1. 1 LING 2301 Middle English (p. 94). 1066 Battle of Hastings; Norman Conquest (William, Duke of Normandy [2nd cousin to Edward] takes throne by force as William the Conqueror whose son William Rufus succeeded him) 1100 William II Rufus dies suspiciously in a hunting accident and his younger brother Henry takes the throne as Henry I. 1189 Richard I (the Lionheart of Robin Hood fame spoke little or no English and only spent 6 months in England) succeeds Henry II (Henry I’s Grandson) 1199 Richard died w/o heirs and his brother John was crowned King 1204 King John looses lands in Normandy (his own and that of the Barons) 1205 John looses war with France and Norman Lands belonging to Norman rulers in Britain given up 1215 The Magna Carta signed (forced upon King John by the Barons to limit the king's will to the rule of law)*

2. 2 LING 2301 Middle English (p. 94). 1216 Henry III acquires the throne Thus marking the end of Northern French domination and began Southern French domination 1272 Edward I (Henry III’s son) takes the throne (as the "first King for generations to have a good command of English") 1362 Parliament opened in English (Time of Chaucer 1340–1400) 1381 Peasants' Revolt (increased the importance of English to give the lower persons a voice in the affairs of the country) 1476 Caxton introduces the printing press (by 1500 35,000+ books have been printed – most in Latin) 1489 French no longer used as the language of Parliament

3. 3 LING 2301 General Changes During the Middle English period saw changes such as the loss of inflections, the development of more fixed word ordering and a great deal more borrowing. While many consonants did not change some did. For instance — Loss of w between Consonants and /o/ Vowel: swa  so & hwa  ha ('who') Loss of some final consonants: drivan  drive Simplification of /sw/ cluster: swuster  suster 'sister' Loss of initial /h/ in words: hring  ring & hrof  rof ('roof'') Loss of inflections (suffixes on the ends of words to indicate case) Gaps in inflection system gave space for new prepositions conversion of other forms:along (OE adj  prep) compound prep:out + of, in + to  into, borrowed :except from Latin, till from ONorse, according to, around, during from French

4. 11-18-08 4 LING 2301 ME Vowels Long vowels: raised and rounded of /a/ so /a/  /o:/ ban  bon 'bone' & bat  bot 'boat' unrounding of /y:/ to /i:/ bryd  /brid/ 'bride' One of the most significant changes in ME was the "general obscuring of unstressed syllables" which is one of the fundamental causes of the loss of inflection. Many unstressed vowels  schwa /ə and many unstressed final vowels were eventually lost OE oxa  ME oxə 'ox' OE foda  ME fodə 'food' Other vowels were lengthened before /ld/, /mb/, & /nd/ such as: ʧɪld  ʧi:ld 'child' (but not if a 3rd syll as in ʧɪldrən) a, e, and o also got longer in "open syllables of disyllabic words“ (meaning those syllables in a word that are CV rather than CVC) namɛ  na:mə Or shortened in some context like before double consonants and clusters cepte [ke:ptɛ]  cept [kept] Also diphthongs started to develop where vowels were followed by glides (/w/ & /j/) and the velar fricative /ɤ/, and as in claw, day, new, grow, bow, owe, & joy.

5. 5 LING 2301 “Social Status” of French and Borrowed Words: With William I's conquest much of the nobility in both church and state was now made of Normans rather than English. Thus "French" was associated with higher status while English was the language of "the masses". THUS, many of the native terms for livestock remained – ox, sheep, swine, deer, calf… The French words were used for the flesh of these however, as it was probably more commonly eaten by the upper classes (the lower class diet consisting of more grains and such). beef, mutton, pork, bacon, venison, veal…

6. 6 LING 2301 Words from French (cont): Similarly the power dichotomy is seen in the French origin of: master, servant, bottle, dinner, supper, banquet (smith & baker remained from OE origin) while butcher, barber, carpenter, draper, grocer, mason & tailor are all French. The core of family life remained English (possibly used more regularly): Mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter But extended family was influenced by French: uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece or hybrids: grandmother, grand— father, son, daughter, etc. Numbers and body parts generally kept their English names except for the word face.

7. 7 LING 2301 Other French semantic fields of borrowed words: Government & Administration: parliament, bill, act, council, county, tax, custom Law & Property: court, assize, judge, jury, justice, prison, chattel, money, rent Titles: Prince, duke, marquis, viscount, baron War: battle, assault, siege, standard, banner, fortress, tower