MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature

REDUCTION IN NOUN AND ADJECTIVE INFLECTIONS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH TEXTS Bachelor thesis Brno 2015

Author: Kamila Tokošová

Supervisor: Mgr. Radek Vogel, Ph.D.

Declaration I hereby declare that this bachelor thesis is my own work and that I used only sources listed in the list of references. Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů. Kamila Tokošová

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Mgr. Radek Vogel, Ph.D. for his patience, advice and guidance that he provided me with during my work on this thesis.

Abstract The Middle English period brought fundamental changes in the English language both in grammar and vocabulary. The process of gradual development from the highly synthetic language of the Old English period to the analytic language of the Late Middle English and Modern English period can be observed through the reduction of inflections. The theoretical part outlines the main periods in the history of English language along with distinct features characteristic of them. This part also describes in detail the aspects of Middle English with emphasis on the grammatical changes dealt with in the practical part. The practical part analyses samples of Middle English texts in order to describe the continuous reduction of inflection in nouns and adjectives and their concord.

Table of Contents 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 6 2 Historical development of English................................................................................. 7 2.1 Old English (700-1100) ........................................................................................... 7 2.2 Middle English (1100-1500) ................................................................................... 8 2.3 Early Modern English (1500-1800) ...................................................................... 10 3 Development of grammatical phenomena .................................................................. 12 3.1 Nouns..................................................................................................................... 12 3.2 Adjectives .............................................................................................................. 14 3.3 Concord ................................................................................................................. 15 4 Methodology and the corpus of texts .......................................................................... 17 4.1 Methodology of research ....................................................................................... 17 4.2 Selection of texts ................................................................................................... 17 5 Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 22 5.1 Corpus of texts....................................................................................................... 22 5.2 Results of analysis of temporal progress ............................................................... 33 5.3 Results of analysis of progress in dialects ............................................................. 41 6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 45 List of sources .................................................................................................................... 47 Printed sources.............................................................................................................. 47 Electronic sources ......................................................................................................... 47 Sources for the corpus of texts ..................................................................................... 48 Appendices ......................................................................................................................... 50

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1 Introduction The topic of this bachelor thesis is reduction of noun and adjective inflection in Middle English texts. The English language went through a great change during the course of the Middle English period and it was this change from the highly inflected synthetic language of Old English that brought us the analytic language of Modern English as we know it today. I have chosen this topic because understanding the inner processes of this change can give us a better understanding of the grammar of contemporary English. The aims of the thesis are to follow the process of reduction of inflections in nouns and adjectives in Middle English period through the analysis of Middle English writings, to observe its advancement through the course of the period and to compare its progress in the selected dialects of Middle English. The theoretical part of this thesis is separated into two parts. The first half is dedicated to a description of the principal periods in the history of English. The second half deals in depth with the development of the selected phenomena of nouns, adjectives and their concord during the stated periods with emphasis on the changes taking place between the Old and Middle English period. The methodological part of my thesis deals with the methodology of my research and mainly with the selection of the corpus of text which creates a basis for the analysis conducted in the practical part of the thesis. The practical part of my thesis deals with the analysis of the corpus of texts. The analytical part is separated into two thematic parts. The first part deals with in-depth analysis of nouns and adjectives appearing in each selected text. The following part contains the results of my research concentrating on the reduction of inflections from the twelfth to the fourteenth century and on the progress of the process in the separate dialects of Middle English.

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2 Historical development of English 2.1 Old English (700-1100) Ecclesiastical History of the English People describes the invasion to the Isles by Germanic tribes of Jutes, Saxons and Angles (Baugh and Cable 45). These tribes, later identified as Anglo-Saxons, began the settlement of England in the middle of the fifth century and continued on till the end of the sixth century. On account of the settlers coming from diversity of tribes, Old English is not a single uniform language but a term generally used in linguistics for several of the tribes dialects used in manuscripts which were preserved till present. The tribes eventually established seven kingdoms some of which gave name to these dialects. We can distinguish four main dialects of Old English – West Saxon, Kentish, and Mercian with Norhumbrian which together form Anglian dialects (Kavka 91). Differences between these dialects were only minor in most cases which didn’t substantially change even after centuries of both geographical and political separation on the Isles. A great number of surviving records are written in West Saxon dialect as a result of most copying of manuscripts being done by West Saxon scribes who used their native dialect. West Saxon gained substantial influence in the late Anglo-Saxon period but lost its importance in the next centuries and was gradually replaced by the Anglian dialect as the ancestor of Modern Standard English (Barber, Beal, and Shaw 110). Old English dialects came from Germanic roots, which gives them similar characteristic to all Germanic languages. Most notable is that nouns as well as verbs could be divided into strong and weak variations and adjectives could take on either strong or weak inflections (Baugh and Cable 49). The basic difference in grammar was that Old English, as opposed to Modern English, was an inflected (synthetic) language. This meant that the word order was not fixed and inflections determined functions of words in the sentence. Due to this, Old English period is sometimes labelled as the period of full inflections as a result of inflectional endings being fully present in nouns, adjectives and verbs. The nominal group also exhibited concord in sentence between the determiner (demonstrative pronouns), modifier and head for number, gender (three – masculine, feminine and neuter) and case (four – nominative, accusative, genitive and dative). Similarly, verb inflections formed a system of distinguishing between persons, numbers, tenses and moods. (Burnley 3)

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Old English vocabulary was almost purely Germanic with only rare appearance of words borrowed from Latin. A large part of this word stock was lost during the history of the language. Linguists estimate that as much as 85 percent was lost with the remainder forming the basic elements of present English vocabulary, mainly pronouns, prepositions and auxiliary verbs, but also basic nouns such as man, child, house, drink, sleep etc. (Baugh and Cable 53). Germanic origin of the language also exercised influence on pronunciation. Old English vocabulary was written phonetically with each letter, even the double consonants, individually sounded. Due to this, the pronunciation of nearly all Old English words greatly differs from that of their Modern English equivalents (Burnley 2).

2.2 Middle English (1100-1500) The beginning of the Middle English period is commonly associated with the Norman invasion of 1066 which meant both cultural and linguistic shift for the Isles. However, the changes in language were more gradual, starting before the conquest and continuing long after. Between 1100 and 1200 numerous texts were still being written in West Saxon, a variation of Old English (Crystal 166; Barber, Beal, and Shaw 161). The period lasted until the late 15th century when Chancery Standard became widespread after the printing press was introduced in England (Richardson 726). It was probably the strong influence of the second language coming into England which accelerated the dramatic change as described by Baugh and Cable: The Middle English period (1150-1500) was marked by momentous changes in the English language, changes more extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. (146)

The change from the highly synthetic language of Old English period to the analytic language of Late Middle English was not a sudden happening and had been a long process. The process of general reduction of inflections can be seen in the Peterborough Chronicle which was in the making from 1070 to 1154 (Baugh and Cable 154). This part of the AngloSaxon Chronicle was written by a Peterborough monk and holds distinct features of Early Middle English such as the use of local language and advanced simplification of inflections (Burnley 67). The language of the Old English period used the inflexional system to distinguish case, gender and number in nouns and adjectives. In Middle English, this system was simplified when the vowels in unstressed inflexional endings lost their differentiation by pronunciation. Without inflections to specify the syntactical function of nouns, the need 8

for prepositions increased and with it the fixing of word order within clauses started occurring (Burnley 63). Along with the grammatical change, a second important change occurred. The vocabulary of Old English was dramatically reduced and amended by borrowings especially from French and Latin but also continuous borrowing from Danish and Norwegian settlers in the North and East. Relatively standardised language of the Old English period was replaced by both Norman and Parisian French and Latin as languages of higher social classes and, more importantly, as a written language. Without standardisation of the written language scribes used differentiated spelling of their local dialects alongside French and Latin words. By this process the written language of the Middle English period was just as differentiated as the spoken language (Burnley 64). The Middle English dialects continuously developed from the Old English dialects without much territorial change with only a change of names. “Instead of Northumbrian, Northern is used in the Middle English period; similarly Midlands takes the place of Mercian; and Southern is used for the older West Saxon. Kentish retains its name, although it is sometimes included in the more general term Southern English” (Emerson 52). However, even the dialects themselves were quite differentiated and evident variations could be seen within different parts of the same country. The main features differing the dialects from each other were in pronunciation, vocabulary and the use of inflections with the most dissimilarity noticeable between the Northern and the Southern with the Midlands occupying a central position and leaning towards one or another depending on the proximity of each country (Baugh and Cable 179). Out of this variation of dialects, a written language of East Midlands countries gained general recognition and usage in 15th century. The language of Standard English, also known as Chancery or London Standard, consequently became the recognised standard for both spoken and written interaction. Modern written standard emerged from the works of Chancery clerks starting in 1420 and spreading throughout the whole England by 1460 (Fisher 896). Chancery was originally a small bureaucratic department of the King’s court which followed him with the rest of his household. Gradually it grew both in size and importance and by the end of the fifteenth century comprised all the national bureaucracy of England separated from the royal household and settled in London at what is now Chancery Lane (Fisher 872). With the spread of the use of English by both middle class and the Parliament, the 1420s meant standardisation of Chancery from a London dialect to a standard legal 9

language. Strict hierarchical structure and substantial degree of central control hastened its standardisation and the training program at Chancery for new clerks and law students along with its official position of administrative office advanced its spread as the standardised language (Richardson 743). The language used regularly by Chancery clerks thus gained recognition and from 1420 to 1440 developed into the modern written standard which consequently spread through the whole England by 1460 (Fisher 896). The main elements which contributed to its general recognition were mainly its middle ground between the conservative Southern and a more progressive Northern dialect as well as the great population of the region and the presence of both Oxford and Cambridge Universities (Baugh and Cable 182).

