History of the English Language

accusative added adjective alliterative verse Anglo Anglo-Saxon period became become beginning belonging Ben Jonson changes Chaucer common compound consequence dative denoting disappeared distinction dropped Early English Early English period employed ending England existing expression extent fact fifteenth final form the preterite fourteenth century French frequently genitive given grammatical Indo-European infinitive influence instances king language of literature large number Latin latter masculine Middle English period Modern English period neuter nominative Norman Conquest Norse Northern dialect nouns occasionally Old English period Old Norse original past participle personal pronoun phrases plural poetry present tense preterite preterite and past preterite-present verbs pronunciation represented retained Saxon second person Shakspeare singular sixteenth century sometimes spoken strong conjugation strong forms strong inflection strong verbs subjunctive suffix syllable teenth century tendency termination Teutonic tongues third person thou tion tive usage vocabulary vowel declension weak conjugation weak verb West-Saxon words writing þæt