Chaucer and the History of English

Description: Critiques traditional treatment of Chaucer's English as the main antecedent of modern English and the assertion that it is representative. Chaucer's English is more conservative than that of many of his contemporaries and of general spoken discourse. Chaucer's use of the second-person plural pronoun, rife with social implications, indicates that the T-V distinction was no more than part of Chaucer's stylistic toolbox and not a marker of linguistic change. Some attention is given to TC.