Demystifying inflectional push-pull in ESL pedagogy.

Abstract

This paper traces the historical development of English verbal inflections for a period of 1500 years covering the Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Modern English phases. A selected group of verbs and their conjugations are analyzed in order to glean some insights on how their rated complexity in English Second Language acquisition can be demystified. The study shows that English has shifted from being a fully synthetic toward an analytic language through assimilation and analogy. However, there is still a blend of weak and strong verbal declensions whose 'push-pull' effect poses learning difficulties among ESL students who lack native intuition of inflectional grammaticality. As a result, this paper argues for a systematic approach to verbal inflections, drawing from their history of evolution, and then offers classroom recommendations for teaching and learning (1) past tense markers, (2) agreement markers and (3) copula verb.

1. Introduction

One area receiving little attention in English Second Language (hereafter ESL) pedagogy is the historical development of the verbal inflectional system. Yet, the inflectional morphology poses one of the frequently reported learning problems in ESL pedagogy (Makalela, 1999; Kachru, 1986; Lowenberg, 2002; Schmied, 1991). While English has made strides toward an analytic language in its present form, it cannot be literally assumed that it has lost all its irregular inflections (Baugh and Cable, 2002). It is this blend of a push-pull continuum between the regular (weak declensions) and irregular (strong declensions) inflectional propensities that compounds acquisitional difficulties among ESL learners who lack a native-like intuition of inflectional grammaticality.

The aim of this study is, therefore, to trace the story of selected verbal inflections--past, present singular indicative and 'to be'--from the Old English period to Modern English in order to shed some light on the inflections constituting common errors in ESL learning. Further, the study seeks to ferret out insights that can be adapted to demystify the complexity of teaching and learning verbal morphology in ESL and other comparable contexts.

2. Background of the study

Historical linguists operate on the principle of language development that argues that the older a language grows, the less complex it becomes. Stated differently, it is generally assumed that complex verbal conjugations are lost over time to the gain of a more regularized inflectional system. But whether languages change for worse or for better remain unresolved among historical linguists. Prescriptive grammarians, also known as purists, invariably associate language change with 'decay'. On the other hand, descriptive grammarians welcome changes in language as 'progress' (Atchison, 1991, p.3).

English went through a number of changes in the Anglo-Saxon period, which were not felt in everyday communication. One reason for the unnoticeable changes is found in the fact that the language was not written and recorded until King Alfred The Great in the ninth century. Up to this century, English was a highly inflectional language with strong verbal conjugations (Aiken, 1930; Baugh and Cable, 2002; Emerson, 1929; Meyer, 2002; Pyle, 1964).

Reduction of inflections (leveling) and the confusion of forms occurred with higher proportions in the Middle English grammar due to the Norman Conquest that began approximately in 1066. The conquest, however, did not directly bring about developments in the Middle English grammar; rather, it only created conditions favorable to language change. As a result, about 10, 000 words from French entered the English vocabulary while the English grammar remained highly Germanic.

The modern English phase was characterized by concerns about the 'decaying' status of the grammar with respect to the use of verbal contractions and short clips (Baugh and Cable, 2002). Reaction from prescriptive grammarians in the eighteenth century ultimately led to a three-pronged objective, namely: (a) to subject the language to a set of rules, (b) to fix it and (c) to refine it. This strong authoritative decree imposed on the language, however, did not resonate with the actual grammar practice. Consequently, the gap between the pure norms and linguistic behavior widened. This mismatch shows that the assumed 'decay' of the language could not solely be resolved by prescribing a set of rules. The following examples, (1) and (2), illustrate some of the grammatical mysteries of the eighteen century, which are not yet resolvable by rules to date:

(1) Object case following 'it is (me).' Though the subject case is required by logic, the position at the end of the sentence suggests object case.

(2) Uncertainty about 'me' in subject positions. Choice of case is uncertain after prepositions (e.g., 'between you and me/I) and in answers to questions like: 'who is it?'-' me.'

There are two major factors that led to rapid changes in the inflectional system: analogy and phonology. Phonological processes occurred when unstressed elements were lost over time due to similarity of sounds or the lack of stress on the final syllables. One such example is the loss of the /h/ in 'his-genitive' apostrophe. At the same time, sounds tended to change toward the most dominant group and adapt through the copying process called analogy. For example, a strong verb strike whose past form was inflected as 'stroke' could change to 'struck' due to analogy with 'stuck'. The focus of this study is to show how analogy and phonology processes facilitated inflectional changes in English and to suggest effective ways of teaching/learning inflections in the ESL pedagogy.

4. Verbal morphology: the loss and retention phenomenon Research shows that Old English is a period of full inflections, Middle English of leveled inflections and Modern English as the period of lost inflections (Baugh and Cable, 2002; Emerson, 1929; Wright, 2000). Three major inflectional categories under study are: (1) past markers, (2) present indicative and (3) 'to be'.

