ABSTRACT
The period spanning the sixteenth through the eighteenth century offers the historical phonologist what can only be described as a complete transformation in the kinds of evidence available for the reconstruction of contemporary phonetic detail as well as ongoing phonological change. This chapter examines in some detail the evidence provided by several of such sources and endeavour to assess both the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the types of comment they offer. The existence of greater and more detailed data will on many occasions only serve to make some of the phonological problems appear more complex and resistant to explanation. As an introduction to some of the tantalizing evidence which contemporary spelling reformers, phoneticians and the like can offer the student of English between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, we shall briefly examine a few of the observations of one of the earliest members of such a group John Hart.
