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EARLY MODERN AND MODERN ENGLISH
REPORTER: Dan Dennis S. Alera
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PERIODS
Early Modern English(1500-1800)
Modern English (1800-
present)
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HISTORICAL FIGURES AND EVENTS
HENRY VIII (r. 1509-1547)
ELIZABETH I (r. 1558-1603)
JAMES I of England (VI of Scotland)(r. 1603-1625), patron of King James
Bible
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ENGLISH CIVIL WAR, 1642-1651, royalistsvs. parlamentarians, execution of Charles I(1625-1649)
OLIVER CROMWELL, Lord Protector of theCommonwealth (1653-1658)
RESTORATION, Charles II (1660-1685)
ACT OF SETTLEMENT (1701), provision byParliament for throne to be transferred toGerman house of Hanover
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ACT OF UNION (1707), England andScotland united to form Great Britain
GEORGE I (r. 1714-1727), greatgrandsonof James I, could not speak English, begins
Hanover (German) dynasty (five kings)which ended with Queen Victoria
GEORGE III (r. 1760-1820), independenceof American colonies (1783); beginnings ofindustrial revolution; eventual insanity of
king
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WAR WITH FRANCE (1789-1815), Englishagainst French Revolution and later against
Napoleon I (Emperor of France, 1804-1814); English victories by Nelson atTrafalgar (1806) and finally by Wellington atWaterloo (1815), Napoleon's death (1821).
IRELAND incorporated to England 1801
English victory over Napoleon Bonaparte atWaterloo (1815)
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QUEEN VICTORIA (r. 1837-1901), granddaughter ofGeorge III
WORLD WAR I (1914-1918)
WORLD WAR II (1939-1945)
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PRINTING:
William Caxton, introduction ofprinting to England in1474; fixing of spelling; literacy;translations of classics;loanwords from Latin and
Greek
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RENAISSANCE:
Interest in classical learning; many
loanwords; attempts to improve English
according to vocabulary, grammar, andstyle of classical languages like Greek
and Latin
New vocabulary developed for
technical and scientific work; also newwords related to exploration, discovery,and colonialism
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REFORMATION:
Henry VIII's disputes with thePope; Church of England;Bible translations into
English, Authorized Version1611 (King James Bible)
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ECONOMY:
Wool production, large sheep pastures, migration
to cities, urbanization, rise of middle class, upwardmobility
dilution of dialectal differences through population
blending at urban centers
middle class quest for "correct" laguage usage;
production of authoritarian grammar handbooks
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ECONOMY:
Industrial Revolution: more
intensive urbanization,
technical vocabulary based onLatin and Greek roots,decreased literacy due to child
labor
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EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION:
Defeat of Spanish Armada 1588,
control of seas, acquisition of coloniesthroughout the world (Bermuda,Jamaica, Bahamas, Honduras,Canada, American colonies, India,Gambia, Gold Coast, Australia, NewZealand); many loanwords fromlanguages of the colonies used to
designate new and exotic products,plants, animals, etc., spread of Englisharound the world
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BRITISH EMPIRE
Gradual expansion of British
power since the days of Elizabeth
I, culminating in British dominionover about one quarter of theworld around 1922 and then
declining until its dissolution in thelast decades of the twentiethcentury
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AMERICAN REVOLUTION:
Separation of English
and Americanspeakers, beginning of
multiple nationalEnglish varieties
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SCHOLARLY WRITING
17th c. scholarly writing still
mostly in Latin, (e.g. Newton,Francis Bacon); middle classembraced English as scholarly
language during18th c.
