Grammatical Change

Question 1

When did most grammatical changes occur?

Answer 1

Before the end of the Middle Ages

Question 2

When did more recent attempts to “fix” grammar occur?

Answer 2

18th and 19th century

Question 3

What has been one of the most significant change of grammar?

Answer 3

The loss of inflections

Question 4

What do inflections do?

Answer 4

Indicate the grammatical form of a word eg. 
tense
person
number
gender
comparatives + superlatives

Question 5

What are inflections?

Answer 5

Affixes (suffixes and prefixes) which provide extra information about the “base” word

Question 6

When did these inflections disappear?

Answer 6

By the end of the Middle English Period (1450)

Question 7

What were the reasons behind the loss of inflections?

Answer 7

They were often unstressed when spoken and resulted in not being pronounced at all, which resulted in them not being written
They were complicated, loss of them meant simpler rules
Different dialects used different inflections, loss made it easier for mutual intelligibility

Question 8

Example of a change of inflection

Answer 8

Now we often add an “s” suffix to indicate a plural
Beforehand plural affixes were more varied:
hand -> handa
eye -> eyen

Question 9

What additional change happened when inflections were lost/changes?

Answer 9

Changed how language was constructed

Question 10

In what was did the inflection change impact on how language was constructed?

Answer 10

Word order
Increased use of auxiliaries
Negative constructions

Question 11

How did inflections change word order?

Answer 11

Now we use S - V - O word order, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense
Before the order was interchangeable as inflections indicated who was doing what

Question 12

How did inflections change the use of auxiliary verbs?

Answer 12

Before verbs were often used at the start of a sentence
e.g. V - S - O , the verb and subject then became inverted
Auxiliary verbs were then introduced to the start of the sentence:
A - S - V - O (Did you speak with him)

Question 13

How did inflections change the use of negative constructions?

Answer 13

Negatives now come before the verb rather than after it

e.g. I deny it not -> I don’t deny it

Question 14

What happened to double negatives?

Answer 14

Used to be acceptable however now they are seen as ‘bad’ grammar.
e.g. I don’t want nothing

Question 15

What did double negatives used to do?

Answer 15

Provide emphasis to the word’s meaning

Question 16

When and who decided that double negatives were unacceptable?

Answer 16

Robert Lowth in the 18th century

Question 17

What did Lowth believe about double negatives?

Answer 17

They were incorrect. He used maths as an example to prove this as two negative make a positive

Question 18

What change happened to pronouns (in particular 2nd person)?

Answer 18

They lost plural forms (although some regional dialects still use "youse" as a plural) 
Used to differentiate between formal and informal for addressing people of a higher and lower class to oneself.

Question 19

What were the informal and formal formations of the 2nd person pronouns?

Answer 19

thou, thee, thy - informal singular forms

ye, your, you - formal plural forms

Question 20

When were Who and Whom used?

Answer 20

Whom - when referring to the object

Who - when referring to the subject

Question 21

What changed about who and whom?

Answer 21

Whom is now seen as being excessively formal and who is used in its place more often than not.
Whom may still be kept alive through the use of prepositions - with whom , for whom

Question 22

How can the words function change?

Answer 22

When it undergoes a conversion

Question 23

Example of a noun function change:

Answer 23

Facebook, text, email

now all used as verbs too. (mainly involves technology)

Question 24

Example of adverb function change:

Answer 24

Well:

• used with past participals
  e. g. that was well cooked
• used as an intensifying adverb before an adjective
  e. g. that was well good