^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 ELI SOBEL
 
 CPaten^on ^rcee ^eriee 
 
 A PRIMER 
 
 OF 
 
 HISTORICAL ENGLISH 
 GRAMMAR 
 
 SWEET
 
 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 Cfarenbon (prtee ^ertee 
 
 A PRIMER 
 
 OF 
 
 HISTORICAL ENGLISH 
 GRAMMAR 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SWEET, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1902
 
 OXFORD 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 BY HORACE HART, M.A. 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 1//^ 5'/^<?<^
 
 PL 
 //O/ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The object of this book is to give the essentials of 
 historical English grammar as far as is possible within 
 the limits of loo pages, excluding syntax, but including 
 the history of the language, phonology, inflections, panicles, 
 composition, and derivation. Although it covers exactly the 
 same ground as my S/iort Historical English Grammar 
 (itself an abridgment of the historical portions of my New 
 English Grammar), yet the great compression involved in 
 writing it has obliged me to depart considerably from the 
 plan of the larger works; although in some cases, where 
 the limits of conciseness had already been reached in the 
 Short Historical Grammar, I have naturally preferred con- 
 servatism to useless innovation. 
 
 As this little book will probably be studied by many 
 who have neither leisure nor inclination to pursue the his- 
 torical study of English any further, I have added a short 
 selection of Old, Middle, and Modern English texts— the 
 latter with phonetic transcriptions to show the great 
 changes in pronunciation which underlie the fixity of the 
 orthography. These texts are accompanied by explanatory
 
 Vi PREFACE 
 
 notes and references to the body of the Primer. They 
 will serve both to supplement the examples there given, 
 and to quicken the student's interest in a way which is 
 only possible by means of connected texts. They may also 
 perhaps be an incitement to explore further the wide field 
 of Early English literature and language. 
 
 HENRY SWEET. 
 
 South Park, Reigate : 
 \2th April, 1893.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLISH i 
 
 Old English 2 
 
 Middle English 5 
 
 Modern English 9 
 
 PHONOLOGY 
 
 Phonetics 12 
 
 Laws of Sound-change , . . . . . .21 
 
 Spelling and Pronunciation 23 
 
 Old English Sounds 29 
 
 Middle English Sounds 35 
 
 Modern English Sounds 45 
 
 ACCIDENCE 
 
 Nouns ........... 52 
 
 Adjectives 58 
 
 Pronouns 61 
 
 Numerals 67 
 
 Verbs 68 
 
 Weak Verbs . .... ... .72 
 
 Strong Verbs . . . . . . . . -74 
 
 Irregular Verbs 80
 
 3«a 
 
 Vlll CONTENTS 
 
 PARK 
 
 Particles — 
 
 Adverbs . 89 
 
 Prepositions .92 
 
 COMPOSITION" 93 
 
 DERIVATION" 
 
 Native Elements 94 
 
 Foreign Elements 98 
 
 SPECIMENS OP ENGLISH. 
 
 Old English loi 
 
 Middle English . 105 
 
 Modern English . no
 
 PRIMER OF 
 HISTORICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLISH. 
 
 Periods. 
 
 1. We distinguish three main stages in the history of 
 our language, namely Old English (OE), Middle English 
 (ME), and Modern English (MnE). We further distinguish 
 periods of transition between these main stages, each of 
 which latter is further divided 
 period. The dates of these 
 follows : — 
 
 into an early and a late 
 periods are, roughly, as 
 
 Early Old English (E. of Alfred) 
 Late Old English (E. of .Elfric) . 
 
 Transition Old English (E. of Layamon) . 
 Early Middle English (E. of the Ancren Riwle) 
 Late Middle English (E. of Chaucer) . 
 
 Transition Middle English (Caxton E.) . 
 EarlyModernEnglish(TudorE.; E.ofShakespere) 
 Late Modern English 
 
 700-900 
 900-1100 
 II 00 -1 200 
 1 200- 1 300 
 1 300-1 400 
 1 400- 1 500 
 1500-1650 
 1650- 
 
 CoGNATE Languages. 
 
 2. English belongs to the Arian family of languages, 
 descended from a hypothetical Parent Arian language. The 
 most important of the Arian languages of Europe are Greek. 
 
 B
 
 a HISTOR Y OF ENGLISH. [§ 3. 
 
 Latin — which is the parent of the Bomance languages 
 (Italian, French, Spanish, etc.), — the Celtic languages (Irish, 
 Welsh, etc.), the Slavonic languages (Russian, Polish, etc.), 
 and the Germanic languages. 
 
 3. The chief languages of the Germanic group — to which 
 English belongs — are Gothic, the Scandinavian languages 
 (Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish), the Low German 
 languages (Dutch, Low German or Piatt Deutsch, Frisian, 
 English), and High German or German. English is, there- 
 fore, a Low German language, closely allied to Frisian, which 
 is really Continental English. 
 
 Old English. 
 
 4. Before the fifth century Britain was partially conquered 
 by a variety of Germanic tribes from the other side of the 
 German Ocean, the chief of which were the Saxons, the 
 Angles, and the Jutes. 
 
 5. The first settlement is said to have been that of the 
 Jutes, who took Kent and the Isle of Wight. 
 
 6. The Saxons occupied the country south of the Thames ; 
 except Cornwall, where the Britons still kept their nationality. 
 Some of the Saxons settled in Sussex ; some north of the 
 Thames in Middlesex and Essex ; the remaining portion of 
 the tribe being called ' West- Saxons,' whence their state is 
 called ' Wessex.' 
 
 7. The rest of England was occupied by the Angles. 
 Suffolk and Norfolk were included under the name of 
 ' East-Anglia.' Another tribe of Anglians occupied what 
 are now the Midland Counties, between the Thames and the 
 Humber. These were called Mercians, and their country 
 is called ' Mercia.' The country north of the Humber was
 
 5 to.] HISTORY OF ENGLISH. 3 
 
 occupied by a variety of Anglian tribes included under the 
 name of Northumbrians. Ancient Northumbria extended 
 up to the Firth of Forth, and thus included the greater part 
 of what is now the Lowlands of Scotland. 
 
 8. All these tribes spoke the same language with slight 
 differences of dialect. These differences increased by degrees, 
 so that already in the 8th century we can distinguish four 
 main dialects : Northumbrian and Mercian, which together 
 constitute the Anglian group ; and "West-Saxon and 
 Kentish, which together constitute the Southern group. 
 
 9. All these tribes agreed in calling their common language 
 English, that is, 'Anglish,' because the Angles were for a 
 long time the dominant tribe. The supremacy afterwards 
 passed to the West-Saxons, and their capital, Winchester, 
 became the capital of England ; and West-Saxon became the 
 official and, to a great extent, the literary language all over 
 England. The West-Saxons still continued to call their 
 language English, the name 'Anglo-Saxon' being used only 
 as a collective name for the people, not the language. 
 
 Characteristics of Old English. 
 
 10. The characteristics of OE are those of the other Low 
 German languages. It was, as compared with MnE, a highly 
 inflected language, being in this respect intermediate between 
 Latin and Modern German. In its syntax it closely resembled 
 Modern German. It also resembled Modern German in 
 having an unlimited power of forming new words by deriva- 
 tion and composition, as when it made Scribes and Pharisees 
 into ' bookers and separation-saints ' (OE boceras and sundor- 
 Mlgan). 
 
 B 2
 
 4 HISTORY OF ENGLISH. [§ ii. 
 
 Latin Influence. 
 
 11. Nevertheless it adopted many Latin words, some of 
 which it brought with it from the Continent, such as stral 
 ' high road,' ' street,' mil ' mile ' from Latin {via) strata, viilia 
 {passtmjn) ; while others were learnt from the Romanized 
 Britons, such as ceaster ' city ' from castra. These are all 
 popular words. There is another layer of learned words 
 which came in after the introduction of Christianity in 597, 
 such as deofol ' devil,' mynster ' monastery ' from diaiolns, 
 monaster ium. 
 
 Scandinavian Influence. 
 
 12. Towards the end of the 8ih century Scandinavian 
 pirates — chiefly from Norway, but also from Denmark, all 
 being indiscriminately called ' Danes' by the Anglo-Saxons — 
 began to harass the coasts of England. By the end of the 
 next century they had conquered and settled East-Anglia (in 
 870), Mercia (in 874), and Northumbria (in 876); although 
 in the next century they were forced to acknowledge the 
 supremacy of the West-Saxon kings. In 1016 the whole 
 of England was conquered by the Danes, and England was 
 ruled by Danish kings till 1042, when the Anglo-Saxon royal 
 line was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 13. It is not till the close of the OE period that Scandi- 
 navian words appear. 
 
 French Influence. 
 
 14. With the accession of Edward the Confessor in 1042 
 Norman influence begins ; and in 1066 the battle of Hastings 
 made the Norman duke William king of England, although 
 the actual conquest was not completed till 107 1. 
 
 15. The Normans were Scandinavian by race, but their 
 language was a dialect of Old French.
 
 § 20.] mSTOR y OF ENGLISH. 5 
 
 16. The influence of Norman French on OE was of 
 course even slighter than that of Scandinavian. 
 
 Middle English. 
 
 17. In its Middle period English went through much the 
 same changes as the other Germanic languages, though at a 
 quicker rate. Many of the sounds were changed, most of 
 the old inflections were lost, their place being supplied by 
 form-words — prepositions, auxiliary verbs, etc. — and many 
 words became obsolete. 
 
 Dialects of Middle English. 
 
 18. The Norman Conquest, by depriving the old West- 
 Sa.xon of its literary and political supremacy, gave free play 
 to the development of the dialects. Although the 1\IE dialects 
 are continuations of the OE ones, most of them are called by 
 different names. The main divisions are Northern, corre- 
 sponding to the Old Northumbrian, Midland, corresponding 
 to the Old IMcrcian, Southern, corresponding to the old 
 West-Saxon, and Kentish. We include the first two under 
 the term ' North-Thames English,' the last two under ' South- 
 Thames English.' 
 
 19. Of these dialects the Midland was the predominating 
 one. Its commanding position in the heart of England 
 enabled it to exercise a direct influence on all the other 
 dialects, while Southern and Northern were completely cut 
 ofT from one another. Hence even the earliest Southern cf 
 about I20O shows considerable influence of the Midland — or 
 Old Mercian — dialect. 
 
 20. It is to be observed that the changes which distinguish 
 one period of English from another went on much faster in
 
 6 HISTORY OF ENGLISH. [§21. 
 
 the North of England than in the South. The Northern 
 dialect in its Early Middle period had got rid of nearly all 
 the inflections that are not preserved in MnE, being thus 
 several centuries ahead of the South -Thames dialects. The 
 Midland dialects were more conservative than the Northern, 
 though less so than the South -Thames dialects. 
 
 Struggle between French and English. 
 
 21. For a long time the two languages, French and 
 English, kept almost entirely apart. The English of 1200 
 is almost as free from French words as the English of 1050; 
 and it was not till after 1300 that French words began to be 
 adopted wholesale into English. 
 
 22. IMeanwhile English was steadily gaining the upper 
 hand. In 1258 we find it officially employed in the Procla- 
 mation of Henry III. In the next century French gradually 
 fell into disuse even among the aristocracy. In 1362 English 
 was introduced in the courts of law instead of French. 
 About the same time English took the place of French as 
 the vehicle of instruction in schools. 
 
 Rise of the London Dialect. 
 
 23. In the ME period the dialects had diverged so much 
 that speakers of the extreme Northern and extreme Southern 
 dialects were no longer able to understand one another, and 
 the need of a common dialect became pressing. Such a 
 common dialect can be formed only in a centre of intercourse 
 where speakers from all parts of the country meet constantly. 
 Such a centre was London, which now was not only the 
 capital of England, but also a place of great and growing 
 commercial importance. 
 
 24. The London dialect, as we find it in its earliest
 
 § 25.] HrSTOR Y OF EA'GUSfl. ^ 
 
 document, the Proclamation of Henry III, shows such a 
 mixture of Midland and Soulhern forms as we might expect 
 from its position on the border-line between these two 
 dialects. The Midland dialect was intermediate between the 
 two extremes. Northern and Soulhern, not only geographi- 
 cally but also linguistically; so that speakers of Midland 
 could understand both Northern and Soulhern much better 
 than Northerners and Southerners could understand one 
 anoiher. Hence the Midland element in the London dialect 
 made the latter peculiarly fitted to serve as a means of 
 general communication. Hence also the Midland element 
 in the London dialect became stronger and stronger in the 
 course of the ME period, till at last even Northern forms 
 passed into it through the medium of the Midland dialect, 
 while Southern influence became weaker and weaker. 
 
 Scandinavian Influence. 
 
 25. Although the Norwegians and Danes spoke different 
 dialects, the difference between these dialects was very slight. 
 The Scandinavian words imported into English seem to be 
 mostly Danish. Although the Scandinavian dialects were 
 not intelligible to the Anglo-Saxons, yet the cognate languages 
 English and Scandinavian were so similar in structure and 
 had so many words in common, that the languages blended 
 together wiih the same facility as ihe races that spoke them. 
 English got the upper hand, but Scandinavian nevertheless 
 left its mark on every English dialect, especially the East- 
 Midland and Northern dialects, where the population was 
 half Scandinavian. Ill, fro in 'to and fro,' bound in 'bound 
 for a place,' are examples of Scandinavian words in English 
 (Icelandic tll-r 'bad,'/rJ 'from,' biiinn 'ready').
 
 8 HISTORY OF ENGLISH. [§ 26. 
 
 French Influence. 
 
 26. The Norman French introduced into England was 
 not a uniform dialect, but was itself split up into local 
 varieties or sub-dialects, which in the Norman spoken in 
 England — the 'Anglo-Norman' or 'Anglo-French' language 
 — were mixed together indiscriminately. The loss of Nor- 
 mandy in 1204 put an end to the influence of Continental 
 Norman ; and henceforth Anglo-French was influenced only 
 by the literary French of Paris, this Parisian French having 
 the same predominance among the French dialects as London 
 English had among the English dialects. At the time when 
 the influence of Anglo-French on English begins to be 
 important — that is, in the late ME peiiod — it was, therefore, 
 a mixture of Old French of different periods and different 
 dialects, modified by changes of its own, and also by the 
 influence of English itself, especially in its pronunciation. 
 
 27. French influence on English is most marked in the 
 vocabulary. Soon after the Conquest English ceased for 
 several centuries to be the language of the higher purposes 
 of life, and sank almost to a mere peasant's dialect. So 
 when English came again into general use, it had lost a 
 great part of its higher vocabulary, for which it had to use 
 French words, such as sir, duke; captain^ army, battle; 
 sermon, preach. Even when the English word was kept, the 
 same idea was often expressed by a French word, whence 
 numerous synonyms such as work and labour, weak and 
 
 feeble. 
 
 Latin Influence. 
 
 28. In Old French itself we must distinguish between 
 popular and learned words. The popular words in Old 
 French, such as sire ' lord,' from Latin senior ' older,' are
 
 §3'.] HISTORY OF ENGLISIT. 9 
 
 simply Latin words which have undergone those changes 
 which take place in every language whose development is 
 natural and unimpeded. But as Latin was kept up as an 
 independent language throughout the Middle Ages, Latin 
 words were imported into Old French as well as the other 
 Romance languages, being used first in books, then in 
 ordinary speech. These learned words were kept as much 
 as possible unchanged, being pronounced as they were 
 written. It often happened that a Latin word which had 
 assumed a popular form in French, was re-imported direct 
 from Latin, so that chronological doublets were formed, such 
 as caitif ' wretched ' and captif, both from Latin capfivus, 
 whence the English cai/iffvix\d captive. 
 
 29. These learned French words were introduced into 
 ME in great numbers. Hence when Latin words came to 
 be imported directly into English, they were put into a French 
 shape on the analogy of those Latin words which had really 
 been brought in through French. Thus when a word in 
 -tio, such as tiominaiio, was taken direct from Latin, it was 
 made into -I ton (MnE nominalio-n) on the analogy of the 
 older importations, such as nation (ME ndcioiin). 
 
 Modern English. 
 
 30. In the Middle period literary English was still dis- 
 tinctly an inflectional language. In the Modern period it 
 became mainly uninflectional, with only scanty remains of 
 the older inflections. 
 
 31. The Modern period is that of the complete ascen- 
 dency of the London dialect, which henceforth is the only 
 one used in writing throughout England. Henceforth the
 
 lO HISTORY OF ENGLISH. [§32. 
 
 other dialects of England continued to exist only as illiterate 
 forms of speech confined within narrow areas. 
 
 32. The spread of Modern London English — or ' Stan- 
 dard English,' as we may now call it — was greatly aided by 
 the introduction of printing in 1476. The publication of 
 Tindal's translation of the New Testament in 1525 paved 
 the way for the Authorized Version of 161 1, which made 
 Early Modern London English what it has ever since been — 
 the sacred or liturgical language of the whole English-speaking 
 race. 
 
 Influence of other Languages. 
 
 33. In the Early Modern period, the Renascence — the 
 revival of the study of the classical authors of Greece and 
 Rome — led to the adoption of an immense number of Greek 
 as well as Latin words, the Greek words being generally 
 latinized, just as the Latin words imported into Middle- 
 English were frenchified. 
 
 34. As the first prose writings were mostly either trans- 
 lations from Latin, or else the work of scholars to whom 
 Latin was in some respects a more natural means of ex- 
 pression than English, it was inevitable that Early MnE 
 prose was greatly influenced by Latin, not only in vocabu- 
 lary, but also in grammatical structure and idioms. In a 
 few generations many Latin — and some Greek — words and 
 expressions which were at first purely learned and technical 
 passed into the language of everyday life; while, on the 
 other hand, many others became obsolete. 
 
 35. As the relations of England with other countries 
 became more extended, many words were imported into 
 English from almost every European language, especially 
 Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, and from
 
 5 36.] HISTORY OF EXGLISH. II 
 
 many other languages besides, such as Arabic, Persian, and 
 Turkish, and the native languages of America. 
 
 36. Standard English has always been influenced by the 
 different English dialects. The literary revival of Broad 
 Scotch — which is really Modern Northumbrian — at the end 
 of the last century by Scott and Burns has introduced many 
 Scotch words into literary English.
 
 PHONOLOGY. 
 
 PHONETICS. 
 
 37. Phonetics is the science of speech-sounds. 
 
 38. As the ordinary spelling does not always show the 
 real pronunciation, it is necessary to use a phonetic spelling, 
 which, to prevent confusion, we enclose in ( ). 
 
 Analysis. 
 
 39. The foundation of speech-sounds is breath expelled 
 from the lungs, and variously modified by the vocal organs — 
 throat, nose, mouth, lips. 
 
 40. The first modification the breath undergoes is in the 
 throat. If the vocal chords, which are stretched across the 
 inside of the throat, are kept apart so that the air can pass 
 through with but little hindrance, we have breath, as in 
 ordinary breathing or sighing, and in the consonant (h), as 
 in high. If the chords are brought together so as to vibrate, 
 we have voice, as in murmuring or in the word err. 
 
 41. If the passage into the nose is left open, we have 
 a nasal sound, such as (m) in am. In the formation of all 
 sounds that are not nasal, such as the (b) in amber, the 
 nose-passage is closed. 
 
 42. If the mouth-passage is narrowed so as to cause
 
 § 4S.] PHONETICS. 13 
 
 audible friction — that is, a hissing or buzzing sound — or if it 
 is completely stopped, a consonant is produced. 
 
 43. If the mouth-passage is left so open as not to cause 
 audible friction, and voiced breath is sent through it, we have 
 a vowel. Kvcry alteration in the shape of the mouth 
 produces a difTerent vowel. 
 
 44. Some consonants have hardly any friction when 
 voiced, and are called vowel-like consonants. Such con- 
 sonants are (1), as in little (litl), and (m). 
 
 Synthesis. 
 
 45. We have now to consider the synthesis of sounds, 
 that is, the different ways in which they are joined together 
 in speech. 
 
 Quantity. 
 
 46. By quantity, sounds are distinguished as long and 
 short. In phonetic notation long vowels are doubled, short 
 vowels being written single, as in (maama) murmur. 
 
 Stress. 
 
 47. There are three main degrees of stress or loudness: 
 strong, half-strong or medium, and weak. Thus in 
 contradict the last syllable is strong, the first half-strong, the 
 next weak. We mark strong stress by (•), half-strong by (:), 
 these marks being put before the sound on which the stressed 
 syllable begins, weak or unstressed syllables being left un- 
 marked : (:kontra*dikt). Weak stress is marked when 
 necessary by prefixing (-), as in (-it reinz) ' it rains.' 
 
 48. Sounds which occur only in unstressed syllables, such 
 as the short (a) in (maama) murmur, are called weak.
 
 14   PHONOLOGY. [§ 49. 
 
 Intonation. 
 
 49. Intonation or tone is either level, rising, or falling, 
 marked respectively (", ','). The level tone is not much used 
 in speech. The rising tone is heard in questions, such as 
 what', the falling in answers, such as no^. 
 
 Glides. 
 
 50. Glides are sounds produced during the transition from 
 one sound to another. Thus in (kii) key we have the glide 
 from the (k)-position to the (ii)-position, which does not, 
 however, require to be written, as it is implied by the position 
 of (k) and (ii). 
 
 51. Consonants are often joined together without any 
 glide, as in such combinations as (nd) in hand. 
 
 Syllables. 
 
 52. A syllable is a vowel, either alone or in combination 
 with consonants, uttered with a single impulse of stress. 
 Every fresh impulse of stress makes a new syllable, the be- 
 ginning of the syllable forming the beginning of the stress, 
 as in (9-taek) attack. Vowel-like consonants often form syl- 
 lables in the same way as vowels, as in battle=i^-&\.-\). 
 
 Diphthongs. 
 
 53. If two vowels are uttered with one impulse of stress, 
 so as to form a single syllable, the combination is called a 
 diphthong, such as (oi) in oil Most diphthongs have the 
 stress on the first element. A simple long vowel, such as (aa), 
 is called a monophthong. 
 
 We now have to consider sounds more in detail.
 
 ^57-1 PHONETICS. 1 5 
 
 Vowels. 
 
 54. The shape of the mouth-passage by which vowels 
 are formed depends partly on the position of the tongue, 
 partly on that of the lips. If the lip-opening is narrowed 
 while the tongue is in a certain position, the resulting vowel 
 is said to be rounded. Thus (y) in French lune is the round 
 vowel corresponding to the unrounded (ii), which is nearly 
 the sound in English he, both vowels having the same tongue- 
 position. 
 
 55. The tongue-positions depend partly on the degree of 
 retraction of the tongue, partly on its height or distance 
 from the palate. 
 
 56. If the root of the tongue is drawn back, we have a 
 back vowel, such as the (aa) in father. If the fore part of 
 the tongue is advanced, we have a front vowel, such as (ii). 
 If the tongue is left in its neutral position, intermediate 
 between back and front, we have a mixed vowel, such 
 as (93). 
 
 57. If the tongue is raised as close to the palate as is 
 possible without making the vowel into a consonant, a 
 high vowel is formed. Thus (i) is a high-front vowel, (u), 
 as in full, a high-back-round vowel. There are two other 
 degrees of height, mid and low. For convenience we may 
 include mid and low vowels under the common name 
 ' un-high ' vowels, distinguishing them as close and open, 
 according to the degree of openness of the mouth-passage. 
 We denote open vowels, when necessary, by italics. French 
 /in e'te"\% the mid-front-close vowel, or, more briefly, the front- 
 close vowel, for when a vowel is not expressly called high, 
 we assume it to be un-high. English {e) in men is the corre- 
 sponding mid-front-open vowel. Very open vowels are called 
 broad, (ae) in man is a broad front vowel. The distinction
 
 l6 PHONOLOGY. [§58. 
 
 of close and open applies also to the high vowels. Thus 
 French (i) mfini is the close high front vowel, English {i) in 
 finny is the open high front vowel. 
 
 The Vowels in Detail, 
 The following are the most important vowels. 
 
 (A) Unrounded vowels. 
 
 58. (a) 'clear back': (a'haa) aha I 
 
 59. (b) 'dull back' : (si^n) son, sun. 
 
 60. (9) 'mixed' or 'neutral' vowel : (maama) murmur. 
 
 61. (i) ' high front.' Close (i) in French fini, the short E. 
 ?, as in finny, being always open. Long close (ii) is the older 
 E. sound in such words as see^ sea, receive, machine^ and this 
 sound is still preserved in Scotland and the North of England. 
 In the South of England it is diphthongized into {i) followed 
 by very close (i), which is nearly the sound of the consonant 
 (j) iwyou, so we write (sij), etc. 
 
 62. (e) ' front.' French / is close front. The E. vowel 
 in men is open front {e). Before (a) — with which it forms a 
 diphthong — it is still opener, as in [k^) fare, fair. The long 
 close front (ee) is still preserved in Scotch in such words as 
 name, day, where Standard E. has the diphthong {e'l). 
 
 63. (ae) ' broad front ' : (msen) man. 
 
 (B) Round vowels. 
 
 64. (u) ' high back round.' Close in French sou, the E. 
 short («) in full, good being always open. The older close 
 (uu) in such words as moon, move, you (juu) is still kept in 
 Scotland and the North of England, but in the South of 
 England it becomes («w) with a distinct (w). Weak open 
 (a), as in value, is the high mixed round vowel, which, when 
 necessary we write (ii) — (vseljii).
 
 § 70-] 
 
 PHONETICS. 
 
 n 
 
 65. (o) * back round.' Close in French beau (bo). Close 
 (go) in Scotch no, knoiv, where Standard E. has the diphthong 
 {pvi). The (o) in the diphthong (oi), as in boy, is the same 
 open sound. Weak (o), as in October, is the open mixed 
 vowel, which, when necessary, we write (6) — (oktouba). 
 
 66. (d) ' broad back round.' This is the sound of the E. 
 short vowels in not, what. The long broad vowel is heard in 
 such words as naught, fall. For convenience we write the 
 short vowel (o), the long (o) in Standard E. — (not, not). 
 
 67. (y) 'high front round '= rounded (i). French une. 
 German uber. 
 
 68. (oe) ' front round,' Close in French /,?«, whose vowel 
 is a rounded French /. Open in French peur. 
 
 Nasal Vowels. 
 
 69. If a vowel is formed with the nose-passage open, it is 
 said to be nasal, which we mark by («). Thus we have 
 nasal (a, se) in French sang, sans (sa«), vin (yxn). 
 
