<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This paper discusses glyphs of the 2-shaped or “round” allograph of the grapheme &lt;r> with a tag protruding from the lower part of the stem, asking whether their distribution in a corpus of some 600 late Middle English texts can be meaningfully related to these texts’ localisation in <italic>A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English</italic>. It discusses what localisation expresses, and uses regression modelling to show that there is no co-variation between the texts’ paleography and their orthography, although there is a measure of correlation between them. The evidence in favour is that the quantitative analysis identifies localisation in northings as a predictor of the occurrence of the tagged form of the allograph, which occurs at a higher frequency in texts localised below the Midlands line at <italic>c.</italic> 300 northings. The evidence against is the form’s scattered distribution according to the localisation variable where co-variation would imply a more clear-cut concentration of points, and also the moderate success at explaining the form’s distribution by means of variables known to explain orthographic variation.</p></abstract>

This paper discusses glyphs of the 2-shaped or “round” allograph of the grapheme <r> with a tag protruding from the lower part of the stem, asking whether their distribution in a corpus of some 600 late Middle English texts can be meaningfully related to these texts’ localisation in A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. It discusses what localisation expresses, and uses regression modelling to show that there is no co-variation between the texts’ paleography and their orthography, although there is a measure of correlation between them. The evidence in favour is that the quantitative analysis identifies localisation in northings as a predictor of the occurrence of the tagged form of the allograph, which occurs at a higher frequency in texts localised below the Midlands line at c. 300 northings. The evidence against is the form’s scattered distribution according to the localisation variable where co-variation would imply a more clear-cut concentration of points, and also the moderate success at explaining the form’s distribution by means of variables known to explain orthographic variation.

The Round Allograph of &lt;r&gt; in Late Middle English

Studia Anglica Posnaniensia

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

The Round Allograph of <r> in Late Middle English

{"article-title":"The Round Allograph of <r> in Late Middle English"}

This paper discusses glyphs of the 2-shaped or “round” allograph of the grapheme  with a tag protruding from the lower part of the stem, asking whether their distribution in a corpus of some 600 late Middle English texts can be meaningfully related to these texts’ localisation in A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. It discusses what localisation expresses, and uses regression modelling to show that there is no co-variation between the texts’ paleography and their orthography, although there is a measure of correlation between them. The evidence in favour is that the quantitative analysis identifies localisation in northings as a predictor of the occurrence of the tagged form of the allograph, which occurs at a higher frequency in texts localised below the Midlands line at c. 300 northings. The evidence against is the form’s scattered distribution according to the localisation variable where co-variation would imply a more clear-cut concentration of points, and also the moderate success at explaining the form’s distribution by means of variables known to explain orthographic variation.

This paper discusses glyphs of the 2-shaped or “round” allograph of the grapheme <r> with a tag protruding from the lower part of the stem, asking whether...

The Round Allograph of <r> in Late Middle English

Published Online: Jul 09, 2019

Page range: 129 - 144

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/stap-2018-0006

Keywords
Middle English, orthography, paleography, regression modeling

© 2018 Jacob Thaisen, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

The Round Allograph of <r> in Late Middle English

Published Online: Jul 09, 2019

Page range: 129 - 144

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/stap-2018-0006

KeywordsMiddle English, orthography, paleography, regression modeling

© 2018 Jacob Thaisen, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Middle English, orthography, paleography, regression modeling