18TH CENTURY

• Major characteristics of the age.

• Problem of refining and fixing the language.
• Samuel Johnson's dictionary.
• Grammarians.
• Vocabulary formation.
• Introduction to passives.
• The industrial revolution (1760-1840).
• Usage of new words.
• Stability of economy in England. A number of books available for the people.
• American revolution
• French revolution
• This time is often referred to as the age of enlightenment, for it was in the 18 th century that
it was also known as the age of sensibility.
• Standardization issue.
• Greatest need of dictionary and grammar.
• Purity of language should be achieved
• Variety was seen as negative (borrowing of words during French and renaissance age)
• For a standard language it was necessary to have rules and regulation of grammar.
 SAMUEL JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY
• Samuel Johnson disliked the fact that English did not have a set of standard language and believed that
bringing the standard will benefit the language.
• On 15 April 1755 he published the first standard dictionary in the history of English.
• It contained almost 40k words, for each of the words the usage was given
• The most interesting fact about this dictionary was that he complied all the work himself, it took him 8 years
to do so.
• It was considered a great achievement for the standardization of the English language.
• Defects: if we judge this dictionary to a modern one, of course, it was inadequate in various ways.
• Its etymologies were often incorrect, it included a host of words with very questionable rights to be regarded
as belonging to personal choices.
• For example the word ‘literary’ in his dictionary means “related to alphabet” but in a modern dictionary it
means ‘Study of literature or text related to literature’.
 POSITIVE ASPECTS OF DICTIONARY
• It offered fixed spellings, that could be accepted as
standard.
• It supplied thousands of quotations illustrating the
use of words.
• The chief intent of it was to preserve the purity of
English words.
• The pronunciation of language became fixed.
• It exhibited the English vocabulary much more fully
than ever been done before.
• According to him “change in language is constant or
it would get corrupted to keep its purity, it is very
necessary to stop these changes by dictionary.
 GRAMMARIANS OF 18TH CENTURY
Language Change
• All aspects of language change continuously.
• Change that happens in different places often gives rise to different forms(different dialects).
• This is the one reason for differences in accents, grammar, etc..
 TYPES OF GRAMMAR

• Prescriptive Grammar: Generally created by writer, • Descriptive grammar: generally created and used
• Used by any one. • Only by linguists.
• Attempts to change people’s language behavior. • Describes people’s language behavior.
• It tells us what should be and should not be said. • Is tells us how language is used not how it should
• Which sentences are grammatically correct and which be used.
are not. • The focus is how people speak not how should
• How language should be used. they speak.
• Rules are not very important.
THE AGE OF REASON=THE AGE OF PRESCRIPTIVISM

• In the 18th century, during the age of reason, writers decided that it was necessary to
• Standardize the English language.
• Previously, many dialects of English were in use in England, but no dialect was
considered,
• The dialect that everyone should use.
• The printing press also plays a role as more and more of language is now written.
 Prescriptive Grammars

• These grammarians wrote prescriptive grammars of English in the following years.

• Joseph priestly 1761
• Robert lowth 1762
• Jhon ash 1763
• Noah webster 1764
EXAMPLES OF ANALOGY IN PRESCRIPTIVISM

• The 18th century prescriptivists often made their decisions about which language forms should be
based on languages they already knew; classical Greek and Latin.

• These languages had the characteristics they were looking for: they didn’t change because
• They were no longer spoken by native speakers, and they were accepted as being valuable
languages of scholarship.

• Prescriptive rules created in the 18th century often attempted to make English as much like Latin
as possible , ignoring the features of English that came from other languages(German).
 How Did The Prescriptivists Decide What Grammar
To Prescribe ?

• The prescriptivists generally believed that language should be fixed and unchanging.
• The philosophies of the time indicated that the universe was logical place, so they expected language to be
logical
• as well .
• The variation among dialects of English seemed disordered to them, so they wanted to correct this
“problem”
• By dictating one set of language forms that would work for everyone.
SOLUTION: LOGIC AND ANALOGY

• Since the grammarians did not want to accept a form that was in common use.
• Remember variations was the thing they were trying to avoid, they looked to basically
two sources for their linguistics decisions:
• Logic
• Analogy
EXAMPLES OF “LOGIC” IN PRESCRIPTIVISM

• Bishop lowth is famous for prescribing the nominative pronoun in comparatives.

• he is taller than I .
• in contrast to he is taller than me,
• which was in common use at the time.
• The logic behind the comparative decision is this: He is taller than I (am tall).
• Bishop lowth considered comparatives with ‘than’ to be elliptical versions of other longer
sentences . This rule is still in wide use today.
• “than” is a preposition. In English many other prepositions are followed by pronouns in
objective case, like the following:
• He gave the book to me.
• Were you talking about her?
• To use a subjective case of pronoun “I” at the end of sentence seems unnatural.
• Therefore , it also seems logical to say that sentence He is taller than me is an acceptance
sentence.
• Lowth was also against double negatives in English.
• I don’t want nobody to see this book.
• I don’t want anybody to see this book.
• Bishop lowth thought that double negatives somehow worked against each other, perhaps
like in mathematics.
• He thought that it made sense then to only have one negative element per sentence.
• However, double negatives are very widespread in worlds languages, with little
confusion.
• I don’t have a book.
• I don’t have any books.
A classic example of analogy to Latin in prescriptivism is the prohibition against the split
infinitive.
prescriptive rules say that:
 To boldly go where no one has gone before.
should be replaced with;
 To go boldly where no one has gone before.
because to go is the infinitive form.
• Infinitives means “not finite”, or timeless, in the sense that the infinitive form of verb does
• Not contain time information.
• In Latin , infinitives are one word , and it’s therefore not possible to separate them with an
adverb like in the example above.
• However, bishop lowth may not have realized that in English to go is not the basic form of
the verb, but rather just go.
• In addition, there seems to be no problems for the native speakers with split infinitives,
they sometimes seem to be better way to express something.
• I want to quickly find my keys. Vs I want to find quickly my keys.
• Another famous analogy to Latin is the prohibition against “stranding” a preposition at the end of the
sentence.
• Who were you talking to ?
• That’s the guy I gave the book to.
• Where are form?
• In Latin, the preposition always moves along with the rest of the phrase, creating sentences like these.
• To whom were you talking ?
• That’s the guy to whom I gave the book.
• From where have you come?
• However, in German prepositions stranding is completely allowable, and since English is
a
• Germanic language , English has inherited this feature as well.
• wo tramust du immer von? (who do you always dream about ?).
• In this case, the prescriptivists just ignored the history of English.
JONATHAN SWIFT

• An Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political

pamphleteer, poet and critic.
• Born in 1667 in Ireland
• Notable works: a tale of tub, gullivers travels
• A modest proposal.
• Died in 1745.
SWIFTS PROPOSAL

• His proposal was based on satire

• Satire is a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and
corruption of an individual or a society , by using humor , irony exaggeration or ridicule.
• The genre of his work was based on Juvenalian satire.
• The roman satirist juvenal disagreed with the opinions of the public figures and
institutions of the republic and actively attacked them through his literature.
• full title Children of poor
people in Ireland from being a burden to their burden.
• Written in 1729.
• In 18th century Ireland suffering through a terrible famine and freezing weather.
• The streets of Ireland are packed with poor children and their begging mothers.
• Swift suggests that poor Irish families should fatten up their children and sell them to rich
• English land owners as food.
• To resolve the issue of overpopulation and unemployment in Ireland , giving the Irish
• Economy a much needed boost.
• Children could be sold into a meat market as early as the age of one.
•
• Presented in the guise of an economic treatise statistical support .
• Specific data about the number of children to be sold their weight and price.
• Projected eating pattern of their consumers.
• Suggests some recipes for preparing this delicious new meat.
• Positives effects
• Husbands will treat their wives with more respect and parents will value their children
• In ways as yet unknown.
THEME

• Visions of Ireland
• Food
• Suffering
• Greed
• Politics
• Power
• Religion
 VOCABULARY FORMATION
There are two ways for increase of vocabulary
Borrowing words from foreign languages
Formation of new words
How words are formed
1. Compounding syncopation
2. Affixation telescoping
3. Shortening metanalysis
4. Old words put into new use back formation
5. Acronymy coinage
6. Autonomasia false etymology
• Compounding: when two or more words are combined to produce said to be comp.
• butter + fly = butterfly. Noun + noun = cup + board = cupboard.
• adjective + noun – black bird , colorblind.
• Verb + noun = pickpocket.
• Affixation : new words are formed by adding suffixes or prefixes to the root of the word.
• -dom ( freedom , kingdom) - ism ( socialism, Marxism, fascism).
• -ship ( worship, friendship) - ment (government, movement)
-less( careless, useless)
• -ness(loneliness, kindness) pre fixes
• pre- post- extra- super- inter-
• Shortening :men always seek for comfort and ease in every sphere of life and the same happens in
communication also.
• Photograph to photo laboratory to lab examination to exam .
• Old words put into new use.
• Words with certain meaning undergo a change as time moves on evolving new meanings.
• ‘pedant’ means school master was used in Shakespeare time, but now it means a person who shows his lear-
• ning’ .literary meant something related alphabet (at the time of dr jhonson) but now it means literature.
• syncopation
• Elision of vowels or consonants in rapid speech resulting in the formation of new terms.
 perambulator
 prambulator
 pram
• Meta analysis: this change happens due to careless pronunciation .
• Consonants of one word gets attached to the vowel at the beginning of next word.
• a nickname was evolved from an ickname.
• An apron from a napron .
• An umpire from a numpire.
• portmanteau words/ blending
• A word created as a result of blending the terms of two different words, a part of one word is attached
• To the part of another word.
• New word carries the meaning of both words
• smoke+ fog= smog melos+ drama = melodrama
• motor + hotel= motel tragedy + comedy = tragicomedy
• Back formation
• New words are formed by removing the supposed suffixes.
• Greedy –y = greed Gloomy –y = gloom.
• onomatopoeia
• Oldest method of word formation
• Existed in all languages, a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.
• Croak , flash, click, roar, cuckoo.
• slang terms
• Use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard, believed to be used by thieves,
smugglers and the underworld.
• chap ( dealer in stolen goods) shabby( poor clothes)
• pinch ( to steal) kidnabbing
• Coinage : the invention of total new words in a language is called coinage.
• For example: computer, iPod, laptop, robot.
• Derivation : the most productive process of word formation in a language is the use of derivational
morphemes to form new words from already existing forms.
• For example: from arrange we can derive rearrange and from ‘rearrange’ derived rearrangement.
• Acronyms: acronyms is a process in which we took the first letter of every words.
• COMPUTER: Common Operating Machine Particularly Used For Tread Education and Research.
• NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Agency
• UNICEF : United Nation International Children's Emergency Fund.
• PIN: Personal Identification Number
• SIM: Subscribers Identification Module.