6. The Passive Voice.

As we stated above there were combinations in OE composed of the verbs ‘weorþan/beon’ + Participle II. ‘Weorþan’ + Participle II denoted a state.

In Middle English ‘weorþan’ was ousted altogether and ‘ben’ + Participle II could denote both an action and a state: e.g.

I wol yow telle as was me taught.

/I will tell you as it was told to me/.

And cryed was loude.

/Was loudly proclaimed/.

Of this was I ones lerned of a clerk.

/As I was once learned by a clerk/.

The Passive Voice began to be used very widely in Middle English. The members of the sentence were still in free order though it was evolving in what it is now. E.g. The king(e) was given a book. The inflexion ‘-e’ was gradually lost and the first noun became associated with the subject while the former subject ‘a book’ became a direct object. The prepositions ‘by’ and ‘with’ which introduce respectively an agent and an instrument in modern passive constructions were accepted later. In Middle English the use of prepositions in such cases was irregular: e.g. To chyrche was min husbond taken with neighbours./ My husband was taken to church by neighbours/.

The Perfect. OE forms of the type ‘habban’ + Participle II little by little acquired the meaning of the action that was prior to some other action. In Middle English we find a clearly developed Perfect with ‘haven’ and ‘ben’ + Participle II.

e.g. So hadde I spoken with hem everichon...

At night were come into that hostelrye...

The forms with ‘be’ were eliminated in ENE though the type ‘is come’, ‘is gone’, ‘is returned’ remains as scarce remnants of that usage.

In Middle English the present Perfect might be used in the past as well, e.g. That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke. In the Early New English the past Perfect richly developed, the reason of which was a very extensive use of complex sentences.

Already in Middle English Perfect forms denoted an action rather than a state, that is why they presented a new verbal category - the Perfect.

The Continuous. In Old English we find a combination of ‘beon’ + Participle I which has been treated as the prototype of the Continuous form by many linguists, e.g.

Hie wxron feohtende ealne dxZ.

They were fighting all day long.

Limitation to a certain period of time which is the distinction of the Continuous form is entirely lacking in OE collocations of the type. These were pre-eminently compound nominal predicates rather than aspect forms and continued to exist in ME though on a very limited scale, e.g.

Singinge he was or floytinge al the day. /Chaucer/

He was singing or playing the flute all day long.

The utterance renders a habitual action. In ME this kind of predicate did not occur often. The continuous aspect may be traced back to the combination of “be” and a verbal noun preceded by a preposition. E.g.

And they found him there he was on huntinge.

The palace was in building.

A very close connection of the two parts of this collocation is obvious. Being in an unstressed position the preposition ‘in/on’ levelled into ‘a’ in 16 c. E.g.

She was a wakyng or a slepe.

Later on ‘a’ is eliminated and the former verbal noun becomes associated with the present participle. As soon as the preposition is lost we may speak about the continuous form. The fact that the Continuous developed very lately (17, 18 c.c.) shows that it had not come from OE ‘beon’ + Participle I. The number of verbs which are used in the Continuous is fairly limited. Complex continuous forms appear much later though perfect continuous structures were possible in ME. E.g.

We han ben waytinge al this fourtenight. /Chaucer/. For the rise of passive continuous forms see further.

SYNTAX AND VOCABULARY

1. Word order and sentence in Middle English.

2. Scandinavian element in English.

3. Norman French element in English.

1. The structure of Middle English sentence did not undergo any significant changes as compared to that of OE. The system of the members of the sentence and the way of their expression were modified but slightly.

OE types of word order: 1) the synthetic order, 2) the direct order, and 3) the inversion, were in active use, but the direct order of words assorted itself more and more. By the end of the period a separate word did not show what part of speech it was, since the endings were lost for good; so syntactic functions became more and more important. Positions of the subject, the predicate and a direct object in the sentence became fixed; e.g. He knew the cause of everiche maladye. Still the word order was not as fixed as it is in Modern English, inversion being extremely popular; e.g. Short was his gowne. Hise parichens devoutly wolde he teche.

