Early Modern English Changes in Grammar

Question 1

noun plurals:

Answer 1

used to be finished in EN but now finish in ES (example Brethren was replaced by brothers

Question 2

what happened to “you”:

Answer 2

phase 1: old and middle english NOMINATIVE singular: “thou” plural: “ye”, ACCUSATIVE singular “thee” and plural “you”
- Different forms for singular and plural and for subject and object

Phase 2: NOMINATIVE singular “thou”, plural and polite” “ye”, ACCUSATIVE singular “thee” and plural and polite “you”
Possibly due to French influence (tu vs. vous), the ye / you forms became used also as singular polite
forms.

phase 3: (early modern) NOMINATIVE singular “thou”, plural and polite “you”, ACCUSATIVE singular “thee”, plural and polite “you”

phase 4: “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”

Question 3

The nobility & upper classes used _____ with each other and _______ with lower classes

Answer 3

ye / you, thou / thee

Question 4

The –er and –est inflections were inherited from :

Answer 4

Germanic: (German: laut, lauter, lautest)

Question 5

Forms with more and most had been used sparingly previously but gained momentum in Early
Modern English.
- Initially, the two were used :

Answer 5

together for emphasis: In EME, the following were possible: more lovelier, famousest, worser
themost straitest sect, the most Highest

Question 6

More frequent use of prepositions to express sentence functions to compensate for :

Answer 6

loss of inflectional

endings

Question 7

what kind of negation was common?

Answer 7

double negation

Question 8

However, double negation continued until the:

Answer 8

eighteenth century

Question 9

when did the dummy DO first appear, where and why?

Answer 9

around 1400 in the south, perhaps as a literary devise to facilitate rhyme.

Question 10

what kind of verbs were more common in Old, Middle, and Early Modern English:

Answer 10

• Impersonal verbs like It dislikes me. = It displeases me; I dislike it

Question 11

Impersonal verbs largely _____ in Early Modern English. EXCEPT:

Answer 11

disappeared, methinks

Question 12

• Third person singular present tense -s: information

Answer 12

• The –s form is from the north (East Midlands)

- The –th form is from the south (West Saxon)

Question 13

what became the spelling authority ?

Answer 13

Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary

Question 14

Attempts at normalization

- Hart (1551): (3 things)

Answer 14

• Capitalization at the beginning of a sentence
• Capitalization with proper names
• Capitalization with important common nouns

Question 15

Attempts at normalization - Bullokar (1580):

Answer 15

37 letters – regular letters with diacritics

Question 16

Attempts at normalization Mulcaster: (1582)

Answer 16

a list of recommended spellings for 9,000 words

Question 17

Samuel Johnson His spellings are not totally consistent: examples

Answer 17

convey/inveigh and fancy/phantom

Question 18

• False etymologies: thought to be derived from Latin ad- prefix but actually not examples:

Answer 18

advance, avance, advantage, avantage

Question 19

• A few other archaic features which were preserved in spelling but no longer pronounced:

Answer 19

• k & gh in knight
  
  • t in castle
• w in wrong, write
  
  • ng in both singer /sɪŋər/ and finger /fɪŋgər/
  • final –b after m: thumb, dumb
  • -l- before certain consonants: talk, half, salve, walk, calf

Question 20

who Wanted to make American spelling distinct?

Answer 20

Noah Webster

Question 21

what did Noah Webster make?

Answer 21

An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

Question 22

In the absence of an academy, who set themselves up as authorities?

Answer 22

self-proclaimed experts

Question 23

difference between prescriptivism and descriptivism:

Answer 23

PRES: how the language should be, DESC: how the language is

Question 24

the most widely used grammar of English until the twentieth century:

Answer 24

the grammar of Robert Lowth (England)