O3 MiddleEnglish

Middle English
MAJOR PERIODS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH

1066 1204: English in decline
after Norman invasion official language spoken by a minority with great influence in political, ecclesiastical, economic, and cultural life country united under one ruler English spoken by majority but without prestige
1204 1348:
English in the ascendant

1204: King John (Lackland) loses possession of Normandy decline of interest in France dialect of Anglo-French ridiculed in Paris, growing mutual dislike increased communication among English speakers of various regions (pilgrimages, Crusades) London dialect begins development towards standard children of nobility need to be taught French as a second language
1348 1509:
English triumphant
1348: first outbreak of the Black Death: one third of population dies social turmoil worker shortages higher prestige for the lower classes and their language Hundred Years War with France (1337 1453) all continental holdings lost 1362: English official language in legal proceedings English expands all over Britain, French only artificially maintained London English emerges as basis for standard 1509: Henry VIII ascends to the throne
Kolloquium
History of English
http://ifla.uni-stuttgart.de/~jilka
Middle English
MIDDLE ENGLISH PHONOLOGY IN GENERAL
because the Norman Conquest made French the official language for approximately 300 years, there are few written records of early Middle English, especially between 1100 and 1200 rapid change during that time with dialectal differences also becoming greater most of the written records influenced by French scribes using French-like orthography London dialect is the new standard political center: near the court at Westminster commercial center: largest city, major seaport cultural center: Chaucers writings first printing presses in the late 15th century in London not a direct descendant of West Saxon East Midlands dialect with influences from many other dialects as the city attracted people from all over the country
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
MIDDLE ENGLISH DIALECTS
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
VOICING OF FRICATIVES
the voiced fricatives /v, , z/ became phonemic (in Old English they had only been allophones of /f, , s/) several factors conspired to lead to this development
- contrast of original English words with French loanwords with /v/ (e.g. view vs. few) or within loanwords (e.g. vine vs. fine) - however, French did not have /z/ in initial position, // not at all - southern dialects voiced all fricatives in initial position, through increased contact between regions speakers became accustomed to hearing both voiced and voiceless fricatives in the same positions e.g. South. zenne vs. Midl. synne sin - loss of final unstressed syllables created minimal pairs, e.g. verb hsian to house with voiced /z/ lost first final consonant, then vowels, but retained /z/; new form hous contrasts with noun hous (with /s/) - voicing of fricatives in usually unstressed words, i.e. function words like is, of, his, the, then, that, they etc. exceptions: for, so
still today /v, , z/ have a much more limited distribution, occur initially only in loan- and function words
History of English
Kolloquium
Middle English
SYSTEMIC CHANGES IN CONSONANT DISTRIBUTION
loss of phonemically long consonants, i.e. difference between Old. Eng. man one (indef. pronoun) and mann man disappears - the process started word-finally at the end of the Old English period and was finished by the end of Middle English /h/ is lost in the clusters /hl, hn, hr/ and in some dialects also in /hw/: Old English hlfdige > Middle English ladi Lady hnecca hrfn Old Eng. swelgan folaga morgen sorg Old Eng. geng genumen
Kolloquium
> necke neck > raven raven > Middle Eng. swolwen swallow > felawe partner > morwen morning > sorow sorrow > inough enough > inome(n) taken
