Re[2]: [tied] Final t for th in Middle English

At 8:40:00 PM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005, Kim Bastin
wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:13:49 +1100, I wrote:

>>Could I ask for help from the English experts on the list?

>>I have been puzzled recently by some Middle English 3sg
>>present forms ending in -it instead of the usual -eth or
>>-es. Examples:

>>(I syng of a mayden) ...that fallyt on the gras
>>(I haue a gentil cook) ...crowyt me day
>>(ibidem) ... he perchit hym
>>(How! Hey! It is non les) Che takyt a staf and brekit myn hed

>>Since it occurs alongside _doth_ in some of the above
>>texts, it is perhaps excluded from monosyllables. It is of
>>course clearly different from the -t of contracted 3sgs.

>>I have done a little searching, particularly in the
>>Cambridge History of the English Language, but can find
>>nothing about this 3sg form. Clearly it was a minor player
>>that has not survived, but what is its status? If dialect
>>- which one? When was it in use?

> Evidently a very hard question, or perhaps just a very
> boring one. Let me just lift it to the top of the list one
> more time, and then I shall stop bothering people with it!

I'm also curious, but I can't help much. All of the
examples that I've found are from the 15th century. I did
find one set in a source identified as being in southwestern
dialect; they're from Glasgow University Library MS
Hunterian 270, ca.1450, 'Dives and Pauper':

In woman is seldam seyn avouterie, and therfor it is wol
slaundrous whan it fallyt and hard punchyd.

And for oftyntyme it fallit that whan men wendyn ben sekyr
of the womanys assent, than the woman wil nout assentyn
for dred of God, ...

... and therfor whan holy wryt reprovyt the malyce of men,
he spekith in the plurer numbre as to manye, but whan he
reprovyth the malyce of woman he spekyt in the singular
numbre ...

<www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/063123148X/Goldie_001.pdf>

Note the apparently free variation in the last one,
<reprovyt> ~ <reprovyth>.

Brian