A%20History%20of%20the%20English%20Language

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A History of the English Language

• Chapter 5 Early Modern English

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Time Line 1

• 1509 Henry VIII
• 1534 Act of Supremacy
• 1536 Small monasteries dissolved
• 1534 English translation of Bible in any church
• 1547 Edward VI
• 1553 Mary Tudor
• 1558 Elizabeth I
• 1559 Act of Supremacy restores laws of Henry
  VIII
• 1574 First company of actors theatre building
  begins
• 1584 Colonists at Roanoke
• 1600 English East India Co. Formed
• 1603 James I
• 1607 London Co. plants colony at Jamestown
• 1611 King James Bible

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Time Line 2

• 1616 Death of Shakespeare
• 1625 Charles I
• 1639 English established at Madras
• 1642-1646 Civil War
• 1649 Charles I beheaded
• 1649 Commonwealth established
• 1653 Cromwell becomes Lord Protector
• 1660 Charles II restored to the throne
• 1689 William and Mary proclaimed king and
  queen in England and Ireland
• 1702 Queen Anne
• 1707 Union of England and Scotland as Great
  Britain
• 1727 George I
• 1760 George III
• 1775-1783 American War of
  Independence

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Political, Cultural, and Technological Influences

• 1 The Introduction and Dissemination of
  Printing 1476 William Caxton introduces
  printing press
• 2 The Renaissance
• 3 The Protestant Reformation
• 4 The Enclosures
• 5 Exploration and Colonization
• 6 The American Revolution

5
The Self-Conscious Language

• Writings in Latin
• Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620)
• Isaac Newton, Philosophia Naturalis Principia
  Mathematica (1687) Latin works

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The Debate over Vocabulary

• Early Modern English is the Age of Linguistic
  Anxiety debates about its deficiencies and its
  purity
• Earliest perceived inadequacy was in the lexicon
• Borrowing was the easiest and most obvious way to
  fill the gaps and Latin was the easiest and most
  obvious language from which to borrow
• Largest number of borrowings in the history of
  English
• Borrowing was deliberate to improve the language

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Inkhorn terms vs. Archaisms

• Thomas WilsonSome seeke so far for outlandish
  English, that they forget altogether their
  mothers tongue. And I dare sweare this, if some
  of their mothers were aliue, thei were not able
  to tell what they say The vnlearned or foolish
  phantasticall, that smelles but of learning (such
  fellowes as haue seen learned men in their daies)
  wil so Latin their tongues, that the simple can
  not but wonder at their talkes
• Edmund Spenser, John Cheke crossed vs.
  crucified, fleshstrings/muscles grosswitted,
  endsay, over-reacher, drymock
• discretion, exaggerate, transumptive,
  effodicate, exinanite

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The Spelling Reformers

• The ideal a simplified, consistent, phonetic,
  standardized spelling system for English
• John Cheke (1569), Thomas Smith (1568), John Hart
  (1569), William Bullokar (1580), Richard
  Mulcaster (1582)
• No effect of the proposed reforms

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The Dictionary Makers

• Robert Cawdrey (1604) A Table Alphabeticall,
  conteyning and teaching the true writing, and
  understanding of hard usuall English wordes,
  borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latine, or
  French c. With the interpretation thereof by
  plaine English words. gathered for the benefit
  helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other
  unskilfull persons. Whereby they may the more
  easilie and better understand many hard English
  wordes, which they shall heare or read in
  Scriptures, Sermons, or elseqhere, and also be
  made able to use the same aptly themselues
• Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English
  Language (1755)

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The Movement for an English Academy

• Accademia della Crusca (1582)
• Académie Française (1635)
• Daniel Defoe (1697), Jonathan Swift (1712),
  Joseph Addison (1711)
• John Adams (1803) in the US

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Prescriptive Grammars

• Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique (1553)
• William Bullokar, Bref Grammar (1586)
• Alexander Gil, Logonomia Anglica (1621)
• John Wallis, Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae
  (1653) all Latin-based
• Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English
  Grammar (1762)
• Joseph Priestley, The Rudiments of English
  Grammar (1762)
• Noah Webster, Plain and Comprehensive Grammar
  (1784)
• Lindley Murray, English Grammar (1795)

