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Эта статья о стадии языка. Для исторического периода см Ранняя современная Британия .

Ранний современный английский
Английский Шекспира, английский короля Джеймса
английский
Sonnet 132 1609.jpg
Уильям Шекспир «S Sonnet 132 в 1609 кварто
Область, крайАнглия , Южная Шотландия , Ирландия , Уэльс и британские колонии
Эрапревратился в современный английский в конце 17 века.
Языковая семья
Ранние формы
Коды языков
ISO 639-3-
ISO 639-6emen
GlottologНикто
IETFen-emodeng
Эта статья содержит фонетические символы МФА . Без надлежащей поддержки рендеринга вы можете увидеть вопросительные знаки, квадраты или другие символы вместо символов Юникода . Вводное руководство по символам IPA см. В разделе Help: IPA .

Ранний современный английский или ранний новый английский (иногда сокращенно EModE , [1] EMnE или EME ) - это этап развития английского языка от начала эпохи Тюдоров до английского Междуцарствия и Реставрации , или от перехода от среднеанглийского , в конец 15 века, переход к современному английскому языку , середина - конец 17 века. [2]

До и после восшествия на английский престол Якова I в 1603 году возникающий английский стандарт начал влиять на устную и письменную речь среднегреческих шотландцев в Шотландии.

Грамматические и орфографические условные обозначения литературного английского языка конца 16-го и 17-го веков все еще очень влияют на современный стандартный английский . Большинство современных читателей английского языка могут понимать тексты, написанные на поздней стадии раннего современного английского языка, такие как Библия короля Якова и произведения Уильяма Шекспира , и они оказали большое влияние на современный английский.

Тексты из более ранней фазы раннего современного английского языка, таких как Le Morte d'Arthur конца 15-го века (1485 г.) и середины 16-го века Gorboduc (1561 г.), могут представлять больше трудностей, но все же явно ближе к грамматике современного английского языка. лексикон и фонология, чем среднеанглийские тексты 14-го века, такие как работы Джеффри Чосера .

История [ править ]

Английский ренессанс [ править ]

Смотрите также: английский ренессанс

Переход со среднеанглийского языка [ править ]

Дополнительная информация: Поздний средний английский

Переход от среднеанглийского к раннему современному английскому языку был не просто вопросом изменения словарного запаса или произношения; началась новая эра в истории английского языка.

Эпоха языковых изменений в языке с большими вариациями диалектов сменилась новой эрой более стандартизованного языка с более богатым лексиконом и устоявшейся (и прочной) литературой.

  • 1476 - Уильям Кэкстон начинает печатать в Вестминстере ; однако язык, который он использует, отражает разнообразие стилей и диалектов, используемых авторами, изначально написавшими материал.
Тюдоровский период (1485–1603 гг.) [ Править ]
Дополнительная информация: Тюдоровский период и английский ренессанс
  • 1485 - Кэкстон издает « Смерть д'Артура» Томаса Мэлори , первый бестселлер на английском языке. Язык Мэлори, хотя и архаичный в некоторых отношениях, явно является ранним современным и, возможно, является йоркширским или мидлендским диалектом.
  • 1491 или 1492 - Ричард Пинсон начинает печатать в Лондоне; его стиль имеет тенденцию отдавать предпочтение канцелярскому стандарту , форме английского языка, используемой правительством.

Генрих VIII [ править ]

  • c.  1509 - Пинсон становится официальным печатником короля.
  • С 1525 г. - Публикация перевода Библии Уильяма Тиндейла , который изначально был запрещен .
  • 1539 г. - Публикация Великой Библии , первой официально разрешенной Библии на английском языке. Отредактированный Майлсом Ковердейлом , он в значительной степени принадлежит Тиндейлу. Его регулярно читают прихожанам в церквях, что знакомит большую часть населения Англии со стандартной формой языка.
  • 1549 - Публикация первой Книги общей молитвы на английском языке под руководством Томаса Кранмера (пересмотренная 1552 и 1662), которая стандартизирует большую часть формулировок церковных служб. Некоторые утверждали, что, поскольку посещение молитвенников было обязательным по закону в течение многих лет, повторяющееся использование его языка помогло стандартизировать современный английский даже в большей степени, чем Библия короля Иакова (1611 г.). [3]
  • 1557 - Публикация сборника Тоттеля .

