Variation in usage grammars

Variation in usage and grammars:

the past participle forms of write in English 1680-1790

Larisa Oldireva Gustafsson (email)

(Uppsala University)

Submitted 27 March, 2002, published July 2002 (HSL/SHL 2)

1. Introduction

Surveying Early Modern English innovations in the use of irregular verbs, Lass (1999:168) remarks: “one cannot tell a neat story for any Old English strong verb class as a whole; it seems almost as if each verb has its own history.” The same holds true when one tries to tell a neat story of how these verbs were codified in grammars and how this codification was related to the quantifiable evidence of usage. The standardisation of each irregular verb has its own story, and this story is largely determined by relations between prevailing trends of usage and the selective character of prescriptive codification. This explains why the present paper surveys corpus findings on the varied use of a single verb; this one-verb study illustrates the verb-specific correlation between the evidence of usage and precept concerning irregular verbs.

Writing on the lack of studies on Early Modern English variation, Görlach paid special attention to the varied use of the principal forms of write: “not even well-known alternatives such as writ, wrote, wrate for past, and writ, wrote, written for the participle appear to have ever been investigated with a view to their possible regional, sociolectal, and formal/informal distinction” (1988:217). The present case study unearths new information on the appearance of these options in letter-writing and grammatical tables of the period 1680–1790.

The past participle forms of the verb write have been chosen for the present survey because the morphological variants of this form vacillate manifestly in seventeenth and eighteenth-century letters and are numerous enough for such a case study. The data about the varied use of the form are provided by a 240,000 word selection from letters written during two contrastive periods, 1680–1710 and 1760–90.

I chose these sub-periods as I wanted to polarise my primary material in accordance with the following criteria. Firstly, studies of seventeenth and eighteenth-century grammars have shown that evaluative remarks concerning variants of preterite and past participle forms first appeared in the early eighteenth century. The grammatical norm, however, took its final shape during the last decades of the century (Leonard 1929; Finegan 1992; Stein 1994; Watts 1995). Hence, the fixing of the standard paradigm, both in spelling and in morphology, was apparent in the course of the period represented by the letters from these contrastive periods. Secondly, the decades between the two periods make an interval, which can be taken roughly to represent the lifetime of a generation. In this fashion, the above polarisation provides the data necessary for the contrastive analysis of variation and its recession.

2. The evidence of usage and grammars

To begin with, the evidence of usage and precept on the fluctuating past participles of write is summarised in Tables 1 and 2. In Table 1, the data about the varied use of the form are yielded by selections from letter-writing of the two periods, 1680–1710 and 1760–90.[1]

	^writ	^writt	^wrote	^wrott	^written	^Total
^1680–1710
^{Addison (1694–1708)}	^–	^–	²	^–	³	⁵
^{Defoe (1703–8)}	^–	²	¹	⁷	³	¹³
^{Penn (1693–1701)}	^–	⁴	⁷	^–	^–	¹¹
^{Shaftesbury (1706–10)}	²	^–	^–	^–	^–	²
^{Wentworth P. (1708–10)}	⁴	^–	^–	^–	^–	⁴
^{Wentworth I. (1705–11)}	^–	⁴	^–	^–	^–	⁴
^{Gardiner (1699–1702)}	^{3 (rit)}	^–	^–	^–	^–	³
^Total	^{9 (21%)}	^{10 (24%)}	^{10 (24%)}	^{7 (17%)}	^{6 (14%)}	^{42 (100%)}
^1760–1790
^{Walpole (1765–75)}	²	^–	^–	^–	⁵	⁷
^{Burke (1774–87)}	^–	^–	⁴	^–	²	⁶
^{Hume (1762–8)}	^–	^–	¹⁵	^–	^–	¹⁵
^{Sheridan (1776–88)}	³	^–	³	^–	³	⁹
^{Crisp (1779–82)}	¹	^–	¹³	^–	^–	¹⁴
^{Lennox (1781–92)}	^–	^–	¹	^–	²	³
^{Burney (1774–7)}	^–	^–	²	^–	⁵	⁷
^Total	^{6 (10%)}	^–	^{38 (62%)}	^–	^{17 (28%)}	^{61 (100%)}

^{Table 1. Past participle variants
of the verb write in letter-writing (1680–1790)}

Table 2 shows how the principal forms of write were recorded in contemporaneous grammars and in Dr Johnson’s dictionary (a dash in Table 2 denotes the absence of the form in a particular grammar).

