INTERNAL DESCRIPTION OF RENAISSANCE ENGLISH (EModE)

I. Great Vowel Shift: all stressed vowels raised by one level

Perhaps it was a gradual thing:

sae /ae:/

so east /ae:uh/----> see, eest /ae:/ --> sea,east

grene /e:/ green, deep

deop /e:o/------> grene,deep /e:/ --> /e/

Thus we have such spelling confusion: for example 7 ways to say /i/

1. ea--mead, leaf 5. ei--either

2. ee--eel, sheep 6. ey--key

3. e --mere, fever 7. ay--quay (key) loading shore

4. ie--thief

Why did such a thing occur?

1. Euphony 2. Racial, climatic

3. Error 4. Imitation of prestige dialect

5. Force of diphthongization

6. Is it always occuring

7. Phonetic drift (toward the target)

8. Functional load (too many words sounding alike)

Just don't know.

II. Other vowels: Many ME -er became ModE -ar

lowering before -r- ster --> star

sterre star

derke dark

ferthing farthing

herte heart

sterve starve

fer far

werre war

sergeant sergeant

hearth hearth (harth)

vulgate

learn lairn

earth arth

certain sartain

I, ε, U ---> schwa

girl, fern, hurt

2. a --> æ

that --thæt

3. al --> open o + l

all -- awll; salt -- sawlt

4. ME U unrounded to schwa

run to run cup to cup

5. E followed by a nasal changed to I

weng --> wing; heng --> hinge

6. ow before l became o

bolt bolt; cold cold

7. Unstressed vowels tended to fall into schwa.

DIPHTHONGS

1. All smoothed to the four we have today -- aI, aU, oi, ju Tuesday (perhaps not a true diphthong)

III. Consonants: Both loss and gain of consonant sounds.

I. Loss of consonants:

1. Initial k,g,w in the combination kn, gn, wr

Knight; know; knee

gnat, gnaw

wrong, wry wright

2. Loss of gh sounds

night, nought early 17th cent.

Some changed to f

enough, rough, cough, laugh

3. Final b in -mb

limb, comb, lamb

4. Loss of r

far, stir, hard, work

5. Loss of d and t generally in two consonants

castle, whistlle, mistletoe, Charistmas

andvell --> anvil; behind --> behin

6. Loss of final f

hastif, tardif, joliffe

7. Loss of final g in -ing

Fighting

8. Loss of l

half --> haf

II. Addition of consonants:

1. Addition of d

soun--sound

expoun--expound

2. Addition of t

agens, amongs against, amongst

3. Addition of h

ost host

omage homage

erb herb

4. Insertion of n

passager passenger

messager messenger

5. addition of funny n (ing) phoemic distinction

sin vs. sing :: most dialects the g drops off

6. Addition of th in certain words

orthography, anthem, throne, author

Anthony, Thames, Theresa, still not pronounced

Changes in consonants

1. Assibiliation -- final unstressed vowels reduced to I or schwa; a semivowel after s,z,t,d, after a major stress and before an unstressed vowel; this then palatalized so

sj --> sh nation, pressure, ocean

zj --> z seizure, pleasure, usual, vision

tj --> ch creature, ancient, lecture, fortune

dj --> zh soldier, gradual, residual, grandeur

GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

Generally the grammar you are familiar with is the development of ModE grammar.

The Noun:

PLURALS: Has the basic -s inflection of plurals with the few -en and mutated exceptions (the same seven mutated plurals that we have in PDE -- mice, feet, teeth, men, women, geese and lice).

The -en plural hung on much longer in the early Renaissance as in toon and shoon but finally gave out through the forces of analogy and simplification and uniformity. Also, kine, eyen, housen, hosen.

Some new uninflected plurals: fish, fowl, And some uninflected plurals used in measure, seven year, etc.

Also kind was unmarked as plural.

POSSESSIVES:

Generally the -s possessive ruled the day; however, some unmarked possessives existed: those connected with family relations (father land, mother tongue) and those with nouns ending in fricatives (for peace sake).

The most interesting thing about the noun is the his genitive.

His was the masculine genetive form, but the pangeneric genetive was -es pronounced the same as him with unstressed h.

