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Chaucer's Colloquial English: Its Structural Traits
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The recognition of levels of discourse in Chaucer's writings is no new thing, but it has hitherto been associated more often with aesthetic appreciation than with linguistic analysis. We have been aware that Chaucer was a great master in the adaptation of subject matter to style. We have observed how skilfully he was able to modify figures of speech, rhythms, and choice of words—in short, the rhetorical elements of his discourse—to its content, whether exalted or moderate or lowly (grandis, mediocris, humilis), according to the well-known medieval doctrines of composition. He himself spoke more than once of the requirements for such adaptation in matters of vocabulary “the wordes moote be cosyn to the dede” (CT A 742; cf. H 208), and burel folk in literature should accordingly use earthy terms, while clergy and aristocrats employ different words appropriate to their stations. But he does not specifically mention other matters of language which also serve to mark off, not only the various social levels, but the different types of situation which affect the structure of speech by one and the same person. The handling of sentence structure and syntax may also be shown to manifest a fine correlation with the demands of literary form and intention in Chaucer's work.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952
References
1 Quotations are taken from F. N. Robinson's edition of The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Boston, 1933). For convenience in comparing readings, line numberings and abbreviations are given according to the system of Skeat, which Robinson includes in his edition.
2 Illustrative citations are introduced with single quotes only if they are taken from dialogue passages; otherwise none are used. These two examples are from speeches of Dame Prudence.
3 It may be noted that reinforcement by apposition, with an anticipatory pronoun immediately preceding the noun, is a type of repetition appearing generally in formal literary passages: as doth he Ticius in helle (TC i.786); Bytwixe hym Jason and this Ercules (LGW 1544), etc. The Wife of Bath has two such constructions in her Prologue (D 498 and D 643), but she is quoting exempla in the literate style of her fifth husband and is probably supposed to be echoing him. Even here, therefore, the trick of style is probably not colloquial.
4 Essentials of English Grammar (London, 1933), p. 95. The French language also moves an important image to the head of a sentence by means of an anticipated segment with recapitulated pronoun. For a comprehensive treatment of such segmentation, see Charles Bally, Linguistique générale et linguistique française (Paris, 1932), pp. 84 ff. The discussion is helpful for an understanding of English usage.
5 A Handbook of Present-Day English, Part ii (Utrecht, 1925), iii, 219 ff. Kruisinga also calls the delayed substantive an “appended” one.
6 The example is one of those given by Rudolph Keller, Die Ellipse in der neuenglischen Sprache (Zurich diss., 1944), in his elaborate treatment of the problem.
7 Of course, it was possible in Chaucer's day to omit a conditional conjunction without ambiguity if subject and verb were inverted (e.g., HF 2106 f.) ; but this should not be reckoned as true ellipsis, since a feature of word order replaces the missing conjunctive particle.
8 Essentials of English Grammar, p. 360 f.; more fully treated in his Modem English Grammar (Heidelberg, 1909-42), iii, Ch. vii.
9 Die Ellipse, p. 150 f.
10 George O. Curme, Principles and Practice of English Grammar (New York, 1947), p. 163, refers to them as an “old type of relative clause.” Kruisinga, Handbook, Pt. ii, iii, 205, remarks that they are “naturally” avoided in written English, but there does not appear to be any proscription of them even in the most formal.
11 An interruption of discourse, somewhat resembling mannered literary aposiopesis, occurs in Chaucer's own apostrophe to Donegild in the Man of Law's Tale (B 782 f.).
12 For an illuminating general study of shifted structures and functions see Wilhelm Havers, Handbuch der erklärenden Syntax (Heidelberg, 1931). One may disagree with some of the author's strictures on the Volksseele and yet find both the discussion and the examples most helpful for an understanding of non-formal English.