Part of
The Language of Daily Life in England (1400–1800)Edited by Arja Nurmi, Minna Nevala and Minna Palander-Collin
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 183] 2009
► pp. 165–196
Edited by Arja Nurmi, Minna Nevala and Minna Palander-Collin
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 183] 2009
► pp. 165–196
Lifespan changes in the language of three early modern gentlemen
This article examines the participation of three English gentlemen in ongoing grammatical changes across their lifespans. Based on personal letters from several decades, the study shows that Sir Walter Ralegh (1554–1618), Philip Gawdy (1562–1617) and John Chamberlain (1553–1628) changed their language in adulthood. The findings question the view that an adult’s grammar, once acquired, would be fixed. However, there is significant divergence between the informants, Chamberlain being the most stable, and the other two participating in the changes to a greater degree. Age, ambitions, and geographical and social migration are considered as possible reasons for their behaviour. The changes studied include possessives my/thy vs mine/thine, third-person suffix -s vs -th, affirmative and negative do and subject relativiser who.
Cited by
Cited by 17 other publications
Anthonissen, Lynn & Peter Petré
2019. Grammaticalization and the linguistic individual: new avenues in lifespan research. Linguistics Vanguard 5:s2 
Ayres‐Bennett, Wendy & Philippe Caron
2016. Periodization, Translation, Prescription and the Emergence of Classical French. Transactions of the Philological Society 114:3 ► pp. 339 ff.
Blas Arroyo, José Luis
2023. Individual variation and frequency change in Early Modern Spanish. Journal of Historical Linguistics
Blas-Arroyo, José Luis
2022. Patterns of individual variation and change in Golden Age Spanish. An analysis of three linguistic variables in a corpus of private correspondence. Folia Linguistica 0:0
Blas-Arroyo, José Luis
2022. Patterns of individual variation and change in Golden Age Spanish. An analysis of three linguistic variables in a corpus of private correspondence. Folia Linguistica 56:s43-s1 ► pp. 289 ff.
Blaxter, Tam & Kari Kinn
2018. On Ek and Jak In Middle Norwegian: Mixed Methods In Historical Sociolinguistics. Transactions of the Philological Society 116:3 ► pp. 383 ff.
Blaxter, Tamsin
2021. Diachronic dialectology: new methods and case studies. Transactions of the Philological Society 119:S1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Fonteyn, Lauren & Peter Petré
2022. On the probability and direction of morphosyntactic lifespan change. Language Variation and Change 34:1 ► pp. 79 ff.
Kiełkiewicz‐Janowiak, Agnieszka
2012. Class, Age, and Gender‐Based Patterns. In The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 307 ff.
Nevalainen, Terttu
2015. Age-related variation and language change in Early Modern English. In Language Development [IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society, 37], ► pp. 129 ff.
Noël, Dirk
2022. Individual differences in the decline of the Deontic nci construction. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 9:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Noël, Dirk
2023. Chapter 5. Towards a radically usage-based account of constructional attrition. In Reconnecting Form and Meaning [Studies in Language Companion Series, 230], ► pp. 123 ff.
Petré, Peter, Lynn Anthonissen, Sara Budts, Enrique Manjavacas, Emma-Louise Silva, William Standing & Odile A.O. Strik
2019. Early Modern Multiloquent Authors (EMMA): Designing a large-scale corpus of individuals’ languages. ICAME Journal 43:1 ► pp. 83 ff.
Sairio, Anni & Minna Palander‐Collin
2012. The Reconstruction of Prestige Patterns in Language History. In The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 626 ff.
Sankoff, Gillian
2018. Language Change Across the Lifespan. Annual Review of Linguistics 4:1 ► pp. 297 ff.
Schuster, Britt-Marie
2015. Kriegsausbruch, Kriegs Ausbruch, KriegsAusbruch. In Language Development [IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society, 37], ► pp. 189 ff.
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.