Early Modern English

Question 1

Pronouns

Answer 1

• similar to the system we
  have today, most changes in 2nd
  person
• you-form → used to address those in higher classes
• thou/thee → used to address very close friends + family

Question 2

Verb Morphology

Answer 2

• major difference in 2nd + 3rd pers. sing.
• you-form: pray, prayed… like today
• thou: inflectional endings
• inflectional endings with
  ‘though’ (vanished once though was gone) and 3rd singular present + perfective
• around 1600 the (e)th- form
  vanished and modern forms (-s)
  more likely

Question 3

Syntax

Answer 3

Rise of Do-Support
Rise of Going to

Question 4

Grammar - Simplification? Complexification? - Changes

Answer 4

• now more in morphological area
• not uniform, but principled/systematic
• not independent of other changes
• some forms resist change more than others

Question 5

Standardisation

Answer 5

• before book printing: hand copied manuscripts that were never identical
• William Caxton: 1470s first printing press in London
• 1473 first book printed in English = William Caxton’s translation from French: of The
  Recuyell and the Histories of Troy
• first English book 1476 Chausser’s Canterbury Tales
• Caxton used Latin alphabet
  → remaining letters from OE which were not presented in the
  Latin alphabet were replaced

Question 6

book printing

Answer 6

• exact replica of books, produced in huge numbers very quickly
• spreads a standard, knowledge, literacy
• reflections on a need for a standard
• audience: nobility and people of the upper classes (were literate); broader audience when general education spread, and lower classes became
  literate

→ printing press created means/ability to set a standard and created the need for a standard

Question 7

Word-formation

Answer 7

1630s: rise of new words (also rise of number of books produced)
- affix productivity increases: used to form new words in English
- foreign affixes become ‘nativized’ → combined with local material
- rise of compounds, phrasal elements, loan word use
- rise of conversions: highly productive (e.g. the ups and downs), enabled by loss of infinitive

→ correlation between number of books printed and new words
emerging

Question 8

Great Vowel Shift

Answer 8

• GVS progressing through the entire period
• chase/grace + lies/eyes rhymed in Shakespeare’s
  times and today as well
• tears/hers → first indication that something has
  changed because today they do not rhyme

→ Orthography hasn’t changed