11. The Early Modern English Verbal Constructions and 18th Century Prescriptivism
2. Discuss the reasons, aims and methods of the 18c prescriptivism.
focus on usage and grammar, rather than spelling and vocabulary as in Renaissance
social, linguistic, and philosophical reasons
• social:
industrial revolution brought the rise of the middle class and an increase in social mobility
- in cities the upper classes felt their position is crumbling
- the early grammars were written to help the social elite to maintain the distance
- later written for lower and middle class who wished to rise socially
- both assumed that language mattered and people should be given guidance
• linguistic: period of linguistic conservatism o
- concern about refining and fixing the language
- belief that the language has decayed from an earlier, better stage and change is bad
• philosophical: philosophy of reason, Age of Reason
- language ought to be logical, orderly and symmetrical
important grammarians:
Johnson, Defoe, Swift, Sheridan and Addison, Noah Webster, Lowth, Priestley
aims:
• ascertainment: seen English as uncodified, unsystematised and uncertain in places
- change endangers the integrity of the language
- language has been corrupted from the earlier golden age → wish to reverse the harmful changes by refining, purifying and perfecting
- prevent further changes
- process of ascertainment → ridding of doubts and uncertainties
- standardize the language, codify the rules and establish a standard of correct usage
- refine the language, remove supposed defects and common errors
- fix the language permanently in the desired form and prevent further changes
• academy: thought the best way to achieve ascertainment
- academy to regulate the language as in Italy and France
- never came to fruition
- came to realize it is in vain, language will change
methods:
no academy, so they have to rely on their own devices – their own authority, authority of the best writers, the model of classical languages, etymology, and reason
• authority: prescription often embodied individual´s preconceptions, prejudices and preferences
- take authority of the best writers and men of letters, but also pointing out faults
• model of Latin: they valued synthetic languages
- analogical use of grammar to Latin
- Latin serves as a model for most 18th C prescriptions concerning case usage
• etymology: etymological meaning of a word possesses a certain authority over the current one
• reason: the application of logic resulted in prescriptions and proscriptions:
- do not use a double negative
- do not use a double comparative or superlative form
- do not compare incomparables
- use the comparative for two things, superlative for more than two
- place only before the word it modifies
- do not split an infinitive
- do not end a sentence with a preposition