(a) from OE. (Anglian) ē of various origins: Anglian hēr, mēta(n), (ge)lēfa(n) ≻ SE. Midl. hẹ̄re, mẹ̄te(n), lẹ̄ue(n) ≻ NE. here, meet, (be)lieve.
(b) from OE. ēo: OE. dēop, þēof ≻ ME. dẹ̄p, þẹ̄f (þief) ≻ NE. deep, thief.
The characteristic modern spellings are ee, and ie which already in ME. often distinguishes the close sound (§ 6 ii).
NOTE.—The distinction made above does not apply in South-Eastern (Kentish), because this dialect has ME. ea, ia, ya for OE. ēa (iii b), and OE. ē for Anglian ǣ (iii a). Nor does it hold for South-Western, because the West Saxon dialect of OE. had gelīefan for Anglian gelēfa(n) (iv a). West Saxon also had strǣt, -drǣdan, where normal Anglian had strẹ̄t, -drẹ̄da(n), but the distribution of the place-names Stratton beside Stretton, and of the pa. t. and pp. dradd(e) beside dredd(e) (p. 270 and n.), shows that the ǣ forms were common in the extreme South and the East of the Anglian area; so that in fourteenth-century London both ę̄ and ẹ̄ might occur in such words, as against regular West Midland and Northern ẹ̄.
In NE. Midland and Northern texts some ē sounds which we should expect to be distinguished as open and close rime together, especially before dental consonants, e.g. ȝēde (OE. ēode): lēde (Anglian lǣda(n)) I 152-3.
§ 9. INFLEXIONS. Weakening and levelling of inflexions is continuous from the earliest period of English. The strong stress falling regularly on the first or the stem syllable produced as reflex a tendency to indistinctness in the unstressed endings. The disturbing influence of foreign conquest played a secondary but not a negligible part, as may be seen from a comparison of some verbal forms in the North and the N. Midlands, where Norse influence was strongest, with those of the South, where it was inconsiderable:
| Normal OE. | Early Sth. ME. | Early Nth.and N. Midl. | Old Norse | |
| 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.