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Early Modern English Phonology Basic Features
13
Consonants

• Addition of phonemic /N Z/
• sing vs. sin
• pleasure, vision assibilation
• The postvocalic allophones of /h/, Ç and X
  disappeared

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The Great Vowel Shift 1
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The Great Vowel Shift 2
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Great Vowel Shift 3

• threat, head, death, deaf
• cheat, plead, wreath, leaf
• break, yea, steak, great
• boot, loose, mood, pool, soon
• foot, good, hook, wood, wool
• flood, blood
• But, thou, false guardian of a charge too
  good/Thou, mean deserter of thy brothers blood
  (Alexander Pope)
• root, soot, room

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Development of Short Vowels 1

• All remaining final unstressed -es from ME were
  lost during EModE
• /æ/ gt / / before /r/ and voiceless fricatives
  17th and 18th c. harm, scarf, hard, park
  staff, class, path, fast, half classical,
  passage no change if the fricative was followed
  by another vowel
• / / resulting from /a/ before /l/ all, fall,
  walk, salt, chalk, halt after /w/ want, wash,
  swan

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Development of Short Vowels 2

• A following nasal tends to raise /E/ to /I/
  wing, England, hinge, mingle, nimble pen,sense
• Dialectal variant in Britain extensively used in
  US /A/ for /O/ hot, rock, pocket,top, shot
• /u/ centering and unrounding to /V/ run, mud,
  cut, cup unrounding did not occur in protected
  environments full, push, bull, bush, butcher
  bulky, shrub put, putt

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Development of Short Vowels 3

• Influence of following /r/
• Lowering /Er/ to /Ar/ far, star, farm, barn
  vs. Servant, sermon, certain, verdict, sterling
• Lowering and centering /I u E/ to /E/ gt /W/
  girl, dirty, hurt, her, curse
• In many words, a following /r/ blocked the GVS
  wear, bear, floor, sword, course, court

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Development of Diphtongs

• /iu/ and /Eu/ fell together as /iu/ then /iu/
  became /ju/ pure, mute, beauty, accuse after
  labial consonants, /ju/ almost always remains,
  but after other consonants there is often
  dialectically variable simplification to /u/
  new, fruit, rude, duty, lute
• ME /Au/ became /o/ cause, hawk before /l/ plus
  a labial consonant /æ / or /a/ half, calm, palm
  and /l/ was lost
• /Ou/ gt /o/ gt /C/ know, blow, grow
• /ai/ gt /æi/ gt /e/ gt /Y/ day, pay, stake

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Spelling and Punctuation

• By the end of the 17th c., the principle of a
  fixed spelling for every word was firmly
  established for printed works, and , over the
  course of the following century, personal
  spelling followed
• (Un)etymological spelling rhyme, indict,
  victuals debt gt dette island aisle delight
• Capitalization remained haphazard
• During the 16th c, the comma replaced the virgule
  (/) as the primary mark of sentence-internal
  punctuation
• The apostrophe was used for contractions not
  used for marking the possessive before late EModE

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Early Modern English Morphology Basic Facts 1

• In all essentials, noun morphology in EModE was
  the same as that of PDE
• By EModE, the s-possessive for both sg. and pl.
  nouns was almost universal, although traces of
  uninflected genitives remained. mother tongue,
  lady slipper, for peace sake
• John Browne his meadow, his deceased mother her
  will, Mister Jones his cow after mine my wifes
  her decease
• in the calmest and most stillest night, less
  happier lands, violentest, certainer, more bold,
  most brave (Sh)

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Morphology Basic Facts 2

• Development of separate forms for possessive
  adjectives and possessive pronouns my, mine
  thy, thyne
• Appearance of possessive its at the beginning of
  the 17th c (between its lips, Sh)
• During the 17th c., the sg. thou/thee forms
  dropped out altogether sg.-pl. distinction lost
  ye gave way to you in the 17th c result one
  form you
• who as a relative pronoun became frequent in
  EModE and was rare before restrictive clauses
  that, which and as used as relative pronouns All
  the goods as was brought to our view