History of English
the allophone // of the phoneme /g/ vocalized or became the semivowel /w/ after /l, r/:
the very common prefix ge- (/je/, later /ji/) is reduced to //:
Middle English
MIDDLE ENGLISH CONSONANT SYSTEM
p b f v m w t d s z n rl j k g x
no more geminate consonant phonemes inventory like that of Modern English, except for the lack of // and // the phoneme /x/ still existed with the allophones [h, x, ]: thought [uxt], high [hi:] initial stop clusters kn-, gn- still pronounced
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
SPORADIC CHANGES IN CONSONANT DISTRIBUTION
final consonants in unstressed words/syllables tend to be lost in Middle English: ic > i; adjective ending lic > -ly; final n in verbal paradigms (infinitive, plural subjunctive, preterite plural, past participle with exceptions: seen, gone, taken), final n in possessive pronouns before words beginning with consonants (my, thy vs. mine, thine), also a vs. an loss of consonants in clusters:
/w/ dropped after /s/ or /t/: sweostor > sister, swilc > such (exceptions: swim, twin etc.) /l/ dropped in the vicinity of //: lc > each, swilc > such, hwilc > which /v/ dropped before consonant or vowel plus consonant: hlford > lord, hlfdige > ladi, hafod > hed (head), hfde > hadde (had); exceptions: hrfn > raven, heofon > heaven loss of final /b/ after /m/ (not in spelling): lamb, comb, climb (not medially: timber)
insertion of consonants:
intrusive /b/ after medial /m/ before a sonorant: nmel > nimble, ma > thombe thumb (loss of /b/ later); exceptions: hamor > hammer intrusive /d/ after /n/ in final position or before a sonorant: unor > thunder, son (Old French) > sound, dwnan > dwindle; exceptions: fenol > fennel, canne > can container intrusive /t/ after /s/ in final position or before a sonorant: hlysnan > listnen listen, behs > beheste, exceptions: cros > cros
Kolloquium History of English
Middle English
VOWELS: QUALITATIVE CHANGES
/y/ and /y:/ unrounded to // and /i:/ in all dialects by the end of the Middle English period (with different intermediate stages in various dialects), e.g., pytt > pitte pit, cynn > kin kin // lowered to // in all dialects, e.g., wter > water, ppel > appel apple West Saxon 1 (/:/) corresponded to Anglian /e:/ which remained unchanged in London Middle English (OE, i.e. West Saxon strt > strete street), while 2 became /:/: WS dl > deel part /:/ became /:/ in all areas except the North where it remained, e.g. w > woe, stn > stoon stone (but /:/ not lost completely see section on quantitative changes) all original Old English diphthongs were smoothed/monophthongized: // > /:/ dad > deed dead), // > // (healf > half), /eo/ > /e:/ (dop > deep), /o/ > // (heofon > heven(e) heaven)
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
LOST VOWELS AND NEW VOWELS
appearance of schwa: in unstressed syllables the short vowels /, e, o, u/ are reduced to //, e.g., helpan > helpen, macod > maked made, talu > tale, sunu > sone (/su:n/) son
in late Middle English these unstressed syllables with schwa were lost (i.e. vowel plus following consonant), although pronunciation remained optional (e.g. Early Middle English herte /ht/ vs. Late Middle English /ht/ major consequences for the inflectional system (noun declension, verb conjugation, distinction adjective-adverb, e.g., Old English heard vs. hearde)
assumption of short vowels now having lax realizations, e.g. /e/ > //, /i/ > //, /u/ > //, /o/ > //, also many instances of those vowels also entered English directly via loan words such as Old Norse skin and egg, or Old French test
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
NEW DIPHTHONGS
vocalization of /w, j, v/ between vowels leads to creation of new diphthongs - French loanwords also provided new diphthongs
/iu/ developed from Old English [i:w] (spwan > spewe(n) spew) and [eow]
(trowe > trewe true)

