The Renaissance1500-1650

181. The Adjective182. The Pronoun

Nor Syaliza - 174706

The Adjective• The adjective lost all its endings – no longer expressed distinctions of gender,number and case.•16th centuries – form of comparative & superlative used – e.g lenger and strenger•Method used in comparative & superlative - -er and –est or with adverbs- more and most•Shakespeare used – more larger, most boldest•Two adjective or more syllables used more and most

The Pronoun16th century was the century of the establishment of personal pronoun.

3 changes involved :

1. The disuse of thou,thy and thee

2. The substitution of you for ye as a nominative case

3. The introduction of its as the possessive of it

1. The disuse of thou, thy, thee

Singular form of thou,thy,thee – used to address children or person of inferior rank

Plural form of ye,your,you – used as a mark of respect to address a superior

But later ye, your and you became the usual pronoun of direct address irrespective of rank or intimacy.

Men use th- forms & women use y- forms to reflect differences in power and status between genders

By Shakespeare’s time , the y- form replaced the th- forms for both men and women

2. Substitution of you for ye as a nominative case

oYe – nominativeoYou – objective

oIn 14th century, you began to be used as nominative.

oLater ye appears for the objective cases.

oYe finally dissapeared.

oIn 17th century, you becomes the regular form for both cases.

Both are often pronounced alike as [ jə]

3. New possessive neuter ( its)

Neuter pronoun in OE was declined hit,his,him and hit . The merge of accusative under hit in the ME become hit,his,hit.

In unstressed position , hit weakened to it

In modern period, it is used for subject and object

His remained the proper form of possessive

Nouns like stone’s and horse’s suggest the use of it’s for the possessive of it

• Old English made use of definite article - the and that

• In 16th century who was used as a relative

Who as an indefinite pronoun Who as an interrogative in indirect questions

• The use of who as the relative pronoun is the contribution from the sixtieth century to our present day English language

The use of who as a relative