Реферат: Standardization Of The English Language Essay Research

fifteenth century until, in the Early Modern English period, writing came to be

exclusively done in the standard literary language.

The language of Chaucer’s late fourteenth century and of the fifteenth were

often describe as Late Middle English. It could as well be called Early Modern

English. Ich and I ran side by side in Chaucer’s language, and the distinction

between? ye? and? you was still that of nomina-tive versus accusative. Northern

they had replaced the earlier Anglo-Saxon hie, but hem was still alive. Such

became the preferred Chancery form which had ousted sich, sych, seche and swiche.

Which was replacing wich. The auxiliary verbs appear more regularly in their

modern forms: can, could, shall, should and would. A standardised spelling was

developing which was divorced from the phonetic environment so that sound and

spelling were becoming two separete systems.

An important linguistic change was also in syntax. Syntax governs the structure

of a sentence as well as the structure of verbs. Auxiliary verbs came into use,

for example the use of? do and? have which extended the capability of expression

for verbs. The subtle differences between? I walk, I do walk, and? I am walking

are not available in many other languages. This improvement assisted English in

differentiating itself from other languages. The use of? do as a “helping” verb

led the way for a host of other helping verbs: be, have, can, may, will and so

forth. This significant innovation set in motion a new way for verbs to be used.

English now uses subject-verb-object (SVO), which was not always true, nor must

it be true. Other languages use SOV and some do not require a particular order.

These languages use words such as particles, case endings or emphasis for order

selection criteria. In the year 1000, the beginning of the Middle English period,

the direct object appeared before the verb in? 52% of the sentences. By 1500, it

appeared before the verb in only 2% of the sentences. The biggest change was

between 1300 (40%) and 1400 (14%). The result is that today we use the sentence

order established at that time.? The important point was the establishment of

the convention of word order that helped to structure the language for general