1. The comparative-historical method in linguistics

20. Middle English grammar
OE had been a synthetic language with a well-developed ending system in the Middle English period it was transform in the analytical type. Analytical ways of expression of meaning now prevailed over synthetic one.
Analytical type Synthetic type

• 
  Auxiliaries - ending
  
• 
  Prepositions - affexes
  
• 
  Articles - suffexes
  
• 
  Particle - prefexes
  
• 
  Word order - transfix -n
  
• 
  Intonation - postfix
  
• 
  Sound interchange
  

+ таблица, где сравниваются сущ, прил, и местоимения.


21. The development of Middle English noun and adjective.
The category of case-4 cases:
Nom.
Acc. Common Case
Dat.
Gen.- Possessive C.
The Gen. case lost its grammatical value and preserve only one.
Adj.
By the end OE period the agreement of adj. with the noun had become looser and in the course of ME it was practically lost.
Only 1 ending-e which is seen in the 14^th/c text.
Late ME:
Adj. sing. Pl.
Strong O - e
Weak - e - e
Degrees of comparison have been preserved but the form building means altered.
More are used in ME to form the degree of comparison
Most
Bet
Best
The way of formation analytically or syntect. didn’t depend on the structure of the adj.
* sweter
* More swete


22. The development of Middle English verb.
Appeared new type – Auxiliary verb.
The number of the categories which expressed syntactically was reduced but the new category appeared are all express analytically.
* willen + cumen (хотеть придти)
Due to the General tendency of reduction of the endings the verb lost many of it’s endings in the ME:
Inf. EME EModE
Looken look
Pr. 1 looke -est
2 -est/es -es
3 -es/eth -eth
Pl. -en ---
-eth ---
-es ---