Early Modern English Grammar Changes and features of ModE noun system

1. Unification in the number expression: nearly all nouns have the same plural ending; compare Chaucer’s and Shakespeare’s usage: Chaucer – eyen, fōr; Shakespeare – eyes, foes.

2. There remained some mutated plurals (man-men), a few -n plurals (shoes/shoon, housen, eyen), some unmarked plurals (month, year, horse, fish).

3. There remained only two cases: nominative and genitive. There appeared a noun + noun combination (unmarked genitives): mother tongue, lady slipper.

4. Grammatical gender dissapeared altogether.

The Modern English Pronoun

1. Development of separate conjoint and absolute forms of possessive pronouns (my/mine, etc);

2. Appearance of possessive it: his > it > its sometimes spelled it's;

3. 2nd person singular forms thou and thee disappeared in 17th c, the plural forms (ye/you) prevailed for both singular and plural;

4. Nominative ye became you.

Early ModE personal pronouns:

	Nominative	Objective
Singular	thou	thē (thee)
Plural	yē	you

Adjectives:adjectives had lost all inflections except comparative (-er) and superlative (-est) by the end of ME; use of more and most as intensifiers, mixing and combination of more/most with endings -er/-est.

Changes and features of Early ModE verbal system

• Transformation of strong verbs into weak.

• Further reduction of verbal inflections: the ending –e of the 1^st person singular, of the plural present and infinitive were lost.

• Decline in use of subjunctive.

• Strong verbs were becoming weak, e.g. help.

• Infinitive -n ending disappeared.

• Present indicative plural endings -n or -th disappeared.

• -ing became universal present participle ending.

• In the 3rd person singular present indicative the ending –th was eventually replaced by –s.

• In Early ModE the auxiliary verb do was widely used as an auxiliary.

• Two-part phrasal verbs become common (shorten up, wear out, cut off).

• The system of perfect form, which had arisen in OE and developed in MidE, went on unfolding.

• The category of continuous aspect was developed only in ModE period. The perfect continuous forms became widely used only in the 19^th century.

Early Modern English Syntax

Early Modern English syntax was generally marked by more flexibility than today.

SVO order was regular in independent and dependent declarative clauses.

SOV was acceptable for pronoun objects and for emphasis (as the law should them direct, Richard that dead is).

VSO was used in questions and conditional statements (how hast thou offended?, Were he my kinsman ...).

Imperatives often had expressed subject (go, my servant, to the kitchen; do thou but call my resolution wise).

OSV or OVS were used to emphasize object.

Features of Early ModE vocabulary:

The transition from MidE to ModE began in the 16^thcentury when several factors came together to produce a period of extraordinary progress in the development of the language. During the Renaissance period a great revival of interest in learning swept over England and much of Europe, leading people to become more aware of the importance of language as they studied the writings of the past. Furthermore, many words from other languages (especially Latin and Greek) were introduced into English as a result of this growing interest in the writings of antiquity.

Until the 16^thcentury, French continued to be the prestigious literary language, and Latin remained the international language for serious schlarly work for some centuries afterwards. However, the influence of other languages gradually diminished as the English language continued to develop.

That time was also the beginning of the Great Geographical Discoveries era, the increase in contacts with other counties. Seafarers brought many new words borrowed from England’s allies and foes in the seas (Spanish, Dutch and others). The emigrants brought English in the African, American and Australian colonies, thus marking the new era of English outside England.

Below you will find some inkhorn terms (an affectedly learned borrowings from another language, esp. Greek or Latin) and other early modern English borrowings:

Latin: ability, dedicate, education, extinguish, reciprocal, scientific;

Greek: anonymous, catastrophe, criterion, democracy;

Some rejected inkhorn terms (those which eventually came out of use, ot were replaced by other simpler words): deruncinate – `to weed' (cf. eradicate), adminiculation – `aid', cohibit – `to restrain' (cf. inhibit), expede – `to accomplish' (cf. impede), demit – `to send away' (cf. submit).

Read Early Modern English ballads at: http://www.english.ucsb.edu/emc/ballad_project/index.aspEarly Modern Center English Ballad Archive, 1500-1800 English, University of California-Santa Barbara http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/boeb/A BOOK OF OLD ENGLISH BALLADS

CHECK-UP QUESTIONS AND PRACTICAL ASSIGNMENTS

Part I The Subject of the History of the English language. The Indo-European Family of Languages. Germanic languages. The periods in the History of English

Check-up questions:

1. When did the historical study of languages begin? Who was the first to prove the relations of many languages to each other and the existence of their common source?

2. What is the character of internal and external language changes?

3. What are considered to be the main reasons for language changes?

4. What groups belong to the Indo-European family of languages? What are Satem and Centum languages?

5. What group does English belong to? Name the closest linguistic relations of English.

6. Fill in the blanks.

Germanic languages represent a branch of ………. language family. This branch is divided into three subgroups: ……., …….., ……. The East Germanic subgroup includes ……. which is now extinct. The North Germanic subgroup includes such languages as ……………………………… The West Germanic subgroup includes the following languages: ……………….….. The English language then is a member of the ……. subgroup of the Germanic branch of the ……. language family.

7. What territory did the ancient Germanic tribes inhabit?

8. What are distinctive features of Germanic languages that made them different from other Indo-European languages?

9. What is the nature of the First Consonant Shift? Who was the first to explain its regularities?

10. Who was the first to explain the irregularities in the First Consonant Shift?

11. How long is the history of the English language?

12. What periods do we distinguish in the History of the English language?

13. What languages were spoken in the British Isles before the Germanic invasion? Which of their descendants have survived today?