1LING 2301

Middle English (p. 94). 1066 Battle of Hastings; Norman Conquest (William, Duke of

Normandy [2nd cousin to Edward] takes throne by force as William the Conqueror whose son William Rufus succeeded him)

1100 William II Rufus dies suspiciously in a hunting accident and his younger brother Henry takes the throne as Henry I.

1189 Richard I (the Lionheart of Robin Hood fame spoke little or no English and only spent 6 months in England) succeeds Henry II (Henry I’s Grandson)

1199 Richard died w/o heirs and his brother John was crowned King

1204 King John looses lands in Normandy (his own and that of the Barons)

1205 John looses war with France and Norman Lands belonging to Norman rulers in Britain given up

1215 The Magna Carta signed (forced upon King John by the Barons to limit the king's will to the rule of law)*

2LING 2301

Middle English (p. 94). 1216 Henry III acquires the throne

Thus marking the end of Northern French domination and began Southern French domination

1272 Edward I (Henry III’s son) takes the throne (as the "first King for generations to have a good command of English")

1362 Parliament opened in English (Time of Chaucer 1340–1400)

1381 Peasants' Revolt (increased the importance of English to give the lower persons a voice in the affairs of the country)

1476 Caxton introduces the printing press (by 1500 35,000+ books have been printed – most in Latin)

1489 French no longer used as the language of Parliament

3LING 2301

General Changes

During the Middle English period saw changes such as the loss of inflections, the development of more fixed word ordering and a great deal more borrowing.

While many consonants did not change some did. For instance —

Loss of w between Consonants and /o/ Vowel: swa so & hwa ha ('who')

Loss of some final consonants: drivan drive

Simplification of /sw/ cluster: swuster suster 'sister'

Loss of initial /h/ in words: hring ring & hrof rof ('roof'')

Loss of inflections (suffixes on the ends of words to indicate case) Gaps in inflection system gave space for new prepositions

conversion of other forms: along (OE adj prep)

compound prep: out + of, in + to into,

borrowed : except from Latin, till from ONorse,

according to, around, during from French

11-18-08 4LING 2301

ME Vowels Long vowels: raised and rounded of /a/

so /a/ /o:/ ban bon 'bone' & bat bot 'boat'

unrounding of /y:/ to /i:/ bryd /brid/ 'bride'

One of the most significant changes in ME was the "general obscuring of unstressed syllables" which is one of the fundamental causes of the loss of inflection.

Many unstressed vowels schwa /ə and many unstressed final vowels were eventually lost OE oxa ME oxə 'ox' OE foda ME fodə 'food'

Other vowels were lengthened before /ld/, /mb/, & /nd/ such as: ʧɪld ʧi:ld 'child' (but not if a 3rd syll as in ʧɪldrən)

a, e, and o also got longer in "open syllables of disyllabic words― (meaning those syllables in a word that are CV rather than CVC) namɛ na:mə

Or shortened in some context like before double consonants and clusters cepte [ke:ptɛ] cept [kept]

Also diphthongs started to develop where vowels were followed by glides (/w/ & /j/) and the velar fricative /ɤ/, and as in claw, day, new, grow, bow, owe, & joy.

5LING 2301

“Social Status” of French and

Borrowed Words: With William I's conquest much of the nobility in both

church and state was now made of Normans rather than English.

Thus "French" was associated with higher status while English was the language of "the masses". THUS, many of the native terms for livestock remained

– ox, sheep, swine, deer, calf…

The French words were used for the flesh of these however, as it was probably more commonly eaten by the upper classes (the lower class diet consisting of more grains and such).

beef, mutton, pork, bacon, venison, veal…

6LING 2301

Words from French (cont): Similarly the power dichotomy is seen in the French

origin of: master, servant, bottle, dinner, supper, banquet

(smith & baker remained from OE origin)

while butcher, barber, carpenter, draper, grocer, mason & tailor are all French.

The core of family life remained English (possibly used more regularly): Mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter

But extended family was influenced by French: uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece

or hybrids: grandmother, grand— father, son, daughter, etc.

Numbers and body parts generally kept their English names except for the word face.

7LING 2301

Other French semantic fields of

borrowed words:

Government & Administration:

parliament, bill, act, council, county, tax, custom

Law & Property:

court, assize, judge, jury, justice, prison, chattel, money, rent

Titles:

Prince, duke, marquis, viscount, baron

War:

battle, assault, siege, standard, banner, fortress, tower