The language of Early Modern English is the language of W. Shakespeare, C. Marlowe, B. Jonson and many other talented playwrights and poets (Vaught 73-75). This period in the development of English can be rightfully called the highest bloom of English literature. The 15th century, however, was poorly productive in terms of literary achievement, but was rather a period of crucial and productive linguistic changes regarding both form of words and the structure of a sentence. With the loss of the flexion, the word order acquired a larger significance that it had in Old and Middle English (Jespersen, McCawley 20-23).
In the texts of Alfred the Great, the king's peer, the subject preceded that predicate in less than half of the sentences. Such a simple Old English sentence describing the love for sailing appeared in Modern English as "We like sailing". Here, the case of the pronoun moved from the dative to the nominative case, and grammatical subject instead of the word that signified an action became represented by the word that signified a doer, that is, "we".
Another striking example of this transfer of grammatical subject at the beginning of a sentence with a corresponded change of the form of the pronoun is represented in the sentence "He was given the boat" instead of the Old English form " Him was gegiefen se bat", where the bat, or the boat, appeared the grammatical subject (Smith 160).
In Chaucer's "It am I", the grammatical subject is evidently represented by "I", but in the Early Modern Southern variant "It is I" the formal subject is represented by the semantically empty, that is, insignificant, pronoun "it" (McLaughlin 92-104). The colloquial form of Early Modern Southern variant developed even further by putting the nominal part of the predicate into the objective case, like "It's me".
The reason for such changes in the newly established form is represented by two factors: first, it happened because this nominal part is perceived here as an emphatic one; secondly, this part requires this case by virtue of its placing after the verb. On these changes, it becomes clear that here the significance of the word order in Early Modern Southern variant continues to grow, though it is not so strict as in the Northern variant or German.
In the rest, the grammatical structure of the Southern dialects did not experience further alterations during the Early Modern English period. The other changes concerned the intensification of the analytical feature of the language: the expansion of the use of auxiliary words, the increase in the number of analytical forms, as well as the strengthening of the fixed word order in the sentence.
If the preceding period of the English development the words of the categories of state were not distinguished into certain classed, Early Modern English introduced new lexemes of this category that established strict semantic groups indicating psychological and physical state of a person, as well as the state of movement and mental activity.
Furthermore, at the beginning of the foundation of Early Modern English, the usual variant of the ending of the third person singular was -eth, which was typical for the Southern variant (Weiner, Grammar in Early). Subsequently, the following form -e that came from the Northern variant replaced the preceding -eth throughout the subsequent development of this period. Indeed, this old Southern variant of the verb ending like -en was later replaced by that of -eth, including such verbs as doth, hath, loveth an so on (Early Modern English). In turn, both of these endings were gradually replaced by the Northern -e or -es, though Shakespeare preferred using both the Southern and Northern forms like loveth and loves.
What is more, the Northern variant of Early Modern English was peculiar for the use of its they, their and them, which proved to be more usable in comparison to the Southern hi, hir and hem, mainly due to the fact that the latter Southern variations could be naturally mixed up with the corresponding singular pronouns he, him and her (Early Modern English). Nonetheless, these preferences did not prevent the majority of English speakers from resorting to the both variants introduced by Southern and Northern English. Hence, the difference in spelling was frequently justified by practical considerations, such as those represented by omitting or adding letters to establish a proper layout (Early Modern English).
At the same time, the most important feature of the Southern dialect that differed it from that of the Northern one during the period of Early Modern English was the so-called great shift of vowels that radically reestablished the entire vocal system (Nevalainen 120-125). With that, it consistent in the following transfers: i:>ai; e:, ɛ:>i:; a:>ei; o:>ou; o:>u:; u:>au. What is more, a crucial role was played by the vocalization of "r" that led to the formation of new diphthongs, as well as the new long sounds [а:], [о:] and [ǝ:] (Smith 67-71). As a result of this shift, the old variants of [а:] and [о:] were diphthongized. However, the effects of this shift of vowels emerged much earlier, with their pronunciation used mostly in the Southern dialects. In turn, several words of the Northern variant, including dour and uncouth managed to preserve their traditional pronunciation observed before the period of the shift of vowels (Early Modern English).
Finally, the Southern variant introduced a fixed stress in primordial words, though it retained the possibility to stress all borrowed words on any syllable. The rhythmical tendency observed in the Southern dialect led to the emergence of secondary stresses in polysyllabic words. Still, unlike the great shift of vowels, the changes in consonants were not so great as during the period of Old English. Unstressed vowel endings in many cases, such as those of infinitives, undergone apocope. Later on, the development of Early Modern English entailed the further simplification of morphological structure.
Works Cited
Jespersen, Otto, and James D. McCawley. Progress in Language: With Special Reference to English. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub., 1993. 20-23. Print.
McLaughlin, John C. Old English Syntax: A Handbook. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1983. 92- 104. Print.
Nevalainen, Terttu. An Introduction to Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh U, 2010. 120-125. Print.
Smith, J. J. An Historical Study of English: Function, Form, and Change. London: Routledge, 1996. 67-71. Print.
Smith, J. J. Old English: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2009. 160. Print.
"Early Modern English (c. 1500 - C. 1800)." The History of English. Web. 4 Mar. 2016. <http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html>.
Vaught, Jennifer C. Masculinity and Emotion in Early Modern English Literature. Alershot, England: Ashgate, 2008. 73-75. Print.
Weiner, Edmund. "Grammar in Early Modern English." Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 4 Mar. 2016. <http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-english/english-in-time/grammar-in- early-modern-english/>.
