![]() ![]() In the Southern type, -th also existed for plural. It was also possible that in certain texts both types appeared in parallel. In the fifteenth century, two basic patterns existed in the London standard language: the East Midland type and the Southern type. From Old English to Modern English, the number of person endings shrunk from nine over seven in Middle English and four in Early Modern English to the 3rd person singular marking today. ![]() ![]() The main changes that were common for both strong and weak verbs obviously occurred in marking of person and number. (Picture: Marking of tense, mood, number and person in Modern Standard English The markings for 2nd person singular in past and present got lost so that today inflection concerning verbs actually only indicates tense and 3rd person singular present tense. The morphology of verbs from Early Modern English does not vary much from the Modern Standard English which we have nowadays. The –s-marking in 3rd person singular indicative was basically used in everyday spoken language, while -th was more common in written language and the language of the court. In Early Modern English, four distinct singular endings remained: -st and -s/-th for the 2nd and 3rd person in the present tense as well as -d and -dst for the 1st/3rd and 2nd person in the past tense. Therefore, a rigid word order is important. The meaning of a verb form has now to be suggested by the context in which it appears. (Picture: Marking of tense, mood, number and person in Early Modern Englishįrom Middle English to Early Modern English, inflection decayed further: Plural endings became zero-marked and therefore were not distinct any longer. ![]()
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