Evolution of the Grammatical Systems in ME and NE

The noun paradigm looks very much the same as we have it today. Having lost the category of gender and much of its case forms it has the genitive case as opposed to nominative. The number of nouns taking it is reduced mainly to those denoting living beings. In fact, we may call it possessive, because it is used now mainly in the function of attribute denoting possession. However, some nouns other than those denoting persons may still take it in the 17th century.

At the same time the unification of plural endings takes place, and former relics of -en disappear, giving way to -es. So, the general rule of formation of the plural of the noun is enriched by archaic forms (like geese, feet, children etc.) - we call them grammatical archaisms; some words borrowed from Latin and used mainly in scientific texts retain their Latin plurals and may be called grammatical barbarisms datum - data (1640-50), radius - radii (1590-1600), formula -formulae (1575-85), axis - axes (1540-50). Some of these, however tend to comply with the general rule, and forms like radiuses, formulas very soon become quite common.

Various scholars note, that an interesting variation appears in the treatment of abstract nouns, which in Modern English have no plural, except by way of personification. In Shakespeare's time such nouns were regularly used in a distributive sense. Whereas the apostrophe as a sign denoting the possessive case of a noun appeared only about 1680, and its use to mark the possessive case in plural in 1789, the nouns in the genitive case and in the plural have homonymic endings, and only the context resolves ambiguity. We may note numerous instances of the use of apostrophe in Shakespeare's plays, but there they show only the omission of e or some other sounds - that is purely a phonetic sign. So, for instance in the case of sentences like — The trumpets sounds (Hamlet) which may be perceived differently. The form trumpets may be simple plural, possesive singular and possessive plural. The context shows that this is a nominative sentence, trumpets is the attribute, and the trumpet is the only musical instrument in the situation. Hence, we may say that it is the genitive singular form of the noun.

Of-phrase (the noun with the preposition of) replaces the former genitive case, but in Shakespeare's plays they may go together.

The adjective in Early New English lost the form of plural and weak forms and acquired its present-day qualities. The degrees of comparison are formed by means of the suffixes -er and -est, vowel mutation which was characteristic of some of them was almost lost. The forms elder/older, eldest/oldest and further/farther, furthest/farthest are distinguished in use. So older forms elder, eldest are used to denote relations within a family.

VERB: The loss of endings greatly simplified the verbal paradigm. There were no longer endings marking the 1st person singular, plural present indicative, and the infinitival suffix -an -en—>e was also lost. Personal ending of the third person singular in the present tense -th is replaced by -s; hath —> has; thinketh —> thinks.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1745