Quaker "Thou" and "Thee"

Maxfield, Edward

doi:10.2307/452095

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“…If this is a variant that is localised and/or stigmatised, it readily takes on the type of [+in‐group] meaning that speakers can use for the expression of style, persona, and identity. As an example, the English singular second‐person pronouns thee , thou , and thy/thine , long since obsolete in most varieties, are only recently so in many circles of Quakers (Religious Society of Friends)—for whom these are in‐group markers that originally represented a commitment to plain speech, honesty, and/or humility (Darnell, 1970; Maxfield, 1929). By the 1990s, Birch (1995) finds that while the use of these pronouns is obsolescent in her Quaker speakers, younger members of the community are taking ‘an interest in [the form thee ] that the older Friends don't have’ (1995:47).…”

Section: Obsolescence and Social Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Obsolescence and abortive innovations in variationist approaches to language change

Brook

2024

Language and Linguist. Compass

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The focus of most variationist studies of linguistic change to date has been the emergence and increase of new forms. The opposing process—obsolescence, or the decline and loss of older variants—is less well understood. Addressing several calls for more attention to be paid to obsolescence and its properties, this article surveys case studies mostly from English and French and suggests generalisations. Obsolescence, for many reasons, is a very long process. While the linguistic factors influencing an obsolescent form often become unpredictable, the social meaning and/or pragmatic effects associated with it may strengthen rather than weaken. A special subset of obsolescent forms are abortive innovations—those that begin by increasing, but then disappear suddenly. The notion that an abortive innovation is always a subcomponent of a two‐step innovation, otherwise successful, applies straightforwardly to several case studies identified in the variationist literature in recent years.

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Section: Obsolescence and Social Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Obsolescence and abortive innovations in variationist approaches to language change

Brook

2024

Language and Linguist. Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Quaker "Thou" and "Thee"

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Obsolescence and abortive innovations in variationist approaches to language change

Obsolescence and abortive innovations in variationist approaches to language change

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