Early Modern English Language

Spelling Debate: Phonemic

• Phonemic spelling: write the way you talk.
• Advocate: John Hart- To use as many letters in writing, as voices or breathes in speaking and no more; one-to-one relationship between sounds and symbols; introduced new symbols and diacritics.

Spelling Debate:Logographic

• Logographic spelling: each character represents a meaningful unit (morpheme, word).
• Advocate: Richard Mulcaster: Phonetic spelling cannot work; rejection of superfluous letters = no double consonants to indicate short vowels; pronunciation is too varied to render a coherent spelling system; indicates long vowels with double letter, e.g. soon, final , e.g. sene (seen), seme (seem).

Inkhorn Controversy

• Renaissance interest in classical languages, translations of classical texts.
• Inkhorn = horn of an animal that was used to write.
• Necessity to borrow classical terms? Maybe these terms waste more ink than necessary? = Inkhorn terms.

Purists

• Foreign language borrowings make the English language impure.
• (but: there can never be a pure language since most of the English words have been borrowed by other languages at some point).
• English compounds were rather invented than using Latin terms.

Neologists

• Foreign language borrowings = enrichment to the English language, make it less "rude" and "barbarous" (common attitude during Tudor time).
• Happily borrows and create new words.

Inkhorn Terms

• Words borrowed from other languages (Latin and Greek) that "need more ink than English words would"
• Words that seemed "written for the sake of showing off" rather than for clear communication.

Processes of Word Formation

• Affixation.
• Conversion.
• Compounding.

Affixation

• Most commonly used method.
• More than 120 affixes were available.
• Polysemous affixes.
• Native suffixes: no stress change.
• Non-native: stress shift, g. –ity (Christian - Christianity).

Prefixes

• Noun: fore-, pre-, ante- ('before N'): forecourt, preconception, antechapel, counter-, anti- ('against N'): counterplot, anti-king.
• Verb: un-, in-, dis- ('not A', 'converse of A'): unfit, inhospitable, discontent, un-, dis-, de- ('to remove N'): unburden, disburden, dethorne, (‘reverse the action of V') unload, disappear, deobstruct.
• Adjective: be- ('to provide with N'; ‘V completely thoroughly'): bestain, bedeck and en-/em- ('to put into N', 'to provide with N'): enthrall, embody.

Suffixes That Derive in EModE

• Noun:-ing, -ment, -al, -ation, -ance/ence, -ure ('act, cause, result, state, etc. of V-ing'): landing, retirement, recital, formalisation, admittance, exposure.
• ness, -ity ('the condition, quality, etc. of being adjective'): witness, capability
• Adj: -ed, -ful ('having N'): dropsied, rose-lipped, beautiful, -y ('full of N'): dirty, healthy, -less ('without N'): matchless, stateless, -able ('fit for V-ing/to be V -ed'): answerable, unavoidable.
• Adverb: -ly ('in an adjective manner'): bawdily, domestically.
• Verb: -en, -ate, -ify ('make adjective', 'become adjective’): brighten, facilitate, beautify.

Semantic Blocking

Present-day English (PdE): existence of a word-form "blocks" the formation of another (mice -*mouses).

Compounding

• EModE: more relaxed, same base could take synonymous affixes length, lengthen, enlenght, enlenghten.
• Two or more words are joined to create a new longer word.

Conversion

• Change of word class
• Few formal constraints, only function words cannot be formed this way

Important Aspects of Shakespeare's Language

• Considerable influence on English vocabulary
• Invented many new words
• Used existing words in new ways
• Picked up words that were new and fashionable at the time
• Many of the over 2000 new entries between 1590-1610 are first attested in a Shakespeare quote such as assassination, bandit, courtship, dawn, denote.

