The strength of the Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language - pronouns, modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like "hence" and "together"), conjunctions and prepositions - show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings for, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. What led to a simpler Norse grammar?