1.2.2.1 Orthography

The introduction of Christianity in the late sixth century caused the replacement of the German runic alphabet (futhorc) by the Latin alphabet in most written sources. The Latin alphabet, combined with certain Germanic runes, notably thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, wynn <ƿ>, ash <æ> and yogh <ȝ>, served as the basis for written Old English. The runic characters were gradually replaced in modern times (cf. Scragg Reference Scragg1974).

1.2.2.2 Phonology

Old English phonology and related changes, which have been described from different theoretical perspectives, are often viewed in contrast to the earlier West (Germanic) and the following Middle English phonology. Some Germanic characteristics that Old English phonology inherited are the result of what is now known as Grimm’s law, a set of sound changes concerning the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) plosive system that took place in the first millennium bce, and the more recent i-mutation (i-Umlaut) that affected vowels in various Germanic languages from the fifth century onwards (thus before Old English emerged as a separate language). Grimm’s law, or the first Germanic sound shift, describes regular correspondences that are found between early Germanic plosives and fricatives, and plosives found in other Indo-European languages like Italic, Greek and Celtic. The sound change consists of three parts (that may be seen as consecutive phases): PIE voiceless plosives became voiceless fricatives (/p t k/ → /f þ x/), PIE voiced plosives became voiceless plosives (/b d g/ → /p t k/), and voiced aspirated plosives became voiced plosives (/b^h d^h g^h/ → /b d g/). These correspondences explain the differences between pater in Latin and father in English (where p → f can be seen initially and t → þ medially). The sound change of i-mutation consisted of back vowels being fronted and front vowels being raised if the following syllable contained /i/ or /j/. The latter trigger often disappeared at a later stage, which can be illustrated through the variation found in man – men (Germanic *manwaz (sg) > Old English mann vs. Germanic *manniz (pl) > Old English menn). Other examples in English that were affected by i-mutation and therefore display vowel variation are foot ~ feet, tooth ~ teeth, goose ~ geese.

Selected sound changes that took place during the Old English period and affected consonants were fricative voicing and palatalisation, while breaking affected the vowels. As regards the fricative system, it consisted of only the three voiceless phonemes /f θ s/, which occurred at the beginning or at the end of a word. The voiced allophones /v ð z/ were found in complementary distribution, notably when they occurred between vowels or before voiced consonants (e.g. smiþ ‘blacksmith’ /smiθ/ versus smiþas ‘blacksmiths’ /′smiðas/). The phonemic voiceless ~ voiced contrast in the fricative system only developed in the Middle English period (Lass Reference Lass and Blake1992:36). In the Old English period, the velar consonants /k sk g/ became palatalised (in this case, a change in the place of articulation of the consonants) when occurring before front vowels; they would become /tʃ ʃ j/. This change becomes visible through a comparison with Old Norse: compare Old English sċip ‘ship’ with /ʃ/ vs. Old Norse skip with /sk/ and Old English ċirċe ‘church’ with /tʃ/ vs. Old Norse kirkja with /k/, for example. A sound change that affected vowels is so-called breaking, which happened when the front vowels /æ e i/ were diphthongised, thus broken into two sounds, when they occurred before certain consonants (e.g. i → io/eo, e → eo, æ → ea before l or r and a consonant, or before h, which is for instance reflected in the change from æld ‘old’ into eald).

The examples given here indicate that the Old English phonological system differed to some degree from today’s phonological system of English (for extensive and detailed studies, see Hogg Reference Hogg and Hogg1992a; Lass Reference Lass and Blake1992).

1.2.2.3 Morphology

The morphology of Old English illustrates the language when it was still highly inflected (synthetic language), which is best explained in terms of paradigms (i.e. a set of linguistic items that illustrates the variety of forms of a given word). To start with nouns, they were categorised in terms of number (singular, plural), case (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative), and grammatical gender (masculine, neuter, feminine)Footnote ¹³. This is illustrated in Table 1.2 through the noun stān ‘stone’, which is masculine and is considered a strong noun (it belongs to a class that has a vowel stem, in contrast to the consonantal stems or weak nouns; see Hogg Reference Hogg and Hogg1992a for details on noun classes).

In comparison, today’s stone paradigm consists of stone ~ stones, that is, purely a number difference, and the genitive remnant stone’s. The inflectional endings in Old English inform us of the function of the word in the sentence, that is, the subject is in the nominative and the object the accusative case. As a result, word order could have been more variable.

The noun system was also supported by the demonstrative system. A demonstrative to point out is Old English se, which was used both as a demonstrative meaning ‘that’ and as the definite article ‘the’. The paradigm also differentiated case and gender in the singular, but there was no gender distinction in the plural (Hogg Reference Hogg2002:19). The set of personal pronouns was also more extensive in Old English in comparison to present-day English, with distinctions in terms of number and case for the first and second persons, and also for gender in the third person.

Like nouns, adjectives were also inflected in terms of number, case and gender. In addition, a definiteness distinction was made (strong vs. weak). This is illustrated in Table 1.3 with the adjective gōd ‘good’ in Old English.

As regards verbs, the inflectional endings depended on the tense (past vs. present), the person and number of the subject, as well as the mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive). Moreover, verbs were divided into strong verbs (change of stem vowel in the past tense and past participle) and weak verbs (regular ending), which is reflected in today’s sing ~ sang ~ sung and like ~ liked ~ liked respectively. An example of the weak class 2 verb lufian ‘love’ and the strong class 1 verb drīfan ‘drive, push’ is provided in Table 1.4.

