Early New English Grammar

Noun in Early New English

The noun paradigm looks very much the same as we have it today. Having lost the category of gender and much of its case forms it has the genitive case as opposed to nominative. The number of nouns taking it is reduced mainly to those denoting living beings. In fact, we may call it possessive, because it is used now mainly in the function of attribute denoting possession. However, some nouns other than those denoting persons may still take it in the 17th century.

At the same time the unification of plural endings takes place, and former relics of -en disappear, giving way to -es. So, the general rule of formation of the plural of the noun is enriched by archaic forms (like geese, feet, children etc.) - we call them grammatical archaisms; some words borrowed from Latin and used mainly in scientific texts retain their Latin plurals and may be called grammatical barbarisms datum - data (1640-50), radius - radii (1590-1600), formula - formulae (1575-85), axis - axes (1540-50). Some of these, however tend to comply with the general rule, and forms like radiuses, formulas very soon become quite common.

Various scholars note, that an interesting variation appears in the treatment of abstract nouns, which in Modern English have no plural, except by way of personification. In Shakespeare's time such nouns were regularly used in a distributive sense.

Whereas the apostrophe as a sign denoting the possessive case of a noun appeared only about 1680, and its use to mark the possessive case in plural in 1789, the nouns in the genitive case and in the plural have homonymic endings, and only the context resolves ambiguity. We may note numerous instances of the use of apostrophe in Shakespeare's plays, but there they how only the omission of e or some other sounds - that is purely a phonetic sign.

Of-phrase (the noun with the preposition of) replaces the former genitive case, but in Shakespeare's plays they may go together, as in the following: The pangs of despised love, the law's delay (Hamlet).

Early New English Adjective

The adjective in Early New English lost the form of plural and weak forms and acquired its present-day qualities. The degrees of comparison are formed by means of the suffixes -er and -est, vowel mutation which was characteristic of some of them was almost lost. The forms elder/older eldest /oldest and further/farther, furthest/farthest are distinguished in use. So older forms elder, eldest are used to denote relations within a family and further/furthest are used in relation to time whereas farther/farthest to distance. In Shakespeare's times this not yet is firmly established.

The tendency to unification of the general norm sometimes brings to the general rule even those the comparatives and superlatives of which were traditionally in suppletive way.

The new way of forming the degrees of comparison that appeared in Middle English - that is, analytically, by placing the adverb more and most before the adjective comes into practice. The rule that this new form is to be used only with polysyllabic and a limited number of bisyllabic adjectives was not yet established.

Double comparatives and superlatives - the instances when the adjective with a suffix is preceded by more/most are also found. At the same time more and most may also be used as comparative and superlative degrees of the adjective much - that is, they are not auxiliaries but adjectives of full semantics (equivalent to present-day greater, greatest).

The way of forming the degrees of comparison of adverbs is mainly the same - here we also find suffixes, analytical forms and even double comparatives and double superlatives.

The Verb in Early New English

As the majority of new grammatical categories were already formed in Middle English, in Early New English they become more specialized in meaning, though it was not until the period when prescriptive grammars set the rules of their use there is much variation as far as their forms and peculiarities of use are concerned.

Formally, the state of things in the grammar of Early New English was as follows.

The he loss of endings greatly simplified the verbal paradigm. There were no longer endings marking the 1st person singular, plural present indicative, tin infinitival suffix -an —> en —> e was also lost. Personal ending of the third person singular in the present tense –th is replaced by -s; hath —> has; thinketh > thinks. However, the old ending may still be found in Shakespeare’s works, and there is practically no difference between two forms (probably to some extent the old form makes the speech more elevated and official)

It is to be noted that the verbs do and have are the most persistent in keeping this old ending, at least they are used with it more frequently than the others, especially in the function of an auxiliary.

The use of the second person singular ending is limited in so much as the pronoun falls out of use. Still, if the pronoun is used, the predicate verb agrees with it. Notably, in Old and Middle English this ending in the past tense was found only with the weak verbs, now strong verbs also take it.

The traditional classification of strong and weak verbs gives way to division into regular and irregular, with a pronounced tendency within the classes of the strong verbs to turn into weak ones, regular or irregular, but nevertheless forming their past tense and Participle II by a dental suffix -d or -t. Somewhat apart are treated modal verbs, formerly preterite-present, that are stripped of their paradigmatic forms and are later referred to as defective.