 70. The following table will show the relations of the 
 chief vowels more clearly. Those marked * do not occur 
 in English : — 
 
 hig/i back 
 
 *A 
 
 high mixed 
 
 high front 
 i 
 
 back 
 a ; B 
 
 mixed 
 
 3 
 
 font 
 e ; se 
 
 high back round 
 u 
 
 high mixed round 
 ii 
 
 high front round 
 
 *y 
 
 bcuk round 
 
 0, D 
 
 mixed round 
 o 
 
 front round 
 *oe
 
 l8 PHONOLOGY, [§71. 
 
 Consonants. 
 
 71. Consonants admit of a two-fold division {a) by form, 
 {b) by place. 
 
 Form. 
 
 By form there are five classes : — 
 
 72. (fl) Open, in which the passage is narrowed without 
 stoppage, such as (s). 
 
 73. {b) Side, formed by stopping the middle of the pas- 
 sage and leaving it open at the sides, as in (1). 
 
 74. (f) Stopped, formed by complete closure, such as (p). 
 
 75. {d) Nasal consonants are formed with complete 
 closure of the mouth-passage, the nose-passage being left 
 open, as in (m). 
 
 76. (<?) Trills are the result of vibration of the flexible 
 parts of the mouth. Thus in the trilled Scotch (r) the point 
 of the tongue vibrates against the gums, the E. (r) in red 
 being an open consonant without any trill. 
 
 Place. 
 
 By place there are also five classes : — 
 
 77. (a) Back, formed by the root of the tongue, such as 
 (k, 13) in king (kir)). The back open consonant (x) is the 
 sound of ch in the Scotch and German loch. The corre- 
 sponding voice consonant (5) is heard in German sage. 
 
 78. ((5) Front, formed by the middle of the tongue, such 
 as the front open voice consonant (j) in you, which is really 
 a consonantal (i). The corresponding breath consonant (g) 
 is heard in German ich and Scotch hue, Hugh (quu), which 
 in Southern E. is pronounced (hjuw). 
 
 79. (f) Point, formed by the tip of the tongue. In the
 
 § 84.J PHONETICS. 19 
 
 point-gum consonants, such as E. (t, d, n, 1) the point of 
 the tongue is brought against the gums just behind the teeth; 
 in the point-teeth consonants, such as the point-teeth-open 
 (I?) in thin, it is brought against the teeth. The voice con- 
 sonant corresponding to {)?) is (§) in then. 
 
 80. (</) Blade, formed by the blade of the tongue — that 
 part of it which is immediately behind the point, (s, z) are 
 open blade consonants. In the blade-point consonants, 
 such as the blade-point open (J) in she, the blade position is 
 modified by raising the point of the tongue. The corre- 
 sponding voice consonant (3) is heard in measure (01^30). 
 
 81. The point and blade consonants are included under 
 the name of forward consonants. 
 
 82. [e) Lip, formed by the lips, such as (p, m). The 
 lip-open consonant (</>) is the sound produced in blowing 
 out a candle ; the corresponding voice consonant occurs in 
 German in such words as quelle (k/3fb) ; (f, v) are lip-teeth 
 consonants, (w^^), as in ivhy, and (w) are lip-back con- 
 sonants, formed by narrow-ing the lip-opening and raising 
 the back of the tongue at the same time, (w) being a con- 
 sonantal (u). In Southern E. (w//) is often pronounced (w). 
 
 Compound CoNso■^^^^'Ts : Rounding, Fronting. 
 
 83. (w^, w) are really compound consonants, formed in 
 two places at once. If instead of back-modifying the lip- 
 open consonant, as in (w//), -we lip-modify or round the 
 back-open consonant (x), we get the back-round consonant 
 (^w) in German auch. Other consonants may be rounded 
 in the same w-ay, which we express by adding (zf); thus 
 (rz^ed) is red pronounced with a rounded (r). 
 
 84. When a consonant is modified by raising the front 
 of the tongue, it is said to be front-modified or fronted.
 
 20 
 
 PHONOLOGY. 
 
 [§85- 
 
 which we express by adding {j). Thus the lip-open front- 
 modified consonant is the sound in French huit {^j'it) ; it is 
 almost a consonantal (y). 
 
 The Aspirate. 
 
 85. The aspirate (h) is partly an open throat consonant, 
 partly a breath vowel-glide. Thus (h) in hook is mainly 
 formed by unvoicing the beginning of the (u), almost as if 
 we were to write the word (w/^uk). 
 
 86. The following is a table of the chief consonants. 
 Those marked * do not occur in E. 
 
 1 
 
 Breath. 
 
 1 
 
 Throat. 
 
 Bach 
 *X 
 
 Front. 
 
 Point. 
 
 Blade. 
 
 Blade- 
 Point. 
 
 Li/>. 
 
 Lip- 
 Back. 
 
 Lip- 
 Teeth. 
 
 0/>en 
 
 h 
 
 *9 
 
 *rh,\> 
 
 S 
 
 J 
 
 > 
 
 Vfk 
 
 f 
 
 Side 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 *\h 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Stop 
 
 
 k 
 
 *c 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 Nasal 
 
 — 
 
 *!)/« 
 
 *nh 
 
 *nh 
 
 
 
 *mh 
 
 
 
 Voice. 
 
 Open 
 
 — 
 
 *S 
 
 J 
 
 1 
 
 x,h 
 
 z 
 
 3 
 
 *& 
 
 w 
 
 V 
 
 Side 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Stop 
 
 — 
 
 g 1 *q 
 
 d 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 b 
 
 
 
 Nasal 
 
 — 
 
 q 
 
 *n 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 87. We generally write (rh), etc., instead of {rh) for the 
 sake of convenience. 
 
 R IN English. 
 
 88. (r) in E. occurs only before a vowel following it without 
 any pause, as in kere he is (hiar ij iz) ; before a consonant or
 
 §93] LAWS OF SOUND-CHANGE. 21 
 
 a pause it is dropped, leaving only the preceding (s), as in 
 here she is, he is here (hia Jij iz, hij z hia). This (a) is ab- 
 sorbed by a preceding (aa, aa), as in err, erring, far, far 
 aivay (aa, aarir), faa, faar awei). After (a) the (a) is kept 
 finally, but dropped before the (r), as in pour, pouring (paa, 
 parir)), being also dropj)ed before a consonant in the same 
 word, as in poured (pad). 
 
 LAWS OF SOUND-CHANGE. 
 
 89. Sound-changes fall under two main classes — internal 
 and e.xtcrnal. 
 
 90. Internal changes are either organic or acoustic. 
 Organic clianges are due to the natural tendencies of the 
 organs of speech, as in the change of OE sldn into l^InE 
 stone through the natural tendency to pronounce a back 
 vowel without opening the mouth fully, and so to round it. 
 
 91. Acoustic changes are the result of the impressions 
 which sounds make on the ear, as when one sound is sub- 
 stituted for another because of their likeness to the ear: thus 
 children often make through {]>r\\\\) into (fruw), and point 
 (r) is changed into back (j) in French and other languages. 
 These are imitative changes. 
 
 92. External changes are those which are independent 
 of organic and acoustic tendencies. Thus the change of 
 spake into spoke in MnE is not the result of any tendency to 
 change a into o in MnE, but of the influence of the preterite 
 participle spoken. 
 
 93. Internal changes are further distinguished as isolative 
 and combinative. Isolative changes, such as that of OY. a
 
 22 PHONOLOGY. [§ 94. 
 
 into MnE <?, affect a sound without regard to its surround- 
 ings, while in combinative changes one sound is modified 
 by another one close to it, as in the change of ME (au) in 
 saw into MnE (soo) through (sou) or (sou). Here we have 
 two distinct combinative changes : first the rounding of the 
 (a) by the influence of the following (u), and then the lower- 
 ing of the high (u) till it is merged into the (d). We see that 
 the influence of one sound on another is either backwards, 
 as in the change of (au) into (ou), or forwards, as in the 
 change of (ou) into (oo). 
 
 94. All combinative changes are, besides, either conver- 
 gent or divergent. Convergent changes, as of (au) into 
 (ou) are organic, being due to the tendency to save trouble 
 by making the passage from one sound to another as short 
 and easy as possible. 
 
 95. Complete convergence or assimilation in diph- 
 thongs makes them into monophthongs, as when (ou) be- 
 comes (00), and in this case is called smoothing. 
 
 96. Divergent changes are often partly acoustic, being 
 due to the striving for distinctness, as when the half diph- 
 thong (ou) in no is made into full (au) in Cockney E. But 
 cleaving, by which a long vowel is made into a diphthong, 
 is an isolative organic change ; it consists generally in form- 
 ing the first half of the vowel with greater openness — 
 either of the mouth- or the lip-passage — than the second. 
 We see the beginning of cleaving in the E. change of (ii, uu) 
 into (ij, uw), which by divergence could easily become (ei, 
 ou) or (9i, ou) and then (ai, au).
 
 5 99-] SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 2^ 
 
 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 Old English. 
 
 07. The Anglo-Saxons brought with them to Britain their 
 national Runic alphabet. On their conversion to Christianity 
 they adopted the Latin alphabet, to which they added the 
 Runic letter ]> = ///. 
 
 98. Old-English spelling was phonetic: the OE scribes 
 wrote as they spoke. Thus there were no 'silent' letters 
 in OE spelling, tc cndwe ' 1 know,' for instance, being pro- 
 nounced (ic knaawe) with a distinct (k) and a close (e). But 
 it was defective in various ways. Thus one letter was often 
 used to denote more than one sound. Hence it is convenient 
 to supplement these defective distinctions by adding dia- 
 critics, which gives the following new letters — ^, g, c, g, 
 together with a etc., where the " shows that the vowel is 
 
 long. 
 
 99. When the Anglo-Saxons adopted the Latin alphabet 
 they naturally used each Latin letter to denote the English 
 sound nearest to that which the letter had in the Latin pro- 
 nunciation of that time. The result was that the vowel- 
 letters, as a general rule, had much the same sounds as they 
 still have in Italian and most of the Continental languages. 
 Thus matin ' man ' must be pronounced like the German 
 manti, the sound of English ?nan being represented in OE 
 by ce, as in /ceI ' vessel,' whence our word va/ with exactly 
 the same vowel-sound. Note also that y kept its Latin 
 sound — that of French u — as in^r=(fyyr) ' fire.' e and o 
 had both close and open sounds, which latter we write /, p. 
 
 t, i, u, u, e, 0, were always close, being pronounced exactly 
 as in our phonetic notation. The diphthongs ea, ea, eo, eo,
 
 24 PHONOLOGY. [§ loo. 
 
 10 had the stress on the first element, the first two being 
 pronounced ('sea, "aesea). te, le were also originally diph- 
 thongs, but in West-Saxon they had the sound of open (?'), 
 as in hleran (hzVran) ' hear,' distinct from wlr (wiir) ' wire.' 
 
 100. Double consonants were pronounced really double 
 or long, as in Italian. Thus the «« in smtne was pronounced 
 as in pen-knife (pennaif). 
 
 101. c had two pronunciations, one back = (k), as in 
 cyning (kynir)g) ' king,' the other front — which we write c — 
 = (c), resembling the MnE ch into which it passed in most 
 words, as in cii-ice 'church.' sc always = jf, as in scamu 
 ' shame.' 
 
 102. In the same way we distinguish between back g and 
 front g, each of which, however, represents a stop and an 
 open consonant — (g, q; j, j). They generally had their 
 open sounds when not initial, as in dagas ' ddiys,' folgian 'fol- 
 low,' dcpg ' day,' sfgcj> ' says.' But they were stops in the 
 combinations ng (r)g) ng (fiq), as in singan ' sing,' sengan 
 ' singe,' literally ' make to sing,' and when doubled, double 
 gg being written eg for the sake of distinction, as mfrogga 
 ' frog,' drj'cg ' bridge.' It may be observed that the stopped 
 g closely resembles in sound the MnE (d^), into which it 
 passed in most words. Initial g, g seem to have been ori- 
 ginally stops — (g, q)— but initial g was also pronounced (j), 
 as in geard * yard, court,' 
 
 103. The combinations hi, hn, hr, hw represented the 
 voiceless sounds {\h) etc., as in hind 'loud,' hring 'ring,' 
 hwit ' white,' the sound of hzo being still preserved in E. 
 Non-initial h had the sound (x), as in J?urh 'through,' to- 
 gether with that of (g), especially in connection with front 
 vowels, as in gesihp ' sight.' 
 
 104. f, s,p had the voice sounds (v, z, %) between vowels
 
 § 109-] SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 25 
 
 ' and other vowels or vowel-like consonants, as in drlfan 'drive/ 
 friosan ' freeze,' eorpe ' earth.' 
 
 Middle English. 
 
 106. In the ME period the French orthography was in- 
 troduced — Norman at first, but afterwards Parisian. 
 
 106. The Old French spelling was, like the OE, phonetic. 
 But by the time Old French came to be written down in the 
 Roman alphabet, the Old Latin pronunciation had been 
 greatly changed. 
 
 Thus y had become (i), so that this sound could be 
 written indifferently i ox y, the latter being often preferred 
 because i was written without a dot whence in was liable to 
 be confused with m and so on. This usage was introduced 
 into England, whence such ME spellings as wyf, many=0'E 
 wlf ' woman,' matn'g ' many.' 
 
 107. Latin o in Old French often passed into a sound 
 between close (o) and (u), which was accordingly written 
 sometimes ;/, sometimes o. We denote this o = (u) by o. 
 This was also introduced in INIK, as in sd/i/ie 'sun,' sofie 
 ' son '= OE siitine, sunu. 
 
 108. In Late Parisian French the diphthong on was 
 smoothed into (uu), as in doiiz (duuts) ' sweet '= Modern 
 French douce (dus), and so ou was introduced into Late ME 
 to express long u, as in hous (huus)= OE hus. 
 
 109. "Latin u was fronted to (yy) in Old French, and as 
 there was no longer any symbol at hand for the new sound, 
 the old one was kept, as in lime (lyyna) ' moon ' from Latin 
 liina. This ii — as we write it for the sake of distinction — 
 was introduced into IME, and was written not only in im- 
 ported French words, such as nature ' nature,' but also in
 
 26 PHONOLOGY. [§iio. 
 
 native words, such as silnne ' sin ' from OE synn, which was 
 thus confounded in writing with sunne ' sun.' 
 
 110. In Late Latin e was written instead of ae, as in 
 ce/um for caelum 'heaven,' which usage passed into Old 
 French, and from thence into ME orthography, in which 
 e, ee, o, oo were used to express {ee, oo) as well as {ee, oo). 
 We write the open ME sounds /, g, so as to distinguish the 
 vowels in d^d ' dead,' sion ' stone ' from those in ded ' deed,' 
 mone ' moon.' 
 
 111. In French, Latin f = (k) became (s) before front 
 vowels, as in del 'heaven.' In ME this 'soft c' was kept 
 in words of French origin, such 2Afdce; and to prevent 
 confusion, the OE c was written k before front vowels, in 
 imitation of Old French usage, as in king, c being kept — 
 as in Old French — before back vowels and consonants, 
 as in comen ' come,' cl^ne ' pure '= OE cum an, cld'ne. 
 
 112. In some cases Old French made Latin c into (tj), 
 written cli. This digraph was used in ME not only in 
 words of French origin, such as ch'e/ (from Latin capul 
 ' head '), but also to express the ME development of OE c, 
 as in chirche, chiirche from OE cirtce, cyrice. 
 
 113. The OE cw was expressed in ME by the Latin and 
 French qu, as in quene ' queen ' from OE czven. In Parisian 
 French (kw, gw) afterwards dropped their (w), and so qu, 
 gu came to be regarded as the symbols of 'hard' (k, g), 
 as in qui, langue (ki, la«r)g) from Latin qui, lingua. Hence 
 such English spellings as tongue^OY. tunge. 
 
 114. In Old French, Latin y=(j) together with g (especially 
 before front vowels) developed into (ds), as \w joindre, gentil 
 (whence English join, gentle) from Latin jungere, gentilis. 
 As this soft French g had nearly the same sound as the 
 ME development of OE stopped g, the OE s^ngan, Irycg
 
 S 120.1 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 37 
 
 were written sengen, bn'gge in ME, this gg being afterwards 
 written dg, as in the present English bridge, lo distinguish 
 it from the gg in beggar. 
 
 115. The later ME use of ^y as a consonant, as m yong 
 ' young' =: OE geofig, is also French. 
 
 lie. Latin z kept its sound (dz) in early Old French, being 
 also used to express (ts). The former sound was made into 
 (z), and was then introduced into INIE, where it was some- 
 times used lo express the OE voiced s, as in wezele ' weasel ' 
 = 0E weosole. 
 
 117. Latin z;=(w) became (v) in Old French, and so was 
 used in ME to express the OE voicedyj as in alive from OE 
 on life 'in life.' 
 
 118. As (w) after a vowel hardly differs in sound from (u), 
 such words as OE snaw were in ME written both sniiu and 
 snpw, and the latter spelling was then extended to ou=-uu, as 
 in how from OE hu. 
 
 119. In ME the Latin and Old French ih gradually sup- 
 planted the OE p, which was confused in writing with other 
 letters, especially y, whence the old-fashioned contraction ^i*^ 
 -^\l^Pe,ihe. 
 
 Modern English. 
 
 120. In Early MnE weak e was generally dropped — always 
 when final — as in (naam, fal, sttf(9nz) = ME name, fallt{ii), 
 stgnes. At the same time double consonants between vowels 
 were shortened, as in (Jilir), fubr, sitir)) = ME shilling, fuller, 
 siltinge. But as the doubling served to show that the pre- 
 ceding vowel was short, the ^lE spellings were retained, and 
 the doubling was extended to words which in ME had a 
 single consonant, as \xv penny, herring, copper ■='M'E peni, 
 hiring, coper. Final e being now silent was often omitted in
 
 28 PHONOLOGY. [§ 121. 
 
 writing, so that such words as ME beUe were written bell 
 with a final double consonant, which led to a frequent 
 doubling of final ME consonants to show shortness of the 
 preceding vowel, as in all, small, ^/a«=ME al, smal, glas. 
 But this doubling was not carried out uniformly. So as the 
 dropping of final e in such words as hate (haat), hope (h^(7p) = 
 IME hatien, hgpien would have led to confusion with such 
 words as hat, hop, final e was kept in them, and came at last 
 to be regarded as a mark of the length of the preceding 
 vowel ; and accordingly was added to many words which 
 had no final e in ME, as in wine, j/cw^ME win, stgn, OE 
 iv'm, stdn. 
 
 121. As ME e and /,' and g diverged more and more in 
 sound in MnE, they were distinguished by restricting the 
 spellings ee, 00 to the close sounds, and also, in many words, 
 by writing the open sounds ea, oa : see, moon = ME sen 
 (infinitive), md7ie, OE scan, mona; sea, ^^a/=ME s§, bgt, OE 
 sa, bat. But the last sound was also expressed by single 0, 
 as in stone from OE stCvi, while single e was often used for 
 the close sound, as in co7nplete. 
 
 122. In early MnE the spelling was still quite unsettled, 
 but after a time it was found more convenient to keep one 
 spelling for each word, even when there w^ere differences of 
 pronunciation ; and as the number of books increased, the 
 fixed orthography adopted by the printers became more and 
 more general, until at last English spelling became entirely 
 traditional and unphonetic, through failing to keep pace with 
 the changes in pronunciation. Thus we still keep the ME 
 spelling knight={yn\(i\) although we pronounce the word 
 (nait). So also with such spellings as rite, right, wright. 
 
 123. Such spellings, though unphonetic now, were not 
 originally so. We got our first intentionally unphonetic
 
 § 12 7-] OLD ENGLISH. 29 
 
 spellings from France, where, towards the close of the OKI 
 French period, etymological spellings were introduced. 
 Thus dete, dette was made into debU by the influence of its 
 Latin original debitum. This latinizing sometimes led to 
 etymologically incorrect spellings, as when auloiir (Modern 
 French auteur) was made into aulhoiir. 
 
 124. These spellings were soon introduced into MnE, 
 where some of them by degrees corrupted the pronunciation, 
 as in the case of author. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH SOUNDS. 
 Stress. 
 
 125. In OE the geneial principle of word-stress is to put 
 the strong stress on the first syllable of a word, as in -fiscere 
 ' fisher,' 'misdicd ' misdeed,' •cwicseolfor ' quicksilver,' literally 
 ' living silver.' But there are some exceptions : — 
 
 126. Such combinations as the adverbs ofdune ' down,' 
 literally 'off-thc-hill,' to'dcpg ' today,' were originally indepen- 
 dent word-groups, which kept the original stress. 
 
 127. Adverbs of full and distinct meaning took strong 
 stress when followed by a verb, as in •/>/« :gdn ' go in,' -bi 
 :standan ' stand by,' ' help.' But if the verb precedes, it takes 
 the principal stress : he 'eode .inn ' he went in,' he 'stod him bl 
 ' he helped him.' When these particles precede their verbs, 
 they are felt to form compounds with them, so that we may 
 write these groups as single words — tnngdn, bistandan. But 
 as these particles are, as we see, liable to be separated from 
 their verbs in other constructions, we call them separable 
 particles.
 
 30 PHONOLOGY. [§ 128. 
 
 128. But if these particles are compounded with nouns or 
 adjectives instead of verbs, they cannot be shifted, as in 
 'inngang ' going in,' ' entrance,' blspell ' by-tale/ ' parable.' 
 
 129. In OE there is also a class of inseparable particles, 
 such as/or- vaforgiefan ' forgive,' he- in be's^ttan ' beset.' 
 
 130. While abstract nouns compounded with inseparable 
 particles throw the stress on to the particle in the usual way, 
 as in 'forwyrd ' destruction,' parallel to inngang^ the corre- 
 sponding verbs take the stress on the verb itself, as in for- 
 'weorpan ^ \)tn%\i,' forgie/an. This shifting of stress is often 
 accompanied by phonetic weakening of the particle ; thus 
 to the strong form of the prefix in -b'lgang ' going round,' 
 ' cultivation,' corresponds the weak be- in began ' go round,' 
 ' cultivate,' bes^ttan. 
 
 Quantity. 
 
 131. Long vowels in weak syllables were shortened in OE, 
 as in began (130). 
 
 132. On the other hand, short final strong vowels were 
 lengthened, as in hwd '■who,' J^ii ' thou' = Germanic hwa,pu. 
 Hence the short vowel of the unstressed article se in -se matin 
 ' the man ' is lengthened when the w-ord is used in the sense 
 of ' he,' as in -se -pe ' he who.' 
 
 133. In Anglian, short vowels were lengthened before 
 vowel-like consonants followed by another consonant — 
 ' group- lengthening ' — as in did 'old,' Img 'long,' blind 
 'blind,' dumb ' dumb '= Early West-Saxon eald, Igng, lang, 
 blind, dumb. 
 
 Vowels. 
 
 134. a (9), 8e, ea. These vowels all correspond to 
 Germanic a. Germanic a was kept only before nasals, as in 
 mann, lang. Everywhere else it was fronted to (b, as in acer
 
 §138.] OLD ENGLISH. 3 1 
 
 ' field,'y?rflVr. Before ' group r and /,' that is, before r and / 
 followed by a consonant, and before strong //, an a was 
 developed, as in heard, eald ' old,' ge-seah ' saw ' ; also before 
 .r, as in iveaxan ' grow,' because x originally =(xs). Before 
 a back vowel in the next syllable a: became the back vowel 
 a, as in diigas ' days,' compared with dcrg ' day.' In Anglian 
 a before nasals became p — as also often in Early West- Saxon 
 — and ce before group / became a, so that the Anglian forms 
 are mpnn, Igtig (133); heard; all, aid. 
 
 135. i, e, eo. In OE, Germanic e before nasals became 
 i, whence OE lindan ' bind,' nman ' take,' compared with 
 helpan ' help,' stelan ' steal.' In OE e before group r became 
 eo much in the same way as cb became ea (134), as in steorra 
 ' star,' eorpe. e, i became eo, to before a back vowel in the 
 next syllable, as in heo/on 'heaven,' cliopian ' cd\\,' — he/on, 
 clipian. 
 
 136. u, o. In OE, Germanic became u before nasals, 
 whence OE gebiinden ' bound,' geuumen ' taken,' compared 
 with geholpen ' helped,' ges/olen ' stolen.' 
 
 137. The Germanic vowel ce is preserved in West- Saxon, 
 as in /dr ' danger,' q/en ' evening,' being narrowed to e in 
 Anglian and^ Kentish— y?r, e/cn. 
 
 Mutation. 
 
 138. Mutation is the influence exercised by a vowel on 
 the vowel of a preceding syllable, by which the first vowel 
 is modified in the direction of the second one. But the 
 most important mutations in OE are the front mutations, 
 caused by Germanic t andj, which after they had caused the 
 mutation were generally lost or modified in OE : — 
 
 a (se) . . . §. far an 'go,' ' travel,' y^r/a» 'convey'; mann 
 ' man,' m^nn ' men.'
 
 33 PHONOLOGY. [§ 139. 
 
 a . . . se. ^.3/ ' whole,' 'sound,' hUlan 'heal'; an 'one,' 
 anig ' any.' This mutation remains in the non- West-Saxon 
 dialects, which change Germanic (e into e. For convenience 
 we will in future distinguish the West-Saxon Germanic (£ by 
 writing it d, as in cE/en contrasted with halan. Mutated 
 Germanic & remains unchanged in West- Saxon, as in Idee 
 ' physician,' ddd ' deed/ and becomes e in the other dialects : 
 /ece, ded. 
 
 ea, eo . . . ie. eald ' old,' I'e/dra ' older ' ; ^eord ' herd,' 
 kierde ' shepherd.' In Late West-Saxon this t'e becomes y 
 or t: yldra, hyrde. In Anglian the one ie appears as /, the 
 other as i'. ^Idra, hirde. 
 
 ea, eo • . . ie. gelea/a ' belief,' geliefan ' believe,' eaca 
 'increase' (noun), eac 'also,' lecari 'to increase'; geseon 'see,' 
 geslene 'visible.' Ie in Late West-Saxon becomes J?, f: lean, 
 gesyne. In the other dialects it becomes e\ gele/an, gesene. 
 
 u, o . . . y. full ' full,' gefyllan ' to fill,' cyning ' king ' ; 
 gold ' gold,' gylden ' golden.' y in Late Kentish becomes e, as 
 in gefellan. 
 
 u . . . y, cup ' known,' ey/>an ' proclaim,' mus ' mouse,' 
 niys ' mice.' y becomes e in Late Kentish, as in mes. 
 
