Grammatical change Flashcards
What does ye mean and what word class is it?
It means you and is a second-person plural subject pronoun that is now archaic.
What does thou mean and what word class is it?
It means you and is a second-person singular subject pronoun that is now archaic.
What does thee mean and what word class is it?
It means you and is a second-person singular object pronoun that is now archaic.
What word class is whom?
It is the object form of who and is becoming archaic.
What is the syntax?
It is the structure of words and phrases to create sentences in a language.
What is morphology?
It is the study of how words change their form through the addition of inflexions, prefixes and suffixes e.g. adding an s makes a word plural and adding -ed makes more verbs past tense.
What is the dummy auxiliary?
It is the auxiliary verb ‘ to do’. It is a ‘dummy’ verb because it has no meaning of its own and is not really necessary (used especially in questions and negatives).
What are the most interesting things to look for in terms of grammar?
Negatives - now we usually use the dummy auxiliary ‘do’
Prepositions- still changing (‘bored with’ is becoming ‘bored of’)
Full forms that now would be contractions
Pronouns that are dying out: one, whom
What word class are art, hast, dost, shalt, wilt?
They are second person singular irregular verbs (to be, to have, to do) and modal verbs (shall, will)
What word class are hath and doth?
They are third person singular irregular verbs (to have, to do)
What is prescriptivism?
Prescriptivism: an attitude to language use that makes
judgements about what is right and wrong and holds language up to an ideal standard that should be maintained. Popular at the end of the 18th century when the first proper dictionary and books on grammar appeared.
What is descriptivism?
Descriptivism: an attitude to language use that seeks to describe it without making value judgements. This is a more popular attitude today.
