Lecture I theme I: Subject and aims of the History of English

Negative statements and questions without do are illustrated by

HEARD YOU ALL THIS?

I KNOW NOT WHY, NOR WHEREFORE TO SAY LIVE, BOY…

AND WHEREFORE SAY NOT I THAT I AM OLD? (Shakespeare)

Towards the end of the 17^th c. the use of simple forms and the do periphrases became more differentiated: do was found mainly in negative statements and questions, while the simple forms: Pres. and Past. In the 18^th periphrasis with do as an equivalent of the simple form in affirmative statements fell into disuse.

By the age of the Literary Renaissance the perfect forms had spread to all the parts of the verb system, so that ultimately the category of time correlation became the most universal of verbal categories.

The formal distinctions, which had developed in he system of the verbals towards the 17th and 18th c. are practically the same as in Mod E. the forms of the Inf. And the –ing-form (Part. I and gerund) make up grammatical categories similar to those of the finite verb: Voice, Time-Correlation and aspect. It may be assumed that the relations between the members of these grammatical categories in the verbals roughly corresponded to those of the finite forms, both semantically and formally. The growth of grammatical categories in the verb paradigm in Early NE periods are the Finite and Non-finite verbs, Infinitive.

3. The evolution of English syntax was tied up with profound change in morphology; the decline of the inflectional system was accompanied by the growth of the functional load of syntactic means of word connection. The most obvious difference between OE syntax and the syntax of the ME and NE periods is that the word order became more strict and the use of prepositions more extensive. The growth of the literary forms of the language, the literary flourishing in Late ME and especially in the age of the Renaissance, the differentiation of literary styles and the efforts made by 18^th c. scholars to develop a logical, elements style – all contributed to the improvement and perfection of English syntax.

The structure of the sentence and the word phrase, on the one hand, became more complicated, on the other hand – were stabilized and standardized.

In the course of history the structure of the simple sentence in many respects became more orderly and more uniform. Yet, at the same time it grew complicated as the sentence came to include more extended and complex parts: longer attributive groups, diverse subjects and predicates and numerous predicative constructions (syntactic complexes). In OE the ties between the words in the sentences were shown by means of government and agreement, with the help of numerous inflections. In ME and Early NE, with most of the inflectional endings leveled or dropped, the relationships between the parts of the sentence were chosen by their relative position, environment, semantic ties, prepositions, and by a more rigid syntactic structure. In the 16^th-17^th c. the structure of the sentence became more complicated, which is natural to expect in a language with a growing and flourishing literature. The structure of the sentences was further perfected in the 18^th and 19^th c. It suffices to say that from the 15^th to 18^th c. the number of coordinating connectives was almost doubled. As before, most conspicuous was the frequent use of and, a conjunction of a most general meaning; other conjunctions widened their meanings and new connectives arose from various sources to express the subtle semantic relationships between clauses and sentences, e. g. in consequences, in fact, to conclude, neither…nor. In the Age of Correctness the employment of connectives, as well as the structure of the sentence, was subjected to logical regulation in the writings of the best stylists: J. Dryden, S. Johnson, R. Steele, J. Addison, J. Swift, D. Defoe, and others. Their style combined a clear order with ease and flexibility of expression, which manifested itself in the choice of words, grammatical forms and syntactic patterns.