Елизаветинский английский [ править ]

Титульный лист Горбодуча (отпечатан в 1565 г.). Трагедия Горбодвца, три акта из которой были написаны Томасом Нортоне, а два последних - Томасом Сакейлом. То же самое было продемонстрировано перед Квенами превосходнейшей Мейсти в ее высшем дворе Уайтхолла, .xviii. день января, Anno Domini .1561. Джентльмены храма Тиннер в Лондоне.
Елизаветинская эпоха (1558–1603 гг.)
  • 1582 - завершена Библия Реймса и Дуэ , и Новый Завет выпущен в Реймсе , Франция, в 1582 году. Это первый полный английский перевод Библии, который официально спонсируется и выполняется католической церковью (более ранние переводы на английский язык , особенно Псалмов и Евангелий, существовавших еще в 9 веке, но это первый католический английский перевод полной Библии). Хотя Ветхий Завет полностью готов, он не публикуется до 1609–1610 гг., Когда он выходит в двух томах. Хотя он не оказывает большого влияния на английский язык в целом, он, безусловно, играет роль в развитии английского языка, особенно в англоязычных регионах мира, где преобладают католики.
  • Кристофер Марлоу , эт.  1586–1593
  • 1592 - Испанская трагедия на Томаса Кида
  • c. 1590 до с. 1612 г. - написаны пьесы Шекспира .
    Смотрите также: хронология пьес Шекспира и Шекспир влияние
Дополнительная информация: елизаветинская литература и елизаветинский театр

17 век [ править ]

Эпохи Якобина и Кэролайн [ править ]

Якобинская эпоха (1603–1625) [ править ]
Дополнительная информация: Якобинская эпоха
  • 1609 г. - опубликованы сонеты Шекспира.
  • Другие драматурги:
    • Бен Джонсон
    • Томас Деккер
    • Бомонт и Флетчер ( Фрэнсис Бомонт и Джон Флетчер )
    • Джон Вебстер
  • 1607 г. - в Вирджинии основана первая успешная постоянная английская колония в Новом Свете, Джеймстаун . Ранняя лексика, характерная для американского английского, происходит от языков коренных народов (таких как лось , енот ).
  • 1611 г. - публикуется « Версия короля Якова », в значительной степени основанная на переводе Тиндала. Она остается стандартной Библией в англиканской церкви в течение многих лет. [ требуется разъяснение ]
  • 1623 - Шекспир Первое фолио опубликовал
Эпоха Каролины и Гражданская война в Англии (1625–1649) [ править ]
Дополнительная информация: эпоха Кэролайн и английская гражданская война
  • 1630–1651 - Уильям Брэдфорд, губернатор Плимутской колонии , пишет в своем дневнике. Он станет одним из первых текстов, написанных в американских колониях, « Плимутская плантация» .
  • 1647 - Публикация первого фолио Бомонта и Флетчера .

Междуцарствие и восстановление [ править ]

Английской гражданской войны и Междуцарствие были времена социальных и политических потрясений и нестабильности. Даты реставрации литературы условны и заметно различаются от жанра к жанру. В драмы, «Восстановление» может продлиться до 1700 года , но в поэзии, он может длиться только до 1666, в год чудес (год чудес), и проза, она продлится до 1688, с ростом напряженности вокруг преемственности и соответствующего повышения в журналистике и периодических изданиях, или до 1700 года, когда эти периодические издания стали более стабильными.

