English Old to New part 1week 6, early Modern English 1

            

   

                                                                         

  

Looking back• Scandinavian influence

lexical and grammatical borrowing, perhaps mixing of two language systems resulting in inflectional simplifications, in particular in noun endings, while the distinctive vowels in V-endings were reduced

• French influencelexical prestige borrowing

• Influence of large-scale interregional migration a different way of language contactinflectional simplificationmulti-word grammatical expressions

Dialect routes

And what happened in late Middle English?

• Loss of verb inflections

• Indicative mood

• present tense singular plural• 1st person fylle fill fyllað filleth fill• 2nd person fylst filst fyllað filleth fill• 3rd person fylð fills fyllað filleth fill

• past tense singular plural• 1st person fylde fillede filled

filden filleden filled• 2nd person fyldest filledest filled

fyldon filleden filled• 3rd person fylde fillede filled

fyldon filleden filled

Verbal morphology may convey information about:

• Tense (present, past, future)

• Mood (indicative, subjunctive)

• Voice (active, passive)

• Aspect (progressive, perfective)

• Person/number

Mood can be expressed by verb inflection or by modal auxiliaries

Modals and lexical verbs:

differences in PE

Morphology• Modals have no non-finite forms:

*Alice has musted the cat cf. Alice has washed the cat

*Alice is musting to gocf. Alice is washing the cat

*Alice will must gocf. Alice will wash the cat

Syntax

• only possible complement of modal is infinitive, not a direct object or a clause:

*Alice would that she went home

cf. Alice regretted that she went home

*Alice would a sandwich

cf. Alice had a sandwich

Modals have NICE properties

• Negation

• Inversion

• Code

• Emphasis

Negation

Alice mustn’t wash the cat

Alice cannot wash the cat

Alice won’t wash the cat

cf. *Alice washed not the cat

Alice did not wash the cat

Inversion

Must Alice try again?

Can Alice try again?

Will Alice try again?

cf. *Washes Alice the cat again?

Did Alice wash the cat again?

Code

• Alice will arrive late and so will Bill.

cf. *Alice washed the cat and so washed Bill.

Alice washed the cat and so did Bill.

Emphasis

• Alice can wash the cat

cf. *Alice washed the cat

Alice did wash the cat

NICE properties were not restricted to modals in

Old English

Negation

He ne cuðe na þa Cristes boc

'He did not know Christ's book’

Ne acwele þu þæt cild

‘Do not kill that child’

Inversion

And hu mæg se geleafa beon forþgenge?

and how may the faith be spread?

Hwæt sægest þu, yrþlingc? Hu begæst þu weorc þin?

What do you say, ploughman? How do you go about your work?

Modals still take direct objects and complement clauses

wult tu castles. kinedomes. wult tu wealden al þe world? (c1230, Ancrene Riwle)

'Do you want castles, kingdoms? Do you want to rule the whole world?’

Ich chulle þet 3e speoken seldene ant þenne lutel (c1230, Ancrene Riwle)

'I desire that you speak seldom, and then little'

Lexical verbs still have NICE properties

Ic ne cam noht te bidden 3ew forbisne ... (c1200, Vices & Virtues.15.9)

'I did not come as an example for you‘

Hweonone cumest tu ... (c1200, Sawles Warde 249.29)

‘Where do you come from ...'

Modals become the equivalent of the old subjunctive

inflection• ic gewilnige þæt ic ana ne belife

I wish that I alone not remain-SUBJ

‘I wish that I may not remain alone’

• alswa litel þu gewurþe þæt þu nawiht gewurþe

so little you become-SUBJ that you nothing become-SUBJ

‘May you become so small that you will become nothing’

When do modals become a separate category?

• gradual loss of lexical meanings: will loses the meaning want, may loses the meaning is able, shall loses the meaning owe, etc.

• present-preterite verbs with lexical meanings all disappeared

• modals become the equivalent of the old subjunctive inflection

• loss of non-finite (infinitive, participle) forms, rise of phrases like to be able to, to be obliged to, to be allowed to

• Split makes an important shift in the early 16th century

And what happens in NICE contexts when there is no modal in the sentence? Do support

• Causative do:• Ðis hali mihte ðe dieð ilieuen ðat .... (c1200)• 'This holy power which does (=makes) you

believe that ...’

• Periphrastic do (=”do support”)• His sclauyn he dude dun legge (c1300)• 'his pilgrim's cloak he lay down'

Sound Change

• Unconditioned sound change● Grimm’s Law (Germanic, ca. 400 AD)

● Great Vowel shift (English, ca. 1450-1700)

• Conditioned sound change● Verner’s Law (Germanic, ca. 400 AD)

● Umlaut/i-fronting/i-mutation (pre-OE, ca. 500 AD; Old High German, ca. 600 AD)

Word

Middle English

(1100-1450)

Early ModernEnglish

(1450-1700)

Present-DayEnglish

blind [i:] [əi] [ai]

sweet [e:] [i:] [i:]

clean [ɛ:] [e:]/[i:] [i:]

stone [ɔ:] [o:] [əʊ]

name [a:] [ɛ:]/[e:] [ei]

moon [o:] [u:] [u:]

cow [u:] [əu] [ɑʊ]

The Great Vowel Shift

Where does our evidence come from?

• Orthopeists (spelling reformers)

• Grammar books

• Rhymes

• Naive writers

• Evidence from other languages

Evidence from orthopeists

• 1551 John Hart: The Opening of the Unreasonable Writing of Our English Toung

• 1569 John Hart: An Orthographie, conteyning the due order and reason, howe to write or paint thimmage of mannes voice, most like to the life or nature

• 1568 Thomas Smith: De recta et emendata linguae anglaicanae scriptione, dialogus

• 1580 William Bullokar: Booke at large for the amendment of orthographie for English speech

• 1621 Alexander Gill: Logonomia Anglica• ca.1617 Alexander Hume: Of the Orthographie and

Congruitie of the Britan Tongue

Christopher Cooper (1687) The English Teacher

• “Oo is formed by the Lips very much contracted; as book, boot; there is very little difference between the short and long sound [...]. We always pronounce it thus, except in those words which are excepted in the foregoing and following Sections. In some few also we express this sound by o as move, oa boar, ou court. The Germans by u, as Zufluch. The French by ou, as coupe.”

• wean/win: long/short. But vowel in wean differs from that in feel.

Evidence from rhymes

• Rhymes may be traditional and not represent current pronunciation

• false rhymes e.g. analogical rhymes, eye-rhymes (cf. wind – mind)

• good evidence would be the differences in rhyming practices from one period to another; eg. Chaucer rhymes knight with wight, but not with white or delite.

Naive writers: Paston Letters (15th C)

• Great variation in spelling, even within the same writer. Shows up various sound changes: [x] has disappeared, witness sowte for ‘sought’ and “inverted spellings” like wright for ‘write’; abowght ‘about’; wone ‘one’.

• GVS: symyd for ‘seemed’, pryst (beside prest) for ‘priest’ ;

I sye [i:] the pye [ai] and herd it spek

Morphological alternations due to GVS

The long vowel in an adjective could undergo shortening in the derived noun:

ME: sane [sa:n] sanity [sa:niti] → [sæniti] (shortening in antepenultimate syllable)PE: [sein] (GVS) versus [sæniti] (non-GVS)

saline salinity sign signify serene serenityprofane profanity crime criminal clean cleanlinesshumane humanity divine divinityvain vanity type typical verboseverbositygrain granular,-ary conspire conspiracygrave gravity private privacy profound profundity

BUT: obese obesity, pirate piracy (analogy!)