Feminine Endings and Function Words inKing John

Abstract

In my note ‘Feminine Endings in King John ’ ( N&Q , ccliv (2009), I presented a table (578) to which Michael Best in his Internet Edition of King John objected thus, ‘However, his [Merriam’s] division of King John into multiple, relatively short components, attributing these in part to two different hands, does not provide clear evidence of multiple authorship.’ 1 The table in question displays twenty-six sections (plus one half-section), of which twelve are assigned to Shakespeare and fourteen to an unidentified co-author. The table presents the numbers of lines for each section and their respective number of feminine endings. Best understood the table to imply that the partition of King John was substantively based on the distribution of feminine endings shown. He believed that the small sample sizes involved, averaging 784 words (tokens) each, were ‘clearly too short to be amenable to statistical analysis’. It cannot be emphasized enough that the segmentation and attributions are the work of a study made two years before ‘Feminine Endings in King John ’ and were effected with regard to function words. 2 It is possible nevertheless to combine evidence from three independent sources, including feminine endings, to confirm the case for multiple authorship in King John .