/u/ developed from Old English [:w] (lwed > lew(e)d lay, ignorant) and [w]
(fawe > fewe few) also from Old French loanwords (neveu nephew)
/u/ developed from Old English [w] (clawu > clawe claw) and [] (dragan > drawe(n) draw) as well from [] before [x] (sh > sah > saugh (he) saw) also from
Old French loanwords (cause cause)

/u/ developed from Old English [:w] (cnwan > knowe know), [:] (gan > owen possess), [:] before [x] (dh > dough), [o:w] (glwan > glowe glow), [o] (boga > bowe bow) and [o] before [x] (dohtor > douhter daughter) /i/ developed from Old English [j] (dg > dai day), [:j] (grg > grei grey), [ej] (weg > wei way), [] before [x] (eahta > eighte eight) /i/ developed from Old French loanwords: bouillir > boille(n) boil, point /i/ developed from Old French loanwords: noyse > noise
Middle English
QUANTITATIVE CHANGES: CONSONANTAL ENVIRONMENT
vowel length was still phonemic in Middle English, but became more and more predictable as it became controlled by a number of specific phonological environments at the end of Old English/the beginning of Middle English short vowels were lengthened before certain consonant clusters such as liquids/nasals followed by homorganic voiced stops, e.g. [l:mb, fi:ndn, ju:g, i:ld, wo:d] and also before // followed by /s, , l/ - the lengthening did not take place in words that rarely receive stress: and, under, wolde - also no lengthening when a third consonant followed the cluster: /ldn/ these lengthenings shortened again in Late Middle English (14th century) except for the following combinations: - before /ld/: /hod/ > /ho:d/, /mide/ > /mi:d/ - /i, o/ before /mb/: /klimbn/ > /kli:mbn/ (but: /dumb/ > /dmb/) - /i, u/ before /nd/: /gindn/ > /gi:ndn/ (but: /inkn/ > /nkn/)
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
QUANTITATIVE CHANGES: SYLLABLE STRUCTURE
lengthening of the Old English short vowels /, e, o/ in open syllables (13th century): /gtu/ > /g:t/ gate, /sten/ > /ste:n/ steal, /hopa/ > /ho:p/ hope later in the 13th century lengthening also applied to /i, u/, but in combination with simultaneous lowering to /e:, o:/ - this lengthening was only sporadic, allowing many exceptions
/pize/ > /pe:z/ pea but /fiko/ > /fk/ fickle /wudu/ > /wo:d/ wood but /huu/ > /h/ hull
shortening of long vowels in stressed closed syllables: /softe/ > /sft/ soft, /go:dsibb/ > /gdsb/ gossip, /phide/ > /phd/ shepherd shortening did not always occur before /st/, thus e.g.
/l:st/ > /lst/ track, last and /u:st/ > /st/ are shortened, but /g:st/ > /go:st/ ghost and /ki:st/ > /ki:st/ Christ are not
the vowel of a stressed open syllable always shortened when followed by two or more unstressed syllables different vowels in Christ / Christmas (/ki:st/ - /kstsms/), break / breakfast (/be:k/ - /bkfst/)
History of English
Kolloquium
Middle English
EXERCISE: VOWEL LENGTH
State whether the first vowel in the following Middle English example words is long or short and explain why. aker bever cold fedde fifteen ground hope naddre tale wepenes acre beaver cold fed fifteen ground hope adder tale weapons beren blosme dore feeld finden holden kinde sutherne us wimmen to bear blossom door field find to hold kind southern us women
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
MIDDLE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM
Vowels
i: e: /: o:
i u u
Diphthongs
u:
iu i i u
length distinction (probably) correlates with quality distinction (no actual proof) great number of new diphthongs appearance of schwa disappearance of //, front rounded vowels // moves more to the center
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English SPELLING: THE MINIM PROBLEM