The example in Table 1.4 illustrates the vowel alternation in drīfan in the first- and third-person singular indicative and the lack thereof in the verb lufian.

Another characteristic of Old English morphology is the auxiliaries, which were not very frequent at the time. In fact, today’s auxiliaries can, could, will, would were regular verbs in English expressing a full lexical meaning like wille ‘want’ or cunnan ‘can, know’. Since the Old English period, these verbs have changed in function, that is, they have moved from lexical to grammatical and with that they lost their meaning and became syntactically attached to another verb with a full (lexical) meaning, a process known as grammaticalisation. More information on Old English morphology can be found in Hogg (Reference Hogg1992b) and Campbell (Reference Campbell1959).

1.2.2.4 Syntax

In contrast to Modern English, Old English word order was largely variable, notably because the language was highly inflected (synthetic). In Old English, there was no distinction between definite article and demonstrative, and the subject pronouns could be omitted. Despite the possibility of variable word order, certain patterns can be observed. For instance, SVO order was usually found in main clauses (e.g. God lufode middanġeard ‘God loved [the] realm’). In relative or subordinate clauses of time, place, condition and result, the verb tended to occur at the end (SOV order) (e.g. þæt ðec dryhtguma deaþ oferswiþeþ ‘lit. that you mighty ruler death overpowers’ (Beowulf 1768 in van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2006:57)). A VS order was common in interrogatives and commands, as well as in declarative clauses introduced by adverbials (e.g. þā ‘then/where’) or object noun phrases. An interrogative VS example is Hæfst þū ǣnigne gefēran? ‘lit. have you any companion?’ (Barber, Beal and Shaw Reference Barber, Beal and Shaw2009:127).

As already indicated, subject pronouns were optional in Old English, as is illustrated in the first line of the Old English poem Cædmon’s Hymn (West Saxon version given here): Nu we sculan herian heofonrices weard (lit. ‘Now [we] shall praise heaven-kingdom’s guardian’). Also, in contrast to Modern English, so-called pleonastic subjects like there and it did not exist. Neither was auxiliary DO used in questions and negations (as this was a later development in the language). It may also be pointed out that negative adverbs often preceded the verb in Old English (e.g. hleoþre ne miþe ‘lit. sound not conceal’ (Riddle 8, line 4, van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2006:71)). A final observation regarding syntactic style is that Old English often used coordination with and (paratactic style, replaced by the symbol 7 in manuscripts) in situations where Modern English would use subordination; see for instance this example from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (A-version, anno 755) in van Gelderen (Reference van Gelderen2006:69, ex. 37):

The change in inflectional morphology since the Old English period has had a great impact on English word order, as the following sections will show.

1.2.2.5 Lexicon

Like the grammar described above, the Old English lexicon was also largely Germanic, with the bulk being West Germanic. According to Minkova (Reference Minkova2005), only 3 per cent of the 30,000 words in Old English are non-Germanic. The Germanic vocabulary is characterised by its word formation, that is, words are generally created through compounding and affixation. This is well illustrated in the words wordhoard ‘vocabulary’ and frēondlīċ ‘friendly’ respectively. Kay (Reference Kay, Bergs and Brinton2012:317) notes that many Old English words can be clustered around a shared root, for example sorg ‘sorrow, distress’ with cearu ‘care’ in sorgcearu ‘anxiety’ and with byrðen ‘burden’ in sorg-byrðen ‘burden of sorrow’. Another example is the word mōd ‘mind’, which can be found in mōdhord ‘secret thoughts’, mōdcræftiġ ‘intelligent’, mōdful ‘arrogant’ or heahmōd ‘proud’. Regarding affixation, while prefixes had an effect on the meaning (e.g. negation or intensification, as found in oferfull ‘too full’ and misdǣd ‘misdeed’), suffixes often created different parts of speech (e.g. from līf ‘life’ (n) to līflēas ‘lifeless’ (adj)). For instance, the suffixes ‑e and ‑līce were used to create adverbs from adjectives such as dēop ‘deep’ vs. dēope ‘deeply’. While agent nouns were formed with ‑end and ‑ere (e.g. lærend ‘teacher’ and leornere ‘pupil, disciple’), abstract nouns were often created by affixing ‑dōm (wīsdōm ‘wisdom’), ‑hād (ċildhād ‘childhood’), ‑nes (yfelnes ‘evilness’), ‑scipe (frēondscipe ‘friendship’). It is thus possible to determine clear affixation patterns for Old English (for more details, see for instance Kay Reference Kay, Bergs and Brinton2012).

According to Baugh and Cable (Reference Baugh and Cable1993:53), only approximately 15 per cent of words recorded in Old English are still used in Modern English. Some of these words are mōdor ‘mother’, gōd ‘good’, and eorðe ‘earth’. Reasons for the limited transmission of Old English words are the influx of Norman French linked to the Norman Conquest, as well as the borrowing of terms from Latin, Greek, and other languages (see OED online for a detailed overview of words borrowed at different stages of the English language).

1.3.2.1 Orthography

In contrast to Old English, the non-Latin letters in the alphabet, thus those based on Germanic runes, gradually fell into disuse during the Middle English period, so that yogh <ȝ> was gradually replaced by <g> and <i> (but could still be found in texts for at least another 200 years), and thorn <þ> and eth <ð>, which had indicated a voice difference (voiceless and voiced respectively), no longer indicated that difference and were then eventually replaced by <th>. Another development concerned ash <æ>, which was interchanged with <a> or <e>. Finally, wynn <ƿ> fell into disuse around 1300, having varied with and then gradually been replaced by <u> and <uu> (Blake Reference Blake1996:117–18).

