Affixes (prefixes and suffixes) saw a huge increase in Middle English. "Excluding inflectional endings, there are just over 100 prefixes and suffixes available for use in everyday English." In Middle English, an increase occurred with affixed words, including French introductions in Latin derived prefixes, for instance, 'con-' and 'de-'

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Old English contained variations in its word endings and Modern English rarely uses word endings. These inflections faded in the Middle English period as there was more reliance on alternative means of expression. Modern English focuses on word order and prepositional constructions to express meaning relationships. Progressive forms of the verb (i.e. I am going) and a range of auxiliary verbs (i.e. I have seen) became more prominent. Possession also appeared in this time and the use of the word "of."

Grammatical Change in Middle English

Crystal, D. (2018, January 31). Middle English. British Library. Retrieved April 30, 2022, from https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/middle-english 

Middle English Reference

In Middle English, consonants and vowels altered values, and new phonemes appeared. Particularly, the distinction between the /f/ and /v/ consonants began to differentiate words (i.e. grief compared to grieve) and /s/ and /z/ (i.e. seal compared to zeal). The "ng" sound at the end of the word became contrastive (Old English "g" was always sounded). In the end, all vowels changed and the sound's spelling was altered (mainly due to French conventions). 

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