“The History of English: an introduction” by Stephen Gramley, Sbobinature di Lingua Inglese

Scarica “The History of English: an introduction” by Stephen Gramley e più Sbobinature in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! 1- THE ORIGINS OF ENGLISH (BEFORE 450) 1.1 THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE The capacity for language emerged approximately 145000 years ago. The emergence of human speech depended on both suitable physiological change in what were to become the organs of speech and on changes in the structure of the brain to allow humans to work with the complexity of language neurologically. The acquisiLon of language is widely seen as a unique human faculty. English is a grouping of oMen very diOerent varieLes spoken all over the world by both naLve n non-naLve speakers. 1.1.1. Divergence, change, and the family model There are tho0se who have tried to trace de development from the assumed Srst or proto-language to our own day with its 5000 to 7000 languages. This is done by extrapolaLng backwards from the known to the unknown in a process designated as reconstrucLon. In the case of French, Spanish and Italian these languages are known as the Romance, all of them having descended from the earlier parent language, LaLn. LaLn is well documented by the many LaLn texts sLll available today. It has been possible to discover principles of language change and to classify the resulLng languages accordingly. For English, Dutch, Icelandic as well as other Germanic languages such as German, Yiddish, Frisian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese there is no documented earlier language. The same kinds of principles apply here as to LaLn and the Romance languages and allow us to reconstruct a language known as Proto-Germanic. This proto-language is labelled metaphorically as the mother of a language family and the sublanguages as its daughters or granddaughters. The Germanic and the Romance language families themselves belong to a larger grouping known as the Indo-European language family. This language family has spread widely throughout the world as the cost of other languages. The family model has played an important role in the historical study of language and is based on assumpLons about geographical distance as a factor which eventually leads to the accumulaLon of diOerences between the varieLes to the point where we may Srst speak about dialecLcal diOerences. The diOerences are so large that the speakers in the separate speech communiLes can no longer understand each other. The criteria which are applied in deciding whether 2 varieLes which have driMed apart in this fashion are separate languages or not are also poliLcal. One of the problems with a simplisLc family model is that it assumes divergence and does not take into account borrowing and other processes by which languages grow more similar. In prehistoric Lmes, migraLons of peoples oMen led to the loss of contact and to divergence. Renewed contact has led to an increase in shared linguisLc features. 1.1.2. The speech community In prehistoric Lmes and in early historical Lmes locaLon was probably the most signiScant feature which marked oO speakers into separate communiLes. Speakers in a single community were very likely to speak like other members of the same community and more or less diOerently from people who, while speaking the “same”, mutually intelligible language lived further away. It is the intense interacLon between speakers, which ensures that their language will be more or less homogeneous. The principle of accommodaLon: a basic principle of communicaLon, which dictates that we make out speech more similar to that of our communicaLon, partners when we want to:  Improve communicaLon  Gain the listener’s social approval  Maintain a posiLve social idenLty  Minimize negaLve outcomes  Reduce social and psychological distance In doing this we converge with our interlocutors, in pronunciaLon, speech rate, and pauses. We may also diverge from those we are talking to by emphasizing linguisLc diOerences in order to underscore social disLncLon or to maintain idenLLes. 1.2 LANGUAGE CHANGE Change in language is usually seen as one of the 2 types. The Srst is termed internal change and covers variaLon in what might be called the normal “driM of language”, as when more and more people within a speech community do not pronounce /h/ in words which previously had an aitch. Another example is the increasing use of demonstraLves before nouns, which had been preceded by adjecLves, by an occasional demonstraLve, but never by an arLcle. At some stage the demonstraLves became not only normal, but also systemaLc, and the result was an arLcle system. Variant forms will coexist. The spread of such innovaLons can be credited to accommodaLon. 1.2.1. Internal change What is not easily explicable is just why people begin to drop their aitches or to use more and more pre-nominal demonstraLves. Such changes are closely connected with emphaLc communicaLon. Aitches have historically been lost Srst in combinaLon with other consonants. Old English had words which began with the clusters /hl-/, /hn-/, /hr-/ and /hw-/. This /h/ represents strong
    
 
   aspiraLon and may well have gradually been associated with emphaLc expression. Its loss in such combinaLons would then be expected in non-freneLc speech. This would be a contribuLon to understanding why the combinaLon /hw-/ has been retained longest; it’s most frequent in quesLon words and they are oMen ucered individually and therefore more emphaLcally. In some type of English /h/ have actually spread, as when the interjecLon “Wow” is pronounced /hwau/ rather than historical /wau/ by some speakers in California. The use of a demonstraLve before a noun had the eOect of emphasizing the following noun. In emphaLc speech styles this must have been common usage. The original deicLc sense, the locaLon of something in Lme and space, would then have become less prominent and the sense of speciScaLon would have been generalized to nouns for which locaLon in space was not prominent. 1.2.2. Typological change ArLcle: from the formal point of view we are looking for words which precede a noun. That would be the case for “the” and “a/an” in English and for “le/el/lo” e “un/una” in Spanish, but it would not include the parLcle added at the end of nouns in Swedish, for example “-et” in “huset”. FuncLons, and not form alone, clearly also play an indispensable role. From a funcLonal perspecLve arLcles are “speciSers”: they indicate that the noun which follows is a parLcular, individual example of the class indicated by the noun. In the case of English the changes that took place between the Old English period and Early Modern English was so great that people speak of a typological change. Word order pacerns changed, indecLons were lost, subject pronouns became mandatory, new noun and verb categories emerged while older ones disappeared. Modes of address, expressions of politeness, structures of discourse also changed. 1.2.3. External change When languages come into contact with one another, they are likely to have an induence on each other, someLmes quiet signiScant, as in the case of “creolizaLon”, and someLmes relaLvely superScial. In either case the change within the receiving language may be traced back to its source. 1.2.4. CreolizaLon In some cases a large subaltern group, itself frequently polyglot, comes to be dominated by a group of powerful speakers of an “outside” language. The nature of the dominaLon may be poliLcal, military, economic, religious, or whatever; it may last for a short Lme or for centuries; the contact between the dominant and the subordinate groups may be close or distant. All of these factors are likely to have an eOect on language use, and one of the results of such language contact can be the emergence of a creole. The condiLons for CreolizaLon are most likely to come about in a situaLon in which there is imperfect learning of the superordinate language, the superstrate, on the part of those learners who will eventually contribute the basis for a creole. This is due to more distant contact with the superstrate. Such speakers are frequently dependent on devising a means of communicaLon. A great deal of lexical borrowing from the superstrate takes place, but the borrowed vocabulary is used, according to the grammar of their naLve language(s), the substrate(s). What is produced may seem like a word-for-word translaLon of the speaker’s L1 using vocabulary from the superstrate. Such a linguisLc state of aOairs is referred to as pidginizaLon, whereby a pidgin is understood as a language which is nobody’s naLve language. There may be as many diOerent grammars as there are naLve languages of the pidgin speakers. In the case of pre-invasion Germanic we have no direct, documentary evidence of CreolizaLon; the rather striking changes in pronunciaLon of Proto-Germanic in comparison to the other Indo-European languages may well be an indicaLon of contact between Indo-European invaders and a non Indo-European substrate of speakers. The development of arLcle systems in the Romance languages and in the West Germanic languages is an indicaLon of an induence that can hardly have just been “in the air”. Some of the substrate languages of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, of Gaul, and of the north-western Europe exclusive of Scandinavia may have had arLcle systems, thus reinforcing an internal, pragmaLcally moLvated typological shiM to languages with arLcle systems. The deSnite arLcle developed notably diOerently in the Scandinavian languages and in Romanian. In all the Slavonic languages there is no deSnite arLcle at all, suggesLng a diOerent set of condiLons in diOerent geographical areas. 1.2.5. Borrowing Cultural and linguisLc diOerence may aOect languages without bringing about any signiScant structural change. When new arLfacts, new processes, and new ideas are adopted in a society previously without them, their designaLon are oMen the result either of the use of naLve elements in word formaLon processes or of the borrowing of the words used in the donor language. OE “eorÞcraM” (earth-craM) is a combinaLon of 2 naLve elements in a familiar process of compounding and is used to express the classical concept of geometry. Borrowing from LaLn in the pre-invasion Germanic period was a very producLve way of expanding the Germanic word stock and its eOects will be dealt with below. 1.3. CHANGES IN GERMANIC BEFORE THE INVASIONS OF BRITAIN Proto-Germanic diOers from the other Indo-European languages because of the imposiLon of Proto-Indo-European on a group of speakers with a diOerent substrate language. DiOerences between the Germanic branch and the other IE languages: 1. The smaller number of tense and aspect disLncLons of Proto-Germanic; 2. The presence of regular verbs with a [-d] or [-t] ending in the past; 3. The presence of weak adjecLve endings; 4. The shiM of word stress to the root syllable; 5. The presence of a fairly large number of words which do not seem to be derived from IE sources; and 6. The eOects of Grimm’s and Verner’s Laws. 1.3.1. Changes in pronunciaLon Long before the invaders from the northwest of the European conLnent arrived in Britain, a subgrouping of the speakers of Proto- Indo-European adopted changes in pronunciaLon that came to be known as the First Germanic Sound ShiM. One part of this,
    
 
   Kent. The Sgure of Hengist, who is claimed to be the descendant of Wodon redects the need for a divine founding myth more than historical fact. Bede’s claim is that Kent was secled by Jutes, and this is conSrmed by archaeological evidence. There is no evidence of Frankish seclements. More important than disLnguishing which group was involved is their reason for migraLng. The moLvaLon for leaving may have been a worsening of living condiLons and the pressure of a growing populaLon as push-factors and the wish to proSt from the opportuniLes for material becerment on the other side of the North Sea as a pull-factor. 1.6. SUMMARY In the history language has played a decisive role. It has always been subject to change. In the course of that change ancient “families” of languages emerged which further diverged to make up the languages we can observe at present. Some of the principles of change explain how the Germanic subgroup developed and within it the West Germanic languages, which include English. The speakers of the various Germanic languages stood in a close relaLonship to the Roman Empire, which exercised a great deal of induence on the lives of the Germanic peoples, including borrowings into their languages. It was a number of the coastal tribes which Srst raided and then later secled in Britain. 2 - OLD ENGLISH – EARLY GERMANIC BRITAIN (450-700) 2.1 THE FIRST PEOPLES The Srst speakers of an Indo-European language who secled in Britain were Celts. These people may have arrived as early as 2000 BCE, though probably not unLl someLme in the Srst millennium BCE and secled throughout both Britain and Ireland by the Lme
    
 
   wricen history records anything about these islands. These peoples maintained trade relaLons with Rome in the Snal centuries BCE, in which Britain was an important supplier of Ln. 2.1.1. CelAc inEuence The are no records of the CelLc language(s) these people spoke, but it may be assumed that what they spoke were the Goidelic- CelLc predecessors of Irish and Scotsh Gaelic and Brythonic-CelLc ancestors of Welsh. Yet CelLc leM few traces in English. The rural CelLc populaLon would have benne enslaved or subdued; or they would have been driven oO the land, moving westward into Cornwall or Wales or leaving Britain for Bricany in present-day France. They would have had licle opportunity to add the word stock of the Germanic newcomers or to exercise induence on grammar or pronunciaLon. Among the excepLons were a few items such as OE “bannuc” – “bit, small piece”. Virtually nothing further in the everyday vocabulary of English tesLSes to the linguisLc presence of the once dominant CelLc-speaking populaLon A number of LaLn words have also entered OE by way of CelLc: “ass” – “donkey” < OIr “asan” < LaLn “asinus”. There are so few traces of CelLc in English that it is hardly possible to idenLfy a parLcular domain of CelLc induence, though the presence of these religious words does speak for the induence of the CelLc Church in England. There may be a couple hundred words which are ulLmately of CelLc origin, most of them place-names. 2.1.2. Place-names or toponyms The linguisLc origins of place-names in England come chiedy from 2 sources. One is some prominent feature of the topography such as a river, a hill, or a dat plain. The other is the name of the inhabitants of a locality, that is those whose place it is. LinguisLc elements of the name provide us with hints about the language once used in a given area. Some toponyms may have sources in one single language; hybrid forms are also common. Among the purely CelLc names we Snd “Bernicia, Devon”, both tribal names, but also “Kent”. Examples of hybrid forms include both CelLc-LaLn and CelLc-Germanic combinaLons. “Lincoln” combines “lindon”, a CelLc word for “pool” with LaLn “Colonia” “colony, seclement” both shortened to “Lin + coln”. CelLc toponyms can be found throughout England, but are understandably more prominent toward the west and north, areas which remained CelLc-speaking longer. We Snd more West-Germanic place-names in the South and Southeast, and a large number of North Germanic, Scandinavian ones in the North and Northeast, where the Vikings secled in large numbers. West Germanic toponyms include names ending in –ham (Birmingham), -borough, -bury (Marlborough, Salisbury), -ing(s) (HasLngs), -ton (Northampton), -Seld (Sheqeld). In addiLon to the Germanic, CelLc and LaLn names, Romance elements show up in the form of further LaLn borrowings such as “portus” – “harbour”; “strata” – “road. Street”; “vicus” – “farm or village”. Other Roman language place-names were introduced from French much later, aMer the Norman Conquest. They include “Beaulieu” < “beau” – “beauLful” + “lieu” “place”. 2.1.3. Roman inEuence Gallia on the ConLnent was also originally CelLc-speaking, but throughout RomanizaLon in Gaul led to the eventual displacement of CelLc by LaLn, which itself evolved into French and Provençal. In Britain the process of RomanizaLon greatly advanced in the towns and ciLes, so that there must have been a high degree a CelLc-LaLn bilingualism in which there was relaLvely licle borrowing from the less presLgious CelLc into the local LaLn. Once the Romans had gone and the Germanic invaders had made their incursions, communicaLon with BriLsh leaders is more likely to have been in LaLn than in CelLc. The linguisLc induence of the language of the rural populaLon on the Germanic newcomers would have been minimal. In the case of the Romans, interest in Britain moved beyond the realm of trade when Julius Caesar landed there in 55 and again in 54 BCE. He may have only intended to cow the Britons enough to prevent them from helping their Gallic cousins across the Channel. One consequence of Caesar’s venture was to bind Britain more Lghtly under the poliLcal and economic induence of Rome. In 43 CE, a Roman expediLonary force seriously began with the conquest of what was to be England. There was CelLc resistance such as the rebellion led by Queen Bodicea in the Southeast, revolts of the more northerly Brigantes, and repeated incursions of the Picts and Scots moving south from Scotland. From the third century on Germanic raids on the southern coast and later Irish raids in the west began to pose further threats to Britain. Roman ciLes and towns grew up throughout all but the far West and the North, where Roman conquest had begun and the induence of Rome was most secure. Britain conLnued to be important as a supplier of metals. Both trade and military control were facilitated by Hadrian’s Wall and, for a Lme the Antonine Wall as well as a series of forts and a system of Roman roads, the major ones of which were centred in London, which was founded by the Romans. The wealthy were able to emulate Roman life styles and to live in large houses with central heaLng, running water, and Lled mosaic doors. Roman dress, ornaments, utensils, pocery and glassware were in use, and towns might well have public baths, a theatre and temples. Trade was greatly facilitated by the use of money. LaLn seems to have contributed licle to English during this period. This may have been due to the civic and military disorder that characterized the transiLon from Roman to CelLc to Saxon power. LaLn returned with the introducLon of ChrisLanity about 2 centuries later and exerted considerable induence on English. 2.2. THE GERMANIC INCURSIONS Legend has it, as recorded by Bede in his “Historia ecclesiasLca genLs Anglorum” of 730 and also recorded in the “Anglo Saxon Chronicle” for the year 449, that the CelLc King VorLgern sought Germanic military help. VorLgern’s people and lands were under pressure from the Picts and the Scots, but also from Saxon raiders; VorLgern followed the example of the Romans in enlisLng Germanic reinforcements. Germanic soldiers had served in the Roman army in Britain and some seem to have secled in Britain as
    
