Middle English Roughly spoken from *Language change is slow, but definable

I. Pronunciation changes  A. schwa –e sound (like in 2nd syllable of cola or 1st syllable in alone) 1. Germ. Emphasis on the 1st syllable (like we still do for a good part today) 2. 2nd syllables lost distinct vowel sound  ex: census, legal, ribbon, valid 3. no one knew how to spell those words, ended up using an e to represent this unstressed vowel (and Middle English began)

II. Endings and Order  Old English had depended on the vowels in the last syllables of words to help tell many things: they indicated whether an adjective’s or noun’s gender was masculine, feminine, or neutral; whether a verb was indicative (stating a fact) or subjunctive (stating a wish or reality); whether a noun was singular or plural; what function a noun filled in a sentence (subject or object); etc. The loss of the vowel distinctions meant we had to find other ways of indicating those things or do without that information totally.

II. Endings and Order (cont.)  A. Grammatical Gender Ended (thank goodness)  1. old way – “the door... she”  “the roof... he”  “the wife... it”  2. new way – males = “he” ; females = “she” ; objects = “it”

II. Endings and Order (cont.)  B. Plural Forms Changed  1. old way – everything was irregular  ex: ox/oxen ; tooth/teeth  2. new way – just add an –s  ex: tree/trees ; peasant/peasants

II. Endings and Order (cont.)  C. Word Order Replaces Word Endings Old English showed grammatical meanings and relations by word endings; Middle English showed meanings and relations by word order and by function words such as prepositions, helping verbs (will, shall, etc.), articles, etc.

II. Endings and Order (cont.)  C. Word Order Replaces Word Endings (cont.) 1. old way – SVO or OVS or OSV  ex: the book read the man ; the book the man read 2. new way – SVO  ex: the man read the book

III. Normans Invade the Anglo- Saxons  A. French vs. English (England is bilingual)  1. Fr. – ruling class, law courts, government  2. Eng – peasant class, servants, craftsmen,  farmers  3. English wins! (eventually)  a) more people spoke it  b) 100 Years War = nationalism  4. English borrows TONS of French words