Kinds of langauage change

2. Syntax Change ( Grammar ) 
History records change in grammatical constructions. English syntax is very slow to change 
compared with vocabulary change which can be seen as fairly superficial and ephemeral. 
Modern English grammar is different from old English in many aspects. One example would 
be, old English distinguished gender - the third person singular demonstrative nominative 
pronoun had three froms: /se/ was the masculine form,/ paet/ was neuter form, and / seo/ was 
the feminine form. However, in modern English, there is only one form of the third person 
singular demonstrative pronoun, that, regardless of case of gender( Rowe & Levine, 2009, 
p.359).
In another example, in modern English, the word “you” is used for both the singular and the 
plural form. In old English, the word “thou” was used for addressing one person; ye for more 
than one. However, the word “You” was around then, and while thou and ye were used as a 
subject of a clause, “you” was used as the object. In Early Modern English, the distinction 

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between subject and object uses of ye and you had virtually disappeared, and you became the 
norm in all grammatical functions and social situations. The use of “Ye” had eventually 
become old-fashioned (Thomasom, n.d).
 
3. 
Phonological Change 
( SOUND ) 
 
Sound change consists of the practice of language change which causes the phonetic change 
or phonological change. It also includes the substitution of phonetic feature which lead to the 
total loss of the original sound and a new one is introduced (Wikipedia, 2012).
English pronunciation is gradually changing, although it continues to reflect both 
geographical and social differences among speakers. No longer is it true, if it ever was, that 
all educated people speak with Received Pronunciation (RP).
A person’s speech can 
gradually alter over the years in the direction of those around, as is shown by British people 
who pick up an American accent in a very short time (Aitchison, 1991, p. 108). 
A few examples of sound changes based on different periods are mentioned below.
In the early twentieth century,

the vowel in words such as cloth and cross switched from being that of thought to that 
of lot;

people stopped making a distinction in pairs such as flaw and floor;

the quality of the "long O" vowel changed (goat, home, know);

the quality of the "short A" vowel changed (back, man);

people stopped using a "tapped" r-sound between vowels (very sorry). 
In the mid twentieth century,

words like sure, poor, tour started to sound identical to shore, pour, tore;

the weak vowels in words such as visibility, carelessness drifted away from the sound 
of kit;

people started to insert a t-sound in words such as prince, making it sound like prints;

a ch-sound became respectable in words such as perpetual, and a j-sound in graduate;

the glottal stop started to replace the traditional t-sound in phrases such as quite nice, 
it seems. 

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In the late twentieth century,

the vowel sound at the end of words such as happy, coffee, valley is growing tenser;

the OO-sounds of goose and foot are losing their lip-rounding and backness;

the glottal stop extends into ever more phonetic environments (not only, but also);

in certain positions, the l-sound is changing into a kind of w-sound (milk, myself, 
middle)

ch- and j-sounds are spreading to words such as Tuesday, reduce (like chooseday, 
rejuice) (Wells, 1999).