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Grammatical change recap- (The second person pronoun (unlike other…
Grammatical change recap-
Grammatical Creativity-
'Go fun yourself' or 'weekend like no-one is watching'
Robert Lowth-
published his 'short introduction to English grammar' in 1762 he believed that understanding English grammar will help learning rules of Latin.
he agreed with Swift.‘does it mean as the english language as it is spoken by the politest part of the nation and as it stands in the writings of our most approved authors,often offends against every part of grammar?Thus far, I am afraid,the change is true
Lowths 7 grammatical rules? Most rooted from Latin
Pronoun thou should no longer be used.
There should be differentiation between will(a promise) and shall(to foretell).
There should be differentiation between who,which or that.
there should be regularisation between who and whom.
Prepositions should come before the noun to which there applied
The infinitive verb should not be split.
. Multiple negotiation and multiple comparison is illogical.
Joseph Priestly-
a more descriptive perspective in ‘the rudiments of english grammar 1761. ‘
He claims the best forms of speech will in time establish themselves by their own superior excellence.
(Priestly offers a more descriptive approach)
Lindley Murray-
also produced a grammar guide published in 1795'English Grammar' His work was heavily influenced by Lowths
"all parts of sentence should correspond to each other a regular and dependant construction should go throughout and be preserved."
The second person pronoun
unlike other peopnouns the seccond person pronoun is now limited to 'you' 'yours' however thats not always been the case. In ME the 2nd pp distinguished between singular & plural forms
Singular-
'Thou' (used in subject possitions eg- thou must go.
Singular
- thee (used in object positions)eg- given to thee'
Plural-
'ye' (used in subject possition) eg- ye must go
Plural-
you (used in object positions)eg- given to you.
from the 13th cent due to french influences ye and you also came to be marked as polite forms.
By the 16th cent 'thou/these/thee and ye/you were linked to social distance between users.
Thou/thee was used to those of a lower status or expresses intimacy & close affection.Where as Ye and you was used as a marker of respect. confusion/miss use of the terms was consider an insult.
by the 18th cent the use of thou/thee was old fashioned 'you' was the preferred pronoun use as it was consider unmarked. through the 18,19 and 20th cent 'thou' was only found in restricted usage in poetry or religious text.
the loss of thpu left nop marker of singular or plural 2nd pp use. in the early 18th cent 'you was; was used to indicate the singular while 'you were' signald a plural - at this time ;'you was' was considerd colloquial and not a desirable option.
now the second pp you and yours remains but some accents have added an s . in the USA all is often added to the pronoun to indicate plural 'y'all'
The verb to do.
in old and mid eng it was used with inflated endings. During mid eng do was used alongside a main lexical verb e.g.-'thee do go" usage was at its peak in the mid 16th cent but in the 18th it became dead. -only seen in religious or poetry.
its current usage- established by grammarians in 18th cent- as it holds NICE properties.
we can see that grammar rules do change to reflect society.
N- negatives- she did not take it well.
I- interogatives- created by the inversion of the auxiliary & subject- Did she take it well?
C- code usage- avoiding repetition of lexical verb - she cried but her friend did not.
E- emphasis- she did find in moving.
standardisation-
began in 14th cent - is a gradual process. - needed if english was going to be seen as serious.
Attitudes towards change- Haugen 1966 4 stages of standardisation-
Selection- lang selected- variety selected usually a prestigious one
Codification- reduction of internal variability- establishing norms.
Elaboration- selected language is developed for a variety of purposes.
Implementation- standard lang needs to be given currency by making texs available in it- enc users developing loyalty.
Prescriptive
- swift,Lowth= judgments of a correct usage and egs of bad language.
descriptivist
opposte- lang= fluid
Great Vowel shift-
major phonological dif bet mid eng and early modern eng. e.g.- namm - name and hoos- house. may of bee done to reject french pronunciation patterns and adopting ones associated w/ a prestige form of english.
Jean Achinson 2013- came up w/ 3 mets describing a perscritivits view.'
'crumbling castle' english= beautiful and old thing thats needs to be protected.
'damp spon syndrome'- people are lazy w/ language.
'infectious disease'- diseased from other influences like americanisms.