 6 . . . e. /dda ' hod' /e'dan 'feed,'>7 ' foot,' y^7 ' feet. 
 
 Consonant Influence. 
 
 139. In West-Saxon the front glide between c, g and a 
 following vowel often developed into a full e forming a diph- 
 thong with the vowel. 
 
 140. cse-, gse- passed into cea-, gea-, as in seeal ' shall,' 
 gea/' gave ' [compare cwcbJ> ' said '] = non-West-Saxon seeel, 
 gaf. This ea was mutated into ie in West- Saxon in such 
 words as the noun ciele ' chill ' compared with ealan ' be cold,' 
 giest ' stranger ' = non- West-Saxon c[le, g^sl.
 
 §149] OLD EXGLISII. 33 
 
 141. cse-, gffi- became cea-,gea-,2LS in sceap ' shtt^,' gea/on 
 ' they gave ' [compare cwddon ' ihey said '] = non-West-Saxon 
 scip, gefon. 
 
 142. ce-, ge- became cie-, gic-, as in siield ' shield,' giefan 
 'give' [compare ot'o^aw] = non-West-Saxon sceld, said, 
 gefayi. 
 
 143. Through similar changes g followed by a diphthong 
 in West-Saxon often corresponds to Germanic y, which in 
 OE seems to have been made into the stop consonant (q), as 
 in gear ' year ' Anglian ger, geoc ' yoke,' geong ' young.' 
 
 144. In Anglian, the back consonants c, h, g smooth a 
 preceding diphthong, ea became cb, as in gesah = non- 
 Anglian geseah. eo became e, as in fehtan ' fight ' = ^^'est- 
 Saxon /eo/i /an. ea, eo became e, as in ege 'eye,' heh 'high,' 
 
 flPgan 'to fly ' = West-Saxon eage, heah,fleogan. 
 
 145. w often changes a following eo into or u, especially 
 in Late OE, as in sweord, rword, swiird ' sword.' 
 
 Consonants. 
 
 146. In OE h between vowels or between vowel-like con- 
 sonants and vowels was dropped, often with vowel -lengthen- 
 ing, as in If V^//^ 'foreigner,' ' Welshman,' }^\\xx .Wealas , JVea/as, 
 Wielisc ' Welsh/ geseon ' see ' from geseohan [compare geseah 
 ' saw 'J. 
 
 147. Open g,g became h before a breath consonant, as in 
 byht 'bending ' \bugan * bend ']. 
 
 148. Final open g was also unvoiced in Late West-Saxon, 
 as in iroh 'trough,' ^^wj/^ 'enough,' ^«/7^ = earlier irog, genog, 
 burg. 
 
 149. r is often transposed, as in iernan 'run' — the original 
 form being preserved in gerinnan ' run together,' ' coagulate ' 
 
 D
 
 34 PHONOLOGY. [§ 150. 
 
 — especially in Late Northumbrian, as in pirda ' third ' = 
 West-Saxon /r/(5?</(2 [compare /ro* ' three ']. 
 
 150. r in some words does not correspond to Germanic r 
 but to a Germanic weak form of s, as in ivdron ' were ' 
 compared with wees ^ \v2is' gecoren 'chosen.' So also g and d 
 often represent Germanic weakenings o^ h and/ respectively, 
 as in cwddon 'they said' compared with civepan, slcrgen 
 ' struck ' compared with slea7i [from sleahait] ' strike.' 
 
 151. Double consonants in OE often represent a Germanic 
 single consonant +y, as in s^Han 'give' from *saljan, the 
 single consonant appearing in such forms as s^lep ' he gives,' 
 pointing to ""salip, etc. Germanic kj, gj\/j appear in OE 
 respectively as cc, eg and lb, as in wr^cca ' one exiled,' l^cgan 
 'lay,' h§hban 'raise' compared with wracu 'state of exile,' 
 IcEg 'he lay,' hafe7i 'raised.' Germanic rj, on the other hand, 
 appears as rim OE, as in/^rian 'carry' \_/aran 'go 'J. 
 
 Gradation. 
 
 152. By gradation we understand certain traditional con- 
 nections between the vowels which enable us to classify them 
 under the following gradation-series : — 
 
 a . . . b. far an ' proceed,' y^r ' proceeded ';y"Jr 'journey,' 
 ge/era ' companion.' 
 
 e (i, eo) . . . a (se, ea) . . . u (o). windan 'wind,' wand 
 'he wound,' wundon 'they wound'; wendan ' iwm* beran 
 ' carry,' bczr, geboren ' carried,' byr-pen ' burden.' beorgan 
 ' protect ' ; burg ' fortress,' ' city.' 
 
 a (se, ea) . . . se. b(£r ' he carried/ bdron ' they carried ' ; 
 bdr ' bier.' sprcec ' he spoke ' ; spnec ' speech.' 
 
 i ... a ... i. wrltan 'write,' wrdt 'he v^xoX.^^ writon 'they 
 wrote'; gewrii 'writing' (noun). beltfan 'remain'; laf 
 ' residue,' * remains,' whence by mutation laf an ' leave.'
 
 §156] MIDDLE ENGLISH. 35 
 
 eo (u) . . . ea . . . u (o). forUosan ' lose'; /ras 'devoid 
 of,' d-ltesan ' release ' ; /osi'an ' be lost,' * perish.* Inii^an 
 'bend,' *bow'; heag 'ring'; hoga 'bow' (noun), byhl 
 ' bending.' 
 
 MIDDLE ENGLISH SOUNDS. 
 Stress. 
 
 153. In ME the noun- and adjective-prefixes al-, mis-, un- 
 throw the stress forward, as in almihii, mis'ded, un'cup ' un- 
 known '=0E 'almihtig, 'misdeed, 'uncup. 
 
 154. In Old French the stress generally fell on the same 
 syllable as in Latin, as in na-/ure = Ld.i'm itiViuram. Throui;h 
 the dropping of final Latin syllables many French words 
 thus came to have the stress on the last syllable, as in o-noiir 
 z=ho-ndrem, pvte-=pie-iaiem. When first introduced into ]\IE, 
 French words kept their original stress : 7id-iure, o'nur, prte ; 
 but such words afterwards threw the stress back on to the 
 first syllable by the analogy of native E. words such as -fader, 
 •bodi, becoming •nature, etc. 
 
 155. In longer French words, where it would have been 
 inconvenient to throw the stress back to the first syllable, it 
 was drawn back from the end to the middle of the word, as 
 in sove-reynete, coTvdiciotin (kcn"disiuun) and the other words 
 in -Z(3«« = Latin -i'mem. 
 
 156. Many words of French origin compounded with 
 particles, such as a'vow (a"vuu), defense, dis'Jse (disv^za), kept 
 their original stress by the analogy of native words such as 
 a'rlsen, be'cumen. 
 
 D 2
 
 3<S PHONOLOGY. [§ irr- 
 
 Quantity. 
 
 157. The first quantity-change that took place in ME 
 was the lengthening of OE short consonants after a short 
 strong vowel, so that OE m ' in ' and inn ' dwelling ' were 
 both written in. But double consonants before vowels were 
 kept in ME in pronunciation as well as spelling, so that, for 
 instance, simne 'sun'=OE sunne was kept distinct from sum 
 'son '=0E sunn. 
 
 158. The OE group-lengthenings were kept up in ME, as 
 in gld, Igng, blind, dii?nb, doumb^O\d Anglian aid, Igng, blind, 
 dumb. Otherwise OE long vowels were generally shortened 
 before two consonants, as in wisdom, kepte 'kept'=OE 
 wisdom, ceple. 
 
 In Transition ME the long vowels before ng and mb were 
 shortened, whence MnE long, young (jcr)), dumb. 
 
 159. In Late ME short vowels before a consonant -f- vowel 
 were lengthened, as in name, me/e 'meat,' brgken ' broken ' = 
 OE nama, m§ie, gebrocen. But the high vowels i, u were 
 never lengthened, as in writen ' written,' sune^^OY. gewriten, 
 sunn. 
 
 160. Vowels were not lengthened in final strong syllables, 
 as \nya/' QZ\e' God=OE geaf, God, because the final con- 
 sonants had already been lengthened (157). 
 
 161. Short vowels are often preserved before an i or a 
 vowel-like consonant in the next syllable, as in mani, hamer, 
 sadel, troden, long vowels being sometimes shortened under 
 these circumstances, as in laper—OE leapor (§§ 164, 171). 
 
 Vowels. 
 
 162. In ME the OE weak vowels are generally levelled 
 under e, especially when final : ME name, sune=0¥. nama,
 
 § ir,7.] MIDDLE ENGLISH. 37 
 
 sunti. There was a tendency to drop weak e altogcUuT 
 after another weak syllable, as in Uidi ' lady ' from OE 
 hlCe/dige. 
 
 163. I\Iany words which in OE end in a consonant, take 
 final e in ME, which they get from the OE inflected forms ; 
 thus INIE qncne ' queen ' comes not from the OE nom. sing. 
 civen, but from the ace. sing, civene, plur. nom. cwaia, etc. 
 Other examples are simie 'sin,' dale 'valley,' bede 'prayer' 
 = 0E synn, dcel, gebed, pluials synna, dalu, gebedu. Such 
 forms as narive 'narrow,' yehve 'yellow ' = 0E ncaru, geolu, 
 plurals ncarive, geolwe arose in the same way. 
 
 164. a. In the strong vowels the most marked and earliest 
 change is the smoothing of the OE diphthongs, shown in 
 Late ME hard, stcrre 'star,' brTd 'hxfX^S.', dcp 'deep'^OE 
 heard, steorra, bread, deop. 
 
 165. In Early ME ca became (ce"*, and then, together wiih 
 old ^5 = 0E heard, ivas, was broadened to (a), as in hard, 
 ivas. OE a was kept throughout in such words as rna/i, 
 
 faren. ME a in such words as al, half, comes from Anglian 
 all, half, not from West-Sa.xon eall, heal/. 
 
 166. i, ii. In North-Thames E. / corresponds not only to 
 OE /, but also to OE y, as in sititie. But (y) was siill pre- 
 served in the Southern dialect, as in siinne, being represented 
 by e in Middle, as well as Old Kentish, as in sejuie. The 
 London dialect generally has i-=OY. y, but some words have 
 the Southern, and a few the Kentish forms : sinne, biisi, 
 kernel-=-OY. sytin, byslg ' occupied,' cyrncl ' kernel.' In some 
 words (y) was broadened to (u), especially after lip-con- 
 sonants, as in zf (?/•/(?«' worry,' mo:he 'much' = OE wyrgan, 
 nycel, mice I. 
 
 167. e. OE close (e) became open {e) in Eaily ME, so 
 that OE e and § were levelled under the latter sound, which
 
 38 PHONOLOGY. [§ i68. 
 
 we write simply e in ME, as in helpen, eten, rest, mete=OE 
 helpan, elan ; r^sl, m§te. OE eo also became open e in Late 
 ME, as in erpe, hevene. All these (?s are liable to be lengthened 
 in Late ME (159), as in pen, mpe. 
 
 168. u. OE u was kept unchanged in ME, as in sune. 
 
 169. o. OE close became open in Early ME, as \a folk, 
 bodi'en ' proclaim ' = OE/o/<r, bodia7i, being liable to lengthen- 
 ing in Late INIE, as in b2dien. 
 
 170. The OE long vowels i, e, a, u, were generally pre- 
 served unchanged in ]\IE, e, a being also the representatives 
 of OE eo, [a respectively (164) : win, kene 'bold,' dip, s§ ' sea,' 
 /i^ved ' head,' Ms, hous,'gdd 'good' = OE win, cene, deop, sd, 
 heafod, hus, god. So also 'ME/'w den, feld ' field,' hiifid, ' dog,' 
 word ' word ' = Anglian f'lndan, feld, hund, word (133). I is 
 sometimes the result of raising Anglian e before open g (which 
 was then lost) and front h, as in le 'eye,' hih ' high '= Old 
 Anglian ege, heh. So also open g was absorbed by a pre- 
 ceding u or u, as in/tiel 'bird,' buen later bowen ' bend'=OE 
 
 fugol, bugan. It is to be observed that ME e represents not 
 only the common OE e in cene, but also the Anglian e= 
 West-Saxon d and le, as in even ' evening,' dede ' deed,' heren 
 'hear,' isme ' seen '= West- Saxon dfen, ddd, hleran, gesiene. 
 But/=^ is frequent before and after r, as in dr^den ' dread,' 
 wjren * were' = West-Saxon owdrddan, wceron. 
 
 171. In South-Thames E. d and d when shortened pass 
 through CB into a, while in Northern not only Anglian e=d 
 but also d shorten to e, INIidland generally showing the same 
 tendency. Hence such words as OE hlcefdige 'lady,' l&dde 
 'led,' ndddre 'serpent' appear in Southern as lavedi, Iddi, 
 ladde, naddre, in Northern as ledi, ledde, Jteddre. 
 
 172. OE a remained unchanged in the Northern dialect,
 
 § 174.] MIDDLE ENGLISH. 39 
 
 as in gd 'go,' j/J« = OE gdn, slan; clsewihere it became [> : 
 gg, sign, Igng. French words, such as dame, kept their a. 
 
 173. OE y became t in North-Thames E., as also in the 
 London dialect, but was preserved in the Southern dialect, 
 as in fiir ' fire ' = OE /jr, which also preserved Late West- 
 Saxon >/= older ie, as in Mren ' hear,' briisen ' bruise '=Early 
 West-Saxon hleran, brlesan. Kentish kept its /, as in mes 
 ' mice.' U was brought into London E. in French words 
 containing u, ut, as in diic, ciire, fruit, friit; when final or 
 before a vowel it became eii, as is shown by such spellings as 
 verlew, crewel-=vertu, cruel. 
 
 174. Most of the ME diphthongs are the result of the 
 weakening of OE w and open g and g after vowels, w and 
 open g becoming u, as in dlu, dew, draucn=^OY. deaw, dragan, 
 open ^> becoming t, as in zt^^/ ' way ' = OE iceg. The glide 
 between a back vowel and a following h developed into 
 diphthongic u, which was sometimes written, sometimes not, 
 as in broghte, broughte ' brought ' = 0E brohte. The following 
 are the ME diphthongs : — 
 
 ai=OE ag, as in dai, saide 'said'=OE dag, scrgde. 
 ei = OE fg, fg, as in wei, leide ' laid ' = OE TVtg, /£gde. 
 ei = OE eg, as in ^ei ' hay ' = OE /leg, ^r//= Anghan greg. 
 West-Saxon ^r^^. But OE eg generally becomes i in ME 
 
 {170). 
 
 ei=OE wg, as in ^//<? ''key'=cceg. 
 
 oi occurs only in French words, such zsj'oie, rot's. 
 
 au=OE ag, as in drauen. In such words as laughter from 
 Scandinavian hlahtr it is the result of glide-development. In 
 words of French origin au corresponds sometimes to Old 
 French au, as in cause, sometimes to Old French nasal a 
 before a nasal consonant, as in chaumbre, s£rvaunt:=0\d 
 French chambre (tjaa/zmbra), etc., the spellings chambre, etc.
 
 40 PHONOLOGY. [§ 175. 
 
 without u occurring also in ME, where the pronunciation 
 varied between pure (aa;;) and (au), which was an E. imitation 
 of the former. 
 
 eu = OE ew, eoiv, as in newe 'new'=:01d Anglian neoive, 
 West-Saxon nlwe. French u had this sound in certain cases 
 
 (i7_3)- 
 
 §u=OE ^w, eaw, as in (fpc. 
 
 ou=OE ow, og, as in ioiv, boive=OE low, boga. 
 
 6u=0E ow, as in stou 'place,' blowen ' bloom '=0E 
 
 stow, bldwan. In Early ME this diphthong also results from 
 
   the development of a glide before h, as in tnouh — also written 
 
 indh — 'enough,' from OE gend/i, earlier ^^w^ (148); this cu 
 
 becomes uu in late ME : ynoiigh (i-nuux). 
 
 9U=0E aw, dg, as in bigwen 'blow' (wind), gweji 'own' 
 = 0E bldivaji, dgen. 
 
 Consonants. 
 
 175. In Old French h was silent in most words of Latin 
 origin, the silent French h being sometimes written in ME, 
 sometimes not, but never pronounced, as in onur, honour, 
 hour, horrible. 
 
 176. OE hr-, hi-, hn- became voiced in ]ME, as in ring, 
 lud, note ; hw- was kept, being written wh, as in what. 
 
 177. The hisses were voiced initially in all native words 
 in South-Thames E., as shown by such spellings as volk, 
 zingen, but not in French words, such ■&& flste 'feast,' saiif 
 ' safe,' because this change had been carried out before the 
 introduction of French words. Southern v was introduced 
 into the London dialect in a few words, such as va/=OE 
 
 fat 'vessel.' 
 
 178. OE c and stopped g developed into the compound 
 consonants (eg, qj) — that is, nearly into their MnE sounds 
 (tj, ds) — as in child, sengen, OE cc, eg being written cch,
 
 § 185.] MIDDLE ENGLISH. 4I 
 
 ig={ccq, qqj), as in wrecche, seg^'en 'say' = OE wr^cca, 
 slogan. 
 
 179. Open OE g was rounded into (jz^), which passed 
 into (w) and then (u) (i 74). w = 0'E g was kept after a con- 
 sonant, as m/ohven ' ioWow ' = 0^/olgian. 
 
 180. Strong // was rounded into {\zu) in the same way, 
 as shown by its influence on preceding vowels (174). As 
 final h in IME often corresponded to medial w in such pairs 
 as I'noh sing., t'ndwe plur. = Late OE gendh, genoge, OE final 
 h was changed by this analogy into ru when an e was added 
 — as was frequently the case (163) : thus ME/urwe ' furrow,' 
 ^olzce ' hollow ' = OEy"«r//, /lo/A. When final e was dropped 
 at the end of the IME period, a resulting final iv was changed 
 to 7/ : /blu, hohi. 
 
 181. Open g was generally -weakened to i after consonants 
 as well as in diphthongs : biin'ai ' bury ' = OP", hyrgan. 
 
 182. Final OE front h was voiced in ME when a vowel 
 was added; thus hlh 'high' has pi. hiye, hie (170), from 
 which a new uninflected form hi was formed. 
 
 183. In OE the Anglian dialects seem to have changed 
 medial c, g io c,g before a back vowel, as in Anglian secan = 
 West-Sa.xon secaii. Hence in IME we often find North- 
 Thames k, as in se/ce, corresponding to South-Thames ch, as 
 in seche, MnE having the Northern form in seeA, the Southern 
 in beseech. So also MnE co/d, gall point to Anglian cCild, 
 galle, chalk to Southern cealc. 
 
 184. Scandinavian words keep their (k) and (g), as in 
 ketel ' kettle,' gerp ' girth.' The Northern forms mikel ' great,' 
 give, etc., = Southern viuchel, yiven, may also be due to Scan- 
 dinavian influence. 
 
 185. In some cases the fluctuation between the two 
 classes of consonants is due to change of vowel in inflection.
 
 42 PHONOLOGY. [§ i86. 
 
 Thus the Standard ME gate 'gate' points to the OE pi. 
 gatu, the Northern yate to the sing. (Anglian) gcet. So also 
 beginnen=^OE beginnan owes its g to the pret. and pabt 
 partic. beganft, begwinen. 
 
 186. ng kept its (g) not only in such words as finger, 
 English, but also in sing, singer, etc. 
 
 187. sc passed through (sj) into (J), written sch, ssh, sh, as 
 in shorl, fish = 0'E scort, fisc. Scandinavian sk was kept 
 before all vowels, as in j/^J= Icelandic sky 'cloud.' 
 
 188. The combinations Ir, nr, ml became Idr, ndr, mbl in 
 ME, as in alder (the tree), punder from OE aler genitive aire, 
 punor genitive punres,pimbel ' thumbstall, thimble' from OE 
 pymel (from pii7na ' thumb '). 
 
 189. Several of the consonants were liable to be dropped 
 in weak syllables. Thus to the strong ich 'I' = OE id there 
 corresponded a weak i, which in late ME almost supplanted 
 the strong ich. Weak final n was frequently dropped, as in 
 game, b'lnde infin., ibUnde past partic. = 0E gameji, bindan, 
 gebunden. So also the dropping of / in muche—QY. niicel, 
 ^ch=.0'E ale 'each,' of the w and / in such — QY, swelc, 
 seems to have begun in weak (unstressed) forms of these 
 words.*
 
 MIDDLE ENGLISH. 
 
 43 
 
 Engush Vowels. 
 
 OE 
 
 ME 
 
 MdE 
 
 mann 
 
 man 
 
 man (maen) 
 
 S3et 
 
 sat 
 
 sat (s3ct) 
 
 heard 
 
 hard 
 
 hard (haad) 
 
 nama 
 
 name 
 
 name (neim) 
 
 witan 
 
 witen 
 
 wit (wit) 
 
 helpan 
 
 helpen 
 
 help (help) 
 
 heofon 
 
 hevene 
 
 heaven (hevn) 
 
 stelan 
 
 stglen 
 
 steal (stijl) 
 
 saltan 
 
 sef.en 
 
 set (set) 
 
 mgte 
 
 nig e 
 
 meat (mijt) 
 
 sunu 
 
 sune 
 
 son vs^n) 
 
 synn 
 
 sinne 
 
 sin (sin) 
 
 oxa 
 
 oxe 
 
 ox (oks) 
 
 open 
 
 9pen 
 
 open (oupn) 
 
 Stan 
 
 stgn 
 
 stone (stoun) 
 
 dil 
 
 dfl 
 
 deal (dijl) 
 
 dream 
 
 dr|m 
 
 dream (drijm) 
 
 win 
 
 win 
 
 wine (wain) 
 
 grene 
 
 grene 
 
 green (grijn) 
 
 deop 
 
 dep 
 
 deep (dijp) 
 
 bus 
 
 hus 
 
 house (haus) 
 
 mod 
 
 mod 
 
 mood (muwd) 
 
 fyr 
 
 fir 
 
 fire (faiar)
 
 44 
 
 PHONOLOGY. 
 
 Modern English Vowels. 
 
 ME 
 
 fMn 
 
 sMn 
 
 thMn 
 
 
 a j 
 
 man 
 
 8e, a 
 
 £E 
 
 se 
 
 re 
 
 ' 
 
 path 
 
 se, a 
 
 are 
 
 sere 
 
 aa 
 
 i 
 
 wit 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 e 
 
 cud 
 
 e 
 
 e 
 
 e 
 
 e 
 
 u 
 
 son 
 
 11 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 13 
 
 o 
 
 ox 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 a 
 
 name 
 
 aese, aa 
 
 ee 
 
 ee 
 
 ei 
 
 1 
 
 zvine 
 
 ai 
 
 oi 
 
 ai 
 
 ai 
 
 e 
 
 green 
 deal 
 
 ii 
 
 ee 
 
 ii 
 ee 
 
 "■■1 
 
 ee, 11 1 
 
 '") 
 
 u 
 
 house 
 
 ou 
 
 3U 
 
 3U 
 
 au 
 
 o 
 
 moon 
 
 uu 
 
 uu 
 
 uu 
 
 tiW 
 
 9 
 
 stone 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 oo 
 
 on 
 
 ai 
 
 day 
 
 ai, ee 
 
 asi, ee \ 
 
 
 
 ei 
 
 they 
 
 el, ee 
 
 ee \ 
 
 ee 
 
 £1 
 
 oi 
 
 boil 
 
 oi, iii 
 
 oi, Ai 
 
 oi si 
 
 o\ 
 
 au 
 
 saw 
 
 au, ?} 
 
 o:> 
 
 DO 
 
 00 
 
 eu (,u) 
 
 neiu 
 
 yyCu), ill 
 
 yy, iu ) 
 
 
 
 |u 
 
 feiv 
 
 ^u 
 
 e\x, iu 1 
 
 JUU 
 
 J«\V 
 
 6u 
 
 gro'cv > 
 
 
 
 
 
 9u 
 
 know ' 
 
 ou 
 
 ou, CO 
 
 00 
 
 on
 
 § 195] MODERN ENGLISIF. 45 
 
 MODERN ENGLISH SOUNDS. 
 Vowels. 
 
 190. The most convenient way of dealing wiih the MnE 
 vowels is to take each Late ME vowel separately, and trace 
 ils history down to the present time, making a threefold 
 division of the period into First MnE (1500-1600 or later), 
 Second MnE (i 600-1 700), and Third MnE (1700-). 
 
 191. a was gradually advanced to (ae). Before / not 
 followed by a vowel it became (au), as in fall, calm (faul, 
 kaulm). (a) was also kept after (w, wh), as in was, what, 
 where it was rounded in Second MnE, whence the present 
 (woz, whot). In Second MnE (oe) was lengthened before 
 (s, j?) and in some other cases, as in glass, path (gla^oes, 
 poeae)?), being afterwards broadened into (aa). 
 
 192. i, e have generally remained unchanged. But in 
 First MnE er final or before a consonant became (ar) as in 
 star, heart='^l'E sterre, herte. 
 
 193. u was preserved in First IMnE, as in full, come 
 (kum). In Second MnE it was unrounded and lowered 
 to its present sound (tj). But before this lowering took 
 place it was generally rounded back again to (u) between 
 a lip-consonant and (1), as in full, and in oiher words after 
 lip-consonants, as in put. 
 
 194. u generally appears as i in MnE. But (y) was 
 preserved in First MnE in some words still written with die 
 Frencli ti, such as busy, biiry=.OY. bystg, byrgan. 
 
 195. o kept its INIE sound {p) in First MnE, as in ox, 
 and was broadened to its present sound in Second MnE, 
 being lengthened before the same consonants which lengthen 
 (ce), as in cross, off. In Early MnE a glide-(u) developed
 
 4^ PHONOLOGY. [§ 196. 
 
 between (o) and / not followed by a vowel, as in bowl (b^jul) 
 = QY.bolla,folk{{o\x\\). 
 
 196. a underwent the same changes as a, and was then 
 gradually narrowed till it passed from (sese) into {ee), as in 
 tiame, take. In Third MnE [ee) was further narrowed into 
 close (ee), and then cleft into (ei, e\). 
 
