Babcock's Curve and the Problem of Chaucer's Final '-E'

Author / Editor
Guthrie, Steven R.

Title
Babcock's Curve and the Problem of Chaucer's Final '-E'

Published
English Studies 69 (1988): 386-95.

Description
Consideration of the phonological environments in which C. F. Babcock's oft-cited study of 1914 found apocopated '-e' in five of Chaucer's poems, from BD through FranT, considerably reduces the number of clear cases of apocope but supports her general conclusion that the rate marks a stylistic difference in Chaucer's early and late poetry and that of the middle period.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification.