Yoko Iyieri PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText - University ...

accepted as the provenance of the text.
As far as negative contraction is concerned, it seems to be a
reasonable conjecture that the provenance of G&E should be in
Norfolk, since in areas further south such as Suffolk and Essex,
negative contraction is fairly extensively met with even in late ME
according to the mapping of the phenomenon by McIntosh, Samuels,
and Benskin (1986, IV: 218-20), whereas it only occasionally occurs in
G&E. 10 Provided that the provenance of the text is Norfolk, the
situation of negative contraction in G&E fairly reasonably matches the
picture presented by McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin (1986, IV:
218-20), who evidence the contracted forms nil- and py in this
county, since the contracted forms which G&E presents are nile (2x)
and nolden (lx). It is, however, difficult to determine whether the
form nolden, which is available in G&E, was lost by the later ME
period, for shich t'ne atlas of cntosn, SamueXs, anã 'ens\in oes
not record nold-. Since nold- is a form which is scarcely recorded
in the atlas and which is attested with a considerable frequency in
the sample of the present study, it is most likely that the form was
available in Norfolk in late ME as well as in early ME (see (1) (2) (3)
(5) above and (8) (10) (12) (14) (17) (18) below).
(8) The Poems of William of Shoreham (WS)
As the following table shows, contracted negative forms are common
in WS:
10 It must be noted, though, that the text is perhaps based on a
Northern original. See 1.3.2.(7) above.
196