  • 1651 - Публикация « Левиафана » Томасом Гоббсом .
  • 1660–1669 - Самуэль Пепис пишет в своем дневнике, который станет важным свидетельством эпохи Реставрации.
  • 1662 г. - Новое издание « Книги общей молитвы» , в основном основанное на издании 1549 г. и последующих изданиях, которое долгое время остается стандартным изданием на английском языке.
  • 1667 - Публикация « Потерянного рая » Джона Мильтона и « Аннуса Мирабилис » Джона Драйдена .

Развитие современного английского языка [ править ]

Основная статья: Современный английский

Портовые города 17-го века и их формы речи приобретают влияние на старые уездные города . Примерно с 1690-х годов Англия переживала новый период внутреннего мира и относительной стабильности, который поощрял искусство, в том числе литературу.

Современный английский язык можно считать полностью сформировавшимся к началу грузинской эры в 1714 году, но английская орфография оставалась несколько подвижной до публикации « Словаря английского языка» Джонсона в 1755 году.

Возвышающееся значение Уильяма Шекспира над другими елизаветинскими авторами было результатом его приема в 17 и 18 веках, что напрямую способствовало развитию стандартного английского языка . [ необходима цитата ] пьесы Шекспира, таким образом, все еще знакомы и понятны через 400 лет после того, как они были написаны, [4] но произведения Джеффри Чосера и Уильяма Ленгланда , которые были написаны всего 200 лет назад, значительно труднее для среднего современного читателя .

Орфография [ править ]

Произведения Шекспира повсеместно ассоциируются с ранним современным английским языком.

Орфография раннего современного английского языка был довольно похож на сегодняшний день, но орфография была нестабильной. Ранний современный английский, как и современный английский, унаследовал орфографические условности, существовавшие до Великого сдвига гласных .

Орфография раннего современного английского языка была похожа на орфографию среднеанглийского языка . Однако были внесены определенные изменения, иногда по причинам этимологии (например, в случае безмолвного b⟩, которое добавлялось к таким словам, как долг , сомнение и тонкий ).

Ранняя современная английская орфография имела ряд особенностей орфографии, которые не были сохранены:

  • Буква «S» имела две различные строчные формы: ⟨s⟩ (короткая s ), которая используется до сих пор, и ⟨ſ⟩ ( длинная s ). Краткое s всегда использовалось в конце слова и часто в другом месте. Длинные s , если они используются, могут появляться где угодно, кроме конца слова. Двойная строчная буква S писалась по-разному, ⟨ſs⟩ или ß⟩ (последняя лигатура до сих пор используется в немецком ß ). [5] Это похоже на чередование медиальной (σ) и последней строчной сигмы (ς) в греческом языке.
  • Тогда ⟨u⟩ и ⟨v⟩ не считались двумя разными буквами, а были еще разными формами одной и той же буквы. Как правило, v⟩ часто встречается в начале слова, а u⟩ в других местах: [6] отсюда vnmoued (для современного неподвижного ) и loue (для любви ). Современное соглашение об использовании u⟩ для гласных звуков и ⟨v⟩ для согласных, по-видимому, было введено в 1630-х годах. [7] Кроме того, w⟩ часто представлял ⟨vv⟩.
  • Similarly, ⟨i⟩ and ⟨j⟩ were also still considered not as two distinct letters, but as different forms of the same letter: hence ioy for joy and iust for just. Again, the custom of using ⟨i⟩ as a vowel and ⟨j⟩ as a consonant began in the 1630s.[7]
  • The letter ⟨þ⟩ (thorn) was still in use during the Early Modern English period but was increasingly limited to handwritten texts. In Early Modern English printing, ⟨þ⟩ was represented by the Latin ⟨Y⟩ (see Ye olde), which appeared similar to thorn in blackletter typeface ⟨𝖞⟩. Thorn had become nearly totally disused by the late Early Modern English period, the last vestiges of the letter being its ligatures, ye (thee), yt (that), yu (thou), which were still seen occasionally in the 1611 King James Version and in Shakespeare's Folios.[8]
  • A silent ⟨e⟩ was often appended to words, as in ſpeake and cowarde. The last consonant was sometimes doubled when the ⟨e⟩ was added: hence manne (for man) and runne (for run).
  • The sound /ʌ/ was often written ⟨o⟩ (as in son): hence ſommer, plombe (for modern summer, plumb).[9]
  • The final syllable of words like public was variously spelt but came to be standardised as -ick. The modern spellings with -ic did not come into use until the mid-18th century.[10]
  • ⟨y⟩ was often used instead of ⟨i⟩.[11]
  • The vowels represented by ⟨ee⟩ and ⟨e_e⟩ (for example in meet and mete) changed, and ⟨ea⟩ became an alternative.[11]

