HISTORY OF GRAMMAR

 

HISTORY OF GRAMMAR

Introductio

Over the last 1,200 years or so, English has undergone extensive changes in its vowel system but
many fewer changes to its consonants.
In the Old English period, a number of umlaut processes affected vowels in complex ways, and
unstressed vowels were gradually eroded, eventually leading to a loss of grammatical
case and grammatical gender in the Early Middle English period. The most important umlaut
process was *i-mutation (c. 500 CE), which led to pervasive alternations of all sorts, many of
which survive in the modern language: e.g. in noun paradigms
(foot vs. feet, mouse vs. mice, brother vs. brethren); in verb paradigms (sold vs. sell); nominal
derivatives from adjectives ("strong" vs. "strength", broad vs. breadth, foul vs. filth) and from
other nouns (fox vs. "vixen"); verbal derivatives ("food" vs. "to feed"); and comparative
adjectives ("old" vs. "elder"). Consonants were more stable, although velar consonants were
significantly modified by palatalization, which produced alternations such
as speak vs. speech, drink vs. drench, wake vs. watch, bake vs. batch.
The Middle English period saw further vowel changes. Most significant was the Great Vowel
Shift (c. 1500 CE), which transformed the pronunciation of all long vowels. This occurred after
the spelling system was fixed, and accounts for the drastic differences in pronunciation between
"short" mat, met, bit, cot vs. "long" mate, mete/meet, bite, coat. Other changes that left echoes in
the modern language were homorganic lengthening before ld, mb, nd, which accounts for the
long vowels in child, mind, climb, etc.; pre-cluster shortening, which resulted in the vowel
alternations in child vs. children, keep vs. kept, meet vs. met; and trisyllabic laxing, which is
responsible for alternations such as grateful vs. gratitude, divine vs. divinity, sole vs. solitary.
Among the more significant recent changes to the language have been the development of rhotic
and non-rhotic accents (i.e. "r-dropping"); the trap-bath split in many dialects of British English;
and flapping of t and d between vowels in American English and Australian English.
Vowel changesEdit
The following table shows the principal developments in the stressed vowels, from Old English
through Modern English (C indicates any consonant):
Old
English
(c. 900
Middle
English
(c. 1400 AD)
Early Modern
English
(c. 1600 AD)
Modern
English
Modern
spelling Examples
AD)
ɑː ɔː oː
oʊ
əʊ (UK) oa, oCe oak, boat, whole,
stone
æː, æːɑ ɛː eː
iː
ea heal, beat, cheap
eː, eːo eː iː ee, -e feed, deep, me, be
iː, yː iː əi or ɛi aɪ iCe ride, time, mice
oː oː uː uː oo, -o moon, food, do
uː uː əu or ɔu aʊ ou mouse, out, loud
ɑ, æ, æɑ
a æ æ a man, sat, wax
aː ɛː eɪ aCe name, bake, raven
e, eo
e ɛ ɛ e help, tell, seven
ɛː eː iː ea, eCe speak, meat, mete
i, y ɪ ɪ ɪ i written, sit, kiss
o
o ɔ
ɒ
ɑ (US) o god, top, beyond
ɔː oː
oʊ
əʊ (UK) oa, oCe foal, nose, over
u ʊ
ɤ ʌ
u, o
buck, up, love,
wonder
ʊ ʊ full, bull
The following chart shows the primary developments of English vowels in the last 600 years, in
more detail, since Late Middle English of Chaucer's time. The Great Vowel Shift can be seen in
the dramatic developments from c. 1400 to 1600.
             Grammar.
Grammatical changesEdit
The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin,
modern German and Icelandic. Old English distinguished among
the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases, and for strongly declined adjectives and
some pronouns also a separate instrumental case (which otherwise and later completely
coincided with the dative). In addition, the dual number was distinguished from the singular and
plural.[24] Declension was greatly simplified during the Middle English period, when
the accusative and dative cases of the pronouns merged into a single oblique case that also
replaced the genitive case after prepositions. Nouns in Modern English no longer decline for
case, except for the genitive.
Evolution of English pronounsEdit
Pronouns such as whom and him (contrasted with who and he), are a conflation of the old
accusative and dative cases, as well as of the genitive case after prepositions (while her also
includes the genitive case). This conflated form is called the oblique case or the object
(objective) case, because it is used for objects of verbs (direct, indirect, or oblique) as well as for
objects of prepositions. (See object pronoun.) The information formerly conveyed by distinct
case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order. In Old English as well as
modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct forms.
Although some grammarians continue to use the traditional terms "accusative" and "dative",
these are functions rather than morphological cases in Modern English. That is, the
form whom may play accusative or dative roles (as well as instrumental or prepositional roles),
but it is a single morphological form, contrasting with nominative who and genitive whose. Many
grammarians use the labels "subjective", "objective", and "possessive" for nominative, oblique,
and genitive pronouns.
Modern English nouns exhibit only one inflection of the reference form: the possessive case,
which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for
more information).