ProTag Constructions in Early Modern English

It is possible to add an expression known as a tag to a clause in English: âItâs useful, ISNâT IT?â or âHe likes me, DOESNâT HE?â, where the tag appears in capital letters. Some speakers of British English also use lone pronouns as tags (ProTags), as in âItâs useful, THATâ or âHe likes me, HIMâ (Mycock 2019). A similar construction is found in earlier varieties of English; for instance, in Early Modern English: âI dare be sworne hee scornes thy house HEEâ (Jonson, âEvery Man In His Humourâ) or âTis good Tobacco THIS! (Jonson, âThe Alchemistâ). However the features and functions of this construction in Early Modern English (EModE), and the extent to which these are similar to those of the ProTag constructions that exist in varieties of Present Day British English (PDBE), had not, until this project, been the subject of systematic investigation. In this study, we sought to identify ProTag constructions in the EModE dramatic works of three playwrights: Jonson, Marlowe, and Shakespeare