Early Modern English Preparation Questions PDF

Early Modern English – Prepara3on Ques3ons QUESTION ANSWER What is the (rough) /me 1476-1755 -> more general: 1500-1750 period of EModE? What are major historical Prin/ng Press developments of the EModE The English Renaissance period? The Protestant Reforma/on Rising Na/onalism Explora/on and Coloniza/on Give more details on the 1476 William Caxton imports and sets up ﬁrst major historical development prin/ng press of the Prin/ng Press. sets up his press in the City of Westminster freezing/ﬁxing of English spelling = standardiza/on Caxton complains about variability of English (see Eneydos) despite ongoing internal language change also dialect leveling took place most preserved texts are not easily localizable spelling easier to standardize than other areas (e.g. pronuncia/on) some/mes an “e” at the end of the word was added just so that the end of the margin was met and everything looked neat Give more details on the revival of interest in classical learning as a result of major historical development English of the English Renaissance. transla/ons of Plato, Ovid, Homer … English transla/ons writers started to compare English with La/n due to familiarity with classical models Give more details on the Henry VIII breaks with Rome → new understanding of major historical development the church of the Protestant Reforma/on. Various transla/ons of the bible o Wycliﬀ 1395 o Tyndale 1526 o King James Bible 1611 Give more details on the New English iden/ty (because before they have major historical development always been invaded by diﬀerent countries) of the Rising Na/onalism. Elizabeth’s long reign fostered pride in the English language conscious desire to produce a na/onal literature in English, e.g., Spencer’s “Faerie Queene” (1590) Give more details on the at beginning of EModE period only one oversea major historical development possession (lost in 1558) of the Explora/on and 1588 Defeat of Spanish Armada – major sea power Coloniza/on. -> spread of English around the globe How is language data from the EModE provides a wealth of texts EModE period sourced and o prin/ng press evaluated? What are o rise of literacy limita/ons? o 1500: men 10%, women 1%1640: 30% of popula/on from several stages of a period Earlier texts diﬀer much more from PdE than later texts variety of text types provides evidence of diﬀerent aspects o religious 40%; literary 25%; medical, legal, grammars, dic/onaries, schoolbooks, personal lepers, diaries, trial records, court proceedings, newspapers (London Gazepe 1665); scien/ﬁc journal -> texts from only one source are not reliable as the author may have made the same mistake over and over, which is then seen as something normal / a rule Limita/ons: o Texts may be modiﬁed and corrected o Manuscripts were printed and thereby standardized o Most private documents are not modiﬁed (s/ll possible) o No access to spoken language § Registers which are closer to spoken language (dialogues, court records) s/ll conven/onalized § Doubqul originality (plays may be corrected/modiﬁed by actors) What was the deal with In 16 c. there were four (known) grammarians th grammarians in the EModE In 17th c. thirty-two grammarians period? (in 18th c. about 200 grammarians) Problem: usually followed the tradi/on of comparing English to La/n and also trying to ﬁt the established terms o La/n highly inﬂected language, EModE less and less so = categories overlooked and other made up to make it ﬁt o Prescrip/ve account/approach = not necessarily reﬂec/ng actual language use → an abstract idea based on La/n grammar Compare the spelling and Worksheet Week4 grammar across /me in the EModE period. What are characteris/cs of - rela/vely homogenous EModE in terms of - spelling becomes more ﬁxed, but literacy not standardiza/on? widespread → only high class/well-educated people could write and read - minor linguis/c varia/on remains - becomes more standardized - closer to PDE than ME or OE - BUT: there is no standard version (yet) What kind of varie/es existed - Varie/es with regard to in EModE? o Region o Social group o Field of discourse o Context of situa/on - Also diﬀerence between spoken and wripen language (but naturally less evidence) What informa/on is known - surprising amount of evidence for dialec/cal about dialects in EModE? usage - much of it s/ll unexamined by scholars - variety of local dialects that diﬀered from region to region - dialects associated with uneducated and incorrect usage → something that we s/ll do today: judging someone by their pronuncia/on/syntax What languages existed in the - England, some parts of Scotland, Wales and EModE period? Ireland: English - West and north England: Cel5c languages - Scotland: o Oﬃcial language: Scots o Highlands: Gaelic-speaking o Lowlands: Scots-speaking - Sutherland, Orkney and Shetland: from Scandinavian Norn to Scots - Ireland: Cel5c-speaking What sources (available 1. Dialect texts (mostly diary entries/lepers) and material) are there for literary texts inves/ga/ng dialects in 2. Contemporary comments on dialects (with regard EModE? to the autude of the periods) 3. Diachronic reconstruc/ons (based on recorded ME/EModE dialects) What principal dialect were - The General there in the EModE period? - The Northern - The Southern - The Eastern - The Western - The Poe/c è Mostly based on pronuncia/on (ini/al frica/ve voicing zing vs. sing, vill vs. ﬁll (Southern)) è Also some morphological features (gang vs. go (Northern)) What social dis/nc/ons were - Dialects of country people there in dialects in EModE? - Dialects of people of genteel and cultured upbringing: o have “but one universal speech, both in pronuncia/on and meaning” o GENERAL DIALECT (Communis dialectus) o s/ll its pronuncia/on is some/mes ambiguous - imita/ng country dialect is allowed only in “Poe/c dialect” (esp. when op/ng for the Northern dialect) What are the steps of the 1. selec5on of a dialect as the dominant variety process of standardiza/on? (either by the government, the majority of the people or some kind of ins/tu/on) 2. acceptance of selected dialect by the educated and powerful classes 3. elabora5on of selected dialect’s func/ons → spread of usage: not only in legal documents, but also in all other parts of life (e.g. talking to peers) 4. codiﬁca5on of selected dialect (i.e. its ﬁxing in dic/onaries and grammars) A standard is usually a “compromise dialect, widely intelligible and incorpora/ng linguis/c elements from other areas” What is “Chancery - the people working in the Court of Chancery already English”/the “Chancery developed their own standardized English Standart”? - early 15th c. English replaced French in documents issued by King’s oﬃce o wripen by clerks who had liple training in their mother tongue (but La/n/French) → massive dialectal varia/on in English o later only liple varia/on of form; southern usage → Chancery standard, Westminster wri/ngs as reference standard (→ Caxton) - Preferred Chancery Spelling: What are See presenta/on W6_Caxton aspects/characteris/cs of EModE in Caxton’s ‘Prologue’ to Eneydos? What are main features of - existence of more than one spelling of the same word EModE Spelling? (13 aspects) o e.g. fellow, felow, felowe, fallow, fallowe - and are used as both vowel and consonant graphemes, normally in medial and in ini/al posi/on (regulariza/on ayer 1630) o e.g. vpon; haue; loues - interchangeability of and (front high vowels) in medial posi/on o e.g. certaynly, varyeth, recieve, receyve - interchangeability of , and in ﬁnal posi/on ( becomes standard towards end of period) o e.g. necessi:e, certainly - ﬁnal o is mainly used to indicate length e.g. made, ride, hope, kepe o but also to adjust right hand margins (→ prin/ng press) e.g. southe o to dis/nguish inﬂec/onal –s from word ﬁnal/-s/ e.g. dense (sg.) vs. dens (pl. of den) o and to prevent , , and from occurring in ﬁnal posi/on - double vowels , also indicate length o e.g. fornoon, doo - word ini/al is used for /dʒ/un/l mid-17th century; around 1630 replaced by o e.g. ioyned, iudgemente - apostrophes indicate missing vowels (16th c.), but use is erra/c. Also indicates syncope (loss of vowels – usually schwa) in preterits and past par/ciples of weak verbs. o e.g. talk’d - apostrophe in geni/ve singular introduced during 17th c., plural in the 18th c. - introduc/on of several French digraphs: , (in 15th c.) to mark long open vowels; also for /i:/or /e:/ - Use of capital lepers (N, Adj, V) esp. ayer Civil War (1660), rapid decline in mid-18th c. → but very inconsistent use (maybe to put some emphasis) o E.g. the Butchers wife come in then, and cal me gossip quickly? coming in to borrow a messe of Vinegar: telling vs she had a good dish of Prawnes - etymological and analogical spellings, especially aﬀec/ng French loanwords, to conform with alleged La/n/Greek etymology (→ Respelling) → French, La/n, Greek have been hold in high esteem - by 1700 spelling is regularized: only one spelling for the individual word is favored, generally the shorter one Why were there renaissance - interest in La/n and Greek gave rise to respelling of respelling? borrowed words to make them correspond more closely to their etymology - some/mes based on mistaken concep/on of word’s origin - oyen respellings led to new spelling pronuncia:ons of the words What are renaissance - restora/on of → to show that these derived from respellings? Give examples. La/n o host ( someone, every