 197. i was diphthongized in First MnE into (si), as in 
 wine, vice, and was afterwards broadened into its present 
 sound. 
 
 198. e, f. When the old i had become (ai), the old e 
 developed into (ii), as in see, field=lSlE se(n), feld, WE / 
 keeping its open sound {ee\ as in sea, there, this {ee) being 
 narrowed to (ee) in Second MnE, which by the middle of 
 the Third MnE period was further narrowed to (ii), ]\IE 
 e and / being thus levelled, as in (sii)=j-^^, sea, except in 
 some words after r, as in great. In First MnE / was often 
 shortened to (e), especially before stops, as in bread, heavy. 
 
 199. u was diphthongized in the same way as i, becoming 
 (6u), the first element being gradually unrounded and broad- 
 ened into its present sound. 
 
 200. 6, 9. When u had become (ou), ME was moved 
 up into the place of the old U, as in too, moon (tuu, muun). 
 g kept its open sound {00) at first, as in go, stone, and was 
 narrowed to close (00) in Second MnE, and then cleft into 
 (ou, ou). The older sound has been preserved in broad 
 (brod) through the influence of the (r). (uu) = ME was 
 shortened in some words in First MnE, as in flood (flud), 
 mother, gum = OE flod, modcr, goma, whence the present 
 (flBd) etc. There was another shortening of (uu) in Second 
 MnE, especially before stops, as in good (gud), book. 
 
 201. at, ei. In IMnE the ME diphthongs ei, //' shortened 
 their first elements, and so were levelled under ei. As ai
 
 § 204.] MODERN ENGLISH. 47 
 
 became (sei) in First i\InE, ai and ei became very similar in 
 sound, so that there was a tendency to level ei under ai, 
 as in way, Adr>'=IME wei, hei. In Second MnE these diph- 
 thongs were smoothed into (^f), so that tail and tale, etc. had 
 the same sound, and went through the same changes. 
 
 202. oi was sometimes kept in First INInE, and some- 
 times became (ui), which in Second j\InE became (^i), and 
 then (ai), so that boil etc. was pronounced (b3il) and (boil), 
 the former being the more usual pronunciation. In the next 
 period (boil) etc. again got the upper hand by the help of 
 the spelling, and the noun bile=OE ^7^ ' ulcer ' was mis- 
 takenly made into boil. 
 
 203. au was kept in First ]\InE, but soon passed into 
 open {j:)) — the long of our vowel in not — as in saw, fall 
 (191), which in the Third period was narrowed to its present 
 sound. In some words au lost its (u), as in laugh, which 
 in Second MnE passed through (Icef) into (laexf), (laaf), 
 halve. cw=French a before nasals (174) generally went 
 through the same changes, as in aunt, lamp. 
 
 204. eu, u; fu. At the end of the ME period the 
 cleaving of final U into eu (173) had been extended to non- 
 final U as well, so that this sound was completely levelled 
 under eu, which in First INInE became (iiu, iu) by the regular 
 change of e into (ii), as in duke, fruit, new, true='ME dUc, 
 
 frUt, news, trezve. ME pi remained in First INInE, but with 
 the usual shortening of the first element, as in frju (feu) 
 = INIE fiwe, and became (iu) in Second INInE, all the three 
 INIE sounds ii, eu, Ju being thus levelled under (iu). In the 
 Third period (iu) shifted the stress on to the second element, 
 becoming (i-uu, juu). The (j) was afterwards dropped after 
 (r, |, 5) and often after (1), as in true, chuse — now written 
 choose— juice, lute.
 
 48 PHONOLOGY. [§205. 
 
 205. 6u, 9U both became (ou) in First MnE, as \x\ grow, 
 know='^\^ growen, kngwen, which in the Second period was 
 smoothed into {06) and then narrowed into (00), as in go 
 (200), so that know and no etc. had the same vowel. 
 
 Weak Vowels. 
 
 206. In First MnE long weak vowels were generally 
 shortened, as in honour (onur), image (imad5, imseds), nation 
 (naasjun, nseaesjun) = ME onur, image, ndciiin. e before r 
 was obscured to (a), as in better, and occasionally other 
 vowels as well in such words as scholar, honour, nature. 
 But there was also an artificial pronunciation which tried to 
 follow the spelling, pronouncing not only (skolar) etc. but 
 also (naasjon, kondisjon) etc., although the in nation was 
 only another way of spelling (u), as in son = OE sunu. 
 
 207. In Second MnE the natural pronunciation got the 
 upper hand again. Weak (u) passed by regular change 
 into (•b), as in (neejen) nation, and such pronunciations as 
 {i^\\i\.^r)=picture, which are now \ailgarisms, were in general 
 use. As (■e) was very similar in sound to (a), there was a 
 tendency to make (a) the general weak vowel, although the 
 older clear weak vowels were still kept in many cases, as in 
 (nsejBnael, naejonsel) national, now pronounced (naejanal). 
 
 Consonants. 
 
 208. During the transition from ]\IE to ]\TnE the hisses/, 
 s,/, became voiced in weak syllables, especially in inflectional 
 -es, as in the gen. sing, mannes and the plur. stgnes, whence 
 MnE (maenz, stounz), the breath sounds being preserved in 
 strong monosyllables such as ges, pens-=lslriE (gijs, pens) 
 contrasting with penies=MviE (peniz). The same change
 
 § 2 11.] MODERN EXGLISH. 49 
 
 was carried out in weak monosyllables, so that numerous 
 doublets were formed. Thus the emphatic adverb ^=MnE 
 off preserved its (f), while the preposition ^was weakened 
 to (ov). There were similar doublets of wip, is, his, etc. 
 Initial /> was voiced in the weak forms of some very 
 frequent — mostly pronominal words — such as pe, pe, p'ln, 
 the strong forms being now lost. 
 
 209. Towards the end of the First MnE period (s) pre- 
 ceded by a weak vowel and followed by a strong vowel 
 became (z), whence the Present English distinction between 
 exeri (igzaat) and exercise (-eksasaiz), the (s) being pre- 
 served unchanged in the latter word because it is followed 
 by a weak vowel. Other e.xamples are exhibit compared 
 with exhibiiion, examph; anxiely ^^a^qzaiiti) compared with 
 iinxious (oerijas), where the change of (s) into (J) is a later 
 one (214), dessert, disease, dissolve, transact. 
 
 E.xceptions to this rule are the result of analog^'. Thus to 
 absent (ab'sent) owes its (s) to influence of the adjective absent 
 (■a:bs3nt), research to the influence oi search. 
 
 210. As we have seen, strong h appears in ME in the 
 form of (9) and {\zv). In First INInE the former was 
 weakened to a mere breath-glide, and then dropped, the 
 preceding vowel being lengthened, so that I\IE night (ni^t) 
 passed through (niht) into (niit), whence by the regular 
 change (n^it). The back-^/i was kept in such words as 
 laugh, thought, enough (lauxif, )7('uxzf;t, J:'^xrf't, inuxrt'), and 
 in many words the lip element was exaggerated in Second 
 MnE till it became (f) — (loef, Icecef, }3oft, ]>oo\., inuf). 
 
 211. r was kept unchanged in First ]\InE, being after- 
 wards gradually weakened till it lost its tnll everywhere. 
 Towards the end of the Third period it began to be 
 
 £
 
 so PHONOLOGY. [§ 212. 
 
 dropped everywhere except before a vowel, as in the present 
 Standard E. 
 
 212. Already in First MnE (r) had developed a glide 
 before it in such words as jire^ flower (faiar, flouar) = ME 
 
 fir, flur, and had broadened a preceding e into (a) (192). 
 In Second MnE it began to modify preceding vowels in 
 the direction of (a), so that er, ir, ur came to be levelled 
 under (ar, ^r), as in her (h^r), fir, bird, fur, turn. In Third 
 MnE it modified preceding (ee) to {ee), as in care {\keex), fair, 
 their contrasting with name (neem), fail, veil; and then 
 broadened a preceding (ae) into (a), as in star, hard. ME 
 /r, or appear in Third MnE sometimes as (iir, uur), as in 
 fear, moor, being sometimes broadened into [eex, or), as in 
 there, bear, floor. In the present century (r) has been dropped 
 everywhere except before a vowel, r final or before a con- 
 sonant being represented only by a preceding glide-(9), as 
 in (fai3)= Early MnE (f9i3r) = ME_/z>, contrasting with he 
 (hij), (9) having been absorbed by a preceding mixed or 
 broad vowel. 
 
 213. 1. Already in First MnE (1) began to be dropped 
 between (u) and a following consonant, as in Aa^(hauf), 
 
 214. s, z. In Second and Third MnE the combinations 
 (sj, zj) became (J, 5), as in nation (n^^jBn)= Early MnE 
 (naesesjun)=ME ndcioun (naasi-uun), sure (siur, sjuur, Juur), 
 usual (iuziusel, juususel), such words as nature, verdure 
 passing through (nsesetjur) etc. into the present (neitja, 
 vaadsa). 
 
 215. w in First MnE was kept before (r), which it 
 rounded, and was then dropped itself, as in write (rz^/ait), 
 the (r) being afterwards unrounded. 
 
 216. k was kept initially before (n) in First MnE., as in 
 know [compare acknowledge^^ the (n) being unvoiced, and the
 
 §221.] MODER M ENGLISH. 5 1 
 
 (k) afterwards dropped, so that in Second MnE (knou, kn//ou) 
 became (n//oo), this (n/i) being afterwards levelled under the 
 more frequent (n) in no, etc. 
 
 217. g was dropped before (n) in Second IMnE as in 
 gnaiv. 
 
 218. In First IMnE medial (r)g) was shortened to (r)) in 
 such words as singer (siij^r), singing=.V\Y. (sir)ger), etc. 
 by the analogy of final (i}) in sing ; but (r)g) was kept in the 
 comparison of adjectives, as in longer, longest. 
 
 219. t, d. In Second MnE (t) preceded by the hisses 
 (s, f) and followed by the vowel-like consonants (1, n, m) 
 was regularly dropped, as in /histle (]?isl), fasten (faesesn), 
 chestnut, Christmas, oftni. 
 
 220. In First MnE (d) preceded by a vowel and followed 
 by (r) was opened into (3) in many words, such as father, 
 together, hither =0'^ feeder, to'gccdre, hider. Conversely (3) 
 often became (d) in First MnE in combination with (r) and 
 (1), as in murther, murder, fiddle =.0Y. morpor, fipele. 
 
 221. b. In First MnE final (b) was dropped after (m), as 
 in lamb. Hence b was added in writing to words which in 
 ME had only m, as in limb=M'E Urn. 
 
 E 2
 
 ACCIDENCE. 
 
 NOUNS. 
 
 Old English. 
 
 Gender, 
 
 222. There are three genders of nouns in OE — mascu- 
 line, feminine, and neuter. The genders of nouns are most 
 clearly shown by the accompanying definite article * the ' — 
 masculine se, feminine seo, and neuter pest. The gender is 
 partly natural, partly grammatical : se manji ' human being,' 
 seo dohtor ' daughter,' /^/ aid ' child,' /^Z sap ' ship,' /^/ Ms 
 ' house,' se sidn ' stone,' seo synn ' sin,' seo cam ' care.' Names 
 of living beings sometimes have grammatical genders which 
 contradict the natural gender, such as }?at wlf ' woman,' ' wife.' 
 Compound nouns take the gender of their last element ; hence 
 se wifniami ' woman.' 
 
 Strong and Weak. 
 
 223. Weak nouns are those which inflect mainly with -n, 
 such as se tiama ' name,' plural naman, beet eage ' eye,' seo 
 cirice ' church,' plurals eagati, cirican. All others are strong, 
 such as std7i, plural sldiias. 
 
 Inflections. 
 
 224. OE nouns have two numbers, singular and plural, 
 and four cases, nominative, accusative, genitive, and 
 
 dative. The accusative is often the same as the nominative
 
 § "9-3 
 
 nouns: old engusit. 
 
 5.3 
 
 / — always in the plural — so when the accusative is not given 
 separately it is to be understood that it is the same as the 
 nominative. 
 
 The following are examples of the most important inflections 
 of nouns: — 
 
 225. Strong Masculine. 
 
 Sing. Nom. si an 
 
 Dat. stmie 
 
 Gen. stanes 
 
 Plur. Nom. stdnas 
 
 Dat. stdnu/n 
 
 Gen. siana 
 
 Strong Neuter. 
 
 sap has 
 
 scipe hfise 
 
 scipes hiises 
 
 sdpu hus 
 
 scipum husum 
 
 scipa hilsa 
 
 226. Some neuters have plural -ru, such as cild, plur. 
 cildru, cildrum, cildra. The neuter ending -u is dropped 
 after a long syllable, as in hiis ' houses,' /olc ' nations.' 
 
 227. 
 
 Sing. 
 Nom. caru 
 Ace. care 
 Dat. care 
 Gen. care 
 
 Strong Feminine. 
 
 Plur. Sing. 
 
 cara synn 
 
 cara synne 
 
 cariim synne 
 
 carena synne 
 
 Plur. 
 synna 
 synna 
 syntuim 
 synna 
 
 228. The -n is, as in the strong neuter nouns, kept only 
 after a short syllable. 
 
 229. 
 
 
 Weak Masc. 
 
 Weak Neut. 
 
 Weak Fern 
 
 Sing. 
 
 Nom 
 
 nama 
 
 cage 
 
 ciriie 
 
 
 Ace. 
 
 nam an 
 
 cage 
 
 cirican 
 
 
 Dat. 
 
 naman 
 
 eagan 
 
 cirican 
 
 
 Gen. 
 
 naman 
 
 eagan 
 
 cirican 
 
 Plur. 
 
 Nom. 
 
 naman 
 
 eagan 
 
 cirican 
 
 
 Dat. 
 
 namtan 
 
 eagum 
 
 ciricum 
 
 
 Gen. 
 
 namena 
 
 eagena 
 
 ciricena
 
 54 ACCIDENCE. [§23c. 
 
 230. The final -u of some nouns is a weakened w, which 
 reappears before vowels : pcet meolu ' meal/ seo sceadu ' shade,' 
 'shadow,' gen. meolwes, sceadwe. This final -u is dropped 
 after a long vowel, as in seo mad ' meadow,' gen. mddwe. 
 
 Middle English. 
 
 231. In Early Southern the old gender-distinctions in 
 nouns were still partially kept up. By degrees, however, the 
 inflections of the adjectives and the definite article were 
 dropped; and the old genders were gradually forgotten, 
 simply because there was nothing to mark them. 
 
 232. The first great change in the inflections was the 
 levelling of weak vowels under -e (162). By this change the 
 distinctions of gender in the OE weak forms mona, sunne, 
 eage were levelled in the Early Southern forms mone, sunne, eie. 
 The distinctions of case were almost entirely effaced by this 
 change in such words as OE cam, ace, dat., and gen. sg. 
 care, nom. plur. cava. 
 
 233. The only endings which could withstand this level- 
 ling were the gen. sing, -es, the nom. plur. -as, which both 
 became -es in ME, as in s/pnes=0^ sidnes, stdnas, the weak 
 -an, which became -e7i, the gen. plur. -ena, which became -efte. 
 The dat. plur. -um became -em; but as this was the only 
 case ending in m, the consonant was levelled under the more 
 frequent n, so that ME -en represented OE -um as well as -an. 
 
 234. The general result of these changes was not only to 
 obscure the distinctions of the cases, but also in some classes 
 of nouns to obscure the distinction between singular and 
 plural. The confusion was most marked in the feminine 
 nouns, where the changes we have been considering gave the
 
 § 337-] NOUA'S: MIDDLE ENGUSir. 55 
 
 / following as the endings corresponding to those of the OE 
 nouns caru, synn, sunne respectively : — 
 
 Sing. Nom. 
 
 -e 
 
 .« 
 
 -e 
 
 Ace. 
 
 -e 
 
 -* 
 
 -en* 
 
 Dat. 
 
 -e 
 
 -e 
 
 -en* 
 
 Gen. 
 
 -e 
 
 -e 
 
 -en* 
 
 Plur. Nom. 
 
 -e* 
 
 -e* 
 
 -en 
 
 Dat. 
 
 -en 
 
 -en 
 
 -en 
 
 Gen. 
 
 -ene 
 
 -e 
 
 -ene 
 
 235. It is evident that the forms marked * in the above 
 table are in the minority, while at the same time most of them 
 obscure the distinction between singular and plural. They 
 were accordingly got rid of by the extension of those forms 
 which were in the majority and more distinctive. The final 
 result was that all feminine nouns were uniformly dechned as 
 follows, the gen. plur. being often levelled under the other 
 plur. cases : — 
 
 Nom. 
 Ace. 
 Dat. 
 Gen. 
 
 236. Weak masculines and neuters were declined in the 
 same way — sing, name, ei'e, plur. namen, eien. The only 
 distinction between masculine and neuter weak nouns — 
 namely in the ace. sing. (OE naman, eage) was thus lost. 
 
 237. -f=the OE neuter plur. ending -u was made into 
 -en for the sake of distinctness, as in deoflen, chtldren = 0'E 
 dcoflu, cildru, sing, deovel, child. In many of these words 
 -^=0E -u was extended to the singular, as in dale 'valley,' 
 bede ' prayer,' = OE dal, gebed, plur. dalu, gebedu. These OE 
 plurals became dalen, beden in WE. 
 
 Sing. 
 
 Plur. 
 
 siinne 
 
 siinnen 
 
 siinne 
 
 siinnen 
 
 siinne 
 
 siinnen 
 
 siinne 
 
 sUnnen\
 
 5<5 ACCIDENCE. r§ 23S. 
 
 238. The remaining masculine and neuter nouns kept 
 their original strong forms. But the dat. sing, -e, the dat. 
 plur. -en, and the gen. plur. -e were gradually supplanted by 
 the nominative, so as to avoid confusion with the weak 
 endings. In the neuter plur. the OE undeclined forms were 
 still kept — hus, word — but the strong masc. ending was often 
 extended to the neuters, so as to distinguish the two numbers 
 — huses, wordes. Strong masculine and neuter nouns were, 
 then, inflected thus : — 
 
 239. Sing. 
 
 Nom. sfgn word 
 Dat. stgn(e) wordie) 
 Gen. stgnes wordes 
 
 Plur. 
 stgnes word, wordes 
 
 stgnes word, wordes 
 
 stgne, stgnes worde^ wordes 
 
 240. In Early Midland and Northern the distinctions of 
 grammatical gender were entirely lost during the transition 
 from OE, the distinction between strong and weak form, 
 being also done away with, except in a few isolated forms. 
 The natural consequence was that the -es of the genitive 
 was extended to weak nouns and to all feminine nouns, the 
 plur. -es being then extended in the same way, first to strong 
 neuters, then to weak nouns and feminine nouns generally. 
 The final result was that the only regular inflections left were 
 gen. sing, -es, plur. nom. and gen. -es, the distinction between 
 nom. and gen. plur. being kept up only in irregular plurals 
 such as men, gen. memtes. 
 
 241. Standard ME follows the Early Midland dialect in 
 its noun-inflections : it has only one case, the genitive ; the 
 original nominative, accusative, and dative being now merged 
 in one * common case ' : — 
 
 Sing. Common word, 
 
 Gen. wordes, 
 
 Plur. Common wordes, 
 
 Gen. wordes, 
 
 sinne 
 
 man 
 
 sinnes 
 
 mannas 
 
 sznnes 
 
 men 
 
 sinnes 
 
 mennes
 
 5 246.] 
 
 J^OUNS: MODERN ENGLISH. 
 
 Modern English. 
 
 242. By the beginning of the IMnE period the s of inflec- 
 tional -es had been voiced (208), (s) being kept only in 
 monosyllables such as geese, pence (IVIE penies,pens). In Early 
 MnE the e was kept after a hiss-consonant for the sake of 
 distinctness, as in horses (horsez), and was dropped every- 
 where else, the (z) being necessarily unvoiced after voice- 
 less consonants, as in beasls (b(?^sts) from beastes {hee%\.Qz), 
 while it was of course preserved after vowels and voiced 
 consonants, as in days, heads (h^fdz). Hence the following 
 are the main types of noun-inflection in the present 
 English : — 
 
 Sing. Common hos 
 
 dog 
 
 kc-Et 
 
 waif 
 
 guws 
 
 maen 
 
 Gen. hosiz 
 
 dogz 
 
 kaets 
 
 waifs 
 
 guwsiz 
 
 mxnz 
 
 Plur. Common hosiz 
 
 dogz 
 
 kcTStS 
 
 waivz 
 
 gijs 
 
 men 
 
 Gen. hosiz 
 
 dogz 
 
 kasts 
 
 waivz 
 
 gijsiz 
 
 menz 
 
 243. In ]\IE the genitive ending was often dropped after 
 hiss-consonants in foreign words, as it still is in such 
 genitives as jEncas\ and mfor conscience sake, etc. 
 
 244. The WE alternation of breath and voice consonants 
 in wlf, gen. sing, and common plur. wives, is still kept up 
 in path (paaj), paaSz), hotise, ihief, wolf and others ending 
 in th and / preceded by a long syllable ; but only in the 
 plur., the gen. sing, having been formed afresh from the 
 common case. 
 
 245. The following are old mutation-plurals: man, men 
 (OE mann, mpin); woman, women {wi/mann, wl/m^nn); foot, 
 
 feel {pt,fet); goose, geese (gos, ges); iooih, ieeih {top, teP); 
 mouse, mice (mus, mys). 
 
 246 Of the ?/-plurals, ox, oxen is OE, which has se oxa,
 
 58 ACCIDENCE. [§ 247. 
 
 plur. oxan, while child, children is a ME form of OE cildru. 
 brother, brethren is in OE bropor, brd}>ru, wliich latter became 
 in ME hrepre{ti). 
 
 247. The unchanged plurals deer and sheep are the OE 
 neuters deor, sceap {seep), which were, of course, unchanged 
 in the plur. So also the plurals swine, and pound in ten- 
 pound note are old neuters. As these words mostly express 
 collectiveness and measure, other nouns with inflected plurals 
 have been made invariable by the analogy of swine and pound 
 etc. when used in similar meanings, as in to catch fish (OE 
 fiscas), to weigh ten stone, three-foot rule. 
 
 248. Many words of foreign origin — especially Latin and 
 Greek — keep their original plurals, such zs fungus, fungi; 
 index, indices (also indexes); pheno?nenon, phenomena. 
 
 ADJECTIVES. 
 Inflections. 
 
 249. In OE adjectives are inflected similarly to nouns, 
 with which they agree in gender, number, and case. They 
 also have a strong and a weak form, the latter being used 
 after the definite article and other defining words, as in se 
 halga mann ' the holy man,' /?d gddan m^nn ' the good men,' 
 compared with hdl/g mann ' a holy man,' gode m^nn ' good 
 men,' where the adjectives are strong. 
 
 250. In ME the adjective-inflections were soon dropped, 
 till nothing was left but -e, which denoted the weak form and 
 the plural : — 
 
 Strong Sing, {a) god man 
 Plur. gode men 
 
 Weak Sing, pe gdde man 
 Plur. pe gode men
 
 5256-] ADJECTIVES: comparison: 59 
 
 251. In MnE the loss of final e made the adjectives 
 invariable, except that Early MnE kept up the distinction 
 between sing, enough and plural f«OTf;=ME inoh, enough 
 plur. indwe, enowe. 
 
 Comparison. 
 
 252. In OE the comparative is formed by adding -ra 
 (with weak inflection), as in leo/ra ' dearer,' the corre- 
 sponding adverbs ending in -or: leofor. The superlative 
 ends in -ost, as in leo/ost, which is also the adverb. The 
 comparison of some adjectives is accompanied by muta- 
 tion, the superlative ending in -esi, as in eald ' old/ t'eldra, 
 leldesi. 
 
 253. In ME the endings are -ere [adverb -er\ -esl; and 
 -ere was soon shortened to -er, so that the distinction between 
 adjective and adverb was lost, harder representing OE heardor 
 as well as heardra. 
 
 254. In ]\InE we have, besides the endings -er, -est, 2l 
 periphrastic comparison which consists in prefixing the 
 adverbs more, most, being applied chiefly to longer adjectives, 
 as in beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful. 
 
 255. Early MnE has double comparisons, such as more 
 braver, most wikindest. 
 
 256. Some old superlatives in OE end in -ma, which was 
 generally made in -mest by the influence of the more usual 
 ending, as mfor-ma ' first ' — whose positive is represented by 
 the adverb yi?r^ ' before '—fyrmest ' first.' In ME -mest was 
 confused with most ' most,' and a variety of new superlatives 
 have been formed on the analogy o{ foremost, such as after- 
 most, uppermost, and even topmost.
 
 6o ACCIDENCE. [§357. 
 
 257. The following are the irregular comparisons of 
 MnE :— 
 
 , , J eldtr eldest ) 
 ' I older oldest j 
 OE Anglian did, ^Idra, eldest. 
 
 . ( latter last ) 
 
 I later latest ) 
 
 OE IcBt [adv. late'\ ' slow,' Icstra [adv. lator], latost. 
 
 . ( utter ut'ter)mosi ) 
 \ outer out{er)most J 
 
 nigh I 
 
 OE «/ adv. 'outside,' J /^r/-<7, uterra,ytemest, iitemesf. 
 r { further furthest ) 
 
 ■' j farther farthest ] 
 
 OE feorr, fierra, fierrest -, fore z&i., furpra, superl. fyr'e)st, 
 forma, fyrmest. forma was made into a new coxxv^zx. former 
 in ME. 
 
 near next ) 
 
 nearer nearest j 
 
 OE n'ah {neh), nearra [adv. near\ niehst {nexf). In ME 
 the compar. near was made into a positive by the analogy of 
 //r * there/ etc. 
 
 good {well), letter, lest is made up of three distinct words ; 
 
 the OE forms are god [adv. wei\, l^tera [adv. ^//], l^tst. 
 
 evil ) 
 
 lad \ "^^^^^ worst 
 
 OE jj/tV (Kentish efel), wyrsa, wyr{re)st. 
 
 little if' \ least 
 
 ( lesser j 
 
 OE lytel, IcESsa, [adv. Ices], l^st. 
 
 much \ 
 
 \ more most 
 
 many j 
 
 OE micel (later mycel), mara [adv. ma], mcest. The vowel of 
 
 the compar. was extended to the superl. in ME.
 
