Dr. Rachael-Anne Knight
Language Change
rachaelanne@cantab.net
Inset Session University of Reading
www.rachaelanne.co.uk
July 2004
Early Modern English (1500 – 1800)
History:
As the ME period had seen huge grammatical changes the EME period saw huge changes in
English phonology. However, spelling did not change to reflect these changes. Spelling was
however influenced by a number of ‘learned’ people who preferred a more archaic spelling
system.
Word stock
During this period there was rather a lot of conscious borrowing of words from other
languages in an effort to improve the English language. The majority of these terms were
borrowed from Latin and although some did not survive, many remain with us today e.g.
‘autograph’, ‘disability’, ‘conspicuous’, ‘expensive’, and ‘benefit’.
Spelling
 In the seventeenth century <j > becomes used for a consonant and <i> for a vowel
 <u> and <v> begin to be used for vowel and consonant
 Many etymological respellings occurred at this time. E.g. ‘debt’ and ‘doubt’ had a
<b> added as they ultimately derived from Latin ‘debitum’ and ‘dubitare’.
Pronunciation
The Great Vowel Shift
During this period all the long vowels changed their pronunciation to become closer to their
modern day pronunciation. Words containing the high vowels / and // came to be
pronounced with diphthongs while words containing other vowels began to be pronounced
with the tongue body higher in the mouth. Spelling did not however change to reflect these
new pronunciations.









Changes in pronunciation between ME and EME
Chaucer

five

mead

clean

name

goat

root

down
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Shakespeare







(now )
Dr. Rachael-Anne Knight
Language Change
rachaelanne@cantab.net
Inset Session University of Reading
www.rachaelanne.co.uk
July 2004
Morphology
Nouns
 Apostrophes to signal the difference between the genitive singular and genitive plural
began to be adopted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

A few –n plurals existed which have since given way to the –s plural including eyen
(eyes), shoon (shoes) and kine (cows)

The his-genetive was relatively common (Augustus his daughter vs. Augustus’
daughter)

The group-genitive developed during this period (The Wife of Bath’s Tale vs. The
Wyves tale of Bathe)

The uninflected genitive was sometimes used for nouns ending in /s/ (for God sake)
Pronouns
During this period social relations were encoded in the pronoun system. In earlier periods of
English ‘thou’ was used for second person singular and ‘ye’ for the second person plural. By
the end of the thirteenth century however, possibly influenced by the French used at court, the
singular forms became used among familiars, to children and those of inferior rank and the
plural forms began to be used with singular meaning to superiors. The following extract from
Hamlet (3.4.9-21) illustrates the use of the different forms:
Activity: How do pronouns encode social relations here?
Q: Hamlet, thou hast thy Father much offended
H: Mother, you have my Father much offended
Q: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue
….
Q: What wilt thou do? Though wilt not murther me?
In the eighteenth century the plural/formal form (you) spread into almost all contexts and the
singular/intimate form (thou) was lost. The distinction is still maintained in Quaker
populations today but speakers of standard English still have no way of distinguishing
singular and plural ‘you’.
Verbs
Progressive verb forms (e.g. ‘I am working’) become much more common in the seventeenth
century
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Dr. Rachael-Anne Knight
Language Change
rachaelanne@cantab.net
Inset Session University of Reading
www.rachaelanne.co.uk
July 2004
An illustration
1. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.
2. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darknesses was vpon the face of the
deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.
3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light
4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God diuided the light from the
darkenesses he called Night: and the euening and the morning were the first day
Activity
Which new words are found? What might be their source?
Which early modern spelling conventions are seen?
Are there any words that are unfamiliar to the modern reader?
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