From Old English to Middle English

Abstract

The ways in which we have identified and described features of the language in the Old English texts in chapters 1–4 are those which we can systematically apply to any text of English. We look for:

• changes in spelling conventions, letter forms and the alphabet used; these are our only guide in OE and ME texts to the pronunciation of the language;

• changes in pronunciation, inferred from the written words;

• changes in word-structure, suffixes (inflections) and prefixes;

• changes in the grammar and word order;

• changes in the word-stock or vocabulary — new words appear, old ones are no longer used.