1.3.2.2 Phonology

As the Middle English sound system can only be reconstructed based on written sources, comparisons to modern dialects, and language reconstruction, the previously mentioned dialectal differences help to shed some light on the phonology. As different changes were going on at the time, it is also not possible to describe ‘the Middle English phonological system’. I will thus illustrate some of the changes that took place during the period. To start with developments from Old to Middle English, g/ȝ became [w] or [j], followed by a merger with a preceding vowel which resulted in a diphthong (e.g. dæg → day or ploga → plow (van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:122)). A well-known phenomenon that started in the Middle English period and continued thereafter is H-dropping. This can be illustrated through an example from Layamon’s Brut (line 223; van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:122): Ich abbe i min castlen seoue þusend kempen ‘I have in my castles seven thousand fighters’. H-loss can also be observed in consonant clusters such as hnacod ‘naked’ and hlaf ‘loaf’ (cf. Lass Reference Lass and Blake1992:61–3). Other consonants that were frequently deleted during the period are the glide [w], notably between consonants like [s] or [t] and a (back) vowel (e.g. swa → so and sweord → sword), nasals like hwilum → while, and liquids as in swilce → such. In contrast to Old English, the borrowing of French words starting with a [v] is believed to have introduced the sound to the Middle English consonant system in word-initial position. Van Gelderen (Reference van Gelderen2014:124) also observes that the velar nasal sound [ŋ] is restricted to use before other velars, and that [ʒ] has disappeared since the Middle English period.

The Middle English period also saw some changes to the vowel system, notably linked to vowel length and vowel height. As for vowel length, for instance, Old English short vowels lengthened before a nasal, liquid or a voiced plosive, as in lamb or mild. This did not, however, affect short vowels preceding clusters of three consonants, as in children; in fact, this explains the contrast between child (lengthened from short i to long ī, and later diphthongised) and children (non-lengthened i). An example illustrating vowel height is the West Saxon ā sound, which was spelled and pronounced <a> in the North but <o> in the other dialect areas, thus mast ‘most’, ham ‘home’ or ane ‘one’ in the North in contrast to the forms with <o>, which are nowadays found in the written standard. In contrast, short a, as in man and land, can be found spelled with an ‘o’ in the North (van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:123). For a more detailed account of phonological developments in the Middle English period, see Lass (Reference Lass and Blake1992).

1.3.2.3 Morphology

A number of important changes to the morphological system occurred during the Middle English period, such as the reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables, which is seen as explanation for the loss of grammatical gender as well as the levelling of the article forms. Similarly, case markers in nouns (except for the genitive case) and adjectives, and partly in pronouns, were affected. In fact, in comparison to Old English, the adjective in Middle English lost gender and case, as well as the weak–strong declension. The loss of grammatical gender also affected the nouns. Smith (Reference Smith, Bergs and Brinton2012:418) notes that this development, which is an effect of the loss of inflections, started in the North around 1200 and reached the South around 1400. At the same time, natural gender had gradually been increasing since late Old English.

The Middle English pronoun system, which contained personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, indefinite, and the newly acquired reflexives, retained the cases. Some interesting developments concern the introduction of feminine she and plural they (with many variant spellings), and a change in the second-person pronoun system, notably the spread of singular you for thou; as the use of the two forms often reflected status differences (with you expressing distance and thou familiarity), an influence from French may be detected here. Moreover, interrogatives like who and what started to be used as relative pronouns (Smith Reference Smith, Bergs and Brinton2012:420).

Verbs were more resistant to the changes than adjectives and nouns, which can be explained through the inflectional markers containing obstruent consonants that cannot be vocalised, ‑st in the second-person singular, ‑eth in the third-person singular and ‑ed in the past tense, for example (in contrast to nasal sonorants that were vocalised and then dropped) (Smith Reference Smith, Bergs and Brinton2012:415). A decline in inflections can, however, also be observed. This is considered to have started in the Northern dialect with the loss of the endings of the infinitive, the first-person plural indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. Similarly, the Northern dialect removed the prefix ȝe- that marked the past participle (i-/y- in the South) but kept the suffix ‑en. Smith (Reference Smith, Bergs and Brinton2012:423) observes that other dialects also had an effect on the new inflectional paradigm, with verbs in the Midlands replacing the present plural ‑eth with ‑en, which then spread to the South, and the West Midlands introducing the present participle form ‑ing(e). Generally, the grammatical categories of Old English verbs (i.e. person, number, tense, and mood) still existed in Middle English. The distinction between strong and weak verbs also continued, but some movement can be observed, with certain strong verbs acquiring weak endings (i.e. the ‑ed suffix in the past tense).

The study of Middle English morphology is particularly interesting as it illustrates the gradual shift of the English language from synthetic to analytic.

