Chapter 36 . Grammatical change

Grammatical change is an extremely interesting area but does presuppose some knowledge of grammar. For this reason, if you do not have this knowledge yet, this chapter will work best if you have first familiarised yourself with the terminology discussed in the chapters on grammar, i.e. especially chapters and 5–8. Chapters on grammatical change in traditional textbooks on the history of English or historical linguistics by and large focus on change in morphology (the structure of words) and/or syntax (the structure of phrases and clauses). Some of the most important changes in the history of English can indeed be described in more or less purely structural terms, i.e. without considering meaning very much. Sentences (1–2), below, illustrate object-verb (or OV) constituent order, which was quite frequent in Old English but became less and less common during Middle English, until it was completely lost in the sixteenth century.