=The History of the Grammar of English.=
1. =AN INFLECTED LANGUAGE.=--When, in the fifth century, our English
speech was brought over from the Continent, it was a highly inflected or
=Synthetic= language; and it remained in this condition for several
centuries. The coming of the Danes had the effect of beginning the
dropping off of inflections. The coming of the Normans extended very
much and hastened this process, which has gone on with considerable
rapidity down to the present day. We may put the general fact in this
way:
The English Language was a =Synthetic Language= down to about the
year 1100; since that time, it has been becoming more and more of
an =Analytic Language=.
2. =THE GRAMMAR OF NOUNS.=--In the very oldest English--or, as it is
commonly called, _Anglo-Saxon_--nouns were declined in different ways,
and had several declensions, just as German and Latin have. Each of
these declensions had four cases. Nowadays we have only one declension
and only one inflection for the cases of nouns. That one inflection is
=’s= for the possessive case. The following is an example of an old
declension:
Declension of =EAGE=, the eye.
_Sing._ _Plur._
_Nom._ Eage (eye). Eagan.
_Pos._ Eag-an (of). Eag-ena.
_Dat._ Eag-an (to). Eag-am.
_Obj._ Eage. Eagan.
Again, in this English, gender did not follow sex, but was poetic and
fantastic. _Tongue_ and _week_ were feminine nouns, as they still are in
modern German; _star_ and _sea_, masculine; _wife_ and _child_,
neuter.--In old English there were a great many plural endings, as =-as=,
=-an=, =-u=, =-a=, =-o=. After the Norman Conquest they were greatly reduced,
=-es= or =-s= being now the ordinary ending, =-en= being exceptional.
3. =THE GRAMMAR OF ADJECTIVES.=--Adjectives had also cases. Adjectives had
four cases, three genders, and two numbers. Now we say _good_ for all
cases, genders, and numbers. In the fourteenth century the only ending
which adjectives possessed was =e= for the plural. Thus Chaucer
(1340-1400) writes of the little birds:
And _smalë_ fowlës maken melodie.
4. =GRAMMAR OF DEFINITE ARTICLE.=--This article was declined like an
adjective, in three different genders. Now it has no inflections at all.
It has still, however, a clear and distinct memory of one case, which
survives in such phrases as, ‘The more, the merrier.’ This sentence
might be written, ‘þŷ more, þŷ merrier.’ That is to say, ‘By that more,
by that merrier.’ The measure of the increase of the company is the
measure of the increase of the merriment.
5. =GRAMMAR OF THE PERSONAL PRONOUN.=--The personal pronoun was also
highly inflected in the oldest English; and the two personal pronouns of
the first and second persons possessed this remarkable peculiarity, that
it had three numbers, singular, dual, and plural. The dual form stood
for _We two_ and for _You two_; and, if we cared to trouble ourselves
nowadays with a host of inflections, these would certainly be very
convenient.
All this is now very much changed. The dual number is completely gone;
the use of _thou_, except in religious compositions, has been given up,
and the true possessive of _it_, which is =his=, has given place to the
incorrect form _its_. The possessive _its_ is very seldom found in
Shakspeare, and there is only one instance of it in our present
translation of the Bible: ‘That which groweth of its own accord of thy
harvest thou shalt not reap’ (Lev. xxv. 5). But another reading is, ‘of
it own accord.’
6. =GRAMMAR OF VERBS.=--The verb possessed also, in the oldest times,
before the language was at all influenced by Norman-French, a large
number of inflections. At the present time a verb has only five
inflections; but, if it belongs to the strong conjugation, it may have
six. Let us look at the old verb _niman_, to take, which still survives
in our adjective _nimble_, which means _quick at taking_.
The chief tenses of =niman= were inflected as follows:
PRESENT TENSE.
_Sing._ _Plural._
1. nime. nimath.
2. nimest. nimath.
3. nimeth. nimath.
PAST TENSE.
_Sing._ _Plural._
1. nám. námon.
2. náme. námon.
3. nám. námon.
Of all the inflections in the above, only two still remain, _st_ in the
second person singular, and _th_ in the third person; and even these two
inflections are nowadays hardly used at all.
7. =FRAGMENTS OF NOUN INFLECTIONS.=--Although our language, in the course
of its history, has lost almost all of its inflections, there still
remain, here and there, in our grammar, fragments of inflections which
are often curiously disguised, and therefore difficult to recognise.
