An introduction to early Modern English / Terttu Nevalainen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nevalainen, Terttu.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Early modern, 1500-1700.

English language.

English language--Early modern.

English language--Early modern, 1500-1700--Grammar.

English language--Early modern--Grammar.

Physical Description:

x, 176 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2006]

Summary:

An introduction to Early Modern English, this book helps students of English and linguistics to place the language of the period 1500- 1700 in its historical context as a language with a common core but also as one which varies across time, regionally and socially, and according to register. The volume focuses on the structure of what contemporaries called the General Dialect - its spelling, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation - and on its dialectal origins. The book also discusses the language situation and linguistic anxieties in England at a time when Latin exerted a strong influence on the rising standard language.

Contents:

1 The Early Modern English period 1

1.1 Periods of English 1

1.2 Shakespeare - our contemporary? 4

1.3 Evolution and standardisation 7

2 Sources for the study of Early Modern English 12

2.1 Range of evidence 12

2.2 Comments on varieties of English 13

2.3 Early grammars 16

2.4 Texts and genres 20

2.5 Corpus resources 23

3 Towards a standard language 29

3.1 Middle English legacy 29

3.2 Fixing the form: spelling standardisation 31

3.3 Elaborating the functions: borrowing and codification 37

4 Old words and loan words 45

4.1 Continuity and change 45

4.2 Borrowing 50

5 Word-formation and semantic change 59

5.1 Word-formation 59

5.2 Semantic change 65

6 Nouns and pronouns 73

6.1 Word classes 73

6.2 Nouns 74

6.3 Pronouns 77

7 Verbs, adjectives and adverbs 89

7.1 Verbs 89

7.2 Adjectives and adverbs 98

8 Syntactic structures 103

8.1 Larger structures 103

8.2 Noun phrases 104

8.3 Verb phrases 107

8.4 Changing syntactic patterns 111

9 Changing pronunciation 118

9.1 Surprising and confusing? 118

9.2 Some general features 119

9.3 Developments in the vowel system 120

9.4 Developments in the consonant system 126

9.5 Stress and prosody 129

10 Language in the community 134

10.1 Widening perspectives 134

10.2 Printing and literacy 134

10.3 Social variation 137

10.4 Urbanisation and dialect levelling 140

10.5 Expansion of English 143

Appendices 1-2 Early Modern English texts 149.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-170) and index.

ISBN:

0195308468

0195308476

OCLC:

62282420

Publisher Number:

9780195308464

9780195308471