2.3 Early Modern English (1500-1800) Early Modern English period extends from about 1500, when the printing press came in regular use thus helping the standardisation of language, until 1800, when the great changes in language (especially the Great Vowel Shift1) were completed and English was established as an international language (Burnley 197). With the influence of printing press and the spread of publications, grammar of English language of this period became fairly standardised. The ability to produce a large number of books in a number completely same copies turned out to be the best way to promote a standard uniform language in terms of both grammar and spelling and also spread it throughout the whole England. Important factors to this development were also when William Caxton, who introduced printing press to England in 1476 decided to use the dialect used in London area and when George Puttenham, as reported by Burnley, also recommended the use of “the usual speech of the Court and that of London and the shires lying about London within sixty myles and not much above” (199). As a result of the spread of the printing press, we have more surviving artefacts of the period. Within a short period following the introduction of the press many new books were published. The main factor in this growth was the interest in classical works associated with the period of the renaissance in the sixteenth century. The translations of classical works along with the publications concerned with the rapidly developing sciences induced

1

A major change in pronunciation occurring between 15 th and 18th century in English. During this change

mainly the pronunciation of long vowels shifted upwards which means that sounds pronounced at a certain place in a mouth were afterwards pronounced in a different place, higher in the mouth.

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a discussion concerning new vocabulary for previously unknown concepts. This brought on another great wave of borrowing, this time from wider spread of languages from the traditional sources of Latin, Greek, French or Italian to such an exotic languages as American Indian or the languages of Africa and Asia (Crystal 191). With the number of new words and the differentiation of already used vocabulary, there arose a need for establishing a standard spelling system and grammar. Particularly the fifteenth century saw a number of authors taking special interest in promoting English language and defending its supreme position as the national language against other languages, especially Latin. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, first attempts at dictionaries were published. For example the first dictionary of English was written by Robert Cawdrey in 1604 containing 3 000 new words (Crystal 203).

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3 Development of grammatical phenomena 3.1 Nouns Nouns in the Old English period had a complicated system of declensions which is very different from what we are used to in Modern English. The case system of Old English nouns is simpler than that of Latin or Germanic because some of them have merged together. Consequently, nouns have usually only four cases – nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. Declensions can also be classified into four large groups. As a result of this, the system of endings is simpler than Germanic one with all nouns having -um ending for the dative plural and most having -a in genitive plural. A number of masculine nouns also have -es in genitive singular and -as in nominative and accusative plural (Baugh and Cable 55). Preview of Old English noun inflections for masculine a- stem stān (stone), feminine giefu (gift) and masculine consonant stem hunta (hunter) is shown below: Singular

Plural

Nominative

stān

gief-u

hunt-a

Genitive

stān-es

gief-e

hunt-an

Dative

stān-e

gief-e

hunt-an

Accusative

stān

gief-e

hunt-an

Nominative

stān-as

gief-a

hunt-an

Genitive

stān-a

gief-a

hunt-ena

Dative

stān-um

gief-um

hunt-um

Accusative

stān-as

gief-a

hunt-an

Table 1 Inflections of the Old English noun from Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language (Routledge, 1993) 55. Print. 14. May 2014. The Middle English period was an era of great inflection reduction. As a result, the inflectional system of nouns was radically simplified. Old English endings -a, -u, -e all merged into the only ending -e surviving in Middle English. The Old English endings -an, -on, -un and -um also became simplified into only -en remaining. The endings of -as and -es became only -es and similarly -aþ and -eþ were reduced to -eþ only. Most importantly, the final ending -e into which some of the other endings were reduced, also disappeared during the Middle English period (Barber, Beal, and Shaw 167). 12

Consequently, the whole inflectional system became much simplified and only two of the strongest declensions survived. Old English stān which had the nominative plural stānas and genitive singular stānes, became only stones in both cases. This declension became dominant in the northern dialects. Old English ēage (eye) with both nominative plural and genitive singular ēagan became eye and eyen during the Middle English period. This declension with the -en ending was dominant during the middle of the Middle English period only to be later replaced by the -es ending coming from the North and being completely replaced by the fifteenth century (Barber, Beal, and Shaw 168). Not all Old English noun cases survived through the Middle English period. Very early during the Middle English period the number of forms the nous took upon gradually became smaller. The total number was lowered to only three, one for both nominative and accusative singular, one for the genitive singular and one for all plural cases. Later on only two forms spread from the North and replaced the -e and -ene ending thus arriving to the situation we are used to from Modern English (Barber, Beal, and Shaw 169). Preview of Middle English noun inflections in -en and -es declension is shown below: Singular

Plural

Nominative

ston

eye

Genitive

stones

eyen

Dative

ston

eye

Accusative

ston

eye

all cases

stones

eyen

Table 2 Inflections of the Middle English noun from own evaluation

3.1.1 Gender In Middle English as well as in Old English, the noun, adjective and pronoun are in concord in gender, case and number. The main difference between Middle English and Old English is that while in Old English the gender was grammatical, in Middle English the gender was natural as we are used to from Modern English. Grammatical gender of Old English means, that the gender was based on neither sex nor animacy. The gender of nouns was commonly indicated by the agreement with the strong adjectives and demonstratives. Even though in most cases the gender follows natural order with masculine nouns being those associated with males and those identifying females were feminine, it was not the same case for neuter objects (Baugh and Cable 56). 13

The definite article and adjective in Old English had a considerable role in distinguishing the number and case of nouns but with the gradual loss of this role, the grammatical gender also disappeared. It was replaced by natural gender as we are used to in Modern English. This means that female creatures are referred to as she while male creatures are identified as he and inanimate objects are referred to as it (Barber, Beal, and Shaw 170).

3.2 Adjectives Old English adjectives, just like for example verbs, had two series of declensions, one strong and one weak. The strong declension was used in sentences with nouns when none from the group of definite article, possessive, and demonstrative pronouns is used. On the other hand, weak declensions were used when the accompanied noun was preceded by one of the group (Baugh and Cable 56). Preview of Old English adjective declensions is shown below: Strong declension

Weak declension

Masculine Feminine Neuter Masculine Feminine Neuter Singular Nom.

Plural

gōd

gōd

gōd

gōd-a

gōd-e

gōd-e

Gen.

gōd-es

gōd-re

gōd-es

gōd-an

gōd-an

gōd-n

Dat.

gōd-um

gōd-re

gōd-an

gōd-an

gōd-an

Acc.

gōd-ne

gōd-e

gōd-an

gōd-an

gōd-e

Ins.

gōd-e

Nom.

gōd-e

gōd-a

gōd

Gen.

gōd-ra

gōd-ra

gōd-ra

Dat.

gōd-um

gōd-um

Acc.

gōd-e

gōd-a

gōdum gōd gōd-e

gōdum gōd

gōd-an gōd-ena/ gōd-ra gōd-um gōd-an

Table 3 Inflections of the Old English adjective from Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language (Routledge, 1993) 56. Print. 14. May 2014. In the Middle English period, we can see a great change in adjectival inflections. While some remained through the whole period, there are signs that the inflections in written English persisted much longer than in the spoken language where they died out much sooner (Burrow and Turville-Petre 29). The levelling of inflections during the Middle English 14

period probably had the greatest impact on adjectives. It came as a result of the sound changes, especially the loss of differentiation by pronunciation of vowels in unstressed inflexional endings, and as a result of analogy 2 . Consequently the distinction between singular and plural in weak declension was lost and both had the -e ending. Strong declension had distinction for singular and plural only in some monosyllabic adjectives (Baugh and Cable 156). However, that was not completely true in the case of poetry, where authors used either inflection depending on their use of rhyme (Burrow and Turville-Petre 29).

3.3 Concord As has already been mentioned, the nominal group in Old English period exhibited agreement between the determiner (demonstrative pronouns), modifier, and the head in number, gender and case. Usually, number was either plural or singular with the occasional use of dual number in personal pronouns. There were three genders– masculine, feminine and neuter. The cases were usually nominative, accusative, genitive and dative with traces of instrumental case especially in the definite article (Burnley 4). This meant that the grammatical agreement, or concord, occurred on several levels in Old English. There were three agreements in gender, number and case. First, the already mentioned agreement of demonstrative, adjectives and nouns. Then there also was an agreement between pronouns and the nouns they acted as substitute of. And the third concord found in Old English was between nouns and their modifiers. There could also be found concord between subject and verb in number and gender similarly to the one found in Modern English (Quirk and Wren 74). The situation in Middle English was slightly different. The agreement between pronouns and the nouns they substituted remained almost the same. Similarly, the agreement between subject and verb was unaffected and survived until the Modern English period. The notable difference could be found in the agreement between adjectives and nouns. The formal expressions of all these categories changed, which was true especially for case, which played a role in the expression of agreement. This means that Middle English nouns were inflected in number (singular or plural) and genitive singular case. Adjectives retained some of their inflectional distinctions in monosyllabic words but the -e ending was more common.

2

A process where either irregular word-forms assume the regular and therefore more common form, which is

more frequent, or regular word-forms assume the form of stronger word and thus became irregular.

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With inflected adjectives, the concord in number was experienced as well as the distinction between strong and weak nouns. Later during the period, all adjectives experienced the same form without inflection. This meant that distinctions in any of the categories were not possible in adjectives (Horobin and Smith 93-4).

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4 Methodology and the corpus of texts 4.1 Methodology of research A combination of both primary and secondary research was used in this work. Mainly secondary research was the source of theoretical background provided in the first chapters concerning the historical development of English and the historical development of grammatical phenomena. During the collection of the corpus of texts, electronic sources provided in the next chapters were used to provide the transcripts. Primary research in the form of an analysis of historical texts from the period of Middle English was the source of information provided in the analytical part.