 
   well. If the Germanic forces did not enslave the Celts, they drove them oO. Thus to the West remained CelLc-speaking, as did Cornwall. In other areas such as Elmet in Yorkshire islands of CelLc seclement remained. The newcomers were part of a Germanic farming culture,. As such they were less interested and involved in urban culture as pracLced by Romans and Britons, which contributes to an understanding of why so licle was borrowed from LaLn or CelLc into the emerging English language. Roman culture began to collapse under the neglect it experienced from the invaders. Germanic seclement pacerns followed the rivers and the Roman roads. The Saxons were concentrated on the south coast, in Sussex and Wessex, but also North of the Thames in Middlesex and Essex; the Angles were to be found on the east coast and in the Midlands reaching up into Northumbria and southern Scotland by 600; the Jutes secled in Kent and the Isle od Wight. Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians: they probably came as uncoordinated bands, but new arrivals will probably have put down roots near earlier kinsfolk, though it is not impossible that the secler groups may have included some mixing. All of the newcomers were speakers of “North Sea Germanic”, also known as Ingvaeonic. The speech community extended not only throughout Anglo-Saxon England, but also to the ConLnental side of the North Sea as well. English is closely related to Frisian, which is spoken in parts of The Netherlands and Germany. There were original dialecLcal diOerences, there was such a high degree of similarity that the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons was uniformly called “Englisc” by all four groups. 2.2.1. The Germanic kingdoms Throughout the country a series of small kingdoms under local chiefs began to emerge in groupings in which social organizaLon was by family and clan and there were hereditary nobles and simple freemen. Decisions were taken in a local assembly. The chieMains were the heads of families. As the poliLcal boundaries of the kingdoms were oMen the same as those of the corresponding bishoprics, once ChrisLanizaLon had taken place, the power base was broader than the clan or the dynasty. Stability is likely to have come from the eventual creaLon of a hybrid BriLsh-Saxon people. A ruthless process of amalgamaLon seems to have led to ever larger units so that over the sixth century a loose structure of kingdoms came into existence. They included smaller kingdoms such as Lindsey, Hwicce and Middle Anglia, which were eventually absorbed by Mercia and Bernicia and Deira, which combined to form the kernel of Northumbria. Such combinaLons of smaller units led to a set of 7 major kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex and Wessex, known as the Heptarchy. Kent took on early prominence under King Aethelbert. East Anglia was a late sixth and early seventh century centre of power, and the wealth found at the seventh century burial site at Sucon Hoo bears witness to this. In the seventh century, the predominance of power lay in Northumbria. In the eighth, it moved south to Mercia. AMer the Viking invasions in the ninth and tenth centuries, Anglo-Saxon power was centred in Wessex. 2.2.2. The laws of the Kent Æðelbirth was not only an early convert to ChrisLanity, but an important overlord, over Kent and Essex. His legiLmacy was claimed genealogically. One such claim has him as the son of Irminric, son of Octa, son of Oeric, surnamed Oisc, son of Hengist. Æðelbirth’s law code is the oldest preserved Anglo-Saxon code and stems from the beginning of the 7th century, that is, from 602 or 603. It comprises some 90 laws and governs quesLons of liability in cases of injury indicted on the Church or within the feudale hierarchy. It tesLSes to the close relaLonship between Church and State. 2.3. INTRODUCTION TO OLD ENGLISH 2.3.1. Alphabet, spelling and pronunciaAon OE texts did not have the strict convenLon of spaces between words that we are familiar with. Among the modiScaLons we Snd the lecer <þ> called “thorn”, which is used for present-day <th>, as is <ð>, called “eth”. A second unusual lecer is <æ> as in “there, then”. It is called “ash” and is pronounced as a low front vowel, for which the InternaLonal PhoneLc Alphabet uses the same symbol /æ/. Other fricaLves are also not disLnguished as their voiceless and voiced allophones. This means that <f> can be /f/ or /v/; /s/ or /z/. <Sc> is always the voiceless fricaLve /ʃ/. The lecer <c> is diqcult to interpret. Before the front vowels <i> and /ea/, palatalizaLon has taken place, giving us /ʧ/, as in “church”; elsewhere the pronunciaLon is /k/, as in “king”. In much the same manner /g/ may be /j/ before front vowels. One Snal ambiguous lecer is <h>. At the beginning of a word it has the value of /h/, as in “him”, but it is / x/, like German <ch> or Spanish <j>, before a consonant. The lecer-vowels are assumed to have been pronounced much like their “ConLnental” values, but the use here of lecers with macrons over the vowel is a purely modern convenLon based on the presumed length of the vowel. We recognize as long <ā, Ǣ, ē, ī, ō, ū, ȳ> with a macron and the same lecer without a macron as short. Hence the vowels of OE are paired long and short /ɑ(:), æ(:), e(:), i(:), o(:), y(:)/. For two vowel-lecers together we assume a diphthongal pronunciaLon /eo/ and /iy/. 2.3.2. Pronouns In OE, in contrast to ModE, there are four grammaLcal cases – and in the masculine and neuter of the third person singular, an addiLonal case, the instrumental. There are three numbers, singular, dual, and plural although the dual, which only applied to the Srst and second persons. The second person sLll regularly disLnguished singular and plural. 2.3.3. General grammaAcal informaAon Word order may be diOerent from ModE; see especially subordinate clauses, in which the verb appears at the end. There are no arLcles in the noun phrase. The word þā is the nominaLve plural masculine demonstraLve determiner “those”. These demonstraLves evolve into the deSnite arLcle of the emerging arLcle system as well as supplying the morphologically simpliSed forms of the demonstraLve system. Case appears in the nominaLve, geniLve, daLve and accusaLve; preposiLons require objects with case endings. Some expressions which appear with a preposiLon in ModE may appear only with a case ending, but without a preposiLon.
    
 
   Seclements of Danes and of Anglo-Saxons existed in relaLve proximity. With the end of paganism religion oOered an addiLonal bond. Hence the acack by Olaf Tryggvason in 991, in which his forces pillaged towns on the southern coast, must be seen as a result of dynasLc and not ethnic rivalry. He and his army also fought the Saxons at Maldon. The OE poem, “The Bacle of Maldon”, commemorates the acack, which took place on the coast northeast of London. The exisLng version of the poem probably stems from the late 11th century. It tells the story of English forces defeated by the Viking invaders, but the poem celebrates the Saxons’ heroic stand. The renewed acacks by Danes did lead to the payment of tribute and the establishment of a Danish king over all England. First Sweyn Forkbeard and then his son Cnut took the throne. Since Cnut was king of Denmark and later of Norway, his reign put an end to the Danish raids, but not to Danish claims to the throne, which followed his death as well as the death of the longest reigning of his pre-conquest successors, Edward the confessor. Even under the Danish kings it was English and not Danish which was spoken at court. 3.2 LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE OF OLD NORSE The two groups lived close together, and there was probably a fair amount of intermarriage. There was sure to have been a fair amount of bilingualism. The displacement of Danish is unthinkable without bilingualism. A renewed set of military incursions by the Danes did not reverse language shiM of English. “The Norse induence on English was pervasive, in the sense that its results are found in all parts of the language; but it was not deep except in the lexicon”. 3.2.1. Vocabulary Many words were virtually idenLcal, though pronunciaLon and indecLon oMen diOered. Numerous words did diOer, and quite a lot of Scandinavian vocabulary was borrowed. It was about 400 words, and they were oMen among the most common. Nordicisms in the rural dialects amount to another 2000. The borrowings come from all areas of life. ON induence is visible especially in the area of war and mariLme acLviLes, where it provided a fairly large subgrouping of loan words such as “barda” – beaked ship. We Snd a number of words relaLng to law or the administraLve system: “lagu” – law; “husLng” – tribunal. What is remarkable is the huge number of common words which have an ON source. Among the most widely used we Snd “get, give, take; dirt, dregs, mire; nag, call, scowl; guess, want, thrive”, but also farm and animal terms such as “axletree, bull, down, egg”, as well as words for bodily features: “freckles, leg and skin”. This shows the induence of Scandinavian speakers in domesLc and working life. Borrowing may be straigh‹orward, when there is no exact equivalent in the borrowing language. We have to do with loan translaLons, as in the case of “hamsocn”< ON “heimr” – home + ON “sokn” – struggle, Sght, a kind of ancient breaking and entering. In some cases both Norse and Saxon words remained in use though someLmes with meaning disLncLons, as with “anger, cast, die, ill” next to OE “wrap, weorpan, steorfan, yfel”. In sLll other cases the meaning may come from one language but the form from the other: OE “hlaf” menat –bread, while OE “bread” meant –fragment. Other words conLnued to be used in the Norce-induenced tradiLonal dialects not just of Northumbria and Cumbria, but also of Lindsey, Fourboroughs, Norfolk, Elmet, Lancaster and Chester, words like “aclen” – think. Most Scandinavian loan words do not appear in wriLng unLl the ME period; their form shows they were adopted in the late OE period. 3.2.2. PronunciaLon In many cases OE and ON words are virtually idenLcal, but oMen sound changes have led to disLncLons. There are 5 very prominent cases: 1 Proto-Germanic /sk/ remained /sk/ in Norse, but became /ʃ/ in OE. 2 /g/ for /j/ as in “give” or “egg”. 3 /k/ for OE /ʧ/ as in “kid” or “kirk”. 4 Proto-Germanic /ai/ became /ei/ in Norse, but /o:/ in OE as in the ModE pairs “nay-no”, “hale-whole”. 5 Proto-Germanic /au/ remained ON /au/, but became OE /e:a/ as in “lauss” (ModE –loose) vs. “leas” (ModE – less). Other pronunciaLon diOerences such as Norse loss of iniLal w- or metathesis are less frequent. 3.2.3. IndecLon One of the most signiScant changes between Old and the Middle English was the gradual decay of indecLonal endings. This loss occurred both in the areas where contact with ON was strong as well as within the West Saxon area. The North showed large numbers of Norse borrowings and grammaLcal induence while the South was a more or less unbroken conLnuaLon of OE. Change was more rapid in the North. IndecLonal loss shows up in: 1 Loss of grammaLcal gender; 2 SimpliScaLon of gender, number and case agreement in adjecLves, qualiSers, quanLSers and demonstraLves; 3 The general loss of daLve and geniLve plural cases. The language contact situaLon in Danelaw area, presumably with widespread bilingualism, seems to have led to a grammaLcally instable situaLon in which speakers were uncertain about endings. The most important innovaLons were the introducLon of the (-es) ending in the 3rd person singular, present tense where the South conLnued to use (-eð), which is oMen spelled <-eth>. The source may be the ON 3rd person singular ending, once an older (-r), which regularly changed to (-s). Midlands: an early ME plural verb form ending in (-n) helped to overcome the possible confusion of the someLmes idenLcal 3rd person singular and plural pronouns “he”.
    
 
   GrammaLcal gender and case disLncLons were already growing less and less important and would eventually be given up in favour of natural gender. The OE 3rd person pronoun paradigm began uniformly with <h>. the important diOerences in case, gender and number were marked by the indecLons. The disLncLons between the vowels were becoming less and less reliable. Several forms were idenLcal. The nominaLve and accusaLve singular feminine and the plural of the same cases were also idenLcal: “hie”. This was already leading to what, in ME, would be a signiScantly modiSed system. Once again innovaLon came from the North: the replacement of the OE 3rd person plural personal pronouns by form was induenced by ON, all the forms of which began with <th>. In the case of feminine singular nominaLve “heo” the soluLon lay elsewhere. “Heo” was replaced by the corresponding demonstraLve pronoun “seo”. The lacer could have developed into “she” through palatalizaLon of /s/ + a high front unstressed vowel which produced /ʃ/. The vowel /o:/, where “sho” appears instead of “she”, was in common use for a long Lme and is sLll used in some regional dialects. The convergence of “he” and “heo” and of “hie” to the single homophonous form “he” led to the use not just of the plural “þei” but also to feminine singular variants. Hēo  heō  /hjo, hje/  /ço, çe/  /ʃo, ʃe/ This change would have begun in Cumbria in the Norse-induenced North and then gradually spread southward. Evidence for this can be found in wricen forms like <ʒhe(o), ʒho, ghe>, represenLng /ç/, which was then replaced by <s(c)he, s(c)ho>. This is traceable in Devon, Dorset and Kent. 3.2.4. Syntax In OE the relaLve parLcle was most usually the word “þe”, which could take an antecedent of any type and which was not further disLnguished for case or number. ON also contributed to the use of the relaLve parLcle “as”, which is more common today in northern than in southern English dialects in its non-standard use. As such it corresponds to Norse “som” –as. The zero relaLve: it seems that this structure occurred before the Viking invasions, but it is remarkable that it is a relaLvely rare construcLon in the languages of the world, but one shared by Danish and English. The same applies to the preposiLon stranding, a construcLon in which the relaLve is fronted, but the preposiLon whose object it is remains in its “original” place in the clause. An illustraLon of this is the preceding sentence in which the words “in which” can be changed to show stranding. In the verb phrase there was licle use in OE of the perfect, the progressive, the will-future, or the use of “do” as an auxiliary, that is, do-periphrasis. These were to become increasingly common in the ME period. The loss of the standard, whether in Danelaw or under Norman French dominaLon, was like taking the lid oO the pot and letng vernacular forms percolate upward where they would eventually be incorporated into the new standard that would begin to emerge in the ME period. 3.3 CREOLIZATION The developments in English between the OE and the ME periods were so strongly aOected by language contact between ON and OE that this may be a case of pidginizaLon and CreolizaLon. 3.3.1. PidginizaLon and CreolizaLon These are the result of language contact in which there is signiScant change in the structure of the resulLng languages. In pidginizaLon there is massive simpliScaLon including the loss of indecLons and the reducLon of grammaLcal categories such as gender, case, number, tense and aspect. A creole generates grammaLcal categories such as number, tense, aspect and modality marked by the introducLon of individual words or parLcles rather than the use of indecLons. When a creole come into existence, the upper or superstrate language to supply the necessary parLcles. These are employed in a grammaLcally non-English way to mark negaLon and tense. In both pidginizaLon and CreolizaLon there is massive borrowing from the lexiSer language. The prosody of the less presLgious substrate language or languages is retained. Pidgins and creoles come about most oMen in situaLons in which there is social inequality between the powerful speakers of the upper or superstrate language and the subjugated speakers of the substrate language. 3.3.2. Arguments and evidence Two strong proponents of the CreolizaLon hypothesis are Bailey and Maroldt, who see evidence for CreolizaLon, which they deSne as a gradient mixture of two or more languages. They argue that a Norse-English creole arose in the North between 900 and 1066 as a new system and not merely as a new subsystem which internal change could have brought about. It involved substanLal change. This can be seen the simpliScaLon of indecLons and the loss of grammaLcal gender and most instances of case. Middle English is a mixed language or creole. ON and OE stood in close contact in the North. ON was widely spoken and would have led to a situaLon of linguisLc instability. OE indecLons disappeared more extensively and earlier in the North. The status of OE in Danelaw could easily have led to increased borrowing of basic vocabulary from ON, and this is typical of CreolizaLon. This posiLon is rejected by Thomason and Kaufman, who concede that there was important structural change in English and that ON-OE language contact was the source of much of it, but the y do not understand this as evidence of CreolizaLon. The type of change observed was happening independently of ON-OE language contact. The loss of Snal /ǝ/, which led to the loss of a number of grammaLcal disLncLons in the North, occurred aMer Norse had died out there even though it came even later in the South. The Norse features of Northern English appeared abruptly and remained unLl aMer the development of StE. In the North there was unrounding of /œ/ and /y/, which were kept in the South. In the North /s/ was used for Southern /ʃ/. The North lost the inSniLve suqx, which was kept in the South. In the North the past of strong verbs had only one vowel. There are few text between 900 and 1200 which redect vernacular English. Vernacular documents aMer 1200 do indeed show licle change in the South, more in the Midlands, and a great deal in the North.
    
