Think on My Words: Exploring Shakespeare's Language (David Crystal): Chapters 1, 7, 8, 9, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Lingua Inglese

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Think on my words

DAVID CRYSTAL, CH. 1 , 7 , 8 , 9

“you speak a language that I understand not” the invention myth How much vocabulary was used in Shakespeare’s day? It’s never easy to understand. We talk about 20. 000 words, but this is leaving out the possible variants, counting them it would be closer to 30. 000 ; many commentators are obsessed with quantity over creativity. When the word- stock doesn’t have what we need, we must make do, and Shakespeare was excellent at this. His vocabulary is so large because of the many themes and subjects he wrote about. the quantity myth There’s a linguistic myth about Shakespeare that he invented 1 / 3 , 1 / 2 of the words in English. To analyse this we must know when a word was recorded for the first time, and our only evidence for earlier periods are the surviving texts. The Oxford English Dictionary (main source) notes 2200 words that were first recorded in Shakespeare’s days, and of those, 1700 are a plausible Shakespearean creation. Of these, about half remained in use. There’s a distinction to be made between introducing and inventing a word. We must also remember that Shakespeare lived in the most lexically inventive period in English history. CHAPTER I: myths and realities

“ think on my words” difficulty and difference CHAPTER VII: shakespearean vocabulary Glossary writers focus on difficult words, usually words used by Shakespeare that are different from ours, either the form or the meaning has changed. Difference and difficulty are not the same, though: there may be difficult words that are not different and viceversa, and this can also be applied to the times Shakespeare writes in a foreign language or mocks foreign expressions.

“ think on my words” easy words CHAPTER VII: shakespearean vocabulary Some Shakespearean words have retained today in poetry or comic archaism ; a number may still exist in regional use. There are words where the form has changed too little to obscure the meaning, and they may have little sense in isolation, but altogether they are easy to make out. There are also words whose elements are well known, but their combination is not, or phrasal verbs that are different. In this category we find cases of conversions (functional shift, a word belonging to one function of speech is used as a different function, ex. common noun as a verb, proper name as a verb, adjective as a verb, verb as an adjective, etc. Ex: aye (always), good morrow (good morning), sup (drink), affrigh (frighten), afeared (afraid), press down (overburden), speak with (speak to). Some words differ only because Shakespeare needed an extra syllable to respect the metre demands. This operation is clear when Shakespeare himself uses alternative forms of the same words: vantage and advantage , scape and escape , shrew and beshrew. Ex. I can call Spirits from the vastie deepe In Elizabethan times, there was no word for vast , and everyday words couldn’t be used. metrical constraints

“ think on my words” old and new words CHAPTER VII: shakespearean vocabulary it’s important to signal that Shakespeare’s time was not linguistically homogeneous, it was a period of dynamic change. Sometimes, Shakespeare’s own characters help us when we deal with neologisms as they point them out. Ex. very used with a positive adjective to intensify its degree Iwis (indeed), hight (called), specken (speak), y-clad (clothed), eyene (eye), shoon (shoes), wight (person), eke (also). There are 200 cases where new use relates to a particular part of the speech. One of the most important features of Shakespeare’s new words is their exploratory character, as some coinages show us the gradual way in which new meanings slot into the existing semantic network. Ex: Angel in its sense of divine messenger; it’s of Anglo- Saxon origin ( 10 th century, sense of lovely being , a person resembling an angel); spoken by Romeo when he hears Juliet talk for the first time Wicked in its sense of bad in moral character or conduct; it’s of Middle Age origin. In a weaker sense it means mischievous or sly. It’s from As you like it Fledge , which has the same root as fly , and during the Middle Ages it was used as an adjective to describe a bird with fully developed feathers. In the 16 th century it was used as a verb, meaning acquiring feathers. coinages

“ think on my words” clusters CHAPTER VII: shakespearean vocabulary Since using too many coinages would have made the text unfamiliar and incomprehensible, Shakespeare used clusters (a well-established word that appears with a new sense). Ex: proposal for discussion , means something put forward for acceptance , an offer design , which counts as a neologism with its general meaning disaster , a neologism in different plays with its general sense of calamity divert , much older but developed in a new sense of turning awry When Shakespeare’s coinages and clusters are analysed together they reveal interesting patterns. Ex. His use of the prefix un- is illustrative and imaginative: with adjectives ( uncomfortable , uncompassionate ) with adverbs ( unaware , unheedfully ) with nouns ( underserver ) with verbs ( unshout, uncurse, unswear ) signposts

“talk of a noun and a verb” grammar in shakespeare CHAPTER VIII: shakespearean grammar Grammar reflects the way we produce our thoughts and the way we order them in a sentence, and also in sentence sequences (paragraphs, stanzas, speeches, etc.); the basis of our self-expression lies in the way we combine words. The overall length of the sentence and the way we display its internal structure through punctuation and prosody gives us the impression of grammatical difficulty. The two branches of grammar are syntax (sentence structure, word-order) and morphology (word structure and the way words can build complex units). Shakespeare’s grammar presents detailed accounts of morphology, irregular verbs and adjectives but little attention to word-order. Back then, grammar rules were not fixed, so we can find in Shakespeare plural subjects with singular verbs and viceversa, or double negatives for emphatic purposes.

adjectives Today, nouns vary as: singular or plural, possessive singular or possessive plural, countable or uncountable, common or proper. There are two main differences with Shakespeare’s English: there’s no apostrophe marking the possessive and there’s the capitalisation of some common nouns. Some nouns that are uncountable today had a countable use (ex. music, courage, information ), some have two forms for the plural or where a noun was neither singular nor plural (ex. news, nuptials, riches ). nouns Today, we use inflections to express comparison or we use a periphrastic form ; the lower degree is always expressed periphrastically. The system had not finished developing in Shakespeare’s times, and we find: more great , more long , honester , honestest we find double comparatives that show both inflected and periphrastic form, ex. more larger The position of the adjective could be: at the end or the beginning of the clause, between subject and verb, between auxiliary verb and main verb, between verb and adverb, but not between verb and object. CHAPTER VIII: “talk of a noun and a verb” shakespearean grammar

In EME, there were two pronouns (and their relatives forms): thou ( thou , thee , thy , thine , thy selfe ) and you ( you , ye , your , yours , your selfe ). They are important markers of social and attitudinal differences. In OE, thou was singular and you was plural, but in the 13 th century, following the French courtly language, you became the form used to show respect (used among the upper classes ), while thou showed familiarity (used among the lower classes ). Thus, when someone changes from one to the other it means something. In OE there was an old distinction between ye ( subject ) and you ( object ) which was gone by Shakespeare’s time, and the hugely dominant form was you. Sometimes, the two forms seem interchangeable, and metrical factors were irrelevant (they are both monosyllabic); ye was likely used in vocatives and fixed phrases. Other differences are found in relative pronouns which were used differently as the system was still unstable. Today, a human noun is followed by a human pronoun, and an inanimate noun is followed by an inanimate pronoun; in Shakespeare’s time this distinction was not systematic, and there are exceptions where we find who occasionally used with non-human nouns in a personifying context. pronouns CHAPTER VIII: “talk of a noun and a verb” shakespearean grammar

Shakespeare bends the construction of the verse to fit the pentameter (five metrical units, the line ends with a natural pause and has no internal breaks). Sometimes the relationship between metre and grammar is sentence per line or clause per line , while the pace of reading increases when the line-breaks coincide with major point of grammatical junction (ex. between subject and verb, verb and object, noun and relative clause). These variations give us little or no difficulty. Shakespeare also used the reversal of order concerning verb/subject ( he dreams > dreames he ) or concerning verb/verb-like adjective. word-order CHAPTER VIII: “talk of a noun and a verb” shakespearean grammar

Some Shakespearean plays are written entirely in verse , others almost entirely in prose ; usually, though, we find a mixture of the two modes with certain types of situations or characters that prompt one or the other, ex: verse is associated with high style and the upper class , but also with themes such as romantic love (in verse no matter the class distinction); there were also low class people who could use high style as they worked at court (messengers, guards, etc.) prose is associated with low style and the lower class , but also with themes of ribaldry or teasing (in prose no matter the class distinction) There are many instances where a characters shifts from one to the other seamlessly, and it’s always motivated. It’s not always clear, however, as some editorial practices (ex. print prose lines after the speaker’s name) are only modern and didn’t exist back then. verse and prose CHAPTER IX: “ hear sweet discourse “ shakespearean conversation metre and discourse Metrical patterns are identified with reference to verse lines, and their constraining forces guide the choice of grammar forms and words. Choosing a metrical structure over another captures the dynamism of the interaction, ex. a pause (displayed by a gap = a missing metrical beat ), even if brief, can give a considerable dramatic effect, such as urgency vs measured tones or it can underline a critical point in the plot. The metrical discipline provides auditory rhythm but most of all motivates the dynamic of the interaction between the characters. Ex. In Macbeth , when Ross comes to know that Macduff’s family has been killed and has to break the news to him, he is faced with Macduff’s direct questions and he decides to lie. There is a pause before his second reply ( gap ) that indicates hesitation.

Today we have many different linguistic fields, and also in Shakespeare’s time we could find legal , religious , courtly English and so on. Speech represented different degrees of formality , intimacy and social class , even regional origins. In Shakespeare’s plays we encounter most of the language varieties of EME. He represents social variation more than the regional one, and class distinction are very important to him: each class had their own vocabulary and usages. Many of the markers of class distinction were found in the way people addressed each other: titles, insults, terms of endearment, oaths, etc. varieties of language CHAPTER IX: “ hear sweet discourse “ shakespearean conversation a legal example Shakespeare had mastered the legal terminology of his time, and it’s one of the main features of his writing. It’s important to notice that all his characters, no matter their social class, use legalisms in their speeches. ex. Legal terms such as: mittigate, iustice, plea, strict course, giue sentence, Law, penaltie, forfeite, accusation, execution, cause, party, petition, suit, hearing, warrant, charge, redress, resolution, oath, action, witness. ex. the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice , Hamlet that speculates on a lawyer skull in the gravedigger scene, Juliet uses the term incorporate (a highly technical legalism) with the meaning of they are all united in one body.