4.1. Past tense markers

Historical development of verbs shows that all the verbs in Old English did not have /-ed/ ending to mark past tense. They had many conjugations that were divided into seven classes of strong verbs. These classes are briefly reviewed in order to show how they gave way to the weak declension (-ed) over a period of 1500 years.

The first class (Class I) involves a group of verbs like write, stride, rise, drive (with past equivalents of wrote, rose, drove, strode, respectively), which can be traced from the Old English versions as wrat, strad, ras and draf. Their past participle shows a common /-en/ ending that was used to construct Old English written and striden, for example. A number of verbs including dive and strike tended to join this class of verbs because it was the majority and thus capable of assimilating smaller groups. Dive, which could be inflected as 'dived' took Class I past marking to become dove. In Modern English, the two competing weak and strong markings, dived and dove respectively, are still being used. Strike, on the other hand, changed to stroke but later on to struck due to the influence of verbal conjugations like stuck. These two examples show one linguistically interesting point: the changes of inflections were going in different directions with some joining this class and others parting with it. This means that while the majority of verbs lost their inflections, there was a small minority of verbs that gained inflections due to linguistic process of copying.

The second class of verbs (Class II) includes choose, lose and creep. Ceosen and chesen became two variations of choose in the Old English and Middle English respectively. Later in the period between the fifteen and seventeen centuries, choose was used as cheese and lose as leese. These are prototypical examples of inflectional marking of strong verbs that underwent internal vowel change. However, it is worth noting that some of the verbs in this category drifted away from internal vowel change to/-ed/ ending. These include verbs like cleave, seethe and freeze, which only retained the /en/ verbal conjugation in their past participle forms. Freeze, for example, would manifest as frez, freezen and frozen. Its shift toward a weak verb is found in usages like freezed, frozed and frazed.

The third class (Class III), which is largely a category of verbs ending with nasal consonants, retained all its strong inflections while verbs without nasal consonant endings almost all became weak. The nasal consonants verbs include: spring, sing, drink, shrink, swim, begin, win, cling, swing and stung. Their internal vowel change for past tense and past participle forms generally show very strong declensions. Drink, for example, occurs as drank (past) and drunk (past participle) respectively. Another group of verbs ending with/-nd/ like found, bound, grind still kept their strong inflections. As for the rest of the verbs, they all became weak. These weakened verbs include climb, help, walk, swell, even though the verb 'holp' for help was recorded till the seventeenth century (Pyle, 1964).

Most of the fourth class (class IV) verbs did retain their strong declensions. They include bear, break, shear, steal, come, and tear. It is, however, worth mentioning that a verb like comes takes a weak ending when it is coupled as welcome. For example, we can say "we welcomed our guests to our house." This is another indication of the powerful force of analogy that gave a momentum to/-ed/ ending past tense marking.

Verbs in the fifth class (class V) show both convergence to and divergence from regular development. Verbs like eat, sit, give, bid, and read resisted the force of analogy and never changed their inflectional system. On the other hand, words like mete, knead, reap, scrap and weigh became weak (e.g., weigh- weighed). Similar resistance is observed in the sixth group (class VI) on verbs like shake, take, understand and stand that still retain their strong verbal conjugations. Even a much more strong resistance can be gleaned from Class VII, which involves words like blow, grow, fall, and beat. Their retention of the past participle /-en/ shows a very strong declension quality.

Taken together, the seven classes of verbs above show a push-pull phenomenon where strong verbs struggled to retain their strong verbal conjugations while at the same time yielding to the pressure of analogy and other weakening factors. One thing is very clear: verbs in Old English had strong verbal inflections and gradually lost them over a period of time. That we do not have many strong verbs in Modern English is indicative of the fact that, on the whole, the struggle to retain irregular verbal inflections is being lost.

4. 2. Present Singular indicative

In contrast to the present indicative marker for third person singular /-s/ observed in Modern English, Old English had strong conjugations distinguishing first person, second and third persons through inflectional markings. The first person singular used to have an ending /-e/ which was lost in the Medieval period. Additionally, the second person present indicative had the inflections: /(e)st/ and or /(e)s/ while the third person singular had /(e)s/ and /e(th)/. English literature shows that by the seventeenth century, both /s/ and /th/ were still used, with /s/ more noticeable in spoken speech and /th/ in written register. In Modern English, /th/ has completely disappeared except in Biblical texts. The death of first and second person singular indicative markers resulted in the third person /s/ being extended to first and second persons to produce phrases like "I says" and "Says you", which are presently deemed errors. The development of present indicative markers from first and second persons inflections in Old English to third person agreement marker /s/ in modern English reflects a big loss to agreement marking in English. Yet, present singular indicative is one of the most quoted problematic features in English second language learning research (e.g., Schmied, 1991).

