Characteristics of Middle English

Question 1

What happens to inflections in the ME period?

Answer 1

Inflections all start to disappear.

Question 2

What are 2 grammatical changes that were impacted by Norman French?

Answer 2

• Semantics of the lexicon (word meaning and word creation).

- Certain syntactical structures.

Question 3

When did the changes of the language really started?

Answer 3

In the late OE period.

Question 4

What kind of language was English in the OE period and what does it become in the ME period?

Answer 4

It went from a higly inflectional and synthetic language (OE) to an analytic language (ME).

Question 5

What amount of the word stock of Anglo-Saxon origin is lost in ME?

Answer 5

85% of the word stock of the language from Anglo-Saxon.

Question 6

In Old English, nouns were declined in what 3 ways?

Answer 6

• Gender
• Number
• Case

Question 7

In OE, how many genders, numbers, cases were there and what were they?

Answer 7

• 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
• 3 persons: singular, plural and double.
• 5 cases: accusative, nominative, dative, genitive and instrumental.

Question 8

In Old English, nouns and their endings were modified depending on what?

Answer 8

They were depending on how they were used (their function and what they represented).

Question 9

In Middle English, what happens to vowels and consonants?

Answer 9

Vowels start to level and consonants get lost.

Question 10

What were inflections replaced by in ME?

Answer 10

Inflections were replaced by prepositions.

Question 11

What happens to the classification of strong and weak verbs in ME?

Answer 11

It gets lost.

Question 12

What happens to grammatical gender in ME?

Answer 12

It disappears (apart from ships, cars, countries, etc).

Question 13

What happens to the articles in ME?

Answer 13

There is a rise in the importance of the articles in ME.

Question 14

Today, what are the 2 inflections of nouns?

Answer 14

• Case (genitive/possessive).

- Number (plural).

Question 15

What are the 2 factors causing the merging of inflections in ME?

Answer 15

• Vowel reduction

- Process of analogy (try to make things similar)

Question 16

What happens to unstressed / a, o, u, e / at the end of words in ME?

Answer 16

They tend to become all a final / e /, but the final / e / drops or changes for a schwa.

Question 17

When is the pronunciation of “es” kept and not reducted to schwa?

Answer 17

When the sound before is a sibilant or a / z / or a “sh” sound.

Question 18

What happens to inflections of Adjectives in ME?

Answer 18

They get inflected for number, but not for case or gender.

Question 19

In ME, what are strong and weak adjectives?

Answer 19

• Strong adjectives (or strong inflections): nothing in singular and a / e / in plural.
• Weak adjectives (or weak inflections): / e / in singular and plural.

Question 20

What happens to the final / m / or / n / sounds of words?

Answer 20

They have a tendency to fall, to disappear.

Question 21

When does the / s / at the end of nouns disappear?

Answer 21

When it is preceded by a / u / or a / m /.

Question 22

How are comparatives and superlatives constructed in OE and ME and what difference occurs in ME?

Answer 22

In OE as in ME comparatives are created by adding -er at the end of adjectives and superlatives are created by adding -est. However, in ME, the use of “more” and “most” appear.

Question 23

What is a periphrastic construction of superlatives and comparatives?

Answer 23

It is the process of using more than one word to create an idea = use of “more” and “most” instead of “-er” and “-est”.

Question 24

Why is “children” considered a double plural?

Answer 24

Because in ME, adding “-en” was a way to create plural, but adding “-r” was a way to create plural as well.

Question 25

What are 3 ways to create plurals in ME?

Answer 25

• adding -en
• adding -s
• changing vowel (umlaut).

Question 26

What is the difference between “brother”, “brether” and “bretheren”?

Answer 26

Brother is the singular, brether is the plural and bretheren are members of a fraternity.

Question 27

What is the syntactical element that resisted change the most?

Answer 27

Personal Pronouns.

Question 28

How many cases did personal pronouns maintain?

Answer 28

3 distinct case forms (me, my, mine).

Question 29

In ME, what are the demonstrative pronouns used and what are their 2 functions?

Answer 29

This, that, these, those (anaphoric and deictic functions).