The synthetic order of words still occurred in Middle English though very seldom; e.g. And his armes he hem alle up hente. She hir love him graunted.

In Early New English the synthetic order of words was eliminated. Since the direct order of words was coming to be fixed the sentence structure acquired a certain more or less rigid pattern where the subject stood at the head of the sentence followed by the predicate. This order becoming obligatory, former OE impersonal sentences had their structure changed. The place of the subject in the sentence couldn’t remain empty and it was filled up by the pronoun ‘it’, e.g.

In the Month of Auguste

was it proclamed thoroghoute

Yngelond that alle Erischmen be at hom...

It is full fair to been ycleped me dame.

It thoghte me.

There is a connection between this fact and certain morphological phenomena: the absence of endings made conversion possible as one of the types of word-building. But conversion meant that the noun and the verb had identical basic forms. Unless each part of speech had a definite syntactical function, conversion might cause confusion. This made the rigid order of words still more necessary. Within 15 c. subjectless sentences were out of the question.

Middle English compound sentences were joined asyndetically or by means of conjunctions ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’. E.g.

He herde it wel but he ne spak right.

/He heard it well but said nothing/.

At seasiouns there was he lord and sire;

ful ofte tyme he was knight of the shire.

Complex sentences included subordinate clauses of various kinds:

Subject clauses:

It was proved by experiens that there were

com to Ynglond so many Erischmen.

Object clauses: e.g.

He swore on a book that he schuld nevyr

meynten no swich opiniones.

Attributive clauses:

Another nonne with hire haddle

she, that was hire chapeleyne...

Adverbial clauses of time, place, purpose, condition, concession, etc.:

Of time: ... And whan he rood, men myghte his brydel heere gynglen...

Of condition: If evyr thou breke thin ooth, thou shal deye a foul deth.

Parenthesis was widely used in Middle English: e.g.

... And made forward early for to ryse, to take oure wey ther, as I yow devyse.

2. Middle English vocabulary was excessively enriched on account of word-building means, semantic development and the wide influx of Scandinavian and French borrowings.

It goes without saying that there were scores of common words in daily use which would be similar in form whether they came from English or Scandinavian: words like ‘father’, and ‘mother’; ‘man’ and ‘wife’; ‘town, gate, room’; ‘ground, land, tree and grass’; ‘life, folk’; ‘summer, winter’. Many verbs were the same, especially simple monosyllabic verbs like ‘bring, come, bear, meet, ride, see, set, sit, smile, spin, stand, think, will’; adjectives like ‘full, wise’, names of colours ‘grey, green, white’ etc.

Of Scandinavian words which had found no parallel in English those were borrowed that referred to government and Law. The word ‘law’ is itself Scandinavian and it signifies ‘that which is laid down’. ‘By-law’ is ‘village or local law’. An ‘out-law’ is ‘a man outside the law’. ‘Husband’ from ‘husbondi’ is ‘one who manages a house’. ‘Fellow’ from ‘felagi’ is ‘one who lays down ‘fe’ or money’.

Names of certain parts of the human body also come from Scandinavian: ‘calf, leg, skin, skull’. Among names of animal we find ‘bull, kid, rein (deer)’. Other substantives include ‘anger, axle, band, bank, birth, crook, dirt, gait, gap, haven, keel, knife, loan, root, scales, score, scrap, seat, skill, sky, slaughter, snare, trust, want, window’ etc. There are adjectives of Scandinavian origin: ‘awkward, flat, happy, ill, loose, low, meek, odd, rotten, rugged, seemly, sly, tight, ugly, weak’; verbs: ‘call, flit, gasp, glitter, lift, nag, rake, scare, scout, scowl, skulk, snub, sprint, take, thrust’, etc.: ‘cut’ has caused English ‘carve’ and ‘die’ has caused English ‘starve’ to have their meaning restricted. There are pronouns ‘they, their, them’ as well as ‘both’ and ‘same’; prepositions ‘fro, till, until’.

