Regional Variation in Early Modern English: The Case of the Third-Person Present Tense Singular Verb Ending in Norfolk Correspondence

Abstract

A well-known example of variation in Early Modern English is found in the morphology of the third-person singular present tense indicative verb. In general terms there was a gradual shift from - th to - s (e.g., pleaseth to pleases). However, previous studies such as Kytö (1993) and Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg (2003) found that this shift was by no means uniform, varying by, for example, region, type of text, and author. More specifically, Nevalainen, Raumolin-Brunberg, and Trudgill (2001) analyzed the distribution of endings for the third-person singular present indicative verb in Early Modern East Anglian English, i.e., the variety of English used in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. However, for the final twenty-year period of their study (1660-1680), they only have four informants. This article analyzes the distribution of verb endings for a larger number of informants during this period, which marks the final stages of - th recession in East Anglian English, using letters written in Norfolk. The corpus based on these letters allows for a detailed analysis of linguistic and extralinguistic factors that influenced this distribution. Linguistic factors include the stem-final sound and verb-type ( have, do, and say are analyzed separately). Among the extralinguistic factors analyzed are the sex of the author and addressee, the level of formality, and the author’s social class. One of the informants in this study is Sir Thomas Browne. The distribution of verb endings in his correspondence makes him an outlier. His usage has led some authors to exclude his results from their analysis. The present article offers a new approach to dealing with such cases. The overall results are compared with those for other parts of England from the same period in order to identify patterns of regional variation. Finally, an analysis of correspondence for the period 1680-1750 indicates that by this time - th had more or less disappeared from Norfolk correspondence.