Continuous Forms

The origin of the continuous forms is not quite clear. There may be two sources:

(1) OE phrases consisting of the verb «bēon» and the present participle in -ende, which denoted a state of the person or thing, expressed by the subject of the sentence, like wæs ʒonʒende, sprecende wæs (Bede); Syngynde he was or floytynge al day (Chaucer) (He was singing or playing the flute all day long).

(2) OE phrases consisting of the verb «bēon», the preposition on (or its reduced form and a verbal noun in -inʒ, like hē is on huntinʒe (he is in hunting, he is hunting); She wyst not… whether she was a-waking or a-slepe (Caxton) (She did not know whether she was awake (was on waking) or asleep.

The prepositional phrase indicated process, taking place at a certain period of time.The meaning of process acquired by the continuous forms in Early NE may have come from the prepositional phrase.

In the XV-XVI cс. the two phrases were often confused, which was obviously connected with the disappearance of the OE participle in –ende and its substitution by a new participle in -inge.

Thus, it is quite possible that the continuos forms resulted from the merging of OE –ende phrases with OE phrases in -inʒ.

By the end of the ME period the continuous forms were widely spread, but it was not until the XVIII c. that the opposition of the continuos and non-continuous forms made up a new grammatical category – aspect.

3.8.7. Development of the Syntactic System

Subject In OE the distinctive feature of the subject was its nominative case. In ME with the loss of case endings, the nominative, dative and accusative cases merged into the common case, and only the position of a noun (and not its case inflexion as in OE) could show whether it was the subject or the object.

Now the place before the predicate belonged to the subject and after the predicate – to the object, which is confirmed by the predominance of this word order in statements in prosaic texts and also, indirectly, by the transition of the impersonal sentences into personal.

In OE the formal subject «hit» was used only in the impersonal sentences indicating weather phenomena. In ME the subject «it» occurs in all types of impersonal sentences, e.g.

For it reyned almost euery ethir day. (Brut, about 1205) (For it rained almost every other day.)

Of his falshede it dulleth me to ryme. (Chaucer, about 1384-1400) (Of his falsehood it annoys me to speak.)

The structure «Me thinketh it» gradually yielded to the word order «It seemed me» (it seemed to me). In Late ME the impersonal constructions of the type «me liketh» (R Мне нравится) changed into «I like».

Closely connected with this tendency was the development of new interrogative forms with «do». The use of «do» made it possible to retain, at least, the notional part of the predicate after the subject in interrogative sentences, but the old forms with the predicate before the subject went on functioning alongside even in Early NE.

Cf. Madam, how do you like this play? – Madam, how you like this play?

What doth this meane, my Lord? – What meanes this, my Lord? (Shakespeare, Hamlet, about 1600)

Due to the growth of new verb forms, the subject could now denote not only the agent but also the recipient of the action. In the pattern «the manne liketh» the noun was understood as the subject, though originally it was an object in the dative case (Cf R Мне нравится).

The OE inverted word order remained in the statements opening with an adverbial modifier of place and time or object, where the predicate preceded the subject, e.g.

Than went thai to king in hy, and hym salusit full curtasly (The Bruce, 1375) (Then they went to the king and saluted him courteously) – Cf (Затем пошли они к королю, и его приветствовали учтиво.)

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, (Chaucer) (Then folks long to go on pilgrimages.). …and thidir com alle the lordes. (and there came all the lords.)

For hym was levere have at his beddes heed twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed (Chaucer)

(For he would rather have at the head of his bed twenty books bound in black or red)

Alongside there was direct word order in sentences beginning with an adverbial modifier, e.g. erlich in a morning þai seye a bot cum waiueing (early one morning they saw a boat come tossing)

The weakening and loss of inflections resulted in the weakening of agreement and government. The tendency grew to place the modifiers as closely as possible to the words they modified.

Attribute In OE the attribute was mostly expressed by the adjective, which possessed gender, number and case inflections. In ME there were still some cases of agreement of the noun and an adjective in number.

Cf. Goode men, herkneth everych on. (Chaucer) (Good men, listen) – A good man was ther of religioun (Chaucer) (There was a good man, a priest).

The last traces of agreement in adjectives were lost in the 15-th c. when the inflection -e was lost and the adjective took position before the noun or between the noun and its determiners: articles and pronouns (enclosure).

The postposition of the adjective modifiers was in complete agreement with the OE usage, but some linguists attribute it to the French influence, e.g.

brother dere (dear brother), woundes newe (new wounds).

A noun in the attributive function had the form of the genitive case. It was also joined to the modified word by the preposition «of». In Chaucer’s time the inflectional genitive was used both, with animate and inanimate nouns, e.g.

fadres sone (father’s son), seintes lore (saint’s lore), every shires ende (end of every shire), the sergeaunts of the toun of Rome (the officials of the town of Rome), men of armes (men of arms)

Verb-Predicate In OE the verb took various objects (direct and indirect) and adverbial modifiers expressed by the oblique cases of nouns. The indirect object was expressed by the genitive, accusative and dative cases. Most prepositions governed the dative case, e.g.

he ūs hafað þæs leohtes (Genetive case) bescyrede (they deprived us of this light)

In ME the genitive case was no longer used in verb phrases. It occurred only in the attributive function and was restricted to noun phrases, e.g.

the cause of everiche maladye (Chaucer) (the cause of every malady), a compaignye of sundry folk (Chaucer) (a company of different people)

In ME with the fusion of all the cases into the common case, the use of prepositions in verb phrases grew, and so did the number of transitive verbs, which took an object without a preposition, e.g.

Mars shal helpe his knyght.

ME witnessed a remarkable growth of link-verbs: about 80 verbs occur as copulas in texts between the 15-th and 18-th c. The new link verbs made up for the loss of some OE prefixes and compound verbs, denoting the growth of a quality or the transit6ion into a state, e.g.

It falleþ profyte to summe men to be bounde to a stake. (Wyklif) (It appears good for some men to be bound to a stake.) The rose looks fair (Shakespeare).

Negation The negative particle «not» gradually ousted the negative particle«ne» used with verbs. In the 11-th c. «do» combines with «not» in negative sebtences, e.g.

Thou dost not love her.

The two forms of expressing negation coexist for a long time alongside, e.g.

We do not know how he may soften at the sight o’ the child… (Shakespeare) – I know not why, nor wherefor to say live, boy… (Shakespeare).

The analytical forms with «do» became widespread by the end of the XVII c.

The use of several negative particles and forms continued throughout the ME period, e.g.

No berd hadde he, ne nevere sholde have (Chaucer) (He had no beard and never would have one.) He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde in al his lyf. (Chaucer) (He (had) never said a rude word in his life yet) Cf (Он еще никогда не сказал ни одного грубого слова в жизни.)

Gradually multiple negation went out of use. In the 18-th c., in the age of Correctness, multiple negations were banned as illogical.