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Chapter 8. The taking off and catching on of etymological spellings in Early Modern English

Evidence from the EEBO Corpus
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Abstract

This chapter examines the path that orthographic etymologisation, as in doubt and verdict, followed mainly in the course of the sixteenth century. Few corpus-based studies have been undertaken on etymological spellings, but the recent availability of the large-sized EEBO Corpus must be of great help in making it clear when and how etymological spellings took off and caught on in the Early Modern English period. Besides giving a close description of the process of the orthographic shift, we discuss some methodological problems in the use of the corpus, stressing at the same time that it is an excellent tool, when carefully used, for studies in the history of English.

Abstract

This chapter examines the path that orthographic etymologisation, as in doubt and verdict, followed mainly in the course of the sixteenth century. Few corpus-based studies have been undertaken on etymological spellings, but the recent availability of the large-sized EEBO Corpus must be of great help in making it clear when and how etymological spellings took off and caught on in the Early Modern English period. Besides giving a close description of the process of the orthographic shift, we discuss some methodological problems in the use of the corpus, stressing at the same time that it is an excellent tool, when carefully used, for studies in the history of English.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Chapter 2. Adapting the Dynamic Model to historical linguistics 5
  5. Chapter 3. An account of the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English 35
  6. Chapter 4. How does causal connection originate? 57
  7. Chapter 5. Old Northumbrian in the Scottish Borders 75
  8. Chapter 6. From eadig to happy 97
  9. Chapter 7. Distributional changes in synonym sets 119
  10. Chapter 8. The taking off and catching on of etymological spellings in Early Modern English 143
  11. Chapter 9. Speech acts in the history of English 165
  12. Index 181
English Historical Linguistics
This chapter is in the book English Historical Linguistics
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.359.08hot

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Chapter 2. Adapting the Dynamic Model to historical linguistics 5
  5. Chapter 3. An account of the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English 35
  6. Chapter 4. How does causal connection originate? 57
  7. Chapter 5. Old Northumbrian in the Scottish Borders 75
  8. Chapter 6. From eadig to happy 97
  9. Chapter 7. Distributional changes in synonym sets 119
  10. Chapter 8. The taking off and catching on of etymological spellings in Early Modern English 143
  11. Chapter 9. Speech acts in the history of English 165
  12. Index 181
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