Rise of the Articles

The other direction of the development of the demonstrative pronouns led to the formation of the definite article.

The definite article is an outgrowth of the OE demonstrative pronoun sē. The suppletivity observed in OE was lost. The sound [s] of the OE nominative case, singular (masculine sē and feminine sēo) was replaced by the sound [θ] on the analogy of the oblique cases (þæs, þæm, þone, etc.). With the development of ēo > ē, the forms þē and þēo fell together as þe, later spelt «the».

The neuter form þæt (ME that), retained its full demonstrative form, while «the» was weakened, both in meaning and form. Gradually they became two different words.

As a demonstrative pronoun «that» preserved number distinctions whereas as a definite article (usually in the weakened form the [θə]) it was uninflected.

The meaning and functions of the definite article became more specific when it came to be opposed to the indefinite article.

The indefinite article developed from the OE numeral ān (one), whose meaning weakened to «one of many», «some» even in OE. Compare with the Russian в один прекрасный день. The weakening of the meaning went together with the weakening of the stress. The long [ā] was shortened in the unstressed position, so that ān changed into an. Later the unstressed [a] was reduced in pronunciation to [ə]. The consonant [n] was usually lost before consonants but retained before vowels. The stressed OE ān retained its meaning «one» in ME. Its phonetical development was rather complicated: OE ān > ME ǭn > n > NE u:n > wu:n > wun > wлn.

Note The development of a labial before [u] is common in some languages, e.g. the Ukrainian for уж, ухо is вуж, вухо.

 

According to other sources, OE ān > ME n > wǭn > wōn > NE wu:n > wun > wлn.

Cf. R о сьм (осьмушка) – во семь, о стрый – во стрый.

 

3.8.6. The Verb: General Characteristics

In ME, the verb underwent two opposite changes: it became simpler in its synthetic forms and at the same time more complicated due to the growth of new analytical forms and categories.

The verb retained nearly all the grammatical categories it possessed in OE: tense, mood, person, number. Only the category of aspect was lost. This is attributed partly to the phonetic process that brought about the disappearance of many stressed aspect prefixes, including ʒe-. However, the main cause was the contradictory nature of the category even in OE. Verbal prefixes, especially ʒe- (reduced to y- in ME), which could express the perfective meaning, in the opinion of most scholars, were mostly word-building prefixes. The lexical meaning of the prefixes prevented them from becoming a purely grammatical device of expressing aspect distinctions.

Person and Number The person and number distinction were preseved in ME, but they differed considerably in various dialects.

The ending of the 3-rd person, singular, present, indicative was –eth (< OE -eþ) in the South and –es in the North. By the end of 18-th c. the verb ending –es became the dominating inflection of the 3-rd person singular. Why the Northern ending became later the national standard is not quite clear.

The ending of the plural present indicative was –eth (< OE -aþ) in the South, -en (from the Subjunctive mood) in the Midland counties and –es in the North. The ModE zero ending of the plural has developed from the Midland forms.

The form of the 2-nd person singular went out of use with the replacement of thou by you and fused with the form of the first person.