1.3.2.4 Syntax

The gradual loss of inflectional endings for case, gender and number, particularly on nouns, adjectives, demonstratives and pronouns, marks a transition period in which the English language became more analytic. Some syntactic developments during the Middle English period that are testament to this shift are the increase in demonstratives before a noun and the indefinite articles a and an, as well as the increased use of the periphrastic forms of the comparative and superlative of the adjective (e.g. more and most interesting). The periphrastic structure can also be found in relation to verbs. For example, auxiliary have and be occurred with the past participle in periphrastic constructions, as in The Flemmynges […] habbeth y-left here strange speche (Trevisa 1387 in Gramley Reference Gramley2012:96). In addition to the perfect, the progressive and the future also developed quickly during the period. The inflectional subjunctive mood got competition from the indicative and then also from the modal auxiliaries (see Moessner Reference Moessner2020 for details). Similarly, auxiliary DO started to be used around 1400, as evidenced in Chaucer’s The Monk’s Tale, 441–442 (van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:135): His yonge sone, that three was of age / Un-to-him seyde, fader, why do ye wepe? During the Middle English and Early Modern English periods, periphrastic DO tended to function as an affirmative; its use in questions and negations developed later (for more details, see Section 1.4.2.4 Syntax). Pleonastic subjects like there can also be found more frequently in Middle English texts (e.g. With hym ther was his sone, a yong squire (Canterbury Tales, Prologue 79; van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:134)). In the course of the Middle English period, an increase in embedded sentences can be observed, which led to an increase in the use of complementisers and relative pronouns. Also, while Old English displayed different word order patterns, Middle English became a firmly SVO language (on this issue and for a broader overview of Middle English syntax, see for instance Fischer Reference Fischer and Blake1992).

1.3.2.5 Lexicon

The lexicon of Middle English is considered to be very different from the Old English lexicon. Socio-political changes like the Norman Conquest in 1066 led to the borrowing of many words, while the formation of new words based on existing resources in English continued.

Sources for borrowing were particularly Latin and French, where the influence of the latter may be divided into two phases, notably 1066–1250 and 1250–1500. While the first phase saw the introduction of words likes baron, servant, and messenger, the second phase, which was much stronger, saw c. 10,000, words being borrowed, notably nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs. Generally, the borrowed words in both periods included the fields of government (royal, state, authority, duke, tax), law (judge, verdict, evidence), food (bacon, pork, pastry, orange), art and fashion (poet, fashion, lace), learning (study, grammar, surgeon, doctrine), and religion (temptation, divine, sanctity) (see van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:104–5), which also provides insight into the social and political function of (Norman) French.

As regards word formation, compounding, which was very productive during the Old English period, continued as a strategy for the creation of new words, particularly noun compounds such as bagpipe, schoolmaster, bloodhound and birthday. Adjective–noun compounds like grandfather, shortbread and highroad were also created in the Middle English period, as were nouns in which a verbal stem compounds with a nominal (e.g. leap-year). Other combinations like adjectives including two adjectival elements, like light-green, icy-cold, noun and past participle combined, as in moss-grown, moth-eaten, book-learned, and adjective and past participle combined, as in new-born, also existed (Sylvester Reference Sylvester, Bergs and Brinton2012:460). As regards derivation as a process of word formation, Sylvester (Reference Sylvester, Bergs and Brinton2012:461) notes that Middle English may have been the starting point of a development that led to a restructuring of the word-formation system, notably through borrowing from French and Latin. As a result, two derivational strata (i.e. a native one and a foreign one) can be found. While the native one is best described as word-based and base-invariant (e.g. allow-able), the foreign one is stem-based and reflects morphophonemic alternations (e.g. navig-able and pirate/piracy, infant/infancy respectively). As regards prefixes, many Old English prefixes disappeared and therefore made room for borrowings from French and Latin (see for instance Dalton-Puffer Reference Dalton-Puffer1996). Romance suffix innovations are, for instance, ‑ant and ‑arie, as in servant and secretary respectively, and ‑able, ‑al, ‑ous, as in measurable, moral, and jealous, for adjectives.

Due to the borrowing of many words, Middle English contains a number of synonyms, such as to begin vs. to commence. Moreover, semantic changes continued to take place, which can be well traced in the OED online.

1.4.1.1 The Emergence of a Supralocal Written Norm

According to Benskin (Reference Benskin, Leuvensteijn and Berns1992:71), a standard form of written English did not exist before the end of the fourteenth century. Rather, the language was characterised by local and regional dialects as writing systems. These had largely disappeared by the beginning of the sixteenth century. This indicates that dialect levelling and supralocalisation processes leading to the development of a linguistic norm for a written supra-regional variety must have largely taken place during the fifteenth century. This process was likely reinforced by the introduction of the printing press. While an important role in the development of an emerging written norm has for a long time been attributed to a London-based ‘(Chancery) Standard’ that then spread across England, this so-called ‘orthodox version’ of an emerging written norm (Wright Reference Wright and Wright2020b:3) has been convincingly challenged in several studies (e.g. Benskin Reference Benskin and Kay2004; Wright Reference Wright, Fernández, Fuster and Calvo1994, Reference Wright2000; Reference Wright2020a). It was likely a combination of many factors, and particularly the increased mobility and role of socially important people like members of trade and craft guilds, that led to a reduction of linguistic variants, which paved the way for a more uniform written norm (see Wright Reference Wright and Wright2020c:530).

1.4.2.1 Orthography

The introduction of the printing press had a great effect on the regulation of orthography during this period. Even though the spelling looks different from today and often seems irregular, a certain degree of uniformity can be noticed, alongside alternative spellings. Some of these alternatives are <y> for earlier <þ> (e.g. ye for the), <v> and <u> as well as <y> and <i> in certain positions in the word. Generally, a distinction between printed (public) and private writings can be observed, for instance concerning capitalisation and contractions. Moreover, archaic forms could occur alongside newer forms, as well as phonetic spellings; these variations continued into the Late Modern English period (cf. Osselton Reference Osselton, Rydén, Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Kytö1998a, Reference Osselton, Rydén, Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Kytöb).