 
   Danelaw English has numerous features which may be acributed to Norse. This indicates intense borrowing and contact-induced shiM. The induence of Norse on Danelaw English is clearly present in the lack of voicing of iniLal fricaLves. The induence of Norse clearly reinforced the lack of iniLal voicing in Danelaw. NorsiSed English did not have the perfect preSx (ge-) used in West Saxon. 3.3.3. CreolizaLon or not? For Thomason and Kaufman the greater simplicity of Danelaw ME represents internal simpliScaLon of English and is not due to ON induence. This would include the switch to natural gender in Old Northumbrian, the lack of gender and case agreement, element of Norse grammar and vocabulary. NorsiSed English seems to have arisen in the eastern Midlands and to have contained numerous Midlands elements, but also important Norse grammaLcal components. It came about while Norse was sLll spoken. Thomason and Kaufman conclude that ME contained 20% Norse features; 75% are English. The remaining 5% are pure innovaLons. The 2 languages were too similar to begin with, and there wasn’t any polyglot substrate as is typically the case with pidginizaLon and CreolizaLon. Bilingualism with a high degree of lexical and grammaLcal borrowing is more likely. The language spoken would have included both anglicized Norse as well as Norse-induenced English. Lack of texts which redect the vernacular in the long period from about 900 to 1250. 3.4 ALFRE’S REFORMS AND THE WEST SAXON STANDARD The kingdom of Wessex was the only independent English power outside of the areas in England under Norse control aMer the kingdom of Kent had been absorbed by Wessex in 825. Alfred exerted military resistance against the Danes, and he sLmulated a revival of learning by commissioning the translaLon of a number of important LaLn works into OE. This was a reversal of the decline following the disastrous Viking raids, which had disrupted monasLc life. The kind of literary work which Alfred iniLated is an indicaLon of some of the moLves behind his literary revival. Two of the most important were “Cura Pastoralis” and the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”. The former was originally wricen in LaLn in or around the year 590 by Pope Gregory. TranslaLons of the Cura Pastoralis were sent to each of the 12 dioceses which lay under West Saxon control. This had the eOect of establishing common religious-intellectual ground within Alfred’s territory. The vernacular language and the literature served as a Srst move beyond mere military uniScaLon toward a consciousness of ethnic idenLty. The Norse presence was crucial since it trigged the intellectual revival. Alfred’s use of English translaLons was a pedagogically wise move since the level of LaLn was probably too low and too restricted to have the kind of induence which was envisioned by the king. The kinds of texts are religious, historical and legal texts. The literary and poliLcal centre moved southward to Mercia in the 8th century. Evidence of the Mercian tradiLon is to be found in the “Life of St. Chad”, which is preserved in a 12th century manuscript, but employing 9th century spelling. This text suggests a pre- Alfredian interest in translaLon and reveals a relaLvely standardized language. Mercian power and the Mercian literary tradiLon were destroyed by the Norse incursions. Saxon was to be the standard language. West Saxon dialect of OE soon became the basis of wricen OE even beyond the borders of Wessex. By about the year 1000 West Saxon was essenLally the OE wricen standard. The induence of Wessex was so strong because the eOorts of Alfred and his royal successors led to the gradual defeat of the Danes as more and more territory came under the control of the West Saxon dynasty. Under Wessex rule the division into counLes came into existence. The kings of Wessex succeeded in unifying England and thus establishing the prerequisites for economic stability and prosperity. In the period of Wessex ascendency England became a uniSed country, no longer Angelcynn, an ethnic designaLon, but Englaland, a poliLcal one. 3.5. MONASTIC REFORM, LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENTS AND LITERARY GENRES In the 10th century, due to the combined eOorts of Dunstan, Archibishop of Cnaterbury, Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester and Oswald, bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York, monasLc reforms were introduced along the lines of the changes that had been introduced in Cluny. These led to further literary and linguisLc revival. One of the most prominent eOects of this is the rather sizeable set of words borrowed into English from LaLn, most of them learned in nature. But also scholarly words such as accent, “istoria” – history. There are also words for dora such as “gingifer” – ginger and fauna including “camel”. Some 450 LaLn words can be found in OE wriLngs. A large number of Germanic words which had taken on a ChrisLan meaning might be added. Many LaLn concepts appeared as loan translaLons or calques. NaLve words also took on new meanings in the context of the new religion as when “sanctus/a” –saint is expressed by “halga” – the holy one. They resembled Germanic words in their pronunciaLon and structure and that they could enter into naLve word formaLon processes. 3.5.1. Ælfric Ælfric of Eynsham, one of the most proliSc writers of the OE period, became a leading Sgure. He was important because of his strictly religious wriLng, which consisted of numerous homilies, but also because of his eOorts at reviving LaLn. This he pursued by means of his Grammar, his Glossary and his Colloquy. The Srst was a LaLn grammar wricen in English; the second, a word-list arranged by topic; the third a manual to help students learn how to speak LaLn. He is also known as Ælfric the Grammarian. He helped to establish the West Saxon standard. This meant a more consistent use of the grammaLcal cases. He helped to establish a more standardized vocabulary. 3.5.2. The Codex Exoniensis The Codex is one of the most important manuscripts of OE literature and the largest sLll in existence. It is a collecLon of 10 th century poetry in the West Saxon standard by unidenLSed authors. It was probably composed in the second half of the 10 th century and was given by Leofric, the 1st bishop of Exeter, to the Exeter Cathedral library in the middle of the 11th century. It is a product of the
    
 
   singular and plural idenLcal. The nasal disappeared. There was a levelling of indecLonal a, o, u, e to schwa. <-a, -u, -e, -an, -um> all show up as <-e>. all of this was occurring between the 10th and 12th centuries. The most common declension of OE, which followed the pacern for <stone> “stan, stanes, stane, stan” and “stanas, stana, stanum, stanas”, was reduced to 2 forms, “stan” and “stanes”. The (-es) was to be generalized to most nouns for the possessive singular as well as the complete plural. IniLally the South had also favoured the (-en) plural on the pacern of the second most frequent OE declension, whose plural was (-an) in the nominaLve and accusaLve. The North and northern Midlands went over to (-s) by 1200 as did all the Midlands 50 years later. In the course of the 14th century, the (-s) plural was accepted everywhere. The presence of the Viking seclements and ON language contact was probably an important factor since it may have destabilized the system in the North to a degree which accelerated the loss of indecLons. While language contact will surely have played an important role in iniLaLng change, once it began, it ran its course independently of the iniLal impetus. IndecLonal loss had wide- reaching consequences beyond morphology: it led to more analyLc syntacLc forms, especially the spread of periphrasLc construcLons. A relaLvely large number of innovaLons came from the North. This may have had to do with changes which took place under Norse induence, quite a bit of this may be due to the survival in the South of the OE standard in wriLng. It gradually grew outdated as the spoken vernacular changed, and it lost in importance due to the rise of French and LaLn, yet it remained a presence and a preserve of older and more conservaLve features of the language. Scandinavian induences supplied some forms: 1. The third person plural pronoun; 2. The present tense plural of the verb “be”; 3. The third person singular present tense verb indecLon. The advance of the new forms can be traced in documents on their way southward, as they Srst appear in the North, then in the Midlands, and Snally in the South. In the case of the third person plural pronoun, the switch occurred Srst in subject funcLon as “they” displaced “hey”. New grammaLcal pacerns may also have been induenced by the presence of French speakers.  “Who” came to be used more and more for the OE relaLve “þe” on the model of French “qui”;  “Weorþan” was replaced by “be” as the passive auxiliary, perhaps under the induence of French “etre” “be” + past parLciple;  French “faire” “do, make” + inSniLve may have indirectly induenced the rise of periphrasLc “do” in English;  There was also case levelling of subject “ye” to object “you” parallel to the model of French “vous”. The loss of the “ye-you” disLncLon is also credited to a levelling in pronunciaLon. The most far-reaching changes in grammar were due to the conLnuing loss of indecLons. The spread of noun plural /-s/ may have been marginally aOected by Anglo-Norman (-s), but is basically an independent development. There was a shiM from syntheLc to analyLc structure, from a syntacLc system which was highly dependent on indecLonal endings with less strictly Sxed word order to a system with few endings and highly prescribed word order. The new word order led to the gradual abandonment of SOV, which was frequent in dependent clauses in OE. Verb-second order became increasingly infrequent, yielding to AdvSVO. There was also a move to greater use of periphrasLc verb structures, such as the progressive and the perfect, ones which depended more on auxiliaries than on mood and tense indecLons, and on preposiLonal phrases in place of case endings. Pronoun objects in OE tended to be pre-verbal. Nominal objects were post-verbal. The loss of indecLon is frequently given as one of the moLvaLons for Sxed word order and the use of preposiLons. Pronouns could follow the older pacern longer. OE is in this sense organized by discourse structure, which means that elements can be moved to the front of the sentence in order to come into focus. In ME word order was much more strictly determined by syntacLc factors and no longer allowed the freedom of movement of OE. 4.2.3.1. The verb The verb was also aOected by indecLonal change and loss. Irregular verbs: almost one-third of them had become regular be the ME period. In other cases there was levelling between the vowel of the past singular and the vowel of the past plural. The unitary vowel chosen was either that of the singular or of the past parLciple. Loss or reducLon of verb endings meant that person and number disLncLons were reduced to a single disLncLon in the North, but considerably more in the conservaLve South. The Midlands Srst had either –es or –eth for the 3rd person singular and –es and –en for the plural. The progressive
    
 
   In OE “bēon” + present parLciple is ambiguous and may be a main verb followed by a parLcipial adjecLve or may already be a progressive. The loss of such preSxes as 8a-. be-, ge-) may have given impetus to the progressive as a way of expressing on-going acLvity or duraLve aspect. In the North –ing and –ande remained disLnct much longer even though the progressive was stronger there. In Scotland the two were kept separate because parLciple and gerund did not coalesce. In early ME the frequency of the progressive was low. The Polychronicon (1387) has 5/100000 words. In the ME period the use of the progressive is much higher in Northern texts than in midland or southern texts. “Havelok”, a northern text, has no examples of the progressive. The use of the progressive with the perfect and aMer modals came in the 14th century; the future and the passive progressives did not emerge unLl much later, yet by the end of the ME period there was a clear increase and the progressive sky- rocketed at the beginning of the ModE period. The perfect In OE the auxiliary of the perfect was “habben/hauen” or “ben”, but the former was ousLng the lacer. The original disLncLon between change-of-state and intransiLves with “ben” and staLve verbs with “hauen” is hard to maintain strictly. The loss of “ben” is someLmes explained by the high funcLonal load of “ben”. In ME the placement of the past parLciple at the end is sLll common and conLnued unLl the 16th century. “Habban” allowed the speaker to place the verb in the Snal, most emphaLc posiLon, and this may be a decisive reason for using the perfect rather than the simple past. The perfect is more frequent in instrucLonal and colloquial texts and occurs mostly in the Srst and second persons. Why this happened precisely in ME is not clear though this might be a part of the general change in Germanic languages from morphological tense/mood/aspect verbal marking to a system with grammaLcalized auxiliaries. Modal auxiliaries There was a strong decline in the subjuncLve, even in OE Lmes as revealed by the coalescence of the subjuncLve and indicaLve indecLons. The modal verbs “shal, wil, may, mot(e), can” were taking on morphological and syntacLc features which disLnguished them more and more from lexical verbs.  The lack of non-Snite forms  The lack of the possibility of taking an object  The lack of noLonal meaning  The dissociaLon of tense and Lme  The retenLon of the bare inSniLve as a complement  The need of a second verb Nega7on OE negaLon was with “ne”, someLmes coupled with “nan, neþing, næfre”. By late ME “naht” alone was the most frequent type of negaLon. The double form was common in early ME in declaraLves, imperaLves and optaLves, but “ne” occurred alone in interrogaLves. Since “ne” is as unstressed element, it disappeared in favour of emphaLc “naht”, which is sLll stressed in ModE. But in ME two or more negaLve indeSnite pronouns or adverbs were sLll normal. The non-asserLve “any-forms” sLll did not have the distribuLon we Snd today. Concord One of the consequences of Sxed word order may well be the use of singular concord with conjoined subjects. Concord was to some extent more loosely structured in Middle English than In Present-day English. A further result of more Sxed word order was the loss of daLve subjects. The passive OE could form a passive only from an accusaLve object, and this conLnued to be the main rule in ME. This changed in ME to include passive subject corresponding to daLve or preposiLonal objects in acLve sentences, something which had not been possible in OE. One factor in this expansion was the gradual decrease in the use of the indeSnite “man” construcLon. More crucial was the loss of the indecLonal endings of nouns since it made it harder and harder to disLnguish nominaLve from daLve. A daLve noun in in subject posiLon looked just like a nominaLve. 4.2.3.2. The ar7cle system, demonstra7ves and preposi7ons There was now a single indeSnite arLcle which developed out of the unstressed numeral “oon” (one) to “a/o/an”. The split in the OE demonstraLve paradigm resulted in a deSnite arLcle, iniLally with singular “the” < OE “se” by analogy with the other TH-form and plural “tho”. A deicLc system emerged from the other half of the split: “that” took on the meaning of deicLc distance in the 12 th
    
 
   century. The second of the 2 deicLc determiners was generalized from “þis”, the nominaLve and accusaLve singular of the emphaLc OE demonstraLve, to which the plural adjecLval endings “-e” was added giving us the “this/these” pair. PreposiLon began to be employed more widely as the older funcLons of case retreated into the background. Their number grew in the early ME period. Sources of new preposiLons were both ON and French. “In” expands its scope encroaching on the territory of “on”. Several of the preposiLons take over funcLons once carried by case alone. “Of” is increasingly used for the geniLve. FuncLons of the daLve such as the marking of the indirect object were now more oMen carried by the use of the preposiLons “to” and “for”; verbs with daLve objects now took direct objects, ones indisLnguishable from accusaLve objects. 4.2.3.3. Personal pronouns Important changes in the early ME period were the loss of dual “wit” and “ʒit” by the end of the 20 th century as well as the conLnuing amalgamaLon of the daLve and accusaLve cases. In OE the 2 cases had already become increasingly idenLcal in the 1 st and 2nd person. Now 3rd person singular masculine daLve “him” displaced the older accusaLve “hine”, just as feminine singular daLve “hire” displaced accusaLve “hīe”. The new daLve-accusaLve “him” was now disLnct from neuter “hit”, the old accusaLve, which now displaced old naLve neuter “him”. In the plural the daLve prevailed over the old accusaLve “hīe”. Both masculine and neuter geniLve singular remained idenLcal “his”. The old geniLves began to funcLon as adjecLves rather than pronouns. The new forms appeared both with and without (-n), hence “my” and “mine”, “thy” and “thine”. RelaLve pronouns undergo change. Animacy was less relevant in OE, where grammaLcal gender was use. In ME “þat” spreading from the North to the South replaced “þe” almost everywhere except in the Southwest and in the western Midlands. In the 13 th century “þat” was restricLve and non-restricLve, animate and inanimate. “þat” was gradually replaced by ”what” in early ME. The wh-relaLves date from early ME, but were rare in the 12th and sLll infrequent in the 13th centuries. “That” could not be used aMer preposiLons. This may also be a reason why “who” was late in being adopted. “Which” is animate or inanimate, “whom” and “whose” usually animate. 4.2.4. Vocabulary Early ME underwent signiScant change due to the massive indux of the new vocabulary, chiedy from French, but also from Low Dutch. In the late ME period LaLn borrowings began to increase as one of the results of the Renaissance. French borrowings led to major restructuring of English vocabulary. Since much of the new ruling cases spoke French while the common people conLnued to speak English, it was less words for everyday things and acLviLes which entered the language than words the new masters were likely to use. The French were the fashion leaders of the Middle Ages, but that English words were retained for everyday occupaLons. Everyday things are most likely to be designated by words of Germanic origin whereas fashion, art and literature, and learning will be more likely to draw on words of French provenance. French words were taken into English massively in the areas of law and administraLon as well as the military. The Church also provided numerous new addiLons. The induence of French was more of the Central than of the Norman variety, especially aMer 1204, when the Kings of England lost Normandy. Borrowing had already taken place before the Conquest. There was a slight increase from 1150 to 1200 and then a more rapid increase from 1200 to 1250, when Anglo-French bilingualism was well developed, for bilingualism was a necessary pre-condiLon for borrowing. Then loans poured in, and this conLnued unLl the end of the 14th century. This ran parallel to the move to English by the upper classes aMer the loss of Normandy. People moved to English in more and more domains. AccreLons came in the terms for Snance, property and business, for building and household equipment, hunLng, animals and science and medicine. Over 10000 words were borrowed from French in the ME period. The donor language had more presLge. While the English were more advanced than the Normans in everything except military macers such as castle-building at the Lme of the Conquest, is was from Central French that later borrowing came and was indeed borrowing from a language of high culture into one of lower culture. French as the vocabulary of power. Rank and status established a new evaluaLve funcLon, the projecLon of attudes that are upper-class on to the words. Actually words from Low Dutch contributed quite a few words to ME. Language contact is in this case not related to a parLcular happening or period, but was an on-going process. Large numbers of Flemings went to England over the years, including mercenaries, traders and craMsmen. Among the borrowings we Snd numerous items from the areas of texLles, shipping ad money. Borrowing came to prevail over word formaLon. Borrowing was seldom moLvated by lexical gaps, the idea that a needed word was missing. The mass of words borrowed were redundant. Some older derivaLonal morphemes fell out of use, for example (for-, to-, ge-), other aqxes conLnued to be producLve. New preSxes were adopted into the language, for example (counter-, dis-, re-, trans-), as were LaLnate suqxes such as (-able, -ible, - ent, -al, -ous, -ive). The presence of a large number of non-naLve words employing a diOerent set of aqxes and using diOerent
    
