The English language continually evolves due to various factors like historical events, social changes, geographical influences, and the desire for novelty. Changes in grammar and vocabulary reflect societal needs, advancements, and regional differences, leading to adaptations such as ease of articulation, regularization, and shifts in formality. Additionally, grammatical structures have simplified over time, with earlier complexities such as inflections and traditional pronouns declining in usage.

1. English, as a living language, is constantly
changing. It adapts to an ever-changing world
which requires new and varied means of
communication. The English language has
embraced industrial, technological and social
changes and we as users decide what will and
what will not survive.

2. Historical Factors
• Wars
• Invasions
• Industrial and technological changes
These all provide the context for the creation
of new words which alters grammar.

3. Social Factors
• Education
• Social class
• Age
• Gender
• Ethnic background
• Occupation
• Personal identity
Changing circumstances in society create a need to express new
meanings. New inventions, new ideas etc. all require new words to
describe them.
Some changes are motivated by the desire for novelty, the wish to
be different of fashionable. The creation of new slang expression
often exemplifies this.

4. Geographical Location
The pronunciation of words (accent) and the
kinds of words and grammatical structures used
(dialect) will vary and change according to the
region a speaker comes from.

5. The Use of Different Registers
The words, grammatical structures and formats
chosen will vary according to use. Different fields,
like law, advertising and religion, will each have
distinctive characteristic features.

6. Ease of Articulation
• Omission occurs when sounds disappear from
words.
Shakespearean ‘hadst’ and ‘gavest’ where we
would say ‘had’ and ‘gave’.
We no longer pronounce the b sound at the end of
words like ‘tomb’ and ‘lamb’
The longer versions of words like ‘phone’ and
‘gym’ may eventually disappear.

7. Ease of Articulation
• Assimilation takes place when the pronunciation of
a phoneme is affected by the phoneme is next to it.
Most people pronounce ‘sandwich’ – ‘samwich’.
The d is dropped (omission) and the n changes to
an m because the w comes after it makes an m
sound easier to pronounce

8. Regularisation
This occurs when we change language in order to
make it more consistent.
‘Pea’ – this was originally ‘pease’, but over time
‘pease/peas’ became a plural word and a new
singular noun, ‘pea’, came into use.
This brought ‘pea/peas’ into line with the great
majority of other nouns which only have an –s
ending when the word is plural.

9. Grammar
Negation – Today multiple negatives (e.g. double negatives) are considered incorrect grammar but in the
past they were considered quite acceptable and were used for emphasis. They were even used in
Chaucer‟s Canterbury Tales.
For example: I cannot say that I do not disagree with you. (This brilliant quote by Groucho Marx can be
considered a triple negative. If you follow it through logically, you'll find it means "I disagree with you".)
Clauses – Subordinate Clauses (an additional piece of information which couldn‟t stand on its own and is
often parenthesised).
For example:
The crew could see the whale, which had surfaced only 50m behind them.
independent clause subordinate clause
(i.e., could stand alone) (i.e., could not stand alone)
Pronouns – The pronouns „thou‟, „thee‟ and „thine‟ have generally disappeared from English. Interestingly,
in some regional dialects a distinction still exists between singular and plural second person pronouns, with
the use of „youse‟ as a plural word.
The be-ing construction – progressive – this has massively increased in usage, e.g Hamlet‟s “What do you
read my Lord?” would now be “What are you reading?” The progressive suggests instant action, involves
the reader and focuses on the speaker‟s immediate feelings.
“Shall” or “Will” – There used to be more of a distinction between when “shall” and “will” should be used
(“shall” with 1st persons and “will” with other persons).
Contractions – The increase in the use of contractions suggests a more informal/conversational style today
and non-contracted forms now suggest a degree of formality or emphasis.
Inflections – The indication of the grammatical form (tense, person or number) of a word, usually at the end
of the word. With adjectives, inflections are used for comparatives and superlatives, as in „fast‟, „faster‟,
„fastest‟. Although there are still inflections in modern English, there were once many more. Old English
was very reliant on them, but most Old English inflections disappeared during the Middle Ages.

10. Word Order – In Old English, inflections would indicate whether a word was the subject
of a sentence of the object. This meant that, compared with modern English, the
expression of meaning was less reliant on word order, so construction of sentences was
freer and word order showed more variation.
The subjunctive – expresses „unreal‟ conditions such as wishes, doubts, etc. but has
recently declined in usage (“If I were you” is becoming “If I was you”)
The active voice – “The dog chased the cat”
The passive – “The cat was chased by the dog” – used to disguise blame but has
decreased in popularity, particularly in American English, where it is discouraged (e.g.
US Microsoft Word Auto correct)

12. Word order has replaced inflection in the importance, this is because
of the structure of a language it is very slow to change grammar in
comparison to vocabulary.
In English, up to and during the Anglo Saxon period, words had
endings, which indicated the function of individual words in
utterance. Inflections no longer exist and the only remaining one is
the possessive ‘s’.

13. During, Anglo Saxon England, most verbs were strong; this meant
that the word would change a lot when expressed in the past tense.
For example, ride becomes rode, strive becomes strove, come
becomes came.
A weak verb is one that is expressed in the past tense by adding
something to the end, jumped, mended, slept.