distinction between singular and plural forms

remained stable. The regular plural ending -es became more
widely applied, especially for a-stem nouns, with some
irregular forms like "children" (n-stem) and "teeth" (root-stem)
preserving older plural patterns.
k. Case: By NE, only the Common and Genitive cases survived,
with Genitive marked primarily by the -s suffix (e.g., "the boy’s
book"). This shift limited inflections to show relationships
between words, with prepositions now handling these
functions.
l. Gender: In OE, grammatical gender was arbitrary and
classified nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter regardless of
actual gender. In ME, grammatical gender faded, replaced by
natural gender, where nouns are gendered based on the
inherent meaning, as in modern English (e.g., "he" for male,
"she" for female, "it" for non-living things).

II. The verb. Simplifying changes. Development of new

grammatical forms and categories of the verb. The reverse
tendencies did the morphology of the verb displayed. The
reverse tendencies did the category of mood and tense
display in ME. The main trends in the evolution of the
Infinitive and Participles in ME and NE. The verbal and
nominal features of the Gerund. The most important event
in the development of strong and weak verbs in ME. The
properties of the analytical forms.
1. Simplifying Changes in Verbs:
o In the Middle English (ME) period, verb conjugations were
simplified, which reflected the ongoing transformation of
English from a synthetic (inflection-heavy) to an analytical
 language. Inflectional endings, once varied and numerous in
Old English (OE), were leveled and many were ultimately lost
by Early New English (NE). As in nouns, vowel endings in verbs
were gradually reduced to a neutral sound, and many
consonantal endings were dropped.
2. Development of New Grammatical Forms and Categories of
the Verb:
o During ME and NE, the English verb system expanded to
include new grammatical forms through the adoption
of analytical structures:
 Voice: The Passive Voice was fully established by Late
ME using auxiliary verbs (e.g., "be" + past participle).
 Tense: The Perfect and Future tenses developed
through the use of auxiliary verbs like "have" and "will."
 Aspect and Time-Correlation: New forms like
the Progressive Aspect ("is running") and the Perfect
Tense ("has run") arose, distinguishing actions by
continuity or completion.
 Mood: The Subjunctive mood expanded, gaining
specific forms to express hypothetical or counterfactual
situations.
3. Reverse Tendencies in Verb Morphology:
o Although many verb forms were simplified,
some complexities persisted or even increased:
 Strong and weak verbs remained distinct. Strong verbs
continued using vowel changes (ablaut) to mark tense,
while weak verbs used a dental suffix (-d/-t).
 Inflectional endings were retained in some areas for
conjugation, particularly in highly irregular verbs and for
specific uses (e.g., the “-eth” ending in the third person
singular).
4. Reverse Tendencies in Mood and Tense Categories:
o The Subjunctive Mood saw significant growth and variation,
especially in literary and religious texts, allowing writers to
express possibilities, wishes, and hypotheticals. However, the
overall use of the subjunctive began to decline by Late NE.
o The Future Tense, a new category in English, remained
uncertain in its development. Early uses of “will” and “shall”
as future markers were sometimes indistinguishable from
their meanings of intent or obligation. This ambiguity
persisted well into Early NE, requiring context to clarify future
meaning.
5. Evolution of the Infinitive and Participles in ME and NE:
o The Infinitive form lost the prefix "to" in some constructions,
especially in Early ME, but eventually settled with “to” as the
standard marker in NE, e.g., "to go."
o Participles lost their earlier inflectional endings and gained
simpler forms, often marked by -ing for the present participle
 and -ed for the past in weak verbs. This helped form new
analytical constructions like the continuous tense.
6. Verbal and Nominal Features of the Gerund:
o The Gerund emerged as a hybrid form in ME, displaying
features of both nouns and verbs, which allowed it to function
as a verb (e.g., "reading" in "I am reading") and as a noun
(e.g., "reading is enjoyable").
o As a verbal noun, the gerund could take objects and modifiers,
yet it also retained noun-like syntactic roles, such as being the
subject or object of a sentence.
7. The Most Important Event in the Development of Strong and
Weak Verbs in ME:
o The weakening of strong verbs and their conversion to
weak verbs was a significant trend. Many formerly strong
verbs adopted the simpler weak verb pattern (adding -ed for
the past tense), reducing the number of irregular strong
verbs. However, some common strong verbs maintained their
forms, like "sing-sang-sung."
o Weak verbs, marked by the use of a dental suffix, became the
dominant type by the end of ME, as the regular pattern
offered consistency in verb conjugation.
8. Properties of Analytical Forms:
o Analytical forms in verbs consisted of a combination of
auxiliary verbs and non-finite forms (e.g., participles,
infinitives) to create tense, aspect, and voice distinctions.
o A key feature of these forms is their idiomatic nature—the
meaning of the analytical form as a whole was more than the
sum of its parts. For instance, “has gone” implies completion,
a meaning beyond what “has” and “gone” suggest
individually.
o These analytical structures allowed English to move away
from complex inflectional endings and rely on word order and
auxiliary verbs to express grammatical relationships,
facilitating a clearer syntax.

