Modern English (?):
A
computer projector, being necessary for the explanation of the class material,
the classroom location of History of the English Language shall not be changed.
HEL Ch 11
Early Modern Verbal Constructions and Eighteenth
Century Prescriptivism
Reflexive verbs:
Development of Reflexive Pronoun:
myself, himself, herself, themselves
“Pooh
fetched himself a little something”
Cf. Hamlet: “Get thee to a nunnery”
“self” -self were originally emphatic forms
“Piglet
himself was there.”
Impersonal Verbs:
Development
of “Dummy it”-subject
“It is raining”
“It seems to me” (earlier “me seemeth”)
“It pleaseth”
Subjunctives:
the
verb to be:
Present subj: be, “Be that as it may…”
“Hallowed be thy name”
Past subj: were, “If I were a rich man…”
Subjunctive in other verbs
marked only in the third singular present, by a -0
ending
“Thy
kingdom come”
“If he walk here …”
Rise in the use of MODAL auxiliaries to do much of the
work of subjunctives:
can — couthe ( > could)
shall — should
will — would
may — might
mote — must
owe — ought
need — needed
dare — durst
generally
uninflected, though some later become so (owe,
need, dare)
Verbal Periphrasis
Passive
Voice: expressed through Past Participle + verb to be
“The
honey is eaten.”
“The beer was drunk.”
Perfect Tense: Past Participle + to be or to have
“The
count is arrived” / “The count has arrived”
Indistinguishable
in spoken: “The count’s arrived”
Present Progressive:
Current and on going action:
Present
participle = verb to be
“The
man is running”
Future Tense
Expressed through shall
and will
The Dummy do:
A lexically empty placeholder necessary in Modern
English to express questions and negations; “do-support”
Questions: “Do
you like grammar?”
Negation: “I do
not like grammar”
In earlier English, Questions expressed through
inversion:
“Like thou grammar, knave?”
and Negation though just the negative particle (not)
“I like not grammar a wit, whoreson.”
Developed from causative do:?
“Make
it so” = “Do it”
developed from vicarious/substitute do:?
“Like you grammar?” “I do”
In the 16th century, also used for
non-emphatic, declarative sentences:
“I do weep” = “I am weeping”
In Modern English for strong emphasis
“I do weep” = “I really do weep, no joke.”
The Rise of Prescriptivism:
In the eighteenth century, for the first time in
English history, people begin to tell each other what’s right and what’s wrong
Beginning of English Dictionaries and Grammars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08
Attempts at spelling reforms
Concerns about English Vocabulary:
Does it have enough words to express complex ideas?
(Julius Caesar had similar concerns about Latin cf. to
Greek)
New massive influx of Latin and Greek terms
and creation of new Latinate / Greekate
vocabulary
done deliberately, by writers
INKHORN terms: lexical fancifications
THOMAS WILSON, THE ARTE OF RHETORIQUE
(1560)
Among all other lessons this should first be learned,
that wee neuer affect any straunge
ynkehorne termes, but
to speake as is commonly receiued:
neither seeking to be ouer fine, nor yet liuing ouer-carelesse vsing our speeche as most men
doe, and ordering our wittes as the fewest haue done. Some seeke so far for
outlandish English, that they forget altogether their mothers language. And I
dare sweare this, if some of their mothers were aliue, thei were not able to tell
what they say: and yet these fine English clerkes
will say, they speake in their mother tongue, if a
man should charge them for counterfeiting the Kings English. … The vnlearned or foolish phantasticall,
that smelles but of learning (such fellowes as haue seen learned men
in their daies) wil so Latin
their tongues, that the simple can not but wonder at their talke,
and thinke surely they speake
by some reuelation. I know them that thinke Rhetorique to stande wholie vpon
darke wordes, and hee that can catche an ynke horne terme by the taile, him they coumpt to be a fine Englisheman,
and a good Rhetorician.
Some Inkhorn Terms:
e.g., derunicate (weed), pistated (baked),
homogalact (foster-brother), suppediate (supply), devulgate (set forth), adjuvate
(help), fatigate
(to tire), demit (send away), eximious (excellent)
but also:
education,
confidence, expect, dedicate, discretion, exaggerate, expect, industrial,
scheme
Reactionaries against Inkhorn vocabulary: Saxonists
Artificially
old fashioned (like Edmund Spenser, derring-do)
extend meanings of existing words and revive archaic
words:
fleshstrings (muscles), grosswitted, witcraft, booklore, bookcraft,
gleeman, soothfastness, endsay
(conclusion), naysay (negation), threlike (equilateral), saywhat (definition), dry mock
(irony), gainrising, algate, yblent
Prescriptivism: Why?
In a world
of more easy social movement, maintains class distinctions
Moralistic tone of mush of prescriptivism:
proscribed usages are “ barbaric, low, ignorant,
offensive”
prescribed usages are “noble, refined, educated”
Linguistic Insecurity and Linguistic Conservatism
In the 16th and 17th century
nobody thought to ‘correct’ English
It was being used!
18th century: England more secure and
powerful as nation
greater conservatism
Cf. Latin grammatical situation: grammatical texts
which formulated ‘rules’ of Latin where written after the age of Cicero and
Vergil
‘Enlightenment’ and Rationalist Philosophy
language should be logical and orderly, like math
Control! Manage!
The Age of scientific Laws
The Grammarians
Self-appointed experts from all walks of life and profession
All, however, me of power and privilege, and MEN
Literary: Samuel Johnson, c Jonathon Swift
Religious: Bishop Robert Lowth
most influential?
very conservative and prescriptivist
Scientists: Joseph Priestley
early, influential, and very liberal
Americans: Noah Webster
Pervious belief that English (and other vernacular
languages)
had NO GRAMMAR
in the Middle Ages, grammar = Latin grammar
Growing awareness of the mutable nature of language:
Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
(1711):
“Our sons their fathers’ failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.” (2.482)
Jonathan Swift, A Proposal for
Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712).
“But what I have most at Heart is, that some Method
should be thought on for ascertaining and fixing our Language for ever, after such
Alterations are made in it as shall be thought requisite. For I am of Opinion,
that it is better a Language should not be wholly perfect, that it should be
perpetually changing; and we must give over at one Time, or at length
infallibly change for the worse: As the Romans did, when they began to quit
their Simplicity of Style for affected Refinements; such as we meet in Tacitus
and other Authors, which ended by degrees in many Barbarities, even before the
Goths had invaded Italy.”
Look back to a Golden Age
but for English, when?
Shakespeare?
Restoration (1660)?
Proposals for a language
Academy
favored by Daniel Defoe and Swift
hindered by kingship of George I, of Hanover
Priestley and Johnson knew these efforts were futile
Authority of Language Judgments
Often no more than personal opinion
Often violate their own ‘rule’ while discussing them
Model of Latin:
Linguistically illogical, but done to this day
Split infinitive
end sentence with preposition
Nominative following copulative
“It is I”
Etymological fallacy
decimate
dilapidate
between
different
from
manufactured
(manuscript)
Reason and Logic
from philosophy
double negatives
double comparatives and superlatives
Regularity and Analogy
need and dare get inflectional ending
make clear distinctions between Adjectives and Adverbs
make arbitrary distinctions between seemingly redundant
word pairs:
less —
fewer
hung —
hanged
lie, sit,
fall — lay, set, fell
between —
among
will —
shall
can — may
further —
farther
people —
persons
Usage: can it be trusted?
Priestley and Webster are the only ones who really advocate
usage as a guide
A lighthouse on a floating island