Many spellings had still not been standardised, however. For example, he was spelled as both he and hee in the same sentence in Shakespeare's plays and elsewhere.

Phonology[edit]

Consonants[edit]

Most consonant sounds of Early Modern English have survived into present-day English; however, there are still a few notable differences in pronunciation:

  • Today's "silent" consonants found in the consonant clusters of such words as knot, gnat, sword were still fully pronounced up until the mid-to-late 16th century and thus possibly by Shakespeare, though they were fully reduced by the early 17th century.[12] The digraph <ght>, in words like night, thought, and daughter, originally pronounced [xt] in much older English, was probably reduced to simply [t] (as it is today) or at least heavily reduced in sound to something like [ht], [çt], or [ft]. It seems likely that much variation existed for many of these words.
  • The now-silent l of would and should may have persisted in being pronounced as late as 1700 in Britain and perhaps several decades longer in the British American colonies.[13] The l in could, however, first appearing in the early 16th century, was presumably never pronounced.
  • The modern phoneme /ʒ/ was not documented as occurring until the second half of the 17th century. Likely, that phoneme in a word like vision was pronounced as /zj/ and in measure as /z/.
  • Most words with the spelling ⟨wh⟩, such as what, where, and whale, were still pronounced [ʍ] (listen), rather than [w] (listen). That means, for example, that wine and whine were still pronounced differently, unlike in most varieties of English today.[14]
  • Early Modern English was rhotic. In other words, the r was always pronounced,[14] but the precise nature of the typical rhotic consonant remains unclear.[citation needed] It was, however, certainly one of the following:
    • The "R" of most varieties of English today: [ɹ̠] (listen)
    • The "trilled or rolled R": [r] (listen)
    • The "retroflex R": [ɻ] (listen).
  • In Early Modern English, the precise nature of the light and dark variants of the l consonant, respectively [l] (listen) and [ɫ] (listen), remains unclear.
  • Word-final ⟨ng⟩, as in sing, was still pronounced /ŋɡ/ until the late 16th century, when it began to coalesce into the usual modern pronunciation, [ŋ].
  • H-dropping at the start of words was common, as it still is in informal English throughout most of England.[14] In loanwords taken from Latin, Greek, or any Romance language, a written h was usually mute well into modern English times, e.g. in heritage, history, hermit, hostage, and still today in heir, honor, hour etc.
  • With words originating from or passed through ancient Greek, th was commonly pronounced as t, e.g. theme, theater, cathedral, anthem; this is still retained in some proper names as Thomas, Anthony and a few common nouns like thyme.

Pure vowels and diphthongs[edit]

The following information primarily comes from studies of the Great Vowel Shift;[15][16] see the related chart.

