HEL Chapter 5

What happens to OE inflectional forms for articles and adjectives in ME?

adjectives were no longer inflected and articles were reduced to only one article for definite - the and two indefinite a - singular and some - plural

Which OE letters fell into disuse after the norman conquest?

ae weird P for wynn d with x forth and P with x thorn

When were norman french words borrowed in english? central french words?

after the norman conquest and a little before and central french was borrowed during and afer the 14th century

How did ME indicate past perfect and future tenses? how did french influence this?

after the noun because french did it that way

What became the dominant language in England after the norman conquest?

After winning the battle of hastings king william (of france) made norman-french the language of the english court.

10 words in french

azure, bleu, brun, chat, coq, fleur, jaune, jugement, loi, porc, roti

Why do norman french borrowings sound more like english than central french borrowings?

because NF was borrowed earlier than CF and had more time to be adapted to typical english

Why does /v/ become a phoneme in middle english?

because it was no longer predictable and sounded like /f/ see outline

Why did norman scribes use medial o in place of u?

because of minims, they use o when u was next to a minim

Why do we have signs like ye olde flowers shoppe on modern english?

because the upper case of P for the looks like a Y but is actually supposed to be The

What inflectional OE noun cases and genders disappear in ME?

before ME - 4 cases, 2 numbers, 3 genders after ME - 2 cases, 2 numbers, 1 gender

10 english words that are medieval borrowings from french

blue, court, dame, law, onion, pork, quaint, rich, rose, robe

What happened to the OE past participle ending in ME?

could be formed with en or ed

What happened to the OE present participle ending in ME?

remained the same ended in -ing

What four letters appear more frequently in middle english than in OE and why?

K, Q, V, Z see study guide

How do french morphemes influence ME plural morphemes?

french formed plural with s, z, eus, euz, eux, so french plural morphemes influenced english

What happened to the status of the French language in England after the year 1200?

french slowly becomes unpopular in england because king john was making mistakes, land was being given to french retainers and english were resenting the "foreigners"

What are the reasons that middle english is a creole of OE and norman french

fullers theory

What happened to the OE prefix ge in ME?

ge becomes y sometimes dropped, sometimes stayed

What happened to the OE infinitive ending in ME?

infinitive dropped the -an ending and became unmarked or had to in front

What OE consonants were lost in ME? What new consonant phonemes were gained in ME?

initial h bring becomes ME ring see outline

What were the 5 regional ME dialects? Which dialect was the basis for the sixth dialect that eventually became the written and spoken standard? why?

kentish, souther, eastern midland, western midland, northern and 6th was london english which also became written and spoken standard because london was center of administrative and economic activities

How does lufu become ME love?

norman scribes subbed V for F when spelling words where the letter F represented a voiced labial continuant and they replaced u with o when it was next to a minim

What dialect of french did william the conquerer speak?

norman-french

What dialect did chaucer use?

southern

in what ways was the french language still in use in england at the end of the middle ages?

still used in in law courts polite correspondence occasionally when writing literature and when speaking with french people

Name 2 historical events that hastened the demise of the french language/dominance of middle english in england

the 100 years war and the black plague decimating the population and made peasant work a commodity

How did the angevin dynasty reinforce the supremacy of french?

they had norman-french kings on the english throne, anglo-norman nobility holding property in france and marrying french women, anglo-norman nobility patronizing french/anglo-norman writers

Why did the norman conquerers need to learn a little english?

to settle disputes between subjects

What letters were positional variants in ME?

u, v, j, y

What was the second person plural used for aside from addressing more than one person in later ME?

used for the polite/formal form for second person singular

How did ME exress the subject of impersonal verbs? What was the french influence on this?

used it behoueth