Middle English

around 1400

hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich

licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,

That slepen al the night with open yë,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages):
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
(And palmers for to seken straunge strondes)
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

reduced to either /ə/ or /e/
Compare: writan – wrat

– writon – writen (Old English) and
writen – wrot – writen – writen (Middle English)

2. Three long monophthongs underwent the changes:
a: > o: æ: > e: y: > i:

3. Two short monophthongs changed:
æ > a y > i

/bred/

5. Appeared new diphthongs: /ai/, /ei/, /au/, /ou/
Old English:
daʒ >

dai greʒ > grei draʒan > drauen (draw)
boʒa > boue (bow)

6. No parallelism between long and short monophthongs

7. Vowel sounds /a/, /o/, /e/ become always long in open syllables or before ld, mb, nd. All vowels before two consonants become short (except ld, mb, nd)

6. /g’/ sound disappears

letters j, w, v and z were introduced.
ð >

th þ > w æ > e ʒ > y or g
2. Spelling stopped being exclusively phonetic and became closer to present day spelling, when the written form of the word differs from its pronunciation.
3. Appeared digraphs:
Ch (child); dg (bridge); gh (night); th (thunder); sh (shoe); ph (philosophy)
Ea (meal); ee (feet); oa (boat); oo (foot); ie (field); ou/ow (house)
4. Some words changed spelling: boc > book; mi > my; nou > now
Cumen > come Sunu > sone Lufu > love

the suffixes “-age”, “-ance/-ence”, “-ant/-ent”, “-ment”, “-ity” and “-tion”, or

starting with the prefixes “con-”, “de-”, “ex-”, “trans-” and “pre-”.
many nouns related to crown and nobility: crown, castle, prince, count, duke, viscount, baron, noble, sovereign, heraldry
government and administration: parliament, government, governor
court and law: court, judge, justice, accuse, arrest, sentence, appeal, condemn, plaintiff, bailiff, jury, felony, verdict, traitor, contract, damage, prison

peace, enemy, destroy
authority and control: authority, obedience, servant, peasant, vassal,

serf, labourer, charity
fashion and high living: mansion, money, gown, boot, beauty, mirror, jewel, appetite, banquet, herb, spice, sauce, roast, biscuit
art and literature: art, colour, language, literature, poet, chapter, question

from meat: beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, venison

Also, some English

and French words merged to form new words:
Gentle + man = gentleman

Often both English and French word stayed to form Synonyms:

- child, amity - friendship, battle - fight, liberty -

freedom, labour - work, desire - wish, commence - start, conceal - hide, divide - cleave, close - shut, demand - ask, chamber - room, forest - wood, power - might, annual - yearly, odour - smell, pardon - forgive, aid – help
Sometimes French word and English word both stayed, but the meaning became not identical:
Hearty – cordial
House – mansion
Doom – judgement

tenses:
hath perced to the roote
Inspired hath in every holt

and heeth
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne
hath holpen
2. Prepositions instead of suffixes:
droghte of Marche
Of Engelond

and genitive
(In Old English: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative)

More nouns begin

to be declined as a-stem nouns, adding –es (s) in plural forms.

beo nawt bune ed Godd,     Though purity of chastity

is no purchase from God, ah beo geove of grace, ungraciuse stondeð þer togeines     but is given out of grace, ungraciously (they) stand there against and makieð ham unwurðe to halden se heh þing,
and make themselves unworthy to hold so high (a) thing,  þe nulleð swinc þervore bliðeliche polien.     who will not effort for it joyfully suffer.                 (Ancrene Wisse, Part VI)

ale,
And seyde: 'abyd, Robin, my leve brother,
Som bettre man shal

telle us first another:
Abyd, and lat us werken thriftily.'
By goddes soul,' quod he, 'that wol nat I;
For I wol speke, or elles go my wey.'
Our Hoste answerde: 'tel on, a devel wey!
The Reve answerde and seyde, 'stint thy clappe,
Lat be thy lewed dronken harlotrye.
It is a sinne and eek a greet folye
To apeiren any man, or him diffame,
And eek to bringen wyves in swich fame.
Thou mayst y-nogh of othere thinges seyn.'
Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome.'

