Abstract
One of the defining features of English legal discourse is the extensive use of doublets, or phrases consisting of two synonyms in a coordinating construction. This phenomenon is partly rooted in the Anglo-Saxon alliterative tradition, which yielded doublets such as "aid and abet", and partly in the coexistence of English and French in medieval legal language, bringing doublets such as "break and enter," or "goods and chattels".
Such doublets, in some cases even triplets, can be found among verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions alike. This corpus-based study offers a probe into the character and usage of legal doublets as they appear in the Old Bailey Corpus, covering the period between 1720 and 1913.
The most frequently occurring legal doublets are examined in terms of the contexts in which they appear and the degree of variation which they display. The aim of the study is to offer a deeper understanding of the workings of legal doublets and triplets from a historical viewpoint.