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Logan Pearsall Smith
Published by Good Press, 2021
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Although the development of English was gradual, and there is at no period a definite break in its continuity, it may be said to present three main periods of development—the Old, the Middle, and the Modern, which may be distinguished by their grammatical characteristics. These have been defined by Dr. Sweet as first, the period of full inflections, which may be said to last down to A.D. 1200; the period of Middle English, of levelled inflections, from 1200 to 1500; and that of Modern English, or lost inflections, from 1500 to the present time.
Although the grammar of the language by the end of the Middle English period was fixed in its main outlines, there has, nevertheless, been some change and development since that time. Thus the northern are for be, spread southwards in the early part of the XVIth Century, and became current towards its end, where it appears in Shakespeare and the Authorized Version of the Bible, and it has now in modern times almost supplanted the southern be in the subjunctive mood. The use of auxiliary verbs to express various shades of meaning, although it had begun in the Old, and developed in the Middle English period, has been greatly extended in modern times. The distinction in meaning between I write and I am writing, between the habitual and the actual present, is a modern innovation; and another modern development which expresses a useful shade of meaning is that of the emphatic present with the auxiliary do, “I do think,” “I do believe,” as contrasted with the less emphatic “I think,” “I believe.” Both forms existed in Old English, but until the XVIIth Century no clear distinction was made between them, as we see in the biblical phrase “and they did eat and were all filled.” The XVIIth Century saw also the adoption of the neuter possessive pronoun its, which is first found in 1598, but which is not used in the Bible of 1611, nor in any of Shakespeare’s plays printed in his lifetime. The use of nouns as adjectives, the “attributive noun,” as it is called, as in “garden flowers,” “railway train,” etc., is a new and most useful innovation, which has come into use since the period of Old English, and has been greatly developed in modern times. There is nothing quite like it in any other language except Chinese, and it is a great step in advance towards that ideal language in which meaning is expressed, not by terminations, but by the simple method of word position. And following also this line of development we find a curious case in modern English when the termination used for inflection, the s of the English genitive, has become detached from its noun and used almost as a separate word. This is the group genitive, as in “the King of England’s son,” instead of “the King’s son of England,” and in colloquial speech we can even use a phrase such as “the man I saw yesterday’s hat.” Here the s of the genitive has become detached from its noun, and made into a sign with the abstract character of a mathematical symbol. One of the most modern developments of English grammar, which dates from the end of the XVIIIth Century, is a new imperfect passive, as in the phrase “the house is being built,” for the older “the house is building,” or “is a-building.”
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