The study describes the evolution of English participial and gerundial constructions in Middle English and early modern English, concentrating in the process on the function of text varieties in language change. Building on a detailed analysis of all the relevant constructions in six text varieties taken from a revised version of the Helsinki Corpus, the author demonstrates that the proliferation of the main construction types through text varieties takes place in an ordered sequence. The function of text varieties in language change is identified as that of a catalyst.