Pronunciation of some English words was influenced by relative Scandinavian forms. Today we say ‘sister’ from Old Norse ‘syster’ and not ‘swester’ from OE ‘sweoster/swustor’. Middle English ‘suster’ disappeared in 15 c. We say ‘egg’ and not ‘ey’; ‘give’ and ‘get’ from Scandinavian ‘gefa’ and ‘geta’ and not ‘yive’ and ‘yet’ from OE ‘Ziefan’ and ‘Zietan’ (with palatal Z). ME ‘yiven’, ‘yeten’ were ousted in 15 c. Scandinavian g, k, sk were not palatalised, so words with sk are of distinct Scandinavian origin.

English and Scandinavian forms may sometimes both be heard in standard speech: ‘no’ and ‘nay’; ‘from’ and ‘fro’ in ‘to and fro’; ‘rear’ and ‘raise’; ‘shirt’ and ‘skirt’, with their different meanings; ‘shreech’ and ‘skreak’, with mixed forms ‘shriek’ and ‘screech’. These are etymological doublets, i.e. words originating from the sources relative in OE and Old Norse.

Scandinavian words are easily recognised in English placenames. The placename Normanby, i.e. Nor - man - by, derives from ‘Norþmonna byr’ - village of the Northmen.

Denby and Denaby come from ‘Dena byr’ - village of the Danes. The Scandinavian ‘by’ from ‘byr’ - village, is the most distinctive, but there are many others like ‘beck’ – brook, in Birkbeck and Troutbeck; ‘brack’, ‘breck’ and ‘brick’ – slope, in Haverbrack, Norbreck, Scarisbrick; ‘fell’ - hill in Scafell and Whinfell; ‘garth’ – yard, in Applegarth; ‘gill’ – ravine, in Gaisgill and Garrigill; ‘rig’ – ridge, in Grossrigg and Lambrigg; ‘thwaite’ - clearing, paddock, in Bassenthwaite and Braithwaite; ‘toft’ - piece of land, homestead in Lengtoft and Lavestoft, etc.

3. Everybody knows that Modern English contains thousands of French words. We can hardly utter a sentence without using one. Yet comparatively few of these are derived from Norman French. No doubt it exerted a certain amount of direct influence on the grammar and vocabulary of English, but this influence was rather small. The decay of inflections had begun before the Normans came. It was accelerated by the Conquest through the break of literary tradition. Some words were borrowed from Norman French, but not enough to colour the vocabulary to a perceptible degree. Since 1204, when Normandy was lost, the influence of Norman French upon the English language was very slight indeed. Central or Parisian French was now the recognized standard on the Continent, and the French of the English court was not Norman but good Parisian French. Wholesale borrowing from French began about 1300 and continued for two hundred years, and the same process has gone on ever since, but in a more limited way. But most of French borrowings, from 1300 up to now, have come not from the dialect of the Normans, but from the literary French language.

French borrowings exist side by side with native English words. Of the titles of nobility ‘prince, peer, duke, duchess, marquis, marchioness, viscount, viscountess, baron’, are French, while ‘king, queen’ as well as ‘lord, lady, earl’ are English, although earl’s wife is a ‘countess’ (French). ‘People, nation, parliament’ are French, but ‘Speaker’, the title of the first Commoner, is English. ‘Shire’ is English but ‘county’ is French. ‘Town, hamlet, hall, house, home’ are English, but ‘city, village, palace, mansion, residence, domicile’ are French. French too are ‘chamber and apartment’ while ‘room and bower’ are English.

Many French words refer to the sphere of government and law, e.g. govern, government, royal, court, justice, judge, jury, condemn, assize, prison, bill, act, council, tax, custom, mayor, money, rent, etc.