Group genetives became even more popular.

Therefore stonis throw became stone is throw thus the genetive was written with the apostrophe stone's throw to show the deletion of the hi--totally unnecessary then, but now of course used to distinquish between singular and plural.

The -es became an enclitic and developed into a group genetive: King of England's nose.

Still some uninflected genetives: measure and holiday, for God sake, etc

Adjective:

The final e as vestigial weak adjective inflection as in Chaucer's smale fowles disappears.

The comparative and superlatives become regularized to -er and

-est without change in root vowel, those some hang on

old, elder, eldest: one also sees older and oldest.

Much more freedom with periphrastic comparison than today -- the most stillest night, the most unkindest cut.

Adverb:

The suffix -ly is used much more freely to adverbs as they lost their final -e inflection (which was of little use anyway since it looked just like the -e ending of weak adjectives).

In fact, the number of "plain adverbs" was becoming greatly reduced.

Pronouns: The really big news:

1. The ye, you, your system collapses into just you your, though the King James Bible uses the older system correctly.

Accordingly, both you were and you was were correct.

The thee, thine, thy fall out except for poetic and relgious usages: especially among the Penn Amish whose use is generally systematic because based on German.

2. The impersonal, neuter pronoun:

Originally hit, hit, his ---> unstressed it and is

Picked up the gen form its in 1590 Florio's trans of Plutarch.

Although it is still used as a possessive in King James Bible 1611.

Since is sounded like other gens became it's on analogy with stone's down to 1800, then removed on analogy with theirs, hers, ours.

3. Who comes in as a late relative in ME and becomes much more frequently used in EMnE. The relative pronouns were basically the same as PDE except for six oddities listed on pp. 230-231.

1. compound relative --that which, the which

2. which to refer to people -- Our father which art in heaven

3. who as subject of both main and subordinate clause -- Who steals my purse steals trash.

4. The use of as as relative

5. More frequent omitted relatives

6. redundant subject in relative clauses

Also, EMnE was much looser about the that/which restrictive and nonrestrictive controversy, and the whom/who rules.

4. Flexible pronoun case:

a. nom after conj and: so between you and I

b. mostly obj after than or as

c. obj after be: It's me.

d. mess over who and whom: whom before verb and after prep regardless of the grammar

Verbs:

1. The double past tense forms of strong verbs are leveled to one:

Thus old I sang and we sungen become I,we sang (have sung)

and I rood, we riden become I,we rode (have riden)

2. The -en is used unevenly: hence forgotten but got and gotten

3. The endings of -est and -eth become just -s for 3rd per pres ind.

4. Finally many more weak verbs come into the language: some new strong verbs (snuck) but for the most part new verbs are weak.

5. Lay and lie; sit and set are interchangeable

Syntax:

One important consequence of the death of inflectional endings is that words could perform the functional shift. One can Shakespeare a noun into a verb or make a noun and adjective or adverb--a pay day a work day; he day labors. To out-Herod Herod.

In early ModE (the following examples are from Shakespeare) we find some preceding negative adverbs: I not doubt it. Double negatives: say nothing neither.

Also double comparatives: most unkindest cut of all

Uninflected adverbs: to speake plaine; exceeding wise

Objective form of Sub comp: To speake as plaine as me; with the hand of she here; between my good men and he

PUNCTUCATION

1. I becomes regularly capitalized at this time.

Other capitalization erratic.

2. No commas until about 1550

Before only slashes and mid periods and periods or nothing

3. semicolon as question mark in 1515

turned it upside down for question mark in 1650 regularly but before it had been used as a hard stop

4. The apostrophe -- used in EModE for contractins, but not regularly: Shakespeare's First Folio contains both Ile and I'le and I'll for I will.

The apostrophe was not used for possessives regularly until late in the period.

by 1700 the semicolon and question mark are completely regular.

4. The progressive form is a later development 18th cent from the present participle used as a noun object of preposition.

He went on fishing--He went a-fishing--He went fishing.

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." H.D.T.

This by the end of the 18th cent engenders a passive progressive: The house is on building--is building (Supper is cooking) finally at the turn of the century being is used with a past part for a completed passive prog: The house is being built.