III. The pronoun (personal, possessive, reflexive, interrogative,

indefinite). Lexical replacements took place within the system of
personal pronouns in Early ME. The most important innovation in
the system of adjective in the NE period. Development of articles.

1. The Pronoun System (Personal, Possessive, Reflexive,

Interrogative, Indefinite):
The evolution of pronouns in ME is a clear example of how
grammatical categories adapted differently for pronouns than for
nouns. Although one might expect pronouns to mirror noun
development, the two diverged significantly in both rate and scope
of changes. Pronouns experienced structural simplification, and new
forms emerged to adapt to dialectal and foreign influences, such as
Scandinavian loanwords. Each category of pronouns—personal,
 possessive, reflexive, interrogative, and indefinite—underwent
unique changes to accommodate these influences, leading to the
system of pronouns we use today.
2. Lexical Replacements within Personal Pronouns in Early ME:
During Early ME, several key pronoun replacements occurred,
especially in the 3rd person. The Old English (OE) feminine
pronoun heo (related to other 3rd-person pronouns he and hit)
gradually fell out of use, being replaced by she in Late ME. This new
pronoun likely originated from seo, the OE demonstrative for the
feminine gender, and began in northeastern dialects before
spreading more widely. This shift in usage shows how language
adapts to avoid ambiguity: retaining heo would have caused
confusion due to its similarity to he. Additionally, the 3rd-person
plural pronoun hie was replaced by the Scandinavian they,
alongside the possessive their and object form them, which
supplanted the OE heora and hem in many areas. The incorporation
of they was more thorough than that of she, showing the influence
of Norse dialects on English.
3. Innovations in the System of Adjectives in the NE Period:
The NE period saw essential changes in adjective use, particularly
with the development of articles. The earlier system had strong and
weak adjective forms to convey definiteness, but by the NE period,
these distinctions had eroded. The result was a need for alternative
ways to express definiteness and indefiniteness, eventually leading
to the use of the and an. This change also influenced syntax: as
word order became more fixed, articles began to play a critical role
in clarifying meaning, marking nouns as definite or indefinite. These
developments standardized the way adjectives modified nouns and
influenced other parts of speech.
4. Development of Articles:
The growth of articles in English stemmed from both syntactical and
morphological shifts. In OE, weak adjective forms conveyed
definiteness, and demonstrative pronouns (e.g., se, seo) were
commonly paired with nouns to indicate "the" or "that." However,
with the loss of strong and weak forms, the language increasingly
relied on an (a numeral that later became "a" or "an") and that,
which evolved into the, to convey these ideas. Alongside these
changes, the move to a more rigid word order meant articles gained
significance in marking noun relationships within a sentence,
something that word order alone could no longer do as effectively.
These shifts show a transition from a flexible to a more fixed
grammatical structure, where articles became essential in guiding
interpretation.