There are military and warfare terms, e.g. war, army, battle, regiment, banner, siege, victory, peace, soldier, captain, major, general, cannon, powder, etc.

Religious terms: e.g. religion, saint, friar, pray, sermon, conscience, cloister, chapel, etc.

French cooking is demonstrated by such words as: boil, broil, fry, grill, roast, souse, toast, etc.

Names of rural crafts are English: e.g. smith, miller, shepherd; those of urban trades are French: e.g. butcher, painter, carpenter, draper, mason, tailor, joiner, etc.

Words referring to feast and leisure: e.g. pleasure, leisure, feast, ease, company, dinner, supper, dainty.

Words of no particular sphere used in everyday life: e.g. air, place, cover, river, large, change, face, voice, mountain, etc. Of these, French ‘river’ ousted OE ‘ea’, Middle English ‘e’, because consisting of one vowel the word proved unstable. French ‘autumn’ ousted the word ‘harvest’ of its original meaning and it began to denote ‘the gathering in of a crop’. French ‘prayer’ ousted the word ‘bead(s)’ of its original meaning and it began to denote ‘a rosary’. English and French words may have similar denotations but different connotations and associations. Generally English words are more colloquial while French words are more bookish, formal, official:

Cf.	English		French
	begin		commence
	leave		abandon
	work		labour
	life		existence
	freedom		liberty
	happiness		felicity
	brotherhood		fraternity
	hearty welcome		cordial reception

A number of etymological doublets came into English from Norman French and Central French. Today we have ‘chase, guardian, guarantee, gage, regard’ from Central French side by side with ‘catch, warden, warrant, wage, reward’ from Norman French.

As French words became acclimatised they were liable to acquire English endings. The native suffix ‘-ful’ was added to ‘beauty’ and ‘-ly’ to ‘court and prince’. similarly ‘-ship’ was used to form new abstract nouns like ‘companionship, courtship’. Conversely, the French suffix ‘-able’ taken over ready-made in the forms ‘agreeable, tolerable and variable’ was then freely added to the English ‘bear’ to make ‘bearable (readable, eatable)’, etc. Of other French suffixes there were: ‘-ance, -ence’ in ‘ignorance, innocence’; English ‘hindrance’. ‘-ment’ in ‘agreement, government’; English ‘fulfilment, amazement’. ‘-age’ in ‘courage, carriage’; English ‘luggage, leakage’, etc.

Borrowing from French has been going on continuously though it has never been as extensive as it was in Middle English.

THE MAKING OF THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE

1. The historical background.

2. London dialect.

3. Chaucer and his part in the making of English. Wyclif and Gower.

1. The 14 century was a time of great political, religious and literary activity as well as an age of great unrest. Peasants were giving trouble to their masters. The Black Death, the plague, had greatly reduced the number of farm-hands throughout the country. There was the Jacqerie or Peasants’ Insurrection in France. In England there were the uprisings of Watt Tyler, John Straw, a revolt against unjust taxation and oppressive landlords. In 1343 the Turk first got a foothold in Europe, and twenty years later began the meteoric career of Tamerlan. The revolt against the Pope which resulted in the Reformation, began in the 14 century with Wyclif in England and with John Huss in Bohemia. The Revival of Learning also falls in this century; Petrarch and Boccaccio were Chaucer’s contemporaries. The interest in education was widespread. A whole chain of universities, from Cracow to Saint Andrews, were established between 1340 and 1410. King Edward expressed his claims to the crown of France, Richard II led the war in Ireland, John of Gaunt made an attempt to seize the kingdom of Castille. Towns grew more and more important, merchants and craftsmen constituting powerful social strata. The development of trade and manufacturing, of new social relations meant the decay of feudalism, the end of scattered economy, and demanded extensive consolidation of the country. The situation, when Englishmen of the North and of the South spoke different dialects and could hardly understand each other, was no longer possible.