 § 26o.] PRONOUAS: PEKSOXAL. 6l 
 
 PRONOUNS. 
 
 258. Some of the OE pronouns have indeclions of their 
 own, such as ihe / of the neul. sing., slill preserved in /'/, whal, 
 but most of them are inflected Hke strong adjectives, whether 
 they are used as adjectives or as nouns. Thus the adjective- 
 pronoun sum in sum marni ' a certain man ' and ihe noun- 
 pronoun sum 'a certain one' both have plur. j«/«^, as in sume 
 vignn civcedoTi (said), sume cwddon. These plurals in -e 
 were kept in ME, but their -e was dropped in IMnE, so 
 that these pronouns became invariable, as in some think 
 differently, beloved by all. Some of them still keep the old 
 genitive sing, ending, thus other =^OiE oper has gen. other' s= 
 OE dj>r€s. On the anology of this gen. the Early ]MnE plur. 
 other has been made into others. 
 
 Personal. 
 
 259. The followin 
 
 g are the inflections of the OE 
 
 personal 
 
 pronouns : — 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sing. Nom. ti 
 
 Ml 
 
 he 
 
 hit 
 
 heo 
 
 Ace. tnec, mi 
 
 pec^pe 
 
 hine 
 
 hit 
 
 hie 
 
 Dat. me 
 
 Pe 
 
 hitn 
 
 him 
 
 hire 
 
 Plur. Nom. ive 
 
 
 ~hif 
 
 
 Ace. usic, us 
 
 eowic, cow 
 
 
 hie 
 
 
 Dat. Us 
 
 eow 
 
 
 hi/n, 
 
 heoin 
 
 Sing. 
 
 Nom. hwd 
 Ace. hwone 
 
 hwcet 
 hwcet 
 
 
 
 
 Dat. hivcem, hwam 
 
 
 260. The accusatives me, pe. Us, eow are really datives. 
 In ME the datives him, hire, hcom, hwam supplanted the
 
 63 ACCIDENCE. [§ 261. 
 
 original accusatives in the same way, the neut. accusatives 
 hit, kwcBt being, on the other hand, extended to the dative. 
 The result is that these pronouns have now only two cases 
 — nominative and objective, the latter including the OE ace. 
 and dat. 
 
 261. In OE the strong demonstrative se 'that one' was 
 often used in the sense of ' he,' and in ME its feminine seo 
 and plur. pa gradually supplanted the less distinct heo and 
 hJe. In the Northern dialect pa was made into pei by the 
 influence of Scandinavian J>ei-r ' they,' and this form gradually 
 spread south together with its objective case J^ei'm, although 
 /iem=0^ heom was kept, as it still is in the form of 'em. 
 
 1 
 
 262. The following are the standard ME forms : — 
 
 Sing. Nom. 
 
 f , ich 
 
 pow 
 
 
 who what 
 
 Obj. 
 
 me 
 
 Pe 
 
 
 whom what 
 
 Plur. Nom, 
 
 Tve 
 
 ye 
 
 
 
 Obj. 
 
 us 
 
 yow 
 
 
 
 Sing. Nom. 
 
 he 
 
 hit, it 
 
 
 she 
 
 Obj. 
 
 him 
 
 hit, it 
 
 
 hire, hir, her 
 
 Plur. Nom. 
 
 
 pei 
 
 
 
 Obj. 
 
 
 hem. 
 
 ,> 
 
 dm 
 
 263. In MnE the use of the ceremonious j;if,^(?« — which 
 began in ME — was more and more extended till at last thou, 
 thee were completely disused in the spoken language. 
 
 264. As there was no distinctive inflection for the objec- 
 tive case, it soon began to be confused with the nom., so that 
 you was regarded as a nom., and the second person pro- 
 noun became invariable, while who, on the other hand, often 
 supplanted whom. There is now a tendency to make me, 
 him, etc. absolute nominatives {it is me) as opposed to the
 
 §267.] PRONOUNS: POSSESSIVE. 63 
 
 conjoint /, he (/ am). The following are the MnM 
 forms : — 
 
 Sing. Nom. / thou, you who what 
 
 Obj. ine thee, you whom what 
 
 Plur. Nom. we ye, you 
 
 Obj. us ye, you 
 
 Sing. Nom. //^ // she 
 
 Obj. ///;« »/ her 
 
 ^^- ' 
 
 Plur. Nom. they 
 
 Obj. ///^;« C^w) 
 
 Possessive. 
 
 265. The OE possessive pronouns are the genitives of 
 the corresponding personal pronouns : min * my/ tire ' our,' 
 }nn ' thy,' eower ' your,' his ' his, its,' ht're ' her,' hira, heora 
 ' their.' The possessives of the third person — his, hire, 
 hira — together with hivcts ' whose,' are indeclinable, those 
 of the first and second person — min, pin, are, eower — being 
 declined like strong adjectives : mid his freondum ' with his 
 friends,' mid viinum freondmn. 
 
 266. In ME mtn and pin dropped their n before a con- 
 sonant, keeping it before a vowel or // + vowel, the n being 
 always kept when the possessive was used absolutely : mi 
 
 fader, pin herte, hit is viin. The others (except, of course, 
 his) took s when absolute : to min hous or to youres. By 
 degrees the Northern possessive peire = Southern here made 
 its way in the South. 
 
 267. In Early MnE his was still the possessive of ;'/ as 
 well as he, its being a later formation. The full Tnine {thine) 
 is now used only as an absolute form, except in the higher
 
 ^4 ACCIDENCE. [§ 268. 
 
 language which still uses mine eyes elc. The following are 
 the MnE forms : — 
 
 Conjoint: my, mine; thy,ihine; his; ils\ her; our; your; 
 their ; whose. 
 
 Absolute : 77iine ; thine ; his ; its ; hers ; ours ; yours ; 
 theirs; whose. 
 
 Self. 
 
 268. In OY.seJfi^ added to nouns and adjectives to make 
 them emphatic, being inflected like a strong or weak adjec- 
 tive : God self, id sel/a. In OE the personal pronouns are 
 often used reflexively, a reflexive pronoun in the dative being 
 often used pleonastically, as in he ondred him pone mann 
 'he feared (for-himself) the man,' where, of course, him 
 could be made emphatic by adding self— him sefum. In 
 ME these combinations became general, and at last even 
 the OE God sef was made into God himself; and the mean- 
 ing of the pronouns was so completely forgotten that in the 
 combinations ich me self etc. they were made into posses- 
 sives — ich mi-self— self being regarded as a noun, so that 
 in MnE it developed a plural selves, like shelves, and was 
 used as a detached noun, as in forgetful of self The 
 following are the forms of the spoken language : — 
 
 Sing, myself; yourself; himself itself herself. 
 Plur. ourselves ; yourselves ; themselves. 
 
 Demonstrative. 
 
 269. The OE se {se),pa:i, seo, plur. /a was used both in 
 the sense of ' the ' and of ' that one.' So also pes (pes), pis, 
 J>eos, plur. pas was used both as an adjective — 'this' — and 
 as a noun ' this one.'
 
 5.72.] PJWXOUXS: NUMl-:/iAL. 65 
 
 270. In ME the s of OE se, seo was made into p by the 
 influence of the other forms. The resulting pe, pat, peo, 
 plur. p^, was at first used both as a demonstrative and as 
 the definite article. But by degrees pal and po were re- 
 stricted to the demonstrative meaning, pe being also restricted 
 to the function of a definite article, which soon became 
 invariable. The neuter pal was then extended to the masc. 
 and fem., so that pal man, pal hus became distinct in mean- 
 ing from pe man, pe hfis. The neut. pis was extended in 
 the same way : pis man = OE pes man. pg was now 
 regarded as the plur. of pal, and J^gs = OE pas ' these ' was 
 confused with it, so that the latter supplanted pg and became 
 itself the plur. of Pal, a new plur. pise, pese being formed 
 from pis. Hence the MnE forms — 
 
 Sing. l/ial this 
 
 Plur. those these 
 
 271. There was another OE demonstrative §eon, whence 
 the North-English yon, which has been confused with the 
 z^\tx\i yond{er\ so \h2Xy0nder is used as a pronoun. 
 
 one, a ; none, no. 
 
 272. In OE the numeral an 'one,' whence nan 'none' = 
 ne an ' not one,' was inflected like a strong adjective, and 
 was often used almost as an indefinite article, into which 
 it fully developed in jNIE. When used in this way in ME 
 it was shortened to an, and became distinct from gn ' one,' 
 and an, gn, ngn all dropped their n before consonants, in the 
 same way as mln, phi : g man ' one man,' ngn oper. In MnE 
 we do not shorten one, while, on the other hand, the earlier 
 none other etc. is now made into no other.
 
 66 ACCIDENCE. [§ 273. 
 
 Interrogative and Belative. 
 
 273. The OE interrogative pronouns are hwd, hwat 
 (259), hwilc 'which (of more than two),' hwcrper 'which 
 of two.' The first two were used only as nouns, but in ME 
 whai\i2iS used as an adjective in all three genders, like/o/: 
 what man ? The last now survives only as an adverb. 
 
 274. These pronouns were not used as relatives in OE, 
 although they were frequent in conjunctive (indirect interro- 
 gation) clauses, as in he hordap, and ndt hwdm ' he hoards, 
 and knows not for whom.' Through such constructions 
 who and which came to be used as full relatives in ME. 
 
 Indefinite. 
 
 275. In OE swd . . swd 'as . . as' was combined with 
 interrogative pronouns to make them indefinite. Thus in 
 OE we have swd-hwd-swd, swd-hwat-swd, which appear in 
 ME as ivho-sg, what-sg. Already in OE we find afre 'ever' 
 used to express indefiniteness, and in ME this usage was 
 much extended, whence the MnE whosoever etc., and, with 
 dropping of the so, whoever, whichever etc. 
 
 276. In OE indefiniteness was expressed by prefixing 
 a, ' always,' which was also prefixed to the noun wiht 
 ' creature, thing,' the resulting dwihi, owiht being soon con- 
 tracted to aht, ohi, negative n-aht, noht, whence the MnE 
 aught, naught (whence, again, naughty), nought, of which 
 not is a ME weakening. 
 
 277. some = OE sum, any = OE Snig (from an ' one '), 
 ME [ni, eni, ani (by the influence of an) are used chiefly 
 as adjectives, their noun-forms being represented, as in the 
 case of other pronouns, by compounds with one, body, thing: 
 someone, somebody, anything.
 
 §28 1.] NUMERALS. 67 
 
 278. olher = OE o/^er. one another, each other are now 
 inseparable compounds, but their elements were originally 
 separate words; we still find in Early ISInE each (nom.) 
 other (ace.) doth assail. 
 
 Quantitative. 
 
 279. both = ME l[>pe, OE *bd-pd ' both those,' bd being 
 the neut. and fem. of begen ' both.' each = OE ale from 
 *d-geUc ' ever each.' 
 
 every = ME firri, earlier fvrich from OE *<£fre ali. 
 either = OE ieg(^kivcE)per from *d-gehwcFper 'ever which of 
 two.' n-either is a ME formation. several is an Old 
 
 French word ; few = OY.featve; many = OE mam'g, miinig 
 (by influence of ^«4>), ME mani, menu 
 
 NUMERALS. 
 
 280. The cardinal numerals 1-12 are expressed by iso- 
 lated words in OE : — 
 
 an (272). 2 twegen masc, twa fem. and neut., which in 
 ME, as also in the MnE twain, two, \xere used indiscriminately 
 for all genders. 3 J)reo. 4 feower. 5 fif ; the numerals 
 above three were not inflected except when used absolutely, 
 when they took -e, as in heora wdron ft/e ' there were five 
 of them,' both forms being kept in ME till the absolute five 
 supplanted the conjointy^/entirely. 6 siex {sex). 7 seofon. 
 8 eahta {ahta). 9 nigon(e), ME nJn, nine. 10 tien (ten). 
 n §ndleofan. 12 tw§lf(e), ME tivel/", twelve. The 
 numerals above three govern their nouns in the genitive : 
 /jy manna. 
 
 281. The teen-numerals are compounds with -tiene {-tene): 
 |)ritiene, feowertiene, fiftiene, siextiene, seofontiene, 
 eahtatiene (crhtatene), nigontiene. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 ACCIDENCE. [§282. 
 
 282. The ty-numerals 20-90 are compounded with -tig 
 Mot of ten,' the last three also prefixing hund-'. twentig 
 (from "^ tw eg en-tig ; J>ritig ; feowertig ; fiftig ; siextig ; 
 hundseofontig ; hundeahtatig (Jiimdahtatig) ; hundni- 
 gontig. These are generally used as nouns governing the 
 genitive, but also as adjectives. 
 
 283. The high numerals hund(red) and Jjusend are 
 neut. nouns : iwd hund xvintra ' two hundred winters (years).' 
 
 284. The MnE million is the French form of Late Latin 
 vullio (from viiUe ' thousand '). 
 
 285. In MnE all the numerals are treated like adjectives : 
 ten men, a-hundred men. But may also be used as nouns : 
 ten of us, thousands of people. 
 
 286. Of the ordinal numbers first ■= OY. fyrest (257), 
 second = Latin secundus through French second. The 
 others were formed from the cardinals in OF by adding 
 -pa {-da, -to), preceding n being dropped: J)ridda; feo- 
 (we)r]?a ; fifta ; siexta ; seofoJ>a ; eahtoJ)a {cehtopa) ; 
 nigoJ)a ; teoJ)a, IMF tenpe being a new formation ; §ndleofta, 
 twflfta. 
 
 287. The OF teen-ordinals end in -teopa, which in MF 
 was refashioned into -tenpe, whence MnF thirteenth etc. 
 The ty -ordinals tiventieth etc. are in like manner formed direct 
 from the cardinals, as also hundredth etc. 
 
 VERBS. 
 
 288. All OF verbs are either strong or weak. Strong 
 verbs form their preterites with vowel-change and their 
 preterite participles by adding -en, while weak verbs form
 
 § 292-] 
 
 VEfyBS: MID DLL: EXGLISH. 
 
 69 
 
 ihcni with the help of d ox t, all verl)S generally prefixing ^V- 
 in the pret. partic, unless there is already some other prefix. 
 Thus strong bindan ' to bind,' band ' (he) bound,' gebunden ; 
 weak h'leran ' hear,' h'lerde, gehiered. The following are the 
 
 full endings of these two verbs 
 
 Indicative: Pres. Sing. 
 
 I 
 
 hinde 
 
 hiere 
 
 
 2 
 
 bindest, binist 
 
 hier{e)st 
 
 
 3 
 
 bindc}), bint 
 
 hier^ e)p 
 
 Plur. 
 
 
 bindap 
 
 hierap 
 
 Pret. Sing. 
 
 I 
 
 band 
 
 hlerde 
 
 
 2 
 
 btinde 
 
 hierdest 
 
 
 3 
 
 band 
 
 hierde 
 
 Plur. 
 
 
 bicndon 
 
 hierdon 
 
 Subjunctive: Pres. Sing. 
 
 
 binde 
 
 hiere 
 
 Plur. 
 
 
 binden 
 
 hieren 
 
 Pret. Sing. 
 
 
 biinde 
 
 hierde 
 
 Plur. 
 
 
 bundcn 
 
 hierden 
 
 Imperative : Sing. 
 
 
 bind 
 
 hier 
 
 Plur. 
 
 
 bindap 
 
 hierap 
 
 Infinitive 
 
 
 bindan 
 
 hleran 
 
 Gerund 
 
 
 {t6)bindcnne 
 
 hierenne 
 
 Participle : Pres. 
 
 
 bindende 
 
 hierende 
 
 Pret. 
 
 
 gebunden 
 
 gehiered 
 
 280. The contracted hlerst, bint, etc. are West-Saxon. 
 
 290. Verbs ending in vowels contract : gd-n ' to go,' pres. 
 ic gd, we gap, etc. 
 
 291. In ME the verb-endings — besides the inevitable 
 results of the levelling of weak vowels under e and the 
 frequent dropping of final n — underwent the following 
 changes: — 
 
 292. The gerund passed through -ene into -e'^n), and was 
 thus levelled under the infinitive : to binde{ti).
 
 70 
 
 ACCIDENCE. 
 
 [§ 293- 
 
 293. ge- became t- and was gradually dropped, though 
 still kept in the archaic iclepl=.OYj gecleopod ^ cdWtd.^ 
 
 294. In Southern, -etide passed through -inde into -tnge by 
 the influence of the verbal nouns such as lermng{e)-=OY. 
 leorttung, leonting from leornian ' learn.' In Northern it 
 became -ai:d[e) through Scandinavian influence. 
 
 295. In Northern -ep, -[i)ap became -{e)s, the plural ending 
 being dropped entirely in most cases ; the -es of the 3rd sing, 
 afterwards passed into MnE. In Midland the plur. pres. indie, 
 took the ME ending of the pret. and subj. plur., namely 
 
 -en :- 
 
 
 Southern. 
 
 Midland. 
 
 Northern 
 
 ndic. Pres. Sing. 
 
 I binde 
 
 binde 
 
 bind 
 
 
 2 bindeii, biiitst 
 
 bindest 
 
 bindes 
 
 
 3 bindep, bint 
 
 bindep 
 
 bindes 
 
 Plur. 
 
 bindep 
 
 binden 
 
 bind{es) 
 
 Imper. Sing. 
 
 bind 
 
 bind 
 
 bind 
 
 Plur. 
 
 bindep 
 
 bindep 
 
 bind(es) 
 
 Partic. Pres. 
 
 bindinde 
 
 bindende 
 
 bindand 
 
 296. Other changes were the result of analogy and the 
 striving to get rid of irregularities, as when the -st of hlerdest 
 was extended to the subjunctive, so that the two moods were 
 completely levelled in the preterite. 
 
 The following are the inflections of Standard ME, which 
 adopted the Midland form of the pres. plur.: — 
 
 Pres. Indie. Sing, i binde 
 
 here 
 
 2 bindest 
 
 her(e)st 
 
 3 bindep, bint 
 
 her{e)p 
 
 Plur. binde{n) 
 
 herein) 
 
 Pres. Subj. Sing. bitide 
 
 here 
 
 Plur. binde{n) 
 
 here{n)
 
 i 298.] VERBS: MODERN ENGLISH. 7 1 
 
 Fret. Indie. Sing, i b^nd herde 
 
 2 bounde, b^nd herdest 
 
 3 b^nd herde 
 Plur. boundein), bqnd herde{n) 
 
 Pret. Subj. Sing. l bounde herde 
 
 2 bounde herde{st) 
 
 3 bounde here 
 Plur. bounde{n) herdeiti) 
 
 Iniper. Sing. bind her[e) 
 
 Plur. binde{p),bind here{p), her 
 
 Infin. binde{n) here(n) 
 
 Gerund binden{e), binde heren{e), here 
 
 Partic. Prcs. bindinge heringe 
 
 Pret. (i)bounde{ri) {i)herd 
 
 297. In I\InE the dropping of final e greatly simplified the 
 %erb-infleclions. The veak vowel of the endings -est, -es, 
 -e/h, -ed was often dropped also, the treatment of -es being 
 the same as in the noun-inflection. 
 
 298. In ]\InE a gerund was developed out of the old -ung 
 nouns, whose number was limited in OE. In ME their 
 number increased, and when the pres. partic. in -inge was 
 fully established, and became indistinguishable in form from 
 the -ing nouns, these could be formed at pleasure from any 
 verb ; or, in other words, every pres. partic. could be used as 
 a verb-noun. At first — in Early IMnE as well as ME — these 
 words were used entirely as nouns — taking the article the 
 before them and the preposition ofziitx them, etc. — as in he 
 thanked him for the saving of his life, where saving is used 
 exactly like the abstract noun preservation ; but by degrees 
 they were treated like infinitives, the article being dropped 
 and the following noun joined on to them as to the cor- 
 responding finite verb; so that the above sentence was
 
 72 ACCIDENCE. [§299. 
 
 shortened to he thanked him for saving his life, where saving 
 is a true gerund. 
 
 Weak Verbs. 
 
 299. The OE weak verbs fall under two main groups, 
 according as their root-vowel is mutated or not. The former 
 comprises two classes, the hear-class {hleran ' hear,' fyllan 
 ' fill ') with long root-syllable and dropping of the Germanic 
 i ory which caused the mutation, and the wean-class (w^nian 
 ' accustom ') with a short root-vowel and preservation of the 
 Germanic /. In the unmutated or love-class [lufian) the /' is 
 a weakening oi a or and so does not cause mutation. 
 
 300. In such verbs 2iS fyllan the // belongs to the root [cp. 
 full ' full ']. But most of the double consonants in verbs of 
 
 the hear-class arise from a single consonant +j, as in s^/lan 
 ' set,' bycgan * buy ' from Germanic saljan, bugjan, and in 
 these verbs the single consonant re-appears in certain forms : — 
 
 Indie. Pres. Sing. 
 
 \ fylle 
 
 s^tte 
 
 bycge 
 
 
 ZfylleP 
 
 sgtep 
 
 bygep 
 
 Plur. 
 
 fyl/ap 
 
 s§tta}> 
 
 bycgap 
 
 Imper. Sing. 
 
 fyll 
 
 s^te 
 
 byge 
 
 Infin. 
 
 fyllan 
 
 sgttan 
 
 bycgan 
 
 Partic. Pret. 
 
 gefylled 
 
 ges^ted 
 
 \gebohi\ 
 
 West-Saxon has the contracted forms/V^. ^iH^ges^tt^ etc. 
 
 301. The preterites and pret. participles of hear-verbs are 
 liable to contraction, and d is made into / after breath-con- 
 sonants, ct becoming hi: wpidan 'turn,' pret. w^nde, pret. 
 paitic. gewpidied), gemetan 'find,' gemelle, gemett, iacan 'show,' 
 icehte. 
 
 302. There is a subdivision of this class called the seek- 
 class, consisting of verbs which un-mutate their vowel in the 
 pret. and pret. partic, those in nc, ng dropping the nasal and 
 modifying the preceding vowel in various ways : —
 
 §3o6.] VERnS: MIDDLE ENGLISH. 73 
 
 s^cgan 'say,' Sfgep, sagde, gescrgd; scian ' seek,' sohte, sohle; 
 hycgan, bohie ; britigan ' bring,' brohte; ppican 'think,' pohte; 
 byncan ' seem,' puhte. 
 
 303. The following are the most marked inflections of the 
 other two main classes : — 
 
 Indie. Pres. Sing, i 
 
 w^nige 
 
 lufige 
 
 3 
 
 lupiep 
 
 lufaP 
 
 riur. 
 
 wgniap 
 
 liijiap 
 
 I'ret. 
 
 wpiede 
 
 lufode 
 
 Imper. Sing. 
 
 iL>£ne 
 
 liifa 
 
 Infin. 
 
 lupiian 
 
 lufian 
 
 Partic. Fret. 
 
 geiv^'tied 
 
 gelufod 
 
 Middle English. 
 304. The IME vowel-changes levelled the few wean-verbs 
 under the more numerous love-class, which soon began to 
 drop their ;' in imitation of the hear-cLiss, Avhich, on its side, 
 took its imper. sing, from the other class. The following are 
 the main inflections of the two classes in Standard ME: — 
 
 ndic. Pres. Sing, i 
 
 here 
 
 love 
 
 3 
 
 her(e)p 
 
 lovep 
 
 Plur. 
 
 heye[n) 
 
 ldve[n) 
 
 Pret. 
 
 herde 
 
 ldved{e) 
 
 Imper. Sing. 
 
 her[e) 
 
 Idve 
 
 Infin. 
 
 hc'ir{n) 
 
 ldve{n) 
 
 Partic. Pret. 
 
 {t)herd 
 
 {i)ldv{e)d 
 
 305. There was regular vowel-shortening in all such 
 preterites and pret. participles as herde, herd, melie, the 
 shortened / becoming a in Southern, as in ladde {hdde), 
 ta(ti^ghie from l^den, lichen. 
 
 306. Such preterites as bilde, wende from bilden, wenden 
 were in Late ME made into bilte, wniie, pret. partic. {t)wenl,
 
 74 ACCIDENCE. [§ 307. 
 
 to distinguish them from the present ich wende etc., the 
 change being also extended to such verbs as felen * feel/ 
 felte, Ipen, le/le, lafle. 
 
 Modern English. 
 
 307. In MnE the vowel of -ed was dropped in speech 
 except after / and d {haled, ivounded)^ although the full forms 
 blessed etc. are still preserved in the higher language. 
 Hence the inflectional distinction between the two classes 
 is practically done away with. 
 
 Strong Verbs. 
 
 308. In these the plur. of the pret. indie, often has a 
 vowel different from that of the sing, {he band, hie bundon) ; 
 and the 2nd sing. pret. indie, and the whole pret. subj. always 
 have this same vowel : J>u bunde,gif id hunde. 
 
 309. Some strong verbs have weak inflections everywhere 
 except in their pret. and pret. panic. Thus sw^rian ' swear,' 
 sillan ' sit' are inflected like w§nian and s§llan in such forms 
 as the pres. indie, ic swp-ige, he sileb, imper. sing, sw^re. All 
 these verbs have, if possible, mutated vowels like the hear- 
 and wean-classes, their Germanic forms being the same 
 [swarjan, siljan). 
 
 310. The vowel-changes in the strong verbs are mostly 
 due to gradation (152), which is sometimes accompanied by 
 consonant-change (150), except in the first class, where the 
 preterites are contracted reduplications, of which a trace is 
 still preserved in the pret. he-hl (Germanic hehail) from 
 hdtan ' command, name.' 
 
 311. The following are examples of the different classes in 
 the infin., 3rd sing. pres. indie, (occasionally), pret. sing, and 
 plur., pret. partic. Observe that the -infin. of III contains
 
 5 3'6.] 
 
 VERBS: MODERN ENGLISH. 
 
 75 
 
 J/ e (;", ie, eo) followed by two consonants, the first of which is 
 generally vowel-like, while those of IV and V have the same 
 vowels followed in IV by a single vowel-like consonant, in V 
 by a stop or hiss. 
 
 I. Reduplicative or fall-class. 
 
 312. 
 
