Early Modern English Grammar

Gerunds,Adverbs and Conjunctions

• The gerund (which has the capability of governing an object or complement) came in this period to be used alongside the verbal noun, giving rise to various mixed uses which are difficult to classify: ‘as in reciting of playes, reading of verses, &c, for the varying the tone of the voice’ (John Evelyn, 1665).
• Adverbs without the ending –ly were much commoner in this period.
• Examples include:
• ‘No man spake clear, equal, or without artifice’ (Paul Rycaut, 1681)
• ‘This proclamacion..was..fair writen in parchment’ (Thomas More, a1535)

The compound adverbs of the form here, there, and where + preposition were in widespread use as equivalents of preposition + this, that (or it), and what, e.g. ‘To make there through a nauigable passage’ (Thomas Blundeville, 1594).

• The compound adverbs of the form here, there, and where + preposition were in widespread use as equivalents of preposition + this, that (or it), and what, e.g. ‘To make there through a nauigable passage’ (Thomas Blundeville, 1594).
• Compound subordinating conjunctions with that as their second element were common in this period.
• Examples include:
• ‘The propertie thereof is to mount alwaies vpwards, vntill that it hath attained to the place destinated vnto it’ (R. Dolman, 1601).
• ‘Though that the Queene on speciall cause is here, Hir army is moued on’ (William Shakespeare, King Lear)

The sentence

• Inversion of verb and subject
• After an adverbial element, a conjunction, or an object, this was frequent in the sixteenth century (perhaps in as many as one-third of sentences), but dropped sharply after 1600.
• Examples include:
• ‘And hereof commeth the destruction of the reprobates’ (James Bell, 1581)
• ‘My case is hard, but yet am I not so desperat as to reuenge it vpon my selfe’ (Holinshed’s Chronicle, 1587)
• ‘The sylinges and geastes maketh he off Cedre’ (Bible (Coverdale) 1535)

The multiple negative

• The multiple negative
• In Old and Middle English it was unexceptional to negate more than one element of a sentence, and this remained down to the early seventeenth century, subsequently becoming rare or nonstandard.
• Examples include:
• ‘I wyll not medle with no duplycyte’ (Stephen Hawes, 1503)
• ‘I can nat sette a gowne, I was never no taylour’ (John Palsgrave, 1530)
• ‘Hee absented not himselfe in no place’ (Philemon Holland, 1606).

Thanks for attention