4.2 Selection of texts The corpus of texts consists of a selection of segments from Middle English literature. These ten texts were carefully chosen as the most representative of the period. The transcripts used in this work were mostly taken from the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse3, which was compiled at the University of Michigan mainly from the sources provided by the Oxford Text Archive, and Englesaxe 4 . Fragment of approximately 200 words was selected for analysis from each text. Texts were chosen with emphasis on the difference of represented dialects as well as the place of origin. In accordance with the existence of diverse Middle English dialects, texts from East Midlands, West Midlands, Southern and London area dialects are included. This provides insight into the progress of changes observed in different areas of England at the selected periods. Both religious and secular texts are represented to provide diversity of origins and awareness of the development of language in religious texts as compared to secular texts. Prose as well as poems are represented to illustrate elements of common sentence structures in prose as well as the atypical sentence structure in verse. The period of Middle English is usually outlined between 1100 and 1500. Based on the representation of the phenomena studied in this work, the examined period may be narrowed into a span from the twelfth century until the end of the fourteenth century when most of

3

Can be found online at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/

4

Can be found online at http://members.optus.net/englesaxe/about/index.html

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these changes were completed. The observed period of Middle English was then divided into three smaller stages containing its most representative texts: Section one - 12th century (S1) S1.1

Peterborough Chronicle (East Midlands, 1137 entry)

S1.2

The Owl and the Nightingale (Southern, 1189-1200)

S1.3

Vices and Virtues (East Midlands, about 1200)

Section two - 13th century (S2) S2.1

Laȝamon‘s Brut (West Midlands, 1200-1215)

S2.2

Ancrene Wise (West Midlands, early 13th century)

S2.3

Proclamation od Henry III (London, 1258)

S2.4

Sir Orfeo (London, late 13th century)

Section three - 14th century (S3) S3.1

Patience (West Midlands, 1360-1400)

S3.2

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (West Midlands, 1340-1400)

S3.3

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls (London, early 1380s)

4.2.1 Section one – the twelfth century The first period of Early Middle English of the twelfth century contains texts where many Old English characteristics are still present but the changes of Middle English are starting to be evident. The changes evident in the texts from this period became apparent due to the twelfth-century scribes using the form of spoken English they used unlike their predecessors who dwelled on the West Saxon. Therefore we see changes present in twelfth-century writings which were already present in spoken English of Late Old English period (Burrow and Turville-Petre 4). The first text in this period is the most representative text of changes in Middle English period, the Peterborough Chronicle. The Peterborough Chronicle is a part of the AngloSaxon Chronicle and was written by the Benedictine monks of Peterborough Abbey. The text was continuously written from 1070 to 1154 and the selection used here is dated 1137. The language used carries strong characteristics of East Midlands dialect (Burnley 67). The second text used in this section is the poem The Owl and the Nightingale. The poem is 1794 lines long and was probably written sometime between 1189 and 1200, after the death of Henry II and before the accession of Henry III. This poem is an example of debate poetry popular in both England and France in the twelfth century. The language used 18

in the text is identified as Southern based on its characteristics because the author of the text is unknown though some ascribe the authorship to Nicholas of Guildford based on his appearance in the poem (Burrow and Turville-Petre 81). The last piece in the Early Middle English section is Vices and Virtues. This text also called Vices and Virtues: a Soul's Confession of its Sins with Reason's Description of the Virtues was written probably around 1200. As part of the text was lost, nothing is known about the author though it is thought that even though he probably was not a monk, he did have some relation to the religious order. Based on the content, the text may be used as the representative of early religious prose with the origin in the eastern part of England with the use of East Midlands dialect (Burnley 89).

4.2.2 Section two – the thirteenth century The second period outlined may also be classified as part of the Early Middle English period. During this period all changes happening during the Middle English period became apparent and progressed even in the most traditional dialects. Consequently, at the end of the century, most of the notable changes were well underway or completed. The literature of this period is still rare, however, and most are romances in the form of continental narrative verse with adventure and heroics themes. The first text used in this section is Laȝamon’s Brut. This poem was written as a very free adaptation of the French translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae done by the Norman poet Wace. The author identifies himself as Laȝamon, a parish priest at Areley Kings, Worcestershire. This identifies the dialect used as West Midlands with very few French loan-words. He wrote his Historia Brutonum otherwise known as Brut sometime during the first half of the thirteenth century but no later than 1225 when the two surviving copes were written (Burrow and Turville-Petre 96). The first surviving copy from British Museum Ms. Cotton Caligula A.IX which was made around 1225 will be used here because it is closer to the author’s original use of dialect than the later copy in British Museum Ms. Cotton Otho C.XIII which was copied around 1250 by a scribe who noticeably altered the original text (Dickins, Bruce and R Wilson 18). The second source used in this section is Ancrene Wise. This text in prose was originally written sometime around 1215 for the use of three noble sisters who had abandoned the world to live the life of recluses. The later version, made about 1230, was intended for the use of other communities and was given the name Ancrene Riwle. The origin of the text is thought to be in Limebrook Priory with the author being Brian of Lingen. The dialect of 19

West Midlands used in the work is consistent with the presumed origin. The consistency of the use of language is presumed to be due to a regulation coming from a scribal training undertaken in a large centre (Burnley 97). The third text in this section is the Proclamation of Henry III. Even though all official text written during the Middle English period from the twelfth until the early fifteenth century was written in either Latin or French, two texts survived which were written in English. One of them is the Proclamation of Henry III issued in 1258. This letter declaring the determination of Henry III to confirm the Provisions of Oxford, a charter of rights the barons coerced from the king. The text of the Proclamation indicates that one copy was sent to each county in England and from which only two survived. The language used in the letter is that of mid thirteen century London dialect with many southern and conservative characteristics (Dickins, Bruce and R Wilson 7). The last text used in this section is Sir Orfeo. This text in the form of narrative poem was written sometime during the late thirteenth century in South Midlands, probably in London by an anonymous author. Based on the characteristics of the text the dialect was identified as that of the London area. The classical story of Orpheus is reinterpreted in Sir Orfeo as a Celtic Folk-tale, probably an adaptation of a Breton Lay (Burrow and TurvillePetre 112).

4.2.3 Section three – the fourteenth century The first source used in this section is Patience. This poem was preserved in a single manuscript along with Cleanness, Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The author and the date of composition are both unknown, however, it is thought that all these poems were the work of the same author based on the shared dialect, style and the exceptional literary level of the author. Based on the content of the poem it is presumed it was written sometime during the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Based on the language characteristics shared within the region, the dialect of the poem is identified as West Midlands (Burrow and Turville-Petre 161). The second source used in the third section, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was most probably written by the same author as the preceding poem. However, it does not share the religious theme of the other poems thought to be written by the same author. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a romance from the common setting of Arthurian legends. The poem is based on the theme of beheading-game often found in thirteenth century stories situated at King Arthur’s court. The date of the poem’s composition is estimated to be sometime 20

between 1340 and the end of the fourteenth century. With the common authorship with Patience, also dialect is identified the same as West Midlands (Burrow and Turville-Petre 181). The last source used is Parliament of Fowls by Geoffrey Chaucer. This work is a dreamvision poem where the narrator reads a classic Cicero’s work and dreams of a garden of love where birds united in order to find their mates on the Valentine’s Day. The text was written sometime in the early 1380s with the dialect used is of the London area. This poem was chosen because it was written during the early 1380s when most of Chacer’s major works were written and thus best represent the language of his texts. There are several surviving manuscripts and a print by Caxton. The version used here taken from Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 16, where the poem is called The Parliament of the Foulys, was chosen as being the closest to Chaucer’s use of language (Burrow and Turville-Petre 263).

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5 Analysis 5.1 Corpus of texts 5.1.1 S1.1 The Peterborough Chronicle Text S1.1, The Peterborough Chronicle, is a fitting example of the progress of inflection loss in Middle English texts. Its second, or sometimes referred to as the final, continuation containing an event concerning king Stephen during the year 1137 include evidence of advanced simplification of inflections. In the analysed segment, most of the nouns which take on inflection do so in connection with the number. All nouns creating a plural in the analysed part followed the pattern of strong masculine declension with the exception of those ending in vowel which followed a modified version of this declension. Plural is then created by adding the inflection -s in neues (nephew), siukes (traitor), theothes (truth or fidelity) and martyrs (martyr) without any additional change in spelling. The same inflection is added to some degree in castles (castle) where simultaneously a consonant change from the uninflected castel occurs. Plural is also created by adding the -es inflection in the case of athes (oath). Mutated plural is represented in the form of man (man) which changes the vowel in the plural into men. The same change occurs also in the derived compound word carlmen (man). The change of mutated plural also occurs in the compound word wimmen (woman) where also the doubling of a consonant is developed from the uninflected wiman in singular. Accusative plural deoules (devil) appearing in the text with the preposition mid is created by adding the inflection -s as a result of its uninflected form deoule ending with a vowel. Accusative plural in the form of castelweorces (castle work) is formed by adding the inflection -es to its uninflected form of castelweorc which is a compound word created through combining castel (castle) and weorc (work), the latter of which, according to Morris, should take on the form of an unchanged neuter plural without inflection in plural accusative but instead behaves as a strong declension of masculine plural here (Specimens of Early English: Part I li). A second specimen of a word taking on an unchanged neutral plural is wunder which has a meaning of atrocities or terrible things in plural as opposed to its singular form which translates to Modern English as wonder or miracle. Other inflectional changes in nouns in the segment are connected solely with prepositions and the case while leaving the nouns in singular. Dative singular is created in gære (year) by adding the inflection -e to the end. Genitive singular is represented in the text 22

by dæies (day) and nihtes (night) both of which are formed by the inflection -es. Both dative and genitive singular in the text follow the strong masculine declension in the same manner plural does. There were only a few changes concerning adjectives in the selected segments. First change occurs with the adjective ælle (all) acting as a noun by adding an inflection -e to the end while at the same time doubling the ending consonant from its uninflected form æl. The other change is to the adjective yuele (evil) which also takes on the -e inflection as a result of concord with the accusative plural form of men in the phrase yuele men (evil men L12). In conclusion, inflectional changes in nouns in singular are connected solely with dative case and prepositional influence. Creation of plural number is chiefly governed by the strong masculine declension giving nouns in nominative, accusative and dative case inflection -es while plural genitive, though not present in the chosen segment, would consequently gain the -ene inflection. The only exceptions from this pattern are mutated plural represented by man and its compounds and the unchanged neuter plural represented by wunder. Adjectives exclusively take on -e inflection as is the case with the only represented concord in plural accusative which represents the inflection influencing indefinite adjectives.