 
   used French Lll about 1423 for peLLons, from 1485 on in English and French and only in English aMer 1489. During the reign of Henry V English was again used oqcially, especially by the royal bureaucracy, aMer 1420. The middle class grew from the 14th century on as the number of manufacturers, traders, and merchants increased. They were based in London and other towns. London guilds used English for records from the 1380s on; in 1384 a municipal London proclamaLon appeared in English. The earliest known will in English comes in the year 1383. London brewers began using it in 1422, and from the 1430s on more and more towns and guilds adopted English. The earliest personal correspondence in English available today comes from the late 14th century. 5.2.1. The decline of LaLn LaLn was the major non-English language in England in this period. Its prominence in religion was being challenged, but it remained the language of record; and it was the language of learned discourse. Yet in this period and the EModE period it lost its primacy in all of these areas. 5.2.1.1. De here7c comburendo In 1401, under Henry IV, this law, “On the burning of hereLcs”, prohibited the translaLon of the Bible into English. The Western Church had itself forbidden vernacular translaLons at the Synod of Toulouse; this ban was widely ignored elsewhere, but not in England. HereLcs were said to undermine the conservaLve establishment by “setng up schools, wriLng books and wickedly instrucLng and informing the people”. The Lollards put the independently available Bible in English above the Church. Serious study of the Scriptures might challenge the oral tradiLon and teaching and hence the authority of the Church. It was not unLl the Act of Supremacy under Queen Elizabeth I in 1659 that “de hereLco” was repealed. 5.2.1.2. Transla7ons of the Bible Bible translaLons had been and conLnued to be made. Examples from the OE period include Bede’s translaLon of the Gospel of John and the Wessex translaLon of the gospels of about 990. WycliOe’s translaLon was followed by Tyndale’s.  Machew Bible  Great Bible  Geneva Bible  Bishop’s Bible  Douay-Rheims  King James Version One remarkable point in the early WycliOe version is how closely the translaLon followed the word order of the LaLn original. The KJV is sLll freer. It does not retain the subjuncLve and employs the existenLal there-construcLon, a structure which only became current in the course of the late ME period. 5.2.2. The emergence of a new standard At the beginning of the 13th century, people from all over England were moving to London and bringing their widely divergent dialects with them. Some mythic London English did not just crystallize; a long process of adjustment must have begun. People’s thoughts turned increasingly to the quesLon of standards. Factors that induenced their behaviour included language contact, social climbing, and educaLon. The emerging middle class, increasing social mobility, the economic and poliLcal opportunity oOered by the more and more powerful guilds, and the necessity that people understand the law model English into the centre of learned acenLon. In the 14th century the area south of the Humber River in the East Midlands, was the major populaLon centre. This area was also the centre of wool and grain exportaLon in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th century Yorkshire led in woollens, the northern and western counLes in wool, the East Midlands in grain, and London, Norfolk, Essex and Devon in shipping. In the 15th century and conLnuing in the 16th, the enclosures were beginning to push more and more people oO the land. More and more common people from the Midlands and the North went to London. London was the centre of government and administraLon and of trade and commerce. London English was the result of the concentraLon of power and people in London even though standardizaLon was not carried through in this period. It was less a standard than a naLonal language, an instrument of naLonal idenLty and loyalty. 5.2.3. The rise of London English The language of London gradually began to take on the force of a standard more and more. There were 2 central forces driving standardizaLon. The 1st was the spoken language of everyday life in which a certain degree of levelling or koinéizaLon was ensuring that London vernacular speech would no longer be a Southern variety, but more a Midlands one laced with numerous Northern features. The 2nd force, known as Chancery English, was more a macer of the wricen language and was promoted by the
    
 
   government administraLon, the Chancery. The eOects of both were made possible by the extremely duid social situaLon in the 14 th century, which started out with a rigidly structured society. The presence of Caxton’s prinLng press in London was also to contribute greatly to this London-based standardizaLon. With the rise of the lower classes the status of English improved. In the towns and most especially in London a new English-speaking class grew up which was neither noble nor peasant in nature. English was adopted fully in the 14 th century. Teaching in English was introduced in the mid-14th century and was the rule by 1385. English was used in the law courts of London and aMer 1362 in all the courts of the land since French was no longer widely used or understood. 5.2.4. London as a demographic and economic centre The East Midlands was geographically and linguisLcally well suited for the development of a standard not only because the Midlands are located in the middle but also because its language was not as extreme as that of the innovaLve North or as conservaLve as in the South: Midlands sounds and indecLons were a kind of compromise. The East Midlands was not only the most populous but the most prosperous area: a quarter of the English populaLon was from Norfolk, SuOolk and Lincolnshire in the period starLng from the Norman Conquest and conLnuing for 300 years. The South was simply smaller, and the North had the disadvantage of being hilly. The dialect of Oxfordshire was less clearly typical of the East Midlands and had a number of southern features. The WycliOe standard came into disrepute because of its connecLon with religious fanaLcism. The most important induence on the development of StE seems to have been the language of the Chancery, which was used in oqcial records and in the lecers and papers of men of aOairs. The language used in London was especially induenLal because many people from elsewhere who adopted it carried it back with them when they returned home. London English was widely accepted as the wricen standard almost everywhere. The spoken language must have varied considerably as one moved from region to region. Great Vowel ShiM: it is not clear exactly when this change began. Samuels points out that change is likely to be more rapid under condiLons of contact due to migraLon, and that was clearly the case in London in the 14 th and 15th centuries. He argues that the upper classes nay have chosen to emphasize those variants of vowels which maintained the disLncLons from the lower orders most eOecLvely. He exempliSes this in regard to processes of change that took place aMer the ME period, the same forces for change were in eOect in this period, in which London was expanding so rapidly and which was so potenLally threatening to the upper classes. 5.2.5. Wave theory London English was the result of regional populaLon migraLon and of social contact and demarcaLon. 5.3 CHANCERY ENGLISH By the end of the ME period the most prominent dialect was that of London. The strongest induence on this English was exerted by the Chancery. It contained characterisLcs of the emerging modern standard which stemmed from the Northern dialects: 3 rd person plural pronouns starLng in “th-“; adverbs ending in “-ly” rather than Southern “-lich”. Southern “-eth” conLnued to be used in the 3rd person singular and “be/ben” in the present tense plural; Midlands past parLciples ending in “-en” were also to be found in it. London vernacular retained 3rd person plural “her” and “hem” and the occasional marker of the past parLciple with “y-“. 5.3.1. New grammaLcal pacerns: pronouns The spread of “you” for “thou”. In Chaucer’s Lme singular “you” was well established. The use of you-singular is due perhaps to French induence. French singular “vous” was much more consistent than English singular “you”. Where you-singular is used for deiLes, they are pagan ones; the ChrisLan God gets “thou”, at least introductorily, though a shiM to “You” may follow – as a sign of respect as with lords and ladies. Family address has children giving a parent you-singular while children always get “thou” from parents. Over Lme singular-you came to be used between equals while someone who gave “thou” indicated “I am superior”; “thou” was less a marker of inLmacy than an insult. The rapid spread of singular “you” over the next 2 centuries may be credited to its use as a polite form. 5.3.1.1. The pronoun one In the 15th century indeSnite “one” begins to appear. The induence of French “On”, which appears only as a subject, may reinforce the use of indeSnite “one” in English, but since earliest instances show non-nominaLve case “one”, French was hardly the decisive factor. 5.3.1.2. The rela7ve pronoun In sentenLal relaLve clauses “þat” was gradually replaced by “what” in early ME and then by “which”. Constraints on non-restricLve “that” probably began in ME, but were essenLally EModE. “Which” begins to replace “that” in the 15th century. 5.3.2. PeriphrasLc structures
    
 
   It was in the early ME period that the widespread beginnings of phrasal structures could be found. These are combinaLons of 2 words which take over the funcLon of a single word with an indecLonal ending. The auxiliary “Have” could be combined with the past parLciple in a periphrasLc construcLon. The use of indecLons is called syntheLc, and the use of periphrasis is called analyLcal. The expansion in the use of the lacer aOected the progressive, the modal auxiliaries in place of the subjuncLve, and periphrasLc “do”. PeriphrasLc verbal expression do occur in OE. In ME the perfect and future developed rapidly as did the modal subjuncLve. The progressive became more frequent by the end of the ME period. PeriphrasLc “do” began growing in use. 5.3.2.1. Periphras7c do “Do” had three uses in OE: 1. Full or lexical verb; 2. Pro-form or subsLtute “do” allowing a conLnuaLon of a report without having to repeat the same verb; 3. CausaLve “do”, especially with that-clauses, rarely with inSniLves. CausaLve “do” did not persist in the language, but it did help to establish the periphrasLc “do” as a formal possibility. 5.3.3. Word order changes Especially remarkable in this period is the gradual move from accusaLve object before the verb. Verb second posiLon conLnues to show up in ME where it would not in ModE, by the 15th century it was mainly triggered when a wh-element or a negaLve element was the 1st consLtuent in the clause, which is basically the situaLon in ModE. 5.3.4 Vocabulary 5.3.4.1. Low Dutch Flemish, Dutch and Low German words conLnued to be adopted. In the Peasants’ Revolt their language seems to have betrayed them to rebels, who killed around 160 of them, probably chiedy for reasons of economic rivalry. 5.3.4.2. French and La7n Although quite a few Low Dutch words entered the language, it was the presence of an extraordinarily large number of French and LaLn borrowings which had a major eOect on the structure of English vocabulary. Numerous naLve words dropped out of use as they were replaced by loan words, but very oMen the old words conLnued to exist beside the new ones. Writers in the 13 th century used a French word with an English one next to it as an interpretaLon. Doublets seem to be largely a stylisLc device without any further funcLon since both words might be of French origin. Writers conLnue to use such binomials in ModE. 5.3.4.3. The structure of the vocabulary Two remarks about the overall nature of the English vocabulary can be disLlled from the large amount of borrowing which took place. A number of naLve Germanic words grew obsolete in this process. Synonyms at diOerent levels of style emerged and became characterisLc of the stylisLc diOerenLaLon at least in part possible in English. There are some cases of Germanic-French-classical triplets like “ask-quesLon-interrogate”. English had remained the language of the common people. In contrast French had higher presLge with the consequence that its use disLnguished the speaker from the common run of people. French supplied the terms for government and organizaLon, cookery. PresLge also explains the large indux of LaLnate words that came in the 15th century and conLnued in the EModE period. Increase in words of LaLn origin. It was with the revival of learning in the Renaissance that classical borrowing really took oO. These new words were also accompanied by controversy and were rejected in many cases. They also made certain stylisLc registers more inaccessible to the masses and so widened the educaLonal gap between the classes. The associaLon between a verb like “see” and the corresponding adjecLve “visible” must be established. Hence the designaLon of these non-Germanic items as hard words. The recipient language may have had lexical gaps. English was missing the words it borrowed and that borrowing redects inferiority in vocabulary and culture. The mass of words borrowed were redundant. One consequence of the widespread adopLon of Romance language words is the presence of a large number of non-naLve words employing a diOerent set of aqxes and using diOerent stress pacerns. The addiLon of French vocabulary is all the more dramaLc. By the end of the ME period 28,3% of the vocabulary was of French origin according to entries in the “Shorter Oxford English DicLonary”; 28,24% came from LaLn; and 27% were Germanic.  Germanic: mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter  French: aunt, uncle, niece, nephew  LaLn: maternity, paternalisLc, fraternity, sorority, Slial, avuncular 5.4 LITERATURE
    
 
   The Elizabethan period marked the beginning of the Renaissance in England. This sLmulated a paradigmaLc change in the way people viewed science, which was to become more empirical. The period also marked the beginning of a literary boom that started at the end of the 16th and conLnued into the 17th century, including Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Spenser and Milton. Freedom of expression was strongly defended by Milton. Massachusecs Bay colony introduced the 1 st law providing for common schools for everyone. Oxford developed into the university closer to the establishment while dissenters were more at home at Cambridge. The Royal Society, founded in 1660, was located in London and later in Oxford as well. 6.1.3. PoliLcal-dynasLc developments The Tudor dynasty united England and ended English territorial ambiLons in France. Markets dourished as did trade. Succession was problemaLc aMer the death of Henry VIII (1491-1547): Edward VI (1537-1553) was only 9 when he became king and 14 when he died. His successor, Mary I (1516-1558), acempted to return England to the Roman Catholic Church and in doing so invited condict. She was followed by Elizabeth I (reign 1558-1603), whose rule did establish a period of relaLve prosperity. Elizabeth’s successor, James VI (1566-1625), the Stuart king of Scotland, became James I of England in the union of the Scotsh and English crowns. He did support the independence of the Church of England. Under his successor, Charles I, especially due to the induence of Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, religious controversy escalated, leading eventually to the Civil War (1642- 1651), in the course of which Srst Laud and then Charles I were executed. 6.1.4. The Puritans, the Civil War and the Commonwealth The English Civil War, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate were based on religious condict, but were due to the massive socio-economic change in English society. Two main parLes, the Royalist faced oO against the Parliamentarians, who wanted to secure more democraLc control through Parliament. This was a condict set between the older feudal order and the emerging bourgeois forms of organizaLon and the new middle-class values of life, liberty and property. The disinherited, Brownists and SeparaLsts, made common cause with the middle class and had a remarkable induence on the Independents, pushing them toward religious toleraLon and republicanism. By the 1650s the Independents had become substanLal people and the Puritans were hardly diOerent from the Presbyterians. New groupings of AnabapLsts, Millenarians and Quakers arose. The consequences of the Commonwealth and Protectorate included a program promoLng godliness, such as closing the theatres, laws against adultery, blasphemy and religious enthusiasm. Cromwell’s New Model Army defeated the forces of both Parliament and the Crown; it defeated the Scotsh forces; and it conquered Ireland. It cemented the subjecLon and colonizaLon of Ireland under a Protestant Ascendency. 6.1.5. RestoraLon England In 1659 Cromwell’s son Richard was deposed and the Rump Parliament was reconvened to include the MPs excluded in 1648. In 1660 the monarchy was restored under Charles II and the Long Parliament was ended. Religious acrimony did not disappear with the return of the Stuarts. Virtual religious toleraLon was established. The quesLon of a return to Catholicism was Snally answered negaLvely when Catholic King James II was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and William of Orange in 1688. Anne, the daughter of James II, was the Snal Stuart monarch. The RestoraLon ended anLpathy toward foreign ideas. French ideas and social ideas as well as French loan words were once again en vogue. It was the age of the coOee-house and of politeness, which rejected both ordinary, colloquial or provincial usage as well as the aOected speech oMen ridiculed in RestoraLon comedy. 6.2 EARLY MODERN ENGLISH 6.2.1. Early Modern London London grew from 50000 inhabitants in 1500 to become the largest European city in 1700 at just under 600000. This growth was largely dependent on migraLon from elsewhere in England because the presence of endemic and epidemic disease in the city more than counterbalanced natural replacement. MigraLon was powered by a rural push which included the enclosures and an urban pull due to high wages in London. It led to a centralizaLon of poliLcs and economics and to revoluLons in the provincial economies, including agrarian change and urban crises. 6.2.2. KoinéizaLon The degree of movement from the North was signiScant. By the period 1654-1674 the share of migrants from the Midlands had increased to 45%. The complex social structure that was supplanLng the outdated Medieval model of social relaLons was more oMen loose-knit than in the countryside. This geographic mobility promoted language change and levelling. The wricen standard diOered from the spoken language of the capital, the 2 together provided 2 naLonal models, a highly prescripLve one, Standard English, for wriLng and a colloquial one, which may be called General English, which is less rigid. It was GenE which would evolve into a supra-regional, naLonwide covert standard.
    