man > everyone, showing a move toward more neutral forms. Name the rela/visiers/rela/ve pronouns used in EModE. è that, which, zero, whom, who whose (sporadically: the which) What is the diﬀerence - it is restric/ve (without commas) if it is essen/al between restric/ve and non- to the principal meaning of the sentence; it is restric/ve rela/ve clauses? non-restric/ve (with commas) if the principal meaning of the sentence is clear without it - Non-restric/ve rela/ve clauses have a parenthe/cal func/on. “That” is rare (non-standard) in non-restric/ve rela/ve clauses. Why don’t the following - In PdE the rela/ve pronoun who doesn’t work EModE examples work in PdE? with inanimate objects - A braue vessel (who had no doubt some noble creature in her) Dash’d all to peeces (Hamlet) - The ﬁrst of gold, who this inscrip/on beares (Merchant of Venice) - Her lips, who...s/ll blush (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare) - All wound with Adders, who with clouen tongues Doe hisse me into madnesse (The Tempest) Why don’t the following - In PdE the rela/ve pronoun which doesn’t work EModE examples work in PdE? with animate things and people - The mistress which I serve (The Tempest, Shakespeare) - Our Father which art in heaven (King James Bible) Why don’t the following - In PdE we don’t use the redundant the in the EModE examples work in PdE? which anymore - The party against the - In PdE that which is what or that which he doth contriue, - In PdE as is who or that Shall seaze one halfe his goods (Merchant of Venice) - Discre/on; in the which beper part I have sav’d my life (King Henry IV, Part I) - All that which Henry Fiyh had gopen (King Henry IV, Part III) - Those as sleep, and think not on their sins (The Merry Wives of Windsor) Why don’t the following - in PdE ø (zero) only works when the rela/ve EModE examples work in PdE? pronoun is the object - Try all the friends ø thou hast (Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare) - The friends ø thou hast, and their adop/on tride, Grapple them to thy Soule... (Hamlet) - My Father has a daughter ø lov’d a man (Twelyh Night, Shakespeare) Theres noebody ø holdes you (The Excellency of the English Tongue, Carew) - there is Noble man of the Court at doore ø would speake with you. (Henry IV) Why don’t the following - In PdE that cannot appear in non-restric/ve EModE examples work in PdE? clauses - My foolish rival, that her Father likes, (Onely for his possessions are so huge) (Two Gentlemen of Verona) How is the rela/ve pronoun - PdE: any antecedent; only restric/ve rela/ve that diﬀerently used in PdE clauses; subject and object func/on and EModE? The man that brought it is here; The book that you bought. - EModE: used also in non-restric/ve rela/ve clauses. It progressively becomes conﬁned to restric/ves and less frequent. My foolish rival, that her Father likes, (Onely for his possessions are so huge) (Two Gentlemen of Verona) How is the rela/ve pronoun - PdE: non-personal antecedent; any type of which diﬀerently used in PdE rela/ve clause; any func/on and EModE? The house (,) which is near the river(,) was sold yesterday; The book which you bought; The country for which we fought. - EModE: freely used both with personal and non- personal antecedents, specially, in non-restric/ve rela/ve clauses. The pore husbond man whiche oﬀred to hym his homely handes full of clene water How is the zero rela/ve - PdE: any antecedent; restric/ve rela/ve clauses; pronoun diﬀerently used in object and complement PdE and EModE? The girl you saw; The country you fought for. - EModE: it could also occur in subject func/on. My Father has a daughter ø lov’d a man (Twel_h Night, Shakespeare) Theres noebody ø holdes you (The Excellency of the English Tongue, Carew) How is the rela/ve pronoun - PdE: personal antecedent; any type of rela/ve whom diﬀerently used in PdE clause; object and complement func/on and EModE? The girl (,) whom you saw (,) lives next door; The man whom you gave it to. - EModE: This was the most common rela/viser ayer a preposi/on and in object func/on with personal antecedents. Hath she forgot already that brauve Prince, Edward, her Lord, whom I (some three months ago) Stab’d in my angry mood, at Tewkesbury? (Richard III, Shakespeare) How is the rela/ve pronoun - [PdE: personal antecedent; any type of rela/ve who diﬀerently used in PdE clause; any func/on] and EModE? The girl (,) who lives next door(,) is blonde; The girl who you gave it to. - EModE: normally follows a personal antecedent in non-restric/ve clauses, but there are excep/ons to these two rules. This tendency to be limited to personal antecedents con/nued throughout the period un/l it became the only possibility. Her lips, who...s:ll