“The Pronoun it and the Dating of Middle English Texts”

This paper, based upon my presentation at SHELL 2012 at Keio University, Tokyo, discusses the spelling variation between hit and it in Late Middle English texts. It pays particular attention to the spelling forms in the first two items in MS Pepys 2125, Cambridge, though other Middle English texts are also considered in comparative terms. The alternation between hit and it is particularly interesting in The Chastising of God’s Children, the first item in MS Pepys 2125, as it shows a gradual shift from hit to it within the text. Hit (including its variants like hyt) is the only form used at the beginning of the text, whereas forms without h become increasingly frequent. In the later part of the text, it (including variant forms such as yt) is dominant and the h-forms are reserved for specific environments, e.g. sentence initial position. The paper suggests that h-forms had a special stylistic implication for the scribe who copied the text, though both forms were acceptable to him.

Related publication(s)

• Mayumi Taguchi & Yoko Iyeiri (eds.). 2019. Pepysian Meditations on the Passion of Christ: Edited from Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2125. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.