Old-Fashioned Usage
As I was reading Crystal 18, part of his discussion on 19th-century grammar caught my eye. While not as grammatically far removed as Shakespeare, 19th-century English still occasionally sounds odd to us. “Whenever we sense that the phrasing of a passage is somewhat ‘awkward’ or ‘old-fashioned’,” Crystal writes, “or a conversation is in some way ’stilted’ or ‘unidiomatic’, we are probably noting a difference in grammatical norms between the beginning of the Modern English period and today.”
In many of his examples, and in much of the 19th-century British literature I’ve read, I actually find some of these “old-fashioned” constructions to resemble modern-day French–especially the verb forms Crystal singles out. For example, Jane Austen’s Jenny & James are walked to Charmouth this afternoon reminds me of many French verbs of movement and transportation that require the “to be” auxiliary in the past tense; Keats’ it rains parallels the modern French phrasing of that statement, etc.
Given that our class has collectively studied quite a few languages, I was wondering if anyone else has had similar thoughts. Are there “typically 19th-century” constructions that remind any of you of current usage in another language?
Jake wrote:
Well, using a conjugation of “be” as the auxillary verb for the past tense occurs in German as well. “Wir sind gekommen” translates directly into “we are come.” I haven’t read the chapter Keat’s “it rains” can also be a direct translation of the German “Es regnet.” I haven’t read the entire assignment tonight yet, so I’d like to see some kind of explanation for these similarities to other European tongues, as well as an explanation for their disappearance.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 8:22 pm ¶
Judith wrote:
yeah, I totally see what you mean with the French similarities, I guess like “ils sont montes” for they went up? I wonder if this represents the result of English contact with French or is just a coincidence. It seems as if most of French influence on English during the ME period concerned the lexicon and an influx of prefixes and suffixes. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember many examples of French grammar being encorporated or adapted to English (and then persisting into early modern english). However, French loans were still prevalent in the 18th to 20th centuries, so perhaps continued French influence brought about the “to be” auxiliary around the time of emerging modern english rather than continuing from previous French contact. But without direct imposition as with the years following William’s rule, it seems unlikely that English would have adopted a French grammatical auxiliary at a later date. Grammatical change is much more pervasive than loan words, as it affects the entire sentence, so I’m curious as to the explanation for this usage and whether it even has any French origins or whether it resulted merely from literary innovation or a sense of formality.
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 9:43 pm ¶
Offenbarung Futhorc McGee wrote:
I have definitely noticed that certain German constructions sound a lot like “old-fashioned” English. Two things that come to mind: The inversion of verb and subject in questions rather than the Do-construction – “Speak you the truth?” – and the use of ‘that’ and a preposition in constructions like “thereupon,” “thereat,” “therewith,” (German “darauf,” “dazu,” “damit”). The ‘that-constructions’ may not be archaic, but they sound a little stilted today.
~ Luke
Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 11:49 pm ¶
amelia wrote:
One grammatical formulation that seems particularly prevalent in modern English is the progressive, i.e. “we are going,” or “they were talking.” This structure doesn’t seem to have been as popular in the early modern English period. In the letter of Jane Austen’s in chapter 18, she writes “he offers” where a today we would be more likely to use “he is offering” to describe the action of her publisher. My Spanish instructors always scold us for over-using this construction: apparently, it’s an obvious anglicism. Where English speakers want to say “it is raining,” native Spanish speakers use the equivalent of “it rains,” just like Keats. I wonder when the progressive began to be so widespread in English and if it occured in any other languages.
Posted 29 Apr 2008 at 4:16 pm ¶