The Use and Development of Middle English : Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Middle English, Cambridge 2008

The fourteen essays presented here discuss the development of English during the Middle English period: how the language developed from Old English, linguistic innovations, and the loss and abandonment of certain words and constructions. A common theme is variation and variability - dialectal, social, temporal, stylistic and idiolectal - with much work fitting under the heading of historical pragm...