 /ra//an {fallan) 'fall' 
 healdan {haldcm) ' hold ' 
 cnawan ' know ' 
 £ rowan ' grow ' 
 hcatan * beat ' 
 hatan * command ' 
 l&tan ' let ' 
 
 313. 
 
 feoll 
 
 heold 
 
 cneow 
 
 greow 
 
 beot 
 
 he[h)t 
 
 let 
 
 feoUon 
 
 heoldon 
 
 cneowon 
 
 greowvn 
 
 beoton 
 
 he{h)ion 
 
 leton 
 
 faran * go ' 
 
 scacan ' shake ' scoc 
 
 h(bban, h^/ep ( 1 5 1 ) * raise ' ho/ 
 
 II. Shake-class. 
 for foron 
 
 SCdC07t 
 
 ho/on 
 
 feallen {fallen) 
 
 healden {lialden) 
 
 cnawen 
 
 growen 
 
 beaten 
 
 hdten 
 
 laten 
 
 faren 
 scacen 
 hafen, hafen 
 
 314. 
 
 blndan * bind ' 
 gieldan {geldan) ' pay ' 
 helpan * help ' 
 berstan (149) 'burst' 
 
 III. Bind-class. 
 
 band, bgnd 
 geald [gald) 
 healp {lidlp) 
 bcerst 
 
 bundon 
 guidon 
 hulpon 
 burston 
 
 bunden 
 golden 
 holpen 
 borsten 
 
 feohtan {fehtan) ' fight ' feaht {fceht) fuhton fohten 
 
 315. 
 
 beran 'carry' 
 brecan ' break ' 
 scicran {sceran) ' cut ' 
 niman ' take ' 
 
 316. 
 
 IV. Bear-class. 
 
 bar b&ron boren 
 
 brae brdcon brocen 
 
 scear {scar) scearon {sceron) scoren 
 
 nam, nom nomon, namon numen 
 
 V. Give-class. 
 
 sprecan ' speak ' sprac sprdcon spjrcen 
 
 giefan {gefan) ' give ' geaf {gaf) geafon {gefon) giefen {gefen)
 
 16 
 
 ACCIDENCE. 
 
 [§3'7. 
 
 sit tan, sitep ' sit ' scet 
 
 licgan, ligep ' lie ' lag 
 
 s&ton 
 Idgon, Idgon 
 
 317. 
 
 drlfan 'drive ' 
 scinan ' shine ' 
 writ an 'write ' 
 
 VI. Shine-class. 
 
 draf drifon 
 
 scan scinon 
 
 ivrat writon 
 
 seteti 
 legen 
 
 dri/en 
 sdinen 
 writen 
 
 boden 
 coren 
 froren 
 bogen 
 
 318. VII. Choose-class. 
 
 beodan ' command ' bead biidon 
 
 ceosan ' choose ' ceas curon 
 
 freosan ' freeze * freas fruron 
 
 bugan ' bend ' beag, beak bttgon 
 
 Middle English. 
 
 319. In ME there was a tendency to get rid of consonant- 
 change — especially when initial — as when OY. gecoren^ okiOitW 
 was made into ichosen (instead of *icoren) by the influence of 
 the c and s of the infin. ceosafi. 
 
 320. Unnecessary vowel-changes were also got rid of. 
 Thus such pret. vowels as that of bmd were gradually 
 extended throughout the pret. : pou bgnd, we bgnd. But 
 sometimes the vowel of the pret. plur. was extended to the 
 sing., as in he slow ' slew'=earlier ME sloh from OE slog, 
 by the influence of the plur. slowett, slowen. 
 
 321. Then the pret. partic. vowels began to influence those 
 of the pret. plur., so that at last the old pret. plur. vowels 
 which differed from those of the sing, were generally pre- 
 served only when they were the same as those of the pret. 
 partic, as in bounden ; otherwise they took the latter's vowel, 
 as \n pei holpen=0¥. hulpon. 
 
 322. The following examples will show the regular deve- 
 lopment of the different classes of strong verbs in Late ME.
 
 § .vs.] 
 
 VERBS: iMIDDLE ENGLISH. 
 
 11 
 
 Note that ihe preterites of II .split up into two groups, one 
 with the old (oo), the other with (uu) [174]. 
 
 323. 
 
 fallen 
 hpldett 
 grCnven 
 kngwen 
 
 324. 
 
 shaken 
 -waken 
 laughcn 
 drawcn 
 
 325. 
 
 binden 
 singen 
 drinketi 
 ivinnen 
 kerven 
 helpen 
 fighten 
 
 326. 
 
 siglen 
 bgren 
 
 327. 
 
 giten 
 sitten 
 
 328. 
 
 riden 
 wrlten 
 
 I. Fall-class. 
 
 fell 
 held 
 grew 
 knew 
 
 fellcn 
 helden 
 grewen 
 knewcn 
 
 II. Shake-class. 
 
 shok shaken 
 
 wok woken 
 
 laugh, low lo2L>en 
 
 drough, drow drowen 
 
 III. Bind-class. 
 bounden 
 
 bgnd 
 
 ^?ng 
 
 drank 
 
 wan 
 
 karf 
 
 halp 
 
 faiight 
 
 songen 
 
 dronken 
 
 wonnen 
 
 korven 
 
 holpen 
 
 foghteh 
 
 {ifalLn 
 hglden 
 growen 
 kngwen 
 
 shaken 
 waken 
 laughen 
 drawen 
 
 bounden 
 
 songen 
 
 dronken 
 
 wonnen 
 
 korven 
 
 holpen 
 
 foghteji 
 
 IV. Bear-class. 
 
 stal 
 bar 
 
 stelen, stal stglen 
 beren, bar bgren 
 
 V. Give-class. 
 
 gai 
 sat 
 
 geten, gat 
 seten, sat 
 
 VI. Shine-class. 
 
 rgd 
 wrgt 
 
 riden 
 writen 
 
 giten 
 s^ten 
 
 riden 
 writen
 
 78 
 
 ACCIDENCE. 
 
 
 329. 
 
 VII. Choose-class. 
 
 
 crepen 
 
 cr^p crgpen 
 
 cr^Pen 
 
 cheseti 
 
 ch§s chgsen 
 
 chgsen 
 
 [§ 329- 
 
 Modern English. 
 
 330. In MnE a great many strong verbs became weak — 
 a levelling which had already made progress in ME. On the 
 other hand some weak verbs became strong, such as sh'ck, 
 ivear by the analogy of sting, swear. 
 
 331. Short vowels in preterites were often lengthened by 
 the influence of the pret. plur., as in brake, fa»i^=ME IV 
 brak, plur. and pret. partic. brgken, cam. 
 
 332. Final (s, f) in the pret. sing, became (z, v) by the 
 influence of the infin. etc., as in rose, drove=ME rgs, drgf, 
 infin. risen, driven. 
 
 333. In the above examples Early MnE preterites are 
 original singulars. But in many cases the vowel of the plur. 
 supplanted that of the sing., as in bound, many preterites having 
 both forms: he sang, he sung ; faught, fought ; wrote, writ. 
 
 334. Through the connection between pret. and pret. 
 panic, the vowel of the latter often supplanted that of the 
 pret. even when there was no pret. plur. with the vowel of 
 the pret. partic. as in broke, <5tfr^= earlier MnE brake, bare. 
 
 335. At last there was often complete confusion be- 
 tween the two forms, and in some cases the pret. was 
 substituted for the pret. partic. ; thus sat and shone have 
 supplanted the ME preterites corresponding to OE geseten, 
 gescinen, although we no longer use took, rose, rise-={x\z) 
 as participles in educated speech. 
 
 336. The following examples will show the regular develop- 
 ment of the strong verbs in I\InE. Observe that the ME
 
 J 342.] VERBS: MODERN ENGLISlf. 79 
 
 (uu)-preterites of II took the preterite -ew of the more 
 
 imerou 
 
 s verbs of I. 
 
 
 
 
 337. 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Pall-class. 
 
 
 
 fall 
 
 
 fell 
 
 fallen 
 
 
 hold 
 
 
 held 
 
 held, beholden 
 
 
 gr(nu 
 
 
 grew 
 
 grown 
 
 
 know 
 
 
 knew 
 
 known 
 
 338. 
 
 
 II. 
 
 Shake-class. 
 
 
 
 shake 
 
 
 shook 
 
 shaken 
 
 
 take 
 
 
 took 
 
 taken 
 
 339. 
 
 
 Ill 
 
 . Bind-class. 
 
 
 
 sing 
 
 
 sang 
 
 sung 
 
 
 drink 
 
 
 drank 
 
 dt unk 
 
 
 sting 
 
 
 stung 
 
 stung 
 
 
 swinsr 
 
 
 
 
 swung 
 
 swung 
 
 
 bind 
 
 
 bound 
 
 bound[e)7i 
 
 
 find 
 
 
 found 
 
 found 
 
 
 fight 
 
 
 fought 
 
 fought 
 
 340. 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 Bear-class. 
 
 
 
 bear 
 
 
 bare, bore 
 
 born{e) 
 
 
 steal 
 
 
 stole 
 
 stolen 
 
 341. 
 
 
 V. 
 
 Give-class. 
 
 
 
 give 
 
 
 gave 
 
 given 
 
 
 weave 
 
 
 wove 
 
 woven 
 
 
 sit 
 
 
 sat 
 
 sat 
 
 342. 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 Shine-class. 
 
 
 
 drive 
 
 
 drove 
 
 driven 
 
 
 rise 
 
 
 rose 
 
 risen 
 
 
 write 
 
 
 wrote 
 
 written
 
 8o ACCIDENCE. [§343- 
 
 343. 
 
 
 ACCIDENCE. 
 
 bite 
 shine 
 
 bit liften 
 shone sJione 
 
 
 VII. Choose-class. 
 
 freeze 
 choose 
 
 froze frozen 
 chose chosen 
 
 344. One general result of all the changes and levellings 
 undergone by the English verbs is that in many cases we 
 cannot tell whether a verb is weak or strong without going 
 back to ME. So we are obliged to make a new division 
 into consonantal verbs, with d or t \n the preterite and pret. 
 partic, such as call, burn, and vocalic verbs, whose preterites 
 and pret. participles are formed without any addition except 
 an occasional -n, such as bind, see, lei, set. The following 
 are the inflections of the consonantal verb call and the vocalic 
 see in the present English : — 
 
 Pres. Indie. Sing, i call see 
 
 2 call see 
 
 3 calls sees 
 Plur. call see 
 
 Pres. Subj. call see 
 
 Pret. (Indie, and Subj.) called saw 
 
 Imper. call see 
 
 Infin. call see 
 
 Pres. Partic and Gerund calling seeing 
 
 Pret. Partic. called seen 
 
 Irregular Verbs. 
 
 345. The only regular inflections of verbs in MnE are 
 those of such consonantal verbs as call and look. Compared 
 with these all vocalic verbs must be regarded as irregular. 
 
 346. There are also irregular consonantal verbs. Some
 
 §347.] VERBS: IRREGULAR. 8l 
 
 of these lake -t (often written -ed) instead of the regular 
 -d, such as burn, dwell, learn [learned adj.], spill, spoil 
 [a French verb, which owes its -/ to the analogy of spill] ; 
 or -t = -ded, as in gird (OE gyrdan, gyrde), build, gild, bend, 
 lend (from the OE pret. Idnde, infin. lienan), rend, send, spend. 
 Some of these last have also regular forms, such as girded, 
 gilded. Others show vowel-change, which is generally 
 the result of ME shortening (15^). sometimes with irregular 
 -t : flee fled, creep crept, sleep, sweep, weep, leap, shoe shod ; 
 bereave bereft, cleave, leave. The following are old seck-verbs : 
 sell sold, tell (OE saltan, t(llan, -ealde, -aide, -aide) ; buy, 
 bought (361). lose, lost is a combination of OE strong VII 
 forleosan and weak losian, the old pret. partic. of the former 
 [forloren) being still preserved mforlorii, love-lorn. Others 
 are still more irregular. In the following this is the result of 
 their having had preterites in -hie, in the first also of ME 
 vowel-shortening, the rest being old seek-verbs, the last two 
 foreign verbs influenced by native ones: teach taught ; seek 
 sought (which is Midland, beseech, besought being the true 
 Southern form), bririg, think thought [a combination of QY. 
 pyncan and pohte\ ivork wrought [OE wyrcan worhte, ME 
 wrohte] ; catch caught, distract distraught. clothe, clad 
 
 is a combination of OE clapian and cliepan pret. clapde, 
 cladde. make made = OE macian macode, ME mdk{i)en 
 7na{ke)de. 
 
 347. The invariable verbs all end in / or d, and all had 
 a contracted weak pret. in -te, -de in ME, such as sette= 
 OE {ic) s^tte, which was, as in ME, both pres. and pret. 
 Some of them — marked f in the following list — were originally 
 strong: cast; \let, set, shed, spread; hit, rid, ^slit, split; cost; 
 \ burst, cut, hurt, put, shut, thrust. These verbs must strictly 
 be regarded as vocalic. 
 
 G
 
 82 ACCIDENCE. [§348. 
 
 348. The vocalic verbs are best arranged in the alphabetic 
 order of the vowels of their preterites in phonetic spelling, to 
 which the order of the vowels of the infinitives is subordinated : — 
 
 349. (ai . . au.) bind, find, grind, wind from the OE 
 strong III verbs bindan, findan, grindan, windan. But OE 
 findan generally had a weak \)Xt\.. fmide . 
 
 350. (ai . . B.) strike, struck, stricken from OE strong VI 
 strican ' touch lightly,' ME pret. sir^k, the u of struck being 
 a MnE change. 
 
 351. (se . . 'B.) hang, hung {hanged) from OE strong I 
 transitive hon ( = older hohan), heng, hangen and weak intran- 
 sitive hangian. In Northern ME the pret. became hing and 
 was then made into an infin., whence the pret. hang, whence, 
 again, the partic. hung on the analogy of sung. 
 
 352. (i . . B.) The following are OE strong III verbs: 
 cling, slink, spin, sting, swing, win, wring. The following 
 are weak verbs which were made strong in ME or MnE by 
 the analogy of the above verbs : fling, sling, string, dig from 
 OE weak dician by some analogy, the pret. dug being a MnE 
 formation, stick from OE weak stician, stuck being a 
 MnE formation. 
 
 353. (b . . se : B.) run from OE strong III iernan (eornaii), 
 am, urnen, in which the r is transposed (149), the original 
 consonant-order being preserved in Scandinavian rinna, rann, 
 runnijin, which has influenced the MnE form. 
 
 354. (i . . se.) sit from OE strong V sittan. spit spat is 
 a combination of the two OE weak verbs spittan and sp&tan, 
 whose pret. sprite became regularly ME spatte. 
 
 355. (i . . SB . . B.) The following are OE strong III 
 verbs : begin, drink, shrink, sing, sink, spring, stink, swim, 
 ring was weak in OE. 
 
 358. (i . . 8B . . i-n.) {/or)bid, bad{e), bidden from OE
 
 § 368.] VERBS: IRREGULAR. 83 
 
 strong V biddan, bad, beden, with the vowel of the infin. 
 introduced into the pret. partic. In ME this verb was con- 
 fused with OE strong VII beodan ' o^ar' /or biodan ' forbid/ 
 
 357. (ij . . e.) bleed, breed, feed, meet, speed; lead, read 
 from the OE weak bledan, bredan, fedan, gemelan, spedan, 
 l&dan, rddan, whose preterites and pret. participles were 
 regularly shortened in ME. The pret. read w^?, often written 
 red{de) in Early MnE. 
 
 358. (ij . . e . . ij-n.) eal, ate, eaten from OE strong V 
 etan, dt, eten. The exceptional pret. dt w'as made into at 
 in ME. 
 
 359. (ou . . e.) hold from OE strong I healdan (haldaii). 
 
 360. (o . . e . . o-n.) /a/l from OE strong \feallan. 
 
 361. (ai . . ei . . ei-n.) lie, lay, lain from OE strong V 
 licgan. In ME this verb, together with s^cgan and bycgan 
 (346), got rid of the eg by extension of such forms as ligcp, 
 s^gep, imper. s^ge, bjge etc., thus forming the new infinitives 
 lien (from *liyen), seien, blen^ pres. partic. seiinge etc. 
 
 362. (b . . ei . . •c.) conu, came from the OE irregular 
 strong IV cuman, com, cumen. In ME com was made into 
 cam on the analogy of other verbs of the same class. 
 
 363. (i . . ei . . i-n.) give from OE strong V giefan. 
 
 364. (ai . . i.) light, lit {lighted) is a weak verb which 
 was made strong on the analogy of bite in MnE after its 
 pronunciation had become (bit). 
 
 365. (ai . . i . . i-n.) bite=OY. strong VI bitan. chide, 
 hide from OE weak c'ldan, hydan. 
 
 366. (ij . . ij . . ij-n.) beat^ beat, beaten from OE strong I 
 beatan, beot. 
 
 367. (ai . . o.) shine from OE strong VI sclnan. 
 
 368. (e . . o . . o-n.) {/or)get, got, got{ten) is a mixture 
 of OE strong V begietan [begetatt) ' get,' forgietan and 
 
 G 2
 
 84 ACCIDENCE. [§369. 
 
 Scandinavian geta, gat, getinn ' get.' The o-forms are MnE. 
 tread, trod, trodden from OE strong V tredan, ME trfden, 
 trad {t)tr^den and troden by the influence of {i)broken. 
 
 369. (ij . . o . . o-n.) seethe, sod {seethed), sodden from OE 
 strong VII seopan, seip, soden. 
 
 370. (uw . . o.) shoot, shot from OE strong VII sceotan. 
 Cp. choose (375). 
 
 371. (ai . . ou . . i-n.) The following are old strong VI 
 verbs : drive, ride, rise, smite, ivrite, together with (a)bide, 
 shrive, stride, some of whose forms are obsolete, strive and 
 thrive were originally weak, the former being of French, the 
 latter of Scandinavian origin. 
 
 372. (ei . . ou.) wake, ivoke {waked) from OE strong II 
 -cvacan and weak wacian. The MnE (ou) is probably due to 
 the influence of rose etc. stave, stove is a MnE formation 
 from the noun stave. 
 
 373. (ei . . ou . . ou-n.) break, steal from OE strong IV 
 brecan, stelan. 
 
 374. (ij . . ou . . ou-n.) freeze from OE strong VII 
 freosaii, freas, froren. speak, weave from OE strong V 
 sp{f)ecan, we/an, whose pret. participles were made into 
 spoken, woven in ME on the analogy of broken. 
 
 375. (uw . . ou , . ou-n.) choose, chose, chosen from OE 
 strong VII ceosan, ceas, coren, ME infin. chesen, and in 
 West-Midland chiisen, whence MnE chuse, now written 
 choose. 
 
 376. (ai . . o.) Jight, fought ^vom. OE strong IWfeohtan. 
 
 377. (ea . . o . . o-n.) bear, tear from OE strong IV beran, 
 teran, whose analogy has been followed in MnE by wear from 
 OE weak werian. swear from OE strong II sw^rian, swor, 
 gesivaren, sworen (by the influence of the w), which in ME 
 was levelled under ^//v« = OE bera?i.
 
 §386.] VERBS: MIXED. 8.5 
 
 ;. 378. (io . . o . . o-n.) shear, shore, shorn, uhose pret. is 
 
 obsolete = 0E strong IV scieran [seer an). 
 
 379. (ij . . . . ij-n.) see, saiv, seen from OE seon, seah 
 {sceh), gesnven {segai), the ME and MnE pret. partic. being 
 really the OE ^di]tQX\st gesmie {gisene) 'visible,' ' seen.' 
 
 380. (ce . . u.) stand, slood from OE strong II with 
 irregular infin. etc. standan, slod, standen, 
 
 381. (ei . . u . . ei-n.) forsake, shake from OE strong II 
 forsacan, scacan. take from Scandinavian taka, tok. 
 
 382. (ai . . uw . . ou-n.) fly, fliw, flown from OE strong 
 VII fleogan. The MnE pret. probably arose in the same 
 way as drew (336). 
 
 383. {ei . . uw . . ei-n.) slay, shw, slain from OE strong 
 II slean (from sleahan), slog, slcfgen. In MiiE the ai of the 
 partic. slain was extended to the infin., and the pret. slo7v 
 underwent the usual change. 
 
 384. (ou . . uw . . ou-n.) bloiv from OE strong I blaivan 
 ' blow ' and blowan ' bloom,' preterites bleow. croiu, knmu 
 from OE strong I crawan, cnaican, the partic. crowft being 
 now obsolete. 
 
 385. (d . . uw . . o-n.) drazv^xom OE strong II dragan. 
 
 Mixed Verbs. 
 
 386. These have a pret. partic. in -{e)n with a consonantal 
 preterite. The following — all of which have also a conso- 
 nantal pret. partic. — were originally strong : heiv hewed hexvn, 
 mow(tt), sow(n) ; grave(n), shape{n), share{n); melt molten, 
 sivell szvollen; rive riven = 0Y. I heaiimn, mawan, sdwan; II 
 grafan, scieppan scop (Scand. skapa skdp\ scafan ; III meltan, 
 sivellan; Scandinavian rlfa, ME VI riven, go, went, gone 
 is a combination of OE strong I gan, pret. partic. gegan with 
 the pret. of OE weak ivpidan ' turn.* In load, laden (loadtd)
 
 8<^ ACCIDENCE. [§ 3S7. 
 
 the MnE infin. laden from OE strong II hladan was confused 
 with the noun load, ME Igde from OE seo lad ' leading/ 
 ' carrying ' [cp. OE Icedan ' lead,' ' carry ']. The following 
 are originally weak verbs which followed the analogy of strong 
 verbs such as draw, know etc. : saiv sawn [sawed), show[n), 
 iSfrewin). 
 
 Isolated Forms. 
 
 387. quoth is the pret. of the strong V OE verb cwepan, 
 cwce}} * speak,' ' say.' Weak ME quap passed into quod, 
 which were blended into qiiop. Mght, ME highte, is a 
 blending of an isolated OE passive hdt-te 'is called (named),' 
 ' was called ' and heht, the active pret. of the same verb (310). 
 iclept=OE gecleopod ' called ' from the weak cleopian. wont 
 = 0E gewiinod pret. partic. of the weak gewunian ' accustom.' 
 
 Pretf.rite-fresent Verbs. 
 
 388. In OE these have for their presents old strong 
 preterites ; thus wat ' I know ' was originally a pret. like 
 wrat ' I wrote.' But they have / or st in the 2nd sing, indie, 
 a / before the inflectional / becoming s: id sceal, pu sceal-t; 
 ic cann, pii can-st ; pu wast. From these presents new 
 weak preterites are formed with various changes : sceolde, 
 cupe, wiste. Many of them are defective, the infin., imper., 
 and participles being often wanting, the subj. being some- 
 times used for the imper. : — 
 
 
 Indic 
 
 Subj. 
 
 Pres. Sing. I, 3 
 
 wat \ 
 wast S 
 
 wife 
 
 2 
 
 
 Plur. 
 
 witon 
 
 witen 
 
 Pret. Sing. I, 5 
 
 2 
 
 wist ) 
 wistest ' 
 
 wiste 
 
 Plur. 
 
 wiston 
 
 wisten
 
 S 390.] VERBS : MIXED. 87 
 
 Imper. Sing, wtie Infin. witan 
 
 Plur. unta}> Gerund to witenne 
 
 Partic. Pres. witende 
 
 Pret. witen 
 
 389. In IMnE most of these verbs have only a finite 
 present and preterite, except when they have been made 
 consonantal : — 
 
 can(st), could.=OE caim, canst, cupe. In ME coupe was 
 made into coude by the influence of the d of should and 
 ivould. 
 
 dare, darest, (he) dare(8); durst; infin. dare. OE 
 dearr, dearst plur. durron, by whose influence dorste became 
 diirste in ME. 
 
 raay(st), raight=OE viag, yniht, mihte. 
 
 mote (obsolete), must. OE mot=.' vtxdiy,' pret. mdste, 
 which even in ME was used in present as well as the pret. 
 sense ; in Early MnE its (uu) was shortened. 
 
 (owe), ought. OE dg, ahte ' possess,' a meaning which 
 was preserved in the pres. in ME, while the pret. developed 
 the special meaning oug/it and by degrees came to be used 
 as in a present sense ; its vowel ou was introduced from the 
 present. 
 
 shall, shalt ; should =0E sceal[t), scolde. 
 
 will, wilt; would =0E wile, wilt, willap, wolde, the first 
 form having been originally a strong subjunctive preterite. 
 In OE it was contracted with preceding ne into ic nyle, we 
 nyllap etc., whence willy w7/v = earlier will he nill he. 
 
 wot, wist=OE wat, wisle. wot in Early MnE was often 
 made regular : he wotteth, he wots. The infin. and pres. 
 partic. are still preserved in to wit and unwittingly. 
 
 390. One of the characteristics of these verbs is the 
 absence of the s in the 3rd sing. pres. This is also the case
 
 88 ACCIDENCE. [§ 391. 
 
 with the verb need, which is partly the result of imitation of 
 (he) ought etc., but also of the fact that it was originally 
 formed (in Early MnE) from the noun need in such sentences 
 as what need all this waste ? 
 
 Anomalous Verbs. 
 
 391. The verb be in OE is made up 
 
 of three distinct 
 
 roots : — 
 
 
 Indie. 
 
 Subj. 
 
 Pres. Sing, i eom {earn) ; beo 
 
 sie; beo 
 
 2 eart (earp) ; bist 
 
 sie; beo 
 
 3 is; bi/? 
 
 siej beo 
 
 Plur. sittd^ sindon {earon) ; beop 
 
 si en; beoii 
 
 Fret. Sing, i wcss 
 
 ware 
 
 2 ware 
 
 w&re 
 
 3 was 
 
 w&re 
 
 Plur. waron 
 
 waren 
 
 Imper. Sing, wes ; bio Infin. 
 
 wesan ; bion 
 
 Plur. wesapj beop Gerund 
 
 to wesenne : to 
 
 
 beonne 
 
 392. The Standard ME forms are: am, art, is, be{n); 
 subj. be, be{n) ; pret. was, wfr'e), zvas, z{fre{n) ; pret. subj., 
 zvfr{e), wjre{n) ; imper. be, bep ; infin. be{jt) ; participles 
 beinge, be{n). The ME pret. partic. is, of course, an 
 analogical new formation. The North-Thames plur. ar{n) is 
 still rare in Standard ME, but is firmly established in Early 
 MnE, which inflects : am, art, is, are ; subj. be ; pret. -cvas, 
 wast, wert, plur. were ; subj. pret. were, wert, were ; infin. be ; 
 partic. being, been. The use of be in the pres. indie, is still 
 kept up in Early MnE : / be, thou beest, they be, etc. ; the 
 form he bes is, however, very rare. There is in MnE a 
 tendency to get rid of the distinctively subjunctive inflections 
 of this verb not only by using thou beest as if it were a
 
 5 39^).] rARTlCLES. 89 
 
 subjunctive — if thou beesi=i/ ihoti be—bni also by subsii- 
 luting if I was for 1/ 1 were, etc. 
 
