The co-occurrence rules for determiners were somewhat different from those in later modern English. ‘Life it self.is a burden cannot be born under the lasting.pressure of such an uneasiness’ (John Locke, 1694). In the early modern period it could be used where the relative was the subject of its clause as well as object (now largely non-standard or poetic), e.g. no pronoun at all) arose in Middle English but was rare in the sixteenth century. The use of the so-called ‘zero relative’ (i.e. who as a relative pronoun was rare in the fifteenth century and gradually became commoner in the period. which could be used for both persons and things but became rare for persons after 1611.
the which was inherited from Middle English but became rare by the mid-seventeenth century. The relative pronoun that remained common (as it still is), but a number of alternatives existed during the period. Forms in – self (which early had been restricted to emphatic use) now became the usual ones plurals-with – selves (replacing – self) after plural pronouns-made their appearance in the early sixteenth century. The earlier use of the simple objective pronouns me, thee, us, and so on, became restricted largely to poetic use during the period, as in this example from Milton’s Paradise Lost: ‘Take to thee from among the Cherubim Thy choice of flaming Warriours’. Various alternatives arose, including it (‘ it had it head bit off beit (= by it) young’, King Lear) and thereof (‘Sufficient vnto the daye, is the trauayle therof’, Great Bible, 1539) its first appeared in print in the 1590s and was rapidly accepted into the standard language. In the third person, the possessive of it was his until around 1600. By the late seventeenth century you had become normal in almost all contexts and thou and thee were limited to the Bible and religious use, the Quakers, and regional dialects. The use of you as a ‘polite’ form of address to a single person progressively encroached on thou (originally the singular pronoun) until by 1600 thou (and its objective case thee) was restricted to ‘affective’ (both positive and negative) uses (i.e. In the second person, by 1600 ye was a rare alternative to you no case distinction remained (in earlier English, ye was the subjective case and you the objective). The double comparative was generally used for emphasis (and was praised by the dramatist Ben Jonson). In regional dialects -er continued to be preferred in all words, however long. In standard English, the rule by which – er and – est are preferred in monosyllabic words and more and most are used in polysyllabic ones, with variation in disyllabic words, was established by the late seventeenth century. All three alternatives easier, more easy, and more easier, were acceptable in this period. ‘ the kinges wyf of England’: this construction was still found in early modern English but was replaced by the familiar constructions seen in ‘ the wife of the king of England’ or ‘ the king of England’s wife’.Īdjective gradation. the genitive of a complex noun phrase like the king of England) was a split construction, e.g. In Middle English the group genitive (i.e. ‘The Excellency of our Church her burial office’, and with their, also occurred. This was most commonly used after nouns ending in -s referring to masculines, perhaps because it was practically identical in sound with the regular genitive ending in -(e)s. In the genitive plural the apostrophe was not used in this period.Īn alternative form of the genitive singular throughout the period was the so-called ‘possessive dative’ as in ‘Job’s Patience, Moses his Meekness, Abraham’s Faith’ (Richard Franck, 1694). The use of an apostrophe in the genitive singular was optional in the sixteenth century it was frequent in the seventeenth, but only became established around 1700. As in modern English, the only regular noun inflection was the -s ending of the genitive and plural: irregular plurals were mostly the same as those that have survived into recent English.
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