43310 (Archaisms in literature), страница 3

I trow not.—Daily Telegraph.

The clerk, as I conjectured him to be from his appearance, was also commoved; for, sitting opposite to Mr. Morris, that honest gentleman's terror communicated itself to him, though he wotted not why.—Scott.

I should be right glad if the substance could be made known to clergy and ministers of all denominations.—Daily Telegraph.

So sordid are the lives of such natures, who are not only not heroic to their valets and waiting-women, but have neither valets nor waiting-women to be heroic to withal.—Dickens.

Commonly misused archaisms

You who? "Thou", "thee" and "ye"

As most people know, thou, thee and ye all mean "you". But they are not interchangeable, as they are sometimes used. They represent different uses of the pronoun "you".

Thou

"You", singular nominative. Used if the "you" addressed is the subject of the sentence. (Thou givest unto me...)

Thee

"You", singular accusative. Used if the "you" is the object of the sentence. (I give unto thee...)

Ye

"You", plural. Used when addressing a group. (All ye, hear this...)

Because, in modern English, all of those meanings are encompassed in the single word "you", they may be difficult to distinguish. It might be helpful to recall the parallels in a case-formed language such as French (e.g. "tu", "te" and "vous")

Thy place or thine?

Thy

"Your", referring to a noun beginning with a consonant. (e.g. Set me as a seal upon thy heart.)

Thine (a) "Your", used in place of "thy" with nouns that begin with a vowel. (e.g. Fetch thine arms and armour.)

(b) "Yours", "that which belongs to you". (e.g. Thou hast what is thine.)

Go hence and fetch him hither!

The hence/hither stable of words seems to cause problems, usually through people not knowing which is which.

Hence

"From here", or "from this time". (e.g. The enemy comes! We must fly swiftly hence.)

Hither

"To here". (e.g. Bring the wretch hither.)

Thence

"From there". (e.g. The mountain rumbled and fire thence issued.)

Thither

"To there". (e.g. It had been many years since he had travelled thither.)

Whence

"From where", or "from which". (e.g. The rock whence issued the spring.)

Whither

"To where". (e.g. Whither do you travel?)

Also note that since the direction of movement (to, from) is already implied in the word, phrases like "from whence" are, strictly speaking, inaccurate, although they have passed into common use.

Wherefore

Means "why". (Not "where".) Probably the most famous usage is in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet asks 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?', meaning "Why are you [named] Romeo?".

Conclusion

The most interesting and at the same time sophisticated process that receives the study of Linguistics is a change of a language in a course of time. Complicated word integrations, appearing and evanescence of words, phraseological units, and grammatical constructions – all this is undividable part of language progress. I can compare archaisms with an echo of ancient times, because they deliver us information about cultural life of previous generations. Archaisms also reflect an inner aspect of people consciousness.

In the process of this research I found out definition of archaism - Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday speech, which have been exiled by their synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity. Most of these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which expelled them from the neutral style.

 In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately (to achieve a specific effect) or as part of a specific jargon (for example in law) or formula (for example in religious contexts). Many nursery rhymes contain archaisms. Archaic elements that only occur in certain fixed expressions are not considered to be archaisms.

I also pointed out main spheres of usage of archaic words - Archaisms are most frequently encountered in poetry, law, and ritual writing and speech. Their deliberate use can be subdivided into literary archaisms, which seeks to evoke the style of older speech and writing; and lexical archaisms, the use of words no longer in common use. Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature.

Working with Shakespeare's sonnet anв with the text I was imbued with the magnificence of ancient language stylistic figurativeness and expressiveness. I was astonished with the fact of relative readability and understandability, though in the sonnet I stumbled upon misunderstanding – several words were really incomprehensible, but with a help of dictionaries, founts of wisdom, I cleared up the meanings of that words and made a translation. Besides revealing archaisms, I hit upon the thing that shows Germanic origin of the English language.

Usage of archaism in literature I emphasized in the third chapter of my course work. It includes a lot of interesting information about conditions and consequences of usage of archaisms, more over I also decided to point out common misuse of archaisms.

Making a conclusion I assume that all the main objectives of this work were successfully investigated, main aspects were thoroughly examined and acceptable understanding of the notion “archaism” was achieved

References

OXFORD: CLARENDON PRESS, 1908 NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 1999 SECOND EDITION

H.W. Fowler (1858–1933).  The King’s English, 2nd ed.  1908. A COURSE IN MODERN ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY SECOND EDITION R.S. Ginzburg, S. S. Khidekel, G. Y. Knyazeva, A. A. Sankin

Дубенец - Курс лекций по лексикологии английского языка.

Jespersen ,Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1982.

Canon G. Historical Changes and English Wordformation: New Vocabulary items. N.Y., 1986.

Burchfield R.W. The English Language. Lnd. ,1985

“A History of English” by Barbara A. Fennell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaism

http://www.supermozg.com

http://www.ielanguages.com

http://www.bartleby.com/116/305.html