¶ Kynges þat come after. knelede. and offrede / Mırre and muche gold. Wıþ outen mercy aſkynge / Or any kynnes catel. but knowelıchynge hym sou͛eyn / Boþe of lond. sonne and see. and sıþenes þeı wente / In to hır kyngene kıþ. by counseıl of Aungeles
Then kings came next, kneeling and offering / myrrh and plenty of gold, without asking for favour / or any kind of wealth, but instead acknowledging him as sovereign / of the land, sun, and sea; then they went / back to the kings' people using instructions from angels.
Already in late Old English, there was a tendency to extend the suffix-ena from weak (n-stem) nouns to other noun classes, especially in the noundæġ(“day”); for instance,dagena is found for earlierdaga(“days'”).[1] This trend continues and reaches completion in Middle English; therefore,-ene can be suffixed to nouns of any Old English inflectional class, as inkingeneking(“king of kings”) for more conservativekingeking (Old Englishcy(ni)ngacy(ni)ng).[2][3]
However,-ene is itself supplanted by-es, extended from the genitive singular and nominative/accusative plural. This replacement begins very early, meaning that-ene is mostly nonexistent in East Midland and Northern Middle English (including Early Scots) and recessive in the other dialects, with-es becoming increasingly predominant after the Early Middle English period just like the nominative/accusative plural ending. However, weak nouns (n-stems) tended to preserve-ene insofar as they survived, as it could be identified with the nominative/accusative plural ending-en in line with a Middle English tendency to efface all plural case distinctions,[4] though the suffix was often disyllabic in verse, demonstrating that this tendency was not total.[5]
Especially in later Middle English, genitive plurals formed with-ene increasingly acquired an "adjectival colouring", becoming influenced by and undergoing partial conflation with the adjectival suffix-en, which thus acquires a form-ene. A strict boundary between denominal possessive adjectives formed with-en and nouns inflected with-ene is therefore impossible to draw.[6][7][8] For a more complete development of an adjectival suffix from a genitive plural, see Old Frenchfrancor(“French”) and German-er.
This ending is especially found with semantically animate nouns, in contrast with-e, which is chiefly applied to inanimate nouns.[9]
This suffix tends to induce the same alternations in the noun stem as the plural suffix-es, as indawene(“days'”).
^Logan, H[arry] M. (1973), “V. Grammar”, inThe dialect of the Life of Saint Katherine: A linguistic study of the phonology and inflections (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica;130),The Hague:Mouton,→OCLC,§ 40, pages156-157.
^Berndt, Rolf (1968), “Bemerkungen zur geschichtlichen Entwicklung der englischen Sprache”, inZeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, volume16, number 2,Leipzig:VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, page167.
^Myers, Sara (26 November 2014), “Chapter 2: Genitive Plural Nouns”, in An investigation of certain aspects of the genitive noun phrase in Middle English (1150-1500) (Thesis)[2],University of Edinburgh,→OCLC, archived fromthe original on2025-08-22, § 2.5.3, page 49.
The inflected infinitive can be used wheneverto precedes in the dialects where it occurs, though it is never mandatory and is gradually ousted by the uninflected infinitive during the Early Middle English period,[1][2] becoming restricted to ever less verbs, especiallytodonne(“to do”).[3] Occasional occurrences in later Middle English mostly follow certain monosyllabic vowel-final verbal roots:[4] as intobene ("to be", but Chaucer hastobeen),todone ("to do", still the most common),tosene(“to see”), andtoseyne(“to say”);[5] only in Late Middle English does it disappear due to the loss of the final schwa distinguishing the inflected and uninflected infinitives.
Some Early Middle English texts retain-nne immediately following a stressed vowel (todonne) while exhibiting-ene in other positions (tospeokene);[6] very early Middle English instances of-enne in other positions represent either influence from the Old English written tradition or because the simplification of unstressed geminates was yet incomplete. Where-nne was retained, it probably occasioned shortening of the stem vowel (e.g./tɔ ˈdɔnnə/); its belated replacement with-ne likely represents levelling of the stem vowel from the uninflected infinitive rather than leveling of-ene from other inflected infinitives since they had become rare (see above).
^Brunner, Karl (1963), Grahame Johnson, transl.,An Outline of Middle English Grammar[3],Oxford:Basil Blackwell, translation ofAbriss der mittelenglischen Grammatik (in German),→ISBN,→OCLC,§ 68,page71; reprinted1965.
^Mossé, Fernand (1952), “VIII. The Verb”, in James A. Walker, transl.,A Handbook of Middle English[4], I. Grammar: Part Two. The Forms,Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Press, translation ofManuel du l'Anglais de Moyen Age des Origines au XIVe Siècle (in French),→OCLC,§ 94,page79.
^Logan, H[arry] M. (1973), “V. Grammar”, inThe dialect of the Life of Saint Katherine: A linguistic study of the phonology and inflections (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica;130),The Hague:Mouton,→OCLC, page190.
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
