ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 2° YEAR THE LANGUAGE OF CHAUCER Annalisa Federici, Ph.D. D. Burnley, The Language of Chaucer, Macmillan 1983 (chapter 1).

GRAMMAR: NOUNS The Noun in Chaucer presents few difficulties in interpretation, since it is formally and functionally close to the noun in ModE. The complex inflectional system of OE (inflectional endings for gender, number, case) has largely disappeared. Occasional traces of a dative inflectional -e (in the pronunciation and writing of which a considerable degree of freedom existed) are found in few prepositional idioms, e.g. for Gode (CT A 3526), in lande (CT B 4069).

GRAMMAR: NOUNS The only inflectional endings commonly surviving are - es (derived from the genitive singular and the nominative/accusative plural of OE strong masculine nouns, and indicating both possession and plurality) and -en (derived from nominative and accusative plural inflections of OE weak nouns, and used for plurality, without distinction in case). Cf. eyen (“eyes”), asshen (“ashes”), Cristes passioun (“Christ’s passion”). The genitive case may coexist with periphrastic forms: loue of frendes (TC II 379) and frendes loue (TC III 1591).

GRAMMAR: ADJECTIVES Though all traces of case and gender inflections had disappeared from adjectives in London English by the time of Chaucer, inflection for plurality is sometimes evident in a final -e: clene, grene, swete. These conditions do not apply to polysillabic adjectives (not inflected), to adjectives whose stem in OE ended in a vowel, or to French-derived monosyllables.

GRAMMAR: PRONOUNS The forms of personal pronouns in Chaucer differ from those in ModE in some respects: Subject pronouns:  First person: I – we  Second person: thow/thou – ye  Third person: he/she/hit – they/thei Object pronouns:  First person: me – us  Second person: thee – yow/you  Third person: hire/him/(h)it – hem

GRAMMAR: PRONOUNS Some observations: The forms hem and hire are derived from OE, whereas they is of Scandinavian origin, showing that Chaucer’s London English employed only the subject form of this originally- Scandinavian paradigm. The choice between ye and thou (sing.) has social and attitudinal implications: in case of unequal status, the superior addresses the inferior as thou and expects to be referred to as ye. Existence of separate pronouns for second-person singular and plural pronouns, whereas ModE only admits thou – as an alternative to you – in a few specific registers (such as liturgical language).

GRAMMAR: POSSESSIVES Possessives in Chaucer differ from ModE forms:  First person: my(n)/myne – oure  Second person: thy(n)/youre  Third person: hire (fem.)/his (masc./neut.) – hire/thair This was thyn ooth and myn also certeyn (CT A 1139) Allas myn hertes queene, allas my wyf (CT A 2775) The third-person possessive does not adequately distinguish between singular and plural (hire). The third-person singular possessive fails to distinguish between masculine and neuter gender (his).

GRAMMAR: DEMONSTRATIVES AND RELATIVES DEMONSTRATIVES Chaucer’s language uses the demonstratives that and this (singular), and tho and thise (plural). RELATIVES Fourteenth-century English used a range of relatives similar to that of modern English, but differing in some aspects of their use. Though from OE onwards there had been a tendency to distinguish between personal and non-personal antecedents in pronoun usage, no distinction was regularly maintained in Chaucer’s time. The knyght cam which men wenden had be deed (CT D 2029)

GRAMMAR: RELATIVES Whos, whom and which are commonly used, frequently preceded by a preposition. This Sowdanesse whom I thus blame and warye (CT B 372) This clerk whos rethoryk swete (CT E 32) For if a preest be foul in whom we truste (CT A 501) This duc of whom I make mencion (CT A 893) Lord to whom Fortune hath yiuen / Victorie (CT A 915-6)

GRAMMAR: RELATIVES Who is not generally used as a relative, and remains an interrogative and indefinite pronoun, as in OE. The most common relative is that, used for both personal and non-personal antecedents (though more common with the former).

GRAMMAR: VERBS In Chaucer’s ME, the categories of strong and weak verbs are distinguishable only by the forms of the preterite and the past participle. In strong verbs the preterite is formed by a change in the root vowel, and the past participle by adding the inflexional ending e(n): knowe(n) – knew – knowe(n); take(n) – took – take(n); breke(n) – brak – broke(n). Weak verbs form the preterite and past participle by adding the suffixes (e)d or t, usually to the stem of the infinitive, but sometimes to a special preterite form which had arisen in the past: wedde(n) – wedded – wedded; seke(n) – soght – soght; wende(n) – went – went.

GRAMMAR: VERBS Weak verbs were, as now are, the most common class, although some strong verbs were of very frequent occurrence. All new coinages and foreign borrowings were treated as weak (e.g. daunce(n) – daunced – daunced). Gradually, formerly strong verbs started to develop weak forms. In such a transitory phase, boh variants may be found. In Chaucer’s language, both strong and weak past participles can occur in two forms, i.e. with or without the prefix y-/i- (a phonetically-reduced form of the OE prefix ge-): ycleped/cleped, ycome(n)/come(n).

GRAMMAR: VERBS The infinitive often ends in –en, but forms lacking the final n are also common: helpen/helpe; don/do. In the present tense, the third person singular generally ends in -eth, whereas the third person plural generally ends in -en (e.g. he/she/it passeth, they passen). As in the infinitive and past participle, forms lacking the final -n also occur. In Chaucer’s language, as in ModE, only the present and the preterite were distinguished by verb inflexions. Future time is expressed via the present tense or by a periphrastic form with the auxiliaries shal and wol followed by an infinitive.