	^Preterite	^{Past participle}
^{Wallis, 1653}	^{wrote, writt}	^{written, writt}
^{Wharton, 1654}	^{wrote, writ}	^{writen, writ}
^{Lye, 1671}	^{writ, wrote}	^written
^{Miège, 1688}	^{wrote, writ}	^{written, writ}
^{Brown, 1700}	^–	^{written, writ}
^{Brightland, 1711}	^{wrote, writ}	^–
^{Greenwood, 1711}	^{writ, wrote}	^written
^{Greenwood, 2ed. 1744}	^{writ, wrote}	^{written writ, wrote}
^{Collyer, 1735}	^{wrote, writ}	^written
^{Lowe, 1737}	^writ	^written
^{Corbet, 1743}	^wrot	^written
^{Kirkby, 1746}	^{wrote, writ}	^{wrote, writ, written}
^{Fisher, 1750}	^{writ, wrote}	^{written, writ}
^{Harris, 1751}	^wrote	^written
^{Johnson, 1755}	^{writ, wrote}	^{written, writ, wrote}
^{Ward, 1758}	^wrote	^{writen, writ}
^{White, 1761}	^{writ, wrote}	^{writ, wrote, written}
^{Ash, 1762}	^wrote	^written
^{Buchanan, 1762}	^wrote	^written
^{Lowth, 1762}	^wrote	^written
^{Fenning, 1771}	^{wrote, writ}	^written
^{Bayly, 1772}	^{writ, wrote}	^written
^{Fell, 1784}	^wrote	^written
^{Ussher, 1785}	^wrote	^written
^{Coote, 1788}	^{wrote, writ}	^written

^{Table 2. The
preterite and past participle forms of the verb write in grammars.}

Judging by the data in Tables 1 and 2, the diversity of individual practices in letter-writing and combinations of variants in grammatical tables tend to be partly at variance. Thus, with the exception of the grammars by Kirkby and White, all the grammars surveyed for this case study give priority to the variant written (see Table 2). By contrast, the evidence of usage in letter-writing testifies that, although the use of written had increased considerably by the end of the eighteenth century (from 14% to 28%), this variant was not the main candidate for the past participle form.

Although the figures provided by the evidence of usage are rather low, they show that the variants writ, writt and wrote appeared more frequently in the letters dated 1680–1710 (see Table 1). During the later period, when the prescriptive sorting out of variants was in full swing, wrote was the leading variant: the instances of this variant amount to 62% of all occurrences of the past participle forms of write. In addition, letters written between 1760–90 do not display the consistent use of a single variant. In these letters, the variant written, though it prevails in precept, does not occur as the only form; this variant is accompanied by instances of writ and wrote (see Table 1). The consistent use of one variant is only attested in the letters by Hume, who, however, preferred the past participle wrote. The absence of the ensuing standard past participle form written is notable in the letters by Hume and Crisp. By contrast, written is recorded in other letters of the period, viz. in the letters by Walpole, Burke, Sheridan, Lennox, and Burney (see Table 1).

3. Parallels with variation in the regular paradigm

A parallel with the varied spelling of -ed forms in these letters is of interest. During the timespan under investigation, the use of preterite and past participle forms of the regular paradigm was characterised by the varied spelling of the grammatical morpheme -ed (e.g. seemed, seemd, and seem’d; fixed, fixd, fix’d, fixt and fix’t). Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the varied spelling of these forms was more a feature of informal than formal spelling (Osselton 1963, 1984; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1994:181). Only editions of poetry adhered to the ‑’d variant in the spelling of these forms. At the same time, in private writing dated as late as 1760–90, contrasts between levelled and varied usage tended to signal different strategies of spelling.