5.1.2 S1.2 The Owl and the Nightingale Owl and the Nightingale, text S1.2, is a poem from the end of the twelfth century. It is written in the Southern dialect and as such still has quite a complete set of inflections though most of the noun inflection were already levelled to -e only. Nouns appearing in the text in dative singular regularly end with the inflection -e as is the case of boȝe (branch), breche (thicket), dale (valley), hale (nook or corner), harpe (harp), rise (branch) and songe (song) where the inflection is added without any additional change of spelling following the patterns of dative singular in all noun declensions. Dative singular without the change of inflection occurs at several places in the text with words following the masculine declension modified for words ending in a vowel. Those namely are hegge (hedge), hurne (corner), pipe (pipe), segge (sedge) and þrote (throat) all appearing in the text in dative singular in their uninflected form. Plural is created in several different ways in the text. Nominative plural blosme (blossom, flower) occurs without change to its uninflected form suggesting that modified masculine declension for words ending in vowel is followed. Similarly, spire (reed) and wise (manner, way) appears in the text in dative plural without any difference from its uninflected form following the same declension. Quite regularly both dative plural in custe (character) 23

and accusative plural in tide (hour) are created with the addition of -e inflection without any other change of spelling. Dative plural in cunne (kind) is also created with the -e inflection but a doubling of a consonant from the uninflected form cun also occurs at the same time. Adjectives in the text usually follow an agreement with the noun they are modifying. Inflections of adjectives in the text consequently follow either definite or indefinite pattern of inflection depending on their setting. In the phrase one sumere dale on the first line, sumere (certain) obtains an inflection re which follows additional e inserted after the uninflected form of sum. By this, sumere agrees with the noun in feminine dative singular. Phrase diȝele hale (secluded corner L2) forms an agreement in masculine dative singular by adding an inflection -e after the uninflected form of the adjective diȝel. Concord in accusative singular is created in the phrase grete tale (great debate L3) by adding the inflection -e at the end of the adjective gret. A series of adjectives starc (powerful, intense), stif (rigid), strong (strong), lud (loud) and softe (gentle, soft) appearing on the line five and six without any additional inflection agree in nominal singular with the noun plait. In the phrase þat vuele mod (evil mood L8) an agreement is created with the addition of the inflection -e according to the pattern of definite adjectives. Unstressed inflectional ending -e also appears in the adjective stronge in the phrase holde plaiding suþe stronge (held a very strong debate L11). Concord in several phrases in dative singular, namely vaire boȝe (fair branch L15), þicke waste hegge (impenetrable thick hedge L17), grene segge (green sedge L18) is also created by the unstressed -e ending. This ending is also present in the phrase appearing in nominal plural, inoȝe blosme (enough blossoms L16), where also a change of consonant from the uninflected inoh occurs. Concord in the phrase auele cunne wise (many kinds of ways L20) is established between auele (many) and cunne (kind) in plural dative by indefinite adjective declension. Indefinite declension is also present in the phrase old stoc (old stump L25) which appears in the text in nominal singular meaning there is no inflection in the adjective. However, an anomaly occurs on the line 32 in the otherwise regular concord between the adjective and the noun. Adjectives fule (foul) and lodlich (loathsome) are separated from the noun which results in a break in the concord between them without agreeing in feminine singular accusative. In conclusion, dative singular is chiefly created with the -e inflection with the only exception of words ending in vowel. Plural is created in several ways with the majority created with the addition of -e inflection. The relationship between adjectives and nouns is regularly governed by concord in both number and case with the use of both definite and 24

indefinite declensions and substantial use of unstressed -e ending. The only exception from the rule of concord in the text are adjectives separated from their noun as is the case of fule and lodlich.

5.1.3 S1.3 Vices and Virtues The third text in this section, Vices and Virtues, is associated with the East Midlands area just like The Peterborough Chronicle. However, even though both are products of the same dialect, Vices and Virtues’ language is more conservative than the one of its older counterpart. The inflectional system of Vices and Virtues is very much preserved, as opposed to The Peterborough Chronicle where it is mostly reduced. Change in the inflection of singular nouns predominantly occurs in the segment of the text in connection with case. Dative singular in number of words in the text is created through the simple addition of -e inflection as is the case in euele (evil), hearme (harm or injury), niede (need), soðe (truth), gode (good), þinge (thing) where no additional change in spelling takes place. Dative singular is also created with the -e inflection in the case of boche (book) where also a change in consonant from the uninflected boc takes place. This occurrence, however, could be caused by a scribal error because, according to Holthausen, the form for dative singular used in other places in the manuscript is boke (216). Dative singular without a change to the ending is present two times in the text, in kenne (kin or family) and modinesse (pride), both times with connection to modified declensions for words ending in vowel. Genitive singular is present several times in the text and in each case it is formed by the addition of -es inflection after the uninflected form without any additional change. We can find genitive singular in the word mannes (man) occurring in the phrase mannes luue (man’s love L9, 10) and in the word Godes (God) in the phrases Godes ȝiue (God’s gift L1, 4) and Godes luue (God’s love L9). The uninflected form of Godes is usually God and this form is used predominantly in the rest of the manuscript but in the chosen segment the uninflected form in singular nominative is Godd which does not occur anywhere else in the text which would suggest there is also a scribal error present here. There are only a few instances of plural used in the chosen segment all ending with the -es inflection suggesting the use of strong masculine declension for the creation of plurals. The inflection is simply added after the word in the case of craftes (craft) and werkes (work). In the case of þeawes (manner) inflection -es is also added but consonant change also occurs at the same time from the uninflected form þeau.

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Adjectives in the selected segment usually end with the inflection -e with only a few exceptions. Following the rule of concord with their nouns, adjective gode (good) in the phrase gode þeawes (good manners L2) in plural as is also the case with alle (all) occurs in the phrase alle crafes (all skills L2). The adjective alle in this case has not only the inflection -e but also goes through doubling of consonant from its uninflected form al. Adjective wise (wise) also occurs in plural with the inflection -e in order to agree with sume (some L7). Unstressed inflectional ending -e without any change in spelling is also used in adjectives agreeing with their nouns in dative singular, namely it is michele in the phrase michele gode (great good L5) and heiȝe in the phrase heiȝe kenne (high or noble family). In the adjective heiȝe a consonant change from the uninflected form hei or heih takes place as well as the addition of the -e inflection. This inflectional ending is also used in several instances of definite adjective declension in singular in the case of scarpe in the phrase scarpe iwitt (sharp understanding L6), lease in the phrase lease woreld (false world L13). The same process is present in fulle in the phrase fulle soðe (full or whole truth L9) but, apart from the addition of the inflection -e, a doubling of consonant from its uninflected form ful also occurs. There are also adjectives present without the addition of inflection with accordance to the pattern of declension of indefinite adjectives. Adjective god appears in nominal accusative in concord with its noun in the phrase god lif (good life L3). Similarly, adjective wis is present in singular nominative. In conclusion, most inflectional endings found in this segment are connected with the dative case in singular where the inflection -e occurs in accordance to all declension types. Plural is always created with the addition of -es inflection in agreement with the strong masculine declension. Adjectives agreeing with number in plural always end in the -e inflection while the adjectives agreeing with nouns in singular are either governed by the declension for definite adjectives, where the ending for singular is also mostly -e or they are governed by the indefinite declension which in this segment mostly results in no inflection.

5.1.4 S2.1 Laȝamon’s Brut Laȝamon’s Brut written at the beginning of the thirteenth century and has quite a complex system of inflection with several declensions present. The continuous existence of grammatical gender is apparent in the complex system of plural inflections. Inflected nouns appearing in singular in the text are fairly regular with dative being created by the -e inflection in all declensions as is the case in kinge (king), uelde (plain or field), crafte (craft or skill), hafde (head), sweore (neck), honde (hand) and stele (steel). 26

Proper names Arðure (Arthur) and Baðe (Bath) are also declined in similar fashion with the simple addition of -e inflection. The only exception from this pattern of declension is the word side (side) which appears in the text in dative singular but does not take on an inflection doe to it following the modified declension for words ending in vowel. Genitive singular is also quite regular being created with the -es inflection in both proper names Vðeres (Uther) and Drihtenes (Lord) and in the word cunnes (kin) where also a doubling of consonant from its uninflected form cun or kun takes place. Plural number is created according to separate declensions according to grammatical gender. Feminine nouns create dative plural with the -en inflection reduced to only -n due to the nouns both ending in vowel in the case of burnen (cuirass, armor) and hosen (hose). Accusative plural of feminine noun sconk (shin) is also created with the addition of -en inflection, however, Burrow and Turville-Petre suggest this is due to the process of nunnation, the addition of n after final vowel, and the inflection added should be considered to be only -e (97). The last feminine noun appearing in the text tidende (tiding, event) is in nominative without the addition of any inflection which may be due to it ending in vowel. Masculine nouns form dative plural in the text through the -en inflection in craften (craft, skill), iweden (garment), steden (steed). The inflection -en along with consonant changes to the uninflected masculine noun stæf (staff, outline) form dative plural stauen. Both genitive and accusative plural of masculine nouns is formed with the addition of -es inflection in the case of beornes (soldier) and cnihtes (knight) in accusative plural and kinges (king) in genitive plural. Neuter nouns form dative plural with the addition of -e inflection forming dæle (part) and stele (steel). Adjectives in the text take on either definite or indefinite declension. Adjectives agreeing with their nouns in singular nominative which fall under the indefinite inflection do not take on any inflection as is the case of sari in the phrase he wes sari (he was sorrowful L2), alsuic in the phrase alsuic smið (elfish smith L11), hæh in the phrase halm…hæh of stele (noble helm of steel L16), moni in the phrase moni ȝimston (many gem stones) and Bruttisc in the phrase nome wes Bruttisc (name in British L21). Indefinite declension is also represented by sturne in the phrase beornes sturne (stern soldiers L7) where it agrees with its masculine noun in accusative plural. In the phrase wiȝelefulle craften (magical craft L15), wiȝelefulle takes on an -e inflection along with the consonant change from wiȝeleful in concord with its masculine noun in dative plural. Both adjective rede and golde in the phrase rede golde stauen (red and gold outline L22) take on the -e inflection to agree with their noun in dative plural. 27

