2.2 The Decade Structure

While the corpus can be seen as a snapshot of late EModE, the purpose of the decade structure is to make a diachronic approach within that period possible as well. The decades have an identical structure, containing for the six domains two texts each, which are in each case as varied as possible. Due to the complete-text policy the decades do not have the same size, but differ in word count (cf. Appendix I). The proportion of the whole corpus taken up by individual decades varies between 8% and 13%.

In order not to distort the chronology texts to be included needed to have been written in the same decade in which they were published, i.e. be first editions as a rule. Later editions were accepted in some cases, but only if the text clearly stated that certain changes (corrections, enlargements or the like) had been carried out by the author.

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