4. 3. "To be" Verb

History English language shows that the verb "to be", also known as copula verb, was conjugated according to 3 different persons: first person 'am', second person 'art' and third person 'is'. The plural of these three persons was either 'be' or 'are'. One illustration of the second person singular marker of the verb "to be" is still found in the Lord's Prayer in the first line: "Our father who art in heaven". Because the prayer assumes a direct dialogue with God, a second person 'art' is chosen instead of the third person 'is'. Again, Modern English has lost this linguistic marker (art), with only first person 'am' and third person 'is' remaining.

5. Insights from the analysis and pedagogical inferences

The analysis of English's history of inflectional system shows that English in the Anglo-Saxon period was highly inflectional. In the Middle English, there was a high rate of major changes in the inflectional system precipitated by the process of leveling. Finally, Modern English depicts the highest loss of the verbal inflections. In the 1500 years of linguistic evolution, therefore, English has shifted away from being a highly synthetic to a relatively analytic language. While Aiken (1930) points out that there is no Modern Indo-European language which has not simplified its inflectional system, even with a period covered by written records (p.213), it is worth noting that English simplifications have been more drastic and more thorough-going than others. Because English has not entirely lost its inflections, if one considers the massive conjugations that resisted analogy and weakening processes of phonology, the idea of 'lost' inflections in Modern English cannot be taken literally.

The history of inflectional morphology discussed above has far-reaching educational implications for non-mother tongue speakers of English. Baugh and Cable (2002, p.165) argue that since "the irregularity of such verbs constitutes a difficulty in the language, the loss of this case may be considered a gain". However, the problem still remains that English has both regular and irregular inflectional systems that cannot be easily conceived by students without native intuition of grammaticality. This provides a gray area that deserves special focus among teachers and material designers. First, the history of weak and strong verbal inflection needs to be taught systematically as a historical phenomenon of constant change and development. Particular lessons plans drawn from this rich history of inflections can be structured around the teaching of the following relevant features: Past tense marking (seven classes); Agreement marking (present indicative); Copula verbs ("to be" verbs).

Several other scholars have, however, argued that English has reached a phase of development in outer circle society (non-mother tongue societies) that may not necessarily require historical tutelage from a classical model such as this one (Bamgbose, 1998; Blake, 1996; Brutt-Griffler, 2002; Kachru, 1986). This tradition is found in the world Englishes paradigm where the Englishes spoken in outer circle societies are promoted as standards in their own right. Bolton (1982), for example, sees the development of English in second language situation as a resource when reporting:

   So it is not as a world native language that English has its role to
   play, it is a rapidly expanding role as a world second language, as
   a language of choice, not birth ... English as a world second
   language will include varieties and witness changes that will make
   previous changes and present-day varieties seem superficial (Bohon,
   1982, p.418).

While a wholesale prescription of what and how non-native speakers should speak is both undesirable and limiting creativity, some general guidelines reflecting common usages are necessary to demystify the complexities of learning verbal declensions in the ESL. The use of historical evolution of grammatical properties such as the inflectional-analytic effect in the English morphology, if well articulated in relevant contexts, should form part of the general guidelines for classroom instruction. Besides, it seems that the success of ESL pedagogy is contingent upon the teachers' ability to tap from both native speaker forms and endo-normative norms in the classroom, In this connection, creative teachers will need to draw lessons from the history of English evolution in order to demystify the push-pull blend of verbal inflections in the ESL pedagogy.

7. References

Aiken, J.R. (1930). English present and past. New York: Columbia University Press.

Atchison, J. (1991). Language change: progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bamgbose, A (1998). Tom between the norms and innovations. World Englishes. Vol. 17, No. l, pp. 1-16

Baugh, A. C and Cable T. (2002). A history of the English language. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Blake, N. F. (1996). A history of the English language. New York: New York University Press.

Bolton, W.F. (1982). A living language. The history and structure of English. New York. Random House.

Brutt-Griffler, J (2002). World English. A study of its development. Clevedon: Multilingual matters

Emerson, O.F. (1929). Brief history of English language. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Kachru, B. (1986). The alchemy of English. London: Pergamon Press.

Lowenberg, P. H (2002). Assessing the English proficiency in the expanding circle. World Englishes, Vol. 21. No. 3, pp. 431-435

Makalela, J.L. (1999). Black South African English: A dynamic variety. Unpublished M.A Dissertation. Wits University.

Meyer, C (2002). English corpus: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pyle, T. (1964). The origins and development of the English language. New York: Harcourt.

Schmied, J (1991). English in Africa. London: Pergamon.

Wright, L (2000). The development of English 1300-1800. Theories, descriptions and conflicts. UK: CUP.

Leketi Makalela, Michigan State University

Makalela is a PhD candidate in English and Linguistics. He taught English as a second language at the University of the North in South Africa. His research interests include language policy and planning, English as a second language and historical linguistics.