Adjective aðelen appears twice in the text, once in the phrase aðelen crafte (noble craft L11) in dative singular and once in the phrase aðelen kinges (noble king’s L18) in genitive plural. Both times the adjective takes on a definite inflection -en. Adjective alle is formed with the -e inflection and consonant change from its uninflected form al in order to agree with its noun in accusative plural in the phrase cnihtes alle (all knights L6). The adjective deore appears twice in the text, once in the phrase sceld deore (precious shiels L20) and once in the phrase onlicnes deore (precious likeness or portrait L23) and both times takes on the -e inflection. In conclusion, both genitive and dative singular are formed quite regularly with the inflection -e and -es respectively. Plural number, however, is created with a complex set of inflection due to the text’s preserved grammatical gender. Adjectives are formed with either inflection -e or -en depending on the nature of definite and indefinite declension while regularly keeping in concord with their nouns.

5.1.5 S2.2 Ancrene Wisse The Ancrene Wisse, or Ancrene Riwle in later manuscripts, was written at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its language represents the West Midlands dialect of that time with a fair amount of attempted standardization by the Katherine Group. There are two types of inflection added to the singular in this text. Firstly, the genitive singular is created with the -es inflection in the case of Drihtines (Lord) and Godes (God) without additional change of spelling. In the case of deofles (devil), the inflection is added along with a consonant change from the uninflected deofel. Secondly, the dative singular lahtre (laughter) is created with the inflection -e and a consonant change from the uninflected lahter. Plural is formed according to several declensions in the text. The most frequent inflection forming plural in the text is -s used in bemeres (trumpeter), cheres (face), inglurs (juggler, jester) and weis (way, manner) where the inflection is simply added without any additional spelling change. Plural created with the inflection -en is represented by earen (ear) and, to a certain degree, by bemen (trumpet) where the inflection is reduced to -n only due to the uninflected form of the word ending in vowel. Plural of the word ehe (eye) is created quite irregularly with consonant addition and the addition of the -en inflection resulting in the plural form ehnen. The only representative of plural genitive is englene (angel) created with the -ene inflection accompanied by a consonant change from the uninflected form of engel. 28

Inflectional change in adjectives is represented by only three words in the text. First two, prude (proud) and deade (dead) are both adjectives acting as nouns in plural in the text while accepting the -e inflection of plural adjective. The third change is present in the word grurefule (terrible) appearing in concord with its noun in singular nominative in the phrase grurefule dom (terrible judgement L4). Adjectives appearing in the phrases wortlich hereword (wordly praise L1), idel ȝelp (idle boasting L1), lud dream (loud noise L2) and riht ehe (right eye L12) have no inflection due to their concord in indefinite declension with their noun in singular nominative. In the phrase þe unseli ontfule (unhappy envious L10), neither adjective takes on an inflection while ontfule acts as a noun in plural. In a following phrase, hare ondfule laverd (their envious lord L11), ondfule appears again in the definite declension only this time it is in agreement with a noun in singular accusative In both times the definite inflection -e should be present but is not apparent doe to the adjective ending in vowel in its uninflected form. Adjective god appears in the phrase þet good (anything good L14) without any inflection while acting as a noun. Irregularity in the concord is present in the phrase þe luft… open (the left side or hearing…open L14) where open does not take on an inflection even though it should take on the -e inflection under the definite declension. This phenomena could be caused by the separation of the adjective from its noun. In conclusion, Ancrene Wisse contains regular inflections accompanying the formation of both dative and genitive singular while employing a significant number of different inflection for the plural. A very small number of adjectives take on an inflection due mainly to the use of infinite declension in nominative singular.

5.1.6 S2.3 The Proclamation of Henry III The text S2.3 is an example of official documentation issued by the court as well as an example of legal writing in the thirteenth century. The language of the proclamation is that of East Midlands dialect. Dative singular in the text is created with the addition of the -e inflection without any additional spelling change in the case of fultume (grace), Gode (God), loande (land) and the proper names Yrloande (Ireland) and Engleneloande (England). In case of Engleneloande, according to Ellis, genitive plural is created with the inflection -ene in the first part of the compound word, Engelene (112). Dative singular without inflectional change is present in the word ænde due to it following the modified strong masculine declension for words ending in vowel. Genitive singular in the text is formed through the addition of -es inflection after the uninflected form of the word in the case of loandes (land) and Godes (God). 29

Formation of plural in the text is most frequently realised through the inflection -e as can be seen in holde (loyal), ilærde (learned), ileawede (layman), alle (all), and þinge (thing). The same inflection would be employed in the case of igretinge (greeting) if it was not ended in vowel in its uninflected form. The only plural created with the addition of the -es inflection is isetnesses (act or provision). Mutated plural is represented in the text by the plural men (man) from the singular uninflected man. The same pattern of mutated plural is followed by compounds containing the word man as is the case of rædesman and redesman which appear in the text in the plural rædesmen and redesmen (councilman) both being the same word with a different spelling. All inflected adjectives in the text take on the -e inflection. Adjective alle (all) appearing several times throughout the text takes it on due to its concord with noun in plural number. The second adjective using this inflection is moare in the phrase þe moare dæl (the majority L4, L10) in accordance with its definite declension. In conclusion, both dative and genitive singular are created regularly through the declension -e and -es respectively. Plural nouns are usually formed through the -e inflection with the only exception adopting the -es inflection. Very few adjectives take on an inflection in the segment, and those who do, take on the -e inflection of definite declension.

5.1.7 S2.4 Sir Orfeo Sir Orfeo is a poem from the late thirteenth century composed in East Midlands dialect with strong South Midlands influence. The selected fragment for analysis does not contain any nouns in singular which took on an inflection except for the phrase Sir Orfewe (Sir Orfeo L24) where the uninflected form Orfeo takes on a -we ending. This ending is not consistent with any declensions for nouns in singular and could be a result of scribal error or inconsistent spelling. There is also a possibility of it being used in order to create thyme with the preceding line ending in the word trewe. Plural in nouns is generally created in the text through either the inflection -s or -es. Inflection -s is employed in the case of aventours (adventure), bourdes (joke) and Bretouns (inhabitant of Brittany). The inflection -es is used more often in the text, namely in clerkes (clergyman), dayes (day), kinges (king), layes (lay, narrative poem), lordinges (lord), mervailes (marvel), þinges (thing) and wittes (witt). Mutated plural is represented by one occurrence of the plural form men (man) created by a vowel change from the singular form man. Unchanged neuter plural is also represented 30

by one appearance in the form of þing (thing) occurring on the fourth line in accusative plural without any addition of inflection. Another occurrence of the same word but in inflected form taking on the -es inflection in dative plural can be found on the eleventh line. The only adjective appearing in inflected form is gode in the phrase everi gode harpour (every good harper L27) appearing with the inflection -e as a result of agreeing with its noun in nominative singular under the definite declension. In conclusion, text S2.4 contains very few inflections. There are no inflection influencing singular nouns. Plural is created regularly through the strong masculine declension and the inflection -s and -es. Additionally, only one adjective takes on an inflection.

5.1.8 S3.1 Patience Patience is a poem written in the fourteenth century by anonymous author in West Midlands dialect. Its origin is guessed to be sometime around the last quarter of the century by the “Gawain poet” due to shared dialect and phrases. The language of the text is quite progressive as the system of inflection is fairly reduced. There are no inflections in singular nouns present in the text. Only inflections influencing nouns are that which are employed in forming the plural number. Plural number is here created mainly by the -es inflection as is the case of kythes (region), maneres (manner) and herttes where also the doubling of consonant from its uninflected form hert occurs. The inflection -s is used only once in the text in the word happes (fortune), however, even this inflection may be counted as -es inflection reduced to its shorter form due to the noun ending in vowel in its uninflected form. The only inflection used in adjectives is -e in the word alle (all) in plural number on line 16 and 22 where also a doubling of consonant from its uninflected form al takes place. In conclusion, the system of inflections is reduced in this text. There are no inflections influencing singular number and plural number is created by two inflections, -s and -es. Only one adjective in the text takes on an inflection. The plural number in this case is created by the -e inflection.

5.1.9 S3.2 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem from fourteenth century written probably by the same author as Patience. However, unlike patience, it does not follow religious topic but is a romantic piece.