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Morphology Basic Facts 3

• Forming reflexive pronouns by combining -self
  with the personal pronouns became more frequent
  in EModE, but the older practice of using the
  simple object form of the pronouns as a reflexive
  continued thou dost thyself a pleasure, get thee
  a good husband, I will shelter me heere (Sh)
• General use of reflexive pronouns declined
• By the end of the EModE period, the division of
  English verbs into strong and weak was no longer
  viable
• Collapse of the distinction between past tense
  and past participle

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Morphology Basic Facts 4

• By the end of ME, weak verbs had become the
  regular verbs of English, and almost any new verb
  entering the language would follow this paradigm
• By the end of EModE, the total number of verb
  inflections had been reduced to its PDE state
  the last vestiges of the -n infinitive
  disappeared as did the present plural indicative
  plural endings -n or -th the present participle
  suffix -ing became universal in all dialects
  second person sg. present ending -est survived
  until the category was lost, that is, until you
  supplanted thou

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Morphology Basic Facts 5

• Although -th was still being written as the
  third-person sg. ending as late as the 18th c.,
  the -s ending seems to have been universal in
  speech from the 17th c. on
• EModE was the period of great changes in what
  were to become the modal auxiliaries of English
  will moved into the category of modal
  auxiliariesneed and dare in EModE the modals
  were still sufficiently independent to appear
  without a following infinitive I must away this
  night, thou shalt to prison (Sh) can could still
  mean know would was still the past tense of
  will

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Morphology Basic Facts 6

• Verb-particle constructions became extremely
  common during the period
• New phrasal prepositions by means of, in spite
  of, because of, with regard to, in accordance
  with
• The chief means of forming new adverbs from
  existing adjectives in EModE was by adding -ly
  plain adverbs were still common, however

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Early Modern English Syntax Basic Facts 1

• In most of the larger patterns, the syntax of
  EModE is like that of PDE more elusive are the
  differences that are merely statistical, such as
  the greater use of the inflected subjunctive
• A number of ways in which E ModE syntax differs
  from that of PDE are negative ones e.g., market
  data analysis sheets
• The ME legacy of allowing single adjective
  modifiers (especially Latinate adjectives) to
  follow rather than precede their noun head
  continued in EModE means convenient, faith
  invincible

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Early Modern English Syntax Basic Facts 2

• A tendency remained to place the adverbial before
  rather than after the words being modified which
  he behind him left, and was by them examined
• Double negatives became less common in EModE
• By the 16thc. have continued to suppress be in
  compound tenses cf. this gentleman is happily
  arrived I have since arrived did he not say my
  brother was fled loves golden arrow at him
  should have fled
• The progressive was fully developed by the end of
  the 16th c. though still used less frequently

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Early Modern English Syntax Basic Facts 3

• The combination of progressive and perfect in a
  single verb phrase was still rare I have been
  watching you the progressive passive (you are
  being watched) did not develop until the late
  18th c. the construction you have been being
  watched did not appear until PDE
• Passive constructions were less common

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Early Modern English Syntax Basic Facts 4

• The use of do as a dummy auxiliary for forming
  interrogatives and negatives was fully developed
  by EModE, but not yet obligatory I doubt it
  not/I do not doubt you Why do you look on me/Why
  look you so on me (Sh)
• Be going to, have to, be obliged to, be about to
  became common during EModE
• I dont like to have to keep on nagging you
• EModE still had more word-order flexibility

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Stylistic Traditions

• The influence of Latin on English complex syntax
  long, heavily subordinated, periodic sentences,
  absolute participles were imitated
• Plain style tradition found in the King James
  Bible as a rival conception
• Ornate style became popular

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Early Modern English Lexicon 1

• Loans from Latin and Greek English borrowed
  roots and affixes to form new words that had not
  existed in the classical languages themselves
  cortex, cortical fibroma
• An A-Z sample ambiguous, biceps, census,
  decorate, emotion, fanatic, gladiator, harmonica,
  identical, joke, lichen, mandible, navigate,
  opponent, perfidious, quotation, ratio,
  scintillate, tangent, ultimate, vacuum, zone

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The Early Modern English Lexicon 2

