328 Study Questions: Baugh Chapter Seven: "Middle
English "
Vocabulary:
Middle English, synthetic, analytic, anthimeria, declension,
linguistic analogy, organic -e, scribal -e,
conjugation, strong verb, weak verb, grammatical gender,
loanwords, strong verb, weak verb, syntax, amelioration,
pejoration, sumptuary laws, regional dialect, taboo
Identifications: William Caxton, Printing
Press
7.111 What years does Baugh give for the
Middle English period? How is that different than the years
your teacher gives on his website entry for Middle English?
Summarize in one sentence the greatest change in English
grammar during the Middle English period?
Summarize in one sentence the nature of the changes
in English vocabulary during the Middle English period?
7.112 What happened to many of the inflectional
endings found in Old English during the Middle English period?
What is the "indeterminate vowel"? Traces of
this appear how early in Old English?
7.113 How did the -s
ending on nouns come to dominate the plural in Middle and
Modern English rather than an -en
plural ending (like the plural form oxen)?
It was initially uncertain that -s
would win out as a sign of plural nouns. What were the competing
formations in the south?
When did the -s
plural ending become the standard plural in the north and
north Midland areas?
What similarity may have helped the spread of
the -s plural ending when we
consider the plural in Anglo-Norman?
7.114 What declension form and grammatical
number wa extended to all cases of the singular?
Where does that silent -e
come from in many modern words?
7.115 The decay of inflections that simplified
nouns and pronouns brought along what change to syntax?
(i.e., two things what became more important for conveying
the relation of one word to another in a sentence?)
When did the dual pronouns drop out of English?
The pronoun heo
was the Old English pronoun for the third person feminine
pronoun. (Lecture Note:
In Middle English dialects like the West Midlands, it survives
in the Middle English pronoun hoh.) Where
did our modern word she
come from?
For the Old English third person plural pronouns, we would
expect to find the Middle and Modern English pronouns hi
(nominative), here
(possessive), and hem
(neuter)--so where do we get they,
their, and them
for these pronouns?
7.116 What "serious losses"
were the principal changes in verbs during the Middle English
period?
If a verb formed through anthimeria or if a word was borrowed
from another language, was it usually conjugated as a strong
verb or a weak verb?
7.117 How did the Norman Conquest affect
the ranks of strong verbs?
Today, what percentage of the Old English strong verbs
have disappeared completely from standard usage?
7.118 What is linguistic analogy? Explain
how linguistic analogy played a part in the disappearance
of many strong verbs.
How did printing possibly provide a "stabilizing effect"
on verbs?
7.119 Which was more tenacious and tended
to survive mor eoften in modern English--the past participles
of strong verbs or the past tense of strong verbs?
7.120 Only sixty-eight Old English strong
verbs survive today--but the surviving strong verbs rarely
have come down to us in the form that would have been normal
for Old English. Provide one example.
7.121 In addition to the decay of inflections
in the Middle English period, another significant loss as
an accompanying feature was what?
In what part of England did inflections and grammatical
gender disappear first? In what part of England did inflections
and grammatical gender disappear last? [Question for thought:
why does this make sense, given what we read about Danish
invasions in the last couple of chapters?]
7.122 What
is syntax?
In the Peterborough Chronicle, we can clearly
see rigid word order appearing to make clear the direction
of cause and effect. What vocabulary term describes a language
that requires specific word order in order to make meaning?
What vocabulary term (as opposed to grammar) refers to the
required word order?
7.123 What language provided the largest
number of loanwords to English in the Middle English period?
According to Baugh, during the years 1066-1250, the largest
two groups of French loanwords during after
time of the Conquest were associated with what?
7.124 Why is it not surprising that so
many French loanwords were adopted for governmental and
administrative terms? Provide any three examples.
7.125 Provide an example of a clerical-
or church-term introduced from French.
7.126 The greatest part of English legal
vocabulary enters English as loanwords from what other language?
Even when an Old English word from law survives into modern
English, it has typically lost what?
Give an example of a word adopted from Old French
as a legal term.
7.127 Why did so many words for military
and naval terms come to be adapted from the Normans?
7.128 Who set the standards in high fashion,
dress, and luxury in England after 1066?
Lecture: What are
sumptuary laws and how do they reveal the hierarchical nature
of medieval life?
Lecture: Explain
how linguistic pejoration and amelioration comes about through
social distinctions. How does this knowledge explain the
connotational and denotional difference between (a) veal
and beef and (b) cow? Between (a) pork and (b) pig? Between
(a) poultry and (b) chicken?
7.129 Why do so many words from art, learning,
and medicine come from French or from Latin via French?
7.130 Which of the following parts of
speech tended to be most readily adopted into English from
Norman French: (a) nouns, (b) adjectives, (c) verbs, (d)
idiomatic turns of phrase, or (e) all of these were readily
adopted into English?
7.131 When a Norman-French word was adopted
into English, the loanword often appears today to be quite
different than the Modern French word in spelling or pronunciation.
Why is that? (i.e., what did the native French continue
to do in the native French language in later years long
after English initially borrowed that term as a loanword?)
Explain how these differences in spelling originated: English
forest, Mn. French
forêt;
English hostel, Mn.
French hôstel.
What happened to the pronunciation of j
and ch
in French in the thirteenth century?
