Change And Development In The English Language - Essay Example

Change and Development in the English Language Thesis ment: Phonologic and syntactic changes in Old English contributed greatly to the formationof Middle English and a profound analysis of the language of the 'paternoster' in Old and Middle English which compares their phonology and syntax illustrates how these changes were influential in the development of Middle English from the Old English. Topic Sentence 1: A comparative analysis of Old English phonology and syntax with that of Middle English, as evident from the main texts of these periods such as the 'paternoster', proves that Middle English is strikingly different from the Old English: "ME is so strikingly different from OE that unsophisticated observers have been known to assign ME to Romance languages, while OE.

is evidently Germanic." (Domingue, 90) Topic Sentence 2: The Middle English phonological component, as against that of the Old English, exhibits significant innovations such as the addition of a French stress pattern carried by the lexical loans and the reinforcement of a phonemic status for the voiced fricatives which also contributed to the development of the Middle English. Topic Sentence 3: Another chief characteristic that helped in the formation of the Middle English is the lack of any specific standards as in the Old English and "the fact that there was no written standard in Middle English as in Old English gives us evidence that these changes took place at different times in different areas.

" (Trips, 7) Topic Sentence 4: Syntactic differences between Old English and Middle English can be apparently comprehended and "While (classical) Old English had a rather elaborate inflectional system for both verbs and nouns, much of this had withered away by early Middle English, and further reductions took place in the course of the Middle English period." (Fischer, 69) Changes in Old English and the Formation of Middle English There have been significant changes in the Middle English phonology and syntax compared to Old English which helped the development of Middle English.

In a reflective analysis of the language of the 'paternoster' in Old and Middle English, one notices that vital alterations in phonology and syntax have taken place in the Middle English and this is reflected in all the major texts of the period. "ME appears as a language whose syntax and phonology are mainly Germanic with important restrictions described, and whose lexicon is in great part non-Anglo-Saxon. ME looks like a creole because of its innovative characteristics. while OE, Scandinavian, and French were all heavily inflected languages, ME has no grammatical gender, only remnants of noun categories, case endings, and verbal inflections, and no trace of rounded vowels.

" (Domingue, 93) These changes in the Middle English phonology and syntax in comparison to Old English are most significantly reflected in the 'paternoster' in Old and Middle English and the phonological and syntactic changes abound in the prayer. The Middle English phonological component, as against that of the Old English, exhibits significant innovations such as the addition of a French stress pattern carried by the lexical loans and the reinforcement of a phonemic status for the voiced fricatives which also contributed to the development of the Middle English.

Another chief characteristic that helped in the formation of the Middle English is the lack of any specific standards as in the Old English. The changes in the syntactic structure of the language over the periods are of particular interest and the "Middle English syntax is characterized by greater variability than Old English syntax. This is due . to the lesser degree of standardization of written language in Middle English, and to the bulk of the material that has survived, which exhibits more regional, stylistic and/or social variation than is found in the surviving Old English texts.

" (Fischer, 68) In short, these changes are clearly illustrated in the language of the 'paternoster' in Old and Middle English. Works Cited Domingue, Nicole Z. "Middle English: Another Creole" Journal of Creole Studies. De Sikkel Publishers. Vol. 1. Iss. 1. 1977. P 90. Fischer, Olga. The syntax of early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2000. P 69. Trips, Carola. From OV to VO in Early Middle English. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2002. P 7.