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Lezione 7. Decline and Fall - Summary

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Lezione 7. Decline and Fall - Summary 20/12/2019 Lezione 7. Decline and Fall - summary • In this lesson we are going to trace the changing grammatical landscape of English • In doing so, we will discover… • Why the syntax of Standard Modern English is so regular • Where irregular nouns come from, and why English has a genitive case as well as the “a noun of noun” structure • When and why English stopped distinguishing between “thou” and “you” • When do, have and be became auxiliaries indicating verb aspects (simple, perfective, progressive, passive) • How and when the modal verbs became ‘defective’, i.e. reduced to auxiliary verb status 1 Nouns in English • All SVO languages have something in common… • An absence (or virtual absence) of noun cases • Nominative (subject) • Accusative (direct object) • Dative (indirect object, indicating beneficiary/receiver) • Genitive (indicating possession or ownership) • Instrumental (indicating manner) • etc. • English nouns are not marked for case, except for… • The genitive (-’s) • Pronouns • Nominative (I, he, they) • Accusative (me, him, them) • Datives take the same form but are introduced by a preposition • Genitive (mine, his, theirs) • English adjectives are unmarked, always 2 1 20/12/2019 Nouns in English: chronological comparison • Modern English has • Anglo-Saxon had • 1 definite article (the) • 21 definite articles • 1 indefinite article (a) • 15 indefinite articles • The alternant, an, is for • And 6 variants of the dual phonological purposes (=two) form • 2 types of noun • 2 types of noun (s. + pl.) • Mass nouns (no inflection) • Divided into • Count nouns (one plural • 5 strong declensions inflection: -s) • 5 or 6 weak declensions • 2 cases • 4 cases • “base” + genitive • Nominative, accusative, dative, genitive • No grammatical gender • 3 grammatical genders • No adjective inflection • Adjective inflection • 3 genders • 5 cases • Up to 20 forms 3 Nouns in English • The regularity of SVO syntax means that noun cases are not necessary • The relations between the parts are clear from their position • English syntax has not always been so regular • As you saw on the previous slide… • Here are some of the possible reasons for the changes that we are going to examine 1. Language contact (especially Anglo-Saxon + Norse) led to simplification of the grammar (a form of creolization) 2. Borrowing of vocabulary (from Norse, Danish, Latin, and later from Anglo-Norman French) resulted in an influx of new words which didn’t ‘fit’ the existing system, so forced it to simplify 3. The massive increase in vocabulary made it impossible to maintain the complexity of the grammar system, forcing it to simplify 4 2 20/12/2019 The case system in Old English • Cases in practise Đunor cymð of hætan & of wætan. Seo lyft tyhð þone wætan to hire neoðan & ða hætan ufan Đunornom cymð of hætandat & of wætandat. Seo lyftnom tyhð Thunder cometh of heat and of wet. The air brings þone wætanacc to hire neoðandat & ða hætanacc ufanacc the wet to her from beneath and the heat from above “Thunder comes from heat and moisture. The air draws the moisture from below and the heat from above” 5 Determiners and pronouns • As noun cases went into demise, so too did their companion articles and determiners, leaving us with… • ān (number ‘one’, later also indefinite article ‘a’) a, an, one • se (later sð ) ‘the’ • ðæt (nominative singular neuter article) ‘that’ • ðis (nominative singular neuter demonstrative) ‘this’ • ðæm (dative singular neuter demonstrative) ‘them’ • Pronouns have retained case markings (still useful”!) • I-me-mine • You-you-yours • He-his-his • She-her-hers • It-it-its • We-our-ours • They-them-theirs 6 3 20/12/2019 Verbs in English • Over time, verb morphology has simplified enormously • Most English verbs now have only the following forms • Infinitive - present + past participle - present simple 3rd person (-s) • Some verbs have different preterite and past participle forms • These were ‘strong’ verbs in Old Engish • Be and have differentiate between singular and plural • The systems of aspect and mood are, however, getting more and more sophisticated • Progressives (BE + --ing) started to appear in Middle English and have been getting more frequent ever since • The perfective aspect (HAVE + --ed) consolidated in Middle English when BE was eclipsed by HAVE • Auxiliary DO emerged in Middle English and consolidated in its present functions Late Modern English • Modal (defective) verbs were previously full verbs expressing modal concepts; in Middle English they began to be used as auxiliaries 7 Verbs in English: chronological comparison • Modern English has • Anglo-Saxon had • Present tense • Present tense • (0 and –s inflections) • Inflecting for sing/pl.; singular • Preterite (past simple) inflects for person • Past and present participles • Preterite • Strong verbs (7 classes), • Auxiliary verbs inflecting for sing/pl.; singular • 3 main auxiliary verbs inflects for person • 10 modal verbs (+ 2) • Weak verbs (3 conjugations) • 3 moods • Past participle • indicative, imperative, • 3 moods subjunctive • indicative, imperative, • 3 aspects subjunctive (s+pl forms) • simple, perfective, progressive • 1 aspect • 2 voices • Simple (but perfect emerging) • Active, passive • 1 voice • Active 8 4 20/12/2019 Verbs in English: auxiliary verbs • Old English had some (proto-)periphrastic tenses:- (A periphrastic tense is a tense formed with auxiliaries) • A progressive / expanded form (action verbs only) • BEON (BE) + –ende • A perfective construction • HABBAN (HAVE) or BEON (BE) + past participle (ge–) • As in modern French / Italian, BEON was only used with intransitive verbs of motion • DON (DO) was not used as an auxiliary • Negatives were indicated by the negative particle (ne) • Questions were formed by placing verb before subject • As today… • DON was used as a main verb • DON was used as a substitute for the main verb 9 Verbs in English: auxiliary BE • In the Middle English period, the progressive doubles • It is more common in the North and Scotland than in the Midlands and South (and still is today….) • N.b. present participle –and(e) ; gerund –yng(e) A nycht him thought in his dremyng That he wes sittand neire the king, At a seit in hunting swa, And in a lesche had grewhundis twa Him thought, till he wes sa sittand, He saw thre women by gangand And thai thre women than thought he Thre werd sisteris like to be Andrew of Wynton (c. 1350-c. 1425) Macbeth. (Middle Scots) • However, it is not until C20th that it becomes really prominent, cf. texts by Austen, Poe, etc, rarely feature it 10 5 20/12/2019 Verbs in English: auxiliary HAVE • The perfective was consolidated by the end of the Middle English period • The present perfect already existed (it increased during Early Modern English but does not become common until C20th.) …and the dwke of borgan hathe gette meche ordenons of frenche kyngys and hathe slayne v or vj ml frensche men wryte on thorys day noe in haste. (Richard Cely, 1497) • Despite the development of the perfective, the preterite is the preferred past tense • HAVE became fully established as the only auxiliary • Past participles are still formed with the prefix ge– , now softened to y– or i– Þis menere was moche i-vsed to fore þe firste moreyn and is siþþe sumdel i-chaunged: (John of Trevisa, 1387) 11 Verbs in English: auxiliary DO • In Old English, the meaning of DON seems to be ‘perform an action’ (performative/causative) • i.e. similar to its current use in collocations such as do chores, do exercise, do or die, do sth. to death • Auxiliary DO only emerged in (late) Middle English • How were questions and interrogatives formed in Old English? • To form a question, the verb is moved before the subject • “Hwy dēst þū swā” (“How do you so?”) • Negative particles (ne) were attached to various words* • And se engel him to cwæð : “Nelle ge eow ondrǽdan” (And the angel said to them : “not-will you fear”) 12 6 20/12/2019 Verbs in English: auxiliary DO • Construction of negatives without do • “noþeles Walsche men and Scottes, þat beeþ nought i-medled wiþ oþer naciouns, holdeþ wel nyh hir firste longage and speche” [….] “al þe longage of þe Norþhumbres, and specialych at ʒork, ys so scharp, slyttyng and frotyng and unschape, þat we souþeron men may þat longage unneþe vnderstonde.” (John of Trevisa, 1387) • “And the good wyf answerde. that she coude speke no freynshe. And the marchaunt was angry. for he also coude speke no freynshe. but wold haue hadde egges / and she vnderstode hym not” (Caxton, 1490) • “Give to euery man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, aske them not againe.” (Bible KJAV 1610) • “I deny not, but that it is of the greatest concernment…” (Milton, 1644) 13 Verbs in English: auxiliary DO • Auxiliary “do” in simple-aspect questions • In 1500, only 20% of questions used “do” • By 1700, over 90% of questions used “do”* • Auxiliary “do” + negative particle • Grows in use during Early Modern, consolidates in Late Modern • The archaic, auxiliary-free form (e.g. I knew not what to make of it) can still be deployed in formal contexts. • Dummy “do” • DO (don) has always functioned as a substitute for a lexical verb • …we don't need to go over the top as the EU does. (2016) • From Late ME until about 1700, do was popular as a ‘dummy’ auxiliary in affirmative statements • “Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them” (John Milton, Areopagitica 1644) • Emphatic “do” • In Late Modern English, the form previously considered a ‘dummy’ has acquired emphatic value • If I do decide to go SNP next year, it will be because of one reason. (2016) 14 7 20/12/2019 Verbs in English: modals • The modal verbs were full, lexical verbs in Old English. • Cunnan (to know) has left us with can (be able, be permitted) and could • cann 1st person singular; cūþe, past tense (preterite) • Willan (‘will, wish’) has left us with will and would.
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