Re: Ungrammaticalization?

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>         Wow! Is that Old English or simply messed up English written bizarrely?
Middle English, written in 1490.  William Caxton was the first printer
in the English Language.  Incidentally, that timing is one of the
reasons for our atrocious spelling - the printing press fixed our
spelling during a period of rapid change.  He was writing about
different dialects and change in the language making it difficult for
printers (starting: "And certaynly our language now vsed varyeth ferre
from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne.  For we Englysshe
men ben borne vnder the somynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer
stedfaste but euer wauerynge ... And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken
in one shyre varyeth from a nother."  He ends with "Loo, what sholde a
man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or eyren.  Certaynly it is harde to
playse eueryman by cause of dyuersite and chaunge of langage.")

--
"[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue
hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
William Caxton
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor