Old English had a more complex grammatical system than Middle English, with noun declensions, verb conjugations, and adjective agreements based on gender and case. Pronunciation was also more structured, with a stress on the first syllable and a distinction between long and short vowels. The writing system used several distinct characters as well. Middle English lost many of these complexities. Nouns lost case endings, verbs became less inflected, and adjectives no longer agreed with nouns. Pronunciation changes included the loss of initial 'h' and the merger of 'w' and 'u' sounds. The writing system was also dramatically changed, with the introduction of new letters and spelling conventions.

1. Comparing Characteristics of Old and Middle English
Characteristic Old English Middle English
• Nouns could be of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. These • Middle English lost the case suffixes at the ends of nouns.
were assigned arbitrarily. • The generalized plural marker became -s, but it still competed with -n.
Nouns • Numbers could be either singular or plural.
• There were four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive.
• There were seven groups of declensions for nouns.
• Old English had distinctive forms for all genders, persons, and cases • The dual number disappeared in the pronouns
• Old English had a set of forms for two people or two things—the dual • The dative and accusative became the object forms of the pronouns.
number • “She” started being used for the feminine singular subject pronoun
Pronouns o ic (I) • “You” (plural form) was used in the singular as a status marker for the
o wit (we two) formal.
o wē (we plural)
• The infinitive of verbs ended in -an. • The third person singular and plural was marked with -(e)th; but the
• In the present tense, all verbs had markers for number and person. singular also competed with -(e)s
Verbs • The weak past tense added –de.
• The strong past tense usually involved a vowel change.
• Old English also had many more strong verbs than modern English.
• Adjectives could be weak or strong. • Adjectives lost agreement with the noun, but the weak ending -e still
• If preceded by a determiner, the weak ending was added to the adjective. remained.
Adjectives • If no determiner preceded the adjective, then the strong endings were used.
• Adjectives agreed in gender, case and number with the nouns they
described.
• Adverbs were formed by adding -e to the adjective, or -lic. • The adverb ending -lič became -ly;
Adverbs
• The syntax of Old English was much more flexible than modern English • Syntax was stricter and more prepositions were used.
Syntax because of the declensions of the nouns. • New compound tenses were used,
• The use of the verbs will and shall for the future tense were first used too
• Pronunciation was characterized by a predictable stress pattern on the first • Pronunciation changes:
syllable. o Loss of initial h in a cluster (hleapan - to leap; hnutu - hut)
Pronunciation • The length of the vowels was phonemic as there were 7 long and 7 short o [w] lost between consonant and back vowel (w is silent in two, sword,
vowels. answer)
o [v] lost in middle of words (heofod - head; hæfde - had)
• Characters Used in Old English Writing • The writing system changed dramatically in Middle English:
o æ (a ligature of "a" and "e) o þ and ð were replaced by th
o œ (a ligature of "o" and "e.") o c before i or e became ch
Writing system o þ (now written "th) o sc became sh
o ß (for the "ss" or "sz" sound) o an internal h was added after g
o hw became wh
o cw became qu