Thus, at first sight, it is not easy to see that _vixen_ is the feminine
of _fox_. But _vixen_ is simply the same as _fixen_, or _fyxen_, and it
was one of the laws of Anglo-Saxon vowel-change that _o_ became _y_. It
was very usual to make the plural of nouns in _en_. Thus we said
_shoon_, _hosen_, _tren_, _been_ (for _bees_), _toon_ (for _toes_),
_flon_ (for _arrows_), and _fleen_ (for _fleas_). But, of all these and
other similar plurals, we now possess only one--_oxen_. The plurals
_children_ and _brethren_ are really double plurals. The oldest plurals
were _cildru_, afterwards _childer_; and _brether_. It was then
forgotten that these were real plurals, and an _en_ was added.
8. =FRAGMENTS OF ADJECTIVE INFLECTIONS.=--We have the comparative _rather_
(rightly pronounced in Ireland rayther); but we have no _rathe_ or
_rathest_. An old writer, speaking of a star, says: ‘It rose rather and
rather (earlier).’ =Nighest= becomes _next_; because the =g + s= is equal to
an =x=. So there was in our country an old proverb, ‘When bale is hext,
bone is next’--that is, ‘When evil is highest, boon is nighest.’ _Over_
is now only used as a preposition. But it is really the comparative
degree of the old adjective _ov_, which is a form of _up_ or _off_.
9. =FRAGMENTS OF PRONOUN INFLECTIONS.=--The _t_ in _it_ (which was
formerly _hit_, as the neuter of _he_) is simply the sign of the neuter
gender, and is the same _t_ that is found in _tha-t_, _wha-t_ (the
neuter of _who_), etc. Hence the true possessive of _it_ is _his_; and
this is the form in use in Shakspeare and Bacon, and even down to the
middle of the seventeenth century. _Its_, as we have already seen, is a
blunder. _They_ is not the true plural of _he_; but really of the old
definite article _thaet_.
10. =FRAGMENTS OF VERB INFLECTIONS.=--The inflections of the verb are very
strangely disguised; and, if learned men had not worked hard, and made
diligent inquiry in many directions, we should never have known what
they really are. Thus the _m_ in _am_ is the same _m_ that is found in
_me_; and the oldest form known of the verb _am_, in the oldest
language, is _asmi_.--The _t_ which we find in the second person of
some verbs, such as _art_, _wast_, _shalt_, and _wilt_, is the same as
the _th_ in _thou_. This _t_ is therefore the pronoun _thou_ added to
the verb.--The _th_ in the old-fashioned third person singular
_writeth_, _hopeth_, etc., is the same _th_ that we find in _the_ and
_that_. Accordingly, we may say that _burneth_ is = _that_ (_thing_)
_burns_.--The last _d_ in _did_ is not the same as the _ed_ in _walked_.
_Did_ is not = _doed_. An older form of _did_ is _dude_; and from this
we see that the past tense was formed by doubling the present--by
reduplication. Thus we see that it is the last _d_ that represents the
_do_.--The word _worth_ in the well-known lines from the _Lady of the
Lake_--
Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day,
That cost thy life, thou gallant gray!--
is not an adjective, but the remnant of an old verb. This verb is
_weorthan_, to become; and _worth_ is the imperative of it. When a verb
has lost one of its parts, it goes to another verb, and borrows the use
of one of its parts. Thus _went_, the past tense of _go_, is borrowed
from _wend_.
11. =FRAGMENTS OF INFLECTIONS IN ADVERBS.=--Adverbs contain a great number
of disguised inflections. In the present day, we make adverbs from
adjectives by adding _ly_ to them--as _neat_, _neatly_; _warm_,
_warmly_. But, in old English, the adverb was made by employing the
dative of the adjective. Thus, _brightë_ was = _in a bright manner_;
_swiftë_ was = _swiftly_. Then _ë_ very soon dropped off; and the word
was left in its bare root--stripped of inflections. And so it has
happened that we have many adverbs which are used in their simplest
form, and are just the same as adjectives. We do not say, ‘He runs
fastly,’ but ‘He runs fast;’ ‘He works hardly,’ but ‘He works
hard.’--But the remnants of other cases are also found in adverbs. Thus
_needs_, _always_, _sideways_, _once_ (for _onës_), _twice_ (for
_twiës_), _unawares_, _whence_ (for _whennës_) and others, are all old
possessives.--_Seldom_ is an old dative plural. _Seld_ meant _rare_; and
_seldom_ means _at rare times_.--_The_ in the phrase, ‘The older the
better,’ is an ablative or _instrumental_ case; and therefore means _by
that_. Accordingly this sentence means: ‘By that older, by that
better.’ The measure of the increase of age is the measure of the
increase of the quality.
12. =FRAGMENTS OF INFLECTIONS IN PREPOSITIONS.=--_Since_ is the possessive
case of the old English word _sithen_. The following are the steps:
_Sithennës_; _sithens_; _sithence_; _since_.--_After_ is the comparative
degree of the old preposition _af_ (= of), which meant _from_. _Over_ is
another comparative form, from a root which appears in _up_.