  • The modern English phoneme /aɪ/ (listen), as in glide, rhyme and eye, was [ɘi] and later [əi]. Early Modern rhymes indicate that [əi] was also the vowel that was used at the end of words like happy, melody and busy.
  • /aʊ/ (listen), as in now, out and ploughed, was [əu ~ əʊ] (listen).
  • /ɛ/ (listen), as in fed, elm and hen, was more or less the same as the phoneme represents today or perhaps a slightly higher [ɛ̝] (listen), sometimes approaching [ɪ] (listen) (as it still retains in the word pretty).[14]
  • /eɪ/ (listen), as in name, case and sake, was a long monophthong. It shifted from [æː] (listen) to [ɛː] (listen) and finally to [eː] (listen). Earlier in Early Modern English, mat and mate were near-homophones, with a longer vowel in the second word. Thus, Shakespeare rhymed words like haste, taste and waste with last and shade with sad.[17] The more open pronunciation remains in some dialects, notably in Scotland, Northern England, and perhaps Ireland. During the 17th century, the phoneme variably merged with the phoneme [ɛi] (listen) as in day, weigh, and the merger survived into standard forms of Modern English, though a few dialects kept these vowels distinct at least to the 20th century (see pane–pain merger).
  • /iː/ (listen) (typically spelled ⟨ee⟩ or ⟨ie⟩) as in see, bee and meet, was more or less the same as the phoneme represents today, but it had not yet merged with the phoneme represented by the spellings ⟨ea⟩ or ⟨ei⟩ (and perhaps ⟨ie⟩, particularly with fiend, field and friend), as in east, meal and feat, which were pronounced with [eː] (listen) or [ɛ̝ː].[18][17] However, words like breath, dead and head may have already split off towards /ɛ/ (listen)).
  • /ɪ/ (listen), as in bib, pin and thick, was more or less the same as the phoneme represents today.
  • /oʊ/ (listen), as in stone, bode and yolk, was [oː] (listen) or [o̞ː] (listen). The phoneme was probably just beginning the process of merging with the phoneme [ou], as in grow, know and mow, without yet achieving today's complete merger. The old pronunciation remains in some dialects, such as in Yorkshire and Scotland.
  • /ɒ/ (listen), as in rod, top and pot, was [ɒ] or [ɔ] (listen).
  • /ɔː/ (listen), as in taut, taught and law, was [ɔː] or [ɑː] (listen).
  • /ɔɪ/ (listen), as in boy, choice and toy, is even less clear than other vowels. By the late-16th century, the similar but distinct phonemes /ɔɪ/, /ʊi/ and /əɪ/ all existed. By the late-17th century, only /ɔɪ/ remained.[19] Because those phonemes were in such a state of flux during the whole Early Modern period (with evidence of rhyming occurring among them as well as with the precursor to /aɪ/), scholars[12] often assume only the most neutral possibility for the pronunciation of /ɔɪ/ as well as its similar phonemes in Early Modern English: [əɪ] (which, if accurate, would constitute an early instance of the line–loin merger since /aɪ/ had not yet fully developed in English).
  • /ʌ/ (listen) (as in drum, enough and love) and /ʊ/ (listen) (as in could, full, put) had not yet split and so were both pronounced in the vicinity of [ɤ] (listen).
  • /uː/ (listen) was about the same as the phoneme represents today but occurred in not only words like food, moon and stool but also all other words spelled with ⟨oo⟩ like blood, cook and foot. The nature of the vowel sound in the latter group of words, however, is further complicated by the fact that the vowel for some of those words was shortened: either beginning or already in the process of approximating the Early Modern English [ɤ] (listen) and later [ʊ] (listen). For instance, at certain stages of the Early Modern period or in certain dialects (or both), doom and come rhymed; this is certainly true in Shakespeare's writing. That phonological split among the ⟨oo⟩ words was a catalyst for the later foot–strut split and is called "early shortening" by John C. Wells.[20] The ⟨oo⟩ words that were pronounced as something like [ɤ] (listen) seem to have included blood, brood, doom, good and noon.[21]
  • /ɪʊ̯/ or /iu̯/ occurred in words spelled with ew or ue such as due and dew. In most dialects of Modern English, it became /juː/ and /uː/ by yod-dropping and so do, dew and due are now perfect homophones in most American pronunciations, but a distinction between the two phonemes remains in other versions of English.

