Normal Early Early Old OE. Sth. Nth.and Norse ME. N. Midl. Infin. _drīfan_ _driue(n)_ _driue_ _drífa_ Pres. p. _drīfende_ _driuinde_ _driuande_ _drífandi_ Pp. strong _gedrifen_ _ydriue_ _driuen_ _drifenn_ and although tangible evidence of French influence on the flexional system is wanting (for occasional borrowings like _gowtes artetykes_ IX 314 are mere literary curiosities), every considerable settlement of foreign speakers, especially when they come as conquerors, must shake the traditions of the language of the conquered. A third cause of uncertainty was the interaction of English dialects in different stages of development. The practical sense of the speakers controlled and balanced these disruptive factors. There is no better field than Middle English for a study of the processes of vigorous growth: the regularizing of exceptional and inconvenient forms; the choice of the most distinctive among a group of alternatives; the invention of new modes of expression; the discarding of what has become useless. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the inflexional endings are: _-e_; _-en_; _-ene_ (weak gen. pl.); _-er_ (comparative); _-es_; _-est_; with _-eþ_, _-ede_ (_-de_, _-te_), _-ed_ (_-d_, _-t_), _-ynge_ (_-inde_, _-ende_, _-ande_), which are verbal only. NOTE.—(_a_) Sometimes one of these inflexions may be substituted for another: e.g. when _-es_ replaces _-e_ as the Northern ending of the 1st sg. pres. ind. Such analogical substitutions must be distinguished from phonetic developments. (_b_) In disyllabic inflexions like _-ede_, _-ynge_ (_-ande_), final _-e_ is lost early in the North. In polysyllables it is dropped everywhere during the century. (_c_) The indistinct sound of flexional _-e-_ covered by a consonant is shown by spellings with _-i-_, _-y-_: _woundis_ X 51; _madist_ XI _b_ 214; _blyndiþ_ XI _b_ 7; _fulfillid_ XVI 6; _etin_ XIV _b_ 76; _brokynne_ XVI 195. And, especially in West Midland texts, _-us_, _-un_ (_-on_) appear for _-es_, _-en_: _mannus_ XI _b_ 234; _foundun_ XI _a_ 47; _laghton_ VII 119. Complete syncope sometimes occurs: _days_ I 198, &c. Otherwise all the inflexions except _-e_, _-en_, are fairly stable throughout the century.