• Lexical doublets armor/armature chamber/camera
  choir, chorus frail/fragile gender/genus
  jealous/zealous mould/module pale/pallid
  porch/portico prove/probe strait/strict
  strange/extraneous treasure/thesaurus
• Functional shifts fac simile, propaganda,
  deficit, fiat, veto, tenet

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Loans from Other Languages

• French liaison, sociable, compute
• Italian trade, architecture, arts balcony,
  bandit, ghetto, carnival, arsenal
• Spanish and Portuguese mango, cashew, cigar,
  papaya, cannibal, tomato, tortilla
• Dutch prominence in seafaring gave nautical
  words deck, smuggle, yacht etch, landscape,
  sketch
• German German loans have never been heavy in
  English cobalt, gneiss, quartz, zinc, waltz

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Early Modern English Word-Formation 1

• Compounding
• The most productive type was noun noun gerund
  noun spelling book walking stick possessive
  noun noun saleswoman, townspeople verb noun
  combinations catchword, pickpocket,
  scatterbrain adjective noun commonplace, easy
  chair, hotbed
• Noun adjective bloodthirsty, knee-deep,
  lifelong, top-heavy
• Adjective noun -ed good-natured, red-haired
• Noun/adj Participle earthborn,painstaking,
  henpecked, easy-going

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Early Modern English Word Formation 2

• Affixing has always been the single largest
  source of new vocabulary items in English
• Numeral 1530 ,numerality 1646, numerally 1646,
  numerant 1660, numerous 1586, numerosity 1611,
  numerously 1611, numerousness 1631, numerical
  1628, numerically 1628, numerist 1646,
  numerication 1694
• Functional Shift/Zero Derivation
• Accelerated during EModE guarantee, pioneer,
  segment, cheat, contest, split, whimper, lower

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Semantic Processes

• Generalization and Narrowing
• Adventure unusual and exiciting experience
  courage heart, mind, disposition, nature,
  bravery, valor gt bravery, valor deer
  animal gt mammals of the family Cervidae
• Amelioration and Pejoration
• Lust pleasure, delight coy quiet, shy,
  modest knave boy jolly arrogant, wanton,
  lustful luxury lust, licentiousness boy
  rascal, servant, slave fond idiotic, mad
  artful, crafty, cunning

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Shakespeare, Richard III
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Development of English in the United States 1

• The development of English in the US is not
  synonymous with the development of language,
  since there were already indigenous Native
  American languages when the European settlers
  first arrived
• The language that the British brought with them
  to America, beginning with the first settlement
  in Jamestown, Virginia, 1607, is Early Modern
  English, and is largely the English of South-East
  England

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English in the United States 2

• Subsequent development in America affected by a
  number of factors
• The source of the original British dialect
• Maintenance of contact with the home country
• Patterns of settlement
• Influences of languages other than English
• Caused by immigration
• Caused by contact with speakers of other
  languages within America
• Social and geographical mobility

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Settlement by Region The Original Thirteen
Colonies 1

• New England, the Middle Atlantic States, South
  Atlantic States (Georgia)
• Mid-Atlantic Jamestown was mostly settled by
  speakers of south-eastern English dialect, though
  there was some admixture of other dialects, and
  all social classes were represented in Virginia
• From the outset the population of the
  Mid-Atlantic states was mixed in character and
  did not have the solid English core of the other
  areas

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Settlement by Region 2

• The settlement of New England began around
  Massachusetts Bay in 1620, extended to
  Connecticut in 1634
• The majority of the settlers came from the
  eastern and south-eastern counties of England,
  with a significant number of Puritans from East
  Anglia

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How, Why and When American English Began to
Diverge from British English

• The physical separation of America from Britain
• The different physical conditions encountered by
  the settlers
• Contact with non-native speakers of English, both
  Native American and immigrant
• Developing political differences between the two
  countries and the growing American sense of
  national identity

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Noah Webster (1758-1843)

• Dissertations of the English Language (1789) As
  an independent nation our honor requires us to
  have a system of our own, in language as well as
  government. Great Britain, whose children we are,
  should no longer be our standard for the taste
  of her writers is already corrupted, and her
  language on the decline. But if it were not so,
  she is at too great distance to be our model, and
  to instruct us in the principles of our own
  tongue. A national language is a band of
  national union.