Rhotic vowels[edit]

The r sound (the phoneme /r/) was probably always pronounced with following vowel sounds (more in the style of today's General American, West Country English, Irish accents and Scottish accents; although in the case of the Scottish accent the R is rolled, and less like today's typical London or Received Pronunciation). Furthermore, /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ were not necessarily merged before /r/, as they are in most modern English dialects. The stressed modern phoneme /ɜːr/, when it is spelled ⟨er⟩, ⟨ear⟩ and perhaps ⟨or⟩ (as in clerk, earth, or divert), had a vowel sound with an a-like quality, perhaps about [ɐɹ] or [äɹ].[17] With the spelling ⟨or⟩, the sound may have been backed, more toward [ɒɹ] in words like worth and word.[17] In some pronunciations, words like fair and fear, with the spellings ⟨air⟩ and ⟨ear⟩, rhymed with each other, and words with the spelling ⟨are⟩, such as prepare and compare, were sometimes pronounced with a more open vowel sound, like the verbs are and scar. See Great Vowel Shift § Later mergers for more information.

Particular words[edit]

Nature was pronounced approximately as [ˈnɛːtəɹ][14] and may have rhymed with letter or, early on, even latter. One may have merged to the sound of own, with both one and other using the era's long GOAT vowel, rather than today's STRUT vowels.[14] Tongue merged to the sound of tong and rhymed with song.[17]

Grammar[edit]

Pronouns[edit]

Beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the 1611 King James Version. God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets, Hath in these last dayes spoken unto us by his Sonne, whom he hath appointed heire of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightnesse of his glory, and the expresse image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when hee had by himselfe purged our sinnes, sate down on ye right hand of the Maiestie on high, Being made so much better then the Angels, as hee hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name then they.

Early Modern English had two second-person personal pronouns: thou, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, the plural (both formal and informal) pronoun and the formal singular pronoun.

"Thou" and "ye" were both common in the early-16th century (they can be seen, for example, in the disputes over Tyndale's translation of the Bible in the 1520s and the 1530s) but by 1650, "thou" seems old-fashioned or literary.[citation needed] It has effectively completely disappeared from Modern Standard English.

The translators of the King James Version of the Bible (begun 1604 and published 1611, while Shakespeare was at the height of his popularity) had a particular reason for keeping the informal "thou/thee/thy/thine" forms that were slowly beginning to fall out of spoken use, as it enabled them to match the Hebrew and Ancient Greek distinction between second person singular ("thou") and plural ("ye"). It was not to denote reverence (in the King James Version, God addresses individual people and even Satan as "thou") but only to denote the singular. Over the centuries, however, the very fact that "thou" was dropping out of normal use gave it a special aura and so it gradually and ironically came to be used to express reverence in hymns and in prayers.[citation needed]

Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye have different forms dependent on their grammatical case; specifically, the objective form of thou is thee, its possessive forms are thy and thine, and its reflexive or emphatic form is thyself.

The objective form of ye was you, its possessive forms are your and yours and its reflexive or emphatic forms are yourself and yourselves.

The older forms "mine" and "thine" had become "my" and "thy" before words beginning with a consonant other than h, and "mine" and "thine" were retained before words beginning with a vowel or an h, as in mine eyes or thine hand.

Personal pronouns in Early Modern English
NominativeObliqueGenitivePossessive
1st personsingularImemy/mine[# 1]mine
pluralweusourours
2nd personsingular informalthoutheethy/thine[# 1]thine
singular formalye, youyouyouryours
plural
3rd personsingularhe/she/it/theyhim/her/it/themhis/her/his/their (it)[# 2]his/hers/his[# 2]
pluraltheythemtheirtheirs
  1. ^ a b The genitives my, mine, thy, and thine are used as possessive adjectives before a noun, or as possessive pronouns without a noun. All four forms are used as possessive adjectives: mine and thine are used before nouns beginning in a vowel sound, or before nouns beginning in the letter h, which was usually silent (e.g. thine eyes and mine heart, which was pronounced as mine art) and my and thy before consonants (thy mother, my love). However, only mine and thine are used as possessive pronouns, as in it is thine and they were mine (not *they were my).
  2. ^ a b From the early Early Modern English period up until the 17th century, his was the possessive of the third-person neuter it as well as of the third-person masculine he. Genitive "it" appears once in the 1611 King James Bible (Leviticus 25:5) as groweth of it owne accord.