1.4.2.2 Phonology

The Early Modern English period is characterised by several sound changes, the most important of which is the so-called Great Vowel Shift. This shift, which started in the late Middle English period and led to a mismatch between spelling and pronunciation, was a chain shift that affected the long vowels. More precisely, a whole set of sounds underwent change: the high vowels /iː/ and /uː/ diphthongised to [əɪ] and [əu] and then to [aɪ] and [au] in Modern English (e.g. tīme ~ time [tiːmə] → [təɪm] and fūl ~ foul [fuːl] → [fəul]). The long front vowels moved up one articulatory slot, so that /ē/ in meet [mēt] became [miːt], for example. As regards the long back vowels, in Southern England, they also moved up one articulatory slot (e.g. fool [foːl] → [fuːl]), while in the Northern part of the island /oː/ became /øː/ and /øː/ became /yː/, and /uː/ did not diphthongise, as reflected in the pronunciation of about and house (i.e. /əbuːt/ and /huːs/ respectively). Two theories exist concerning the starting point of the shift: (1) a pull chain whereby the highest long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ diphthongised first and the empty articulatory slots that they left behind were then filled by pulling the other long vowels upwards, or (2) a push chain whereby the high-mid vowels /eː/ and /oː/ started to rise first and then pushed the higher vowels up, leading the top ones to diphthongise. In addition to discussions concerning the starting point of the chain shift, different scenarios providing socially plausible explanations also exist. It is generally agreed that the sound change was largely complete by 1700 (for a more detailed discussion of the sound change, see for instance Fennell Reference Fennell2001:160–1; Krug Reference Krug, Bergs and Brinton2012). In contrast to the long vowels, the short vowel system remained comparatively stable except for some small shifts (see Lass Reference Lass and Wright2000 for details). Some other sound changes to be mentioned are the addition of [ʒ], as in vision, and [ŋ], as in sung, as phonemes to the consonant inventory. Some sounds were also lost, for example [r] in words like parcel, [k] and [w] in initial clusters like knight and write respectively. Moreover, H-dropping continued in initial position. Finally, stress should be mentioned briefly as the Germanic stress rules (i.e. typically on the first syllable, except for prefixes), which were dominant in Old and Middle English, were affected by the introduction of multi-syllable words borrowed from French and Latin with stress on the antepenultimate syllable. Due to these new words, the general rule changed and stress often occurred on later syllables (cf. van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:169).

1.4.2.3 Morphology

The loss of inflections continued into the Early Modern English period, resulting in an inflectional system that largely resembles that of today. Many of the linguistic changes taking place during this period have also been viewed with regard to sociolinguistic variation (see particularly Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg Reference Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg2017 [2003] based on the Corpus of Early English CorrespondenceFootnote ¹⁴). As regards case marking of nouns, only genitive ‑s and its allomorphs /ɪz/, /s/, /z/ as the plural morpheme survived after 1500. After late Middle English, the of-genitive was also increasingly used. The two variants could often be found in different contexts, with the ‑s-genitive on human nouns and on modifiers in subjective relation to the head (the mother’s return) and the of-genitive on inanimate nouns and on modifiers in objective relation to the head (the return of the mother). Another related construction is the so-called ‘his-genitive’ (e.g. the Count his gallies in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night), which emerged in the twelfth century due to homophony of genitive ‑s and weak forms of his where the /h/ was deleted, which was widespread during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Cowie Reference Cowie, Bergs and Brinton2012:604–5). As for the pronouns, one of the most important developments concerned the previously mentioned second-person you/thou distinction, whereby you as the polite form in a social hierarchy and as a neutral form among the upper layers of society started to spread downwards, with the result that you became the unmarked form by 1600. Thou continued to be used to illustrate asymmetrical relationships, particularly to express intimacy, and sometimes contempt (Cowie Reference Cowie, Bergs and Brinton2012:606). When thou gradually fell into disuse in the seventeenth century, so did the second-person verbal marker ‑st (e.g. thou walkest). Another much-researched change concerns the third-person singular present tense variants, notably ‑s and ‑th, which were in competition with each other throughout the period under discussion. While the ‑s variant was the Northern form that gradually spread southwards, the southern variant ‑th was associated with literary language, likely also supported by the printers. Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg (Reference Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg2017:122–3) illustrate the change based on correspondence and observe that the initial change to ‑s in the second half of the fifteenth century was led by the lowest ranks of those who were literate, while a second change around 1600 was led by the middle or upwardly mobile ranks, particularly women (for regional spread, see Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg Reference Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg2017:177 and Gordon, Oudesluijs and Auer Reference Gordon, Oudesluijs and Auer2020). As regards internal factors, it has been shown that lexical verbs adopted ‑s faster than auxiliaries HAVE and DO, which tend to retain the ‑th inflection much longer, particularly in certain text types. Within the context of language standardisation, the study of language change involving the interplay of different factors makes the Early Modern English period particularly interesting.

1.4.2.4 Syntax

The development towards a more analytic language continued during this period, with the word order becoming increasingly fixed, and more grammatical words entering the English language, with prepositions and determiners starting to replace cases. With the fixing of the word order, syntactic punctuation was introduced in the seventeenth century, particularly through the works of the playwright and poet Ben Jonson (1572–1637) (van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:177). Relatedly, subjects largely became obligatory, with only a few examples illustrating a lack thereof (e.g. Milton’s Paradise Regained (I, 85, in van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:175): This is my Son belov’d, in him am pleas’d.). Moreover, the grammaticalisation of lexical verbs continued, which led to the availability of more auxiliary verbs that were syntactically bound, frequently contracted, and whose meaning was bleached. In contrast to Old and Middle English, where negation was expressed by one or two negatives, multiple negation was reduced in the Early Modern English period, with not or nothing being used.

