Early Modern English
E19402
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used roughly between the late 15th and early 17th centuries, exemplified by the works of Shakespeare and the language of the King James Bible.
All labels observed (6)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Early Modern English canonical | 67 |
| Early Modern English dialect | 1 |
| Early Modern English period | 1 |
| Early Modern English pronunciation | 1 |
| Early Modern English written standard | 1 |
| Modern English | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T157782 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Early Modern English Context triple: [King James Version, language, Early Modern English]
-
A.
Middle English
Middle English is the historical stage of the English language spoken and written roughly between the late 11th and late 15th centuries, exemplified by works like Chaucer’s "Canterbury Tales."
-
B.
Great Vowel Shift (late phase)
The Great Vowel Shift (late phase) was the final stage of a major historical change in English pronunciation during which many long vowel sounds in Middle English moved closer to their modern English values.
-
C.
Early Modern period
The Early Modern period was a transformative era from roughly the late 15th to the late 18th century marked by global exploration, the rise of powerful nation-states, religious upheavals, and the beginnings of modern science and capitalism.
-
D.
Early Modern Dutch
Early Modern Dutch is the transitional form of the Dutch language used roughly between the late Middle Ages and the 18th century, during which its grammar, spelling, and vocabulary became more standardized and closer to modern Dutch.
-
E.
Old English
Old English is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken and written in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland roughly between the 5th and 12th centuries.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Early Modern English Target entity description: Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used roughly between the late 15th and early 17th centuries, exemplified by the works of Shakespeare and the language of the King James Bible.
-
A.
Middle English
Middle English is the historical stage of the English language spoken and written roughly between the late 11th and late 15th centuries, exemplified by works like Chaucer’s "Canterbury Tales."
-
B.
Great Vowel Shift (late phase)
The Great Vowel Shift (late phase) was the final stage of a major historical change in English pronunciation during which many long vowel sounds in Middle English moved closer to their modern English values.
-
C.
Early Modern period
The Early Modern period was a transformative era from roughly the late 15th to the late 18th century marked by global exploration, the rise of powerful nation-states, religious upheavals, and the beginnings of modern science and capitalism.
-
D.
Early Modern Dutch
Early Modern Dutch is the transitional form of the Dutch language used roughly between the late Middle Ages and the 18th century, during which its grammar, spelling, and vocabulary became more standardized and closer to modern Dutch.
-
E.
Old English
Old English is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken and written in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland roughly between the 5th and 12th centuries.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (52)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
historical stage of a language
ⓘ
stage of the English language ⓘ |
| developedDuring |
English Renaissance
ⓘ
surface form:
Elizabethan era
Stuart period ⓘ
surface form:
Jacobean era
English Renaissance ⓘ
surface form:
Renaissance in England
Tudor dynasty ⓘ
surface form:
Tudor period
|
| endTime | early 17th century ⓘ |
| exemplifiedBy |
King James Version
ⓘ
surface form:
King James Bible
works of Ben Jonson ⓘ works of Christopher Marlowe ⓘ works of William Shakespeare ⓘ |
| followedBy |
Standard English
ⓘ
surface form:
Modern English
|
| follows | Middle English ⓘ |
| hasAncestor | Middle English ⓘ |
| hasDescendant |
Standard English
ⓘ
surface form:
Modern English
|
| hasFeature |
Great Vowel Shift (early phase)
ⓘ
surface form:
Great Vowel Shift in progress
distinct verb endings for second-person singular ⓘ emergence of do-support in questions and negation ⓘ frequent use of double negatives ⓘ greater use of inflectional endings than in Modern English ⓘ heavy borrowing from Greek ⓘ heavy borrowing from Latin ⓘ lack of standardized orthography ⓘ loanwords from Dutch ⓘ loanwords from French ⓘ loanwords from Italian ⓘ loanwords from Spanish ⓘ relatively free word order compared to Modern English ⓘ transition from synthetic to more analytic grammar ⓘ use of -eth and -est verb endings ⓘ use of thou and thee as second-person singular pronouns ⓘ use of ye and you as second-person plural pronouns ⓘ variable spelling conventions ⓘ |
| hasWritingSystem | Latin alphabet ⓘ |
| languageFamily |
Anglic languages
ⓘ
Germanic languages ⓘ Indo-European language family ⓘ
surface form:
Indo-European languages
West Germanic languages ⓘ |
| partOf | history of the English language ⓘ |
| standardizationInfluencedBy |
Chancery Standard
ⓘ
Estuary English ⓘ
surface form:
London dialect
printing press in England ⓘ |
| startTime | late 15th century ⓘ |
| usedFor |
drama
ⓘ
government records ⓘ legal documents ⓘ poetry ⓘ prose literature ⓘ religious texts ⓘ |
| usedIn |
British Isles
ⓘ
England ⓘ English colonies ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Early Modern English Description of subject: Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used roughly between the late 15th and early 17th centuries, exemplified by the works of Shakespeare and the language of the King James Bible.
Referenced by (72)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Early Modern English dialect
subject surface form:
Nurse (Romeo and Juliet)
subject surface form:
Richard II