 
   6.2.3. StandardizaLon Early Modern English underwent a considerable amount of standardizing. Wricen English lost almost all of its regional features in the years aMer mid-century. The standardizing tendency was reinforced by the introducLon of prinLng in English starLng in 1476. There was no real standard unLl the 16th century, and then the consensus among those whose wriLng about the language has survived agrees that the standard was Southern rather than Northern or Western and was to be found especially among the well-bred and well-educated in London. This would be the Court, the highest classes, the administraLon and learned people. It rules out speakers of regional dialects as well as what were called vulgar, eOeminate or aOected speakers. 6.2.4. LaLn In the 15th century English was not considered to have the Sxity of morphological and syntacLc form that was desirable for a language meant to convey scienLSc and scholarly thought. LaLn experienced a revival in the English Renaissance, which brought with it the rediscovery and use of classical rather than Medieval LaLn for all registers including various literary uses and forms, and the domains of law. Scholarship and science. This highly respected standard was too inimitable to be seriously adopted. The spread of literacy and literary consciousness and improved economic condiLons promoted English in the middle classes, who knew licle or no LaLn. PatrioLc feeling militated against LaLn now, although the Puritans favoured English over LaLn. LaLn conLnued to be used on into the 17th century for learned wriLng, and its induence on vocabulary was extensive. By the Lme of the RestoraLon, LaLn was no longer the medium of instrucLon in the grammar schools nor was it used more than excepLonally in scholarly wriLng. 6.2.5. Typology ShiM from the largely syntheLc to an essenLally analyLc language menLoned in connecLon with changes in OE and ME. There’s a basic shiM from the tradiLonal gender system to one based on the feature. This led to a loss of the old masculine-feminine- neuter disLncLon and the establishment of a personal-non-personal one. From a purely linguisLc perspecLve it is only possible to conSrm these changes and to acribute them to some underlying and somewhat mysLc force of driM. Language contact made changes more likely because contact established a set of alternaLves which speakers could choose from either in the process of standardizaLon or as an expression of social class, speaker gender. The presence of contact does emphasize human agency, which may be either conscious or subconscious. It is powered by accommodaLon, by idenLScaLon with a group or with presLge. TradiLonal Les of community solidarity had weakened, and the duid social structure led to new ways of signalling belonging, which included choices between alternaLve ways of using the language. Almost any linguisLc feature can serve as a marker of idenLty. The fact that it is necessary to stress “any” reveals how licle we can say about driM. Change can zigzag. The 15th century saw the developments which show the eOects of interregional induence:  Northerners introduced the verb indecLon (-s) into the language of London which would gradually displace Southern (- th).  The North was also the source of relaLve “the which”. This variant did not become part of the standard.  London itself seems to have been the motor for the diOusion of further innovaLons such as the generalizaLon of nominaLve “you” for original nominaLve “ye” in the 16th century.  “You2 also replaced “thou” as a singular form and the two could even be mixed. Other innovaLons:  The new neuter possessive form “its”.  The prop-word “one”.  (-body) compounds, which grew at the expense both of (-man, -one) and of simple pronouns like “none” and “any”. 6.3 REGULATION AND CODIFICATION PrescripLvism took on greater force, especially aMer 1660. <<The Elizabethans had been busy regularizing what to them was most urgent, the orthography and their controversy over loan- words had prepared the way for a consensus of enlightened opinion on this quesLon.>> That was to change as free variaLon, double negaLon, double comparison and periphrasLc do acracted the criLcism of a whole generaLon of prescripLve grammarians. 6.3.1. Spelling and pronunciaLon 6.3.1.1. Spelling
    
 
   Orthography underwent a high degree of regulaLon in the hands of the printers. The alphabet no longer used lecers unfamiliar to present-day readers of English even though <y> someLmes served as a replacement for earlier <þ>. <v> and <u> are usually posiLonal variants of each other. IniLal <v> stands not only <v>, but also where it has <u>. The lecer <j> is sLll rare at the beginning of the period; <i> is used for both the vowel and the consonant. We oMen Snd <y> where ModE has <i>. From the mid-17 th to the mid-18th centuries capitalizaLon of the most prominent words was widely pracLced and lingered on unLl the end of the 18th. Public spelling was determined by printers. Respect for learning and a recogniLon of the etymologies of numerous words led to changes which made their spellings more LaLn-like. Private spelling pracLces also oMen contained archaic and idiosyncraLc forms which even such luminaries as Dr. Johnson pracLced. Known for Sxing the standard, Johnson deviated considerably from it in his lecer-wriLng orthography. 1. ContracLons; 2. PhoneLc spellings; 3. RetenLon of older spellings. 6.3.1.2. The Great Vowel ShiF The GVS is a chain shiM involving the long vowels of ME. It is generally assumed to have begun in the ME period. The full extent of the shiM is best located in the EModE period. This may be assumed on the basis of the mismatch between spelling and pronunciaLon which came about in the course of the shiM. English spelling was generally Sxed by the early 16 th century and represents the stage of pronunciaLon reached at or before that Lme, but this no longer applied by the end of the EModE period. GVS was a whole set of related changes. There are 2 disLnct shiMs since the back vowels changed diOerently in the South and Midlands than in the North and Scotland. The high vowels /i:/ and /u:/ diphthongized, thus moving toward the centre to become [ǝi] and [ǝʊ] and eventually developing into ModE /ai/ and /aʊ/. The now unoccupied arLculatory space for a high front and back monophthong would acract the next lower front and back vowels, /e:/ and /o:/, which would then move upward. The same pull- acracLon would be repeated as /Ɛ:/ and /ɔ:/ moved upward to realizaLon as /e:/ and /o:/. Low front /a:/ would move to /Ɛ:/. London English originally had 4 long front vowels. The socially higher standing may then have raised their /e:/ toward /i:/ and their / o:/ toward /u:/, possibly following the model of French. The eOect was to set themselves oO from the lower orders. Newcomers in London had only 3 long front vowels: they did not disLnguish /Ɛ:/ and /e:/. In the North and in Scotland the movement of /o:/ to the front ensured that /u:/ would not be under pressure to diphthongize as was the case further south. 6.3.1.3. The short vowel system The short vowel system remained relaLvely stable with only relaLvely small shiMs in arLculatory space. /i/ (pit); /e/ - /Ɛ/ (pet); /a/ - / æ/ (pat); /u/ (put); /o/ - /ɔ/ - /ɒ/ (pot). 6.3.1.4. Consonants The consonant inventory of English changed through the establishment of /ŋ/ and /ʒ/ as phonemes. OE and ME [ŋ] had been an allophone of /n/ which assimilated to a velar place of arLculaLon when followed by /k/ or /g/. The loss of voiced stops aMer a nasal was a combinatory restricLon on Snal /-mb/, /-nd/ and /-ng/. This led in the case of /-ŋg/ to new opposiLons which were dependent on /ŋ/ by itself and was now disLnct from /n/ as in the minimal pair. A further phoneme which was lost of replaced by /f/ was /x/. The new fricaLve /ʒ/ was the result of palatalizaLon of the combinaLon /z/ + /j/ or /I/ in an unstressed syllable. This process was reinforced since it established system symmetry with /ʃ/, giving English 4 pair of voiceless-voiced fricaLves. Other changes led to a reducLon of the iniLal clusters /wr-/, /gn-/ and /kn-/ to their the second element. 6.3.2. Vocabulary and meaning Lexical borrowings was especially strong in the EModE period. Sources conLnued to be French and Dutch. Many of the new borrowings were part of speciSc Selds such as science, medicine or religion. The vocabulary conLnued to expand by means of word formaLon. In the case of the Purists resistance took the form of a more or less strong move to use words with Germanic roots in the place of words of classical origin. Many people considered such words to be pretenLous and/or obscure, and present-day users of English will agree in the cases in which the words objected to have not come into common use. OpposiLon to “unnecessary” foreign borrowings and to what are called “hard words” conLnues into our own Lmes. Changes in meanings took place in a variety of ways. The number of members in a semanLc Seld might change thus causing a shiM in the meaning of the individual members of the Seld. Besides change in semanLc Seld relaLons, the meaning of any given word may undergo broadening or narrowing. Change may also involve amelioraLon, the taking on of a more posiLve meaning, or pejoraLon, a more negaLve one. 6.3.3. Grammar and morphology
    
 
   all branches of knowledge. The Society indicated an interest in English in naming a commicee of 22 to make suggesLons for the improvement of the language. Evelyn formulated an impressive program, comprising a dicLonary, a grammar, a spelling reforms, lists of technical terms and dialect words, translaLons of ancient and modern writers, and works to be published by members themselves to serve as models for good wriLng. The capitalizaLon increased throughout the 17th century and reached a high point about the Lme Newton’s text was wricen, but in the 18th century it receded once again. The use of periphrasLc-do is sLll not congruent with present-day pracLce. The auxiliary-subject inversion would sLll be observed in ModE. SubjuncLve “be” in the condiLonal clause has meanwhile dropped out of use. 6.4.3. EModE literature Sir Philip Sidney is best remembered for his “Arcadia”, a romance licle read today which he wrote for his sister Mary while living with her while he was in disfavour at the Court. “Arcadia” is a prose composiLon. It is extravagant in style and touches on countless subjects in a fanciful way. John Milton was a free thinker in terms of liberty of conscience and a man of great tolerance. He was associated with the dissenters and was a supporter of the Parliamentary party during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. “Paradise lost” (1667): an epic poem recounLng the divine history of the world on 2 levels, that of the celesLal condict between God and Lucifer and that of the domesLc world of mankind, Adam and Eve. Apostrophes are widely used to indicate elided syllables. RestoraLon literature was very wide ranging, including Milton and highly religious Bunyan, but also Behn, Butler, Congreve and Dryden. Much of the wriLng of this period is a conLnuaLon of earlier tradiLons, a great deal of emphasis lay on the theatre and on comedy. The strict public morals of the Commonwealth had led to the closing of the theatres. With their reopening there was a grand renewal of English drama, now coloured by induences and tastes picked up by the stay of much of the Court including Charles II in France during the Interregnum. RestoraLon comedy is well known for its openness to sexuality. 6.5 VARIATION: SOUTH AND NORTH The fundamental division remained the South-North divide, but witch the gradual acceptance and spread of the wricen standard of regional diOerences is relaLvely meagre. From H. Machyn’s diary (1550-1563) This parLcular selecLon has been chosen to show the spelling of “Westminster” with an iniLal <v> and with <w>, which may redect London pronunciaLon, in which the 2 are in some sort of variaLon. IniLal <h> is widely used. The hypercorrecLon of “harme” shows the unstable status of /h/. Several words have <e> where present-day spelling has <i(e)>; this may redect a phoneLcally opener realizaLon of the short KIT-vowel in London pronunciaLon. The relaLve pronouns are sLll highly variable: “the Wyche, that, who” all with no apparent reason. Do-periphrasis appears in a non-emphaLc aqrmaLve sentence. Second person singular “thou” is clearly current. The second selecLon is from the Preface to King James’ book on wriLng poetry. The text uses the Scotsh spelling “quh” for Southern <wh>; iniLal /j/ appears as <z> as in “ze” – “ye”. {-ed} appears as <-it>, redecLng Scotsh pronunciaLon. Many of the vowel realizaLons are obviously Northern. The indecLon <-is> occurs where StE has <-(e)s>. Concord has a plural subject with a singular verb. Individual words which are not familiar to speakers of the Southern standard are “quhilk” – “which”, “cautelis” – “cauLons”, “sen” – “since”. 7. THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH (SINCE THE LATE 16TH CENTURY) 7.1 SOCIAL-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND English was spoken by about 4 million people inhabiLng a large but peripheral island oO the coast of conLnental Europe in or around the year 1600. RealisLc esLmates of the number of speakers of English as a 1 st or naLve language lies at somewhat over 360 million. By 1600 the dawn of a new age had broken over Western Europe or a mulLplicity of new ages. There had been a revival of learning, the Renaissance. There had been a new religious upheaval, the ReformaLon. There had been a series of exploratory voyages which were opening a new world far beyond Europe in the Age of Discovery. And there had been the beginnings of the Commercial RevoluLon with its radical capitalisLc change in producLon and trade. All of these had the eOect of moving Britain to the centre of the new AtlanLc world in which England was to be one of the most important actors. 7.1.1. The Age of Discovery In the mid-15th century European navigators had begun to venture beyond their home conLnent under Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese king who Snanced voyages along the AtlanLc coast of Africa. In 1492 came the 1st voyage of Columbus, who is credited with the European discovery of America. First the Spanish, then the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and the English supported voyages of discovery and exploraLon. The 2 Iberian countries concentrated their eOorts in what is now known as LaLn America.
    