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LINGUISTIC ANXIETY:
perceived lexicon inadequacies, borrowing
from Latin, deliberate attempts to improvethe language; Sir Thomas Elyot, introductionof neologisms(e.g. consultation , fury, majest
y )critics of borrowings and neologisms called
them "inkhorn terms" (Thomas Wilson,Roger Ascham, Sir John Cheke); John
Cheke tried to translate the New Testamentusing only native English words
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LINGUISTIC ANXIETY:
Attempt to preserve "purity" of English, revivingolder English words; archaizers like EdmundSpenser (1552-1599); compounding of Englishwords: Arthur Golding (1587): "fleshstrings" (insteadof the French borrowing "muscles"), "grosswitted"
(instead of the French borrowing "stupid")Others tried to produce native English technical
vocabulary: threlike (equilateraltriangle), likejamme (parallelogram), endsay (conclu
sion),saywhat (definition), dry mock (irony)
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LOANWORDS:
Greek and Latin technical
vocabulary; continued borrowing
from French (comrade, duel,ticket, volunteer),also Spanish (armada, bravado,
desperado,peccadillo), Italian (cameo,cupola, piazza, portico)
PROPOSED SPELLING REFORMS
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PROPOSED SPELLING REFORMS:
John Cheke (1569): proposal for
removal of all silent lettersSir Thomas Smith (1568): proposal to
make letters into "pictures" of speech;
elimination of redundant letters like cand q; reintroduction of thorn (þ), use oftheta θ for [ð]; vowel length marked with
diacritical symbols like the macron (ahorizontal bar on top of a vowel to
indicate a long sound)
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PROPOSED SPELLING REFORMS:
Similar proposals by John Hart (1570):
proposals for use of diacritics to indicatesound length; elimination of y, w, c, capitalletters
William Bullokar (1580): proposed diacriticsand new symbols, noted the desirability ofhaving a dictionary and grammar to setstandards;
Public spelling eventually becamestandardized (by mid 1700's), underinfluence of printers, scribes of Chancery
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DICTIONARIES:
desire to refine, standardize, and fix the language
William Caxton, French-English vocabulary fortravelers (1480)
Richard Mulcaster's treatise on education,The Elementarie (1582), 8,000 English words but no
definitionsRoger Williams's Key into the Languages of
America (1643)
First English dictionary, Robert Cawdrey's A Table
Alphabeticall (1604), 2,500 rare and borrowed words,intended for literate women who knew no Latin orFrench, and wanted to read the Bible; concern withcorrectness
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DICTIONARIES:John Bullokar's An English Expositor (1616),
marked archaic wordsHenry Cockeram's English
Dictionarie (1623), including sections onrefined and vulgar words and mythology
Thomas Blount's Glossographia (1656),11,000 entries, cited sources andetymologies
John Kersey's A New English Dictionary (1702), first to include everydaywords
DICTIONARIES
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DICTIONARIES:
Nathaniel Bailey's An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721)and Dictionarium Britannicum (1730),48,000 entries, first modern lexicographer,ordinary words, etymologies, cognate
forms, stress placementSamuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the
English Language (1755), 40,000 entries,
based on Dictionarium Britannicum ;illustrative quotations
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DICTIONARIES:
Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
Oxford English Dictionary (OED), dictionary
on historical principles; followed model ofJohnson's dictionary; origins in 1857proposals at Philological Society inLondon; first installment published 1884;
first full version 1928; second edition 1989,290,500 main entries
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ENGLISH ACADEMY MOVEMENT:
17th-18th c., movement favoring the creation of anorganization to act as language sentinel, keep
English "pure"; following the model ofthe Académie Française (1635); proponents:scientist and philosopher RobertHooke(1660); Daniel Defoe (1697); JosephAddison (1711); Jonathan Swift(1712); Queen Annesupported the idea but died in 1714 and hersuccessor George I was not interested in English;
opposition from liberal Whigs who saw it as aconservative Tory scheme; Samuel Johnson'sdictionary substituted for academy; John Adamsproposed an American Academy
GRAMMARS
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GRAMMARS:
Spirit of the Age of Reason (17th-18th
centuries): logic, organization,classification; attempts to define andregulate grammar of language
Notion of language as divine in origin,search for universal grammar, Latinand Greek considered less
deteriorated, inflections identified withbetter grammar
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GRAMMARS:
18th century attempts todefine proper and improperusage; aspiring middle
classes, desire to define andacquire "proper" linguistic
behavior to distinguishthemselves from lower classes
GRAMMARS:
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GRAMMARS:
18th c. grammarians: attempts to providerules and prevent further "decay" of
language, to ascertain, to refine, to fix;usage as moral issue, attempt toexterminate inconvenient facts:
Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique (1553) based on classicalmodels
Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence (1577), dictionary of rhetoricaltropes
William Bullokar's Bref Grammar (1586)
GRAMMARS:
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GRAMMARS:
Alexander Gil's Logonomia Anglica (1621), verytied to Latin
Jeremiah Wharton's The English Grammar (1654),
accepted lack of inflectionsRobert Lowth's A Short Introduction to English
Grammar (1762), most prominent of 18th c.grammars; authoritarian, prescriptive, moralistic