 393. have. OE habbe, hcr/sf, haf}}, plur. habbap ; subj. 
 habbe, hcebben; pret. ha/de \ iinper. hafa, habbap; infiii. 
 habban\ partic. habbende, gehirfd. In ME the old bb was 
 gradually supplanted by the c' = OE/of the other forms, 
 the V itself being often dropped by contraction. The 
 Standard ME forms are: hove, weak hav, hast, hap, plur. 
 have'n), han, hart ; pret. hadde ; pret. partic. had. In ME 
 the weak short-vowel forms gradually supplanted the long- 
 vowel ones ; but we keep the long-vowel forms in the deriva- 
 tive behave, \>XQ:\.. behaved =^l¥. behaven. The MnE literary 
 forms are : have, hast, hath, has plur. have ; subj. have ; pret. 
 had; imper. and infin. have ; partic. having, had. 
 
 394. do. OE do, dest, dep, plur. dop; pret. weak dyde ; 
 imper. do, dop ; infin. ddfi ; partic. doride, gedbn. In Standard 
 ME the of the other parts of the verb supplanted the older e : 
 do, dost, dop, plur. don ; dide ; imper. do, dop ; partic. dohige, 
 dd{n). 
 
 PARTICLES. 
 
 395. The OE particles are primary, such as be ' by,' or 
 secondary. The latter are formed from other (declinable) 
 parts of speech ; thus ham in he eode ham ' he went home ' is 
 formed from the masc. noun ham ' home(stead).' Many 
 adverbs are used also as prepositions and conjunctions, such 
 as OE ier and its MnE equivalent be/ore. 
 
 Adverbs from Nouns and Adjectives. 
 
 396. In OE, adverbs were forn:ed from adjectives by
 
 90 ACCIDENCE. [§ 397. 
 
 adding -e, such as deop-e 'deeply,' heard-e 'with vigour,' 
 whence MnE deep, hard, as in drink deep, pull hard, the dis- 
 tinction between these adverbs and the corresponding adjec- 
 tives being lost. 
 
 307. Hence OE adjectives in -lie '-ly ' formed adverbs in 
 -lice, such as gesceligllce * happily ' from gesMiglic. As there 
 was also an adjective gescelig ' happy,' such adverbs came to 
 be regarded as formed directly from the adjectives ^^j^l//^ etc. 
 till at last -lice, and its ME form -liche, was used as an in- 
 dependent adverb-ending instead of -e, as in ME depliche. 
 By degrees -liche was levelled under the adjective-ending 
 -lich^OY. -lie. Midland and Standard ME -//, which in MnE 
 has become the regular adverb-ending, as in deeply, hardly. 
 
 398. The MnE -wise arose out of the OE feminine noun 
 wise ' manner ' in such phrases as on opre w'lsan ' in another 
 way,' which in ME was made into the single word oprewise, 
 operwlse, on the analogy of which new adverbs were formed, 
 such as likewise. 
 
 399. Many OE adverbs were formed directly from nouns 
 and adjectives, either uninflected, such as hatn, eall ' entirely,' 
 genog ' sufficiently,' or inflected, such as hwil-tim dat. plur. 
 ' at times,' ' sometimes,' ME whilom, dcrges gen. ' by day,' this 
 last ending being much extended in ME and MnE as in 
 aiways=OE ealne weg ace. literally ' all (the) way,' ME gnes 
 ' once.' Hence -ways, -times etc. came to be used as adver- 
 bial endings, as in lengthways (also lengthwise), sometimes, 
 ofllimes. 
 
 400. ealne-iveg, of -dime (126) are examples of group- 
 adverbs. So also alive, asleep, beside{s) come from the OE 
 on life dat. ' in life,' on sldpe, be sidan ' by the side.'
 
 5404] PARTICLES: ADVERBS. 9 1 
 
 ' Pronominal Adverbs. 
 
 401. There is in OE a symmcirical group of place- 
 adverbs connected with the pronouns he, pal, hwal: — 
 
 ^e-r, 'here' /m/t'r ' hither' (220) /<^^wc//(^) * hence ' (399) 
 
 h&r ' there ' pider ' thither ' panon ' thence ' 
 
 Awcer ' where ' hwidcr ' whither ' hivanon ' whence * 
 
 402. Many OE pronouns are used as adverbs and con- 
 junctions, such as piEt ' that,' hwcpper ' whether,' d-hivcrper, 
 aper ' either,' ME [per, weak or, na{}iwcB)per ' neither,' whence 
 MnE nor, ccgper. The ME nliper (279) was also used as a 
 conjunction, as also the ME blpe (279), and OY. py ' the' in 
 the more the merrier^ hwy ' why,' which are old instrumental 
 cases cX pcct, hwcct. 
 
 403. There are many group-particles in OE consisting of 
 a preposition with a pronoun in the dat. or instr., such as 
 
 for-pcem, for-py ' therefore,' conjunctions taking the relative 
 particle pe, as in for-pHvi-pe ' because,' afler-piempe ' after.' 
 There are other similar groups containing nouns and 
 adverbs, such z^ pd-hiv'ile-pe ' the time that,' ' \s\i\\Q^ py-lCes-pe 
 ' lest,' literally ' by-that less that.' In ME these groups 
 
 were gradually shortened inlo /or, after, while, whiles (399), 
 MnE whilst— l^spe, lest{e). 
 
 Other Adverbs. 
 
 404. OE swd has become so in MnE. OE eall-swd ' en- 
 tirely so ' became in ME strong als{iv)g, whence MnE also, 
 and weak aip)se, whence MnE as. The development of 
 wher{so)ever , whenever etc. out of OE swd-hwdr-swd etc. is 
 parallel to that of whoever etc. (275).
 
 gZ ACCIDENCE. [§405. 
 
 405. The OE negative particle is ne, which is prefixed 
 to the verb and to all the other words in the sentence with 
 which it forms contractions, such as nyle (389), nan : nan ne 
 dorste nan pvig ascian ' no-one durst ask anything.' If there 
 are no contracted negatives besides the ne before the chief 
 verb, nd, no or naht, noht are added : pert hiis nd nefeoll ' the 
 house did not fall.' ME has the same usage; but by 
 degrees, as na^/, noht were weakened into nat, not, these 
 forms, after being mere strengtheners of the «(?, began to 
 supplant it. In MnE ne disappeared entirely, and the 
 influence of Latin caused the disuse of the old pleonastic 
 negations such as / do not know nothing, which are now 
 vulgar. 
 
 Prepositions. 
 
 406. The OE prepositions govern the accusative, dative 
 (instrumenial), and sometimes the genitive. 
 
 407. Most of them can be used aUo as adverbs, as in he 
 dyde on his hyrnan ' he put on his corslet,' and in such com- 
 binations zs p(Er-on, par-to ' therein '='in it,' 'to it,' on often 
 having the meaning ' in ' in OE. The adverbs correspond- 
 ing to the prepositions be ' by ' and in are bi and inn. In 
 fact, all the prepositions were originally adverbs, which were 
 added to nouns to express more definitely what was already 
 indicated by the case. Thus in on f^cem hUse ' in the house ' 
 the idea of ' rest in a place ' was originally expressed by the 
 dative alone. Hence bl preserves the strong form of which 
 be is a weakening. 
 
 408. In OE there are compound prepositions formed by 
 prefixing a preposition to an adverb of place or some other 
 part of speech, be being shortened before a vowel : be/oran 
 ' before,' b-ufan ' above,' b-utan ' outside ' — used also as a
 
 5 41 J.] COMPOSITIOX. 93 
 
 conjunction 'except,' 'but,' being shortened in ME hble— 
 whence, again, on-iulan 'around,' 'about' [cp. alive, 400], 
 wip-innan 'within,' wip-utan 'outside,' on-gemang 'among, 
 literally ' into the crowd.' 
 
 409. In ME bi supplanted the preposition be, which was 
 kept only in such groups as beforen, beside. OE vnuvi 
 'inside' was used instead of on to express 'in,' being 
 gradually shortened to in[e), whence INInE in. OE mid 
 ' with ' and wip ' against ' were confused till at last wip took 
 the meaning of viid, which was then disused. 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 410. Composition in OE consists in joining together two 
 words, the first of which becomes indeclinable, while the last 
 retains its inflections, the first having the stronger stress. 
 Thus ptxt gold and se smip form the compound noun se 'gold- 
 :smip. Word-groups beginning with an inflected adjective or 
 genitive case have the same stress, as in -god :d<id ' good 
 action ' compared with gdddad ' benefit ' cwicseolfor ' quick- 
 silver,' ryninges :sunu ' king's son,' Monan-dcrg ' Monday,' 
 literally ' moon's day.' 
 
 411. But in MnE the stress in these groups has been made 
 equal, so that we are able to distinguish by stress alone 
 between such compounds as blackbird, cronv's-foot (a plant) 
 and the groups -black -bird, a •cr<nvs 'foot, and can use a 
 noun in the plural as the first element of a compound, as in 
 clolhesbrush, neivspafer. 
 
 412. In OE, besides compounds of noun or adjective 4- 
 noun, there are compounds of noun -|- adjective, such as
 
 94 ACCIDENCE. [§413. 
 
 wln-sced ' satiated with wine/ and of adjective + adjective, 
 such as wld-cup ' widely known.' There is also a class of 
 ' conversion-compounds,' consisting of adjective + noun, the 
 whole compound being an adjective, such as glcBd-mod 
 ' having a glad mood,' bUp-heort \heorle ' heart '] ' blithe of 
 heart,' ' cheerful.' 
 
 413. In OE verbs are compounded only with particles 
 and inseparable prefixes (127) and a few adjectives used in 
 similar adverbial meanings, as in full-fyllan 'fully fill,' 
 'fulfill.' In MnE verbs are compounded with greater 
 
 freedom, as in the noun break-water and the verbs browbeat, 
 whitewash. 
 
 DERIVATION. 
 Native Elements. 
 
 PREFIXES. 
 
 414. Of the OE prefixes, some are strong(stressed), some 
 weak. Noun- and adjective-prefixes are generally strong, 
 as in mis-ddd 'misdeed,' -un-ciip 'unknown,' while verb- 
 prefixes are generally weak. When a prefix is used both 
 with nouns (and adjectives) and with verbs it is generally 
 shortened and weakened in the latter combination, as in 
 
 •and-giet ' intelligence ' on'gietan ' understand ' 
 
 •bi-gang ' circuit ' began ' practice,' 
 
 the distinction between the last two being parallel to that 
 between the adverb bt and the preposition be, b'l- and bi being 
 originally the same word. When a verb is formed direct 
 from a noun, the strong prefix is preserved, as in -andswartan 
 ' answer ' from the noun and-swaru [cp. sw^rian ' swear 'j.
 
 §419-] PREFIXES. 95 
 
 Conversely, when a noun is formed from a verb the weak 
 form of the prefix is kept, as in d-llesednis ' redemption ' from 
 d-Uesan ' release ' [cp. d-rlsan ' arise ' j. 
 
 415. But it sometimes happens that the weak prefix of the 
 verb supplants the originally strong prefix. Thus the weak 
 ge- is the only form, even in independent nouns and adjec- 
 tives such as ge/era ' companion,' gel'ic ' like,' having sup- 
 planted an older strong form. 
 
 416. Sometimes the original distinction between the strong 
 and weak form is lost, though the distinction of stress is 
 kept. Thus the originally strong form in -for-wyrd ' de- 
 struction ' is kept \x\ foriveorpan ' Y>^ns\\' forgufan 'forgive' 
 [note that this prefix has no connection with the prepositions 
 
 /ur ' for,' /ore ' before ']. o/- [which is the same word as the 
 preposition and adverb o/, 'of,' 'oflf'] is used in the same 
 way : -of-spring ' offspring,' of'drotdan ' fear.' 
 
 417. The unstressed on- [strong and-, 414] and to- ex- 
 pressing ' separation ' etc., as in otvlnndan ' unbind,' on-drcedan 
 ' fear,' to-brecan ' break to pieces,' are quite distinct from the 
 prepositions on and io. 
 
 418. In ME ge- was weakened to t- and then dropped ; 
 but it is still preserved in enough, ywis=-0'E gettog, gewi'ss 
 ' certain.' 
 
 419. In IME of- and on- were often weakened to a- [cp. 
 408], and as a- was shortened to a-, all three were often 
 levelled under one form, whence the MnE ashamed, abide, 
 arise etc. = OE ofscamod, onbidan, dr'isan. But those verbs 
 in which OE on- reversed the meaning of the verb it was 
 prefixed to, saved their prefix from being weakened into 
 a- by identifying it with the nearly synonymous noun- 
 prefix un-, whence the INInE unbind from OE onbindan,
 
 96 ACCIDENCE. [§ 420. 
 
 together with many new-formations, such as un/aslen, 
 unchain. 
 
 SUFFIXES. 
 
 420. Some of the OE suffixes which contained i ox j in 
 Germanic, caused mutation of the preceding vowel, as in 
 gylden ' golden,' where, as is often the case, the unmutated 
 vowel was afterwards restored by the influence of the un- 
 derived word [OE gold ' gold 'j, which, sometimes happened 
 in OE itself. In the following examples of the most impor- 
 tant OE suffixes those which originally caused mutation are 
 marked t. 
 
 Noun-forming, (a) Concrete. 
 
 421. leorneve ' learn-er ' from leornian * to learn ' ; in ME 
 and MnE this suffix was often confused with French and 
 Latin -e{e)r, -ier, -o{u)r (430), whence MnE h'ar (192), sailor 
 = OE leogere, *seglere. l^cscestre ' baker-ess,' tcEppestre ' female 
 tapster ' ; in ME this ending came to be regarded as masc. 
 through its similarity to -er, although spinster is still feminine. 
 uEpelwul/in^ 'son of ^J^elwulf*; deor\vciQ 'darling' [deore 
 ' precious ']. 
 
 {b) Abstract. 
 
 422. godxds(s), godftes ' good-ness.' ■\hat^ ' heat,' wr^J>{J>)u 
 ' wrath '[//^/ 'hot,' wrdj^ 'angry'], ij^iefp 'theft' treowp 
 ' fidelity ' S^peof thief,' treowe ' faithful ']. bletsViXXZ ' blessing,' 
 leornung, learning ' learning ' from the verbs bletsian, leornian. 
 The following endings were originally independent words in 
 OE itself:— 
 
 424. crlsteu&ova. ' Christianity,' wisdom ' wis-dom ' [se dom
 
 § 427-] SUFFIXES. 97 
 
 'judgment,' 'authority'], preosthsid. * priestly office, ' cildhaJ 
 ' childliood ' [se had' rank,' * condition ']; I\IE has -hud instead 
 oi -h[>d, and also -h'^de through the influence of the OE suffix 
 mfreond-rccden ' relationship,' whence MnE maidenhead [OE 
 mccgjfhdd]. h/J/brdacipe ' authority ' [h/d/ord ' lord '\,/reond- 
 scipe ' friend-ship ' [cp. saeppan ' shape,' ' appoint ']. 
 
 Adjective-forming. 
 
 425. igylden 'gold-en,' hiipcn 'heathen' \_hdj> 'heath']; 
 some adjectives in -e7i without mutation are old strong pret. 
 participles, such as drunken, fain=.OY. /ccgen ^ gXdid' from 
 ge/eon '• rejoice.' //J/ig (Germanic -ag) ' holy ' [/;J/ ' sound,' 
 ' \\\\o\q''\, 7?tddig 'proud'; t/^£/f^ ' heavy ' [cp. h^blan 'lift,' 
 pret. partic. ha/en], Ij'sig ' busy.' iFrptcisc ' French ' 
 \Franc-hind ' land of the Franks,' ' France ''\folcisc ' vulgar.' 
 tvynawxci ' pleasant ' \wynn ' joy 'j. The following were inde- 
 pendent words in Germanic : — 
 
 426. w<2//4>feald ' many-fold,' scofonfeald ' sevenfold ' 
 [fealdan ' to fold ']. synninM ' sin-ful,' carfull ' careful ' ^full 
 'full']. jA2'/>leas 'sleep-less,' r/^c^/ei/j ' careless ' \leas 'de- 
 prived of; c^. forlcosan 'lose'], eorj^lid ' earth-ly,' w'lflic 
 'feminine,' originally 'having a woman's form' (412), -lie 
 being a shortened lie ' body.' ^^wweard, adv. hdmweardes 
 (399) home-wajd(s), inneiveard ' inward.' 
 
 Verb-forming. 
 
 427. Scandinavian -na, as in hwitna 'become white,' 
 har/>na ' become hard,' was imported into ME, whence iNInE 
 whiten, harden. 
 
 H
 
 98 ACCIDENCE. [§ 428. 
 
 Foreign Elements. 
 
 428. These are mainly French (marked *), Latin, and 
 Greek (marked t). Many which came into English in their 
 popular French forms were afterwards latinized more or less, 
 this latinizing having sometimes begun in French itself. 
 Thus ME avenlilre is exactly the French form from Latin 
 {res) adventura ' (a thing) about to happen.' But in Late Old 
 French and Late ME the word was latinized into adventure, 
 which spelling has in E. corrupted the pronunciation, and so 
 in other cases. 
 
 429. In Latin and Greek, many of the prefixes vary 
 according to the nature of the sound they precede, final con- 
 sonants being otten assimilated, as in assentdre-=ad-sentare ; 
 these changes are generally kept up in English, as in assetit. 
 
 430. The following examples will show the chief foreign 
 prefixes in their alphabetical order, the unmarked ones being 
 of direct Latin origin : — 
 
 ^hsiinence, ab-rupf, a-veri. ad^//, as-sent, ag-gravate etc. 
 amb/Z/b/?. tamphi(5zb?^j. ^ox^archy [cp. vion-archy\ a-theist. 
 •\dinB,baptisi, analogy, anteroom, anti-cipate. iantipa//iy, 
 antiradical a-^ostasy, aph-orism. 'biennial. icSitairac/, cat- 
 echise, circumnavigate, circu-itous. covumit, con-vince, co- 
 incide, col-league etc. ; * corn-fort, *coun-cil. contra^zW, con- 
 tro-versy; * counter-poise, did krone, devious. *&GVfxigod [from 
 'Lz.iixi dimidiuni]. fdi^r^//^ = ' twice.' iAiameter, di-ocese= 
 'through.' disarm, dif-ferejit etc.; * des-cant, * de-part, 
 ienergy. iepigram, eph-emeral. cs.tend, ef-fect, e-vade, 
 *es-cape. ^es-odus, ecstasy, extravagant, ihypercritical. 
 ihy-pot/iesis, hyph-en. insane, im-pious, i-gnorant, il-liberal 
 etc. = 'un-'. invade, im-pel, ir-ruption etc.; *en-dure, em-
 
 § 433-] FOREIGN SUFFIXES. 99 
 
 /^<'///j^ = 'in/ 'into.' interval, t'n(el-lect; * enter -tain, intro- 
 diice. ivaetSLmorp^osis, meth-od. no/arious, ne-ulral. non- 
 conductor, obviate, os-tensible, o-mit, oc-cur etc. tpara^rfT/^A, 
 par-enthesis. "permit, pel-lucid \ * par-don. postpjoue. pre- 
 suppose, preternatural. proi^i'ress, prod-igy; * pur-chase, 
 por-trait. ^prologue, iproselyte ' towards.' repeat, red-eem. 
 retrograde. Bef>arate. Bemicircle. sinecure. Buhordinate, 
 sup-port etc. supernatural ; *sur-/ace. suspend, suspect 
 ■= ' under.' jsynagogue, system, syl-lable etc. troxis/orm, 
 tra-duce; *tres-pass. ultramundane. 
 
 SUFFIXES, 
 
 These are arranged under each section so that those 
 which consist entirely of vowels come first, and are followed 
 by those that contain consonants in the alphabetic order of 
 the consonants. 
 
 Noun-forming, (a) Personal. 
 
 431. * trustee, refugee [-/ from Latin -dtus]. vica.r ; 
 * officer, *cavalier, *volunteer [L. -drius, -dris\ auth-or; 
 *savioux. * sluggard., braggart, ^goddess, lioness [from L. 
 -issa^. iartist, communist. ^Israelite, jacobite. orator, 
 testator. testatri'S.. 
 
 (b) Diminutive. 
 
 432. globule, animalcule; *particle. *islet, dulcet; 
 lea/let. 
 
 (c) Abstract. 
 
 433. *modesty,/ancy> [from L. -ia] ; * Italy [from L. -/<?] ; 
 * remedy [from h.-ium"]. * county, army, attorney =\veak ME 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO ACCIDENCE. [§ 434. 
 
 -e from French -/[L. -dtus\ and -e'e [L. -aia\. avarice, prac- 
 tice ; *pract\SQ, vierchandise. constancy, bankruptcy, min- 
 strelsy. t///ad, Dunciad, \AenAdL. *co/onna.6e, promenade 
 [from L. -ata through Italian]. *banda,^e, courage [from L. 
 -dticu7n\ a;-^z^ment, ornament, opinion, co?7ipulsion, action. 
 JohnsonidiXidL [L. -dtta adj. neuter pi.]. ignorancQ, experience ; 
 brilliancY, consistoicy. splendor ; *honour [American -or\ 
 *poetvj, peasantry = French -{t)er (431) + :>' (433). figyxxe, 
 departure. idespotism, anglicism ; witticistii-=-ic (434) + 
 -ism. consu/ate, magistrate, /ortifade, miM'tude. ^property, 
 capacity, durability =YTench -//from L. -/as, -tdtcm. 
 
 Aajeetive-forming. 
 
 434. «6>ble, reliable, terrible, soluble. *tre\Ae [from L. 
 -plex,\\\iQncQ: -pie in multiple~\. mori\>un<3i,vagabond. domestic, 
 ilogic, mathematics ; musical. f maniac, Syriac. add, 
 splendid, ianthropoidi, alkaloid. eguai ; essential, civil, 
 fertile, human, Roman, humane ; * captain, herculean, Euro- 
 pean [a blending of L. -{a)eus and -an\ Christian, plebeian, 
 divine, feininine, glycerine, casevn. ignorant, innocent, pesti- 
 lent, familiar, regular, necessary, superior, junior. Chin- 
 ese, verbose ; *furious. *picturesqvLe, burlesque [from L. 
 -iscus through Italian], corrupt, accurate, nitrate, favourite^ 
 active, plaintive; *plaintiS. 
 
 Verb-forming. 
 
 435. *purify,deify\{\omL.-ficdre'\. *fnish,fourish[kom 
 L. -escere'\. itheorize, civilize.
 
 ii 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 SPFXIMEXS OF ENGLISH. 
 
 Old English. 
 
 Early West-Saxox. 
 
 ^\c J)dra "pe ]?as min word gchier}?, gnd ]?a wyrc]?, bi)i 
 gc'llc ])xm wisan were, se his hus ofer stan get'imbrede. 
 pa com J72er ren gnd micel flod, gnd p^r blcowon windas, 
 gnd a'hruron on pxt hus, gnd hit na ne feoll : so}?lice hit 
 wees ofer stan gelimbred. 5 
 
 Qnd x\c )?ara pe ge'hier}? pzs min word, Qnd ]'a ne wyrc)?, 
 se bi]? ge"llc Ip^m dysigan m§nn, pe ge'timbrede his hus ofer 
 sgnd-ceosol. pa rinde hit, gnd pxr com flod, gnd bleowon 
 windas, gnd a'hruron on Jjaet hus, gnd Tpxt hus feoll; gnd 
 his hryre w'oes micel. lo 
 
 1. »lc ' each ' (§ 279>, here used as a noun governing the genitive, 
 para gen. plnr. of j^ ' that-one,' ' he' (1. 2). J)e indeclinable relative 
 pronoun and particle (§ 403) 'who.' pas min word 'these my words ;' 
 pas and min are in the neut. plur. in agreement with 7Mrd {^ 225). 
 gehierp 'hears,' Late West-Saxon ^^/;j;;3 (§ 1 38), with the usual West- 
 .Saxon contraction (§ 2S9>" the Anglian form is gehcrcp. pnd. Late 
 West-Saxon avd. pa neut. 'those-ones,' 'them.' wyrcp 'works,' 
 Anglian tfiVf^/; the noun is^(£/^(eK;^(jr^. bip ' is' (§391). 2. gelic
 
 102 APPENDIX. 
 
 ' like,' adj. governing dat. wisan weak (§ 249) dat. sing, of wis ' wise.' 
 wer ' man,' ofer ' over,' ' on,' preposition governing ace. and dat. 
 Stan, § 255. timbran ' build' belongs to the hear-class of weak verbs, 
 the e of the pret. timbrede being inserted to make the pronunciation 
 easier. 3. pa 'then.' com, § 362, Jjser ' there,' Anglian /ifr(§ 137). 
 reu ' rain ' = Anglian rept. micel 'great,' Late West-Saxon mycel, 
 whence MnE much (§ 166) ; the older form is preserved in the name 
 Mitchell, blawan ' blow,' strong I. 4. hreosan, a-hr. (§ 414), 
 strong verb VII 'fall.' on 'on,' 'in,' preposition with ace. and dat, 
 na, §405. feallan, strong verb I. soplice 'truly,' 'for'; sop adj. 
 'true.' 7. dysig 'foolish,' whence MnE (/mjj/. ceosol, w^/ ' gravel' ; 
 cp. the Chesil Batik and Chiselhurst. rinan 'to rain,' Anglian rignan, 
 from *reg}ijan, with a mutation of e into i. hryre masc. ' fall,' the y 
 being a mutation of the n in ht-tiron 'they fell ' (§ 138). 
 
 2. 
 
 Gif hwelc mgnn hsef]^ hund sceapa, gnd him losa]? an of 
 ]3Sm, hu, ne for-ldett he J?a nigon gnd hund'nigontig on \^vci 
 inuntum, Qnd g^e]?, gnd sec)? J^aet an ]?e forwear]? .? Qnd gif 
 hit ge-liinpj) J^aet he hit fint, soj^llce ic eow s§cge ]3set he 
 5 swijjor ge-blissaf) for J^gem anum jronne for J^sem nigon gind 
 hund'nigontigum |)e na ne losodon. 
 