 
   France and England were more prominently engaged in the North AtlanLc. The English established a permanent colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and Newfoundland in 1610 and the French at Port-Royal in 1605 and Québec in 1608. Canada remained fairly sparsely populated while numerous seclements began springing up in what was to be BriLsh North America, most notably in New England and in Virginia. The English intruded in the Caribbean, taking possession of a number of islands, most notably Barbados and Jamaica, which changed from Spanish to English hands in 1655. 7.1.2. MercanLlism and territorial expansion All of the European possessions in the Americas were a part of the system of mercanLlism, which sought naLonal-imperial self- suqciency by tying the colonial producers of staples to the homeland-metropolis via trade. Out of the mercanLlism of early colonial expansion grew an imperial system which Srst expanded internally within the BriLsh Isles and then throughout the world. Britain exported its surplus populaLon to its colonial holdings. In North America they were seclers; in the Caribbean they were plantaLon owners and overseers; in West Africa they were traders. Each of the secler territories became a new centre of expansion into its parLcular periphery. By the 19 th century one of the original oOshoots of English expansionism, the USA, had arrived at a state in which it could begin to create its own empire. This iniLally took the form of internal expansion in which the territorial basis of the USA expanded westward through North America to the PaciSc coast and eventually northward to Alaska and beyond North America to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and a number of smaller territories. Canada reached the stage of internal expansion across the conLnent parallel to the US, but it did not establish an empire outside of North America, perhaps because Canada was sLll a part of the BriLsh Empire. In the Caribbean labourers moved to exploit natural resources such as wood in BlueSelds, the Corn Islands and Belize. These people were oMen slaves in the early period, but were later free labourers, as in the case of Puerto Limón, where they were employed in railroad building. Australia expanded to Sll out its present-day borders, making the whole conLnent English-speaking. It also exercised considerable induence on New Zealand, and extended its economic control to many of the neighbouring island territories such as the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea just as South Africa did In regard to Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Malawi. Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands did not establish secler communiLes which repeated the process of expansion to the degree that Britain did. In the case of Russia there was merely what is most frequently seen as internal expansion eastward. Germany, Italy and Japan were able to acquire relaLvely few and less desirable territories and were knocked out of the game at the latest by losing World War I. 7.2 LANGUAGE POLICY Beyond England and the Scotsh Lowlands, the use of the language as an everyday medium of communicaLon depended very much on the seclement pacerns of the Saxons. With the introducLon of literacy and learning, centres of cultural power and presLge began to develop, and they tended to exert relaLvely great induence on language attudes among the more educated. The founding of monasteries and the program of translaLon into and wriLng in English iniLated by King Alfred is an early, important example of language policy in regard to English, one which established the West Saxon variety and system of spelling as the OE wricen standard. In the ME period there was Srst a switch from English to LaLn and French as the languages of the state and/or of learning. When English had once again come into use in the government, the varieLes used in London gained greatly in presLge because of their associaLon with the State and other insLtuLons in the domains of commerce, prinLng, religion and educaLon; they gradually took on the status of a standard. TradiLon and modernizaLon: the 1st has to do with the more sedentary populaLon in the predominately rural areas. Here the tradiLonal dialects developed relaLvely independently of the changes in the modernizing part of society. The relaLve lack of cultural and linguisLc contact and mixing provided for greater stability and slower change. The 2 nd found its expression in the newly forming urban communiLes whose populaLon consisted of people from all the dialect areas of England. They were innovaLng central areas characterized by contact. This led to greater social and linguisLc instability and to the emergence of new forms and structural levelling. Language policy was a central part of the lacer process. The State and such important insLtuLons pursued a program which selected and promoted a parLcular variety of English. This new variety was transmiced in educaLonal contexts. The medium of instrucLon was English. PrinLng was increasingly geared to the reading public, and that public read English and not LaLn. This program had neither uniform nor uncontroversial goals as far as codiScaLon was concerned. StE emerged, but the contact between and mixing of people speaking diOerent dialecLcal forms of English was mulL-focused and non-insLtuLonalized, and this led to the parallel emergence of non-standard GenE. The 2 together make up what with a great deal of jusLScaLon may be called General English. 7.3 THE EMERGENCE OF GENERAL ENGLISH
    
 
   GenE is a broad concept used to refer to those varieLes of English which are not tradiLonal dialects nor English creoles. There are 2 poles to GenE. At the one end we Snd the highly standardized variety called StE, which is speciScally prescribed for published wriLng and more formal situaLon of public discourse. At the other end there is more colloquial type. What is non-standard follows a large “canon” of grammaLcal items which are found all over the ENL world, but do not belong to StE. Typical items are ones such as 3 rd person singular present tense “don’t”; the use of “ain’t” for the negaLon of present tense “be” and “have”; mulLple negaLon; non- standard verb forms like past tense “knowed” or “seen”; pleonasLc subjects; conjoined pronominal subjects in the object case. The 2 poles share most of their grammar, and their vocabulary and phonology as well. This cannot be said of the tradiLonal dialects or the English creoles. LinguisLcally the diOerences are relaLvely insigniScant; StE is associated with the overt norms; non-standard GenE with covert norms. The 1st is power-oriented; the 2nd carries solidarity. There was widespread agreement on the vocabulary used and on the central grammaLcal categories. This agreement arose and spread due to the koinéizaLon. The basic dichotomy between StE and non-standard GenE have remained socially and linguisLcally signiScant. StE was increasingly used in published wriLng and, arguably in speech. All over the English-speaking world non-standard forms are omnipresent. The local, regional and naLonal varieLes are spoken with their respecLve pronunciaLon. phoneLc de-coding is basically easy. 7.3.1. GrammaLcal gender in GenE and in tradiLonal dialects Evidence from West Country and Newfoundland dialects reveal how diOerently tradiLonal non-standard forms have developed in comparison with their modern GenE counterparts. GenE has only remnants of gender marking. A few instances of lexical gender marking of the {-er/-or} vs. {-ess} type are used sporadically, but the feminine suqx is largely opLonal. In the pronoun system there is a human vs. non-human disLncLon as seen in the relaLve pronouns “who” vs. “which”. Within the human category a male vs. female disLncLon is made in the 3rd person singular of the personal pronouns with masculine “he”, feminine “she” and neuter “it”. In English West Country dialect a very diOerent system has been maintained in which every object which has a shape of its own is either masculine or feminine. “It” is impersonal or abstract, used to express an acLon or a noun of the undeSned sort. This is a basic count vs. mass disLncLon and may be traceable to Proto-Indo-European, where animate was masculine with the subcategory feminine for female humans and both stood in contrast to inanimate, which was neuter. In the West Country we Snd this system. Case levelling: where object form “you” replaced subject form “ye”. It supplies us with an example of the auxiliary “do” used to mark habitual aspect. More recent material from the West Country and from Newfoundland shows a system with more mixing, where “it” is oMen used instead of “en” in object posiLon while “he” is retained as a subject. 7.3.2. The present tense verb indecLon {-s} The use of non-third person {-s} is not unknown in GenE, but tends to be restricted to such relaLvely Sxed use. Cheshire remarks on the variable use of present tense {-s} in the vernacular English of Reading. She remarks that this is a usage which must once have been much more widespread. Accordingly the auxiliary “do” was invariably “do”. In Cheshire’s study the eOect of the gender of the speaker is emphasized. In the case of auxiliary “do”, negaLve 3 rd person singular “don’t” is widespread wherever GenE is spoken. The kind of English which was exported as the language spread was the General English that had become established in the Southeast of England, most especially in London. The TransplantaLon of forms was deSnitely less common. GenE was the result of both overt and covert processes. The emerging grammaLcal system of GenE seems to have been widely adopted in the public sphere, be it government, schools, the Church, publishing or the commercial sector. It had verb forms, pronouns, noun indecLons, preposiLons, adverb and adjecLve forms and word order which diOered only in macers of detail in its non-standard as opposed to its standard forms. 7.4 TRANSPLANTATION English as a NaLve Language (ENL) has been carried overseas from Britain and established in new ENL communiLes, most prominently in Ireland, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. In far more countries in West, East and Southern Africa, in South and Southeast Asia and in the Western PaciSc English has been adopted as a Second Language and in some as a pidgin or a creole. This movement outwards has reinforced the increasing spread of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In some cases new regional or naLonal standards have arisen; in other cases external norms conLnue to be the source of the norms. 7.4.1. EmigraLon, immigraLon and imposiLon Emigrants came from all over England as well as from Scotland and Ireland, 2 important biases in the self-selecLon of the people leaving. One of these was rooted in the turbulence of 17th century England in which the suppression of the religious dissenters encouraged many of them to turn their backs on the country. The early dissenters may be characterized as part of the new middle
    
 
   Word formaLon using naLve elements, that is, morphemes which are Srmly rooted in the language, is a major source of new vocabulary. Words from BriLsh and Irish regional dialects are a further source of AusE vocabulary. Ex. “chook” – “chicken”. This source of vocabulary cannot be ruled out in ESL socieLes, but is highly unlikely since the major language input has been by way of the schools and is therefore StE. SemanLc change, especially broadening and narrowing, is also aOected. Local pronunciaLons began to emerge which resembled the speech of the major immigrant groups. This includes the rhoLcity of much of American speech, which derives from the seclers from Ulster and the English West Country, and Australian pronunciaLon. GrammaLcal forms are everywhere fairly similar. Also amenable to contact-induenced change are various pragmaLc idioms. An example is “kia-ora” from Maori, someLmes used in New Zealand English as a greeLng or to wish someone well. Discourse parLcles are another example from the area of pragmaLcs. 7.5.3. ESL speaker communiLes L1-induenced pronunciaLon and grammaLcal structures speciSc to ESL may be found. East and West African English tend to use a vowel system highly reduced in comparison to ENL varieLes. East African English may have as few as 5 vowels. One of the best known examples of a grammaLcal diOerence is the frequent levelling of grammaLcal tag quesLons to a single form: “isn’t it?” Modes of address and expressions of politeness someLmes come across as more formal than the oMen highly informal usage of many naLve speakers. The use of Ltles is likely to persist longer where the L1 demands this. Bilingualism and mulLlingualism are a normal and necessary part of everyday life. Very oMen code-switching is a funcLon of the situaLon speakers Snd themselves in, where the principle is to accommodate through language choice to as many people as possible. The default language in any given situaLon may be fairly clearly established or quickly negoLated. 7.5.4. Pidgin and creole communiLes English pidgins and creoles are a group of oMen closely related languages that originated as trade languages along the coast of West Africa and which were later carried to other parts of the colonial world. In West Africa pidgins have remained largely non-naLve languages. They are not the 1st language of anyone. They funcLon as lingua franca. A pidgin is used in only a restricted number of social funcLons and in only a few domains. In the Caribbean we Snd creoles rather than pidgins, because everywhere the original pidgins have been succeeded by creoles. These are the naLve languages of whole communiLes of speakers. They are used in the full repertoire of communicaLve funcLons and in an expanded number of domains and registers. Tok Pisin: the language most widely spoken in Papua New Guinea. It’s the naLve language despite the name Tok Pisin, which comes from English “talk pidgin”. In more rural, highly polyglot areas of the country it’s sLll a pidgin and serves as a lingua franca. 7.5.5. Foreign language speaker communiLes The spread of English also includes the signiScant increase in the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). With the defeat of the Spanish Armada England was free to move into overseas territories. With the victory over France at the end of the Seven Years’ War / French and Indian War in 1763 BriLsh imperial power was secure. American power began to take on a global aspect. English was not a prominent foreign language, and not a compeLtor of Srst LaLn and then French. The choice of English as a foreign language grew enormously in the course of the 20th century. EFL may be learned under condiLons of formal instrucLon. EFL has a full linguisLc repertoire and may be potenLally be used in as full a range of registers, styles and domains as any L1. ENL or ESL competence is the EFL norm even though the degree of acainment may fall short of this. Such stages of imperfect learning are someLmes referred to as interlanguage, and they are characterized by what naLve speakers are likely to think of as errors. Where the language is used for communicaLon it may develop into a lingua franca of sorts, which implies that it’s used in more or less limited situaLons and that the funcLons it fulSls are reduce vis-à-vis an L1. Some of the linguisLc features of this English:  No 3rd person singular present Lme {-s}  Interchangeability of relaLve “who” and “which”  Use of a preposiLon where L1 English has none  Verb complement forms 8. ENGLISH IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND (since 1700) 8.1 SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND
    
 
   The English language in Britain and Ireland is anything but uniform. People idenLfy with their language, be it a tradiLonal dialect, an urban vernacular, English formed by an immigrant heritage, a naLonal variety, or Standard English. 8.1.1. PoliLcal union The Act of Union (1707) created the United Kingdom and can serve as the starLng point of the Modern English period. The UK as it was iniLally created was sLll unSnished inasmuch as Ireland was sLll to be added by the second Act of Union, eOecLve from 1801 on. Another hundred plus years later Ireland leM the UK to become the Irish Free State (1922) within the framework of the BriLsh Commonwealth, and then in 1949 the Republic of Ireland was created outside of the Commonwealth. Both are now members of the European Union. 8.1.2. Demographic developments These include a conLnuaLon of urbanizaLon due to further enclosures as a push factor and to incipient industrializaLon as a pull factor. A new impoverished urban class emerged which was perceived by the establishment as a threat which could not be dealt with by relying on the tradiLonal poorhouse soluLons. In the 16th and 17th centuries the south-eastern part of Ireland was secled by people from the English Southwest while the North was secled by Scots. The naLve Irish were driven from their lands and forced to move to the west; some were even sent to Barbados as slaves. 8.1.3. London and other urban centres The linguisLc role of London cannot be exaggerated. Most migraLon was director there. The London area would have suOered considerable depopulaLon between 1700 and 1780, had it not been for the enormous movement of people from the countryside to London. 69% of the natural populaLon increase of England between the beginning of the Civil War (1642) and the close of the 17 th century emigrated to America. The movement of people leaving Britain conLnued into the 18 th century. These people were probably ready to give up the more parochial features of their tradiLonal dialect in favour of London English as they began to idenLfy more strongly with London groups. 8.1.4. The Industrial RevoluLon and the transportaLon revoluLon There were fundamental changes in transportaLon. First, in the period aMer 1750 there was the establishment of turnpikes, the canals and Snally railroads. Among their consequences was the development of regional and supra-regional markets and labour force mobility in a money rather than barter economy with the potenLal for consumpLon. This led to a weakening of the rural tradiLonal dialects and an upsurge of new urban varieLes in the process of dialect levelling or koinéizaLon. New centres in the Northeast and in the Western Midlands began to emerge. ImmigraLon of labour from “abroad” also ensured further language and dialect contact as Irish workers found jobs in the major projects of canal building in the 18 th and 19th centuries and then in the building of the railways. Enclaves of Irish came into being. The emerge of a new urban populaLon in the North in the 19th century was accompanied by a literature of its own. Pamphlets, broadsides and almanacs showed local consciousness and pride in vernacular culture and language. Language was a marker of class solidarity. 8.1.5. EducaLon and the mass media By the 1840s the majority of the populaLon could probably read and write. This was accomplished a full generaLon before the enactment of the Elementary School Act (1870) and was the result of private iniLaLve and of Dame Schools. Technological improvements contributed to a reducLon in prinLng costs; and rapid rail transportaLon lowered the costs of distribuLon. One potenLally signiScant development in the area of language has been the movements for poliLcal devoluLon and/or independence in Scotland and Wales. There has been no broad movement to raise Scots to a naLonal language in Scotland, but Scotsh Gaelic and Welsh have acracted more acenLon. 8.2 ENGLAND AND WALES 8.2.1. The Standard, language policy and attudes toward StE In the 18th century StE existed as a monument to the new unity of the naLon aMer the Civil War and the Glorious RevoluLon. It plastered over conLnuing ethnic, religious and class division and was essenLally the product of the upper orders of society in the Georgian Age. StE ensured that the innovaLons of the EModE period were maintained:  The conclusive move from 3rd person singular –th to –s;  The compleLon of the switch to 2nd person singular “you”;  3rd person possessive neuter “its”;  Present tense plural “are” for earlier “been”;  The expansion of the progressive;  The use of relaLve “who” for persons and “which” elsewhere;  The relegaLon of double negaLon and double comparison to the non-standard language;
    