Verbs[edit]

Tense and number[edit]

During the Early Modern period, the verb inflections became simplified as they evolved towards their modern forms:

  • The third-person singular present lost its alternate inflections: -eth and -th became obsolete, and -s survived. (Both forms can be seen together in Shakespeare: "With her, that hateth thee and hates us all".)[22]
  • The plural present form became uninflected. Present plurals had been marked with -en and singulars with -th or -s (-th and -s survived the longest, especially with the singular use of is, hath and doth).[23] Marked present plurals were rare throughout the Early Modern period and -en was probably used only as a stylistic affectation to indicate rural or old-fashioned speech.[24]
  • The second-person singular indicative was marked in both the present and past tenses with -st or -est (for example, in the past tense, walkedst or gav'st).[25] Since the indicative past was not and still is not otherwise marked for person or number,[26] the loss of thou made the past subjunctive indistinguishable from the indicative past for all verbs except to be.

Modal auxiliaries[edit]

The modal auxiliaries cemented their distinctive syntactical characteristics during the Early Modern period. Thus, the use of modals without an infinitive became rare (as in "I must to Coventry"; "I'll none of that"). The use of modals' present participles to indicate aspect (as in "Maeyinge suffer no more the loue & deathe of Aurelio" from 1556), and of their preterite forms to indicate tense (as in "he follow'd Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him") also became uncommon.[27]

Some verbs ceased to function as modals during the Early Modern period. The present form of must, mot, became obsolete. Dare also lost the syntactical characteristics of a modal auxiliary and evolved a new past form (dared), distinct from the modal durst.[28]

Perfect and progressive forms[edit]

The perfect of the verbs had not yet been standardised to use only the auxiliary verb "to have". Some took as their auxiliary verb "to be", such as this example from the King James Version: "But which of you... will say unto him... when he is come from the field, Go and sit down..." [Luke XVII:7]. The rules for the auxiliaries for different verbs were similar to those that are still observed in German and French (see unaccusative verb).

The modern syntax used for the progressive aspect ("I am walking") became dominant by the end of the Early Modern period, but other forms were also common such as the prefix a- ("I am a-walking") and the infinitive paired with "do" ("I do walk"). Moreover, the to be + -ing verb form could be used to express a passive meaning without any additional markers: "The house is building" could mean "The house is being built".[29]

Vocabulary[edit]

A number of words that are still in common use in Modern English have undergone semantic narrowing.

The use of the verb "to suffer" in the sense of "to allow" survived into Early Modern English, as in the phrase "suffer the little children" of the King James Version, but it has mostly been lost in Modern English.[30]

Also, this period reveals a curious case of one of the earliest Russian borrowings to English (which is historically a rare occasion itself[31]); at least as early as 1600, the word "steppe" (rus. степь)[32] first appeared in English in William Shakespeare's comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It is believed that this is a possible indirect borrowing via either German or French.

See also[edit]

  • Early modern Britain
  • Early Modern English literature
  • History of the English language
  • Inkhorn debate
  • Elizabethan era, Jacobean era, Caroline era
  • English Renaissance
  • Shakespeare's influence
  • Middle English, Modern English, Old English

References[edit]

