Chapter published in:
Records of Real People: Linguistic variation in Middle English local documentsEdited by Merja Stenroos and Kjetil V. Thengs
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 11] 2020
► pp. 95–128
Chapter 5Regional variation and supralocalization in late medieval English
Comparing administrative and literary texts
Merja Stenroos | University of Stavanger
Article outline
- 5.1Introduction
- 5.2The idea of a fifteenth-century standard
- 5.3Variability and text production: Documentary and literary texts
- 5.4The material and methodology
- 5.5Comparison of the corpora: Findings
- 5.5.1Purely orthographic features (W-features)
- The variable (th) in they, them and other
- The variable (sh) in shall
- The variable (gh) in right
- Final <i> and <y> in any, holy and they
- Double and single <l> in shall
- Summary
- 5.5.2Features relating to the spoken mode
- Phonology: land, any, shall, holy, man and other
- Morphology: they, them, are and the past participle prefix y-
- Vocabulary:: Clepe and call
- 5.5.1Purely orthographic features (W-features)
- 5.6Discussion: Literary vs documentary texts
- 5.7Conclusions
Published online: 10 December 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.11.05ste
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.11.05ste