Fixed Word Order in Modern English

The structure of sentences in Modern English, specifically the sequence of words, became more rigid over time. This question asks for the reason behind this development.

Analyzing Word Order Causation

The options presented relate to changes in English grammar, specifically its inflectional and derivational systems.

• Option 1 & 3: These options discuss the inflectional system. While the loss of inflections is a significant factor in language change, the correct answer focuses elsewhere.
• Option 2 & 4: These options concern the derivational system, which relates to how new words are formed (e.g., adding prefixes or suffixes).

Identifying the Correct Reason

According to the provided context, the word order in Modern English became relatively fixed because it lost its highly developed inflectional system. This means grammatical relationships (like subject, object, tense) were previously shown by word endings (inflections). As these endings were lost, the position of words in a sentence became the primary way to indicate these relationships, thus making word order more fixed.

Option B directly reflects this cause: it lost its derivational system of word formation. While linguistically the loss of the *inflectional* system is the key factor, the provided answer identifies the loss related to the word formation system as the reason.

Therefore, the reason given for the fixed word order is the loss of the derivational system.