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Abstract. The two most notable changes in the Early Modern English period (1500- 1700) were standardization and the growth of the lexicon. Changes in the cultural and political climate, such as the spread of printing and increasing availability of education and subsequent growing literacy among the population, were linked to these changes. The ...
Edmund Spenser - among many other poems, wrote the epic The Fairie Qveene (1596), a landmark of Early Modern English poetry celebrating Queen Elizabeth and England under her reign. The language is rather archaic. In a way this poem brought Renaissance poetry in the style of Petrarch to England. William Shakespeare - published between 1590 and 1616.
During the early modern period, between 10,000 and 25,000 new words entered the English vocabulary, primarily loan words adapted from Latin and foreign languages. Accordingly, many early modern writers stand as the first evidence for a particular word in the Oxford English Dictionary .
Grammar and Syntax Changes: Early Modern English saw the simplification of grammatical structures compared to Middle English. The inflectional system became less complex, with the loss of some grammatical distinctions. The use of cases diminished, and word order and prepositions became more prominent in expressing relationships between words. 3.
In the Early Modern English period (1500–1700), steps were taken toward Standard English, and this was also the time when Shakespeare wrote, but these perspectives are only part of the bigger picture. This chapter looks at Early Modern English as a variable and changing language not unlike English today. Standardization is found particularly ...
This volume provides a new perspective on the evolution of the special language of medicine, based on the electronic corpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts, containing over two million words of medical writing from 1500 to 1700. The book presents results from large-scale empirical research on the new materials and provides a more detailed ...
