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ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 2° YEAR THE LANGUAGE OF SHAKESPEARE Annalisa Federici, Ph.D. D. Crystal, “Think on My Words”: Exploring Shakespeare’s Language, CUP 2012 (chapters 7-8). GRAMMAR: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES When studying Shakespeare’s grammar it is interesting to focus on: • Forms or constructions used by him that we still use today • Forms or contructions used by him that we no longer use today • Forms or constructions we use today which are not used by him at all. We should then avoid reading into Shakespeare the grammatical norms from a later period, i.e. such prescriptions introduced by eighteenth-century grammarians and their successors as: GRAMMAR: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES • Subject-object concord in the present tense: My old bones akes (Temp. 3.3.2) What cares these roarers for the name of King? (Temp. 1.1.16) The Duke is comming from the Temple, and there is two or three Lords & Ladies more married (MND. 4.2.16) GRAMMAR: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES • Double Negatives: after centuries of using multiple negative words to express increasing intensity of negation, the practice was banned from Standard English. In Shakespeare the rule is not fixed: the more negatives in the clause, the more emphatic the negative meaning. I sawe Marke Antony offer him a Crowne, yet ’twas not a Crowne neyther, ’twas one of these Coronets (JC. 1.2.234) Nor understood none neither sir (LLL. 5.1.144) GRAMMAR: NOUNS • Nouns generally provide an interesting example of the similarities (singular vs. regular/irregular plurals, proper vs. common, singular vs. plural possessive case) and differences (no apostrophe marking possession, capitalisation used for some common nouns) between grammatical usage today and in Shakespeare’s time. • Some notable differences are: GRAMMAR: NOUNS • Nouns which are uncountable today but countable in Shakespeare’s time: I haue assayl’d her with Musickes (Cym. 2.3.38) Their discipline, / (Now wing-led with their courages) (Cym. 2.4.24) In seeking tales and informations / Against this man (HVIII. 5.3.110) • Similarly, we find kindreds, behalfs, moneys, revenges. • Two forms of a plural coexist: You shew’d your teethes like Apes (JC. 5.1.41) Defiance Traitors, hurle we in your teeth. (JC. 5.1.64) GRAMMAR: ADJECTIVES • The system according to which we express a higher/lower degree of an adjective by means of inflected or periphrastic forms had already been established by Shakespeare’s time, but it had not finished developing. • Thus we can find: more great, more long, more near. • Conversely, we can find: honester/honestest, oftener, perfectest. • Other irregular forms (double comparatives and superlatives for a more emphatic effect): Our worser thoughts (Ant. 1.2.63) A more larger List of Sceptres (Ant. 3.6.76) This was the most unkindest cut of all (JC. 3.2.184) GRAMMAR: ADJECTIVES • Sometimes the choice depends on the constraints of metre. Cf. As You Like It 3.5.51: You are a tousand times a properer man Then she a woman. ’Tis such fooles as you That makes the world full of ill-fauourd children: ’Tis not her glasse, but you that flatters her, And out of you she sees her selfe more proper Then any of her lineaments can show her GRAMMAR: ADJECTIVES • Different word order: sequence of adjectives which may appear both before and after the noun they modify: Her Mother is the Lady of the house, And a good Lady, and wise, and Vertuous, (Rom. 1.5.113) • Reversal of word order in friendly greetings, e.g. “good my lord”, “good my friend”. GRAMMAR: VERBS • The most distinctive features of Shakespeare’s verb usage relate to the way these forms are used to express time (tenses). • As for the present, a noticeable difference is the presence of the two Middle English verb endings which were still used in the Early Modern period: -est for the second person singular (thou) and -th/eth for the third person singular. The latter was gradually replaced by -s (alternation is due to metrical constraints: the -eth ending gives an extra syllable). The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long (Ham. 1.1.161) It is the Larke that sings so out of tune, (Rom. 3.5.27) • The forms of the verb to be also included four older items: art, beest, wert, wast. ALL THESE FORMS WERE IN FREE VARIATION AT THAT TIME. GRAMMAR: VERBS • As for the past tense, it is interesting to note that: Some verbs which are irregular in Shakespeare’s time have become regular today, e.g. durst (dared), holp (helped), ought (owed). Some verbs which are regular in Shakespeare’s