Development of new grammatical forms

The evolution of the verb system in the course of history was not confined to the simplification of the conjugation and to growing regularity in building the forms of the verb. In ME the verb formed new grammatical categories and new grammatical forms. In ME the finite verb had 5 categories – Mood, Tense, Aspect, Time-correlation and Voice. All new forms are analytical forms.

In the OE language there was no form of the Future Tense. The Present tense could indicate both present and future actions, depending on the context. Modal verbs helped to express the future tense. In ME the use of modal phrase including the verb shall, became common. Shall plus Infinitive was the principal means of indicating future actions in any context. Shall could retain its modal meaning of necessity. Future happenings were also commonly expressed by ME willen with the Infinitive. In 1653 John Wallis formulated the rule about the regular interchange of shall and will depending on person. And we know that the complementary distribution of 2 auxiliaries shall for the 1^st sg. and pl., will for the 2^nd and 3d became a mark of the British Standard.