Development of new grammatical forms and categories of the verb

Growth of New Forms within the Existing Grammatical Categories.

The Future Tense.

In the OE language there was no form of the Future tense. The category of Tense consisted of two members: Past and Present. The Pres. tense could indicate both present and future actions, depending on the context. Alongside this form there existed other ways of presenting future happenings: modal phrases, consisting of the verbs sculan, willan, ma3an, cunnan and others (NE shall, will, may, can) and the Infinitive of the notional verb. In these phrases the meaning of futurity was combined with strong modal meanings of volition, obligation, and possibility.

In ME the use of modal phrases, especially with the verb shall, became increasingly common. Shall plus Inf. was now the principal means of indicating future actions in any context. (We may recall that the Pres. tense had to be accompanied by special time indicators in order to refer an action to the future.) Shall could retain its modal meaning of necessity, but often weakened it to such an extent that the phrase denoted “pure” futurity. (The meaning of futurity is often combined with that of modality, as a future action is a planned, potential action, which has not yet taken place.).

Future happenings were also commonly expressed by ME willen with an Inf., but the meaning of volition in will must have been more obvious than the modal meaning of shall:

It has been noticed that the verb will was more frequent in popular ballads and in colloquial speech, which testifies to certain stylistic restrictions in the use of will in ME.

In the age of Shakespeare the phrases with shall and will, as well as the Pres. tense of notional verbs, occurred in free variation; they can express “pure” futurity and add different shades of modal meanings. Phrases with shall and will outnumbered all the other ways of indicating futurity.

New Forms of the Subjunctive Mood.

In OE the forms of the Subj. Mood, like other forms of the verb, were synthetic. In the course of ME and Early NE there sprang up several new analytical forms of the Subj. Mood. The sources of the new forms as well as the ways of their development are in many respects similar to those of the Future tense.

In ME the formal distinctions between the Subj. and Ind. Moods were to a large extent neutralised. The increased homonymy of the forms stimulated the more extensive use of modal phrases, indicating imaginary and probable actions.

ME sholde and wolde could weaken or even lose their lexical meanings and turn into auxiliaries. By the age of Shakespeare the change was complete and the forms should/would — originally Past Subj. of shall and will — had become formal markers of the new, analytical forms of the Subj. Mood.

The use of should and would as mood auxiliaries was supported by the parallel development of shall and will as the auxiliaries of the Future tense. The rules prescribing the distribution of shall and will according to person applied also to should and would. Consequently, in the course of the 18th and 19th c. should became the dominant auxiliary for the 1st p., would — for the 2nd and 3rd; those were the rules of correct usage in Standard Br E. At the same time, similarly with will and shall, would and –‘d tended to replace should. The replacement has been completed in Am E and is still going on in Br E, perhaps, under American influence.