2. What was needed was a dialect that was widely intelligible and that was already the language of certain powerful elements in the state. The East Midland seemed to meet the requirements. It was the dialect of London, of the court. With the rise of London as a political centre of absolute monarchy it was quite natural that London dialect should take the place of French. London dialect became basis of the evolving national language. A very important fact was that London stood at the junction of three dialects: East Midland, South West and Kent. Till 14 c. the dialects had existed each in its territory and had been used for communication of English-speaking people each within its limits, French being a superstructure throughout the county. There was a certain interpenetration of dialects though it did not bring about merging of phonemic and morphological forms, it concerned only words. By 14 c. French was ousted everywhere and its function to be a universal means of communication passed to London dialect. Up to the middle of the 13 century London dialect contained more South Western features; then East Midland began to prevail so it may be considered the basis of London dialect. The first stage in the making of the national language was concentration and coexistence of different dialectal features. Thus, present indicative plural ending ‘-eth’ characteristic of the South was replaced by Midland ‘en’ which became national. Northern ‘-es’ in the 3d person present singular substituted for Midland ‘-eth’, Northern ‘g’ substituted for ‘y’ in ‘give’ and ‘get’. The paradigm of ‘to be’ shows different dialectal features, e.g. present indicative plural of Northern arn- became national. (Midland ben, Southern beth). Very illustrative are the words ‘busy’ and ‘bury’.

busy - spelling South Western, pronunciation East Midland;

bury - spelling South Western, pronunciation of Kent.

Despite all this dialectal variations features of East Midland -London dialect were prevailing.

3. It was the dialect in which Chaucer wrote. Some English linguists give undue prominence to Chaucer. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 - 1400) belonged to the well-to-do burgher class, and his family stood in some kind of relation to the court. He was well acquainted with all varieties of English life. In his youth he became page to the Countess of Ulster. He was a collector of the Customs, a Superintendent of Buildings and an officer in charge of the Thames conservation. He was also a member of Parliament for a short time. He visited France and Italy several times and thus came into close relations with foreign life and literature as well as with diplomacy. As courtier, office-holder, legislator, soldier, diplomatist, burgher of London, he came into contact with every sort of people. He had a broad and intimate knowledge of the social life of his age. Chaucer found his native East Midland dialect already a cultivated language. There had been much narrative poetry written in this dialect. It was the English of commerce, of the court, and of the universities. Before he had written a line, the East Midland dialect seemed likely to become standard or literary English, and it doubtless would have achieved that position even if Chaucer had never been born.

Chaucer was not the father of the language. He was a literary man, a poet of genius, whose native dialect was that which stood ready to be stamped as literary English. He used the language he was born to and lived in. Chaucer did not actually import many new words into English. Almost every word that he used can be found somewhere at any earlier date. What he did for the Midland dialect was to write it with an ease, a polish, a regularity which had not been hitherto attained, and to use it as the vehicle for his first-rate poetry. This stamped the language of Chaucer at once as the literary standard. The excellence of his English is celebrated by his contemporaries and successors.

But no less than Chaucer’s part was the part played by John Wyclif (1320-1384), leader of English Reformation that anticipated the Reformation of 16 c. He made the translation of the Bible which became a necessary book in every home where somebody could read throughout the country.

Having lived in Oxford for many years John Wyclif spoke and wrote the same language as Chaucer did, though he used no Kentish and hardly any South Western features. His part in fixation of linguistic forms is unrivalled because the Bible was kept and read in every nook where Chaucer’s poems might never have any access.

By Chaucer’s side stood Gower (1325-1408) who wrote in the same dialect. Gower, though no genius, was a skilful versifier and the master of an extremely neat style. His language coincided with Chaucer’s in almost every particular.

Chaucer’s successors and pupils, Hoccleve and Lydgate, though contributed nothing of value to English poetry, did much to popularise the language of Chaucer which they directly imitated. There was no longer any doubt what the English literary language was: it was the East Midland dialect, and whoever wrote in any other dialect was not writing standard English, but a local or provincial tongue.

Part III.

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