ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Shakespeare’s grammar, and particularly at work done in this area since the middle of the twentieth century. It shows how developments in historical syntax during the period have significantly increased knowledge beyond the point it was at when Abbott produced his Shakespearean Grammar in 1870. Examples are given of how this new knowledge has informed various recent accounts of Elizabethan and Shakespearean grammar. Two books which might be regarded as successors to Abbott’s Grammar, are focused on: Blake’s Grammar of Shakespeare’s Language, and Hope’s Shakespeare’s Grammar, both appearing in 2002. These two grammars are compared in detail. Other treatments that focus on specific grammatical details, often appearing in edited collections, are also considered. There is a welcome recent tendency for grammatical descriptions to have a sociolinguistic focus, and some examples of such descriptions relating to Shakespeare’s grammar are given.
