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CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH.

1. The Oldest English Synthetic. The oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon, that was brought over here in the fifth century, was a language that showed the relations of words to each other by adding different endings to words, or by synthesis. These endings are called inflexions. Latin and Greek are highly inflected languages; French and German have many more inflexions than modern English; and ancient English (or Anglo-Saxon) also possessed a large number of inflexions.

2. Modern English Analytic.-When, instead of inflexions, a language employs small particles-such as prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and suchlike words to express the relations of words to each other, such a language is called analytic or noninflexional. When we say, as we used to say in the oldest English, "God is ealra cyninga cyning," we speak a synthetic language. But when we say, "God is king of all kings," then we employ an analytic or uninflected language.

3. Short View of the History of English Grammar. From the time when the English language came over to this island, it has grown steadily in the number of its words. On the other hand, it has lost just as steadily in the number of its inflexions. Put in a broad and somewhat rough fashion, it may be said that

(i) Up to about 1100-one generation after the Battle of Senlac -the English language was a SYNTHETIC Language.

(ii) From the year 1100 or thereabouts, English has been losing its inflexions, and gradually becoming more and more an ANALYTIC Language.

4. Causes of this Change.-Even before the coming of the Danes and the Normans, the English people had shown a tendency to get rid of some of their inflexions. A similar tendency can be observed at the present time among the Germans of the Rhine Province, who often drop an n at the end of a word, and show in other respects a carelessness about grammar. But, when a foreign people comes among natives, such a tendency is naturally encouraged, and often greatly increased. The natives discover that these inflexions are not so very important, if only they can get their meaning rightly conveyed to the foreigners. Both parties, accordingly, come to see that the root of the word is the most important element; they stick to that, and they come to neglect the mere inflexions. Moreover, the accent in English words always struck the root; and hence this part of the word always fell on the ear with the greater force, and carried the greater weight. When the Danes -who spoke a cognate language-began to settle in England, the tendency to drop inflexions increased; but when the Normans-who spoke an entirely different language-came, the tendency increased enormously, and the inflexions of AngloSaxon began to "fall as the leaves fall" in the dry wind of a frosty October. Let us try to trace some of these changes and

losses.

5. Grammar of the First Period, 450-1100.-The English of this period is called the Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon. The gender of nouns was arbitrary, or it may be-poetical; it did not, as in modern English it does, follow the sex. Thus nama, a name, was masculine; tunge, a tongue, feminine; and eáge, an eye, neuter. Like nama, the proper names of men ended in a; and we find such names as Ida, Offa, Penda, as the names of kings. Nouns at this period had four cases, with inflexions for each; now we possess but one inflexion-that for the possessive. -Even the definite article was inflected.-The infinitive of verbs ended in an; and the sign to—which we received from the

Danes-was not in use, except for the dative of the infinitive. This dative infinitive is still preserved in such phrases as a house to let ; ""bread to eat ; "" "water to drink."-The present participle ended in ende (in the North ande). This participle in time dropped its own proper termination, and accepted ing from the verbal noun, to which (under the modern name of gerund) it communicated some of its own syntactical peculiarities.-The plural of the present indicative ended in ath for all three -There persons. In the perfect tense, the plural ending was on. was no future tense; the work of the future was done by the present tense. Fragments of this usage still survive in the language, as when we say, "He goes up to town next week."-Prepositions governed various cases; and not always the objective (or accusative), as they do now.