sawe Gryflet soo lye”;
“telle me yf thow sawest a straunge

best passe this waye”
“That shalle be done said Arthur / and more by the feith of my body that neuer man shalle haue that office but he whyle he and I lyue”
“thenne was there no more to saye”
“loke eueryche of yow kynges lete make suche ordinaunce that none breke vpon payne of dethe”

riden”;
“whan the sonne was to reste / So hadde I

spoken with hem everichon”
“Lord, to whom Fortune hath yiven Victorie”
“Singinge he was, or floytinge, al the day”
Appears voice:
“whan it was wonne”

Future:
“thenne was Arthur wroth & saide to hym self /

I will ryde to the chircheyard / & take the swerd with me that stycketh in the stone” (early Modern English, 15th century, Th. Malory).

development of Old English verbal noun with –ing ending and

Old English present participle. This development wasn’t complete by the end of the ME period, still lacking categories of tense and voice.
“Al was fee simple to him in effect, / His purchasing mighte nat been infect.”
What folk ben ye, that at myn hoom-cominge / Perturben so my feste with cryinge
Gerund in Early Modern English:
“and hadde their ansuere by mouthe and by wrytynge that tho two Kynges wold come vnto Arthur in all the hast that they myȝte”
Participle I, which existed in Old English, loses its ending –ende and acquires –inge.
“His eyen stepe, and rollinge in his heed”.
“His resons he spak ful solempnely, / Souninge alway thencrees of his winning”.

into the class of weak verbs:

enter the group of weak verbs:

demed  to deem – deemed
Loocian – loocoed – loocod

 to look – looked
Fyllan – fyllde – fyllan  to fill – filled

However, some weak verbs of the 1st class become irregular modern verbs: cepan – cepte – cept (to keep – kept)

or Scandinavian words?
80% of one-syllable words are Germanic (either native

or Norse)
80% of polysyllabic words are Latinate
About 95% of academic vocabulary is Latinate

it has a stressed pronunciation), ex-, in-, im-, e-, de-,

ad-, ab-, ob-
2. suffixes:
-ious, -ion, -ity, -ety, -us, -ous, -o, -que, -ic, -ude, -ia, -as, -ant, -ate, -ize, -em, -is, -ence, -ance, -ency, -ancy, -ine, -ent, -ant;
3. letter combinations:
-ct-; -mps-; -ips-

(when it has an unstressed pronunciation), for-, wh-,
2. suffixes:
-ish, -some,

-ly, -ing, -ful, -less, -red, -the, -lf, -mb, -hood, -dom, -ye
3. letter combinations:
kn, gh, ck. Also: ow (there are exceptions), th (if the word doesn’t show any signs of being Greek instead, like “theme”)
4. k is usually in words of Old Norse origin (but „pork“ is French)

Language
Old English: 5th – 11th centuries
Middle English: 12th – 15th

centuries
Early Modern English: The end of 15th – 18th centuries
Late Modern English: 18th century – present

(род): Masculine, Feminine, Neuter
Case (падежи): Nominal, genitive, dative, accusative

and 8 declensions: a-stem, n-stem, s-stem, root-stem and others
Number: singular and plural

13th-14th century English:
In Phonetics:
1. Parallelism between long and short

sounds ceased to exist!
2. Old English diphthongs all were contracted; 3. appeared modern diphthongs; 4. disappeared g’ sound

In spelling:
Appeared: letter “w”, digraphs gh, th, ch, sh,
Disappeared: runic letters

In vocabulary:
arrived a lot of new words from Old French, some of them replaced old English words (like council replaced witan), some became synonyms.