Of all these endings only the comparative and superlative suffixes _-er_, _-est_ are preserved in an unreduced state in Modern English. The final _-e_ has disappeared in pronunciation (with some exceptions occurring in Early Modern English). The important suffixes _-en_, _-es_, _-ed_, _-est_ (2nd pers. sing.), _-eth_ (for which _-s_, the northern ending, instead of _-es_, is commonly substituted) have been contracted through syncope so as to form one syllable with the root, except where the nature of the final consonant of the stem prevents syncope, e.g. in _-es_ and _-est_ after sibilants, in _-ed_ after dentals, in _-en_ after _v_, _s_, _t_, _d_, _k_ (as in _houses_, _ended_, _risen_, _written_, _hidden_, _broken_, _driven_). As, however, these are always full syllables they may here be disregarded. The ending _-edest_ has been shortened into _-edst_. It is to be observed that the syncopation of the vowel (_e_) of the inflexional endings was not so nearly universal in Early Modern English as it is at present; and further, that it is still much less prevalent in poetry than in prose, because the poets for metrical reasons often preserve the fuller endings when in ordinary speech they are no longer used.[133] In examining the metrical treatment of the Early English inflexional endings, we shall therefore have occasion to consider the usage of the present day, notwithstanding the fact that some of these endings are obsolete in modern prose. The chief difference between Early and Modern English with regard to the treatment of the inflexions is that in Early English poetry the full pronunciation is the rule--in accordance with the practice in ordinary speech--and the syncopation of the vowel (_e_, rarely _i_ or _u_) is the exception; while in Modern English it is the shortened pronunciation that is normal, the full syllabic form being used only exceptionally as a poetic licence. § =96.= The first point that requires notice is the treatment of the unaccented _e_ of words of three and four syllables in Middle English. The following observations are founded on those of ten Brink, _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, § 256. 1. If each of the two last syllables of a trisyllabic word has an unaccented _e_, one of them is generally elided or slurred over under the influence of the rhythmical accent. Thus the past tense singular of the weak verbs _clepede_, _werede_, _makede_, _lovede_ may be scanned either _clepte_, _werde_, _made_, _lovde_, or _cleped_, _wered_, _maked_, _loved_. Just in the same way the plural forms _clepeden_, _makeden_, &c., may be read either _clepten_, _maden_, &c., or _cleped_, _maked_, &c.; likewise the plural endings of nouns _faderes_, _hevenes_ may be pronounced _fadres_, _hevnes_ or _faders_, _hevens_. In Early Middle English, however, and also in the language of Chaucer, exceptions to this rule are found, trisyllabic scansion occurring chiefly in the plur. pret., e.g.: