16th century grammar

Where we add  –’s  to show possession (eg Fred’s book), in the 16th century it was possible to use 'his' eg 'The Miller his Tale'.

In the early modern period, double superlatives were acceptable eg 'the most highest'. It was also acceptable to add a superlative to something which was already ideal (a practice which was strongly disapproved by the 18th century). In Macbeth, Shakespeare wrote �the most perfectest report�.

By this time most plural nouns had   –s  or –es endings. Most –en forms such as eyren (eggs) and shoon (shoes) had gone from literary language, but they survived longer in other texts and in dialect.

Prepositions were also used differently eg 'of' was often used where we would use 'for' or 'by'.

 

16th century grammar - syntax

Conventional word order in use today is subject-verb-object. This was generally the case in early modern English too though there were still instances of subject-verb-object inversion; this style is particularly evident in the King James I Bible:

• follow thou me (verb in front of the subject)
• cakes unleavened and things eternal (adjectives after the noun)

Sentences tend to be long and connected with 'and'. Strict agreement between all parts of the sentence weren't seen as necessary, so sentences may sound clumsy to us. Although sentences were long, embedded clauses were rare, so they are often easier to understand than the more elaborate sentences of the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Latin was still a major influence. Most educated people knew Latin and classical
authors were hugely influential, so rhetorical features are common in many kinds of
texts, so look out for syntactical patterns.

Questions could still be made in the old fashioned way by swapping the order of words from a standard declarative sentence so �you know� becomes 'know you' or 'knowest thou'. However, the modern system of keeping the subject and the verb in the same order, but adding �do� was beginning to be employed, eg 'do you know' or 'dost thou know'. In 1500 only 20% of interrogatives used 'do', by 1700, over 90% did.

Negatives could still be made by adding ‘not’ after the verb in a declarative sentence e.g. ‘I know not’ or ‘He knowest not’. However, the system we use today i.e. using ‘do’ and putting the ‘not’ in front of the verb, was also being used. E.g. ‘I do not know’ or ‘he dost not know’. At this time double negatives were still in use and gave extra emphasis.

16th century grammar - pronouns

The 2nd person pronouns were a lot more complicated than today. They had thou/ thee/ thine/ thy and you/ ye, whereas we just have you/yours/ your. Thou and its variants were gradually disappearing during this century. Before they disappeared they their usage changed. ‘Thou’ etc originally referred to one person, but they came to be used for intimates or subordinates.
By the end of the century ‘you’ was replacing ‘ye’ as the subject of the sentence.

The 3rd person pronouns ‘his’ and ‘hit’ were used where we would use its. ‘Its’ was coming in but wasn’t used by everyone until the seventeenth century. The relative pronouns ‘that’ and ‘which’ were in use, but ‘which’ was used for people and things whereas now we use ‘which’ for things and ‘who’ for people

16th century grammar - verbs

Where we use the verb 'to have', in the 16th century the verb 'to be', in its various forms, could be used as an auxiliary verb, thus where we would say 'I have arrived', they could say 'I am arrived' or 'I have arrived'. This also works in the 2nd and 3rd person eg 'he is arrived' and with present tense verbs eg 'he is come'.

Verb endings also differed. Nowadays we achieve verb agreement by placing an 's' on 3rd person singular present tense verbs eg 'he runs'. In the 16th C it was acceptable to use either 's' or 'eth' eg 'he runneth'. Gradually the Northern 's' ending was adopted all over the country instead of the Southern ‘eth’. The King James I Bible retained the 'eth' ending which was rather old fashioned by then.

Verb endings also varied with 2nd person 'thou' forms – 'est' was added to present tense verbs eg ‘thou thinkest’.

Older irregular verb forms began to give way to their modern forms eg digged (dug), gat/gotten (got), bare (bore), spake (spoke), forgat (forgot), sware (swore), tare (tore), clave (cleft), strake (struck), holpen (helped).

Apart from its use in questions and negatives (see above) �do� was also used in simple present constructions and did not add emphasis like it does today. E.g. �they do offend our sight� meant the same as �they offend our sight�. Gradually �do� was dropped except where it was needed for emphasis.

17th century grammar

Many of the developments of the 16th C continued, and some of the older forms still survived, so it’s worth looking for features mentioned above in texts from the 1600s. Bear in mind also that writers (especially novelists) may deliberately use older forms for particular reasons.

The progressive verb form develop at this time. These are constructions like I am singing/  he is dancing (ie some part of the verb ‘to be’ + an ‘ing’ word); these were rare in Middle English. They developed from phrases like he was on laughing which became he was a laughing and finally he was laughing.

The use of ‘do’ in questions and negatives (see above) became standard by the end of the 17th century (ie by 1700).

By the end of the 17th C the ‘thou form had almost disappeared except for some dialects and from the language of the Quakers.

18th century grammar

The 18th century marked the beginning of prescriptivist attempts to impose a lot of rules to make the English Language orderly like Latin. In fact many of the rules derived from Latin. Many of these 'rules' still survive. These are some of the 'rules':

• Lay /lie. These two verbs had been used more or less interchangeably, but in the second half of the century the modern usage was introduced;
• In the mid 18th C they tried to make a rule preferring I would rather instead of I had rather, but I had rather survived;
• Rules about when you should say you and me and when it should be you and I were introduced. E.g. between you and I was outlawed in favour of between you and me;
• Comparatives came to be used when describing one of two things and superlatives for one of three or more eg he is the taller of the two brothers. He is the tallest in the class;
• Modifying incomparables e.g. unique, perfect, ideal etc came to be deprecated, (so Shakespeare who had Macbeth refer to the most perfectest report would have failed an 18th C grammar test);
• You was (when referring to a single person) was banished to non-standard obloquy, despite Webster (the American dictionary man) defending it;
• It was decided that by analogy to Maths, two negatives made a positive, (so all Shakespeare’s double negatives would be frowned on);
• A whole load of complicated rules came in to govern when you should use shall and will. By the end of the century this list governed their use in every tense and for 1st, 2nd & 3rd person, in questions and subordinate clauses;
• Split infinitives and sentences ending with prepositions were deemed bad form.

The progressive passive form first appeared towards the end of the 18th cenutry. An example of a progressive passive construction is the house is being built; prior to this the phrase the house is building would have been used. The first recorded use of the progressive passive, from 1795, is as follows: a fellow, whose uppermost grinder (a tooth) is being torn out by a mutton-fisted barber. Although this new invention was disliked and avoided by many; even as late as 1870, R.G White (a grammarian) devoted 30 pages of his book ‘Words and their uses’ to attacking it, it is now normal.

19th century grammmar

19th century grammar is very similar to ours, but egs from Jane Austen (very early 19th C) do reveal some differences:

• The use of the verb to be where we would use to have eg I am so glad we are got acquainted
• Omission of do in interrogatives e.g. what say you to the idea? (we would say what do you say to the idea?)
• Irregular verbs eg Fanny shrunk back, and much was ate, and sat was used as a past tense verb where modern standard English uses sitting e.g. they were sat
• Prepositions eg he told me in our journey (we would use on)
• Superlatives which no longer exist eg the properest manner, or superlatives used where we would use comparatives eg the richest of the two when we would say the richer of the two (but note this had been on the way out since the 18th C).