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There are two singular nouns in the text taking on an inflection. Both of these nouns, burȝe (city) and Bretaygne (Britain), are in dative singular and have the -e inflection added without any change in spelling. Plural is created fairly regularly in the text. The most frequently used inflection is -s as is the case of trammes (strategem), prouinces (province), iles (island), teldes (habitation) and homes (home). Inflection -es is also quite frequently used in the text, namely in patrounes (patron), ferlyes (marvels), kynges (king) and bonkkes (height) where also a doubling of consonant from the singular form bonk takes place. There is also one occurrence, askez (ash), where the plural is created with the -z ending. Unusual formation of plural is also brondeȝ (brand, ember) which, however, also occurs further in the text in the much more usual form of brondes. There are no inflections added to adjectives in the text. In conclusion, only nouns are inflected in the text. Most of these endings are used to signal plural number with only a few remaining to form singular dative. Additionally, there are no inflected adjectives in the text.

5.1.10 S3.3 The Parliament of Fowls The Parliament of Fowls is one of the minor poems written by Chaucer. It was written probably sometime around 1380. The system of inflections is already reduced in this work while inorganic -e endings forming a syllable remains as a form of Chaucer’s treatment of rhythm in his works (Skeat). Dative singular created with the -e inflection is present once in the text in luste (pleasure). Inflected dative singular is preserved in the works only after certain prepositions as is the case of luste following the preposition for. Plural is generally created with the -s inflection without any additional spelling change as is the case in miracles (miracle), strokes (stroke), lettres (letter), and books and bokes (book) which are both a variation of the same word with different spelling due to scribal error. Plural is in the Fairfax manuscript also created with the -ys inflection in foulys (fowl) and feldys (field). However, in other manuscripts, the inflection has the form of -es which is more in alliance with the Chaucer’s use of inflections. Mutated plural men (man) created through the vowel change from the singular man is also present in the text. There are only two inflected adjectives in the text and the inflection -e is used in both cases. Adjective olde takes on the -e inflection in plural number in the phrase lettres olde (old letters L19), olde feldys (old fields L22) and olde bokes (old books L24). Definite form

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of adjective with the -e inflection along with a doubling of consonant from its uninflected form of cruel is taken on by the adjective cruelle in the phrase cruelle yre (cruel ire L11). In conclusion, inflection in singular are added only with connection to dative case. Plural number is generally created with the -s inflection and with the -ys inflection in two cases. Adjectives take on the -e inflection in plural number of definite declension.

5.2 Results of analysis of temporal progress 5.2.1 Section one - twelfth century The texts selected for analysis in the first section were all written during the twelfth century. The entry from The Peterborough Chronicle used here is from 1137 presents the beginning of the twelfth century and also the beginning of the Middle English period. The second text used, Owl and the Nightingale was written probably sometime about 1189 and consequently represents the end of the century while the last text used in this section, Vices and Virtues, originated at the turn of the century. Text S1.1, which is the oldest of the three, contains 15 inflected nouns and 26 uninflected. Most of the inflections, namely 11, are connected to plural number with six being -s inflection, 2 -es inflections and 3 mutated plurals. There are four inflected nouns in singular, two in dative with the -e inflection and two in genitive with -es inflection. Only 2 of the 8 adjectives present in the text are inflected, all with the -e inflection. There are 53 words chosen for analysis in the second analysed text S1.2. Of the 31 nouns present 10 are inflected while the remaining 21 do not have any inflection. Only 3 of the noun inflections are connected to plural number which is created only by -e inflection. The remaining 7 inflected nouns are all in dative singular represented by the inflection -e. The analysed segment contains 22 adjectives of which one is in comparative and one in superlative and therefore are not counted into either inflected or uninflected ones. As a result, there are 11 inflected adjectives and 9 without inflection. Predominant part, 10 adjectives, have the -e inflection with one being in agreement with plural noun and the rest with a singular noun. One adjective has a -re inflection as a result of agreeing with feminine noun in singular dative. The segment from the third text, Vices and Virtues, contains 38 analysed words. There are 26 nouns from which 12 are inflected and 14 carry no inflection. Three of the inflected nouns are in plural with the -es inflection while the rest is in singular. Dative singular with the inflection -e occupies the greater part of them with 7 instances while there are only two 33

nouns with -es inflection falling under genitive singular. There are 12 adjectives in this text out of which 8 are inflected, 3 have no inflection and 1 is in comparative and therefore not counted in the final result. All the inflected adjectives have the -e inflection with 2 being in plural and 6 in singular. Source Words Nouns

Inflected

Inflected

nouns

sg nouns

Adjectives5

Inflected adjectives

S1.1

50

42

33.33 %

7.14 %

8

25 %

S1.2

53

31

32.26 %

22.58 %

20

55 %

S1.3

38

26

46.15 %

34.62 %

11

72.73 %

Table 4 Results of analysis - section one Comparing the results of the three texts, it is clear that text S1.3, even though it is the newest of the three, has the highest ratio of inflected singular nouns and inflected adjectives with the number of inflected singular nouns being the third of all present nouns and inflected adjectives constituting three quarters of all adjectives in the segment. In contrast, the oldest text in the selection, text S1.1 has the lowest ratio of inflected adjectives and an extremely low ratio of inflected singular nouns. The ratio of inflected nouns in all three texts is under 50 % and the ratio of adjectives is lower or very close to 50 % in two of the texts which suggest that the system of inflection is reduced in all three text but not to the same degree. The system of inflection is the most simplified in the text S1.1 with the ratio of adjective inflection being exceptionally low. The simplification is quite apparent also in the text S1.2 which has a low ratio of singular noun inflections and even though the ratio of adjective inflections is almost two times the one of text S1.1, it is still significantly lower than the ratio text S1.3 has. The simplification of the system is also apparent from the small number of available inflections. Dative singular in all three texts is in all cases realised by the inflection -e and genitive singular is realised by the -es inflection. Plural number is in both S1.1 and S1.3 realised by the -es or -s inflection and all plurals have the -e inflection in S1.2. All inflected adjectives in all three texts have the -e inflection with the only one being the -re inflection in S1.2.

5

Adjectives in comparative and superlative are not counted in

34

5.2.2 Section two - thirteenth century There are four texts present in the second section. Laȝamon’s Brut which was composed probably sometime between 1200 and 1215 represents the beginning of the thirteenth century. The second text analysed in this section, Ancrene Wisse was written in the first half of the century. The proclamation of Henry III is the only text with clear date of origin being composed in 1258. The last text used in the section, Sir Orfeo, was written probably in the late thirteenth century or at the turn of the fourteenth century. Text S2.1 contains the biggest number of analysed words in its segment, 67. There are 51 nouns out of which 24 are inflected and 27 carry no inflection. Singular nouns with inflection carry either -e inflection for dative, 9 cases, or -es inflection for genitive, 3 cases. Plural is created through a fair amount of inflections. The four inflection employed in the formation of plural are -e inflection in 2 cases, -es inflection in 3 cases, -n inflection in 2 words and -en inflection in 5 words. There are 16 adjectives analysed in the text out of which three are in comparative or superlative and as such are not counted into the final result, 7 are inflected and 6 are not. Adjectives take on either the -e inflection or the -en inflection. The -e inflection is used more frequently, in 5 adjectives, while the -en inflection is used twice in the text. There are 47 analysed words in text S2.2. Out of 35 nouns, there are 12 inflected and 23 have no inflection. Only one noun takes on an inflection in singular dative taking on the -e inflection employed by all declensions. Three nouns take on a -es inflection to create genitive singular. Plural is created through several inflections. The most frequently used inflection in plural is -s with 4 occurrences. Inflection -n is used once and -en is used twice. Genitive plural is represented in the text once with the inflection -ene. Out of 12 analysed adjectives in the segment, 3 have inflection and 9 are uninflected. The only inflection used with adjectives is -e employed in all three occurrences. Text S2.3 contains 37 nouns. Most of these nouns, 21, have no inflections, while the rest, 16 are inflected. Dative singular in 5 words is created through the -e inflection and genitive singular is formed with the -es inflection in two cases. Plural is created with the -e inflection in 5 cases and only once with the -es inflection. There are also three mutated plurals present in the segment. Only two out of the 7 analysed adjectives are inflected while 5 carry no inflection. The -e inflection is used in both cases. Texts S2.4 contains 46 analysed words. Nouns represent 37 of these with their 12 inflected and 25 uninflected occurrences. There are no singular nouns with inflection in the

35

text. Plural in the text if formed through -s inflection in 3 cases and -es in 8 cases. There is also one mutated plural present. There are 9 analysed adjectives in the text. Of these 1 is in comparative and is therefore not counted in the final result, 7 are uninflected and only one has an inflection. This noun takes on the -e inflection. Source Words Nouns

Inflected

Inflected

nouns

sg nouns

Adjectives6

Inflected adjectives

S2.1

67

51

47.06 %

23.53 %

13

53.85 %

S2.2

47

35

34.29 %

11.43 %

12

25 %

S2.3

43

37

43.24 %

18.92 %

7

28.57 %

S2.4

46

37

32.43 %

0%

8

12.5 %

Table 5 Results of analysis - section two Comparing the texts represented in the second section, the ratio of both inflected nouns and inflected adjectives is quite consistent with their age. The oldest text, S2.1 has the highest ratio of inflected nouns as well as the ratio of inflected adjectives while the newest texts has a ratio of inflected nouns which is very close to the lowest one in the section and by far the lowest ratio of inflected adjectives. The second highest ratio of inflected nouns can be found in the text S2.3 which is not fully consistent with its age as compared to the other texts in the section but is a result of its character as a legal document originating from the royal court where conservative language is expected. The more informative inflected singular nouns ratio shows here the advanced process of simplification. While text S1.3 has quite a high ratio, the ratio of text S1.2 is very close to the highest ratio in this section, text S2.1. Texts S2.2 and S2.3 both show significant decline in the number of inflected singular nouns with text S2.2 going as low as 12 %. However, most significant finding in this section is the first analysed text which contains no inflected singular nouns i.e. text S2.4 which suggests a great advancement of the simplification. The highest ratio of more than 50 % of inflected adjectives in text S2.1 suggest quite a complete system of inflection without a great advance of the process of simplification. The ratio of text S2.2, S2.3 and S2.4 suggest an advancement of the process in other texts

6

Adjectives in comparative and superlative are not counted in

36

representing the thirteenth century with only a slight diversion caused by the nature of text S2.3. Additionally, text S2.4 not only has the lowest ratio out of all the texts in the section but its ratio of only 12.5 % suggests a great advance of the simplification. The process can also be observed through the available number of inflections. Text S2.1 has the highest ratio of both inflected nouns and inflected adjectives and, additionally, has the highest number of available inflections, 8. Text S2.2 has 7 different inflections due to especially a smaller number of available adjective inflections. Texts S2.3 and S2.4 have 5 and 3 available inflections respectively.

