The above discussion does not constitute a fully convincing and coherent description of 19th-century English in England. The linguist who describes earlier periods of English is doubly privileged, since the morphological and phonological structures are more diversified than they are in PDE, and – even more conveniently – the difference between them and PDE on all levels is much more conspicuous than can ever be the case with any 19th-century text, however ‘deviant’. Even when a linguist selects text types that strike him as clearly belonging to the period (as in the case of 19th-century advertising and religion), it is very difficult to describe in scholarly terms what his Sprachgefühl may well tell him quite unambiguously. And the concept of text type – proposed above as possibly the scholarly instrument suited to capturing period language in more modern times – may fail to fulfil our expectations; as my analysis of recipes (cf. ch. 7.1.7 above) has shown, the combination of a well-defined text type with ‘Victorian’ style produces, against all expectations, not a distinctively homogeneous and predictable diction and form, but more variation than would be expected in a teleological framework.

The analysis of a bigger sample of texts will, it is hoped, lead to a better understanding and more precise description of what makes 19th-century English distinctive, and sometimes unmistakable. However, a great deal of research and reflection is still necessary before we can feel assured that our methods of analysis are adequate.