As previously pointed out, auxiliary DO had developed further during this period, being used in questions and negations, and had almost become the rule by 1700. It is important to point out that the development differed from text type to text type, but its rise seems to have been associated with more informal registers such as family letters (Nurmi Reference Nurmi1999). As for the role of different social layers of society, Nurmi (Reference Nurmi1999:189) notes that ‘social aspirers show greater reluctance than other informants in accepting the construction’, which may be interpreted as indicating that the change was driven by the lower layers of society. Another construction that increased in frequency during the Early Modern English period is the progressive (She is writing a letter). As for other developments during the period, a detailed overview and discussion can be found in Denison (Reference Denison1993), amongst others.

1.4.2.5 Lexicon

The Early Modern English period is of great interest when it comes to lexical borrowing. The renewed interest in the classical languages led to many new borrowings, particularly in the fields of science, medicine and religion. In the later part of the period, there was some opposition to the great number of borrowings, which were called ‘inkhorn terms’, indicating that these classical words needed much ink due to their polysyllabic nature. The tension between native (i.e. Germanic) and non-native vocabulary also reflected a status distinction whereby inkhorn terms were considered ‘learned’ and ‘bookish’ or ‘hard words’. The latter term continued to be used and also served as the basis for the earliest monolingual dictionaries such as Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabeticall, contayning and teaching the true writing and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English words, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French &c (Reference Cawdrey1604). In addition to providing words like quadrable, sporadic, invitation and susceptible, Greek and Latin also served as a model for coining new words, (e.g. blatant, episcopal). In addition to Latin and Greek as sources for words, the OED reveals that words were also still borrowed from French, and then from Dutch, Italian, Spanish and others. After all, trade and colonisation brought different countries and their languages into closer contact. Generally, changes to the lexicon during the period were particularly due to borrowing and coinage of words, while meaning shifts continued to take place (see for instance Durkin Reference Durkin2014).

1.5.1.1 The Codification and Prescription of Written and Spoken Norms

Changes to selected linguistic features during the Later Modern English period, particularly during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, are often viewed within the context of ongoing language standardisation, notably the codification stage, which is followed by the prescription stage that may be regarded as still ongoing (Haugen Reference Haugen1966; Milroy and Milroy Reference Milroy and Milroy1999; for proposed stages of standardisation, see also Deumert and Vandenbussche Reference Deumert and Vandenbussche2003 and Ayres-Bennett Reference Ayres-Bennett, Ayres-Bennett and Bellamy2021).

In contrast to codification processes in other languages like French, Italian or Spanish, England did not have an academy that fixed the written and spoken norms. Instead, well-educated individuals took it upon themselves to codify the English language in the form of grammar books, spelling books, dictionaries, pronunciation guides, and similar. Selected examples of these normative works that enjoyed great popularity in the Late Modern English period are Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (Reference Johnson1755), Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar (Reference Lowth1762), and John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (Reference Walker1791). The written variety promoted was strongly associated with a high level of education and social position, notably the polite language of educated gentlemen from London. Similarly, the ‘standard’ pronunciation to appeal to was the language spoken at the Court in the early eighteenth century, according to Sheridan (Reference Sheridan, Dodsley, Dilly and Wilkie1780: Preface). Interestingly, Sheridan, an Irishman, and Walker, a Scot, pointed out pronunciation mistakes by people from Ireland and Scotland, as well as Wales (in the case of Sheridan) and Cockney speakers (in the case of Walker) (cf. Beal Reference Beal2004:172). More generally, it may be argued that changes in society during the Industrial Revolution provided possibilities for social climbing, which may be linked to linguistic insecurity (cf. Crowley Reference Crowley1991:73). The linguistic manuals available could range from descriptive, prescriptive to proscriptive in nature, including variation depending on the specific linguistic features under discussion. Since early 2000 much research has been concerned with the systematic investigation of these normative works (see e.g. Tieken-Boon van Ostade Reference Tieken-Boon van Ostade2008, Reference Tieken-Boon van Ostade2010) as well as the effect that precepts in normative works had on actual language usage, which has been tested on linguistic corpora (cf. Auer Reference Auer2009; Auer and González-Díaz Reference Auer and González-Díaz2005; Anderwald Reference Anderwald2016). The type of data at researchers’ disposal is no longer focused only on the upper layers of society but also increasingly covers the entire social stratum (see Section 1.1.2 on literacy rates).

1.5.2.1 Orthography

Orthography had been largely codified by 1700 (cf. Scragg Reference Scragg1974:80), but variation nevertheless continued. A distinction needs to be made here between printed and handwritten texts. While a high degree of orthographic uniformity can be found in printed texts by the beginning of the Late Modern English period, variation continues to be found in handwritten, and particularly in private, documents such as letters and diaries. Well-educated writers in Late Modern England would have tended to follow the norms presented in reference works, but stylistic differences could still be found (see for instance Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s study of Jane Austen’s language Reference Tieken-Boon van Ostade2014: ch. 5). The language of unschooled writers, like many of the labouring poor, was often not in line with the norm, and spelling variation was found until the introduction of compulsory elementary schooling (and beyond). For instance, Auer, Gardner and Iten (Reference Auer, Gardner, Iten, Schiegg and Huber2023) show that long ‘s’, which first disappeared from print around 1800 and thereafter gradually in the letters of educated writers (cf. Fens-de Zeeuw and Straaijer Reference Fens-de Zeeuw and Straaijer2012), can frequently be found in pauper letters in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

