General problems of description

Introductory

The ModE system of inflexional morphology was already present in outline by 1430 and reached its final form by 1630. By contrast, syntactical developments occurring in the EModE period were so fundamental that it has rightly been claimed that “Modern English syntax begins with Dryden”. Though there were many reasons for these changes, they were chiefly connected with the emerging standard's need for functional expansion and stylistic differentiation in new written forms of communication in English and in the expression of complex thought in various fields of scholarly discourse. This meant that new patterns developed:

1. to make up for inadequacies in the linguistic system that had arisen in ME;

2. to provide an adequate mode of expression for various topics, stylistic levels and fields of discourse;

3. to imitate (and from the seventeenth century also to rival) the beauty and flexibility of the Latin language.

In syntax, as in the expansion of the vocabulary, the primary aim of the sixteenth century was first to overcome the inadequacy, and then the inelegance, of the vernacular.

If T2, Caxton's original text (which displays the parataxis so characteristic of ME syntax), is compared with texts after 1580 (e.g. T7), the increase in complex sentence structures becomes apparent. This is evident in sentence length and depth, in the more specific use of prepositions and participles, and also in stricter adherence to the sequence of tenses and accuracy in the use of mood.