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Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics
Edited by Irma Taavitsainen, Andreas H. Jucker and Jukka Tuominen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 243] 2014
► pp. 157–188

“Strong churlish purging Pills”

Multi-adjectival premodification in early modern medical writing in English

ORCID logo | University of Helsinki
This article looks at the frequency and use of sequences of two or more attributive adjectives in early modern medical writing in English. Taking as a starting point the observation that long sequences of premodifiers are one of the many linguistic features that add complexity to present-day academic writing, I examine the situation diachronically and pragmatically during the period when the scholastic style of thought gave way to empiricism. The study will argue that while a modest increase in multi-adjectival premodifiers can be observed over the timeline, the observation can be largely attributed to pragmatic contexts which arose from the practice of early modern medicine and which, by and large, cannot be considered a predictor of present-day scientific style.
Published online: 11 March 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.243.11tyr
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Cited by 2 other publications

González-Díaz, Victorina
2018. Chapter 3. Adjective stacking in Early Modern English. In The Noun Phrase in English [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 246], ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Sylwanowicz, Marta
2017. Noun Phrase Modification in Early Modern English Recipes. Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies :26/2 ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo

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