6. Grammar of the Second Period, 1100-1250.—The English of this period is called Early English. Even before the coming of the Normans, the inflexions of our language had-as we have seen-begun to drop off, and it was slowly on the way to becoming an analytic language. The same changes-the same simplification of grammar, has taken place in nearly every Low German language. But the coming of the Normans hastened these changes, for it made the inflexional endings of words of much less practical importance to the English themselves.-Great changes took place in the pronunciation also. The hard c or k was softened into ch; and the hard guttural g was refined into a y or even into a silent w.-A remarkable addition was made to the language. The Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon had no They said ofer stán for on a rock. the French have made the article un out of the Latin unus, so the English pared down the northern ane (= one) into the article an or a. The Anglo-Saxon definite article was se, seo, þaet; and in the grammar of this Second Period it became þe, þeo, þe. The French plural in es took the place of the English plural in en. But housen and shoon existed1 for many centuries after the Norman coming; and Mr. Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, always deplored the ugly sound of nests and fists, and wanted to be able to say and to write nesten and fisten.-The dative plural, which ended in um, becomes an e or an en. The um,

indefinite article.

1 Both forms still exist in dialect.

But, as

however, still exists in the form of om in seldom (=at few times) and whilom (in old times). The gender of nouns falls into confusion, and begins to show a tendency to follow the sex. -Adjectives show a tendency to drop several of their inflexions, and to become as serviceable and accommodating as they are now-when they are the same with all numbers, genders, and cases. The an of the infinitive becomes en, and sometimes even the n is dropped.—Shall and will begin to be used as tense-auxiliaries for the future tense.

7. Grammar of the Third Period, 1250-1350.-The English of this period is often called Middle English. The definite article still preserves a few inflexions.—Nouns that were once masculine or feminine become neuter, for the sake of convenience.—The possessive in es becomes general.—Adjectives make their plural in e.—The infinitive now takes to before it—except after a few verbs, like bid, see, hear, etc.—The present participle in inge makes its appearance about the year 1300.

8. Grammar of the Fourth Period, 1350-1485.—This may be called Later Middle English. An old writer of the fourteenth century points out that, in his time—and before it—the English language was a-deled a thre," divided into three; that is, that there were three main dialects, the Northern, the Midland, and the Southern. There were many differences in the grammar of these dialects; but the chief of these differences is found in the plural of the present indicative of the verb. This part of the verb formed its plurals in the following manner :

In time the Midland dialect conquered; and the East Midland form of it became predominant all over England. As early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, this dialect had thrown off most of the old inflexions, and had become almost as flexion

1 This plural we still find in the famous Winchester motto, "Manners maketh man.'

less as the English of the present day. Let us note a few of the more prominent changes.-The first personal pronoun Ic or Ich loses the guttural, and becomes L.-The pronouns him, them, and whom, which are true datives, are used either as 'datives or as objectives. The imperative plural ends in eth. "Riseth up," Chaucer makes one of his characters say, "and stondeth by me!"-The useful and almost ubiquitous letter e comes in as a substitute for a, u, and even an. Thus nama becomes name, sunu (son) becomes sune, and withutan changes into withute. The dative of adjectives is used as an adverb. Thus we find softë, brightë employed like our softly, brightly. -The n in the infinitive has fallen away; but the ë is sounded as a separate syllable. Thus we find brekë, smitë for breken and smiten.

9. General View.-In the time of King Alfred, the WestSaxon speech-the Wessex dialect—took precedence of the rest, and became the literary dialect of England. But it had not, and could not have, any influence on the spoken language of other parts of England, for the simple reason that very few persons were able to travel, and it took days—and even weeks—for a man to go from Devonshire to Yorkshire. In course of time the Midland dialect-that spoken between the Humber and the Thames became the predominant dialect of England; and the East Midland variety of this dialect became the parent of modern standard English. This predominance was probably due to the fact that it, soonest of all, got rid of its inflexions, and became most easy, pleasant, and convenient to use. And this disuse of inflexions was itself probably due to the early Danish settlements in the east, to the larger number of Normans in that part of England, to the larger number of thriving towns, and to the greater and more active communication between the eastern seaports and the Continent. The inflexions were first confused, then weakened, then forgotten, finally lost. The result was an extreme simplification, which still benefits all learners of the English language. Instead of spending a great deal of time on the learning of a large number of inflexions, which are to them arbitrary and meaningless,