“Textual Transmission and Language Change in the Fifteenth Century: John Trevisa’s Middle English Translation of Higden’s Polychronicon“

This study explores some linguistic features in Book VI of John Trevisa’s Middle English Translation of Higden’s Polychronicon and discusses differences between MS Cotton Tiberius D. VII and Caxton’s edition (1482) of the text. As for the adverbial ending –ly, the former text consistently shows the –liche type, whereas in Caxton’s text it always occurs in the –ly form. Other findings include the decrease of for to-infinitives, of the infinitival ending –en, of multiple negation, and the increase of negative sentences with not, in later texts.