The indefinite article

The indefinite article has developed from the OE numeral ān (one), whose meaning some­times weakened to “one of many”, “some, even in OE. Compare with the R «в один прекрасный день». The weakening of the meaning was accompanied with the weakening of the stress. The long ā was shortened in the unstressed ān, so that ān > an. Later the unstressed [a] was reduced in pronunciation to [Ə]. The consonant [n] was usually lost before consonants but retained before vowels.

The stressed OE ān retained its meaning “one” in ME. Its phonetical development was rather complicated. According to some sources it was

OE ān > ME ơn (long open) > ōn > NE [u:n] >[wu:n] > [wun] > [wʌn].

According to others,

OE ān > ME ōn >wǫn > wōn > NE [wu:n] >[wun] > [wʌn].

ADJECTIVES

The changes in the grammatical properties of adjectives were even greater than in those of nouns and pronouns.

We must recall that in OE the adjective was declined to show the gender, num­ber and case of the noun it modified; it had a 5-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”.

During the ME period the adjectives lost their gender and case distinctions altogether.

The peculiar suffix –en (from OE –an) of the weak declension lost its “n”.

Thus the ME declension of adjectives looked like this:

Sg Pl

Strong declension yong yonge

Weak declension yonge yonge

In other words, it was still possible to distinguish between the strong and the weak form of the adjective in the singular: the yonge sonne (the young sun), a young squier (a young squire)

and between the sg and the plural form of a strong adjective: he was wys (wise), hise wordes weren so wise (his words were so wise)

The degrees of comparison are the only set of forms which the adjective has preserved through all the historical periods.

In OE comparative and superlative degrees, 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.

Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an alternation of the root vowel; a few adjectives had suppletive forms.

In ME –ra > -er, -est/ost > est and the alternation of the root vowel became far less frequent than before; besides, there were parallel forms:

ME long, lenger, longest

long, longer, longest

The latter case replaced the former.

The alternation of root-vowels in early NE survived in the adjective old, elder, eldest – older, oldest with essential change in meaning farther – further.

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

The new system of comparisons emerged in ME, but the ground for it had already been prepared by the use of the OE adverbs

mā more

bet better

betst best

swiƀor to a greater degree

with adjectives and participles.

It is noteworthy that in ME, when the phrases with “more” and “most” became more and more common, they were preferred with monosyllabic and di­syllabic adjectives (contrary to the modern usage)

Chaucer: more swete (sweeter)

Yt were better worthy (worthier)

The 2 sets of forms, synthetic and analytical, were used indiscriminately un­til the 17^th and 18^th centuries, when the modern standard usage established itself and was recommended as correct.

Numerals

ME Cardinal Numerals developed from OE numerals. In the numerals from 70 to 90 the OE prefix –hund was dropped.

ME Ordinal Numerals, with the exception of second, are developed from OE. French second superseded OE ōDer. 13 –19 –these ordinals end in ME in –tenthe; they are derived from the corresponding cardinals (OE – teōƀa); 20 –90 – th ordinals end in ME in – tithe (OE - tiʒoƀa)

ЛЕКЦІЯ

з навчальної дисципліни “Історія іноземної мови (англійської)

Змістовий модуль 2. Середньоанглійський період

Заняття № 3.

Тема лекції: Синтаксична будова мови у середньоанглійський період. Словниковий склад.

Час на проведення заняття – 2 години.

№	Навчальні питання	Орієнтовний час на відпрацювання, хв.
	Вступ
	Синтаксична будова.
	Словниковий склад.
	Висновки та відповіді на запитання.

ЗМІСТ ЛЕКЦІЇ

ME SYNTAX

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANALYTICAL FORMS

In OE there were only 4 grammatical categories. They are the Tense (Present & Preterit), the Mood, Person and Number. All of them were synthetic. But during the MEP some other categories which were mainly analytical appeared. One of the first to develop was the category of time correlation. In OE there were many constructions with the verb «to have» in its main meaning +an object +an attribute, which referred to the object (to have something done). Later this construction developed into the Perfect Form. We see it when Participle II lost its agreement with the object and when later the object took the position after the Participle. This process was going in the middle of the MEP => «to have done something».

The Continuous forms developed in the same way. From a free form combination to a morphological form. In the beginning it was a compound nominal predicate with the verb «to be» as a link-verb and Participle I as a predicative. And originally it didn’t express a process, it meant only permanent characteristic as a Present indefinite now. The Continuous form acquired its modern meaning much later in the 16^th century, even after Shakespeare. The process which took place was the same as with the Perfect form: originally the Participle agreed with the subject, but then it lost its category of agreement and became a part of the Continuous form.

The same process took place with the Passive which developed from a free word combination to a fixed morphological form. Originally it was a compound nominal predicate with the verb «to be» + Participle II as a predicative. Gradually the Participle lost its agreement with the subject of the sentence.

As we know the Future Tense Form was not represented in the OE and developed only during the MEP. It developed from a combination which was a compound verbal modal predicate with the verb «shall» and «will». But even in the time of Shakespeare this combination could be still to either as a modal predicate or as a Future form.

The Perfect Continuous Form was one of last to appear. It appeared at the beginning of the NEP. And the last to appear was the Continuous form of the Passive which began developing only in the 19^th century.

In OE we may find passive infinitive, though no passive forms far finite forms may be found. Other analytical non-finite forms developed during the MEP, but only after corresponding analytical forms of finite forms had developed.

The gerund was also one of the last to appear. There are several theories concerning the development of the Gerund and the most current of them is that it developed as a mixture of Participle I and the verbal noun with the preposition «on» in the function of the predicative (He was on hunting. OE).

THE SYNTAX.

In the main the types of the sentences and the number of the sentence remained the same. But still there were several important changes:

In connection with the decay of the synthetic system the word order in the sentence became much more stable. Inversion (when an adverbial modifier stood in the beginning of the sentence - like in German) still existed (till the NEP). The inversion in questions established itself in the beginning of the NEP. The auxiliary «do» became to be used during the MEP towards its end. But in the time of Shakespeare it still could be used even in affirmative sentences, whereas by the 16^th or 17^th centuries «do» as an auxiliary was used only in negative and interrogative sentences: it became a strict rule. Maybe it is connected with the word order (the predicate should follow the subject even in questions), maybe for some rhythmic reasons. Together with the development of literature, education and style concposite sentences began to develop. Their structure became more complicated, the number of subordinate clauses increased together with the number of conjunctions and special connectives, some of which were bookish and developed from notional words. The difference between the compound (сложносочиненные) complex (сложноподчиненные) sentences became more distinct. As to the type of the predicate the old impersonal one-member type had gone out of use completely (Him thought. OE).

WORDSTOCK.

There was a great rash of the Romane words to the language. For more than two centuries French was the state language and it affected the English language and vocabulary in all the spheres of life (everyday language, government, military sphere, art, fashion, meals (except names of meat of different animals), religion and so on). About 80-85% of OE (originally Germanic) words were lost completely or ousted by borrowings (take, call) from Danish and French and later during the Medieval time with the development of such sciences as medicine, theology and philosophy when many, mostly bookish, words were borrowed. Sometimes borrowings co-existed with the original words: begin ó start, commence.

MEANS OF WORDBUILDING.

The old productive ways of wordbuilding (word composition and affixation) still remained such, but there appeared some new ones:

conversion - it is closely connected with the loss of endings, when words became to be root words; in ME it is limitless and appears to be one of the main devices.

shift of stress: present ó present - mostly in borrowings.

abbreviations: a certain word was shortened; nowadays there are several variants of shortening words.

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