1.5.2.2 Phonology

In contrast to previous periods where it was more difficult to describe the phonology, the codification processes that are reflected in pronouncing dictionaries and phonetic commentaries, as well as later dialect descriptions, have allowed for a better reconstruction of contemporary phonology. Within this context, it is also important to point out that the development of Received Pronunciation (RP) took place during the Late Modern English period (cf. Mugglestone Reference Mugglestone1995). While ‘proper’ pronunciation in the eighteenth century was based on educated speakers in London, the nineteenth century attached a sociolinguistic status to this model of pronunciation, which was at the time no longer only associated with London (see Beal Reference Beal2004:170–1, 184). Factors fostering the sociolectal status of RP are considered to be the expansion of the public school system linked with teacher and peer pressure as well as the creation of close-knit social networks (see Beal Reference Beal2004:186). Despite the non-localised nature of RP, its sociolectal status has led to accent discrimination that is still felt today (cf. Accentism ProjectFootnote ¹⁵) (see also Levey, this volume). A comprehensive discussion of Late Modern English phonology is not possible here (for a detailed discussion, see Jones Reference Jones2003). To illustrate one phonological change, Jones (Reference Jones, Bergs and Brinton2012:827) notes that the raising of [ee] to [ii] was completed in the eighteenth century, which led to a merger reflected in meat/meet and beat/beet.

1.5.2.3 Morphology

As regards morphological developments, the greatest simplifications had taken place prior to Late Modern English, but regularisation – also linked to codification and prescription processes – can be observed during the period (cf. Denison Reference Denison and Romaine1998; Görlach Reference Görlach1999, Reference Görlach2001).Footnote ¹⁶ A good amount of variation can be found in participial verb forms during the period (e.g. lighted vs. lit), notably linked to different text types, as well as printed versus handwritten texts. Similarly, regularisation can be found in preterite and past participle forms (cf. Gustafsson Reference Gustafsson2002). The Late Modern English period also saw different developments of the inflectional subjunctive in different constructions. While the function of the subjunctive in adverbial clauses such as if he go has largely been taken over by the indicative (if he goes) and modal verbs (if he should go) (see Auer Reference Auer, Dalton-Puffer, Kastovsky, Ritt and Schendl2006:44), a slight increase of the subjunctive in mandative contexts in British English has been observed (see Crawford Reference Crawford, Rohdenburg and Schlüter2009). Mondorf (Reference Mondorf, Bergs and Brinton2012:846) points out that the spread of the third-person singular ‑s inflection, which had largely propagated during the Early Modern English period at the expense of the Northern ‑th inflection, eventually supplanted high-frequency forms like hath, doth and saith in the Late Modern English period. The period also saw important changes to the reflexive structures, including the replacement of the reflexive by zero forms, such as indulge (oneself) in something, as well as the replacement of ‑self by the way construction (e.g. wound itself vs. wound its way (Mondorf Reference Mondorf, Bergs and Brinton2012:846–50)).

Moreover, an interesting variation can be observed between possessive noun phrases and objective noun phrases preceding verbal gerunds, which is illustrated in one and the same sentence in Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Wives and Daughters (1866): ‘I don’t mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened together. But I do mind you calling me a donkey,’ he replied. While prescriptivists attempted to ban the objective variant (you in the above example), both variants are considered grammatically correct today, with the possessive variant (your in the above example) having become associated with more formal contexts (Mondorf Reference Mondorf, Bergs and Brinton2012:857–8). A couple of other morphological variations/developments of interest are variable adverb marking (e.g. great vs. greatly (Rohdenburg Reference Rohdenburg and Kortmann2004)), and the development of the adjectival comparative form from synthetic to analytic (e.g. worthier vs. more worthy (González-Díaz Reference González-Díaz2008)). More detailed accounts of Late Modern English morphology, in addition to specialised, often corpus-based studies, can be found in Denison (Reference Denison and Romaine1998), Görlach (Reference Görlach1999, Reference Görlach2001) and Mondorf (Reference Mondorf, Bergs and Brinton2012).

1.5.2.4 Syntax

Even though most syntactic changes in the history of English took place during the Middle English period (Denison Reference Denison1993:x), some changes that have received some scholarly attention to date concern the period after 1700. The rise of electronic corpora like ARCHER and specialised genre corpora have allowed for increased research on syntactic changes. Generally, English continued to become more analytic, and the word order of Modern English was fixed as SVO. While the prescriptivist movement, which is nowadays often associated with pedagogical grammars and the education system, may have tried to prevent some syntactic changes on a formal level, variation has continued in different text types and contexts. A typical example of such a linguistic feature is preposition-stranding (e.g. The couch which I sat on), which has been stigmatised while so-called pied-piping has been favoured (i.e. The couch on which I sat) (see Yáñez-Bouza Reference Yáñez-Bouza2015 for a detailed study on the effect of normative works on actual preposition placement during the period 1500–1900). In her diachronic study, Yáñez-Bouza (Reference Yáñez-Bouza2015) observes that the trend to stigmatise preposition-stranding was started by John Dryden in the seventeenth century, and was then continued in proscriptions by eighteenth-century grammarians. As a result, preposition-stranding immediately declined (see Reference Yáñez-Bouza2015:306). In addition to the effect of prescriptivism, Yáñez-Bouza also shows that preposition-stranding (in contrast to pied-piping) is associated with informal language use (see also Levey, this volume).

