Early Modern English: Lexis Flashcards
Need for new words
- interest in classical languages (science, medicine, arts)
- about 10,000 new words entered the English Language during the EModE period
- Words usually came via the written language into English
- Typically formal terms which were again used in the written medium
Consequence of Loans: Consociation & Dissociation
> OE: vocabulary was consecrated; formal identity of words (e.g. Saran, far “Fahrt”, ofer-faran, etc.)
Due to the influence of other languages words were replaced
Loss of formal identity among words of the same word family
> ModE is a dissociated language
Dissociation
- OE: vocabulary was consociated; formal identity of words
- due to the influence of other languages word were replaced
- words of a word family
> that do not have the same stem
> no formal connection - e.g. mouth and oral (vs. Mund und mündlich)
tooth - dentist (Zahn - Zahnarzt
ride - bicycle (fahren - Fahrrad)
> Modern English is a dissociated language
Consociation
- Consociation means that the form of a word, can tell us sth. about the word family (same lexical morpheme indicates that words are morphologically related)
- hand, handful, underhand, handy, to hand, handily
> not the case in ModE, it is a dissociated language
Hard words
> words typically of Latin origin that were difficult (i.e. hard) to learn to remember (e.g. ingenious, mundane, extoll, confidence, contemplate)
They express meaning (signifié) for which there is no form (signifiant) in the English language
Sir Thomas Eliot was then first to use “education” (1531)
Inkhorn Terms
= terms from the classic languages that are taken over without any consideration as to their usefulness
> e.g.: furibund (furious), lubrical (smooth, slippery), turgidous (swollen)
> some of these words exist in ModE: (ingenious, mundane, extoll, confidence, contemplate)
> Use of Inkhorn Terms was ridiculed
Malapropisms
= wrong use/application
> Hard words are difficult to understand
> Term goes back to a character in the play “the Rivals” by R.B. Sheridan: Mrs. Malaprop
> Mrs. Malaprop frequently uses hard words
> she does not know the meaning of these words and uses them incorrectly (uses a word which sound similar to the one she intended to use)
Spelling and Pronunciation
- spoken language is model which should be decoded in written form
- problem: there is not one grapheme for one phoneme
- need for spelling reform
- John Hart: three forms of “corruptness”
Three forms of “corruptness” (John Hart)
- 1. Superfluity
- more graphemes than phonemes in a word
- <b> in ‘doubt’, <g> in 'eight', <o> in people</o></g></b>
Three forms of “corruptness” (John Hart)
- 2. Usurpation
- use of wrong graphemes for phoneme
- e.g.: grapheme <g> is used in 'gentle' and 'together' with different phoneme quality</g>
Three forms of “corruptness” (John Hart)
- 3. Misplacing
- wrong ordering of graphemes in a word: fable, circle
Dictionaries
- meaning of loan words was difficult to detect
- only educated readers knew the meaning
- more than 40.000 words in Dr. Johnson’s dictionary
- Johnson’s aim:
1. to fix the English language
2. to preserve the purity and ascertain the meaning of our English idiom
3. Dictionary for everyone
sensible
- change in meaning
- EModE: “what can be felt pr perceived”
- ModE: “intelligent, reasonable”
pathetic
- change in meaning
- EModE: “with passion”
- ModE: “causing sadness or compassion”
familiar
- change in meaning
- EModE: “belonging to the family”
- ModE: “well known”
