HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGETHE RENAISSANCE, 1500-1650

THE VERB SECTION 183 (PG 239-242)

Prepared by:

Noradibah binti Mohamad Sarbini (174556)

• Certain differences of usage in verb distinguished this part of speech from its form in later times.

1) Common interrogative form without an auxiliary

E.g. Goes the king hence today?

(Does the king go? Or Is the king leaving today?)

2) Scarcity of progressive forms

E.g. What do you read, my Lord?

(What are you reading?)

3) Impersonal uses of the verb

E.g. It yearns me not, it dislikes me

4) Certain differences in inflection• Ending of the third person singular of present

indicative.

In south and southeastern part of England, the district most influential in the formation of the standard speech was –eth.

e.g. Chaucer: telleth, giveth, saith, doth

-es was the usual form in the north.

During 16th century, -eth spread into the north and became the dominant form there.

–es was more preferred by women than by men (based from the sociolinguistic information).

By the end of this century, forms like tells, gives, and says predominate although in some words such as doth and hath, the older usage may have been the more common.

In the famous plea for mercy in the Merchant of Venice Portia :

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:…

During the first half of the next century, -s had become universal in the spoken language but –eth continued to be quite commonly written.

• –s as an ending of the third person plural.

At this time, the plural had no ending in the language of literature and the court, but there are occasional expressions like:

- troubled minds that wakes in Shakespeare’s

Lucrece

- Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect

the deeds of others in the Merchant of Venice.

This occurrence is attributed to the influence of Northern dialect or due to analogy with the singular.

• Difference in many forms of past tense and past participle (especially strong verbs).

Many Old English strong verbs were lost and became weak.

Those that remained were subject to considerable fluctuation and alteration in the past tense and past participle.

Among verbs that developed weak forms in this period: bide, crow, crowd, flay, mow, dread, sprout, and wade.

In certain common verbs, the form of past tense differed from today.

E.g. Bote as the past tense of Bite.

The past participle:

E.g. baken is more frequent in Bible than baked

brent instead of burnt

brast instead of burst

Other example: wash wesh washen