A Central Metrical Prototype for English Iambic Tetrameter Verse : Evidence from Chaucer's Octosyllabic Lines

Author / Editor
Li, Xingzhong.

Title
A Central Metrical Prototype for English Iambic Tetrameter Verse : Evidence from Chaucer's Octosyllabic Lines

Published
Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons, eds. Studies in the History of the English Language II: Unfolding Conversations (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004), pp. 315-41.

Series
Topics in Linguistics, no. 45.

Description
Statistical evidence--including stress patterns, line divisions, pauses, missing and extrametrical syllables, and syntactical inversion--from Chaucer's octosyllabic lines corroborates a proposed prototype of iambic tetrameter and encourages us to regard Chaucer's lines as "gradient-based iambic tetrameter."

Contributor
Curzan, Anne, ed.
Emmons, Kimberly, ed.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification.