Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Historical pragmatics: What it is and how to do -- it -- The development of I mean: Implications for the -- study of historical pragmatics -- Soþlice, forsoothe, truly - communicative -- principles and invited inferences in the history of truthintensifying -- adverbs in English -- Speech act verbs and speech acts in the history of -- English -- Text types and the methodology of diachronic speech -- act analysis -- A pragmatics for interpreting Shakespeare´s Sonnets -- 1 to 20: Dialogue scripts and Erasmian intertexts -- Developing a more detailed picture of the English -- courtroom (1640-1760): Data and methodological issues facing historical -- pragmatics -- What do you lacke? what is it you buy? Early Modern -- English service encounters -- Letters as narrative: Narrative patterns and -- episode structure in early letters, 1400 to 1650 -- Historical linguistics, literary interpretation, -- and the romances of Margaret Cavendish -- Discoursal aspects of the Legends of Holy Women by -- Osbern Bokenham -- Backmatter