the insular script of Old English was gradually replaced by the Norman style of handwriting, called Carolingian minuscule whereas in Old English, the letters were curved, they now appeared as angular forms because of this it was difficult to tell how many strokes had been made when letters like <m, n,v, w, i, u> occurred together so-called Minim Problem solution: substitution of <y> for , <o> for , <v> for before <n> Middle English <v, o> <y> Old English examples vnder, comen, sonne myhte, myn
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
SPELLING CHANGES
Middle English Old English Example /u:/ <ou, ow> <> oute out, thow you /, / <th> <, > the, thought /j/ <y> <ge> initial before vowel yong young, yer year /x/ <gh> <h> right, broghte brought /v/ <u, v> <f> loue love, over /k/ before <i, e, n, l> <k> <c> kniht knight, maken make /s/ before <e, i> <c> <s> certayn certain, cite city // <ch> <c> child, chirche church // <g> <cg> gentil, segge human being // <sh> <sc> shippe ship /hw/ <wh> <hw> why, wher where, what /kw/ <qu> <cw> queen, quenchen quench - doubled vowel letters for long vowel in closed syllable: feet, good - doubled consonant letter following short vowel in open syllable: butter, commen come
Sound
Middle English
TRANSCRIPTION EXERCISE
alone biten blood bright doun dreaden flat loue rode strete wood
[o:n] [bi:tn] [blo:d] [bt] [du:n] [d:dn] [ft] [lv] [o:d] [ste:t] [wo:d]
beten blame bothe doom doute faille fode proceden shoo top yelden
[b:tn] [bl:m] [bo:] [do:m] [du:t] [fi] [fo:d] [pse:dn] [o:] [tp] [je:dn]
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
WORD ORDER CHANGE: FROM V2/OV TO SVO
OV > VO One of the most prominent syntactic differences between PDE and earlier English involves the order of object and verb: t he nolde niman mancyn neadunga of am deofle that he not-would take mankind forcibly from the devil that he would not have taken mankind forcibly from the devil (CHom I) The change from surface OV to VO is a slow and gradual process. Surface VO gained a lot of ground during the 11th and 12th centuries, but it already had a firm foothold before that time, and it took several more centuries before surface OV disappeared. OV remained productive well into the 14th century.
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
LOSS OF V2 WHEN DID IT TAKE PLACE?
In early ME, things were about the same as in OE: on is gr wolde e king Stephne tcen Rodhert in this year wanted the king Stephen seize Robert bi is ge mahen seon ant witen by this you may see and know In the late 14th, early 15th century, the frequency of V2 starts to decline and sentences such as the following gain ground: Thare-fore Ihesu es noghte funden in reches Therefore Jesus is not found in riches In the 17th century, V2 disappears from the language, what is left today is called residual V2. Some examples:
- Not only did I ... - Down the hill rolled the ball. - Here comes the man we met yesterday. - narrative inversion
Middle English
LOSS OF V2 WHY DID IT TAKE PLACE?
change was caused by a change of status in the English pronouns the verb originally moved to the second position because thats where it got its agreement suffixes when verbal morphology was lost, there was no reason any more for the verb to move to C Scandinavian influence a combination of several things: i) ii) iii) iv) two competing grammars that allowed OV and VO and the subsequent change of word order to VO apparent V3 order change in modal verbs from full to auxiliary verb inversion only took place with auxiliaries introduction of do-support: not even in cases where there is no auxiliary do we have inversion with the main verb, because do is inserted
History of English
Kolloquium
Middle English
MORPHOLOGY: LOSS OF INFLECTIONS I
Typological change from a synthetic to an analytic language. This change began when the attention was drawn away from the inflectional information at the end of the words and the distinctive vowels were reduced to schwa. This change, coupled with the reduction of other sounds, caused the loss of the grammatical endings in Middle English. Nouns The endings a, -u, -e, -an, -um of Old English were reduced to <e>/[] by the end of the 12th century, and the schwa later also got lost. That way the complex OE noun declension had been reduced to two forms: - and es. Old English Sing. NOM ACC GEN DAT stan stan stan-es stan-e Plu. stan-as stan-as stan-a stan-um Middle English Sing. ston ston ston-es ston Plu. ston-es ston-es ston-es ston-es
In the south there was a second, competing declension class, which formed the plural with -en (cf. ox-en, childr-en etc), but the use of the es plural spread southwards and displaced en, and by the end of the15th century it was almost universal .
Middle English
MORPHOLOGY: LOSS OF INFLECTIONS II
Definite article - Old English: the definite article showed three genders (masc. s, fem. so, neut. t) and was declined through all four cases, singular and plural. - the form the arose as Late Old English e, which replaced s and so. In the course of ME, the other forms disappeared and the came to be used for all of them. Adjectives - lost all distincion between strong and weak declensions, except in monosyllabic adjectives ending in a consonant, eg. yong vs yonge. - the ending e was used both for the plural and as the weak form final e was lost towards the end of the ME period. Adverbs - Old English: adverbs were formed by adding a final e to adjectives. With the gradual loss of the final e in ME this died out, and the distinction between adjective and adverb was lost the suffix lic was added instead. It had originally been an adjective-marking suffix, but adopted the function of an adverb marker.