 1. gif ' if,' ME yif, if. thejj/ being dropped as in i- from O'^ge- (§ 415). 
 hwelc, hwilc, Late West-Saxon hwylc 'which'; gif hwelc 'if any.' 
 mpnn, Late West-Saxon niann, which also occurs in Early W^ S. 
 (§ 134)- hund (§ 283) governs the gen. sceap, Anglian seep ( § 141), 
 neut. (1. lj>(2t) 'sheep.' him dat. § 259. losian weak verb love- class 
 ' be lost,' 'perish' [cp. § 346]. 2. pSm dat. plur. (and sing.), for- 
 Isetan 'forsake,' 'leave'; Icetan, Kw^xzn letan strong I 'let.' hund- 
 nigontig, § 282. 3. munt masc. 'mountain,' from Latin montem. 
 
 g«]7 ' goes,' infin. gan (§ 290) ; cp. dep ' does ' (§ 394). an ' one,' keeps 
 its strong inflection after the definite article ; so also in 1. 5 [the weak 
 dat. sing, ending is -an, as in }Sm dysigan 1. 7]. forweorftan strong 
 III 'perish'; weorpan {he wicrp), wearp, wurdon, geworden (§ 150) 
 ' become,' cognate with -iveard (§ 426) and Latin vertere. 4. gelim- 
 pan strong III 'happen.' findan, § 349. slogan, § 302. 5. swipor
 
 OLD ENGLIS/f. IO3 
 
 adverb compar. (§ 252); siuip-e (§ 396) * strongly,' ' very.' geblissian 
 weak love- verb 'rejoice'; bliss fern, 'joy' from blipe 'glad' [through 
 
 *br,p-s\. 
 
 Ohth^re saede his hlaforde, ^Ifrede cyninge, J?3et he eallra 
 Norj^m^nna nor|5mcst bude. He c^v^e]5 J^aet he bude on 
 Jjcem Igndc nor|7\veardum \\\\> |^a Westsce. He s«de )?eah 
 jjaet )3Kt Ignd sic swij^e iQng nor}) J^^nan ; ac hit is call wcste, 
 buton on feawum stowum styccemiSlum wicia]? Finnas, on 5 
 hunto)7e on 'wintra, gnd on sumera on fiicaj^e be \^xt siS. 
 
 1. Ohth§re, a Norwegian in the service of King Alfred, hlaford 
 ' lord,' from hlaf^ loaf,' ' bread ' and •word= zveard ' guardian.' Observe 
 that the next two words being in apposition to hlaforde are put in the 
 same case — the dative, cyning ' king' (§ 422). eallra strong gen. plur. 
 of eall ' all.' 2, Norpmonn ' Northman,' ' Norwegian.' norpmest 
 adverb snperl. (§ 256). buan ' dwell,' pret. bude. cwsep, § 387. 
 
 3. land neut. norpweard adj. ; p,et land n. ' the north (part) of the 
 country.' wij) pret. with ace. ' against,' ' along ' (§ 409 V 8» ' sea' strong 
 fem., ace. and dat. sing, see [cp. 1. 6]. peah ' though,' ' however.' 
 
 4. sie 'is,' 'extends,' subj. (§ 39i\ swipe, see 2. 5. p9nan=/rt;w« 
 (§401). ac ' but.' weste adj. ' desert.' 5. buton 'except' (§ 408). 
 fea(we) plur. ' few.' stow fem. ' place.' styccemSlum adv. ' piece- 
 meal,' 'here and there' (§ 399). ■wician weak love-verb 'encamp,' 
 ' dwell.' Finnas masc. plur. ' Fins,' ' Laplanders.' 6. huntop 
 masc. ' hunting ' ; hunta ' hunter.' wintra irregular dat. sing of xvinter 
 masc. sumera irregular dat. sing, of siimor. 
 
 Eakly Mercian. 
 
 [This extract is from an interlinear translation of the Psalms; it is, 
 therefore, not altogether idiomatic] 
 
 4. 
 
 Dryhten, nales in eorre ]?mum jju jjreast me, ne in hathe- 
 ortnisse )?inre )?u J^reast me. Miidsa me Dryhten, for-]?on
 
 I04 'APPENDIX, 
 
 untrum ic earn ; hael me Dryhten, for-J?on ge'droefed sindun 
 all ban min, gnd sawl min ge'droefed is s\vTJ?e. Qnd ]3u, 
 
 5 Dryhten, gexgrr, gnd ge*n§re sawle mine ; halne me do fore 
 mildheortnisse Jjine, for-]?on nis in dea]5e se ge'myndig sie 
 \va. ; in h§lle so]3]Ice hwelc Qndette}? \q ? Ic wQnn in geam- 
 runge minre ; ic ]5wea J)orh syndri(g)e naeht bf dd min mid 
 tcarum. Ge'droefed is fore eorre ege min ; ic aldade be'twih 
 
 lo alle feond mine. Genvita]? fr^m me alle J)a wirca]? unrehtwis- 
 nisse. For-]7on ge'herde Dryhten stefne wopes mines; 
 ge-herde Dryhten bcene mine ; Dryhten ge*bed min ge'nom. 
 ScQmien gnd sTen ge'drdefde alle feond mine j sien for'c^rred 
 on'bec, gnd scgmien s\vi]?e hredlice. 
 
 1. Dryhten 'lord.' nales 'not' = ;?«-/(<'5 'not less.' in govenis the dat. 
 and ace. like on. eorre neut. ' anger ' = West- Saxon «Vrr^. prean weak 
 verb *rebuke'(§ 290). ne ' nor.' hatheortnis(s) fem. ' hot-heartedness,' 
 ' fury.' 2. mildsian, W. S. millsian, weak love-class ' pity,' from mllde, 
 W. S. milde (§ 133) 'mild.' for pon ' because' ; ])on is an old instru- 
 mental case oifcEt (cp. § 403"). 3. un-trum * weak' ; tnim ' firm.' 
 eam = W. S. eom (§ 391). hsllan weak verb, § 138. gedrcefan weak 
 verb 'disturb ' = W. S. gedrefan, the mutation of o (§ 138) being in this 
 dialect always preserved in its older form of <?= close (oeoe). sindun = 
 sindon, § 391. 4. ban neut. 'bone.' sa'w(u)l fem. 'soul.' swipe, 
 see 2. e. 5. 6§rran weak verb ' turn.' ngrian weak verb wean-class 
 (§303). hal, § 138. don * do,' ' make ' (§ 394). fore prep, with ace. 
 ' before,' ' on account of.' 6. mild-beort-nis fem. ' mild-heartedness,' 
 ' mercy.' n-is ' is not ' (§ 405). deap masc. ' death.' se (§ 26i) = sc-pe 
 ' who ', ' he who.' gemyndig ' mindful ' ; gemynd ' memory,' 7- pin 
 gen. 'of thee' (§ 265). hgU fem, 'hell.' h'welc 'which (one),' 'who '; 
 ep. 2. I. pndettan weak verb 'confess.' winnan strong III 'labour'; 
 gewinnan 'win.' geamrung fem. ' mourning,' * lamentation ' = W. S. 
 ge077irung from gcomrian ' lament,' geomor ' sad.' 8. pwean strong 
 II (pret. J>wog) 'wash.' porh 'through' with ace. = W. S. furh. 
 syndrig ' sundry ' ; cp. smtdor ' apart.' nseht fem. sing, and plur. 
 ' night's) ' = W, S. nieht, niht. bfdd neut, 9, tear masc, ege 
 weak neut. 'eye' = W, S. eage (§ 144). aldian (§ 133) 'grow old.' 
 bet-wili(s) 'betwix-t,' ' among.' 10. feond masc. sing, and plur.
 
 MIDDLE ENGLISH. IC5 
 
 ' enemy ' ; originally pres. partic. of/eon ' hate ' ; i.ofrlond ' friend ' was 
 a pres. paitic. meaning ' loving.' gewitan strong VI ' depart.' pa, see 
 1, 6. ■wircan, see 1. i. un-reht-wis-nis ftm. 'unrighteousness'; 
 re^twis = \\.H. ryhhvTs 'rightly wise,' 'righteous.' 11. heran = 
 
 W.S. hteran. stefn fem. ' voice.' wop masc. ' weeping ' '^ cp. uwf>an, 
 W. S. xvepan ' weep.' 12. been fem., W. S. bin ' prayer,' ' refjuest.' 
 
 gebed neut. 'prayer'; from the yXviX. gcbcdu comes MnE bead [Jj 163'',. 
 niman strong irrcg. IV pret. nom, prct. partic. genumen, whence Mnt) 
 numb. 13. sconaian 'be ashamed'; fcpmti, scamu fem. 'shame.' 
 forcfiran ' turn ' (cp. 1. 5). 14. baec neut. ' back,' onbac ' back- 
 wards ' ; in this text (e is written e. hredlice = hrccd-lue, hrcrj)-lice, 
 ' quickly'; from the compar. hraJ>or comes MnE rather. 
 
 Middle English. 
 
 [French and Latin words are in italics. In the notes forms introduced 
 by = are West-Saxon, unless otherwise designated.] 
 
 5. 
 
 Early Scutiiekx. 
 
 IM9 slea)7 word ]?ene sweord. ' Lif and dea]5,' sei]? Salomon, 
 ' is ine tiinge hgnden ' : ' Hwg-se wite]? wel his mu)?, he wite]?,' 
 he sei]?, ' his sgule.' ' Hwg-se nc wijrhalt his wordes,' sei|? 
 Salomon \q. wise, ' he is ase buruh \vi]3-uten wal, |?er ase verd 
 m^i in over-al.' pe veond of helle mid his ferd went \wx\\. \t 5 
 tiitel )7§t is fver open into ]?e heorte. In vitas pairum hit 
 telle]? \%\. 9n hgli men seide, j?eo me preisede ane of j^e 
 b're)?ren Jj^t he hgfde i'herd Jjgt weren of miiche speche : 
 ' Gode,' cwf]? he, ' heo bof? ; auh hore wunnunge navej? np 
 1%\. : hore mu]7 ma|7ele]? fver; and hwg-se fver wiile m^i ggn to 
 in, and Ifdcn vor]? hore asse ; ' ]7f t is, hore unwise sgule. 
 VorJ^T, %€\\sein Jame : ' Jif fni wene]? \%\. he beo religi'us, and 
 ne bridle]? ngut his tunge, his religiun \% fals: he g'dep his
 
 IC5 APPENDIX. 
 
 heorte' He sei)? swtijje wel, 'ne bridle)? ngut his tunge,' 
 15 vor bridel nis ngut gne i ]?e horses muj?e, auh sit sum upo 
 Jsen eien, and sum o }3en earen. Vor alle Jjreo is miiche 
 neod \%\. heo been i'bridled ; auh i )?e mufie sit t§t iren, and 
 o ]?e lihte tunge ; vor J?er is mf st neod hgld hwon ]?e tiange 
 is o riine, and i'vallen on to eornen. Vor ofte we Jjenche)?, 
 20 hwon we v6]? on to spekene, vor te speken iQtel, and wel- 
 isette wordes ; auh )7e tunge is sliddri, vor heo wade)? ine 
 wete, and slit Hhtliche vor)? from lut word into monie. Ne 
 mfi ngut miichel speche, ne a-ginne hit nfver sg wel, beon 
 wi)?-uten siinne ; vor vrom so)? hit slit te vals ; ut of god 
 25 into iivel, and from niesUre into unimete ; and of a drope 
 waxe)? a miiche flod, )?§t a'drenche)? )?e sgule. Vor mid te 
 fleotinde word to'fleote)? )?e heorte ; sg )?^t Ignge )?er-§fter ne 
 m%\ heo beon a'riht i'ggdered to'ggderes. 
 
 1. mg = the adv. ma (§ 257), which was used as a noun = ' more ' in OE, 
 and as an adj. in ME. sleap = ^///, § 383 ; long open e is in this text 
 written indifferently e or ea, whatever its origin, word ; this is the 
 Anglian lengthening (§ 133), which also appears in Late West-Saxon. 
 \>eiie=J>onne; cp. ine 1. 2. sweoTd. = sweord {c'p.worcT); eo, eo in this 
 text are monophthongs — {e, ee) or perhaps still {ce, oece). seijj = s^ge} 
 (§ 174). 2. ine, § 409. \j\v[^%Q = tunge weak fem. hgnd = ^a«(/, 
 hgnd fem. 'h.-^'^-%& = swd-hwd-swd (§ 275). witep instead of wgt 
 (§ 388) ' knows,' ' guards.' 3. wiphalt keeps the short Mercian a 
 
 which is long in the infin. ivijjhglden (§ 312); halt is a blending of 
 W. S. Melt (§ 289) with the usual mutation, and Mercian halde}>, haldep. 
 w6Tdes = wo>-d neut. plur. 4. pe (§ 270) wlse^se wTsa (§ 249). 
 ase, § 404. buruh = iii<r(«)^ fem. 'fortified city.' verd=/f£r^ fem. 
 'army' iiom faran ' go.' 5. va^i^mag; when e represents (as), as 
 in this word, we write itg; in later ME it becomes a — mat. mgi in 
 ' can enter in.' over-al 'everywhere.' wenden'go.' tiitel ' mouth,' 
 'opening.' 6. ^-vev, eaver=dfre. 7. tellep = t§l{e)J>, ini. t^llan 
 
 (§ 300), the ME // being taken from the infin. etc. h.g\i = Adltg (§ 425). 
 seide = SiZgde (§ 302) veith the vowel of seiji (1. 1). peo =/a ' when.' 
 me = maniti) ' man,' ' one ' in the sense of French on. ane is a weak form
 
 MIDDLE ENGLISH. 107 
 
 (§ 272) ; cp. fii I. 7 : OEa«-«« of />Sm brdpnim. 8. iheTd=geAered, 
 plur. gehirde (§ 158). Bpeche = i^/^t" fern. 9. bop, hore are 
 
 weak ioxm% = b?oP, heora (§ 265) ; cp. aw = Anglian earn (§ 391). auh 
 = ac, Mercian aA 'but.' wunnunge = 7<'«M«<w^ (§ 235); this doubling 
 of M is not unfrequent. navep - «a/a/, nafp ' has not.' 10. 3§t = later 
 ME_>'a/; the OE 5 was used to denote the front sound (j). majjelien 
 'chatter.' wule = wile (§ 389), wyk. 13. gilen ' beguile,' ' deceive.' 
 14. swupe=jw^«, siuyPe (by influence of the iv). 15. jne ' only' ; 
 in OE ana with weak inflection means 'alone' \alone = OY. *eall-dna]. 
 mupe dat. ; OE vnip masc. ait = si'//, site} (§ 309). ViT^o = uppan, 
 uppon. 16. pen eien = Mercian /(?;« ^^KW (§ 1.44). o, weak form 
 = w«, like a = fl«. fre = t"ar^ weak neut. 17- nede, neod 'need ' = 
 
 nied, Angl. ned, Late W. S. nyd, nead, neod. sit t§t with the frequent 
 change of// into tt in separate words {sit itself =J2V/ from siteP). OE 
 iren neut. 18. m§st (§ 257), later ME mpst. hwon — /I'uon fie ; cp. 
 Pene\. 1. 19. rune = rj«£ ' running,' ' course.' eornen, § 353. ofte 
 = oft; the -e added by analogy of such adverbs as Ipnge 1. 27. penchen 
 =Pincan (§ 302). 20. v6n = 0E irreg. strong \ fdn,feug, gefangen 
 
 ' seize ' [cp. hon, §351]; von on 'begin.' to spekene = /(J sprecenne   
 (§ 292). vor te 'for to,' 'to*; /^ is a weak form of to (cp. 1. 24). 
 21. sliddri ' apt to slip,' ' slippery,' formed by adding ■i=ig to slidder 
 = 0E.f//</i3r[cp. j/iV 1. 22]. OE wadan strong II. 22. wete = 2vceta 
 masc. slit = OE sliit, slidep, strong VI sUdan. lut = OE adv. lyt, used 
 also as a noun like md (1. i). 23. aginnen = (?« ,§7'««a« (§ 418). 
 
 25. unimete dat.; OE nn-gemet 'un-mcasure,' 'excess' [cp. victan 
 strong V ' to measure,' whence MnE to )nete\ OE dropa. 26. OE 
 strong I weaxan {waxan) 'grow.' OE adi*§Dcan 'give to drink,' 
 'drown.' mid te, cp. sit te 1. 17 ; here dp becomes *tp, tt as in slit 
 (1. 22), although the d is kept in writing. 27. fleotinde pres. 
 
 panic. (§294); OE _fleotan strong VII 'float,' 'flow.' tofleoten 
 ' flow apart' (§417), 'be dissolved.' a^ = swd (§ 404). Ignge = lange 
 adv. 28. mf i sing, instead of the plur. muwen, OE magon. ariht 
 
 = (?« riht (§ 400) 'rightly.' tog^dcres from OE togcedere (§ 399}.
 
 lO 
 
 lo8 APPENDIX. 
 
 6. 
 
 Early East jNTidland. 
 
 And jif ])u cnawcst riht tin God, 
 
 and hercnest hise spelles, 
 and lejest al J^in hert^ on him, 
 
 and foljhest him and bujhest, 
 and for ]>e luff of him forsest 
 
 hsej^ene Goddes alle, 
 and art te self aj mild<? and meoc, 
 
 and softf, and stills, and l!J?e, 
 •wip lamb ])U lakest tin Drihlin 
 
 gastlTkf i Iplne j^aewes, 
 swa ]?at it maj wel helpen ]:e 
 
 to winnen Godes are. 
 For lamb is soft^ and stille deor, 
 
 and meoc, and mild^, and Iff^e ; 
 15 and it can cnawen s\vT]?e wel 
 
 his moder Jjser jho blsetej? 
 bitwenen an ]7usende shep, 
 
 ]5oh ]?at tej blaeten alle. 
 and al-swa bir]? pe cnawen wel 
 20 pm God and al his lare, 
 
 and al forwerpen hse];end6m 
 
 and 6|3re Goddes alle, 
 swa-sum pe lamb Hep 6]3re shep, 
 
 and foljhej? a^ his moder. 
 
 1. tin, see 5. 17 ; this change is carried out coDsistently in the present 
 text. 2. hise ; the OE gen. /lis takes a plur. -e in ME on the analogy 
 of OE plur. mFne etc. OE spell neut. •' story,' ' teaching.' 3. herte 
 = /ieor/e', observe that final vowels are dropped before another vowel. 
 4. folshen =folgian ; jh = (5) in this text. OE bugan strong VII ' bow,'
 
 MIDDLE ENGLISH. IO9 
 
 'incline.' 5. OE forseon 'despise,' literally 'look askance at.' 
 
 6. hBBpene ; OE Jti7/>en (§ 425 ; in this text long open e is always 
 written i^-. 7. J>e self, § 26S. as ' always,' a Scandinavian word ; 
 
 this text writes 7; for » in diphthongs, meoc ' meek,' Scand. 8. softe 
 = softe the adv. of scfte 'gentle.' OE lipo 'gentle.' 9. laken 
 
 'sacrifice to'; OE lac 'gift.' Drihtin = Z>ry///c« ; the -;« from Latin 
 names in -Tn{us'. 10. ga8tlike= Southern ggslltche, OE gast-liie 
 ' spiritually.' OE f>eaw masc. ' custom,' Jjeawas plur. ' morals.' 
 12. OE ar fem. 'mercy.' 13. OE deer neut. '^wild) animal.' 
 
 16. p8Br ' where.' .'^ho = (jAoo), a weak form of OE /i^o. 18. poh 
 
 Scand.; OE J>i:a A (/t'/i). )>ei, § 261. 19. hixp = gedyreji -wesin-class 
 'befits.' 20. OE lar fem. 'teaching.' 21. OE for-weorpau 
 
 ' reject ' ; iceor/an stiorg III ' throw.* 23. sum ' as' Scand. 
 
 Standard Middle English. 
 
 Fie frQ the pr£s, and dwelli? wiih solhfastnesse ; 
 
 sufflsQ thin 9\v^ne thing, thogh it be smal. 
 
 For hord hath hat^, and clymbyng tykelnesse, 
 
 prp hath etivye, and wfk blent gver al. 
 
 Saz'oure ng mgre thann^ the byhove shal; , 
 
 reu/e wel thi-self that other folk canst rf de : 
 
 and trouth^ the shal de/yvcre — it is n^ drfde. 
 
 1. frg is the Scandinavian /rd ' from ' ; it is now used only as an 
 adverb in /o an J fro. prfs ' crowd.' dwellen is Scand. dw^lja. OE 
 sojj-faest-nes 'truth'; sop 'true,' ' truth,' /isj/ 'firm.' 2. 9wen = 
 dgen. smal = OE jwt?/ ' narrow.' 3. hord = OE ,^«?r^ ; '^\\xE. hoard 
 comes from ME hard, tykelnesse' ticklishness,' 'giddiness,' 'instability.' 
 4. wfle = zc«/a ' prosperity ' [cp. OE -wel ' well ']. OE blgndan ' blind.' 
 OE ofer eall ' everywhere.' 5. savoure, pronounced (saaNTiura), 
 
 §108. OE behofian 'require.' 6. rfde = r<2'(/a« 'advise.' 7. 
 
 trouthe, treuthe = ^ tWij^, § 423. it is ng drgde ' there is no fear/ 
 ' without fail.'
 
 no APPENDIX. 
 
 Modern English. 
 8. 
 
 Early Modern. 
 
 Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, 
 and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which 
 built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, 
 and the floods came, and -the winds blew, and beat upon 
 
 5 that house ; and it fell not : for it was founded upon the 
 rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, 
 and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, 
 which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, 
 and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon 
 
 10 that house; and it fell : and great was the fall thereof. 
 
 ev(3)ri ooxi %eex{oox w(h)itj hiire]? %eez wurdz ov [of] 
 main, send duue]? tSem, Jael bii bikand untu ae [9] waiz msen, 
 whitj bylt [bilt] (h)iz hous upon tSe rok. send tSe rsein [rif^n] 
 de-sended, send Se fludz ksesem, send tSe waindz bleu, send 
 
 5 heei [bet] upon 'Saet hous ; send it fel not : for it wsez [waz] 
 founded upon Se rok. send evri oon tSset hiire]? '^eez wurdz 
 ov main, send duue)? Sem not, Jael bii laikand untu se fuulij 
 msen, whitJ bylt iz hous upon tSe ssend. send ?Se rsein 
 desended, send 'Se fludz ksesem, send Se waindz bleu, send 
 
 10 sm(?(?t upon tSajt hous; send it fel: send gr^^t wsez tSe faul 
 [fcol] tS^^rof. 
 
 1. 'hR&x = heran with unphonetic ea taken from the noun ear = eare ; 
 heareth also heares, hears (§ 295). ■wovd. — tvdrd (§ 133) through 
 (wuurd). 2. doeth is the strong form of the weak doth (du})) from 
 
 (duuJ))=ME doj) (§ 394). wise from the weak-inflected se wls-a etc. 
 3. h\ii\A=hyldan, rock = hrocca. 4. floods, also written /'mc/j 
 
 (§ 200). beat does not agree with OE deot ; (bet) comes from a 
 weak ME pret. d^tte. 10. fall, also written /««// (§ 191).
 
 MODERN ENGLISH. 1 1 1 
 
 0. 
 
 mutj gcen tJei prseiz tJe triiz so straeit send hai, 
 
 Se saeilii) pain, t5e s^^dar proud zend taul, 
 
 t5e vainprop elm, tSe poplar nevsr drai, 
 
 tJe bildar wk, swl kir) of forests aul, 
 
 t5e aespin guud for stcecevz, ?5e saipres fluneraul. ; 
 
 1. gaa. = oftginnan, ME aginnen, § 418. 2. the sailing pine ' the 
 pine for ships' masts.' 
 
 Present English. 
 10. 
 
 evriwBn tSeafoa whitj [huw] hiarij) [hiaz] ?5ijz ^va^dz av 
 main, an(d) duwi)? \^v.z\ Sam, Jal bi(j) laiknd (T3n)tu a waiz 
 msen, whitJ bilt iz haus (ap)on Sa rok. an tSa rein di-sendid, 
 an(d) tSa fl^dz keim, an(d) Sa windz bluw, an(d) bijt (ap)on S'cet 
 haus ; and it fel not : far it waz faundid (ap)on ©a rok. and 
 evriwun t^at hiari]? Sijz waads av main, an(d) drnvi]? Sam not, 
 Jal bi laiknd (tn)tu a fuwlij msen, whitJ bilt iz haus (ap)on 
 Sa ssend. an(d) Sa rein di'sendid, an Sa fl^dz keim, an(d) 
 Sa windz bluw, an(d) smout (ap)on Sset haus ; and it fel : 
 an(d) greit waz Sa fal Sear-ov. 
 
 11. 
 
 Sa mein d5en(a)ral difrans bi'twijn aali an leit modan 
 iijglij iz Sat Sa fomar iz Sa piariad av iks'perimant an 
 kam'pserativ laisns bouj? in Si impD'teiJan and in Sa fo'meijan 
 av njuw waadz, idjamz, an gra'maelikl kan-str^kjanz. Sa leit 
 modan iijglij piariad iz, on Si ^Sa hsend, wtjn av si-lekjan 
 and oganai'zeijan. Sa moust maakt difransiz in dijteil aa "^^
 
 J 1 % APPENDIX. 
 
 greit saundtjeins'z tjndagon [-gon] bai tS^ spoukn laerjgwids 
 — tjeinsiz w(h)iij 9v bijn [bin] kam-plijtli diz-gaizd [dis-] bai 
 S3 fiksiii ov t5i o-)50gr^fi. 
 
 12. 
 
 mai haat lijps pp when ai bi'hould 
 
 a reinbou in tSa skai ; 
 sou woz it when mai laif bi'gosn, 
 sou iz it nau ai sem 9 maen, 
 sou bij it when ai {sel grou ould — 
 
 09 let mij dai I 
 tS9 tjaild iz faat59r 9v Sa maen; 
 and ai k9d wij mai deiz t9 bij 
 baund ijij tu ijtj bai nsetjaral pai-iti. 
 
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