Early Modern English

===Verbs===
====Tense and number====
During the Early Modern period, the verb inflections became simplified as they evolved towards their modern forms:
*The third-person singular present lost its alternate inflections: ''-eth'' and ''-th'' became obsolete, and ''-s'' survived. (Both forms can be seen together in Shakespeare: "With her, that ''hateth'' thee and ''hates'' us all".)<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|page=163}}</ref>
*The plural present form became uninflected. Present plurals had been marked with ''-en'' and singulars with ''-th'' or ''-s'' (''-th'' and ''-s'' survived the longest, especially with the singular use of ''is'', ''hath'' and ''doth'').<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pages=165–66}}</ref> Marked present plurals were rare throughout the Early Modern period and ''-en'' was probably used only as a stylistic affectation to indicate rural or old-fashioned speech.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Charles Laurence Barber|title=Early Modern English|year=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-0835-5|page=171}}</ref>
*The second-person singular indicative was marked in both the present and past tenses with ''-st'' or ''-est'' (for example, in the past tense, ''walkedst'' or ''gav'st'').<ref>{{Cite book|author=Charles Laurence Barber|title=Early Modern English|year=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-0835-5|page=165}}</ref> Since the indicative past was not and still is not otherwise marked for person or number,<ref>{{Cite book|author=Charles Laurence Barber|title=Early Modern English|year=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-0835-5|page=172}}</ref> the loss of ''[[thou]]'' made the past subjunctive indistinguishable from the indicative past for all verbs except ''to be''.

====Modal auxiliaries====
The [[English modal verbs|modal auxiliaries]] cemented their distinctive syntactical characteristics during the Early Modern period. Thus, the use of modals without an infinitive became rare (as in "I must to Coventry"; "I'll none of that"). The use of modals' present participles to indicate aspect (as in "Maeyinge suffer no more the loue & deathe of Aurelio" from 1556), and of their preterite forms to indicate tense (as in "he follow'd Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him") also became uncommon.<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge |location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pages=231–35}}</ref>

Some verbs ceased to function as modals during the Early Modern period. The present form of ''must'', ''mot'', became obsolete. ''Dare'' also lost the syntactical characteristics of a modal auxiliary and evolved a new past form (''dared''), distinct from the modal ''durst''.<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999| publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|page=232}}</ref>

====Perfect and progressive forms====
The [[perfect (grammar)|perfect]] of the verbs had not yet been standardised to use only the auxiliary verb "to have". Some took as their auxiliary verb "to be", such as this example from the ''King James Version'': "But which of you... will say unto him... when he '''is''' come from the field, Go and sit down..." [Luke XVII:7]. The rules for the auxiliaries for different verbs were similar to those that are still observed in German and French (see [[unaccusative verb]]).

The modern syntax used for the [[progressive aspect]] ("I am walking") became dominant by the end of the Early Modern period, but other forms were also common such as the prefix ''a-'' ("I am a-walking") and the infinitive paired with "do" ("I do walk"). Moreover, the ''to be'' + -''ing'' verb form could be used to express a passive meaning without any additional markers: "The house is building" could mean "The house is being built".<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pages=217–18}}</ref>