Historical pragmatics studies pragmatic aspects of language change
How should this intricate
task be realised? Bertuccelli Papi (2000) has observed that historical pragmatics constitutes
both a subject matter and a methodology. As a subject matter, it operates on an empirical, dataoriented
domain, aiming at covering linguistic phenomena influenced by their lifespan over
long passages of time. Readers are probably on more familiar terms with this than the
methodology. But without a common methodology, finding general principles concerning
pragmatic change from old documents, testimonies and artefacts is bound to remain
untrustworthy.