blush (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare) How is the rela/ve pronoun - [PdE: any antecedent; any type of rela/ve clause; whose diﬀerently used in PdE possessive func/on] and EModE? The girl / doll(,) whose dress I made(,) is beau:ful. - EModE: From the beginning of the period it started to be used just like today, though it was more frequent with non-personal antecedents than today. How did the use of rela/vizers - Regulariza/on: looked at the end of the In the course of the EModE period, the rules on EModP? And why? the use of rela/visers were progressively imposed, so that, by the end of the period, rela/visers were used prac/cally in the same way as today. - Stylis5c diﬀerences: In informal and colloquial styles, that remains the commonest rela/viser throughout the period. The spread of who and which and its use condi/oned by rules, is typical of formal texts. What were the present and past tense forms of pray, be, have and do that were used in EModE? present tense past tense I do did thou dost didst he/she/it doth (or does) did we do did you do did they do did What are characteris/cs of the - second and third person singular were marked by present tense in EModE? -(e)st stand -(e)th o e.g. hath/singeth o -(e)th was replaced by -(e)st hroughout the 17th century, some verbs did it later (do/have/say or ending in sibilant) - in the beginning, there were also inﬂec/ons in the plural (-th / -s/ -n ) o came from diﬀerent dialects o lost around 1550, as they were seen as archaic (especially-en ) - general tendency to drop morphologic verb elements o in private wri/ngs, the third person singular was dropped, too - impera/ve works as it does today (both present and past tense) Why did become -(e)s instead - It was easier to pronounce (th Is very diﬃcult) of -(e)th? - Migra/on from the north -> implementa/on of the northern dialect What are characteris/cs of the - forma/on of past tense was diﬀerent for weak past tense in EModE? and strong verbs - there are a lot of verbs that changed classes, mostly becoming weak o diﬀerent past tense and past par/ciple forms at the same /me for a lot of verbs (e.g. help: holpen / holp / helped ) - past tense marker for weak verbs: -ed (some wrote phone/cally: ‘d/’t ) o e.g. turn-> turned; banish ‘t, renounce‘t - diﬀerent for strong verbs o e.g. be-> was - simple past could be used in some places where you would expect the perfec/ve aspect o e.g. “I protest before God, I never knew a clearer Treason.” What are characteris/cs of to - “to be” is a special case for both the present and be in EModE? past tense - in present singular, there is an irregular form for every person (am/ art / is ) - the base form could be used in the present plural o e.g. “We be in London.” - it can be a main, but also an auxiliary verb (like do and have) o e.g. “A_er that a child is come” o past tense is also irregular as it is a strong verb (was /were ) What are characteris/cs of the - due to gramma/caliza/on, “be going to” became future tense in EModE? a marker for future /me o e.g., “is going to be married” o “will”, “shall” and “be to” were other possible variants (e.g. “he is to do laundry”) - Gramma/caliza/on process: ﬁrst there was the literal understanding of going somewhere What are traits of the do- periphrasis in EModE compared to PdE? What is the origin of the do- The exact way and reason do became a poten/al auxiliary periphrasis? are unclear: - might come from “causa/ve do” + seman/c bleaching - Welsh inﬂuence / French inﬂuence - do + objec/ve inﬁni/ve (do and the inﬁni/ve as its direct object) - empha/c do (do used for emphasis) - semi-auxiliary do + explanatory verb (verbs that complete/explain do’s meaning) → the origin might be mul/factorial, though causa/ve do is the one men/oned by sources Why did the do-periphrasis - due to the loss of inﬂec/on it was now the syntax spread at all? that assigned syntac/c roles → the syntax thus became more strict - main word order: Subject-Verb-Object - the usage of do allowed the speakers to circumvent inversion and keep SVO order and s/ll ﬁll the slot of a raised verb: Seest thou these things? vs. Dost thou see these things? - the do-periphrasis is also iden/cal to sentences containing other auxiliaries: Dost thou see these things? Canst thou see these things? → easy to introduce, since the structure is already familiar to speakers - It might also have made certain conjuga/ons easier: doth illuminate vs. illuminateth How oyen and why were do- - periphras/c do was more popular in aﬃrma/ve periphrases used in aﬃrma/ve clauses in the 16th century than today; but it clauses? never appeared in more than 10% of uperances - was used to not have to conjugate long and complicated verbs, mostly