To judge from the data provided by the present selection of letters, the spelling of forms with the -ed inflexion by Hume and Crisp was not shaped by the ideal of uniformity. The -’d, -d and -t variants are recorded in the letters by Hume (e.g. stopt and lockt in example (1) and issu’d/issud, show’d/showd in (2) and (3)), while the -’d and -d variants appear in the letters by Samuel Crisp (e.g. discharg’d, kill’d, refus’d and securd in (4) and (5)). The following examples illustrate contrasts between varied and levelled spellings of preterite and past participle forms of regular verbs in relation to the fluctuating use of the past participle variants wrote and written (italics added):

(1) [...] They endeavour’d to prove, that this Diffidence gradually encreas’d during the Years 1757, 1758, & 1759; till in the Year 1760, after Payment was stopt in Europe, it went beyond all bounds. [...] They produc’d Letters, wrote during the time, which prov’d both that the Money was commonly lockt up in the Colony, and that wherever it accidentally appear’d, it always bore a much higher Value than the Paper. (Hume to the Secretary of State, Oct. 1765; ed. Klibansky and Mossner 1954:102)

(2) They show’d me Computations made of the whole Amount of the Billets d’Ordonnance, [...]: They then showd me the Accounts taken of the Expences of the Colony [...]. They infer’d, that almost all the Billets had been issu’d during that Period. (Hume to the Secretary of State, Oct. 1765; ed. Klibansky and Mossner 1954:103)

(3) They showd me Accounts of old Billets issud, and new Billets struck, after October 1759: The whole did not differ materially from the Sum above-mention’d. (Hume to the Secretary of State; Oct. 1765; ed. Klibansky and Mossner 1954:103)

(4) I have just heard that Miss Ray (L^d. Sandwich’s mistress) has lost her life by a mad clergyman who pretented love for her. [...] – this hot-headed Parson (who it seems she has refus’d to marry) discharg’d a Pistol at her, which kill’d her on the spot, and another at himself, which only wounded him. He was immediately securd. (Crisp to Mrs Gast, 1779; ed. Hutton 1905:31)

(5) Fanny is to come and spend some time here in the Winter; [...]. You would be astonish’d to know in what a manner she is courted, and almost adored by all the Wits – [...]. Mrs. Montagu, who holds herself up in the Clouds, has wrote her two letters [...], and wherever she goes, she is follow’d and address’d as if she was Pope. (Crisp to Mrs Gast, 1779; ed. Hutton 1905:46)[2]

The varied spelling of -ed forms by these writers contrasts with the levelled spelling of such forms in other letters dated 1760–90; see examples (6) and (7) from the letters by Fanny Burney and Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

(6) But I was a little shocked to find, soon after I sent you my Last Letter, that Hetty had written to you upon the same subject, the Bastardini, just before. [...], you must be quite tired of this poor silver side, you have doubtless heard the story of the Pig’s Eating half her side, & of its being repaired by a silver kind of machine. You may be sure that she has not Escaped the witticisms of our Wags upon this score: it is too fair a subject for Ridicule to have been suffered to pass untouched. (Fanny Burney to Samuel Crisp, late March 1775; ed. Troide et al. Vol. II 1990:98)

(7) [...] Mr. Barnet produced a paper to me written by Mr. Mathews, containing an account of our former meetings in London. [...] the best account I can give of Mr. Mathews’s relation, is that it is almost directly opposite to mine.

Mr. Ewart accompanied me to Hyde-Park about Six in the Evening, where we met you and Mr. Mathews, and we walked together to the Ring. – [...] I observed that we were come to the Ground: Mr. Mathews objected to the Spot, and appealed to you: – we proceeded to the Back of a Building on the other side of the Ring. [...]; I called on him, and drew my sword (He having previously declined Pistols) – Mr. Ewart observed a Centinel on the other side of the Building: – We advanced to another Part of the Park; I stopped again at a seemingly convenient Place. – Mr. Mathews objected to the observation of some People at a great distance; and proposed to retire to the Hercules’-Pillars ’till the Park should be clear: – we did so. – In a little time we returned. – I again drew my Sword: Mr. Mathews again objected to the observation of a Person who seem’d to watch us. [...] Mr. Mathews declared that he would not engage while any one was within sight, and proposed to defer it ’till the next morning. [...] I could not admit of any delay, and engaged to remove the Gentleman (who proved to be an Officer, and who, on my going up to him, and assuring him that any interposition would be ill-timed, politely retired.) [...] Mr. Ewart and I called to you – and follow’d. We returned to the Hercules Pillars; (Sheridan to Captain Knight July 1772; ed. Price 1966:30–31)

The less regular spelling of -ed forms and the absence of the past participle written in the letters by Hume and Crisp may be interpreted as conservative features of private writing. By contrast, the levelled spelling of ‑ed forms and the occurrence of the past participle written, which characterise the letter-writing of other writers during the same period, emerge as innovative features of individual practices that stand closer to the ensuing standard usage. These innovative features correlate with the sociolinguistic variable age as they are recorded in the letters of writers younger than Hume and Crisp.

4. Variants with the doubled final -t (writt, wrott)

A further examination of the data provided by the two samples of letters analysed shows that the recessive use of the variants writ and writt and the salient spread of the variant wrote constitute the main changes during the periods 1680–1710 and 1760–90. As reported in Table 1, the occurrences of writ decrease from 21% to 10% and the occurrences of writt from 24% to zero, whereas the instances of wrote increase from 24% to 62%. Besides these changes, the data also document the disappearance of the variants with the doubled final consonants, namely writt (registered in the letters by Defoe, Penn and Isabella Wentworth) and wrott (recorded only in the letters by Defoe, whose parallel use of writt/wrote/wrott/written stands out as the most vacillating pattern in the whole sample; see Table 1). These variants, however, are under-reported in the grammars: the variant wrott seems to be absent from the grammatical tables of the period; the variant writt only appears in the grammar by Wallis (1653), the earliest grammar book among those surveyed for Table 2. In eighteenth-century grammars, this variant does not appear in the tables of principal forms but may be mentioned in the critical comments of grammarians. Thus, Greenwood censured the use of the variant form writt in the adjectival function, e.g. a writt book (Greenwood 1744:89).

The codification of the past participle writt should be related to the way grammarians interpreted the doubling of final -d and -t, as this spelling was conceptualised as a marker of the tense form. Brightland, for instance, when labelling the forms abid, rid, smit and writ as “seldom and very unpolite” (1711:116), suggested that forms with the final -t/d “wou’d for the Distinction of the passing Time, from the present, be better Spelt; eatt, beatt, bitt, &.” (1711:115). In his grammar, write is listed among such verbs. A similar recommendation is found in the grammar by Greenwood, who also suggested that the verbs with final -d/t “shou’d be writ with a double dd or tt” (1711:115). In the context of these interpretations, the past participle writt may be regarded as the form sanctioned by the early eighteenth-century precept. However, this form is not listed in grammatical tables of the period. Moreover, some instances of its use are censured by grammarians such as Greenwood.

In the present case study, the doubling of final -t emerges as a linguistic variable in letters from the period 1680–1710. Table 1 shows that in these letters the doubling might be consistent or occasional, depending on individual spelling practices. Thus, in the letters by the leading Quaker of the time, William Penn, final -t is doubled consistently in the past participle writt. In the letters by Lady Wentworth, writt is recorded for the past participle (example (8)), whereas writ and writt alternate in the preterite (examples (9) and (10)). The same occasional doubling characterises Lady Wentworth’s spelling of other verb forms with the final -t (see forgott /forgot in examples (11) and (12)).