 
    ReducLon of the subjuncLve;  RestricLon of the perfect auxiliary to “have”;  ReducLon of the demonstraLve system from a three-term to a two-term system;  AdopLon of standardized spelling and punctuaLon. 8.2.1.1. Standard English and prescrip7vism In the 18th century standard languages were part of the ideological work of naLonalism. Originally, StE was the property of naLonalist intellectuals rather than of ordinary users, but with widespread educaLon this ceased and: “The linguisLc ideology then becomes common naLonal property”. In Victorian England, the white-collar class were contribuLng to the linguisLc construcLon of their naLon. The expectaLon that the standard should be learned and used by everyone led in 2 problemaLc direcLons. One was the readiness to extend English to speakers of other languages, most especially Welsh. The second was the misapprehension that the use of StE correlated with intelligence. Class privilege virtually guarantees scholasLc success. IniLally StE was a feature which could relaLvely conSdently be associated with a good educaLon regardless of naLve intelligence. The converse may have once had some grounding in fact, but it certainly had nothing to do with intelligence, and today a good educaLon no longer signiSes what it may once have done. 8.2.1.2. CodiJca7on The 17th and 18th centuries contributed enormously to the process of codiScaLon. This was a largely prescripLvist project whose aims were to purify and Sx the language, and it aOected pronunciaLon, grammar, spelling and vocabulary. Good grammar and good morals were closely connected. Power lay at the centre of the process of standardizaLon, where an elite was most likely to impose its language and manners as a whole. SwiM proposed the establishment of an academy on the model of the “Académie Française” in France or the Italian “Accademici della Crusca”. This never came about, but individual grammarians played an important role in setng the standard. By end of the 17th century regionalisms were seen as incorrect; and grammarians were prescribing the correct language for getng ahead in London society, and standard English had risen to consciousness. The best known of the early dicLonaries is Samuel Johnson’s “DicLonary of the English Language”, which stands at the beginning of a long tradiLon of lexicography that would include the incomparable 12-volume historical “Oxford English DicLonary” as well as hundreds and hundreds of further general and specialized dicLonaries. Samuel Johnson perceived a need for order and rules in the language. Variety was seen as negaLve; purity was to be achieved. Johnson relied to an appeal to experience and analogy, and drew on the authority of writers of reputaLon. 8.2.2. Vocabulary LinguisLc and cultural contact led to the adopLon of new words and expressions. This was due to the induence of the colonies and colonial goods and to immigrants from abroad. Typically new objects, especially plants, animals and topography, and new acts guaranteed the acquisiLon of new words and expressions. The diOerenLaLon of vocabulary according to class, gender, ethnicity, age and region conLnues to be an important factor in language change. 8.2.3. GrammaLcal developments From the point of view of standard grammar, licle has happened since 1700. Chief of among the developments is the compleLon of the TMA (tense-modality-aspect) paradigm, such as the extension of the progressive to the passive. The progressive form occurs more frequently in ModE than it did en EModE, and is apparently sLll extending its scope. The modal auxiliaries conLnued to expand thus reducing the subjuncLve even further. The modals themselves had undergone so much restricLon that a renewed modal system has begun to emerge. The actual changes in the system involve processes of both GrammaLcalizaLon and lexicalizaLon. PhoneLc amalgamaLon of the semi-modals such as “going to”  “gonna” or “supposed to”  “supposta”. There is the development of the new preterite-present verb “got” and the development of grammaLcal “lets, lemme” and “there’s”: some aspects of those changes are speciScally American. 8.2.3.1. The development of the modal verb The modal verbs are inLmately connected with the older Germanic emergence of preterite-present verbs. All of which do not have the 3rd person singular present tense indecLon {-s}. The present tense forms of these verbs were originally past tense forms and thus
    
 
   between each phoneme of the language and the lecer or combinaLon of lecers employed to represent it. The alphabeLc principle has been maintained. The roman alphabet has been used. The roman alphabet has been modiSed to ensure greater consistency, as in the “New Spelling” by the SimpliSed Spelling Society of Great Britain. Standard English spelling conLnues to give general preference to etymological spellings, which help to increase inter-linguisLc intelligibility, and it retains silent lecers such as the <r> in words like <car> thus allowing a more universal acceptance of spelling. 8.2.6.1. Tradi7ons and conven7ons of Scots spelling The tradiLons and convenLons of Scots spelling are largely those of StE spelling, but are extended to a number of speciScally Scotsh convenLons such as <ui> for fronted /(j)y/; <ae> for /e:/. The spelling is connected to a word’s phonemic realizaLon but leaves leeway for varying regional realizaLons as with <ui> in “good”, which can be /ø/, /wi:/, /e:/, /y/ or /i:/. 8.2.7. Regional English The marginalizaLon of the tradiLonal dialects was reinforced. They were associated with poor educaLon and lack of sophisLcaLon while the schools and the standard language that the schools promoted were seen as a route to greater vocaLonal opportunity. StE gained in overt presLge. The tradiLonal dialects conLnued to be a mainstay of local and regional idenLty and a symbol of solidarity. 8.2.7.1. Shared features A number of non-standard grammaLcal features are common to various regions in England and beyond. THE PRINCIPAL PARTS OF THE IRREGULAR VERBS  The past parLciple takes the form of the past: speak-spoke-spoke; break-broke-broke.  The past takes the form of the past parLciple: come-come-come; do-done-done.  Past and past parLciple are exchanged: see-seen-saw.  Past and past parLciple may become semi-regular: take-tooked-tooked.  Regular forms may also become irregular: creep-crope-crope. ADVERBS AND ADJECTIVES The adjecLve form is frequently used rather than the adverb in {-ly}. PleonasLc comparaLves and superlaLves occur widely. MULTIPLE NEGATION MulLple negaLon and the use of “never” as a general past negator is widely shared. EXISTENTIAL “THERE” This regularly has the singular among working-class speakers. In Tyneside English it applies with lexical verbs, but not with “be”. INFINITIVE MARKER The use of vernacular “for to “ to introduce purpose clauses also occurs in the North, the SW, Wales and overseas varieLes. PRONOUN EXCHANGE Pronoun exchange, in which case is reversed, is widespread. This refers to the use of the subject pronoun for the object. The converse is also possible. Subject forms are much more common as objects than the other way around. In the North 2 nd person “thou/thee” oMen shows up as levelled “tha” in tradiLonal dialects, but not north of the Tyne or in Northumberland. Today pronoun exchange is generally receding. ZERO PLURAL MARKING Zero plural marking of nouns aMer numerals is common. 8.2.7.2. The Southwest The Southwest is relaLvely conservaLve, retaining quite a number of older tradiLonal features of the language. It has had considerable induence on vernacular Welsh English, which has developed in a way similar to the Southwest. PERIPHRASTIC DO There is conLnued use of non-emphaLc aqrmaLve “do”, most oMen it’s used to express habituality. It’s oMen unindected: there’s no (-s) in the 3rd person singular present tense auxiliary “do”. Lexical “do” may sLll take (-s) in all persons.
    
 
   PRONOUNS Pronoun gender is diOerent than StE. Count nouns are masculine or feminine; mass nouns are neuter. Redexive pronouns include “himself, theirselves”, someLmes unmarked plurals “ourself, theirself”. The relaLve markers “what” and someLmes “as” occur in addiLon to “who, which, that”. Zero restricLve relaLve is common. THE DEFINITE ARTICLE This is overused in comparison to StE, but quite in line with the North, Scotland and Ireland. DemonstraLve pronouns are diOerently disLnguished. Pronoun case levelling can sLll be seen in the now rare use of non-standard “they” for equally non-standard, but general “them”. 8.2.7.3. The North A part of the variaLon may be accounted by the uneven pacerns of immigraLon in the 18th and 19th centuries, when many Irish moved into the Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle areas. THE FOOT-STRUT SPLIT One of the key North-South markers, the split has taken place chiedy in the South and parts of Ireland. In it ME short /u/ became opener + unrounded /ʌ/ in most words and ME short /u/ was retained as /ʊ/ in others, chiedy aMer labials “foot, full”. New words with /ʊ/ arose out of ones with ME /o:/ via shortening and raising: “good, look”, thus creaLng minimal pairs like “look-luck”. In the North /ʊ/ remained and “look” and “luck” became homophones. THE NORTHERN SUBJECT RULE This describes how the verbal –s” suqx can be used with plural noun subjects as well as with demonstraLve pronoun subjects, but not with a plural personal pronoun, unless there are some other sentence elements between the subject and the verb. PRONOUNS Tha  thou – thee Owt  anything Summat  something ARTICLE The deSnite arLcle is more widely used than in StE, and it’s oMen reduced “the  Ɵ  t  ʔ  zero when unstressed. There’s some loss of the indeSnite arLcle. It is possible with “One”. DemonstraLve “thae” occurs, but “them” is more frequent. There’s also some use of “yon/yonder”; emphaLc “this, here” and “that, there”. MODALS Modals are used much as in Scots, “may, shall, ought” are rare, “must” is epistemic only. Double modals are possible in Tyneside and Northumberland, but only with “can/could” as the 2nd verb: “might could, wouldn’t could’ve. Modal-like “need” and “want” are followed by the past parLciple. 8.3 SCOTLAND 8.3.1. Language shiM The Lowlands of Scotland have been an English-speaking area since the Anglo-Saxon invasions. UrbanizaLon and immigraLon have led to a gradual expansion of the areas where English is the major home language. The Highlands and the Islands were long the home of Gaelic speakers. They kind of language they adopted was StE, as introduced chiedy by school teachers. Highland English was more in the English than the Scots tradiLon. 8.3.2. The Lowlands The Lowlands are divided linguisLcally into Central, Northern and Southern, but all of the tradiLonal dialects of this area are generally referred to as Broas Scots. The poem by Robert Burns, “Address to a Haggis”: there are a number of unfamiliar words and spellings. These have been glossed below. In their morphology and syntax they are closely related to Northern English with which they once formed the single kingdom of Bernicia and later Northumbria. IndecLonal morphology in Scots was gradually levelled even though perhaps more older forms survived in some of the rural dialects of Scotland than elsewhere. 8.3.2.1. Grammar: morphology
    
 
   The role which analogy plays in language change became especially clear as more and more once irregular plural nouns such as “eye-een; shoe-shin” changed to regular plurals. Voicing change has been eliminated in nouns ending in /f/ in the singular (wives). The missing disLncLon between 2nd person singular and plural pronouns has been amended by adding a new plural form. Number in noun is unmarked aMer numerals. In accord with the Northern Subject Rule plural subject nouns take “is” and “was”. 8.3.2.2. Grammar syntax NEGATION NegaLon of the verb is carried out using “no, not, nae, n’t”. “Nae” is added to modal verbs and the auxiliary “do”, and “never” may negate singular events. TENSE AND ASPECT The progressive is used with staLves like “understand, like, want, intend” and both the past and the perfect are possible for recently completed events. CONDITIONALS CondiLonals commonly have “would” in the if-clause, and contrafactuals may have a doubling of the auxiliary “have”. REFLEXIVES Redexives are used in non-redexive contexts. MODAL VERBS As in IrE “shall” and “ought” are seldom, if ever, used. Double modals are common. Modals may occur aMer “to”. 8.3.2.3. Scots pronuncia7on Scots pronunciaLon shows up in the presence of the phonemes /hw/ and /x/, as in /do:xter/. Unusual consonant clusters like iniLal / kn-/ or /vr-/ occur; and Scots is rhoLc. The use of monophthongal /u:/ and fronted /ø/ or /y/ goes back to the diOerent trajectory of the GVS in the North and Scotland. Front /e:/ is monophthongal. Length is not phonemic in Scots. 8.3.2.4. Vocabulary There’s licle in the grammar that diverges from StE. The lack of a plural ending on “year” and “months” following a numeral. 8.4 IRELAND English was spoken in some parts of Ireland for a considerable period aMer the Normans, the English and the Scots invaded the island in various waves and campaigns starLng in 1167. Under the Tudors Ireland was once again invaded and colonized by seclers from Britain. Between 1500 and 1700 seclers arrived in southern Ireland from the South and southwest Midlands and in Ulster from the North and Scotland. Most of these newcomers spoke the one or the other variety of non-standard EModE. The conquest was completed by Cromwell’s forces in 1649, in the course of which the Irish were driven oO the land and forced to move further to the west. Use of Gaelic began to recede. In the 1st half of the 19th century a massive move from Gaelic to English set in, oMen iniLated by parents who wished to give their children the chance for a becer future in England, America or Australia, where many of them were to immigrate. English was spoken by many people who had an incomplete command of the language. In expanding the use of the language to all the domains of everyday life speakers drew on the resources of Gaelic. There would be lexical borrowing from Gaelic, but the pronunciaLon of English in Ireland was to show Gaelic features. Its grammar revealed the induence not only of the contact varieLes of English from the English Southwest or of Scotland, but also of the Irish substratum. 8.4.1. Standard Irish English Standard Irish English is very close to the Standard English of England and has contributed to English loan words from Gaelic. IrE is characterized by idioms and expressions which are translaLons of Irish turns of speech. The standard pronunciaLon is phonologically close to RP. While the grammar of standard IrE is essenLally the same as that of other varieLes, rural and working-class vernaculars are oMen dramaLcally diOerent. 8.4.2. The vernacular The divergence of the vernaculars from StE is credited to a variety of factors, chiedy conservaLsm as seen in retenLons from earlier English, dialect contact, substratum Irish induence, bets preserved in rural varieLes near Irish-speaking areas and features of 2 nd language acquisiLon due to rapid shiM to English in the early 19th century.
    
 
   England and Scotland. Added to this would be English spoken as a foreign language among the non-naLve crew members. This was then salted with nauLcal jargon. There were probably as many varieLes as there were ships, each represenLng a diOerent mix of English. 10.1.1. NaLve American – English contact The early contacts of European sailors and traders with the NaLve Americans did leave behind 2 important traces. The 1 st was disease, one of the most signiScant and tragic parts of what Crosby calls the “Columbian Exchange”. The 2 nd was the English language, which some of the NaLve Americans learned to serve as interpreters in negoLaLons with the seclers who came soon aMer. The English of the seafarers was probably used in the early days in North America, but the conLnued induence of nauLcal jargon can only be seen somewhat indirectly, according to Dillard, in the use of American Indian Pidgin English and in the pidgin and creole English spoken by African slaves. English was clearly around before colonizaLon, but it was through the large number of seclers that the language became truly naLve to North America. 10.1.2. The Pilgrims and the Indians Pilgrim SeparaLsts several years before their arrival an English expediLon had landed there, taken a number of Indians as slaves, and leM smallpox behind, which killed oO over 90% of the Indian populaLon, leaving the land empty. The Indian Samaser provided the Pilgrim who had survived the Srst New England winter with informaLon and introduced another Indian, Squanto to them. The lacer spoke duent English, having spent several years in England as a slave from 1605, but returned to America with Captain John Smith in 1612. He was recaptured and taken to England once again. His Snal return to home in 1619 was only to Snd that his people had died in the smallpox epidemic. Squanto proved to be so helpful to the English that he has become a mythological Sgure in American history, understood as a sign of friendship between NaLve Americans and Europeans. 10.1.3. The induence of NaLve American languages on English A great many NaLve American borrowings come from the eastern Indians, many of them form the Algonquian language family, to which the tribes of New England all belonged as did many of the tribes further south and west. 1. Word formaLon: using elements naLve to English; 2. Borrowing: from an indigenous language. The 1st led to compounds such as “black walnut”, “blackbird” or “tableland”, and extensions of European English, using terms like “yew, robin” or “bluO” to cover newly encountered dora, fauna and topography. The 2nd leads us to Anglicized words borrowed from Indian languages. 10.2 COLONIAL ENGLISH The English language which the seclers carried along with them was that of England. The colonists surely brought various regional forms, the largest number of those who arrived came from southern England. New England was predominantly secled from the south-eastern and southern counLes of England as was Virginia. 20000 Puritans came between 1629 and 1641, the largest part from Essex, SuOolk, Cambridgeshire and East Anglia with fewer than 10% from London, and that 40000 “cavaliers” ded especially from London and Bristol during the Civil War and went to the Chesapeake area and Virginia. The middle colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware probably had a much larger proporLon from Northern England, including 23000 Quakers and Evangelicals from England, Wales, Germany, Holland and France. In each of the areas secled, the nature of the language was set by speech pacerns established by the 1st several generaLons. There was relaLvely licle diOerence in the English which BriLsh and Irish colonists spoke. Dialect geographers working within the LinguisLc Atlas of the USA and Canada have collected numerous regional diOerences within AmE. There is a basic similarity within AmE, and it can be credited to 2 factors: 1. The relaLvely high degree of educaLon and respect for learning 2. The levelling or koinéizaLon of varieLes as they mixed in the new environment. 10.2.1. Learning and educaLon in New England The 1st purpose of educaLon was to prepare people for their further life by ensuring that they had the necessary knowledge and proper attudes. For the Puritans educaLon was the major element of culture and society beyond religion itself. The main moLvaLon for establishing schools was to provide the people with access to reading and wriLng and hence to the Word of God. The Puritan populaLon was extraordinarily well educated. Common schools were insLtuted in 1642 and legally mandated in 1647. The literacy rate In Massachusecs was high: 89-95% of men; 42% of women. 60% of the households contained books in Middlesex. University level educaLon provided training for ministers. In Massachusecs Bay, Harvard College was founded (1636). Where the level of educaLon was high there was clearly a greater orientaLon toward the wricen word. The relaLve uniformity of English in early America was more a macer of grammar and vocabulary and less of pronunciaLon. The establishment of attudes of correctness among the educated. Outside of New England literacy was less widespread. Books and newspapers were rare in the American South. 10.2.2. KoinéizaLon Dillard – “All American English” (1975) this catches the important noLon of dialect levelling, an extremely important development in the English language in America. The majority of English seclers in 17th century came from Southern England. They did not maintain any BriLsh local or regional dialect anywhere in North America. The beginnings of the koiné predated the move to
    