loan verbs since do takes the ﬁnite elements - was also used to diﬀeren5ate between simple present and past when the preterite form is iden/cal to the present form How did nega/on work in - though it is obsolete, there were sill instances of EModE? ne at the beginning of the period in the 15th century and some as late in the 17th century, especially as conjunc/on - verb + not was common - ayer the disapperance of preverbal ne, not was some/mes placed preverbally out of the desire to express nega/on earlier in the sentence - not + verb was rare in the early 16th century but became more common towards the end of the century - with the loss of noun inﬂec/on, a strict word order became far more important than before → it was now mainly the syntac/c posi/oning of cons/tuents that assigned them their role and not’s posi/on may have become inconvenient (I eat not apples → here you wouldn’t know if the verb or the object is negated) → when do came around it oﬀered a solu/on to the problem : o it moved not out of the way, verb and object are no longer separated o the negator was not in the more natural, preverbal posi/on o used established and common nega/on papern: aux. – not - verb How did the nega/on diﬀer in the diﬀerent epochs? What happened to mul/ple - common in the 16 century (not…never/nothing) nega/on? - over the EModE period non-asser/ve forms came to replace negators (not…ever, anything) How did the interroga/ve with - do ques/ons progressed because speakers do came about? avoided inversing the subject and the main verb What types of impera/ves 1. do preceding the ﬁnite verb (are very rare, even were there in EModE? though aﬃrma/ve do clauses become more frequent) 2. the inﬁni/ve What are characteris/cs of the - the preposi/on that introduces the agent could passive in EModE? be of when the verb was abstract or described mental ac/vi/es - there were verbs that took both of and by How did grada/on work in - All three alterna/ves were possible: easier, more EModE? easy and more easier - Double compara/ve/superla/ve was generally used for emphasis - double compara/ves/ superla/ves no longer used ayer 1640 - also possible (especially striking compared to today): the use of -er/-est for polysyllabic word (naturalest or rascalliest) - some stylis/c diﬀerences: in some instances -er/- est is used for adjec/ves colloquially and more/most formally → generally, however, any adjec/ve could be compared by either method, even by the same speaker/writer (Shakespeare uses both sweeter and more sweet) What are characteris/cs of - adverbs without the ending –ly more common adverbs in EModE? than today, but less than in Middle English (No man spake clear , equal, or without ar:ﬁce) - many suﬃxless adverbs were common that are s/ll used today (derived from earlier /mes) e.g. even, long, right, s:ll and very - -ly adverbs were usually compared using more and most (e.g. more slowlie or most speedily) - excep/ons possible like inﬂec/onal forms with -ly adverbs (e.g. it was thought this maOer might easlier and surelier be dispachid) How were adjec/ves used as - Have we not granted already that the Good are nouns in EModE? happy, and the Impious miserable o Using Adj with reference to people in general has always been possible o NPs with converted Adj as the N head (or NP with Adj head) - Ay preAy one, every body will strive to dance with the Bride o Prop-word one used to supply the head in the NP How was EModE - No audio recording pronuncia/on reconstructed? - Key sources: o Rhyming paperns in poetry o Spelling varia/ons o Orthoepists’ descrip/ons o PdE spelling and pronuncia/on How can the Great Vowel Shiy - Massive, systema/c change in pronuncia/on be deﬁned? - Raising and diphthongiza/on of vowels - Chain shiy (one change causes another change) How does the Great Vowel Shiy look in the IPA diagram and in a list with examples? What consonant changes - Generally: consonant shiys were less drama/c but appeared in EModE? s/ll important - Weakening of the postvocalic /r/: before the rho/c /r/ was regularly pronounced ayer the vowel in words such as car and door → in these respects, the EModE speech norm resembled modern General American more than the current RP - /h/-dropping common in word beginning with /h/ in weakly stressed posi/ons and /h/-inser/on because of hypercorrec/on (if my lord mer and my lord Cortenay ad not ben ther, ther had bene greO myscheyﬀ done. and and the gentyll-woman had hordenyd a greO tabull) - Velar frica/ve [x] (like ch in loch), wripen /ch/, either disappeared (night, bought) or became [f] (rough, laugh) - Simpliﬁca/on of ini/al sounds o Ini/al /kn/ reduced to /n/ (know, knee, knife) o Ini/al /gn/ reduced to /n/ (gnaw, gnat, gnash) o Ini/al /wr/ reduced to /r/ (write, wreck, wrong) o Ini/al /wl - Simpliﬁca/on/assimila/on of velar nasal ŋ → before the ﬁnal consonant cluster in words like rang and sing were a pronounced with [ŋ] and [g] but were then reduced to only [ŋ] - Emergence of the voiced postalveolar frica/ve consonant /ʒ/ → it arose from the coalescence of the sequence /zj/ in words ending in -sion (division, occasion, vision) - Final /b/ ceased to be pronounced ayer nasal consonants (lamb, bomb, limb) What were the literacy rates in - prin/ng press a decisive factor in spreading EModE period and why was linguis/c norms the prin/ng press important - London center of book prin/ng for that? - religious texts, esp. the big ones (King James Bible, Book of Common Prayer), preserved the language of religion o thou, ye, –(e)th became part of “religious language” (but also s/ll used in some English dialects) - prin/ng increased the number of “readers” - number of “writers” s/ll low around 1500 - full literacy about 10% of male and 1% of female speakers (Cressy 1980), higher in London than elsewhere - 1640: c, 30% males in countryside, 60% male Londoners - all members of the gentry were literate (write & read) - by the end of the EModE period also many people forom lower social ranks were fully literate How did the codiﬁca/on of - ﬁnal stage of standardiza/on process: English in the EModE period o new forms of mass media emerges: went about? newspapers o rise of wripen records = standardiza/on of spelling - printed medium as the vehicle for codiﬁca/on of English vocabulary and all aspects of language: grammar, pronuncia/on and “good usage” What are characteris/cs of - no equality in educa/on, not even in highest female speakers regarding social classes their language use? - classical educa/on was a male preroga/ve - less than 2% of published texts in EModE female authors - gender diﬀerences mainly studied via private documents (lepers, diaries) → those documents are clostest to natural spoken language as they were not intended for publica/on - female speakers pick up innova/ons quicker than male speakers How did the social stra/ﬁca/on look like in the 16th century England? What were the /tles and social statuses in Tudor and Stuart England? How did language use change - upward social mobility, social indeterminacy and because of social mobility? politeness = generalisa/on of /tles - Goodman and Goodwife disappeared → Master / Mistress - upper ranks and professional people mainly responsible for spreading new linguis/c forms/usages - BUT middle rank used “you” more oyen in subject form than upper of lower ranks What is the “bad-data - Historical documents survive by chance, not by problem”? design → they were never intended for others to ﬁnd - Historical documents are riddled with the eﬀects of… o Hypercorrec/on: trying to appear from higher class but applying the language rules too oyen → over-use of the rule = error in applica/on; hypercorrec/on of a word that isn’t meant to be corrected (→ like children that over-generalize in language learning) o Dialect mixture: especially in London → mel/ng-pot of dialects o Scribal errors - We can only make hypotheses on the basis of imperfect, accidentally transmiped data (but we cannot really know if they are right) - Today we would create corpora diﬀerently → strive for natural occurring language - Diﬃcult to conduct historical sociolinguis/c studies → we don’t know enough about the speakers /authors (e.g. age, gender, social class, place of origin, place of residence etc.) - Access only to texts by the literate, usually from higher social ranks - Stereotypical social and regional features in diﬀerent plays, literary works - Valuable informa/on lower-rank writers (merchants, tradesmen, servants) who needed to be able to write in their work → BUT, very rare, not in the same amount as informa/on from higher class Give examples for how the - Use of you social class impacted the o originated from lower ranks (< gentry), spread of linguis/c aspects. spread rapidly across the social spectrum o women promoted the use of you - singular –(e)s o norther form > south in late 15th century o immigrants from the north → a lot of people died of the plague → more space for immigrants o beginning of 16th century frequently used by lower-ranking men o rare in middle or uppermost ranks o non-gentry writer increasingly use –(e)s (instead of –(e)th) o last quarter of 16th century nobility and gentry use –(e)s in personal lepers o Henry VIII used –(e)th in love lepers to Anne Boleyn but in 1520s o Elizabeth I used it already frequently (start of regency 1558) o women generally accepted it more quickly Why is London in EModE - growth and urbaniza/on described as a linguis/c - ci/zens