Download ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 2° YEAR A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH

ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 2° YEAR
THE LANGUAGE OF CHAUCER
Annalisa Federici, Ph.D.
D. Burnley, The Language of Chaucer,
Macmillan 1983 (chapter 1).
GRAMMAR: NOUNS
• The Noun in Chaucer presents few difficulties in
interpretation, since it is formally and functionally
close to the noun in ModE.
• The complex inflectional system of OE
(inflectional endings for gender, number, case)
has largely disappeared.
• Occasional traces of a dative inflectional -e (in the
pronunciation and writing of which a
considerable degree of freedom existed) are
found in few prepositional idioms, e.g. for Gode
(CT A 3526), in lande (CT B 4069).
GRAMMAR: NOUNS
• The only inflectional endings commonly surviving are es (derived from the genitive singular and the
nominative/accusative plural of OE strong masculine
nouns, and indicating both possession and plurality)
and -en (derived from nominative and accusative
plural inflections of OE weak nouns, and used for
plurality, without distinction in case). Cf. eyen (“eyes”),
asshen (“ashes”), Cristes passioun (“Christ’s passion”).
• The genitive case may coexist with periphrastic forms:
loue of frendes (TC II 379) and frendes loue (TC III
1591).
GRAMMAR: ADJECTIVES
• Though all traces of case and gender inflections had
disappeared from adjectives in London English by the
time of Chaucer, inflection for plurality is sometimes
evident in a final -e: clene, grene, swete.
• These conditions do not apply to polysillabic
adjectives (not inflected), to adjectives whose stem
in OE ended in a vowel, or to French-derived
monosyllables.
GRAMMAR: PRONOUNS
• The forms of personal pronouns in Chaucer differ
from those in ModE in some respects:
• Subject pronouns:
 First person: I – we
 Second person: thow/thou – ye
 Third person: he/she/hit – they/thei
• Object pronouns:
 First person: me – us
 Second person: thee – yow/you
 Third person: hire/him/(h)it – hem
GRAMMAR: PRONOUNS
Some observations:
• The forms hem and hire are derived from OE, whereas they
is of Scandinavian origin, showing that Chaucer’s London
English employed only the subject form of this originallyScandinavian paradigm.
• The choice between ye and thou (sing.) has social and
attitudinal implications: in case of unequal status, the
superior addresses the inferior as thou and expects to be
referred to as ye.
• Existence of separate pronouns for second-person singular
and plural pronouns, whereas ModE only admits thou – as
an alternative to you – in a few specific registers (such as
liturgical language).
GRAMMAR: POSSESSIVES
• Possessives in Chaucer differ from ModE forms:
 First person: my(n)/myne – oure
 Second person: thy(n)/youre
 Third person: hire (fem.)/his (masc./neut.) – hire/thair
This was thyn ooth and myn also certeyn (CT A 1139)
Allas myn hertes queene, allas my wyf (CT A 2775)
• The third-person possessive does not adequately
distinguish between singular and plural (hire).
• The third-person singular possessive fails to distinguish
between masculine and neuter gender (his).
GRAMMAR: DEMONSTRATIVES AND
RELATIVES
DEMONSTRATIVES
• Chaucer’s language uses the demonstratives that and this
(singular), and tho and thise (plural).
RELATIVES
• Fourteenth-century English used a range of relatives similar
to that of modern English, but differing in some aspects of
their use.
• Though from OE onwards there had been a tendency to
distinguish between personal and non-personal
antecedents in pronoun usage, no distinction was regularly
maintained in Chaucer’s time.
The knyght cam which men wenden had be deed (CT D 2029)
GRAMMAR: RELATIVES
• Whos, whom and which are commonly used,
frequently preceded by a preposition.
This Sowdanesse whom I thus blame and warye (CT
B 372)
This clerk whos rethoryk swete (CT E 32)
For if a preest be foul in whom we truste (CT A 501)
This duc of whom I make mencion (CT A 893)
Lord to whom Fortune hath yiuen / Victorie (CT A
915-6)
GRAMMAR: RELATIVES
• Who is not generally used as a relative, and
remains an interrogative and indefinite
pronoun, as in OE.
• The most common relative is that, used for
both personal and non-personal antecedents
(though more common with the former).
GRAMMAR: VERBS
• In Chaucer’s ME, the categories of strong and weak verbs
are distinguishable only by the forms of the preterite and
the past participle.
• In strong verbs the preterite is formed by a change in the
root vowel, and the past participle by adding the
inflexional ending e(n): knowe(n) – knew – knowe(n);
take(n) – took – take(n); breke(n) – brak – broke(n).
• Weak verbs form the preterite and past participle by
adding the suffixes (e)d or t, usually to the stem of the
infinitive, but sometimes to a special preterite form
which had arisen in the past: wedde(n) – wedded –
wedded; seke(n) – soght – soght; wende(n) – went –
went.
GRAMMAR: VERBS
• Weak verbs were, as now are, the most common class,
although some strong verbs were of very frequent
occurrence.
• All new coinages and foreign borrowings were treated as
weak (e.g. daunce(n) – daunced – daunced).
• Gradually, formerly strong verbs started to develop weak
forms. In such a transitory phase, boh variants may be found.
• In Chaucer’s language, both strong and weak past participles
can occur in two forms, i.e. with or without the prefix y-/i- (a
phonetically-reduced form of the OE prefix ge-):
ycleped/cleped, ycome(n)/come(n).
GRAMMAR: VERBS
• The infinitive often ends in –en, but forms lacking the
final n are also common: helpen/helpe; don/do.
• In the present tense, the third person singular
generally ends in -eth, whereas the third person plural
generally ends in -en (e.g. he/she/it passeth, they
passen). As in the infinitive and past participle, forms
lacking the final -n also occur.
• In Chaucer’s language, as in ModE, only the present
and the preterite were distinguished by verb inflexions.
Future time is expressed via the present tense or by a
periphrastic form with the auxiliaries shal and wol
followed by an infinitive.