333 Old and Middle English Language and Historical Linguistics inhabiting Northumbria and eastern part of Mercia before the Scandinavian invasion. Having considered the two scenarios, it is time to formulate an answer to the question posed in the title of this article. Although the conclusion that the death of the English inflection came from within the Old English linguistic system is not implausible, more convincing, however, seems to be the conclusion that the death of the English inflection came from without it. This statement does not mean that intrasystemic conditions should be ignored in any attempt at explaining the sources of the demise of the English inflection. The agony of the Old English inflection may have started with children reared by mixed Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian families. Those children may have developed a grammar reflecting their parents’ imperfect command of Old English spoken in parts of Northumbrian and in East Midlands at the end of the Old English period, i.e. the 9th century. References Primary source Treharne, Elaine (ed.) (2010) Old and Middle English c890–c1450: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Wiley–Blackwell. Special studies Allen, Cynthia (1995) Case Marking and Reanalysis: Grammatical Relations from Old to Early Modern English. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Campbell, Alistair (1959) Old English Grammar. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Dalton-Puffer, Christiane (1995) “Middle English as a Creole and its Opposite: On the Value of Plausible Speculation.” [In:] Jacek Fisiak (ed) Linguistic Change under Contact Conditions. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 81). Berlin, Germany | Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton; 35–50. DOI: 10.1515/9783110885170.35 Fikket, Paula, Elan B. Dresher, Aditi Lahiri (2009) “Prosodic Preferences: From Old English to Early Modern English.” [In:] Ans van Kemenade, Bettelou Los (eds.) The Handbook of the History of English. Oxford, UK | Malden, MA: Wiley– Blackwell. 125–150. DOI: 10.1002/9780470757048.ch6 Fisiak, Jacek (1968) A Short Grammar of Middle English. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Görlach, Manfred (1986) “Middle English as a Creole.” [In:] Dieter Kastovsky, Aleksander Szwedek (eds.) Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries:
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE5NDY5MQ==