Week 10 Flashcards
(30 cards)
When were the main changes in pronunciation that made up the GVS and completed it?
By about 1700.
What grammatical forms disappeared in Late Modern English and which features were standardised?
Third-person forms like loveth. Pronouns thou, thee and the corresponding verb form lovest also disappeared from standard usage.
Auxiliary do had come to be used as we use it today.
Which distinction disappeared during the Late Middle English era?
The distinction between the past singular and the past plural disappeared.
Differences between PDE and Late Modern English that may appear in a late modern text
- Capitalised nouns
- Apostrophe on the plural
- “Carry’d”
- “Publick”
- “Chuse” instead of “Choose.
- Archaic verb endings such as -eth or -est (loveth)
- Long Sentences and Semi-Colons: “The man, who had travelled far, and seen many wonders; was not easily impressed.”
What did non-standardised spelling mean? What is an example?
Spellings varied from writer to writer, and even within the work of one writer.
Shakespeare left three different signatures on his will.
What was a powerful force for standardisation?
The introduction of the printing press.
What explains the PDE spelling oddities like silent letters?
The standard spelling system which became established by the end of the 17th century represents the pronunciation of English before the GVS. This explains the spelling oddities in PDE. Like, k in knight, t in castle, w in wrong, meat/meet.
Ruled language
A ruled language is one in which acceptable usage is explicity laid down, for example by grammars and dictionaries,
What did people think about a ruled language?
Some people believed that a properly ruled language would also be unchanging.
The scholar Richard Bentley believed that every language is in perpetual motion but nevertheless was thinking of establishing an “English academy”. Its functions would be to ‘refine’ or ‘correct’ the language, to lay down correct usage.
This is delusive: no language which is being used can be prevented from changing.
When was the publication of first grammars and dictionaries of English, and what was memorable about them?
What did people use before dictionaries?
The 17th century, but the 18th century brought the first really comprehensive dictionaries of English, and an enormous number of English grammars, especially in the second half of the century.
They weren’t equally ‘prescriptive’.
There were two-language dictionaries (for example, English-French and Latin-English), but no full English.
What did the dictionaries of the seventeenth century progressively contain?
When did the dictionaries start to include ordinary everyday words of the language?
They included progressively more information, such as etymology, and differences of style or acceptability.
Eighteenth century (the first being A New English Dictionary of 1702, perhaps by John Kersey).
What helped English be standardised?
Dictionaries helped to stabilise spellings and word-meanings, and inevitably came to be treated as authorities.
What was a reason why grammars of English began to appear in large numbers in the late modern period? And what were these grammar books often based on?
Schools were beginning to teach english, so textbooks were needed.
The models of the textbooks were influenced by Latin grammars and textbooks, and forced the language to conform to classical patterns and paradigms. But not all!
What rule did the ‘classical grammar forms’ give?
The term ‘preposition’, applied to the category including words such as at, by, from, on, with, derives from a Latin word which implies that they are placed before the nouns and pronouns with which they are associated.
But in English this is not necessarily the case.
To what do grammars of English written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries make references to?
Social class.
The Industrial Revolution was on the rise, and the upper class distinguished themselves by means of language and manners.
Who were most grammars written for in the eighteenth and nineteenth century?
For the middle classes, the people who would be insecure about ‘correct’ usage.
When did grammarians appeal to logic?
They condemned multiple negation, which was normal until the seventeenth century. They also condemned double comparatives and double superlatives, like Shakespeare’s “more nearer”.
Multiple negation
Two negatives make an affirmative
Codifying
Codifying a language means standardising its rules for grammar, spelling, and usage, often resulting in dictionaries and style guides.
What grammatical occurrence appeared in late Modern English times? And what happened with this phenomenon in the passing of time?
By late ME, there were four main markings of the verb, namely the past, the perfect, the passive and the progressive.
It became possible to combine these markings, and by the early modern period most combinations were possible. The exception was the combination of the progressive and the passive.
‘T haue bin drincking all night’ (Perfect + Progressive).
What happens when none of the four markings is used?
If there is no modal auxiliary, we are left with the present tense of the verb (‘I go’, ‘he goes’).
It is preferable to call it the unmarked form of the verb: since it has none of the four markings, and is not accompanied by a modal auxiliary, it signals nothing but the lexical meaning of the verb in question.
When happened to ē and ā in 1700?
ME ė. coalesced (came together) with ME ā., so that meat and mate were homophones.
In the late modern period, there were no systematic changes in pronunciation to rival the GVS, but there were a number of important changes which began in the speech of London. What are these?
- Disappearance of /r/ before consonants and paused (non-rhotic) (did not spread everywhere).
- The rounding of vowels after /w/.
- The lengthening of vowels before voiceless fricatives.
In the eighteenth century, the /w/ caused rounding of the following vowel, which became [ɒ]. The change did not take place, however, if the vowel was followed by a velar consonant, as in quack.
Which kind of changes has the lost /r/ caused (RP)?
The /r/ has caused three kinds of change: lengthening, change of quality and diphthongisation.
- Lengthening: arm, bark, which originally had short vowels.
- The vowels /ɪ ʊ ɛ/ became /ə/ under influence of /r/, later it was lengthened to /ə:/ and the /r/ lost (in London), then came /ʒ:/.
- When /r/ occurred after a long vowel or diphthong, an [ə] glide developed between the vowel and the /r/. So [faɪr] became [faɪər]. Then, the /r/ was lost and it become [faɪə].