Adapations by Shakespare

• New creations from existing English words.
• Adding affixes, e.g. –er (V>N); -ly (Adj > Adv)

Shakespeare's Stand on Inthorn Debate

• Shakespeare mocks the use of Latin and Greek as an affected use of elevated language Love's Labor's Lost - Holofernes (the pendant) and Nathaniel (the curate).

Pronoun Forms

• Thou (thee, thy, thine) was originally used for the singular and you (ye, you, your, yours) for the plural.
• You was used by social inferiors addressing their superiors.

Form of Kings

• Common-case plural: the kings are dining
• Genitive singular: the kings (i.e., king 's) crown
• Genitive plural: the kings (i.e., kings ) lands

Plural of Nouns

• The plural of nouns was typically formed with the -(e)s ending.
• There were exceptions: Irregular plurals like men, women, children, oxen, feet, mice, sheep, Archaic Plurals, Examples include eyen (eyes), shoon (shoes).

Relative/Relativisers pronoun examples.

• personal: Subjective - which to who ; Objective - whom;
• Non-personal: Subjective - which. Objective - which ; which, that, (whereof)/(of which)

Definite vs Indefinite

• *It is restrictive (without commas) if it is essential to the principal meaning of the sentence; it is non-restrictive (with commas) if the principal meaning of the sentence is clear without it

Why certain relative pronouns don't appear in PDE

• the relative pronoun who doesn't work with inanimate objects
• the relative pronoun which doesn't work with animate things and people
• in the 1600s that cannot appear in non-restrictive clauses
• in that period of English use "that is who or whatever"

Other Forms

• PDE: any antecedent; only restrictive relative clauses; subject and object function. ,y foolish rival, that her Father likes, (Onely for his possessions are so huge)
• EModE: freely used both with personal and non-personal antecedents

EModE and Present Day English (PDE) Differences

• PDE: The zero relative pronoun any antecedent, restrictive relative clauses, object and complement
• EModE: The zero relative pronoun could it could also occur in subject function

Differences Between Emode and Present day English

• [PDE: personal antecedent; any type of relative clause; any function]. HHer lips, who ...still blush (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare)
• Stylistic preferences (PDE versus EMDE). in informal and colloquial, that remains common with informal types of writing

Tense forms

• Second and third person singular were marked by -(e)st/-eth
• In private writings, the third person singular was dropped, too
• Past tense marker for weak verbs ed, "d" or "t"
• Past participle forms at the same time for lots of verbs

Charcterisitics of auxiliary verbs.

• could be used with parts of the sentence ( After that a child is come)
• was variable (were, was)

what caused changes/developments in English at the time

• Emphatic markers, emphasis
• To be differentiated from language
• Easy to pronounce so used
• Northern migration

What characteristics does "to do"

• could be implied,
• "will', "shall" and "be to” were other possible variants

the exact way, reasons for all, where's uncertain, could, might etc the origin might multifactorial, due to various reasons loss of inflection it was now the syntax the syntax thus became more strict negative, the usage of do allowed the speakers to circumvent inversion and keep SVO order and still fill the slot of a raised verb: Seest thou these things? vs. Easy to introduce structure etc That was happening to the language in the EMODE period verb or object for that was related and to the point of the spread of and can you come out of this, not a the way 16th century had, it has to do

what was the EMODE known for

• growth and urbanization
• dialect levelling
• what sounds were included. Are my and thighs

Where did american accents come from

• 17th century English moved to the Caribbean and North America
• 3 waves:

What's the rhotic sounds

• A preservation of 1600 EMODE water, car, part
• Was retained at many parts in parts
• Last/ RP: /la:st/,GA: last

Is the Shakespeare english posh

• English accent
• it may have been the day to day for the time. There was no posh English

What is specifications

• Was a semantic where would comes more specific narrow

What is vowel length

double will in writing, for noon is writing that an assembly in one, two and three non the non vowel sounds and what is mean I that the adverb since was used when the two points were the same. With emphasis too

the major historical details of the time

• Spalling, Spelling phonetics and sounds of the time of changes and debate