Morpho-Syntactic Changes

Early Modern English

Morphosyntactic changes

Old English had extensive inflectional morphology and relatively flexible word order.

Middle English had very little inflectional morphology and a rather rigid word order.

Inversion in Present Day English

1. Negative inversion

Under no circumstances would I do that.

2. Locative inversion

Behind the barn stood an old oak tree.

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

Negative sentences

1. I haven’t eaten yet.2. She isn’t coming.3. I cannot come.4. You must not do that.5. He does not speak to me.

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

Yes-no Questions

1. Have you eaten lunch?2. Is she coming?3. Can I come in?4. May I speak to her?5. Does she speak English?

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

WH Questions

1. What have you eaten?2. When is she coming?3. Where can I sleep?4. What must she do?5. What did she say?

The rise of analytical verb forms

• Future will leave

• Present Perfect have gone

• Progressive is sleeping

The rise of SVO

Though SVO had become the dominant word order in Middle English, it was not yet as rigid as in Modern English.

thou - you

SG PLOld English þū yē

Middle English thou (familiar)ye (polite)

ye

Early Modern English

ye (you = OBJ) ye (you = OBJ)

Possessive marker

Peter’(i)s = Peter his

• John Browne his meadow

• Ann Harris her lot

Possessive clitic

1. The queen’s crown2. The Queen of England’s crown

3. Peter’s car4. Peter and Mary’s car

Relative pronoun

a. the book that fell from the table.b. the book that I readc. the book that I gave himd. the book that I talked about

Subject relatives

a. Who’s that knocks?b. I have a brother is condemn’d to die.

(Shakespeare)

c. There was a farmer had a dog.d. There was a ball of fire shot up through the

seats in front of me.e. There’s something keeps upsetting him.f. There‘s a lot of people don‘t know him.

‘Which’ and ‘who’ relatives

• As a relative pronoun ‘which’ emerged in the

14th century

• ‘Whose’ and ‘whom’ emerged in EME;

later ‘who’ was formed by analogy.

Accessibility hierarchy

SUBJ > DO > OBL > GEN

Comparative forms of the adjectives

(1) happy – happier –happiest(2) difficult – more difficult –most difficult

(1) in the calmest and most stillest night. (2) against the envy of less happier lands.

(Shakespeare)

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

(1) Say you so?(2) I know not.

Causative ‘do’

(3) He did them build a castle.‘He caused them to build a castle.’

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

I doubt it not. (Shakespeare)

I do not doubt you. (Shakespeare)

Why look you so upon me? (Shakespeare)

Why do you look on me? (Shakespeare)

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

(1) *I do not can go.

(2) *She does not may leave.

(3) *Is Peter may go home?

Lexical diffusion

SUBJ VERB not SUBJ do not VERBVerb 1 Verb 1Verb 2 Verb 2Verb 3 Verb 3Verb 4 Verb 4… …

I know not I do not know

S-shaped development

time

The psychological mechanisms of language change

Hypothesis:

Grammatical change involves the change of grammatical rules.

3 + 4 = 7

Change of rules

1. NEG SUBJ VERB not

2. NEG SUBJ do not VERB

What motivated the development of the ‘do’ pattern?

In negative sentences, ‘do’ reinforced the negative meaning of the sentence.

The development of ‘do’ in questions

What is she doing?

Where can I find this book?

When did Peter see Mary?

Why auxiliaries and modals were not involved in the change

1. If the sentence includes a modal or auxiliary, there is an <WH AUX S V O> pattern even without ‘do’.

2. Modals and auxiliaries are the most frequent verbs. Frequently used linguistic structures are so deeply entrenched in mental grammar that they do not change easily.

New consonant phonemes

Bilabial Labio-dental

Inter-dental

Alveolar

Alveola-palatal

Velar

Stop p b t d k gAffricate tS

dZFricative f v T D s z S Z hNasal m n ÎLateral lRetroflex rGlide w y

‘Silent consonant’

1. Compensentory lengthening

[sICt] > [sit] ‘sight’

2. half, palm, folk, talk

‘Silent consonant’

3. castle, hasten, wrestle, handsome

4. know, knife, knee, knight, gnaw

‘Silent consonant’

5. wrong, wrinkle, wrist

6. British American

[ka] [kar] ‘car’

[bi@] [bi@r] ‘beer’

Spelling pronunciations

1. anthem, throne, author, orthography

2. habit, hectic, history, horror, human

Re-spelling based on Latin source

French loans:

faut, assaut, facon, vaut

Respelled:

fault, assault, falcon, vault

Morphosyntactic changes

Old English had extensive inflectional morphology and relatively flexible word order.

Middle English had very little inflectional morphology and a rather rigid word order.

The rise of the dummy auxiliary ‘do’

I doubt it not. (Shakespeare)

I do not doubt you. (Shakespeare)

Why look you so upon me? (Shakespeare)

Why do you look on me? (Shakespeare)

Summary

• Morpho-Syntactic changes• Inversion in English• The rise of dummy auxiliaries, analytical verb

forms and possessive, relative pronouns.• Lexical Diffusion• New Consonant Phonemes• Spelling pronunciation