Dons Ute. Descriptive Adequacy of Early Modern English Grammars

Mouton de Gruyter, 2004. — 320 p. — (Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 47). — ISBN 3110181932, 9783110181937.The book deals with the development of descriptive models of English grammar writing during the Early Modern English period. For the first time, morphology and syntax as presented in Early Modern English grammars are systematically investigated as a whole. The statements of the contemporary grammarians are compared to hypotheses made in modern descriptions of Early Modern English and, where necessary, checked against the Early Modern English part of the Helsinki Corpus. Thus, a comprehensive overview of the characteristic features of Early Modern English is complemented by conclusions about the descriptive adequacy of Early Modern English grammars. It becomes evident that comments by contemporary authors occasionally reflect the corpus data more adequately than the statements found in modern secondary literature. This book is useful for (advanced) university students, as well as for scholars of English and grammarians in general.The cultural climate
The corpus of Early Modern English grammars
William Bullokar: Bref Grammar for English (1586)
Paul Greaves: Grammatica Anglicana (1594)
Alexander Hume: Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue (1617)
Alexander Gill: Logonomia Anglica (1619/1621)
Charles Butler: English Grammar (1634)
Ben Jonson: The English Grammar (1640)
Joshua Poole: The English Accidence (1646)
John Wallis: Grammatica Linguce Anglicance (1653)
Jeremiah Wharton: The English Grammar (1654)
James Howell: A New English Grammar (1662)
John Newton: School Pastime for Young Children: or the Rudiments of Grammar (1669)
Thomas Lye: The Child's Delight (1671)
Christopher Cooper: Grammatica Linguce Anglicance (1685)
GuyMiege: The English Grammar (1688)
Joseph Aickin: The English grammar (1693)
A Lane: A Key to the Art of Letters (1700)
Models of the English grammars
William Lily and John Colet: A Short Introduction of Grammar (1549)
Petrus Ramus: Grammatica (1572)
John Wilkins: An Essay Towards a Real Character, And a Philosophical language (1668)
The parts of speech
Parts of speech: Definition and inventory
Nouns and adjectives
Definition
General definition
Distinction between nouns and adjectives
Distinction between common and proper nouns
Morphological categories
Number
Regular plural formation
Plural formation with i-mutation
Plural formation with {-en}
Plural formation with voicing of fricatives
Plural formation with zeroCase
Gender
Comparison of adjectivesPronouns
Definition and classification of the pronoun
Inventory of pronouns
Personal pronouns
Possessive pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Relative pronouns
Reflexive pronouns
Interrogative pronounsArticles
Verbs
Definition
Classification
Description of the form inventory
Morphological categories
Inflectional endings
The tense system
The classical model and alternative models
Morphological vs syntactic formation of the tenses
Formation of the preterite and the past participle
Variants
The moods
The influence of classical models
Imperative
Infinitive
Optative
Potential
SubjunctiveModal auxiliaries
Primary auxiliaries
Defective verbs
Impersonal verbsParticiples
Definition and status
Morphological categories
Forms of the participle
Adverbs
Definition and status
Semantic classes and other classifications
Formation patterns
Comparison of adverbs
Conjunctions
Definition
Classification
Prepositions
Definition and status
Classification χ
Interjections
Definition and status
Classification
The parts of speech: An evaluation
The sentence
Word order
Unmarked word order
Inversion
The structure of the complex sentence
The structure of the noun phrase
Possible heads in the noun phrase
Adjectival heads
Expanded pronominal heads
Verbal nouns as heads
Premodification of the head
Articles and adjectives/participles
Nouns in the genitive case
Determiner-(adjective-)noun
Restrictions on the combination of several premodifying elements
Postmodification of the head
Relative clauses
Prepositional phrases
Participle constructions
The structure of the verb phrase
Possible realizations of the head
Prepositional verbs as heads
Auxiliaries as heads
Possible expansions of the head
Expansion by the primary auxiliary do (do-periphrasis)
Expansion by the primary auxiliary have
Expansion by the primary auxiliary be
Expansion by a modal auxiliary
Expansion by a combination of several auxiliaries
Concord
Concord between subject and predicate
Concord between noun and adjective
Concord between relative pronoun and antecedent
Concord between apposition and antecedentGovernment
Prepositions
Verbs
Conjunctions
The sentence: An evaluation
Results and outlook
Morphology
Word class models
The parts of speech
The impact of plagiarism
Results from the Helsinki Corpus
Conclusive evaluation
Syntax
Syntactic descriptions in Early Modern English grammars
Results from the Helsinki Corpus
Conclusive evaluation
Outlook
NotesName index
Subject index