6. +Grammar of the Second Period, 1100-1250.+-- The English of this period is called +Early English+. Even before the coming of the Normans, the inflexions of our language had-- as we have seen-- begun to drop off, and it was slowly on the way to becoming an analytic language. The same changes-- the same simplification of grammar, has taken place in nearly every Low German language. But the coming of the Normans hastened these changes, for it made the inflexional endings of words of much less practical importance to the English themselves. --Great changes took place in the pronunciation also. The hard +c+ or +k+ was softened into +ch+; and the hard guttural +g+ was refined into a +y+ or even into a silent +w+. --A remarkable addition was made to the language. The Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon had no indefinite article. They said _ofer stán_ for _on_ a _rock_. But, as the French have made the article +un+ out of the Latin +unus+, so the English pared down the northern +ane+ (= +one+) into the article +an+ or +a+. The Anglo-Saxon definite article was +se+, +seo+, +þaet+; and in the grammar of this Second Period it became +þe+, +þeo+, +þe+. --The French plural in +es+ took the place of the English plural in +en+. But _housen_ and _shoon_ existed for many centuries after the Norman coming; and Mr Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, still deplores the ugly sound of _nests_ and _fists_, and would like to be able to say and to write _nesten_ and _fisten_. --The dative plural, which ended in +um+, becomes an +e+ or an +en+. The +um+, however, still exists in the form of +om+ in +seldom+ (= at few times) and +whilom+ (= in old times). --The gender of nouns falls into confusion, and begins to show a tendency to follow the sex. --Adjectives show a tendency to drop several of their inflexions, and to become as serviceable and accommodating as they are now-- when they are the same with all numbers, genders, and cases. --The +an+ of the infinitive becomes +en+, and sometimes even the +n+ is dropped. --+Shall+ and +will+ begin to be used as tense-auxiliaries for the future tense. 7. +Grammar of the Third Period, 1250-1350.+-- The English of this period is often called +Middle English+. --The definite article still preserves a few inflexions. --Nouns that were once masculine or feminine become neuter, for the sake of convenience. --The possessive in +es+ becomes general. --Adjectives make their plural in +e+. --The infinitive now takes +to+ before it-- except after a few verbs, like _bid_, _see_, _hear_, etc. --The present participle in +inge+ makes its appearance about the year 1300.