Early Modern English II



  1. Morphology
    1. New words continue to enter English from French, Latin, and other Romance languages
    2. Peak of Aureate diction
    3. First Dictionaries and Grammars appear


  2. Orthography
    1. Continued standardization of spelling
    2. Y often stood for þ but was still pronounced "th" as in "Ye Olde Software Shoppe"
    3. i & j and u & v used interchangeably. Dictionaries juxtaposed them into the 19th century.
    4. Etymological respellings: scholars changed spelling of a word to reflect its etymology or origin. Over time, people changed the pronunciation to match the spelling.
      1. Silent H was inserted after t and s in a number of foreign words (e.g., throne, thesis). Over time, people began pronouncing the h.
      2. schedule
      3. colonel


  3. Some Notable Syntactic Developments
    1. Pronouns
      1. Singular forms (thou, thy, thee) were used with familiars or when speaking to someone of lower rank. Plural forms (ye, your, you) were used as marks of respect when addressing superiors. By theend of the 16th century, the singular forms disappeared (except among Quakers).
      2. Formation of new possessive neuter (its). However, through the EME period, his continued to be used interchangably. interestingly, it's was spelled with an apostrophe until about 1800
      3. who and whom as relative pronouns; associated with rise in hypotaxis


    2. Comparative Adjectives. Two main methods:
      1. -er, -est (synthetic)
      2. more, most (analytic)
      3. These could be combined (e.g., most unkindest cut of all) for emphasis
      4. Eventually, monosyllables use synthetic forms and multisyllables use the analytic
        1. strong, stronger, strongest (strong form); analytic forms are particularly common with words ending in suffixes (frugal, learned, careful, etc.)


  4. Some High Points in EME Language & Literature
    1. King James Bible
      1. Hampton Court Conference (1604) authorized a new English translation of Bible. Completed in seven years, it became the official or Authorized Version in 1611.
      2. It employed short, clear sentences and replaced foreign terms and constructions with Anglo-Saxon and English idiom.
      3. KJB was not innovative in language; rather it was conservative and preserved much vocabulary
      4. Some common phrases from KJB.
    2. Shakespeare (1564-1616)
      1. Shakespeare is credited with much enrichment of our vocabulary.
        1. But conservative in syntax
      2. Common phrases from Shakespeare.