Fachbereich 7

Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft


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Early Modern English


DozentIn: Dr. phil. Meike Pentrel, M.A.

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: nicht angegeben

Zeiten: Do. 10:00 - 12:00 (wöchentlich)

Beschreibung: Hamlet: Alas poore Ghost.
Ghost: Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall vnfold.
Hamlet: Speake, I am bound to heare.
Ghost: So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.

(Hamlet, I.4.86-90 from the First Folio edition 1623)

Unlike Middle English sources, texts from the Early Modern English period (1476/1500 - 1750/1800) seem fairly intelligible to modern readers. Yet even this short passage from Shakespeare’s most famous play exhibits many linguistic phenomena that would be considered incorrect or at least very archaic in modern English. Furthermore, there are features on all linguistic levels that strike modern readers as odd: cf. e.g. the orthography of poore or vnfold, the choice of the pronouns thou and thy, the auxiliary forms art and shalt as well as the syntactic structure pitty me not.

During the Early Modern period, the English language underwent a series of significant linguistic changes. In this text-based course, we will start out with the Middle English language system and see which phonetic, morphosyntactic as well as syntactic changes took place during the Early Modern period that in the end resulted in the synchronic varieties of Standard British and American English that we know today. This will help us understand many linguistic properties of present-day English and will also allow us a window into the mechanisms and trajectories of linguistic change in general.

Please note: The seminar will be essentially asynchronous. Attendance during occasionally BBB-Meetings is not obligatory.


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