The Theory of Progress, the Functional Theory.

Otto Jesperson “The theory of progress”. The author believed that the loss of inflections in England was a very positive change. Jesperson’s theory appraised E-sh grammar as a perfect structure (in the book “Growth & structure of the E-sh language”).

E-sh had developed a very logical grammar as a result of a long-working tendency to simplify & clear the language of all intricate inflections & in his opinion the possibility of the simplification is explained by E-shman’s highly developed manner of thinking he believed that loss of inflections helps to economize thinking. Proving superiority of E-sh the author put forward the number of features which are “Grammatical forms in analytical languages are shorter & the process of speaking”. But some analytical forms contain 3 or 4 words. E.g. The books are being carried.

The functional theory

As for grammar it can’t be so easily penetrated by foreign influences that’s why the reasons which reconstructed the E-sh grammatical type should be booked for in the language itself. This is done by the representatives of the 4th theory which is called the functional theory. Among its originators were M. Horn and Barkhudarov. According to this theory linguistic elements that had lost their functional value and can no longer perform their functions, that is can’t distinguish one grammatical form from another. These elements suffered the process of phonetic reduction and finally were dropped. In OE the noun had generally 4 cases but in some types of declension 3 cases of 4 had one and the same inflection:

N. swaþ-u sun-u

G.

D. swaþ-e sun-a

A.

In the verb the ending –en was used in Participle II and Subjunctive mood, -aþ was used in Indicative mood, Imperative mood.

Such cases caused ambiguity; it was necessary to use special function words to overcome homonymy of forms. To distinguish the Genitive case from the Dative prepositions began to be used and the inflections became irrelevant and finally were dropped. In the same way personal pronouns replaced verbal personal endings, which became ambiguous. Thus this theory explains the loss of inflections in English by their inability to perform their functional property.

At the same time this theory though seeming very logical can’t account for some contradictory facts (to express the idea of possessivity). English has retained both synthetical and analytical means. E.g. man’s – of a man. On the other hand, the language lost both means indicating the second person singular (personal pronoun ‘thou’). Non of the four theories can be taken for the satisfactory explanation and it seems reasonable to take into consideration the common sense of each of these theories, but the fourth one still seems more interesting. It is based on the language facts proper.

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