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Stative as a new part of speech in middle English

A type of words begins to take shape which developed into a special part of speech – the stative. Words of this type appear from the phrase on + N, later developing in a prefix a-; afraid, asleep, alive. It expressed state, so it was associated with adjectival or verbal rather than nominal meaning, so in present-day English the words like adrift, aloof are treated as predicative adjectives…

 

The verb

All types of verb existing in Old English – strong, weak, preterite-present and irregular were preserved in ME. In each type we find changes due to phonetic developments of this period, but the proportional value of the weak ones is greater and continues to grow.

- The OE prefix ze – reduced to y-.

- Non-finite forms which in OE comprised the infinitive and the two participles have changed in the direction from the nominal to verbal parts of speech.

A new non-finite form of the verb arises – gerund. Thenumber of gerunds in Chaucer’s works is not very significant;

The infinitive loses the category of case and acquires a particle to.

Participle I, in ME changed its shape. Its suffix –ende turns into -inde and finally –ynge/-inge….

The changes in strong verbs are as follows:

The number of the basic forms of the strong verb remained the same (four), there were 7 classes. Some of the strong verbs may take the dental suffix for formation of their past form. Thus becoming weak…

The number of weak verbs grows significantly in Middle English, because practically all borrowed verbs and new verbs derived from other parts of speech become weak. The changes in weak verbs were mainly phonetical. Some of them lost the sound –i- in the suffix in the infinitive. Class II lost its specific –ode ending due to the leveling of ending and turned into –ed.

In the 14c. in some weak verbs with a stem ending in l, n, f and v the past suffix –d changed into –t.

In the group of preterite-present verbs zeneah lost its status of a verb and turned into an adverb (enough). The other just simplified their paradigms, some forms were lost. The verb kan/koude be used as a modal verb, accompanied with an infinitive, and may be used in its primary original meaning to know.

Shall/sholde alongside with its modal meaning is widely used as an auxiliary of the future tense, future-in-the-past and auxiliaries of the new analytical forms of the subjunctive mood.

Motan gradually loses the meaning of ability and possibility which is occasionally expressed by its present tense form moot, and is more and more used to express obligation;

Ben and goon remained suppletive, goon having acquired another stem (went) for the past tense.

 

During ME period there appear analytical forms of the verb. In old English the only ways to make the forms of the verb were suffixes/vowel interchange/ using another stem + inflections; in ME there arise the forms now very common in Present-day English but absent in OE. One cannot say that there were no prerequisites to them in OE – but in OE these had the status of phrases with grammatical meaning…



An analytical form must have a stable structural pattern different from the patterns of verb phrases; it must consist of an auxiliary and a non-finite form of the verb, which remains unchanged.

The Middle English Verb

The tense

An analytical form must have a stable structural pattern, it must consist of an auxiliary and not-finite form of the verb. New form in ME verbs was the future tense – shal, wal become the true auxiliaries for the future tense. The same auxiliary was also used in the already appearing analytical forms of future in the past.

The present and the past perfect equally came into the middle English, both using as auxiliary the verb to haven in the Present or the past tense + Participle II.

Non-finite forms of the verb, the infinitive acquired this grammatical category too. perfect infinitives are common in Chaucer’s times, mainly as part of new analytical forms of the subjunctive mood: (I would have told you…; they would have kissed his feet…)

The passive voice expressed by the combination ben + PII is widely used in Middle English (all that is written for our doctrine).

The category of voice was expressed also in the non-finite forms of the verb – passive infinitives are rather common in this period: (this treasure must be carried by night…; it is very pleasant to be called mademe.)

The problems of aspect is disputable one. The Prefix ze-, which rendered some aspective meanings now was falling into disuse, and was actually limited to the participle of the verb. A new formthe continuous was rising, but in Middle English it was considered an ungrammatical form of the verb, hens it was not allowed into the good literary English. The number of such structures was really insignificant and they might be considered lexical collocations rather than the beginnings of the continuous forms.

We may observe that even more complicated forms of the Continuous, such as Perfect continuous may be found late Middle English. (we have been waiting…)

The category of mood retains the former subdivision into the indicative, the imperative and the subjunctive. While there is nothing new or nothing special about the indicative and the imperative mood – the first represented the action as real, the second expressed commands, requests etc., the forms of subjunctive mood had some specificity.

The present tense of the subjunctive (we call it now subjunctive I) renders the meanings of wishes (including curses): so help me wise God; That you should suffer of true pestilence…)

But very frequently this form of the subjunctive was used to render the meaning of uncertainty….

I don’t know whether she is a woman o a goddess…

The category of mood was also enriched by analytical formations wolde + inf and sholde + inf; the newly arisen form of the past perfect readily supplements the range f meaning of the old synthetic subjunctive.

Sir, if I were you I would say….

The perfect and passive forms of the verb in the subjunctive mood were not a rare occasion:

The two men who would have passed over the sea of some purpose into a far country, if the wind had not been adverse…


Date: 2016-03-03; view: 2201


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