  1. ^ For example, Río-Rey, Carmen (9 October 2002). "Subject control and coreference in Early Modern English free adjuncts and absolutes". English Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. 6 (2): 309–323. doi:10.1017/s1360674302000254. S2CID 122740133. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
  2. ^ Nevalainen, Terttu (2006). An Introduction to Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
  3. ^ Stephen L. White, "The Book of Common Prayer and the Standardization of the English Language" The Anglican, 32:2(4-11), April 2003
  4. ^ Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
  5. ^ Burroughs, Jeremiah; Greenhill, William (1660). The Saints Happinesse. M.S. Introduction uses both happineſs and bleſſedneſs.
  6. ^ Sacks, David (2004). The Alphabet. London: Arrow. p. 316. ISBN 0-09-943682-5.
  7. ^ a b Salmon, V., (in) Lass, R. (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. III, CUP 2000, p. 39.
  8. ^ Sacks, David (2003). Language Visible. Canada: Knopf. pp. 356–57. ISBN 0-676-97487-2.
  9. ^ W.W. Skeat, in Principles of English Etymology, claims that the substitution was encouraged by the ambiguity between u and n; if sunne could just as easily be misread as sunue or suvne, it made sense to write it as sonne. (Skeat, Principles of English Etymology, Second Series. Clarendon Press, 1891, page 99.)
  10. ^ Fischer, A., Schneider, P., "The dramatick disappearance of the ⟨-ick⟩ spelling", in Text Types and Corpora, Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002, pp. 139ff.
  11. ^ a b "Early modern English pronunciation and spelling". Archived from the original on 26 June 2019. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  12. ^ a b See The History of English (online) Archived 9 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine as well as David Crystal's Original Pronunciation (online). Archived 9 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ The American Language 2nd ed. p. 71
  14. ^ a b c d e f Crystal, David. [https://web.archive.org/web/20171020080412/http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4254 Archived 20 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine "Hark, hark, what shout is that?" Around the Globe 31. [based on article written for the Troilus programme, Shakespeare's Globe, August 2005: 'Saying it like it was']
  15. ^ Stemmler, Theo. Die Entwicklung der englischen Haupttonvokale: eine Übersicht in Tabellenform [Trans: The development of the English primary-stressed-vowels: an overview in table form] (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965).
  16. ^ Rogers, William Elford. "Early Modern English vowels". Furman University. Archived from the original on 13 January 2015.
  17. ^ a b c d e Crystal, David (2011). "Sounding out Shakespeare: Sonnet Rhymes in Original Pronunciation Archived 20 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine". In Vera Vasic (ed.) Jezik u Upotrebi: primenjena lingvsitikja u cast Ranku Bugarskom. Novi Sad and Belgrade: Philosophy faculties. P. 298-300.
  18. ^ Cercignani, Fausto (1981), Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  19. ^ Barber, Charles Laurence (1997). Early modern English (second ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 108–116. ISBN 0-7486-0835-4.
  20. ^ Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 199. ISBN 0-521-22919-7. (vol. 1). (vol. 2)., (vol. 3).
  21. ^ Crystal, David. "Sounding Out Shakespeare: Sonnet Rhymes in Original Pronunciation". In Vera Vasic (ed.), Jezik u upotrebi: primenjena lingvistikja u cast Ranku Bugarskom [Language in use: applied linguistics in honour of Ranko Bugarski] (Novi Sad and Belgrade: Philosophy Faculties, 2011), 295-306300. p. 300.
  22. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1.
  23. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. pp. 165–66. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1.
  24. ^ Charles Laurence Barber (1997). Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-7486-0835-5.
  25. ^ Charles Laurence Barber (1997). Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-7486-0835-5.
  26. ^ Charles Laurence Barber (1997). Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-7486-0835-5.
  27. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. pp. 231–35. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1.
  28. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1.
  29. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. pp. 217–18. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1.
  30. ^ Doughlas Harper, https://www.etymonline.com/word/suffer#etymonline_v_22311
  31. ^ Mirosława Podhajecka Russian borrowings in English: A dictionary and corpus study, p.19
  32. ^ Max Vasmer, Etymological dictionary of the Russian language

External links[edit]

  • English Paleography: Examples for the study of English handwriting from the 16th–18th centuries from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University[dead link]