Rajarata University of Sri Lanka
Department of
Languages
Faculty of Social
Sciences and Humanities
Online Lectures
Year and Semester
|
Year-3 Semester-1
|
Subject
|
History of English
Language
|
Subject Code
|
ENGL 3112
|
Course Unit
|
Early Modern English-2
|
Date
|
03.06.2020
|
Time
|
Theory (9.00 am-11.00
am) Practical (2.30 pm-4.30 pm)
|
Lecturer
|
D.N. Aloysius
|
Theory Hours
|
02
Total No of Hours: 18
|
Practical Hours
|
02
Total No of Hours: 18
|
Early
Modern English-2
The
Early Modern English period followed after the Middle English period. The Early
Modern English period extends from “1500-1800.” During this period, there were
a lot of changes in politics, economy, technology and society in Britain. The
periods beginning cannot be found by certain military or political event. It
may be caused by some developments, leading to standardizations in speech. The
structure of this standard “was very close to its structure in Present-Day
English”. This is a reason why “texts written after that period are remarkably
easy for a modern reader to comprehend.” The developments were established by London’s
linguistic hegemony. (Hickey 2003) The development happened in the following
two steps.
There
were some non-clerical scribes at the end of the 14th century. They made use of
a “conventionalized orthography”, that “was accepted for official usage” in the
middle of the 15th century.
The
second development was influenced by the introduction of printing by William
Caxton. He was living from 1422-1491 and was a merchant first. Later, he was
also a writer. He set up the first printing press in England in 1476. He
established his base in Westminster and produced more than 90 editions of
well-known and also lesser known authors. “By 1500 over 35,000 books had been
printed, though most were in Latin. However, by 1640 there were approximately
20,000 titles available in English.” This had an effect on “literacy and the
uniformity of the language, most directly on the standardization of spelling,
and perhaps indirectly on the differences among dialects.” With these printings
a higher percentage of the population became literate.
“The
demand for printed books gradually increased” so that other printers followed
Caxton when they recognized the opportunities in commerce.
At
Caxton’s time, the English language changed very rapidly. So a lot of varieties
and dialects can be found in his printings. It often was a problem for him how
much he should standardize the language in his printings. An important thing
during the Early Modern English period was the Great Vowel Shift which altered
the majority “of the English long vowel system.” and which “rendered the
spelling system of English less phonetic in character.” “The Great Vowel Shift
began in about the fifteenth century and was largely completed by the late sixteenth
or seventeenth century.” This chapter gives some examples how the language
changed in phonology, morphology and vocabulary during the Early Modern English
period.
“/l/ was lost in pronunciation (as in almond,folk,palm)”
“after low back vowels and before labial or velar consonants” “or before dental
or palatal consonants (belch,malt).” In the late seventeenth
century “/k/ and /g/ were no longer pronounced initially before /n/:knee,knight,gnome.”
The reducing from unstressed vowels “to [i] and [q] in Middle English”
continued into the EME period.
The
British Standard is we know it today developed from the Great Vowel Shift and
some other changes. Some of the changes, for example, were that the final [q]
was lost and that “the earlier rounded vowel /u/ was unrounded and lowered
somewhat, resulting in the mid-central /v/, /q/, as in humandcup.”
There had also been some changes in morphology during the Early Modern English
Period.
There
were two kinds of them: the common and the possessive. “The possessive
apostrophe [King’s crown] did not appear with any consistency until
1700.” Regarding the pronouns “the main change to be noted is the development
of the second person personal pronoun.” “The use of you became more
frequent.” This was the result of the opportunity to pronounce the vowels in
“the nominative ye and accusative you “almost identically as [jq]
[jv].” “All inflections of adjectival forms have been lost by the EME period,
with the exception of the comparative–er and–est.”
Practical: Examine the Early Modern English Vocabulary
with examples.
References:
1. Oxford
Modern English Grammar by Bas Aarts
2. An
Introduction to Early Modern English by Terttu Nevalainen
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