time have become irregular today, e.g. digged (dug), shaked (shook), builded (built). Some verbs which are irregular in Shakespeare’s time stay irregular, but assume different forms, e.g. brake (broke), drave (drove), spake (spoke), writ (wrote). GRAMMAR: PRONOUNS • Many different forms for the second person singular pronoun: thou, thee, you, ye. • The forms thou/you are important markers of social difference. In OE, the former was singular and the latter was plural, but then you came to be used as a polite form of the singular (probably because of French tu vs. vous). As a result, you was regularly used by inferiors to superiors, and thou in return. Thou also became common for intimacy, and when the lower classes talked to each other. • In the plays, the way in which characters switch from one pronoun to the other may therefore signal changes in attitudes and relationships. GRAMMAR: PRONOUNS • The old grammatical distinction between ye (as subject) and you (as object) had long gone by Shakespeare’s time: the dominant form was you, yet sometimes they were interchangeable. If it might please you, to enforce no further The griefes betweene ye: to forget them quite, Were to remember: that the present neede, Speakes to attone you. (Ant. 3.3.103) • As you was definitely predominant, we could attribute the use of ye not to metrical factors (they are both monosyllabic), but to stylistic factors (ye was not a poetic form) and grammatical factors (it is common in vocatives). WORD ORDER • Frequent reversal of order between subject and object: Sometime she driueth ore a Souldiers necke, & then dreames he of cutting Forraine throats (Rom. 1.4.70) • More complex instances of change in word order: He is our subiect so art thou, Free speech, and fearelesse, I to thee allow. (RII. 1.1.123) [I allow to thee free and fearless speech]: direct object placed at the front, indirect object before the verb, adjective coordinated after the noun (metrical regularity at the expense of syntax). VOCABULARY • Cases of conversion or functional shift (a word belonging to one part of speech is used as a different part of speech), such as a common noun/adjective used as a verb, a verb/noun used as an adjective: Lord Angelo Dukes it well in his absence (MM. 3.2.90) Yet what man / Thirds his owne worth (TNK. 1.2.96) Nor dignifies an impaire thought with breath (Tro. 4.5. 103) Kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages (Tro. 2.3.173) VOCABULARY • Alteration of words (adding of syllables) due to metrical constraints: I can call Spirits from the vastie Deepe (1H IV. 3.1.50) • Use of alternative forms for the same word, e.g. vantage/advantage, scape/escape, oft/often: So oft as that shall be, So often shall the knot of vs be call’d, The Men that gaue their Country liberty (JC. 3.1.115) VOCABULARY • False friends: heavy (“sorrowful”), humorous (“moody”), sad (“serious”), ecstasy (“madness”), owe (“own”), merely (“totally”), envious (“malicious”). • Coinages: unaneled (“without having received the last sacraments”), disappointed (“unfurnished, unprepared”), accessible, domineering, indistinguishable, shudder (as a noun), angel (in the sense of “lovely being”, “resembling an angel”). Vnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld (Ham. 1.5.77) VOCABULARY • Attribution of a new meaning to words which already existed: e.g. fledge was used as an adjective in the Middle Ages, describing the state of birds whose feathers were fully developed; in the second half of the sixteenth century it began to be used as a verb meaning the acquiring of feathers. Shakespeare first attributed it to men: whose [Prince Hal’s] Chin is not yet fledg’d (2H IV. 1.2.20) we poore vnfledg’d, Haue neuer wing’d from view o’th’ nest (Cym. 3.3.27) • Neologisms are frequently repeated or used in clusters. • Multiple invention: Shakespeare created both new words and new senses from existing words. VOCABULARY • “Creative” use of the prefix un- to produce adjectives (e.g. uncomfortable, uncompassionate, unearthly, uneducated), adverbs (e.g. unaware, unheedfully), nouns (e.g. undeserver), or added to already-existing verbs (e.g. unshout, unspeak, uncurse, unswear, undeaf): Againe vncurse their Soules (RII. 3.2.137) My deaths sad tale, may yet vndeafe his eare (RII. 2.1.16) SPELLING Most common differences in spelling: • V and U used as both a vowel (e.g. catalogve, volume) and a consonant (e.g. volume, seuerall) • Presence of a final e (e.g. againe, appeare, assaile) • Use of an apostrophe to replace a letter e (e.g. appear’d, arm’d) • Use of ie instead of y at the end of a word (e.g. fantasie, busie) • Doubling of consonants, especially l (e.g. royall, sonne)