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
SYNTAX
decline of V2 change from OV to VO loss of case morphology loss of verbal inflection tendency for inflections to be replaced by more analytic devices: a complicated system of tenses is built up by means of auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries the future tense with shall and will is established considerable increase in the use of perfect tenses and passive in the perfect, have spread at the expense of be in the passive, be supplanted weoran (ME wee, wore) the continuous tenses also arose in Middle English, but were not at all common until the Modern English period. They probably arose from sentences like he was areading, where areading has developed from on reading, and the sentence means he was engaged in the act of reading (cf. German er war am Lesen). increase in use of prepositions, which came to take over functions that formerly were fulfilled by inflectional endings emergence of prepositional passive emergence of indirect passive emergence of preposition stranding, but not at all common until Modern English emergence of to-datives
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
GRAMMATICALIZATION
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics: The process by which, in the history of a language, a unit with lexical meaning changes into one with grammatical meaning. A very straightforward example is, for instance, if a lexical item turns into an affix: OE hd state > -hood; OE lic body > -ly Roberts & Roussou (2003): grammaticalization involves the creation of new functional material, either through the reanalysis of existing functional material or through the reanalysis of lexical material.
Kolloquium
History of English
Middle English
GRAMMATICALIZATION: ENGLISH MODALS
Basic evidence that modals are distinct from main verbs in Modern English: Modals lack non-finite forms, i.e. they dont have an infinitive: *To can swim is useful. Modals require bare infinitives: *She can to swim. Modals cannot be iterated: *He shall must do it. (modals require following bare infinitives but do not have an infinitive form) Modals are in complementary distribution with do-support: *I dont can speak Chinese Modals can contract: We can fish. (ambiguous: are able to / put in cans) We cn fish (unambiguous: only the are able to- reading possible) Modals dont show agreement morphology: *She cans swim. Modals dont take nominal complements: *She can English.
Middle English
GRAMMATICALIZATION: OLD ENGLISH MODALS
In Old English none of the above properties characterized modals as a class distinct from lexical verbs. The Old English modals (pre-modals) belonged to the class of preterite-present verbs (form: past; meaning: present), except willan, and were full verbs: Infinitive cunnan magan sculan willan ---agan Present 1st ps ic cann ic mg ic sceal ic wile ic mot ic ah cunnan present indicative ic cann u canst heo cann we cunnon ic cunne ic cue u cuest we cudon ic cue Gloss OE know (how to) be able to have to, owe want, wish be allowed to owe magan ic mg u meaht he mg ge magon u mge heo meahte/mihte heo meahtest/mihtest ge meahton/mihton heo meahte, mihte
History of English
Modern English can could may might shall- should will would must ought sculan ic sceal u scealt hit sceal hie sculon heo scyle/scule hit sceolde/sculde u sceoldest hie scealdon u sceolde
present subjunctive past indicative
past subjunctive
Kolloquium
Middle English
FROM FULL VERBS TO AUXILIARIES
Four important changes combined to lead to the establishment of modals as auxiliaries: 1. OE pre-modals took nominal complements. During the Middle English period this started to disappear; by the end of the 15th century it was impossible for most modals to take nominal complements. Some remnants are found up until the 17th century, but eventually, modals stopped taking nominal complements. 2. Apart from willan all pre-modals were preterite-present verbs. However, not all preterite-present verbs were modals in OE times, and those that werent disappeared from the language or started to inflect regularly by the mid-ME period, modals had become a separate morphological class. 3. The modals past form was somewhat weird. In Modern English, modals dont have a past form, but if there is a past form, it usually has an independent meaning: Would you close the window please? is not the past of Will you close the window please?
4. The infinitive marker to developed from the preposition to and is not common in Old English (OE infinitive marker an) bare infinitives in Old English where in Modern English the infinitive marker to would have to be used. The empty infinitive marker to gradually took over in most infinitives, but with the pre-modals the bare infinitive won out after 1500. The pre-modals were established as a distinct class and with restricted function: they modify the main verb they appear with.

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Middle English

MAJOR PERIODS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH

English in the ascendant

(trowe > trewe true)

Old French loanwords (cause cause)

Middle English SPELLING: THE MINIM PROBLEM

present subjunctive past indicative

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