Simplification of the verbs conjugation in English when how

bago   Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:17 pm GMT
I'm curious to know how and when it happened, because I was told that it was the Danes who caused this change in the English language, otherwise the conjugation would have remained about the same as it was in Old English I guess, if it was really different.
Uriel   Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:56 am GMT
According to this article, it was all over by the 14th century:

http://www.bartleby.com/211/1904.html

Apparently old English was slowly losing its various inflections even before the Vikings settled in the part of England known as the Danelaw, but the influence of the Danish language hastened the process. It wasn't just verbs that had these endings, though -- they were stuck on a lot of parts of speech..

Someone explains the process in this video at about 8:15:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaRSdjfC4IQ&NR=1

To paraphrase, old English used to use these inflectional endings to indicate who did what to whom, whereas Danish used word order and separate prepositions to do the same. English now uses word order, and the old declensions and grammatical gender are thankfully gone. 'Cause it doesn't look like fun.

Another article:

(HOPE C. DAWSON. Defining the outcome of language contact: Old English and Old Norse.
OSUWPL 57, Summer 2003, 40–57.
Copyright © 2003 The Ohio State University
DEFINING THE OUTCOME OF LANGUAGE CONTACT:
OLD ENGLISH AND OLD NORSE
Hope C. Dawson)

mentions that the old Norse and old English being spoken in the Danelaw were distinct but still largely mutually intelligible, and the inflections that were fading away anyway might have been hastened to the grave by the fact that the Scandinavian speakers didn't pay much attention to them anyway, and thus they became fairly disposable as the two languages merged into a creole (i.e., the Saxons weren't that attached to them by that point, either, and could readily dispense with them if they weren't going to contribute much to mutual understanding). Of course, that's just her interpretation.
Leasnam   Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:12 pm GMT
The simplification of VERB CONJUGATION, aside from other inflectional morphology, happened late in English. Much after the Old English Period.

If we are discussing only Verbs, this is how the Old English Verb looked:
I will use 'singan' to byspel:

[ic] singo|singe {indicative | subjunctive}
[thu] singest|singe
[he] singeth|singe

[we] singath|singen
[ge] singath|singen
[hie] singath|singen


When we look at the Middle English verb, we see no substantial change, except in the Northern and Midland plural forms, which deviate from OE -ath to -es and -en respectively:

[ik] singe|singe
[thu] singst|singe
[he] singth|singe

[we] singeth, singes, singen|singen
[ge] singeth, singes, singen|singen
[hie] singeth, singes, singen|singen


It is not until the Early Modern English Period that we see the blow to verbal conjugation in English, becoming this:

singe
singest
singeth, singes

singe
singe
singe


then loss of -e leads to:

sing
singest
sings, singeth

sing
sing
sing


loss of 'thou' yet again wears away another inflection, leaving what we have today:

sing
sing
sings

sing
sing
sing
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:20 pm GMT
Christmas is not long past and the carol "Ding Dong Merrily on High" and bits about "Let steeple bells be swungen" and "By priest and people sungen" still comes to mind.
???   Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:59 pm GMT
>>Christmas is not long past and the carol "Ding Dong Merrily on High" and bits about "Let steeple bells be swungen" and "By priest and people sungen" still comes to mind.<<

But these are only different forms of the past participle, used instead of swung and sung, aren't they? I don't think they represent a greater use of verb conjugation. The 'en' ending doesn't mark a plural ending, does it? if it does, it doesn't fit with Germanic grammar, as the past participle doesn't change according to person, although I believe it might in the Romance languages. For example, the past participle in German of 'singen' would always be 'gesungen' for all persons.
Leasnam   Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:46 pm GMT
<<"Let steeple bells be swungen" and "By priest and people sungen" still comes to mind. >>

These are older past participle variants (overliving as as adjectives) of 'swing' and 'sing', similar to how we still say 'unwashen', 'misshapen' and 'beholden' as opaque or shaded adjectives
Biboka   Tue Jan 12, 2010 5:19 pm GMT
cost cost cost