I shall only attempt here a general outline of the most distinguishing characteristics of the grammatical forms used by Chaucer. The student will necessarily consult such works as Prof. Child's Observations on the Language of Chaucer and Gower, which refer to the Canterbury Tales only; the Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Troilus, by Prof. Kittredge (published for the Chaucer Society); the Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, by J. M. Manly (in Studies and Notes on Philology and Literature, vol. ii; Ginn and Co., Boston, 1893); and Ten Brink's compact and excellent volume entitled Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst; Leipzig, 1884. It would be easy to devote a large volume to the study of Chaucer's grammatical forms. The forms of the substantives, in particular, are frequently variable, sometimes on account of their accentuation, which is accommodated to the line in which they happen to occur, and sometimes for reasons which appear somewhat arbitrary. Nothing short of complete lists can satisfy the scholar. At the same time, such lists are rather bewildering. I therefore attempt here a sketch of the general principles by which Chaucer's usage appears to be regulated; whilst at the same time the reader is requested to remember that most of the rules given below are subject to exceptions; and that sometimes such exceptions are rather numerous. But it is plain that we must begin with general rules. s. 67. GENERAL RULES. Before noticing these, the following _empirical_ rules for the reading of Chaucer's verse may conveniently be here repeated. Cf. vol. v. p. xxiii. 1. Always pronounce the final _-es_, _-ed_, _-en_, _-er_, or _-e_ in any word, as a distinct and separate syllable at the _end_ of a line and at the caesural pause; so also elsewhere, with the exceptions noted here below, and a few others. 2. The final _-e_ is almost invariably elided, and other light syllables (chiefly final _-ed_, _-en_, _-er_, _-es_, _-y_) are slurred over and nearly absorbed, whenever the word next following begins with a vowel or is one of certain words beginning with _h_, viz. (1) a pronoun, as _he_, _his_, _him_, _her_, _hem_: (2) part of the verb _have_: (3) _heer_ and _how_: (4) mute _h_ in a French word, such as _honour_. Ex. _ev'r_, A 50[59]; _rid'n_, A 57; _ov'ral_, A 249; _ov'rest_, A 290; _fith'l_, 296; _get'n_, 291; _som'r_, 394; _wat'r_, 400; _many_, 406. NOTE. The caesural pause prevents elision.