coming in from all parts of the country mel/ng pot? - exposure to many diﬀerent regional varie/es - speech accommoda/on o to be understood (e.g. speaking slower, maybe louder, using terms that you normally wouldn’t use but know the other will understand) o to approve the other o signal group membership - dialect levelling → changes in the General dialect How did grammar changes - most gramma/cal changes spread from/via spread in EModE? London into other parts of the country - City of London and Royal Court at Westminster both similar pace in spread and usage of “you” - Some/mes uses were divided: northern innova/ons (ﬁrst spread to the city before they reached the Court) o -(e)s o are (plural form for be) o my & thy (for mine and thine) - to diﬀuse into the General Dialect the change had sooner or later to be accepted by the court - which (Court) instead of the which (northern) (City) got the upper hand used, e.g., by Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII o Anne Boleyn however used “the which” in 1528 in a leper to Cardinal Wolsey o wool-merchant wife Sabine Johnson did too How did the American English - 17th century English moved to the Caribbean and come about? North America - 3 waves: o Puritans (East Anglia -> Massachuseps Bay) o Gentry & servants (South England -> Virginia) o Quakers (North Midlands -> Delaware Valley) - 1776 American Declara/on of Independence = poli/cal independence - “two na/ons separated by a common language” (George Bernard Shaw) - many AmE features typical of EModE o lexicon o morphology (got – goOen) o phonology - only few features “like Shakespeare” - some changes s/ll happened, so it’s probably more 18th century Bri/sh English (Samuel Johnson Daniel Defoe) - In fact: Every dialect is constantly changing, rural and urban ones How did the rho/city in - Postvocalic /r/ a preserva/on of EModE (c. 1600) American English come about? water, car, part - many immigrants came from parts of GB where non-rho/city hadn’t yet spread - change to non-rho/c accent was just beginning in the southern England when the colonies became the US - EModE feature retained in many modern American accents What are diﬀerences in the - path pronuncia/on of /a/ between o RP: /pa:θ/ RP and GA? o GA: /pæθ/ (= EModE) - last o RP: /la:st/ o GA: /læst/ (=EModE) Can Shakespeare’s English be - oyen ”Shakespearean English” is associated with considered posh English? higher social status or beper educa/on - posher version of English? American English posher? - in Shakespeare’s /me it was “everyday speech” - even Queen Elizabeth did not pronounce English in a posher way (Barep’s analysis of her lepers) - Bri/sh accents (esp. London) have undergone much more change than American accents For what was the process of Before the establishment of dummy-do ques/ons were inversion used in EModE? formed with the help of inversion. What is - A type of seman/c change in which a word’s speciﬁca/on/narrowing? meaning becomes more speciﬁc/narrower - OE: meat = any kind of food - PdE: meat animal ﬂesh How is vowel length indicated - Either through double vowel (fornoon, doo, noo) in spelling? - Or with a ﬁnal e (boke, mone, speke, mete, lorde) How was abbreviated yt in prin/ng? What is a consonant cluster? An “assembly” of one, two, or three neighboring non- vocalic sounds. What happened to the Whereas the ﬁrst two of these consonant phonemic status of sounds were lost during EModE, the laper two gained [x] & [ç] and [ŋ] & [Ȝ]? phonemic status in the period. What is mine? The ﬁrst person singular possessive E.g.: mine eye pronoun that was s/ll used in EModE in front of words star/ng with a vowel. What was the deal with the - The dis/nc/on between the simple past and the past tense and the perfec/ve present perfect/past perfect was not yet fully tense in EModE? established - The adverb since was some/mes used with both tenses (in PdE only possible with the perfec/ve) In contrast to PdE, which - It did not add extra emphasis func/on did do not have in posi/ve declara/ve sentences? - a) major historical developments; b) spelling, i) renaissance respelling, c) spelling reform debate, d) phonemic spelling, e) logographic spelling, f) inkhorn terms and debate, g) great vowel shiy, h) reduc/on of consonant clusters, j) verb forms of “be”, “have”, “do”, k) use of thou and you; l) verbal endings –th /-s; m) development of do/use of do-periphrasis; n) use of rela/ve pronouns Which worksheets to do ayerwards? - W4_Caxton_on_the… (look at her solu/ons ayerwards: W6_Caxton) - W4_Spelling_across_Time - W8_VerbsinEModE - W8_GrammarII_EModE - W10_EModEAdjec/ves_and_Adverbs (look at her solu/ons ayerwards) - W10_Adverbs _EModE -

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