tone Joseph Priestley's The Rudiments of English
Grammar (1761), more enlightened and liberalattitude towards language usage, awareness ofchange and conventionality of language features
Noah Webster's Plain and Comprehensive Grammar (1784), American grammar, based oncommon usage but concerned with "misuse" byIrish and Scots immigrants
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PHONOLOGY
The Great Vowel Shift
(GVS): Middle English (ME)
long vowels came to bepronounced in higherpositions, the highest were
diphthongized:
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GVS examples:ME leef [lεf] > Modern English leaf [lif]ME grete [grεtə] > Modern
English great [gret]
Early Modern English tea [te] > ModernEnglish tea [ti]ME bite [bitə] > Modern English bite [bait]ME hous [hus] > Modern
English house [haus]
CONSONANTS
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CONSONANTS
Addition of phonemic velar
nasal ([ŋ], as in 'hu/ng/') due toloss of g in final positions;evidence from alternativespellings: tacklin/tackling,shilin/shilling
CONSONANTS
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CONSONANTS
Addition of phonemic voiced alveopalatalfricative [ž], as in 'mea/s/ure'], the result of a
phenomenon known as assibilation which isthe development of a palatal semivowel [y] inmedial positions (after the major stress and
before unstressed vowel: tenner/tenure,pecular/peculiar;when [y] followed s, z, t, d, thesounds merged to produce a palatal fricativeor affricate ([š], [ž], [č], [ǰ]): e.g. pressure,
seizure, creature, soldier (this phenomenon isknown as assibilation); dialectal exceptionsand reversals: graduate, immediately,
Injun/Indian
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CONSONANTS
General loss of r before
consonants or in final
position; also regular loss of r inunstressed positions or after backvowels in stressed positions:
quarter, brother, March
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MISCELLANEOUS ISSUES
*fossilization of spelling;spelling fixed in printed
words by end of 17th c. ___________________ *In linguistic morphology, fossilization refers to two close
notions. One is preserving of ancient linguistic features whichhave lost their grammatical functions in language. Another isloss of productivity of a grammatical paradigm (e.g., ofan affix), which still remains in use in some words.
Examples of fossilization include fossilizedmorphemes and fossil words.
SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
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SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
French loans spelling [t] as "th" led to[θ] pronunciation in English, e.g.
anthem, throne, author, Anthony,
Thames
French and Latin words withunpronounced initial "h" led to Englishwords with pronounced initial h: habit,
hectic, history, horror (exceptions:hour, honor) (compare heir/heritage)
SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
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SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
Apostrophe used in contractions
and extensive use ofcontractions; Early ModernEnglish preferred proclitic
contractions ('tis), while ModernEnglish prefers encliticcontractions (it's)
Abandonment of yogh in writingCommon nouns often capitalized
SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
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S :
comma replaced the virgule (/) aspunctuation for a pause
2nd person singular pronouns (þu
and thou) disappeared in 17th c;
the plural forms (ye/you) prevailedfor both singular and plural
Verbs:-s and -th were 3rd person
singular present indicative endings(e.g.does/doth)
SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
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S :
interjections: excuse me, please (if it pleaseyou), hollo, hay, what; God's name used in
euphemistic distortions: sblood, zounds, egadfull-fledged perfect tense, be as auxiliary for
verbs of motion (he is happily arrived);
increasing use of have as auxiliary; periphrasticuse of do (I do weep, it doth heaviergrow); do as auxiliary in questions andnegatives (why do you look on me?); phrasal
quasi-modals: be going to, have to, be aboutto; some continued use of impersonalconstructions (it likes me not, this fears me,
methinks)
SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS:
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S :
syntax of sentences: influence of Latin,"elegant English," long sentences featuring
subordination, parallelism, balancedclauses; bus also continuation of nativetradition of parataxis, use of coordinators
(but, and, for)fixing of written language obscured dialectal
differences; information about dialects from
personal letters, diaries, etc; e.g. NewEngland dialect features observable inspellings like 'Edwad', 'octobe', 'fofeitures',
'par', 'warran', 'lan'
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SEMANTIC CHANGE, SOME EXAMPLES:
Narrowing: Change from
superordinate level to subordinate
level. For example, skyline used torefer to any horizon, but now it hasnarrowed to a horizon decorated
by skyscrapers('deer' formerly hadmeant 'animal')
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SEMANTIC CHANGE, SOME EXAMPLES:
Amelioration:
(Also called elevation Linguistics (ofthe meaning of a word) a change from
pejorative to neutral or positively
pleasant. The word nice has achievedits modern meaning by amelioration
from the earlier sense foolish, silly
- 'jolly' had meant arrogant)
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SEMANTIC CHANGE, SOME EXAMPLES:
Pejoration: The process by which themeaning of a word becomes negative orless elevated over a period of time,as silly, which formerly meant "deserving
sympathy, helpless or simple," has cometo mean "showing a lack of good sense,frivolous."
('lust' had meant pleasure, delight)Weakening: ('spill' had meant destroy,
kill)