Changes in the spelling system of Middle English

21. the vowel shift

26. Modern English Vocabulary

The Late ME inventory of consonants was established in ME -> recent changes tendency to reisert previously lost sounds in isolated words

By the late MnE period, unstressed vowels have almost been reduced to {ɔ}/ {i}

Morphological categories of late MnE are idertical to those of EMn

Noun: singular, plural: possessive , non – possessive

Remained: 7 mutated plurals: feet, teeth, geese, lice, mice

Men, women and 3-n plural, brethren, children, oxen

“s” plural has become universal for native 1 naturalized words

Adj comporative “er” and superlative “est”

The 19^th century saw the development of the passive progressive construction, get – passive, verb-adverb combination as nouns

28/ Development of English strong verbs

Strong verbs were particularly vulnerable for the following reasons <= irregular

1. More weak verbs than strong verbs

2. Strong verbs were fragmented into 7 different classes with numenous irregularities

3. Sound changes affected negatively on the distinctions within classes

4. In ME , separated but related verbs tended to fall together as a single weak verb

5. New verbs from French almost entered English as weak verbs

29. Development of English weak verbs (regular verb)

There were too many weak verbs in OE, MB so even thong they got lost through of time, there are still a lot of weak verbs came in to ME from Scandinavian and French

30. Development of English vocabulary

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1358