Grammatical Change Flashcards
When did most grammatical changes occur?
Before the end of the Middle Ages
When did more recent attempts to “fix” grammar occur?
18th and 19th century
What has been one of the most significant change of grammar?
The loss of inflections
What do inflections do?
Indicate the grammatical form of a word eg. tense person number gender comparatives + superlatives
What are inflections?
Affixes (suffixes and prefixes) which provide extra information about the “base” word
When did these inflections disappear?
By the end of the Middle English Period (1450)
What were the reasons behind the loss of inflections?
They were often unstressed when spoken and resulted in not being pronounced at all, which resulted in them not being written
They were complicated, loss of them meant simpler rules
Different dialects used different inflections, loss made it easier for mutual intelligibility
Example of a change of inflection
Now we often add an “s” suffix to indicate a plural
Beforehand plural affixes were more varied:
hand -> handa
eye -> eyen
What additional change happened when inflections were lost/changes?
Changed how language was constructed
In what was did the inflection change impact on how language was constructed?
Word order
Increased use of auxiliaries
Negative constructions
How did inflections change word order?
Now we use S - V - O word order, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense
Before the order was interchangeable as inflections indicated who was doing what
How did inflections change the use of auxiliary verbs?
Before verbs were often used at the start of a sentence
e.g. V - S - O , the verb and subject then became inverted
Auxiliary verbs were then introduced to the start of the sentence:
A - S - V - O (Did you speak with him)
How did inflections change the use of negative constructions?
Negatives now come before the verb rather than after it
e.g. I deny it not -> I don’t deny it
What happened to double negatives?
Used to be acceptable however now they are seen as ‘bad’ grammar.
e.g. I don’t want nothing
What did double negatives used to do?
Provide emphasis to the word’s meaning
When and who decided that double negatives were unacceptable?
Robert Lowth in the 18th century
What did Lowth believe about double negatives?
They were incorrect. He used maths as an example to prove this as two negative make a positive
What change happened to pronouns (in particular 2nd person)?
They lost plural forms (although some regional dialects still use "youse" as a plural) Used to differentiate between formal and informal for addressing people of a higher and lower class to oneself.
What were the informal and formal formations of the 2nd person pronouns?
thou, thee, thy - informal singular forms
ye, your, you - formal plural forms
When were Who and Whom used?
Whom - when referring to the object
Who - when referring to the subject
What changed about who and whom?
Whom is now seen as being excessively formal and who is used in its place more often than not.
Whom may still be kept alive through the use of prepositions - with whom , for whom
How can the words function change?
When it undergoes a conversion
Example of a noun function change:
Facebook, text, email
now all used as verbs too. (mainly involves technology)
Example of adverb function change:
Well:
- used with past participals
e. g. that was well cooked - used as an intensifying adverb before an adjective
e. g. that was well good