5.2.3 Section three - fourteenth century All three texts filed under the third section were written in fourteenth century. Patience and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are presumed to be the work of one author though he remains anonymous. Both texts were written in the first half of the century and represent the West Midlands dialect. The important difference between these works is that while Patience, like most of the anonymous author’s wok, is based on a religious topic, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a romance. The third text represented in this section is Parliament of Fowls by Geoffrey Chaucer. This poem is presumed to be one of his later works with presumed origin in the 1380s. There are 43 words analysed in the chosen segment from text S3.1. Out of the 35 present nouns, only 4 are inflected, while the remaining 31 are uninflected. All of the inflections are associated with the creation of plural number and no singular nouns are inflected in the text. The inflections used in plural are -es with three occurrences and -s with only one occurrence. There are 8 adjectives in the analysed segment out of which one is in comparative and therefore is not counted towards the result, one carries an inflection and the remaining six are uninflected. The inflection present in the adjective is -e following a concord with plural noun. Text S3.2 contains 60 analysed words. Nouns represent 48 of these words with its 13 inflected and 35 uninflected occurrences. There is a fair range of different inflection creating plural in the text. The most frequently used inflection is -s with 5 uses, -es is used four times and both the -z and -eȝ inflection are used once. There are two nouns in dative singular formed through the -e inflection. The text contains 12 adjectives out of which 2 are in superlative and thus not counted into the final result and the remaining 10 are without inflection meaning there are no inflected adjectives in the chosen segment.

37

Text S3.3 has 48 analysed words where 33 are nouns and 15 are adjectives. Most of the inflected nouns, 8, take on their inflection with connection to the creation of plural number and only one inflected noun takes on the -e inflection with connection to the formation of dative singular. Plural is then created through the -s inflection in five cases and -ys inflection in two cases. One of the plural nouns is a representative of mutated plural. Only 2 of the 15 adjectives are inflected. Both carry the -e inflection. Source

Nouns

Inflected

Inflected

nouns

sg nouns

Adjectives7

Inflected adjectives

S3.1

35

11.43 %

0%

7

14.39 %

S3.2

48

27.08 %

4.14 %

10

0%

S3.3

33

27.27 %

3.03 %

15

13.33 %

Table 6 Results of analysis - section three Comparison of the results of the analysis show, that in the fourteenth century, the simplification of inflection was already quite advanced. Especially text S3.1 follows the trend set by the last text of the preceding century with no inflected singular nouns meaning only plural was being inflected which remained till Modern English. The number of inflected nouns is also quite low in both S3.2 and S3.3 both being under 5 %. This shows a significant decline from the last century’s writings. However, even though the number shown in text S3.3 is quite low, according to Skeat, Chaucer’s use of final -e in singular was quite archaic as opposed to the reality of spoken language at that time where the final -e was almost non-existent (lxv). The ratio of inflected adjectives in text S3.1 and S3.3 show a pattern of continuous decline of the use of inflections in adjectives but there is still both definite and indefinite declension present. However, text S3.2 has no inflected adjectives as the only one from all the analysed text meaning the shift towards the complete disappearance of inflection was well underway. Not surprisingly is the ratio of inflected nouns higher in the older text, S3.1 that the newer one, S3.3. However, it is quite unusual that two text presumed to be the work of the same author, text S3.1 and S3.2, show such a difference in the use of inflection in both nouns and adjectives even though the presumed age difference between them is not very high. 7

Adjectives in comparative and superlative are not counted in

38

The process of simplification can be also observed in the number of different inflections used in each text. The number of different inflections is smaller than the one found in the text of the preceding century which is consistent with both the ratio of inflected nouns and adjectives and the advanced process of simplification. Text S3.1 has only three different inflections especially due to the fact that there are already no singular noun inflections. The second text observed in this section, text S3.2, has 5 available inflections even though there are no adjective inflections present, however, this number can be accounted to the fact that there are four different inflections used in the creation of plural which is an unusually high number as opposed to both its contemporaries and even to many of the older texts. Text S3.3 has four different inflection used due to both adjective and singular noun inflections being preserved.

5.2.4 Conclusion There was a total of 497 words analysed from the ten selected texts. These analysed words, nouns and adjectives occurring in the selected segments were divided into inflected and uninflected forms. Case, number, gender and concord were identified in these words where applicable to find the cause of the inflection. From these results, a graph of the evolution of the usage of inflection was created as shown below.

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% S1.1

S1.2

S1.3

S2.1

Inflected adjectives

S2.2

S2.3

S2.4

S3.1

S3.2

Inflected singular nouns

Figure 1 Number of inflected nouns and adjectives

39

S3.3

There is a clear declining pattern in all three analysed phenomena in the space of the analysed period. The number of inflected singular nouns went from the highest point of 34.62 % in text S1.3 to the lowest point with 0 % in texts S2.4 and S3.1. Similarly, the number of inflected adjectives went from the highest point constituting of 72.73 % in text S1.3 to the lowest point with no inflected adjectives in text S3.2. The only two texts which did not follow the established pattern of continuous reduction of inflections were S1.1 and S2.3 whose number of both inflected singular nouns and inflected adjectives was quite different from that of its contemporaries. The number of inflected singular nouns was quite low in S1.1 but continued to increase through S1.2 to S1.3 giving uncertain results from the twelfth century writings. The average ratio of inflected singular nouns in twelfth century was 21.45 %. In the following century, the number started to decline in the first two texts and reached the lowest point in the last text with a light inconsistency of higher number in the text S2.3. The resulting average of the thirteenth century was then 13.47 %. The last section started with the same number of zero inflected singular nouns but afterwards, the number increased in S3.2 only to fall again in text S3.3. The resulting average in the fourteenth century was then 2.4 %. The difference between the twelfth century average was 7.98 % meaning there were almost ten percent less inflected nouns in the thirteenth century then in the twelfth century. The difference between the thirteenth century and fourteenth century average number was 11.07 % making the difference even bigger than the one between the twelfth and thirteenth century thus suggesting the simplification of inflection was quicker than before. The number of inflected adjectives was also exceptionally low in the first analysed text and only continued to increase in the following texts resulting in the average of 50.91 % of inflected adjectives in the twelfth century. The first two and the last text in the second section followed a declining pattern with only the exception of text S2.3 where the number increased. The resulting average number of inflected adjectives in the thirteenth century was 29.98 %. The following text, S3.1 had an increased number of inflected adjectives as opposed to its predecessor S2.4 while the following text’s number rapidly fell to zero only to increase again in the last analysed text, S3.3. The average in the fourteenth century was 9.21 %. The difference between the twelfth and thirteenth century was 20.93 % suggesting a rapid decay in the use of adjective inflections. The difference between the thirteenth and fourteenth century average was 20.77 % meaning the simplification of adjective inflections was gradually proceeding at relatively stable pace.

40

To conclude, the number of singular inflected nouns continuously declined in the course of the centuries to the point of several texts showing zero occurrences and the rest showing below 5 % which only survived as petrified phrases used by the authors in their writing while the use of the singular noun inflections was already non-existent in spoken English. The number of inflected adjectives used in the texts of fourteenth century was still only a slightly below 15 %. This means that the number of inflected adjectives saw a more rapid decline in use but did not go completely out of use which may be due to several factors. Grammatical relations which used to be realised by noun inflections were now realised by prepositions and there was no need for the inflections anymore and adjective inflections survived mainly in the works of more careful writers (Burrow and Turville-Petre 29). The survival, though only to a limited extent, of both indefinite and definite adjective declensions to the fourteenth century may also be the result of a development similar to adjectives in German where declension with definite and indefinite article is still distinguished.

5.3 Results of analysis of progress in dialects 5.3.1 East Midlands dialect 80%

6

70%

5

60% 4

50% 40%

3

30%

2

20% 1

10% 0%

0 S1.1 Inflected nouns

S1.3

S2.3 Inflected adjectives

S2.4

S3.3

Number of inflections

Figure 2 Number of inflected nouns and adjectives in East Midlands dialect Figure 2 above shows the results of analysis of these texts. It contains the percentage of inflected nouns and inflected adjectives in comparison with the total number of available inflections shown on the secondary axis on the left. 41

There are five texts selected which represent East Midlands dialect. Those include Peterborough Chronicle (S1.1) and Vices and Virtues (S1.3) of the general East Midlands dialect, and Proclamation of Henry III (S2.3), Sir Orfeo (S2.4) and Parliament of Fowls (S3.3) of the London area. Comparison of results from these selected texts show that the pattern of decline of the use of inflection was present in the East Midlands dialect but was not completely regular. As has already been mentioned, text S1.1 does not fit its contemporaries and the number of inflected nouns and adjective is unusually low for its date of origin as the average number in the twelfth century is at least twice as high. However, from the text S1.3 till S2.4 the number of both inflected adjectives and singular nouns continuously declines. The decline in usage is more gradual in inflected singular nouns than in inflected adjectives whose usage fell from 73 % to only 29 % within a century. The number of available inflection is, surprisingly, increasing between text S1.3 and S2.3 but only one additional inflection is used which does not imply a great change in contrast to the fall in S2.4 where only 3 inflections were used already. We can see a slight increase again in text S3.3 in both the number of inflected nouns and the number of available inflections which can be attributed to Chaucer’s use of archaic language as has been mentioned above. The rapid fall of the usage of inflections between the twelfth and the end of the thirteenth century point to a confirmation of two findings. The system of inflection was still quite complete during the twelfth century with the only exception of Peterborough Chronicle and the process of simplification was only starting to take effect in East Midlands dialect. Secondly, the rapid fall during the thirteenth century show a great advancement of the process mainly due to the starting standardisation.