An example of a grammatical innovation in the Late Modern English period is the progressive passive construction (e.g. The music is being played on the street), which emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. The progressive was previously avoided or expressed through an active progressive that had a passive meaning (e.g. But are there six labourers’ sons educating in the universities at this moment? (1850 Kingsley, Alton Locke xiii.138, as given in Denison Reference Denison and Romaine1998:151)). Like preposition-stranding, the progressive passive construction was condemned by nineteenth-century prescriptivists (see Bailey Reference Bailey1996:222–3). Despite attempts to stop the development of the construction, it is now part of the English language. Another passive construction that emerged and consolidated during the Late Modern English period is the get-passive construction (The flowers got stolen last night). Hundt (Reference Hundt2001:85) traces the increase and firm establishment of the construction in ARCHER from the eighteenth to the twentieth century (see Aarts et al. Reference Aarts, López-Couso, Ménez Naya, Bergs and Brinton2012:871–2 for more details). Aarts et al. (Reference Aarts, López-Couso, Ménez Naya, Bergs and Brinton2012:873) note that the Late Modern English period saw not only the emergence of new linguistic features but also the completion and regulation of a range of changes in syntactic domains such as the progressive, the perfect, and auxiliary DO linked to the verb phrase, and complementation and relative clauses linked to subordination. To briefly illustrate the progressive construction, the feature has existed since Old English times, it became established in Early Modern English (see Denison Reference Denison and Romaine1998:130), and was firmly integrated into the English language during the nineteenth century (see Smitterberg Reference Smitterberg2005:57–8), notably particularly in the genres of letters and drama. The increase in this linguistic feature continued in the twentieth century (see Hundt Reference Hundt2004). Like the progressive construction, relativisers were also regulated during the Late Modern English period: the wh-forms (which, whom, whose, who), that and ‘∅’ (null) had become established and several constraints had been imposed on them (e.g. the animacy parameter that distinguishes between animate who and inanimate which (see Aarts et al. Reference Aarts, López-Couso, Ménez Naya, Bergs and Brinton2012:882 for details)).

While only a snapshot of some of the syntactic changes could be presented here, the increasing availability of text corpora has led to a significant growth of research in the field of syntax.

1.5.2.5 Lexicon

With regard to the lexicon, this period was not only of great importance concerning the creation of norms (including orthography), such as the previously mentioned Dictionary of the English Language (Reference Johnson1755) by Samuel Johnson, and thereafter the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED; cf. Gilliver Reference Gilliver2016), but socio-political changes and innovations in science and technology led to the creation of new words and the introduction of words from other languages. This is illustrated in the timeline of the OED online (selection 1700–1945) in Table 1.5.

The numbers in Table 1.5 clearly show that the nineteenth century saw a great number of new words being introduced into the English language. When zooming in on the first half of the nineteenth century (with 108,927 new words) regarding subject areas, it is striking that the majority of words, notably 23,368, were categorised under Sciences, while 3,831 came under Crafts and Trades, 3,717 under Arts, 2,850 under Sport and Leisure, 2,345 under Transport, and 2,378 under Religion and Belief. The bulk (52,003) of these new words note ‘English’ as the language of origin, suggesting that these are newly created words, with 49,350 coming from other Indo-European languages. While this is merely a brief case study, it sheds new light on the development of the lexicon in modern times.

It is noticeable that new words entering the language can have a great variety of sources. They can be (a) loanwords from other languages (wanderlust, fait accompli, pasta), (b) new compounds (junkfood, green butcher), (c) new affixes (ex-ex-husband, prewoman), (d) clippings, mergers and inventions (dancercise, veggie-burger, hacktivist), (e) phrase words (a nobody-cares attitude), (f) conversion (a show-off (V to N)), (g) slang (depresso city), (h) acronyms and initialisms (FAQ for ‘frequently asked questions’ or LOL ‘laughing out loud’), (i) retronyms (landline phone, paper copy), or (j) onomatopoeia (tweet, Twitter) (van Gelderen Reference van Gelderen2014:226).

In addition to the creation and introduction of new words, words can also change their meanings over time. An example is the word silly, which means ‘foolish’ or ‘mentally incapable’ today.Footnote ¹⁷ The word derives from Old English *sælig, a cognate to the modern German selig and the Dutch zalig, which both mean ‘blissful’, ‘extremely happy’. The meaning of ‘blissful’ in English can be traced from the Old English period to the mid sixteenth century (meaning 2). During the same period, the OED also lists meanings ‘5. Innocent, harmless. Often as an expression of compassion for persons or animals suffering’ and ‘6.a. Deserving of pity or sympathy; pitiable, miserable, “poor”; helpless, defenceless’. In the early sixteenth century, the meaning of ‘foolish, simple, silly’ (meaning 8) was first recorded. The different semantic examples suggest that the ‘blissful’ or ‘blessed’ meaning of silly became interpreted as ‘innocent, harmless’ (i.e. eliciting compassion), but at the same time ‘helpless’ with the meaning of weak. From there, it would have gradually developed the meaning of ‘foolish’. This type of semantic change can best be described as pejoration. Other types of semantic change include amelioration (the meaning becomes more positive), widening (the meaning increases), narrowing (the meaning becomes narrower), metaphor (meaning change due to perceived similarity), metonymy (inclusion of additional meanings), hyperbole (meaning shift due to exaggeration), and taboo replacement. It is notable that these are not fixed categories, in that different scholars may use more categories while others conflate them (cf. Durkin Reference Durkin2009; see Traugott and Dasher Reference Traugott and Dasher2001:51–104 for an overview of prior work on semantic change).