History of the English Language

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