42

5.3.2 West Midlands dialect Four of the selected texts were written in West Midlands dialect. These include Brut by Laȝamon (S2.1), Ancrene Wisse (S2.2), Patience (S3.1) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (S3.2). 60%

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% S2.1 Inflected nouns

S2.2

S3.1

Inflected adjectives

S3.2 Numer of inflections

Figure 3 Number of inflected nouns and adjectives in West Midlands dialect Figure 3 shows the results of analysis of these texts. It contains the percentage of inflected nouns and inflected adjectives in comparison with the total number of available inflections shown on the secondary axis on the left. Comparison of the results of the analysis of these text show that the process of simplification of the system of inflection was more gradual in West Midlands dialect. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the number of inflected singular nouns was already quite low with only 24 % in S2.1. Additionally, the trend of the reduction of inflection gradually continued until there were no inflected singular nouns present in text S3.1 at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The progress of simplification of adjective inflection went through a similar process though it was more accelerated in this case. The number of used inflected adjectives fell from 54 % at the beginning of the thirteenth century to only 14 % at the beginning of the fourteenth century in S3.1 and to a complete zero in S3.2. The number of available inflection also went through a steep fall from 8 different inflections at the beginning of the thirteenth century to only 3 at the beginning of the following century. However, both the number of available inflections and the number of

43

inflected singular nouns slightly increased between S3.1 and S3.2 which is quite irregular as both texts are presumed to be the work of the same author. The simplification of inflection took on a more regular and gradual path in the West Midlands dialect. The starting point at the beginning of the thirteenth century was, however, not very high and is quite consistent with the average found at that point of time.

5.3.3 Conclusion The findings of both East Midlands and West Midlands dialect confirm that both dialects went through the process of simplification of inflections. This process was more rapid in the East Midlands dialect that in its west counterpart due to its higher number of inflected nouns and adjectives at the beginning of the thirteenth century. During the course of the thirteenth century the number of inflected singular nouns went from 35 % to zero in East Midlands and only from 24 % to 0 % in West Midlands dialect. This suggests that while the simplification was already underway in West Midlands dialect, the process was only starting in the East Midlands dialect. However, both dialect have reach a zero inflected singular nouns at the beginning of the fourteenth century only for it to rise slightly to a number below 5 %. The difference between the advancement of the process is even more pronounced in the number of inflected adjectives. While the number in East Midlands dialect fell from 73 % to 13 % during the course of the thirteenth century, the number only feel from 54 % to 14 % in West Midlands. This is mainly due to the unusually high number of inflected adjectives in S1.3 in East Midlands dialect which was almost 20 % more that the average. Nonetheless, both East Midlands and West Midlands dialect reached a very similar point of 13 % and 14 % by the end of the century. The difference, however, was that while the number continued to fall in West Midlands dialect, the number stayed the same in East Midlands dialect.

44

6 Conclusion The aims of this thesis were to follow the process of reduction of inflection if Middle English texts and observe its advancement during the Middle English period and compare the progress in the selected dialects. Nouns took on the inflection according to number and case following several declensions which developed from Old English declensions and were simplified through time. The inflection for singular dative nouns was usually levelled to -e and the inflection for genitive singular was most frequently -ene while nominative and accusative remained without inflection. Plural number was created through several different inflection most of which remained till the end of the period. The number of inflected nouns contains both singular and plural nouns out of which only singular inflections were reduced during the Middle English period while the plural inflections remained until Modern English. Consequently, only the number of inflected singular noun was counted into the results as the predicative value of the reduction of inflections. Most of the adjective inflection were levelled to -e only by the end of the period but several different inflections were also found in the texts. Adjectives in Middle English period take on an inflection depending on the case, number and seldom the grammatical gender of the noun they are in concord with. The number of inflections at the beginning of the twelfth century differed according to the dialect in which the text was written. The oldest analysed text in this thesis contain an unusually low number of inflected nouns and inflected adjectives. However, it was deduced from the analysis of the remaining texts from the twelfth century that on average less than a quarter of singular nouns was inflected while more than a half of all adjectives was inflected. Especially the number of inflected adjectives was much higher in the text originating from the end of the century, where almost three quarters of adjectives were inflected. During the thirteenth century only an eighth of singular nouns was inflected and a third of adjectives was inflected which shows almost a ten percent decline of in use of singular noun inflections and more than a twenty percent decline in use of inflected adjectives. Similar decline of more than a ten percent in singular nouns and twenty percent in adjectives occurred in the transition towards the fourteenth century. This means that the reduction of inflections in both nouns and adjectives was gradual from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. In the spoken English of fourteenth century, singular nouns did not have any inflections anymore while most of the authors of that time 45

still used them making their use of language archaic. The use of inflected adjectives survived longer with the average of almost ten percent of inflected adjectives. The progress of reduction was quite similar in both East Midlands and West Midlands dialect. However, the process was more advanced in East Midlands dialect because at the end of the twelfth century, its number of inflected singular nouns and adjectives was much higher than the one of the West Midlands dialect. This means that even though both dialects reached the point of no inflected singular nouns at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the fall was higher for the East Midlands dialect from 35 % at the end of the twelfth than it was for West Midlands with the fall from 24 %. Even more pronounced is the difference in inflected adjectives. While East Midlands’s number of inflected adjectives fell by 60 %, the number in West Midlands dialect fell only by 40 %. This means that while the number of both inflected adjectives and singular nouns was much higher in East Midlands than in West Midlands dialect at the end of the twelfth century, they both reached the same number by the end of the thirteenth century which shows a gradual unification and standardisation of the language.

46

List of sources Printed sources Barber, Charles, Joan C Beal, and Philip A Shaw. The English Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print. Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 4th ed. London: Routledge, 1993. Print. Burnley, David. The History of the English Language. London: Longman, 1992. Print. Burrow, J, and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. Print. Crystal, David. The English Language. London, England: Penguin Books, 1988. Print. Dickins, Bruce and R Wilson, ed. Early Middle English Texts: An annotated anthology, with glossary. 7th ed. London: Bowes and Bowes, 1969. Print. Emerson, Oliver Farrar. The History of the English Language. New York and London: Macmillan & Co., 1894. Print. Fisiak, Jacek. An Early Middle English Reader. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1969. Print. Horobin, Simon and Jeremy Smith. An introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002. Print. Kavka, Stanislav J. Past and Present of the English Language. Ostrava: Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava, 2007. Print. Mincoff, Marco. Old and Middle English Texts. Sofia: Naouka i izkoustvo, 1978. Print.

Electronic sources "The Middle English Dictionary." The Middle English Compendium. The University of

Michigan, 2001. Web. 11 Feb 2015. Atkins, J. W. H. The owl and the nightingale. Cambridge: University Press, 1922. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Bateson, Hartley. Patience, a West Midlands poem of the fourteenth century. Manchester: University Press, 1912. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. Ellis, Alexander John. The only English proclamation of Henry III. London: Asher and co., 1868. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.

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Fisher, John J. “Chancery and the Emergence of Standard Written English in the Fifteenth century”. Speculum 52.4 (1977): 870-899. Web. 2 Aug 2014. Hall, John R. Clark. A concise Anglo-Saxon dictionary for the use of students. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. Hasenfratz, Robert. Ancrene Wisse. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Holthausen, Ferdinand. Vices and virtues: Part II Notes and glossary. London: Early English Text Society, 1888. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Madden, Frederic. Layamons Brut, Or Chronicle of Britain. Vol I-III. London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1847. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Mayhew, Anthony Lawson, and Walter William Skeat. A Concise Dictionary of Middle English From A.D. 1150 to 1580. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. Morris, Richard. Sir Gawayne and the Green knight. London: Early English Text Society, 1869. Web. 14 Feb. 2015. Morris, Richard. Specimens of Early English: Part I. Oxford: Clarendon press, 1882. Web. 15 Feb. 2015. Morton, James. The ancren riwle. London: The Camden Society, 1853. Web. 15 Feb. 2015. Quirk, Randolph, and Charles Leslie Wren. An Old English Grammar. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1989. Web. 4 Dec 2014. Richardson, Malcolm. “Henry V, the English Chancery, and Chancery English” Speculum 55.4 (1980): 726-750. Web. 15 May 2014. Skeat, Walter W. The complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. Stratmann, Francis Henry. A Middle-English Dictionary. Oxford: University Press, 1891. Web. 15 Feb. 2015.

Sources for the corpus of texts "Ancrene Wisse (Temptations)." Englesaxe. Web. 30 Nov 2014. "Patience." Representative Poetry Online. Web. 30 Nov 2014.

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"Peterborough Chronicle." Englesaxe. Web. 30 Nov 2014. "The Owl and the Nightingale." Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Web. 30 Nov 2014. “Proclamation od Henry III.” Englesaxe. Web. 30 Nov 2014. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Web. 30 Nov 2014. “Sir Orfeo.” Englesaxe. Web. 30 Nov 2014. “Vices and Virtues.” Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Web. 30 Nov 2014. Burrow, J, and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. 264-5. Print. Laȝamon. “Brut.” Englesaxe. Web. 30 Nov 2014.

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Appendices

50