'No botmeles bihestes': Various Ways of Making Binding Promises in Middle English
- Author / Editor
- Pakkala-Weckström, Mari.
'No botmeles bihestes': Various Ways of Making Binding Promises in Middle English
- Published
- Andreas H. Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen, eds. Speech Acts in the History of English (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008), pp. 133-62.
- Description
- Pakkala-Weckström examines the speech act of promising and the special conditions needed to constitute a binding promise in Middle English, drawing examples from several of Chaucer's works: FranT, ClT, WBT, TC, FrT, and ShT. Certain formulaic words and expressions constitute a binding promise, and the "intentions of the promiser are of secondary importance" (158). The words considered include sweren, trouthe, biheste, plighten, and trouthe.
- Alternative Title
- Speech Acts in the History of English.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Language and Word Studies
- Franklin and His Tale.
- Clerk and His Tale.
- Friar and His Tale
- Shipman and His Tale.
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
- Troilus and Criseyde