(8) Your sister W. father [...] has writt one leef to tell her he is her grandfather and godfather, and many good wishis for her and prayers. (Lady Wentworth to her Son, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1705–1708; ed. Cartright 1883:58)

(9) The Wedoe Bromly writ me word of is marryed, [...] (Lady Wentworth to her Son, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1705–1708; ed. Cartright 1883:43)

(10) I writt to my sister Battherst, whoe was soe very oblidging that she writt emedgetly to the Dutchis, and urged that I had not my health in the country in the winter: [...] (Lady Wentworth to her Son, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1705–1708; ed. Cartright 1883:45)

(11) [...] twoe ritch sittissons stud with me, [...]. A Bishop crisned it, but what I forgott [...] (Lady Wentworth to her Son, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1705–1708; ed. Cartright 1883:62)

(12) [...] and back gate, which I forgot the street’s name it goes into. (Lady Wentworth to her Son, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1705–1708; ed. Cartright 1883:65)

By contrast, in the letters written by Lady Wentworth’s son, Peter Wentworth, the doubling of the final -t is not recorded in the past participle writ (13), but the final consonant in a group of verb forms, such as lett, mett, sett, and shutt (14), is regularly doubled.

(13) [...] they are writ by a club of wits, who make it there business to pick up all the merry storys they can; (Peter Wentworth to his brother, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1709; ed. Cartright 1883:85)

(14) [...] he got off on’t as he thought bravely, [...] and the matter was shutt up for some time; but the woman wou’d not be put off so, she being a parson widdow got the clergy of her side [...] (Peter Wentworth to his brother, Lord Raby, in Berlin, 1709; ed. Cartright 1883:85)

As mentioned above, this type of doubling is treated by some seventeenth and early eighteenth-century grammarians as a graphical means of distinguishing preterite and past participle forms. However, the evidence of usage provided by the present selection of letters does not serve to suggest that this type of spelling was followed consistently. Occasional or selective adherence to this spelling strategy is more typical of private usage dated 1680–1710, and in the letters written as late as 1760–90, the fluctuating use of the past participle forms of write is not characterised by this type of spelling.

My survey of individual spelling practices of the period has revealed that the doubling of final consonants in the use of forms of irregular verbs is related to the varied spelling of -ed forms in several ways (Oldireva Gustafsson 2002, section 3.2.1). Idiolects which abound in the forms with the doubled final consonants (writt, cutt, gott, putt) either tend to avoid the -’d variant (as in the case of Lady Wentworth’s letters), employ it sporadically (as in the case of Penn’s letters), or adhere to a highly varied spelling of the -ed inflexion (as in the case of Defoe’s letters and those by Peter Wentworth). Such combinations of features seem to characterise usage that diverges from the patterns of variation found in the material produced in 1680–1710, as this period was shown to have a peak in the spread of the apostrophised spelling in print (Osselton 1984:130). Interestingly, in Jonson’s grammar, the apostrophised spelling is defined as the use of “the learneder sort” (1640:70). In other words, the rare and inconsistent use of the apostrophe in the spelling of -ed verb forms and the doubling of the final -t in the preterite and past participle forms of write seem to be features of non-print-oriented writing habits during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

5. Combinations of variants

As for diachronic contrasts in the way combinations of the past participle variants of write appear in letters and grammars, it is striking that none of the letter-writers was a consistent user of written (see Table 1). The writers of the earlier period who adhered to a single past participle variant, namely, Shaftesbury, Peter Wentworth, and Lady Gardiner, used the variant writ (the latter spelling this variant as rit); in Lady Wentworth’s letters, the form was spelled with the doubled -t, writt. The patterns of the fluctuating use of the form emerge in the varied use of writt/wrote (in the letters by Penn), wrote/written (in the letters by Addison), and of writt/wrote/wrott/written (in Defoe’s letters). As the survey of grammars in Table 2 shows, only the varied use as recorded in the letters by Addison is reported in eighteenth-century grammars; the variants wrote and written are listed as parallel forms by Greenwood (second ed. 1744), Kirkby, Dr Johnson, and White (see Table 2). When compared with the fluctuating use of the form in the selection of letters from the later period, this combination of variants reflects current usage in eighteenth-century letter-writing. Variation between wrote and written is recorded in the extracts from the letters by Sheridan, Burke, Lennox, and Burney (see Table 1).

The fact that the letters by Addison reflect the current pattern of variation in the use of past participle of write agrees with the observations about other features characteristic of this writer’s usage, namely, his use of the regulated auxiliary do (interrogative and negative) and the wh-relative clause markers, studied by Wright (1994). In Wright’s studies, Addison emerges as a trendsetter for a number of features in the language of his period. The writer’s use of the past participle variants wrote and written seems to accord with this definition of his linguistic behaviour. This, however, does not mean that Addison’s language was not subject to critical remarks on the part of grammarians, and as shown further, they had reasons for their criticism.

In the grammars surveyed for this case study, the past participle wrote is recorded less frequently than writ. Only three grammars, those by Brightland, Kirkby, and White, as well as Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, record this variant, whereas writ is listed in nine grammars (see Table 2). In agreement with the evidence of usage, which testifies to the extensive use of the wrote variant in the letter-writing of 1760–90, this past participle variant is tabulated by grammarians much later than writ. Table 2 shows that wrote finds its way into the precept not earlier than in Greenwood’s grammar of 1744. The appearance of wrote in two later grammars, those by Kirkby (1746) and White (1761), is striking, as these grammars not only include the variant forms but list them in the order which reflects the facts of usage more realistically. Written is not the main form in these grammars: Kirkby opens the set of variants with wrote, whereas White begins with writ.[3] Such a presentation of forms stands closest to the evidence of usage provided by the letters from the same period.

6. Criticism against the participal wrote

The prevalence of the participal wrote, as illustrated in Table 1, may explain the amount of criticism against this form in eighteenth-century grammars. According to Sundby et al. (1991:233–4), wrote is censured by 59 grammars out of the 187 sources which are quoted in this dictionary. In these grammars, the form is stigmatised as “absurd”, “corrupt”, “inelegant”, “improper”, “ungrammatical”, “bad”, “vulgar”, “colloquial”, a “barbarism”, and a “solecism”. According to examples quoted in these grammars, Addison emerges as an author whose “improper” use of the past participle for write is a most frequent object of criticism. His writing is stigmatised in four grammars (Coote 1788; Lowth 1762; English Grammar 1781; Fogg 1796).[4] Other sources of censured variants are quotations from Hume (twice), Sterne,[5] Bolingbroke, Melmoth and Ogilvie. The amount of criticism directed against the variant writ is less impressive; only six grammars are listed in Sundby et al. (i.e. Greenwood 1711, Mennye 1785, Coote 1788, White 1761, Bell 1769, Alderson 1795). This fact seems to agree with the recessive use of the participal writ in the letters examined for this case study: the instances of writ diminish from 21% to 10% over time (see Table 1).

Hence it appears that the past participle wrote which prevailed in letter-writing of 1760–90 caused the greatest number of suppressive labels in the precept of the time. This controversy may produce the impression that the generalising tendencies in the use of past participle variant forms of write were blocked by indoctrinated prescriptions of grammarians. Not once were such prescriptions an object of linguistic criticism, as they seemed to hinder the natural process of morphological levelling in the irregular paradigm. For instance, as early as the 1920s, Leonard, who was adamant in his pronouncements against the prescriptive suppression of variability, stated that prescriptive grammars preserved redundant forms which would otherwise have disappeared in the natural course of fluctuation and levelling (Leonard 1929:76–7). In his opinion, the modern standard three-form set of irregular verb forms should be regarded as the result of the detrimental impact of prescriptive grammars on usage.

The passage below from the catechismal grammar by Fenning shows what arguments grammarians had at their disposal when insisting on the morphological distinction of preterite and past participle forms:

Q. When a Verb has two preter-imperfect tenses, which of them is most frequently used?

A. When a Verb has two Preter-imperfect Tenses, one of them is generally the same with the participle perfect; and then that one is most frequently used in conversation, and the other is, or ought to be, most frequently used in writing.

Q. Why ought the other to be most frequently used in writing?

A. For the sake of greater perspicuity of style; as every thing that conveys a different idea, should, as much as possible, be expressed by a different word.

Q. Is this rule always observed?

A. No; good writers neglect it frequently, and bad writers almost always. (Fenning 1771:71; italics added).

The first argument takes into account the difference of linguistic medium. Fenning insists on morphological distinction in writing and accepts the varied use as a norm of speech. This insistence is rooted in the belief that the written and the oral media require different degrees of grammatical precision. Another argument in favour of the form that is appropriate in writing is connected with perspicuity, the main criterion of good style in rhetorical treatises of the time. Thus, in his first canon of “good usage”, Campbell, the most advanced theoretician of eighteenh-century English rhetoric, warned against the violation of perspicuity by using forms which contained an element having a different grammatical function when used separately. For this reason, Campbell did not approve of the past participle variants ate, got, hid and spoke, as these variant forms, when used separately, functioned as the preterite (Campbell 1776 I:376). Such variant forms might aggravate the deficiency of perspicuity in the language, and, in Campbell’s opinion, the language, as a means of expression, was far from being perspicuous to start with (Campbell 1776 II:6–7). Referring to perspicuity, Fenning adhered to this type of reasoning in his grammar, though with one essential reservation: the grammarian limited the control over perspicuity exclusively to the medium writing. Logically enough, the past participle wrote is not listed among the principal forms in his grammar book (see Table 2).

7. Conclusion

The present survey of the epistolary usage of the participial variants of the verb write and their codification in grammars may be interpreted as an example of how prescriptive censure interfered in the process of levelling. At the same time, if we compare the diversity of variation patterns in letter-writing with the presentation of the past participle forms of this verb in grammars of the period, the prescriptive selection of variants emerges as an attempt to find a uniform principle for the codification of fluctuating usage. The maximum of morphological distinction and the continuous appearance of the form in precept are vital requirements in the choice of such a principle. The past participle written combines both requirements, and in spite of the fact that the evidence of usage may testify to the prevalence of other variants in certain spheres of usage (as in the case of letter-writing), written perseveres.

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¹ Whenever possible, 20,000-word selections were preferred for this case study. With the exception of the letters by Shaftesbury, Lady Gardiner, and both Wentworths, all selections amount to 20,000 words. The selections of letters by Shaftesbury and Lady Gardiner amount to 8,000 words and the letters by Isabella and Peter Wentworth to 12,000 words. In sum, the collection of private writing by these four letters-writers equals 40,000 words. The editions used for the present analysis are the following: Addison (ed. Graham 1941), Burke (ed. Guttridge 1961), Burney (eds. Troide et al. 1990-), Crisp (ed. Hutton 1905), Defoe (ed. Healey 1955), Gardiner (ed. Verney 1930), Hume (ed. Klibansky and Mossner 1954), Lennox (eds. Ilchester and Stavordale 1901), Penn (eds. R. S. Dunn and M. M. Dunn 1986), Shaftesbury (1716), Sheridan (ed. Price 1966), Walpole (eds. Lewis et al. 1974) and Wentworth (ed. Cartright 1883).

[2] In this letter, Crisp describes to his sister the success of Fanny Burney as a new literary star.

[3] On the whole, the grammars by Kirkby and White stand out among other sources of the period owing to their extensive inclusion of parallel variants. For instance, such past participle forms as froze and swore are only recorded in the grammar by White, while the variants chose, forsook, and took only occur in the grammar by Kirkby. Though the present survey of precept comprises a limited number of grammars, it suffices to evince a manifestly less selective character of these two grammars.

[4] Table 1 confirms the varied use of wrote/written in the letters by Addison. At the same time, Table 2 testifies to the absence of the past participle wrote in the tables of the grammar by Lowth; this form only appears among censured instances in quotations. However, as shown in the recent study of Lowth's letters by Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2002), the participal wrote is recorded in his letters. The fact that "in his most private letters Lowth [...] wrote like the gentlemen whose language he criticised" (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2002: 465) illustrates tension between vernacular usage and the codification process (Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2002: 467). This tension is particularly manifest in the individual practice of a person who, as Lowth, was both a letter writer and a language codifier.

[5] Sterne, as well as Hume, used the participial wrote. The letters by Sterne are not included in Table 1, but it is worth noting that as in the writings by Hume, the varied spelling of -ed forms in Sterne’s letters correlates with the use of the past participle wrote. To judge by these features of varied use, the private writing of Hume and Sterne occupies the same place in the continuum of variation in the use of regular and irregular verbs.

Total

Preterite

Past participle

^Total

^Preterite

^{Past participle}