Linguistik Vorlesung (Subject) / Early Modern English (Lesson)
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Klausur
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- Role of Caxton Caxton: English merchant, diplomat and writer-first person to introduce printig press into England in 1476--> dissemination (Verbreitung) of the written wordEffects: -freezing of the English spelling-more books availabe in English since middle class did not speak Latin --> translations-strengthening of the London dialect
- Role of the Bible -King James Bible = the Authorized Version of the Bible (published in 1611)-influential and itself was influenced by existing versions (from 16th century)-done by a team of 54 University scholars (proposed by the king and revised by bishops)-written in a langugae almost everyone could understandGuidelines:-made use of Bishops Bible and Tyndale-preserve recognized chapters and names-translations needed to be approved by others-final drafts were read out loud in order to access rhythm and balancetranslations were conscioulsly conservative-does not contain many new words-backward orientation in grammar; preserviing forms and constructions falling out elsewhere-irregular verbs used in older form-older word form: follow thou me-no do-periphrases with negations and questions (they knew him not)-3rd person singular: -(e)th-Ye (you) as subject and you as object-his is used for its-"an" used before nouns with h in stressed syllable (-> an hundred)
- Role of Shakespeare -Shakespeare's firsts: around 2000 words and phrases invented by him-his texts reflect the usage of his time-lexical firsts: countless, barefaced-idiomatic expressions: love is blind-grammatical conversions: grace me no grace (grace as verb and noun)-use of hyphenated (mit Bindestrich) compounds: faire-play
- Changes in Pronounciation The Great Vowel Shift-set of long vowels in English (7) went through a systematic process of raising and diphthongnisation between 1300 and 1700-first stage was finished before 1500-each vowel changed its quality-distinction betwen one vowel and its next was maintained-->proceeded in the form of a chain reaction (raising and diphthongnisation created structural gaps that were filled by shifting the proximate (following) vowel into those-start is unknown (drag chain or push chain?)Other changes:-short vowels: a -> æ (cat) / u -> ʌ (cut)-consonants: ç dissapeared, x dissapeared, r was sounded in all positions, /ŋ/ emerges
- Changes in Spelling -> radical changes in pronounciation-old spelling was maintained and stereotyped (influence of printers and learned men)Etymological (sprachgeschichtliche) respellings:-det -> debt-doute -> doubt-EME saw the establishment of the standard written language that we know todayDiscrepany (Unstimmigkeiten) between spelling and pronounciation in ModE caused by:-early fixation of spelling-with the pronounciation undergoing further changes (GVS)-influence of learned menOrthography (Rechtschreibung):-16th ct: English writing system remained in a highly inconsistend state, lack of uniformity in spelling and punctuation--> first Reformers: John Hart and William Bullokar-growing regulation at the end of the 16th ct-17th ct: increasing number of spelling guides published, arrival of first dictionaries-mid 17th ct: printing conventions highly regulized, modern system had arrived, no more tolerance of variant spelling-18th ct: notions of correctness
- changes in the lexicon Renaissance: -new interest in classical langugaes and literature-new discoveries and exploration-developing fields of science, medicine and arts--> words needed to talk accurately abouth the new concepts, techniques and inventoins (borrowing form Latin, French, Italian, Spanish)Latin: chaos, factFrench: vogue, batteryItalian: balcony, designSpanish: banana, potatoGreek: atom, ethics (through Latin: datum)-influx of foreign words war not welcome to all-Purits (defining or recognizing one varietyof a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties) opposed to the new 'inkhorn' terms (any foreign borrowing into English deemed to be unnecessary)-Counter stragety: revive absolete (außer Gebrach, abgenutzt) En words instead (so-called Chaucerism): saywhat (definition), fleshstrings (muscles)-but controversial:no development possible; confusement due to obscurity (Unklarheit)PLUS: use of word formation methods: preffixes (disabuse) and suffixes (considerable), compounds (heaven-sent), conversion (laugh)
- changes in grammar -inflectional and syntactic developments: continued the trend that changed Eng grammar from a synthetic to analytic system-major changes were over by the time of the RenaissanceInfluence of Latin syntactic system: -more complex use of subordination-complex sentence structure--> Remarkable constructions: -the his genetive: August his daughter-the group genetive: The Wife of Bath's Tale-uninflectional genetive: for God sake--> Periphrastic do-development of dummy auxiliary do-use of do was optional (today needed in Negation, Question, Question tag and Emphatetic)-adopted its grammatical status at the end of the 17th ct--> inflectional changes-distinction between weak and strong adjectives dissapeared-Adj/Adv comparison (-er/-est and more/most) --> could me made with ending and/or modifying word)-many adverbs did not require -ly--> Pronouns-"I" became capitalized-loss of thou and thee-2nd person plural: distinction between ye and you was lost-hit lost its h -> it--> Verbs:-strong verbs: 3 principle parts (OE had 4)-3rd person singular -s--> Others:-negative form (-n't) appeared in writing in 17th ct-expanded forms: passive and progressive not until later part of 18th ct-impersonal costructions were frequent (I doubt me)-prepositions required greater importance