 
   America. Mobility in England was already a factor that brought speakers of countless local varieLes into contact with each other, and that may have led to koinéizaLon, especially in London. KoinéizaLon stretched over at least 3 generaLons: in the 1st speakers accommodated to each other; the following generaLons then naLvized the compromise forms. In looking at how AmE diOers from BrE an important factor beyond dialect contact was the induence of further languages on English. 10.2.3. Colonial American English in contact with other European languages In 1700 the populaLon of the North American colonies was more than 200000. The seclers were concentrated in Massachusecs and Virginia. At the end of the colonial period in the USA the number had grown to about 2,5 million. The populaLon was urban. Despite the large numbers of people from Britain and Ireland and their descendants, other European seclers were also an important presence in colonial America. 17% of the people living in New York and New Jersey were of Dutch origin; in Delaware 9% were Swedish. Pennsylvania was heavily secled by Germans and throughout Canada and the Mississippi Valley the French were dominant, just as the Spanish were in Florida. The linguisLc eOect is small. 10.2.3.1. Dutch Dutch contributed chiedy to the vocabulary and to a small extent to public culture. Among the words from Dutch we Snd the somewhat less well-known “cruller” and the ubiquitous “cookie”. Other food words include “cole slaw, pot cheese” and “wa©e”. The once very American word “boss” also comes from Dutch, as do “yatch, stoop, snoop, spook, dope, dumb, yankee”. More strictly cultural items include Saint Nicolas, becer known as Santa Claus and street names in New York, such as Wall St. The various place- names ending in –hook such as Sandy Hook also come from Dutch. 10.2.3.2. German, French and Spanish These are the other important European languages which English speakers came into contact with in the colonial period, yet their induence was relaLvely negligible. This would change in the 19th and 20th centuries. 10.2.4. The language of the African slaves By the end of the colonial period the number of people of African descent in what became the USA had reached approximately one- SMh of the populaLon. These people spoke the one or the other variety of English, depending very much on the nature of their relaLons with Euro-Americans. Among the slaves there were house servants, skilled craMsmen and Seld labourers. This had consequences for the type of language spoken. Where contact was less intensive pidgin English was common. Where contact was closer, de-creolized forms were in use, oMen very close to the usage of the white populaLon. 10.2.4.1. African American Pidgin English and PlantaLon Creole There is licle direct evidence of pidgin English in the North American colonies. In the period from 1620 to 1700 there are sporadic bits taken from the speech of slaves such as that of Tituba, a slave brought to Massachusecs from Barbados, who tesLSed at the Salem witch trials. 10.3 DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH AMERICAN ENGLISH AFTER AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 10.3.1. Standard and non-standard English VariaLons in AmE are not only regional, but also strongly social. On one side the use of StE and the avoidance of shibboleths, that non-standard forms which members of the speech community are aware of and which sociolinguisLcs calls markers. On the other side, there is non-standard GenE. The divide is evident in pronunciaLon, grammar and vocabulary; and one single item may be enough to set the machinery of prejudice into acLon. The central formula is “language + x”, whereby “x” may be gender, ethnicity, educaLon, intelligence, urbanity. What some people label as ignorance of the rules of English is merely a diOerent set of rules than those of StE. 10.3.2. StandardizaLon The classical criteria of standardizaLon were not all equally relevant in the American context. SelecLon and expansion were of minor importance, but codiScaLon and acceptance have been at the forefront on interest. The codiSed standard in America is independent of any single insLtuLon such as an academy. There has long been a conglomeraLon of self-appointed experts who represent authority in language. Noah Webster, whose most induenLal books were “A GrammaLcal InsLtute of the English Language”, consisLng of 3 parts, a speller, a grammar and a reader, and his “American DicLonary of the English Language”. 10.3.2.1. Vocabulary An important part of the naLonal project of AmE has been to emphasize its independence from BrE. This has also led to a feeling of division between the USA an Anglophone Canada. Mencken”The American Language”, his work emphasizes diOerences in vocabulary and meaning, especially in contrast to BrE. What he stressed is the type of items concerned, namely words borrowed from other languages, words needed to accommodate American culture and insLtuLons and provincialisms and archaisms as well as extensions and shiMs of meaning. Only the cultural-insLtuLonal items pose a really major problem of communicaLon between naLonal varieLes. Such North American items include an endless list of names, historical-geographical references, insLtuLons, tradiLonal songs, music and dances, naLonal customs. AmE items are oMen recognized and understood, though not acLvely used in other varieLes. The same is true of the peculiariLes of the other varieLes. The use of a given naLonal item may be emblemaLc; it labels the speakers as a member of a speech community. 10.3.2.2. Spelling The spelling reforms are not haphazard and unsystemaLc. We Snd the principle of: 1) SimpliScaLon: double lecers; LaLn spellings, word endings;
    
 
   2) RegularizaLon: all cases of <-our> become <-or> and <-re> becomes <-er>; 3) DerivaLonal uniformity: noun-verb; noun adjecLve; 4) RedecLon of pronunciaLon: <z> or <s> as /z/; <gh> in words like <through> may be simpliSed <thru> in informal spellings thus coming closer to the pronunciaLon; 5) Stress indicaLon: doubling of the <l> indicates stress on the syllable; 6) PronunciaLon spellings: “oMen” as /ɔ:Mən/ rather than tradiLonal /ɔ:fən/. There are a number of individual, unsystemaLc diOerences. Today we also Snd nonce spellings, especially in adverLsing, <E-Z> easy. AmE usage is not completely consistent; we Snd <adverLsement> with <s> and many people write <Saviour> with <u> and <theatre> with <-re> as if the BrE spelling lent the word more standing. Much of the variaLon in AmE lies in the greater willingness on the part of its users to accept the few modest reforms that have been suggested. Canadians seem to be of 2 minds about this with the consequence that we Snd far more variaLon between US and BriLsh spellings in CanE. 10.3.2.3. Grammar StE does not have as much variaLon in this area as in morphology. American speakers seem to be less strict about the adverbs which require the use of the present perfect; “have got” diOers in meaning from “have gocen”; “have” is seldom used in negaLves and quesLons without “do”; the frequency of use of parLcular modal auxiliaries is oMen diOerent; the reduced forms of the semi-modals such as “gonna, goca” and “wanna” are perhaps more commonly used. The mandaLve subjuncLve is more normal even in spoken standard AmE than in BrE. NoLonal concord is less frequent in AmE, but not uncommon. Copular verbs may pacern diOerently in BrE and AmE. 10.3.2.4. Morphology Standard AmE has inherited a few diOerent verb forms from those used in BrE. Past tense “dove” (for “dived”); past parLciple “gocen” (for “got”); past and past parLciple: a preference for <-ed> rather than <-t> as in “burned, dreamed”. BrE frequently uses preposiLons ending in <-st> where AmE has “amid, among, while”; compound preposiLons that require “of” as the second element in standard BrE may do without it in AmE. 10.3.3. The pronunciaLon of AmE The pronunciaLon which is most oMen recognized as the standard is frequently called General American, someLmes also Network Standard. 10.3.3.1. Consonants There is licle variaLon from region to region. Standard AmE has a system of 24 consonants, the same ones as in RP. There are numerous phonotacLc diOerences and a diOering funcLonality of <hw> and <Ɂ>. Among the more important phonotacLc points are:  The rhoLcity of GenAm;  The dapping of /t/ in a voiced environment before an unstressed syllable;  The loss of post-nasal before unstressed syllables;  The non-occurrence of /j/ aMer dental or alveolar consonants; /n, t, d, s, l, ɵ/ occur alone or with palatalizaLon. 10.3.3.2. Vowels The major changes from Shakespeare to Webster are:  The phonemicizaLon of high central /ɨ/;  The phonemicizaLon of short mid-back /o/;  The monophtongizaLon of /ju:/ to /ɨ:/ aMer /t, d, ʃ, j/;  The conLnuaLon of the GVS with the lowering of /ʌɪ/ to /aɪ/ and of /ʌu/ to /ɑʊ/. The major changes from Webster’s Lmes to today are:  Reversal of phonemicizaLon of high central /ɨ/;  The dephonemicizaLon of length in favour of phoneLc quality;  PhonemicizaLon of /ɜ:/;  Regionally diOering diphthongizaLon of /e:/ and /o:/ to /eɪ/ and /oʊ/;  Varying loss of disLncLons between low back /ɑ(:)/, /ɔ:/ and /ɒ/;  Backing of the 1st element of /ɔɪ/;  Varying fronLng of [u(:)] to [ʉ(:)]. Present-day AmE may be described as having a number of vowel system in which diOerent sets of changes are occurring. 3 diOerent shiMs seem to be in progress: the Southern Vowel ShiM, the Northern CiLes ShiM and the Low Back Merger. Labov has characterized them and suggested how the principles that lied behind them may look. There appear to be 2 major types of English dialects, moving in diametrically opposite direcLons. By adding in the eOect of mergers we get a 3 rd major type. They are vaguely parallel to the North-Midland-South division, or even to the more tradiLonal division in AmE into North, South and West. Phones that represent one phoneme in one dialect represent an enLrely diOerent phoneme in another. According to Labov’s 1st principle tense or long vowels rise. /æ/ splits into 2 types in New York City:
    
 
   as compared with about 500 at the Lme of European discovery. Indian life was destroyed through deliberate genocide or more subtle processes such as “removal”, the reservaLon system and constant pressure to join the mainstream. American Indian English is not unitary. Behind each variety lies an ancestral language which has an eOect on the grammar and the rules of discourse of AIE. AIE is closely related to the local, oMen non-standard forms of non-Indian English. Leap points out that many of the “long-short” contrasts such as /i:/ - /ɪ/ or /eɪ/ - /e/ are not always maintained, which means that the same vowel may be used in “his” and “he’s”. Since some consonants of English do not have counterparts in the ancestral languages, for example /ð/ and /Ɵ/, they will be realized with more familiar phonemes, such as /d/ and /t/. Possible grammaLcal diOerences include lack of plural or possessive indecLons and the treatment of uncountable nouns as countable ones. The order of sentence elements may be diOerent than in StE. Use of imagery diOerent from StE. The use of silence is more common: AIE speakers may use up to 3 Lmes longer periods of silence before they answer a quesLon or say something in a discussion. NaLve American children were once forced by US language policy to acend boarding schools, thus separaLng them from tribe, tradiLon and tradiLonal language. The result has been a loss of interest in Indian culture and languages. 10.5.2. Immigrant communiLes, bilingualism, code-switching, language retenLon Immigrant groups have long played an important and varying role in American idenLty. The language situaLon of immigrant communiLes follows a relaLvely straigh‹orward line: the 1st generaLon arrives with all its naLve heritage. AssimilaLon begins as these 1st arrivals seek to become full members of the new society. 1st generaLon immigrants spoke English oMen highly marked by 1st language interference. One generaLon later only a small selecLon of Yiddish items would remain, perhaps enough to serve as emblemaLc markers of a speaker’s Yiddish roots, for the L1 was oMen replaced by English even as the home language. 10.5.3. African American Vernacular English By the 19th century AAVE was marked by pronunciaLon at once reminiscent of the Caribbean creoles and of white Southern English. It had grammaLcal features which corresponded not only to non-standard white vernacular forms but also to disLncLvely African American ones. 19th century Southern AAVE 19th century AACE Pronuncia7on: Elision of intervocalic /ð/ Elision of /r/ and /ð/ /d/ for /ð/ /j/ before iniLal vowel + encliLc –y /j/ before iniLal vowels [a] for /aɪ/ Non-rhoLcity Loss of Snal consonant Loss of Snal consonant Loss of iniLal unstressed syllable Loss of iniLal unstressed syllable /b/ or /ß/ for /v/ Unpalatalized Grammar: Zero copula Zero copula – inSniLve marker /fer/ Progressive marker deleLon Progressive marker “do” or “is” No ending, but juxtaposiLon to mark the possessive 3rd person singular pron. “e” - 3rd person plural “dem” – 2nd person plural pron. “oona” PerfecLve marker “done” Remote tense marker “bin” No 3rd person sg. Pres. Tense –s Pre-verbal negaLon “no” – past tense negaLve marker plus double In present-day AAVE the more creole forms do not occur. Stressed auxiliary “bin” does serve as a remote marker and unstressed “done” conLnues to be used as a perfecLve marker, as does the zero copula. A new form, “invariant be”, is spreading as a marker of the habitual. A number of grammaLcal features are typical of general non-standard vernacular English; similarity the use of an adjecLve for an adverb, the pleonasLc subject and the singular ending on “ourself”. The non-marking of the past or past parLciple are more of a problem. 10.5.3.1. The phonology of the AAVE vowel system UnLl the Lme of World War I most African Americans lived in the South, and they shared a unitary vowel system with white Southerners. Evidence from recordings made of Southern blacks born in the 19 th century shows a number of similariLes to Caribbean creoles: No fronLng of the black vowels /u:/ and /ʊ/ or the 1st element of /ɑʊ/ and monophthongal /a/ before voiced obstruents and the raising of /æ/ appear as independent AAVE developments. 10.5.4. Spanich-induenced English – Chicano English (CE) CE is a term which may be applied to a wider variety of dialects spoken by people of Mexican origin in the US. It may be virtually idenLcal with local Anglo varieLes or may be English spoken by immigrants with a high degree of 1st-language interference. It is an important cultural marker, a reminder of linguisLc history and a ferLle Seld for the study of language contact phenomena and linguisLc idenLty issues. Chicano English can vary on a conLnuum from less to more standard and from less to more induence by other dialects, and it encompasses a wide range of stylisLc opLons. It is not a non-naLve variety. It may contain the occasional Spanish word as a kind of emblemaLc marker of ethnic idenLty.
    
 
   10.5.4.1. PronunciaLon diOerences CE diOers from non-naLve Spanish-induenced English in the realizaLon of consonants. Dental [d, t] oMen replace /ð, Ɵ/, and consonant cluster reducLon is common. CE speakers have T-dapping, do not have an epentheLc /ə/ before iniLal /sp-/, and do not merge /b/ and /v/, use /ʤ/ for /j/, or merge /æ/ and /ɑ/ or /e/ and /eɪ/. The alternaLon of /ʧ/ and /ʃ/ is a feature of CE. 10.5.4.2. Vowels CE speakers have less vowel reducLon than Anglo naLve-speakers, perhaps due to the syllable-Lming of this accent, and stress pacerns lie somewhere between Anglo English and Mexican Spanish norms. While Spanish interference would suggest the replacement of short /ɪ/ by tense /i/, they are disLnguished in CE, even though their lexical distribuLon is diOerent than among Anglos. Two very prominent shiMs are /u/-fronLng and /æ/-raising. In CE /u/-fronLng to [ʉ] is best described as a complex interacLon of social features. IdenLLes are constructed in a complex fashion and are not dependent on single features such as class or gender. As for /æ/-backing and /æ/-raising, some speakers frequently do both; all speakers have some raising while some never back. Raising is especially common before nasals. 10.5.4.3. GrammaLcal variaLon Much less characterisLc of CE includes the dropping of the past and past parLcipial ending –d, which may be as much a macer of pronunciaLon as of grammar. There is widespread use of mulLple negaLon. This is due to the induence of Spanish, which regularly uses mulLple negaLon. 10.5.4.4. Bilingualism Bilingualism is not a prerequisite for being a speaker of CE, the Spanish retenLon rates resemble those of other immigrant languages, that is, a loss of bilingualism in 2nd generaLon and a 3rd generaLon with licle more than a passive proSciency in Spanish.