If a French loanword spelled with a <ch>
grapheme was adapted before the thirteenth century,
what sound will that grapheme <ch>
have in Modern English? How about a similar loanword adapted
after the thirteenth century--what sound will that
word's grapheme <ch>
have in that case?
If a French loanword spelled with a
<j> was adapted before
the thirteenth century, what sound will that grapheme <j>
have in Modern English? How about a similar loanword
adapted after the thirteenth century--what sound
will that word's grapheme <j>
have in that case?
The French loanwords nice
and vine have a corresponding
long vowel for the <i>
grapheme. However, the French loanwords police
and ravine have a
different (/I/) vowel for the
<i> grapheme. What explains
this difference?
In Central French (i.e., Parisian French from the Ile-de-cité),
certain words were spelled cha-
or chie-. How were cognate
words to these terms in Anglo-Norman French spelled? Think
about this. How does this difference explain correspondences
like the words cattle
and chattel; or cavalry
and chivalry; chief
and chef?
7.132 In the fourteenth-century,
most French loanwords were "popular" (i.e., used
in everyday speech by a variety of people). In the fifteenth-century,
what was the nature of most French loanwords? (i.e., how
was the principal source of borrowings different in its
principal source?)
7.133: According to statistical analysis,
what is the period of the most intense adoptation of French
loanwords into Middle English?
What percentage of French loanword adopted during the ME
period are still in current use?
7.134 How does the speed at which new
French words became the basis of derivatives indicate how
rapidly a word is assimilated into English?
Lecture: The -ly
ending on adjectives and adverbs comes from where? Why is
it surprising to see that attached to French loan-words
like gentle, courteous,
or whatnot?
What does Baugh mean by a "hybrid form"?
7.135 What happened to a surprisingly
large number of native (i.e., Anglo-Saxon words) that were
formerly common in the Old English period during the Middle
English period?
Sometimes, when an OE word died out in general use, it
survives in what?
7.136 When both the English and French
words for a concept survive, what generally happened to
meaning of each word in the pair? What is the linguistic
term for this (which Baugh does not use)
7.137 The OE process of deriving new words
involved using prefixes, suffixes, and by compounding. In
the centuries following the Norman Conquest, what changed
about this?
7.138 What happened to the Old English
prefix for- as an
intensifier and to- as
the Middle English period progressed?
What happened to the Old English prefixes with-,
over-, under-
and un- in later English
periods?
7.139 The OE suffixes -ness,
-ful, -less,
-some, -ish,
-dom, -hood,
and -ship still thrive
in Modern English. Others have become very rare. The OE
suffix -lac (-lock)
only survives in what single word? [Hint: It's not hemlock,
which comes from a different root.] The OE suffix -red
only survives in what two words?
7.140 Is compounding as common in Modern
and Middle English as it used to be in Old English? Has
compounding died out completely?
7.141 Why does Baugh claim that English
is "still English" in spite of several thousand
French loanwords, the decrease of compounding, and the radical
simplification of the Old English inflections?
7.142 What period is known as the Third
Period of Latin Influence?
The OED lists most examples of Latin words borrowed during
the Third Period of Latin Influence as being borrowed directly
from Latin. Why does Baugh think this is a little simplistic?
7.143 What are aureate terms?
7.144 What does Baugh make of the argument
some scholars make that Old English words are much more
"direct" or "concrete" "vivid"
or "strong" than the abstract and generalized
borrowings from French or Latin?
Of French, Latin, and native English words, which one does
Baugh argue is "generally more bookish"?
7.145 The importance of Romance influences
on English, according to Baugh, overshadows the influences
of what other languages during the Middle English period?
7.146 Were the various dialects of Old
English always mutually intelligible to one another?
7.147 What are the four principal dialects
of Middle English listed on page 189 of your textbook? What
is the fifth dialect labeled on your map as a distinct variety
of Southern on page 191?
- If you found a Middle English sentence that reads in
the plural present indicative, "They loveth,"
what dialect is that sentence written in?
- If you found a Middle English sentence that reads in
the plural present indicative, "They loven,"
which of two dialects could that sentence be written in?
- If you found a Middle English sentence that reads in
the plural present indicative, "They loves,"
which of two dialects could that sentence be written in?
In southern dialects of Middle English, -ing
is the suffix marking the present partiple. What was the
equivalent suffix in the Northern dialect?
In the words fox
and vixen, what does
the /f/ and /v/
consonant sound of each word indicate about each word's
origins?
7.148 Of the five various dialects, which
one ultimately became the standard for all of England?
What major metropolitan area is associated with
this dialect or region?
Baugh gives three reasons why this dialect should win out
over the other four. What are these reasons?
- Geographically and linguistically, what is the East
Midland's location in relation to the other geographic
dialects of England?
- What was the population like in the East Midlands--compared
to the other regions of London?
- Where are Oxford and Cambridge located in terms of
their dialectical region?
What does Baugh think of some scholars' arguments that
Chaucer was the most important influence in bringing about
the East Midlands' status as England's standard dialect?
7.149 Where is London located, in terms
of the five dialect-regions of Middle English? How did this
play a part in forming English's standard dialect?
7.150 After 1450, it becomes impossible
in surviving texts for scholars to do what?
After 1476, the introduction of what new technology to
London also plays a part in disseminating London English
as standardized English? Who introduced it?
7.151 Have dialectal differences in England
been completely subsumed by standardized English? If so,
to what degree? If not, why not, do you suppose?